You're Welcome... ;)

[Captain Jack Shadow 488]

I posted the idea for the cargo containers a long time ago.  Thank you VERY much for listening.   Now, one thing I think you need to do with the flotsam that they create.  Do not allow the company who lost them, to access them and popcorn the stuff in them to simply deny others the chance at some loot.  I have seen too much of this popcorning of resources and gold, and maps, and blueprints, simply to deny anyone the ability to have that loot.  We came across a schooner where this had been done, when we completed the Monster Whale quest.  When we found it, it was half dead.  We complete that, and immediately came across the ship that had done the damage to it.  It had been sunk, and the two crew's bodies were in the water, and their NPCs for the sales were still among the flotsam.  I dove on the ship and found that they had popcorned everything of value.  This is not good for the game.

So let me make some suggestions regarding other loot.

Gold...does not need to be carried on your person.  Have a safe in the base, and a safe on each ship.  These cannot be withdrawn from by players of the owning company...only by those who are not in the company.  Anyone who recently left the company, should not be allowed to access it.  Allies should not be able to access it.  When you do a AotD map, the gold goes to the nearest safe in that grid...thus the ship you traveled on.  Weight should not be an issue for the ship.  When the ship is within range of a base safe, you can transfer any amount you wish, from the ship's safe, to the base safe, using the radial wheel.  When the ship is sunk, this prevents the owning players from popcorning the gold to prevent it from being discovered by other players.

Maps and BPs.  This is more complicated.  I believe this is the solution.  When you find them, you have a very limited amount of time to get them into a bookshelf, be it on the ship, or a base.  Once there, it cannot be withdrawn.  The Smithy would see any BP within range.  You can transfer them to a base bookshelf that is within range, just as with the gold.  With maps, once added to a bookshelf, it also cannot be withdrawn, but a copy can, but the copy has a limited timer on it.  If that is stolen off a person's body, it removes the map from the base, or ship bookshelf.  As with the gold, and cargo flotsam, it cannot be removed and thus popcorned by the owners.  However, others can withdraw these items.

Popcorning items...please find a way to stop this.  I would solve this by limiting the amount of items that an enemy can remove from a container.  They should not be able to drop items from a container.  If they cannot drop items from the container, and can only withdraw a limited number of items from the container, they would be more judicious in what they take...in other words, valuable loot.  Pirates only took what they wanted.  They didn't throw the rest off of the ship and then leave.

Make containers much much more durable.  Make the initial damage unlock them.  Then make it take a huge amount of damage after that, to demolish it.  Drastically increase the durability of stone structures, except gates and doors.  Require every room to have a door into it to prevent a meta of rooms with no doors.  Maybe even require every wall to have a door.  By wall, I mean that if you have a wall, and you wish to intersect that wall with another wall, it would require you to first install a doorway.  If you demolish that doorway, the code would not allow it to be replaced by a wall.  What this does is encourage raiding, but not wiping.  I do not believe that wiping is healthy for a game like this, where it takes so much effort to get built up.  I see people quit when wipes happen.

Present Loot....I, and others I have talked to, are tired of so much of the loot NOT being loot. So many useless BPs, and maps...especially the BPs.  I would get rid of the thatch BPs, and stone tool BPs.  Take a look at how often people just throw these away.  Also, there are just way too many other items that are over represented in the BPs.  Gates, Fence Foundations, and Platforms come immediately to mind.  Sure it is nice to get some, but let's be honest, most people don't use the platforms, and only use a small amount of the gates, and rarely use the fence foundations.  What people want most are the wood roof BPs, wood ceiling BPs, and wood wall BPs, for our ships.  Yet, these seem to be the most rare.  Let loot actually be loot...meaning people actually want the items.  It does not help the game when so often, you are just thoroughly disappointed by the loot you get from Flotsam, AotD, and SotD.  One thing to consider is to allow for people to get not just BPs, but items as well.  Good LOOT makes people happy, even if it never gets used.


BPs, and Mythical items.  Maybe consider reducing the offensive and defensive power of items, and instead increasing the durability, such that they need repaired much less often, and with this increasing more and more with higher quality BPs.  Make repairs no more costly, or not much more costly, than vanilla items.  As it stands, my company sees little value in mythical items due to the intense Mythios requirements for repair.  This also has the effect of keeping the game friendlier to new companies.  As it stands, a new company need not apply, as they will be using vanilla items, vs companies with much higher quality stuff.

Allow for higher quality crafting stations, such that they reduce the cost of the creation and repair of items.

[Forb Hidden 134]

We're pirates. So why should I fight another ship, if there's no gold to steal?

If this would be a Disney game - OK. Then we could sing and dance together. But it's not.

Also on PvE. If there's a sunken playership -> loot it and hope for some good benefits.

And what the heck is popcorning? 

[Remcott 13]

I agree with most of this.  Where I disagree is removing the "useless" blueprints.  I will agree that no one uses them, but in a game like this you want longevity and having a RNG loot system like they do makes you appreciate it when it drops that much more.  Plus then wanting the right combination of boosts for armor, sails, etc.  Its Diablo. 

 

That being said I think that there should be bigger differences between the different level blueprints.  Higher stats, different skins (mythical stone gate should look epic), and crafting them should feel like an accomplishment.   Plus the skin differences would make pve players grind out different blueprints or sell them to each other also.

