Sailing - Is it viable anymore?

[ReverentBlade]

EDIT: I was operating off bad information. Disregard.

[Rei_Jin]

I assume that you do not understand how the sailing system works then

Let us assume you take out a three crew rental ship

The "three crew rental" takes the top three sail scores, averages them, and gives that as the ship's "Sail Score"

1 Sailor with 90 sail on board, adds on two "zeroes" as the ship requires three crew, resulting in a 30 Sail Score for the ship

2 Sailors, one with 90 and one with 30, add on one "zero" to get to the three crew, resulting in a 40 Sail Score for the ship

3 Sailors, one with 90, one with 30, one with 0, still results in a 40 Sail Score for the ship

15 Sailors, one with 90, one with 30, and 13 with 0, still results in a 40 Sail Score for the ship

It ONLY counts the three top individual Sail Scores, on a three crew ship

Just because you are terrible at sailing does not mean you bring down the average

[Rei_Jin]

I agree with Eyeliner here - the wisdom argument is incredibly arbitrary.

Adding insult to injury, the biggest sail buff comes from bard song that keys off charisma, yet my sorcerer needs to look for ways to buff her 8 WIS because her 38 CHA does NOTHING for sail.

The end result is that some builds naturally are better for sailing than others regardless of the investment.

The same is true for everything in Arelith.

Some builds are naturally better than others in any given situation, regardless of investment.

Strength builds are better at gathering wood, stone, etc.

Arguing that, for example, a Sorceror should be just as good at gathering wood or stone as a Strength build is, ignores the opportunity cost of making a build, as otherwise said Strength build should be able to argue that they should be as good at casting spells as the Sorceror is, through the power of their muscles.

[-XXX-]

Strength builds are better at gathering wood, stone, etc.

Apples and oranges

You do not need to assemble a group of 2-6 characters for chopping wood.
You don't end up with a party of 5 barbarians each time you go get some stone.

And the argument was that sail shouldn't key off WIS exclusively.

Thing is, any build can get to 50 hard sail already (33 skill ranks + 5 SF + 10 ESF +2 WIS modifier = 50), which is required for the character to reach 100 sail after soft bonuses (gear/bard song/ritual/gift, etc.). With the way things are now, WIS based characters simply get to conserve a feat or two, which ironically doesn't make them better sailors, but better at other stuff.

[Xarge VI]

It might be interesting to ponder developing the the current skill check system, as It is hard to especially during lower levels to find people to sail with.

No idea how doable anything is or how much of a puzzle it would actually be to make it. But I'm just spitballing ideas.

For example:

Highest Sail score determines the speed, the ac and the usual storm/boarding/etc stuff (=Navigator knowing what they are doing etc)

Strength check determines the speed in which Rigging is operated

Dexterity check determines the ballista use or Wisdom if you have zen archery. Also make weapon focuses in crossbow should give a bonus.

Int/wis check for onager and bombard (Calculating the movement of the ships etc.)

Constitution check for ship repairs. Carpentry score of let's say 5 to do it. (Being a master carpenter has very little to do with plugging holes during battle. Rather i'd put it to endurance. Pushing planks against water pressure while hammering.)

Leadership score gives bonus to all of the above.

The idea is to spread out the ship operations across multiple areas. Only the highest sail score counts, but to operate optimally you need a good archer, a strong fellow and a high con character. Or more simply: Dex, Str and Con. +Wis for Sail skill +Cha for Leadership.

[MintoCloudpaw]

• Sailing is largely a monotonous activity. It is very rare to encounter excitement at sea. It is effectively bar RP on a boat. Again, fine every so often, not fine for a faction focused on sailing.

Speaking as a common guest to half a dozen different ships - this sums up my experience well. It's nice to hang out, but it's effectively bar RP (or square RP) with the occasional PVE encounter. The ship to ship combat is just a bunch of noise because guests can't do anything to participate.

