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Comments
It's not better on islands because that's not how they made it. Shipreturn has nothing to do with it. If it's made better then it'll be better, again, regardless of shipreturn.
If somebody wants to sit in one place and hunt it every hour then they're going to do that. Again, with or without shipreturn.
If we're trying to create a holy land of golden bashing where it takes two hours of sailing through pirate infested waters to get there, but once you're there then you can level every hour and make a fortune then people will either never risk it or gather enough supplies to stay there for a couple IG years and not return to the mainland - and it'll be just as constantly hunted out.
Istarion is an analogous example. Decent gold/xp and talismans without being an open PK area. It's a pain to get to. Bottom line is if there's a larger player base on, then it's probably being hunted. Otherwise it's not. Making something a pain in the ass to get to doesn't mean nobody will go there or nobody will just park and stay there. Convenience in travelling is all we're actually talking about and this being one of the most pricey ones there is considering the credits to trans seafaring, plus the ship, plus a token if you expect to be going back and forth - not including the constant gold sink of upkeeping the ship.
There is always the option of hiring a captain as a ferryman. Not as pricey as buying your own ship and transing seafaring, but it is not sure you can find someone willing to endure the trip to, say, Suliel or Karbaz.
I have no problem with giving islands great bashing, but I think there should also just be more amazing bashing for die hard bashers and everyone else on the mainland. Achaea is very, very stingy with in game resources like bashing, and it seems unnecessary.
Bashing, however amazing, is not what excites me about visiting faraway places though. Islands should just have amazing cool things. Like exotic wares that are genuinely interesting. Some already do. There should be amazing quests for the die hards, and fun quests for the rest of us. Things that allow us to barter with the natives for cool trinkets, or allow us to make a unique foodstuff or beverage for the trip home. Neat little things like the hippodrome guy in Lothos who always wants to race. Trade deals that take us to interesting places and are lucrative enough to seem worth the cost, effort, and risk.
A note on wares. I try to be somewhat considerate, but frankly, I think certain items, like the Zanzibaar rum (and at this point, maybe the Karbaz custard) could benefit from quite frequent restockings. If they were bought out, someone who is willing to be a tiny bit patient should be able to get their stuff. Lucky for me I don't care about Zanzi rum (I like Cyrene's better), but if I did, I'd be super annoyed at almost never being able to get it on the island itself. It's part of the experience of going to those places.
And you won't understand the cause of your grief...
...But you'll always follow the voices beneath.
Yeah, pretty much. Zanzi's a good example there. The worst is when we take someone for say, a marque, and it's their first time on the island, and you're sort of trying to convince them "no really, this island is neat. I swear. Why are you looking at me like that"?
EDIT: (in the more extreme cases where someone is using it to bash to dragon, mainly, no rum alone isn't a total buzzkill, so to speak)
Agreed. Every island should have something to justify repeat visits. After I visit Tapoa, or Eirenwaar, or Colchis for the first time, explore it, read the rooms, greet the NPCs, do the quests - why would I ever return? Many mainland areas have the same problem, but are at least not so difficult to get to.
Bashing and questing are not the only ways to make an area worth revisiting. Although they should certainly all have good bashing and lucrative quests. Some areas might have desirable unique wares, or unique features like the Universal Membrane (for example), or you could make them play a role in a larger trade or naval warfare system.
On this subject, is the honours quest in Suliel still broken?
Also, Eirenwaar seems to have a seasonal mechanic where you flat-out cannot access half the island in winter (something along those lines). I only noticed it the second time I visited the island. I may be wrong, maybe there's a quest involved or something, but I couldn't figure it out. This was really, really annoying, because the island is already so isolated.
If you're thinking about what I'm thinking about (in regards to Eirenwaar) it's not too difficult! One of the denizens actually teaches you what to do.
Stories by Jurixe and Stories by Jurixe 2
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Also, how is Eirenwaar isolated if it has a ferry?
