Skeleton Ships improvements that are coming

  • Ahoy maties!

    I've seen many concerns and issues about the Skeletons Ships raised here and elsewhere so I tried to gather as much information as possible to answer several of our questions.

    Given that the answers are a bit scattered across several posts on Reddit, I decided to summarize all that and list the official responses below for readability. This way if you prefer to read the official answers, check the links :)

    Skeleton Ship

    Why the Skeleton Ships are not an emergent encounter like Meg?

    The Skeleton Ships were first introduced into the game as per a Skull Fort style with a Cloud signaling in which corner they are. Those are meant to be difficult encounters with many waves as we've experienced during the Cursed Sails campaign.

    However, Skeleton Crews will be fighting soon also in different ways as Rare is currently working on extending these into more emergent encounters in the world. Skeleton Ship spawn points will vary around the world soon and won't be just the fixed encounters in the corners of the map we're challenged with right now. Those emergent encounters will exist in addition to the battles and will be more tailored to our crew.

    Finally, the Meganesque aggressive style of encounter is only one of them and one can wonder what could be the others!

    Sources: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4


    Why a Skull Fort is never active at the same time as a Skeleton Ship Battle?

    Some of you probably remember during the Cursed Sails campaign that some servers didn't spawn animals or other AI in the world. It's because the Skeleton Ship Battles and the Skeleton Forts are pretty intensive on the server performance and Rare allocates a large pool of their AI budget on it.

    Of course, when no one is in the area, only the cloud is visible and the ships aren't spawning. It's the same for animals, skeletons and other AI. However when someone go there, the server has to allocate budget for this. If they were two encounters active simultaneously, this could cause some issues for other crews who are looking for chicken or fighting skeletons. Sea of Thieves is a shared world and many activities can go on in the same world so the server has to manage all the systems and all crews actions across the entire world. This limitation makes sure that the server performance won't drop below a certain level and will not affect the players.

    On the other hand, Rare is aware that some players really want to push forts so they are currently doing some work to improve how they schedule every encounters. If no one is engaging with one encounter, then they will change things up and activate another one.

    As this answer is very technical, I tried to summarize as best as I could and I recommend you consult the official answers below.

    Sources: 1 - 2 - 3


    Skeleton Ships and Server Migrations

    While this one is probably the biggest issue currently with the Skeleton Ships, be sure that Rare is aware of it and they are working on it!

    They know that they shouldn't allow migration when you are in proximity of a Skeleton Ship Battle just like their approach to Skeleton Forts. They will prevent server migrations in a much wider zone around these ship encounters allowing us more space to move and restock without migrating.

    However, when the encounter finishes, a migration could happen even if the treasure is still in the water. Rare will ensure the loot will move with you and is fully interactible.

    Sources: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4


    Why the Stronghold items do not only spawn on the last sunken Skeleton Ship?

    The Stronghold items only spawn with the captain's ship which can be identified in the last wave by the red name above the captain and its different sails from other ships. However it is not always easy to identify it in the middle of the battle and it happens that this ship sinks first and that the Stronghold items are easily lost.

    Rare understand the confusion as it is inconcistent with how the Skull Fort encounters end when the captain is defeated. They are currently reviewing this and see how they can improve it.

    Source: 1


    Why the Skeleton Ships Battles are not in Order of Souls quests?

    Rare initially considered these but as they are expensive entities on the server performance they couldn't support the cases where multiple crews triggered an Order of Souls Skeleton Ship battle. However, clever emergent encounters are on the way and will allow all players to fight in good condition these Skeleton Ships.

    Source: 1


    Skeleton Ship

    I hope it will help you to see more clearly until Rare reveals in a more global way the improvements and bugs on which they are currently working.

    If you still have questions that have not been answered, feel free to ask them in the replies and I will try to see if I can find anything on it.

    Cheers all!

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  • @skulliah Nice summary of where things are at and thank you for the research time and the screen time to put this together. Great to have it all tied together in one post.

  • @Skulliah very good summary...indeed! I have to admit that I never realized the Captain's vessel sails were different...in the clash cutlass and cannonade I missed that 'tell' completely :-D

  • @nofears-fun My pleasure! :)

    @SpecialAdvisor Haha it's not a big difference but it's something that can be useful to know when you fight them :)

  • Ahoy there Trading Kingpin @skulliah !

    This is a nice summary of the information available, thanks for that. Good to hear that Rare is looking into these things. I love the skeleton ship battles, however in my opinion the waiting time in between waves, the amount of waves and the preparation required before doing them hardly makes them worth the trouble. In comparison a skull fort that's not contested can be done without preparation and can be finished quite fast depending on the crews skill.