I always found it unfortunate that there is literally nothing I could do to assist with a ship (outside of sending speedies to get people that were useful). It's the only aspect of the server that is entirely gatekept by whether you invested in a skillpoint or specific trade. It'd be like if the entire Dark Spires required 60 climb, you'd barely see anyone do it.

It's pretty sad when you have people itching to go out and you have a dozen people ready to sail - but because only 3 of them are sailors, you're out of luck. Can't use the flagship. Sure, you can use a rental, but that feels ICly silly when you have a flagship.

It's unfortunate when sailing is more fun to do solo/small groups than it is to get people involved; that's sort of anti-RP. No wonder captains of large ships burn out quickly.

---

I think the #1 thing that needs to happen to sailing is a much -much- lower cap on sailing averages; something like 60.

Let's say you need 6 people to crew your ship:
4 people with 90 sail can then sail the ship
3 people with 100 sail and 1 person with 60 can sail the ship
6 people with +22 on their gear, 33 ranks and a bard song would be able to sail the ship

This would greatly help alleviate the pressure on captains to find a crew, as they can count for more than one person (as makes actual sense) and allow them to tackle harder content, as well as reduce the disparity between large ships and small ships (since they now both cap at 60, small ships don't get an easy advantage).

There are plenty of cases in PVE where builds are more suitable and can carry the less suitable builds through. It's to the server's benefit to open sailing up more so that people can participate without min-maxing their build for sailing to even be able to go have fun. It'd also just make being a captain more fun, I think; as you'd feel that your investment into sailing has more value - that you're allowed to take others out to sail and show them the system you enjoy; without having to deny people because they'd have to rebuild into having sailing skill.

[The GrumpyCat]

My own experience with sailing has proved it's very viable. At least it seemed to be a lot of fun and net me plenty of gold - and be accessable at most levels? But i'm not really playing peak sailing game so I could be wrong there.

I will take umbridge with this though:

Thar Be Barnacles!
The ship deteriorating every 48 hours should be extended. To my knowledge, you have six days until your ship actually degrades, which is a bit more reasonable, but the barnacles showing up within two days is very frustrating. Almost every single person I've ever spoken to who has lead/managed a ship in any capacity has mentioned the desire to have the time on this extended, as putting together a sail every other day has led to burn-out unlike any other I've seen in RP. Even just one more day on that timer would be a boon. This is probably the most minor of complaints, though.

I realize this is the most minor of points, but I strongly dissagree with the reversing of it.
Perminently Ownable Ships number in the low tens, I believe. There's not many anyway.
They are a highly prized resource.
If an owner cannot be botherd to either a) Log on every couple of days to sail it or (more likely) b) Gather together a trusted crew who can do that, and make full use of it - then frankly I'm not sure they SHOULD be owning it at all, let alone dealing with barnicles.

I wouldn't be against leangthening it by maybe another day sure, but anything more just means that ships swiftly become trophies.

[Rei_Jin]

My own experience with sailing has proved it's very viable. At least it seemed to be a lot of fun and net me plenty of gold - and be accessable at most levels? But i'm not really playing peak sailing game so I could be wrong there.

I will take umbridge with this though:

Thar Be Barnacles!
The ship deteriorating every 48 hours should be extended. To my knowledge, you have six days until your ship actually degrades, which is a bit more reasonable, but the barnacles showing up within two days is very frustrating. Almost every single person I've ever spoken to who has lead/managed a ship in any capacity has mentioned the desire to have the time on this extended, as putting together a sail every other day has led to burn-out unlike any other I've seen in RP. Even just one more day on that timer would be a boon. This is probably the most minor of complaints, though.

I realize this is the most minor of points, but I strongly dissagree with the reversing of it.
Perminently Ownable Ships number in the low tens, I believe. There's not many anyway.
They are a highly prized resource.
If an owner cannot be botherd to either a) Log on every couple of days to sail it or (more likely) b) Gather together a trusted crew who can do that, and make full use of it - then frankly I'm not sure they SHOULD be owning it at all, let alone dealing with barnicles.