Another small idea to throw out there... if we do keep the same base-system for ship trade deals, I would like to be able to trade that cargo with another ship. Something where you must be in the harbour or grappled/planked at sea in order to do it. This would give a little more value to the war galley (able to sell excess cargo to other ships) and probably be well received by all of those windcutter captains who just like to fish and trade. Of course as it stands with those crazy chops nobody is going to use a war galley as a trading vessel... but those chops are going to get at least a little better, right?
So nothing revolutionary (actually somewhat similar to transferring crew), but if someone thinks of any major downsides to this please share.
There seems to be a wage bug, and it's getting *very* expensive (especially as I am funding 5 ships, my own and the city's). I asked on Mariner's, and anecdotally, others have the same feeling. I did bug it, and would love a fairly quick answer on this one. I'd also be curious to know whether the broader sailing community is having the same experience.
I did a check of my ship's strongbox between yesterday and today - exactly 24 hours apart. The only oddity I observed was that even though I checked back 24 in-game days later (on the 3rd of Mayan and on the 2nd of Sarapin), 25 days worth of wages were taken out and the estimated days left was 25 days left. I did account for rounding.
Not sure if that's helpful or not, just my observation on this single check-up.
Oops I should correct myself. The amount in wages (gold) that was removed from my strongbox was the appropriate value for 25 days, and the 'estimated days left' number went down by 25 as well. So those went down together, as they should. The part that was strange was why there was 25 days worth of gold taken out and not 24. I'm pretty sure it wasn't a counting error on my part but if it was please call me out. I counted on my fingers and everything.
I reread my post today and wasn't sure I had all of my words right. (Yep, blaming it on autocorrect). Just wanted to clarify.
This may be partially true, but when I was power-leveling and I ventured offplane, I'd sit in one area (or two close to gether ones) and clear it (them) out constantly. It's the nature of the beast- A high demand limited resource will always be harder to secure, and as Achaea grows, the demand increases at a greater rate than the resource.
In my opinion, the best way to make bashing not as monotonous and keep bashing areas open for new people would be diminishing returns on xp/essence/gold on areas bashed consecutively. "You've already killed these people before, you're not learning anything more until tomorrow" sorta-thing. And keep releasing new areas with new quests! ^_^
would need more areas to hunt to make that last bit truly effective.
From what I can tell, the wages aren't bugged, just really really expensive. Like burn through, I don't know, 5-7 credits every three RL days expensive.
So, I'm not an active seafarer in the game at the moment, though I would like to be - but I used to be (in a "previous life") and have since circa 2010 developed some opinions about seafaring that stick with me to this day. I'm pretty stoked to see this thread, and A LOT of the suggestions I've seen are super exciting.
In particular - being able to attack the cities from the ocean, creating an entirely new way to raid/defend would be seriously bad ass. The current city conflict system is a bit worn out, (but still fun!!) and this would be way cool.
I read the whole thread up this point and from what I can see, everyone's being pretty fair and it sounds like the admin are interested and open minded to real change. So I won't do the list of stuff that needs to change or could be better etc, you've all done that already and I agree/disagree with stuff just like everyone else. There's a bunch of great ideas for specifically -how- to change seafaring to make it more rewarding, and less aggravating, so I won't go into that either. I'm simply saying, "Yes, yes yes yes, this. Everything about this is yes."
But, there are a couple things I see popping up more than once that I want to say something about:
1. The argument about whether people should be allowed to safely idle on their ships.
Why is this such a big problem? @Blujixapug really nailed it down when he said people are going to afk no matter what happens. I agree with that, and everyone does afk for different reasons. So I can't imagine why anyone has a problem with it. We all have real lives we have to deal with, and if you need to get up to go pee, or check your facebook or feed your dog or whatever, I feel it should be a non-issue if you want to stay logged in while you go do those things. If you're smart enough to do it in a safe place like on a ship, then good for you. Why on earth do we need to go out of our way to change ships to keep people from afk'ing? Why is qq'ing preferable? If there's something I'm missing like... afk'ing breaks the servers or something, please someone just explain, lol.