[UnknownSystemError 111]

1 hour ago, Forb Hidden said:

We're pirates. So why should I fight another ship, if there's no gold to steal?

If this would be a Disney game - OK. Then we could sing and dance together. But it's not.

Also on PvE. If there's a sunken playership -> loot it and hope for some good benefits.

And what the heck is popcorning? 

Popcorning is when they hold down O to dump all their inventory at once so that it decays faster and people can't get it. Satchels from a drop all take a long time to decay, the other way not so much.

 

[Captain Jack Shadow 488]

1 hour ago, Forb Hidden said:

We're pirates. So why should I fight another ship, if there's no gold to steal?

If this would be a Disney game - OK. Then we could sing and dance together. But it's not.

Also on PvE. If there's a sunken playership -> loot it and hope for some good benefits.

And what the heck is popcorning? 

You misunderstand what I wrote.  A ship would have gold for you to steal...inside the ship's safe.  This safe would prevent the members of the ship's company from popcorning the gold so that you can't get it.

[Captain Jack Shadow 488]

So here's how the safe's would work.  There would be two types.  One for the base, and one for the ship's.  You don't really want to keep tons of gold on the ship, so you would want to take it to the island with the base safe on it, to offload some of the gold to the base safe.  This would be done similar to putting a bear or NPC onto a ship.  When i range of the base safe, you would go to the ship's safe, press and hold E, and select, move gold to base safe.  At this point, it would allow you to select any amount currently in the safe.  You would likely want to keep a couple day's worth of gold in the ship's safe, to pay the NPCs on the ship.  The rest you want to move to the base safe.

When you are going to a freeport to purchase things, you don't carry the gold on you...it remains in the ship's safe, and when you purchase something, the gold is withdrawn from that safe, to make the purchase.

If a ship is sunk, the safe, in the form of a treasure chest, would drop to the ocean floor.  A map to this location could possibly become some form of loot.  Or, the flotsam at the surface just gives a clue to its location.

The idea here is to stop the player base from exploiting the ability to popcorn things, to deny the enemy a chance at loot.

 

[Vorxius 249]

Think I'd be a bit irritated if we send a couple of boats to fight something, and one gets destroyed, and we can't immediately recover losses with a salvage mission.  If I have to sit there whilst someone else comes a long, and laughs in our faces about looting 50,000 gold we couldn't touch due to 'game mechanics' I think I'd rage quit.

I play PvE, so we wouldn't be able to do anything about it if we couldn't access our own safety deposit boxes.  

Having said that, awesome idea for the cargo crates    Huge QOL item for many!

 

[Captain Jack Shadow 488]

1 hour ago, Vorxius said:

Think I'd be a bit irritated if we send a couple of boats to fight something, and one gets destroyed, and we can't immediately recover losses with a salvage mission.  If I have to sit there whilst someone else comes a long, and laughs in our faces about looting 50,000 gold we couldn't touch due to 'game mechanics' I think I'd rage quit.

I play PvE, so we wouldn't be able to do anything about it if we couldn't access our own safety deposit boxes.  

Having said that, awesome idea for the cargo crates    Huge QOL item for many!

 

PvE is a different story.  But, at the same time, it is a problem that people Popcorn stuff, just so others can't get it.  This game is somewhat of a pirate game, and thus loot needs to be a huge part of it.  A mechanic needs to be made, that prevents players from denying the loot to the enemy.

[Vorxius 249]

Just now, Captain Jack Shadow said:

PvE is a different story.  But, at the same time, it is a problem that people Popcorn stuff, just so others can't get it.  This game is somewhat of a pirate game, and thus loot needs to be a huge part of it.  A mechanic needs to be made, that prevents players from denying the loot to the enemy.

Agree, but, short of increasing timers on inventory drops, think the devs backed themselves into a corner.  The new cargo containers is heading in the right direction, but then they cannot be accessed unless anchored.  It may be a bit of a lottery, if you can scoop cargo container floatsom, and not know what's in it until anchored...   PvE is entirely different again, we don't have to worry about player pirates

 

[Captain Jack Shadow 488]

2 hours ago, Remcott said:

I agree with most of this.  Where I disagree is removing the "useless" blueprints.  I will agree that no one uses them, but in a game like this you want longevity and having a RNG loot system like they do makes you appreciate it when it drops that much more.  Plus then wanting the right combination of boosts for armor, sails, etc.  Its Diablo. 

 

That being said I think that there should be bigger differences between the different level blueprints.  Higher stats, different skins (mythical stone gate should look epic), and crafting them should feel like an accomplishment.   Plus the skin differences would make pve players grind out different blueprints or sell them to each other also.

On the other hand, who stops for yellow flotsam?  Nobody I know.  Then again, we sail right past anything not 7 or above, and then when you stop for a 12.8 flotsam, and get a masterwork thatch wall, it's enough to make you want to rage quit, and just start ignoring flotsam altogether.  Better to have a bookshelf full of quality BPs, than one full of BPs you know you will never use.  This idea that good stuff needs to be rare is complete BS.  Good stuff is so rare that I don't even look at the BP anymore.  I look at the gold.  The BPs seem irrelevant most of the time.  Makes the game boring.  I used to get irritated when I would spot a 6.2 flotsam, but the guy driving wouldn't stop for it.  Now, I am pretty much in agreement.  Time is more important than useless BPs.