I wouldn't be against leangthening it by maybe another day sure, but anything more just means that ships swiftly become trophies.

Flagships: (Note that these are directly controlled by settlements, so political changes can change access/ownership)
Cordor: Long Lease
Guldorand: Long Lease
Brogendenstein: Rental
Myon: Long Lease
Andunor: Settlement Bidding Property with "Long Lease"

Other "Long Lease" Ships:
Crow's Nest x2
Guldorand x2
Westcliff x1
Sencliff x2 (Dread Pirate only)

Rentals/Short Lease Ships:
Cordor x1
Guldorand x3
Crow's Nest x1
Half-Orc Camp x1 (Half-Orc only)
Brogendenstein x1
Andunor x2
Sencliff x2 (Inked Pirates only)

This is the totality of ships in Arelith

If you have a "Long Lease" ship and you cannot be bothered to sail it every few days (barring emergencies/illness), then give it up, please. There are plenty of other folk who want to give it a go.

[Aeryeris]

It is actually not that easy to find willing captains for the flagship. I personally have quite a lot of experience in trying to get people to sail the Cordor flagship, but it sat idle for about half the time I was chancellor, with me just sailing it every 5 days to keep the barnacles off so whoever would eventually take it didn't have to restart from scratch. Transfering the lease takes 250.000 gold not including locks, which takes it to about 800.000-1.000.000 gold. The leviathan is the only ship that requires these upgrades because it is the only ship that can be quarterbroken. The commitment of running a sailing faction has proven draining to the people I worked with. On average none managed it more than a couple of months irl, between 1 and 4. So every four months someone incurs this 800.000-1.000.000 cost and during the downtime the settlement leader has an additional responsibility ontop of their already "work-like" gaming experience. This is at least skewed compared to other ships and flagships, which have reduced costs and are often easier to find crews for.

Yet even other ships seem to struggle with long periods of downtime due to the difficuktitof finding factions/ crews willing to sail them.

I propose this is likely because ships need a dedicated core group sailing every 3 days or pressure starts to mount on the owners to do something with it, which in turn puts pressure on their crew members to show up to make sail score numbers. This is like organising a small raid in WoW except the rewards are much less, and there is no "farm period" where people "only have to go once a week".

I believe larger ships need incentive to do lower sail score content. Right now there is no reason for a flagship to sail unless it can make above 80 sail score. There is just nothing to do that feels like a useful expenditure of time, and the crew would likely be better served and have a more enjoyable time taking out a 3 player rental ship because then they can be doing more interest and useful content without as much pressure or setup. I believe that if the better choice in most situations is to take the 3 player rental over the flagship, there is an issue.

Fishing is lower sail score content worth doing, however why would you use the 6 player ship over a rental for fishing? The 6 player ship takes more work and setup and will likely have to turn into port sooner when someone leaves. It is the suboptimal choice for fishing.

Thus, I believe something needs to be done about how ships scale with crew requirement and ships need more content that is both rewarding and does not rely on having a maxed out crew with 100 sail to complete.

[Rei_Jin]

It is actually not that easy to find willing captains for the flagship. I personally have quite a lot of experience in trying to get people to sail the Cordor flagship, but it sat idle for about half the time I was chancellor, with me just sailing it every 5 days to keep the barnacles off so whoever would eventually take it didn't have to restart from scratch. Transfering the lease takes 250.000 gold not including locks, which takes it to about 800.000-1.000.000 gold. The leviathan is the only ship that requires these upgrades because it is the only ship that can be quarterbroken. The commitment of running a sailing faction has proven draining to the people I worked with. On average none managed it more than a couple of months irl, between 1 and 4. So every four months someone incurs this 800.000-1.000.000 cost and during the downtime the settlement leader has an additional responsibility ontop of their already "work-like" gaming experience. This is at least skewed compared to other ships and flagships, which have reduced costs and are often easier to find crews for.