    Hopefully the more emergent encounters they're talking about won't have us fighting waves of ships so at least we'll have the thrill of the battle without the length :)

    Signed,

    Captain FishSt1ck

  • @fishst1ck have to agree with you on this one matey. I have not done a Skellie ship battle since cursed sails. The sheer time involved was a bit to much for my taste...the stocking up of resources, a possibly long sail returning after getting sunk, and the duration of the battle waves as you mention above. I personally would look forward to an emergent battle with one ship for a smaller loot gain. Kinda miss those big, beautiful beasties! :-D

  • @fishst1ck

    I won't disagree on the fact they need a lot of preparation and a good crew. But honestly I prefer the Skeleton Ships batlles compared to the Skull Fort that started to be always the same for me. The Skeleton Ships I'm always on the move, trying to bring back the treasures, boarding them with a keg, protecting the holes, or firing cannonballs at them and repairing my ship. I'm even going there with my cargo run items (except the bottles of rum that I'm leaving safely on an island).

    I love the challenge and I really think the waiting time between waves is perfect, keeping you active with some adrenalina.

    I just wish I was able to find more PvP actions during these encounters to spice everything up.

    I'm really looking forward to the new emergent encounters :D

  • @personalc0ffee

    Thank you Coffee! I agree, it's really important to know and understand that everything that is added in the game has an impact on performances, even a simple shanty.

    I can even assume that adding just one more ship to the cap of 6 could make these performances less predictable. At least, maybe the clever Skeleton Ships emergent encounters could solve this empty sea feeling we can have sometimes :)

  • @skulliah Yes, thank you so much for for making this post! It addressed all of the concerns I raised in my own post on this topic from last night. Good to see that the RARE devs are on the case! Hopefully they can get some of these fixes in when they launch Festival of the Damned. Til then, I will just have to be wary of the unfortunate things that can occur while tackling these events in their current state. Shame because they are so much fun in my opinion!

  • @skulliah thanks mate

  • @o-hitman-47-o

    I'm glad it addressed your concerns :)

    Fortunately I've never experienced the server migration issue but I fully understand how it could be frustrating.

    Agreed, these encounters are so much fun and I'm looking forward to the improvements and fixes that are coming!

    Cheers matey!

  • @skulliah Excellent summary! Nice to see all the official responses - finally somewhere to send people who ask about these two topics!

  • @skulliah
    Thanks for the summary Mate!
    I wonder what they have in mind for "Skeleton Ship Encounters tailored to your crew?"

  • @skulliah
    Great job on the summary as others have stated. Hopefully Rare will find a way to make them be emergences to add to our voyages that we take daily. Thank you.

  • Awesome summary! Thanks for all the details :D

  • @Skulliah great work putting this all together. I liked fighting the ships when the cursed sails event was going on, and I feel they're a good template for adding more AI ship types down the line, merchant boats for us pirates to raid would be great in the future. For now, some things I think would improve skelly ships:

    1. shorter battles. I get from a design standpoint its easier to use what they already have, so initially it made sense to keep the same 7-8 boat wave introduced with cursed sails. The difference is, with cursed sails there was excitement to fight a new threat, and doubloons to be earned. Now most crews fighting the ships are going in alone, so 7-8 ships is a big resource and time killer. If random encounters consist of only 1 ship, that would solve this problem on its own.
    2. Loot. The captain ship dumps a good amount of loot, but it seems Rare is already looking into captain loot dropping while the other last ship is still attacking. Another helpful feature would be a better way to find loot. Usually when a crew is fighting a ship, sails are down, the boat is maneuvering, and it can be easy to lose track of where the ship went down. If loot glowed more birghtly, or if seagulls circled the dropped loot, that would make encounters better imo.
    3. personal preference, some of the disabling curses should be removed. I've had a few fights where the skeletons would score a hit with say jigball or the sleeping curse, and I'm temporarily unable to do anything. Fine, that's the function of the curse, but then while I'm disabled the enemy ship turns and lets out a volley of shots, with a curse landing every 2nd or 3rd hit. This essentially traps me dancing or sleeping until my boat sinks. If the boats are going to be random encounters, they should fire no curses, but if they are it should primarily be curses that affect the ship, not just trap the crew in a loop of being unable to do anything. Just my 2 cents.
  • @skulliah

    Thanks so much for the work you put into collating all this information, it's so, so useful when we have most of the details spread out over several platforms and videos, as well as other sources.

    Fantastic job and much appreciated!

  • @skulliah great post

  • Great job putting this post together! Thanks much for doing that, mate!
    I knew most of this, but missed a few items you've included!

    I actually solo'd the ship waves on my sloop and had the dreaded server merge happen after grabbing only one skull from the floating treasure.
    That was only one time out of many, though. Still, that's a nasty problem and I'm glad they have some fixes in mind.

    Rather interesting bit about possible timers for the events - perhaps, if no one engages the skeleton fleet after X amount of time, it will go away and a skull fort will activate. That's what it sounds like, anyway.

  • @skulliah Excellent post! Thanks for the info :)

  • @sgt-palooggoo said

    I wonder what they have in mind for "Skeleton Ship Encounters tailored to your crew?"

    Maybe something easier for our lovely solo sloopers? :)

  • @skulliah I second that. Although they can be done. Just incredible difficult and time consuming.

  • @skulliah said in Skeleton Ships improvements that are coming:

    Maybe something easier for our lovely solo sloopers? :)

    I sure hope we get something like Skeleton Sloops & Brigantines!
    Or maybe even larger threats like a Skeleton Man-O-War!

