How I Feel About SOTD, Are They Worth It?

[gregopeck 9]

I don't want to add to the negativity of the Internet, but I thought I'd share my feelings about SOTD in single player mode. At first, they were very intimidating as I only had a raft and they spawn in fleets (usually of four, sometimes more). I've even seen one section of the map contain about 8 SOTD, which definitely felt like a lot for a single player. I was still intimidated by them, but I eventually built a ship with cannons and had a crew. Now, I have a fully crewed galleon with the max amount of canons (medium and large). I'm not really intimidated by them anymore, but I'm starting to feel like they're not worth fighting.

Part of this is maneuvering. Maybe I'm faster than they are, but I don't like fighting them, because I sail near and passed them and then have to circle back around so that I can attack them again. This takes a while, especially when I need to sail against the wind. After defeating all of them in an area, I raise my sails and hop in my dinghy to get the treasure. This also takes a bit of time to do. I'm kind of thinking that maybe I should take some crew members with me when doing this, because travel in the dinghy is slow and perhaps they could speed it up.

Once I get the treasure, I feel like I'm not even sure that all that trouble is worth it. I appreciate the rewards I get, but I don't find much use for them. I get a little bit of ammo, a little bit of gold, and some blueprints. Blueprints are nice, but it's kind of difficult to find multiple varieties of resources need to craft them (like 6 types of alloy). I pretty much understand the necessity for multiple resource types to craft better blueprints. In one way, it gives one a good reason to explore more to find those resources. However, I usually end up just storing them and not using them.

I've only rescued one pirate crew member from a SOTD battle, because I only had room for one. Although, I think it might not be a bad idea to save more of them, since they're usually high leveled. However, I still feel like this is pointless, especially for single player mode. I only need crew to man the sails and cannons and their levels don't seem to matter for those jobs.

I want to say this without sounding "whiny," but I kind of don't like when I have to repair my ship, having to go to each piece to select repair. This is pretty much because there are many pieces to a galleon, at least. I really do like that I can anchor some where and let my crew do this for me, I think that's very handy. I'm not sure if they can repair every piece of the ship. I also think I read some where that they only repair a minor amount of damage at a time. I think for single player mode, at least, maybe they could be more effective. I do have one extra crew member who doesn't do anything (I call her my first mate). It would be cool if it were possible for idle crew members to repair the ship while sailing or not anchored, although I pretty much understand the limitation of having to be anchored to do this.

I'm not saying I want SOTD battles to be easier, I think they're easy enough for my galleon. I just feel like fighting them isn't really worth all the trouble, the circling around them to shoot them, then riding around in a slow dinghy to collect all the loot. I can't think of any suggestions as to how this could be better. Granted, if we ever could have motor boats, that would surely help, but I realize that might not be proper for the time period we're playing in.

This may be more suited for the "feedback" forum section, but I thought I'd just post it here. 

What do you think about this? Maybe I should try to stay out of range of their cannons so they can't damage my ship, but close enough to where I can shoot them, instead of sailing passed and around them. Maybe some one has a better strategy for fighting them than the one I'm using. I know forward and backward facing cannons could be pretty effective, but I haven't put any into those positions. Maybe it's possible that a good cannon blueprint would let me build cannons that do more damage, then I could broadside them and take them out without having to circle back around them after I've passed them.

Again, I'm not trying to whine or be too negative, I just feel a need to express how I feel and perhaps receive some constructive advice.

Ship wrecks, however, I think are definitely worth doing. I like that you can get a lot of gold for them.

[seruum 56]

I liked it when there was only one type of ship don't get me wrong the ships themselves are great but the loot is horrible. You used to be guaranteed good look with a 50+ ship pre wipe but now it has to be a lvl 50+ galleon or it's not worth turning around. Only ways i can think to fix this is either have the fleet only drop 1 loot box that is for the whole fleet (i know poor choice because you have to find and kill them all and if they split up this is very hard) or you could have ships above 50 drop mythicals and legendaries like they used to but just in different quantities. Lvl 50+ schooner 1 bp brigs 2 and galleons 4. This is what i would recommend, as it stands schooners have no purpose other than to make you waste time to kill them so a new ship can spawn and inconvenience people.