Yet even other ships seem to struggle with long periods of downtime due to the difficuktitof finding factions/ crews willing to sail them.

I propose this is likely because ships need a dedicated core group sailing every 3 days or pressure starts to mount on the owners to do something with it, which in turn puts pressure on their crew members to show up to make sail score numbers. This is like organising a small raid in WoW except the rewards are much less, and there is no "farm period" where people "only have to go once a week".

I believe larger ships need incentive to do lower sail score content. Right now there is no reason for a flagship to sail unless it can make above 80 sail score. There is just nothing to do that feels like a useful expenditure of time, and the crew would likely be better served and have a more enjoyable time taking out a 3 player rental ship because then they can be doing more interest and useful content without as much pressure or setup. I believe that if the better choice in most situations is to take the 3 player rental over the flagship, there is an issue.

Fishing is lower sail score content worth doing, however why would you use the 6 player ship over a rental for fishing? The 6 player ship takes more work and setup and will likely have to turn into port sooner when someone leaves. It is the suboptimal choice for fishing.

Thus, I believe something needs to be done about how ships scale with crew requirement and ships need more content that is both rewarding and does not rely on having a maxed out crew with 100 sail to complete.

I completely agree that Flagships are in a bad spot RN, even more so "Good faction" Flag Ships.

What I would like to see, is all Flagships moved from being "owned" to being "rentals", so that once they are upgraded, they only need to be hired to be used, and they would not degrade from not being used.

This solution would mean that the Flagships can be used for their actual purpose, rather than needing to be dragged out to do a hull scrape with one crew member who is panicking the whole time that some pirates might spot them.

[MRFTW]

Flagships:

• Time consuming to manage
• Provide "slots" to many sailors
• Give access to more content generally

1-2 man ships:

• Easier to manage
• Provide fewer "slots" for sailors
• Give access to a little bit less content.

There's 2 massively different aspects at play, here. I've been on flagships as a day sailor, not crew, and have done a reasonable amount of sailing on the smaller rentals, when I can get them.

The issue I find is that there's simply not enough boats that are "free" to lease. For example, there's many days when if I'd had the opportunity, I'd have rented a ship and spent a day on the tides, maybe alone, maybe with a friend or two. However, I find myself not wanting to or not able to due to opportunity cost for the rest of the player base. I don't want to stop anyone else from having a grand day's adventuring because I decided to fumble around in the shallows 15 minutes earlier than they logged on. I've suggested before that we need access to a functionally infinite number of 1-2 man boats.

I'll use a comparison to writs here, and I do so because I think of them both as "Things to log in and do". Writs are limited at the level of the individual, any number of players can take up to three writs per day, and just because player A cleared the ogre caves earlier doesn't mean that player B can't go and clear it later. The only thing stopping that, is if player A (or someone else) has cleared it very recently, within 15 minutes or so. So every 15 minutes, a 'slot' for someone to start engaging opens.

Consider the sailing system in comparison. Sailing isn't limited at the level of the individual, it's limited at the level of the server, with there only being a finite amount of boats available. 'Slots' for people to engage are much rarer, even for 1-2 man boats. You can't reasonable assume you can come back in an hour or two and it'll be engageable, like the ogre caves would be.

If the writ system worked the same way, upper level writs would only be available if you were the current owner of the writ, and nobody else would be able to do it unless you let them. You could only do a writ after someone else had already handed it back in, and if you died doing a writ, it'd be unavailable for other people to do until after a server reset. Other players would then, both IC and OOC, complain that you'd ruined everyone's ability to do writs because you're not good enough at the game.