    But what I really want is a Skeleton Rowboat filled with Gunpowder Barrels that tries to detonate close to your ship.
    💥

  • @sgt-palooggoo Don't give them such evil ideas 😱

  • @skulliah
    It's too late they saw my post!

    Skeleton Kamikaze Rowboats Confirmed!

  • @sgt-palooggoo sagte in Skeleton Ships improvements that are coming:

    @skulliah
    Thanks for the summary Mate!
    I wonder what they have in mind for "Skeleton Ship Encounters tailored to your crew?"

    I think it’s like when you’re on a Sloop you get a Skeleton Slopp on an Brig a Skeleton Brig and so on! They teased an Picture from an Skelly Sloop Weeks ago

  • @skulliah a little they gave in one of their videos was skeleton ship sloop type. Can’t remember which video sadly, but just wanted you to know this tidbit of info

  • Skelly ships in their current format are just not worth doing, this is why you see them up for hours on end. I also think that the Cursed Sails campaign and how it was delivered has completely eliminated anyone's desire to do those ships ever again. I know it has with my crew. 4 out of 4 in my crew say vehemently we are never doing another Skelly Ship ever again (in its current format). I wonder what the general population think on this.
    However they are a nuisance though. There is one thing everyone loves about SoT, and that is Skull Forts, and not having them appear while the Skelly Ships are up is like ripping the heart from the game.

    In a nutshell, everyone loves Skull Forts, but everyone hates Skelly Ships. Mostly.

  • @sgt-palooggoo said in Skeleton Ships improvements that are coming:

    @skulliah
    It's too late they saw my post!

    Skeleton Kamikaze Rowboats Confirmed!

    Amazing Idea.

  • @captain-fet

    In a nutshell, everyone loves Skull Forts, but everyone hates Skelly Ships.

    Please don't talk for everyone especially when it's completely not true.

    I love them more than Skull Forts and I saw multiple times those being defeated when I was doing something else. Sea of Thieves has now several different activities and it's not because on the servers you are you see nobody doing them that it is happening for everyone.

    When we need people to fill our crew we usually create a LFG post with in the description that we are going to fight the Skeleton Ships. We get a lot of traction for that. They are even a nice social interaction to bring crews together, I already have other crews who asked us in-game for help to defeat them.

    Not worth? Well, we're really enjoying the experiences and the 20k of gold!

  • @captain-fet sagte in Skeleton Ships improvements that are coming:

    Skelly ships in their current format are just not worth doing, this is why you see them up for hours on end. I also think that the Cursed Sails campaign and how it was delivered has completely eliminated anyone's desire to do those ships ever again. I know it has with my crew. 4 out of 4 in my crew say vehemently we are never doing another Skelly Ship ever again (in its current format). I wonder what the general population think on this.
    However they are a nuisance though. There is one thing everyone loves about SoT, and that is Skull Forts, and not having them appear while the Skelly Ships are up is like ripping the heart from the game.

    In a nutshell, everyone loves Skull Forts, but everyone hates Skelly Ships. Mostly.

    For me, I like Skelly Ships more! I love how they’re breaking through the Surface and starting to attack you then the Music, love it! The First time I encountered an Skelly Ship in CS was so epic, now I like them more than Skull Forts! The only Con is you need an decent preparation Time, with many Cannonballs, Planks and Kegs and a little bit experienced Crew!

  • @skulliah said in Skeleton Ships improvements that are coming:

    @captain-fet

    In a nutshell, everyone loves Skull Forts, but everyone hates Skelly Ships.

    Please don't talk for everyone especially when it's completely not true.

    I love them more than Skull Forts and I saw multiple times those being defeated when I was doing something else. Sea of Thieves has now several different activities and it's not because on the servers you are you see nobody doing them that it is happening for everyone.

    When we need people to fill our crew we usually create a LFG post with in the description that we are going to fight the Skeleton Ships. We get a lot of traction for that. They are even a nice social interaction to bring crews together, I already have other crews who asked us in-game for help to defeat them.

    Not worth? Well, we're really enjoying the experiences and the 20k of gold!

    I see you failed to omit my 'mostly' part of that.

  • @skulliah said in Skeleton Ships improvements that are coming:

    Not worth? Well, we're really enjoying the experiences and the 20k of gold!

    pfft. In the time it takes you to fully a stock a ship and go through the waves of the ships, ive made 50k+ and an athenas, with double rep in Forskaen Shores

  • @captain-fet Would that make a difference? You're still talking for everyone and claiming something without providing evidence.

    pfft. In the time it takes you to fully a stock a ship and go through the waves of the ships, ive made 50k+ and an athenas, with double rep in Forskaen Shores

    Since when it's a race? If you're just enjoying something for the gold and the reputation, well good for you.

  • I enjoy the challenge myself, and even been lucky enough to show up to one before logging out to see just the captain sailing around. Easy gold. Correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t think the battle rests like it did during the evening.

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