Oh and as an afterthought, if the problem is with people using ships to avoid conflict, that is not what I'm referring to. I'm talking exclusively about afk'ing, not being a big puss puss. Either way, I still don't think changing ships to avoid "abuse" is necessary. Is not different than standing in a no-prism, monolithed house with triggers to avoid being forced to move, etc.
2. I really want to get up on my proverbial soapbox and preach about the PvP thing.
This is one thing I've seen briefly but repeatedly touched on, that keeps getting shut down. Not everyone wants to fight. Not everyone is interested in having "pirate rp" with you and your group of dragons that roll 6 deep and live to utterly crush your opponents. So, I have been watching the PvP situation change for seafaring over the years, but not the PvP rules. I'd like to suggest that the admin do something about this, most especially if they're planning on making seafaring easier, more accessible and generally less obnoxious. Why are there no PvP rules for seafaring?
To clarify, technically the current PK rules can and should be applicable. But from personal experience, that is simply not the case. The aggressive seafaring guys can do whatever they want to you, and if you don't have the means to fight back, too bad. That isn't fair, and it shouldn't be okay. @Kinilan said something earlier on in the thread about how there could be NPC ships that they can pick fights with. I think that's cool, give them something to do that doesn't involve harassing non-comms. And for the people that actually are interested in fighting on the sea, I'm sure there is a way that can be devised to differentiate them from the non-comms. Like, maybe the people who don't give a rip about combat can fly a white flag, meaning they aren't interested in conflict and should therefore be left alone. And the guys that are cool with combat can fly a red flag emblazoned with "D2F" on it. ??
Tl;dr? If you can't just walk up to any random someone and kill them on mainland, then why is that allowed on the sea?
Anyway .. Kudos to the admin and @Sarapis/@Tecton for upping their game constantly and being willing to consult with the player-base before they put huge changes like this into play.
(Phew longest post of my life. Back to the bleachers with me)
The issue being addressed in #1 isn't about AFK'ing, I don't think anyone cares if people AFK, on ships or otherwise. The issue at hand is that every docked ship in Achaea represents an impenetrable saferoom where no one can reach you, and that's a problem. Recall the beginning of the Reckoning event, where the Staff was whisked away on to a ship where no one could reach it against the ship owner's will. In the end, they had to change the nature of the whole event (Putting the staff at a static location instead of letting the sides fight over it) because ships provide an impenetrable fortress of complete security, and that's abusable.
So is the argument about ships being too safe, or that safe rooms in general shouldn't exist? Because I feel like there's more than just ships that exist in Achaea that can be 'abused' in the same manner. Beds, angel refuge etc.
Beds aren't nearly as safe as ships. You can be attacked in beds, spied on in beds, sneaky people can get into the bed before you do and prevent you from using it, and so on. Nirvana/Inferno/Chaos Plane/Grove of Isolation can all be accessed or raided if people are dedicated enough. With a ship, as long as it's docked and you control the boarding perms, nobody is ever getting on unless you let them, and you're completely untouchable without divine intervention (though there are certain ways your says can be overheard on a ship, for a short time). Ships also allow any number of your friends to enjoy the same protection, while beds only allow 2 or 3 people.
It's cool that you know all those deets Sena, seriously, and I have no choice but to slightly adjust my opinion due to that. I'd say I agree on some level then, and maybe they should make it possible for someone to follow you into your ship to even things out. Other than that I really don't see what the big deal is. There are lots of 'safe' places in the game, and I don't think it's necessary to get rid of them, personally.
Now that's out of the way I just want to have a tiny rant because the thing I cared about the least in my post is the one that got the most attention, lol. Is unfortunate. My issue is mostly (almost entirely) with the seafaring PvP and I really, sincerely hope that it gets addressed.
That being said, thanks for the feedback @Aerek and @Sena.