In that state, with the number of people that want to do writs, it wouldn't be considered "viable", in my opinion. Sailing is more viable than the hypothetical writs I've described above only because the amount of the player base actively involved is low enough that the availability isn't a problem often enough to be a big problem. If 80% wanted to sail, instead of, say, 10%, I think lack of 'slots' would make it unviable.

[Aeryeris]

Flagships:

• Time consuming to manage
• Provide "slots" to many sailors
• Give access to more content generally

1-2 man ships:

• Easier to manage
• Provide fewer "slots" for sailors
• Give access to a little bit less content.

What content would you say flagships give access to that rentals don't?
It is entirely possible (even easier) to do T4 edge water content on a 3 player rental with a heavy ballista.
The sail check matters far more than the ship stats for these fights.

[Cataclysm of Iron]

If the writ system worked the same way, upper level writs would only be available if you were the current owner of the writ, and nobody else would be able to do it unless you let them. You could only do a writ after someone else had already handed it back in, and if you died doing a writ, it'd be unavailable for other people to do until after a server reset.

With a little bit of rewards/availability tweaking and everybody getting over the idea of hitting Lv30 in a month or less, this would actually be a really good change. Might bring Roleplay back to adventuring.

(Never interacted with the sailing stuff so no comment on that)

[PowerWord Rage]

I actually think that the sailing system does not need a major overhaul as opposed to what's written here.
Flagship does not need any lower requirement to sail it nor does it need to be Rental (yes, i've never owned a ship before).

The purpose of Flagship / Owned ship more often than not, represent the settlement itself. Hence, sighting the flagship on the sea usually meant a whole different meaning than sighting a rental. It also makes ship PVP, both in the spirit of RP and mechanics, much more worthwhile.

The only reason why many players often either go big or go zero on owned ship / flagships is also because of the above.
Whilst subpar sailing score can still easily allow players to enjoy 75% of the sailing content, most actually feared to be PVPed which isn't actually a common occurance. There's alot of mechanic knowledge regarding sail score and ship size in PVP and a difference of 20 sail score for a bigger ship vs a smaller ship does not dictate that the higher sail score on the smaller ship will prevail.

There're multiple methods to find out whether your opposing ship has higher sail score or not and even in RP sense.
I'll just quote one example,
we can deduce through the quadrant that they're resting on as well as their ship's weight ( High Draft or not ).

Tbh, i believed that Sailing system is more or less in a good spot right now.
As written in my earlier post which i'll not repeat, If there's any more changes that need to be made, it will be the PVE encounter.

In fact, I'll propose to rather have the percentage of Ship / Landmark / Sea creatures re-adjusted to 60% / 15% / 25%.
The only reason is because Landmark encounter are usually such a waste when there's already the existence of Spyglass.
Ship RP is only fun and worthwhile when there're more PVE encounters rather than idling and finding other things for RP perhaps up to a full IRL hour, to only find a single NPC Ship.

It's perfectly fine for there to be skill tax for sailing.
There's nothing wrong with investment in order to be good at something that has so much content and wide possibility.
If anyone were to refute on that, i'll just have to say skill tax for sailing isn't any less worth than skill tax for spot / open lock / perform / bluff / discipline / concentration.

[MRFTW]

Flagships:

• Time consuming to manage
• Provide "slots" to many sailors
• Give access to more content generally

1-2 man ships:

• Easier to manage
• Provide fewer "slots" for sailors
• Give access to a little bit less content.

What content would you say flagships give access to that rentals don't?
It is entirely possible (even easier) to do T4 edge water content on a 3 player rental with a heavy ballista.
The sail check matters far more than the ship stats for these fights.

I was mostly thinking about edge water content and flagship vs flagship PvP, but if edge waters are doable in smaller boats, I'm happy to stand corrected.

If T4 edgewaters are doable in a 3 man then what are flagships even for? I've admittedly never tried it in a 3 man because, well, I don't go fight Paush at level 15, either. Sounds like edge water T4 needs to be harder, maybe?