@Kiah You allow people to follow others onto ships then its going to be people stalking the newer characters that we are trying to recruit to get interested in seafaring. Its hard enough already.
Regarding ship combat adhering to PvP rules - just think of the oceans as being on par with Annwyn, the Underworld or Nishnatoba.
If a gamewide opt-out (via the white flag) is made available, then there's a high probability ship combat will be diminished even further and reduced to the same 4 captains sailing around shooting at each other (I fire at @Kinini @Kinilan anyhow, nbd).
The better answer to creating 'safety on the seas', I think, is to try and bridge the gap somehow between the Pirates and the Mariners in sort of a collective capacity - the mindset behind those two groups of people is so radically different, I think, and because there's such a huge disparity of citizenships allowed into each, bridging that becomes damned near impossible. I'd -suggest- the creation of a third, entirely neutral group of ship mongrels, but the truth is, there're so few interested in seafaring as it stands now, I don't think the playerbase could (successfully) support it.
Ultimately, there ought to be be a middle ground, -somewhere-, between the aggressors and the pacifists - individuals versed enough in seafaring combat to train people in defense/escape, but not those who necessarily go -into- it actively aggressive.
And without crossing the line into forumRP, to address the issue of that right-this-very-second rather than wait for an Answer from Above, there are a few IC methods of taking steps to ensure your own at-sea safety.
eta:
Oh, and allowing others to follow people onto ships is a horribad idea. Boarding perms exist for a reason. Unless that wasn't meant in a literal 'X arrives following Y' sense, in which case, nevermind (I already said my piece on shipbreaching).
The overly safe situation of ships was already solved here earlier. Don't think we need to revisit that. Just make docked ships exist in the same area as the harbour. That way any area targetting skills would still work. This works beautifully mechanics-wise and also logically.
Probably could also could get implemented sooner than whatever other overall overhaul or adjustment is being made to seafaring/ships.
With regards to how ships are used as "safe rooms", personally I enjoy reading the news posts and help scrolls from the safety of a ship and there are already other ways of safely afk'ing that dont allow you that option.
However perhaps for those abusing the safety of ships in between bursts of combat perhaps a cool down period could be implemented for half an achaean day preventing one from boarding a ship after INITIATING a conflict with another adventurer.
It would be nice for the trade system to be looked at, the majority of the deals are not worth doing. Im not sure on how much coding is involved but is it so difficult to have a much much larger variety of deals. There are only two harbours where trade deals are offered, is it possible to choose 14 decent deals on a weekly basis or just increase and change the amount of deals and put it on shuffle . I appreciate all the hard work "garden" does but some trade deals take hours to complete. In the same time, I could plan ahead trade deals for the next 50 achaean years. Not griping, does this sound like a gripe?
The windcutter's offensive capability in a sea warfare is severely lacking, can she not be made able to be bear a ballista or an onager as well as an arcanian arm and increase the weapon limit on the strider and galley by 1 more each?
Can the pursuit and reward and danger and risk and thrill of the hunt, (keyword here is hunt) of finding and killing sea monsters, and the potential roleplay of those viciously against any such acts be considered, weighed and eventually endorsed in the near future?
A big thanks to Sarapis for starting this thread and the Garden for wanting to make positive changes that hopefully the majority will approve of and enjoy.
Tygrin
While I do agree with the overall statement "Windcutter's offensive ability is lacking", I believe it was -designed- to be that way; allowing a serious offensive weapon aboard the smaller vessel would make them slightly too overpowered for what they are - they're supposed to be way down the totem pole when compared to a strider. I'd suggest that, rather than increase the weapons capacity, it'd be a better idea to look at the ammunition fireable from an arm - wardiscs are jokes, really, and that they can't be dipped removes part of their effectiveness in ship-to-ship combat (us pirates like our fire!)
And allowing more weapons aboard a strider wouldn't necessarily increase effectiveness, in terms of combat - it only means you'd need MORE hands on deck to facilitate both loading and firing, especially if you're going for a rapid-fire scenario.