If the writ system worked the same way, upper level writs would only be available if you were the current owner of the writ, and nobody else would be able to do it unless you let them. You could only do a writ after someone else had already handed it back in, and if you died doing a writ, it'd be unavailable for other people to do until after a server reset.

With a little bit of rewards/availability tweaking and everybody getting over the idea of hitting Lv30 in a month or less, this would actually be a really good change. Might bring Roleplay back to adventuring.

I kind of agree, actually, but it'd go against the ADHD-friendly RP-lite nature of the server these days and the backlash would be massive. I would love to get into the dark side of writ working and what it's done for the server culture, but definitely in another thread.

[perseid]

My own experience with sailing has proved it's very viable. At least it seemed to be a lot of fun and net me plenty of gold - and be accessable at most levels? But i'm not really playing peak sailing game so I could be wrong there.

I will take umbridge with this though:

Thar Be Barnacles!
The ship deteriorating every 48 hours should be extended. To my knowledge, you have six days until your ship actually degrades, which is a bit more reasonable, but the barnacles showing up within two days is very frustrating. Almost every single person I've ever spoken to who has lead/managed a ship in any capacity has mentioned the desire to have the time on this extended, as putting together a sail every other day has led to burn-out unlike any other I've seen in RP. Even just one more day on that timer would be a boon. This is probably the most minor of complaints, though.

I realize this is the most minor of points, but I strongly dissagree with the reversing of it.
Perminently Ownable Ships number in the low tens, I believe. There's not many anyway.
They are a highly prized resource.
If an owner cannot be botherd to either a) Log on every couple of days to sail it or (more likely) b) Gather together a trusted crew who can do that, and make full use of it - then frankly I'm not sure they SHOULD be owning it at all, let alone dealing with barnicles.

I wouldn't be against leangthening it by maybe another day sure, but anything more just means that ships swiftly become trophies.

I think the point about permanently ownable ships' scarcity and by extension desirability misses the forest for the trees a little here. Quarterbreaker immune facilities are the best properties on the server bar none. It doesn't matter if it's a ship, a guildhouse, or a dumpster with only room for one person and a storage chest, if you have a QB immune lease you are immune to hostile rp in a way nobody else is and you can get away with things nobody else can. If QB immunity was removed from every lease that sports it tomorrow you would see a sudden devaluation in Private Ship leases because while they're convenient there's no shortage of temporary leases for ships that are typically available.

The relevance of this is that I think we /could/ justify more private ship leases or a looser window of maintenance required to keep barnacles off but the server would need to stop pretending like QB immunity isn't literally the most important factor of the leases and be willing to remove it (ideally remove it from every lease that has it but that seems to be off the table given the longevity of many non-ship leases that continue to boast QB immunity). Right now the short barnacle windows and general scarcity are all effectively there to balance out owning some of the most mechanically optimal properties.

[Lewtzy]

Sailing is incredibly fun to do and the PvP is even better.

As most has been said I'll just touch on two things:
1 - I believe the "end game" sail score should be lower. And with that, SOFT Sail skill (Items, bardsong, rituals, Gift etc.), and Wisdom bonus to sail, should be removed.
This will reward the people who invested hard skill points / feats / classes. And will make it more accessible to those who are interested to sail.

2 - Yes, shiplenses (and lensing to port to return the rental) are incredibly anticlimactic and should not be able to be used while the ship is flagged for PvP (like no repairs or docking possible during that time).
I don't believe much extra explanation to that is required.

That's all from me for now.

[PowerWord Rage]

Sailing is incredibly fun to do and the PvP is even better.

As most has been said I'll just touch on two things:
1 - I believe the "end game" sail score should be lower. And with that, SOFT Sail skill (Items, bardsong, rituals, Gift etc.), and Wisdom bonus to sail, should be removed.
This will reward the people who invested hard skill points / feats / classes. And will make it more accessible to those who are interested to sail.

2 - Yes, shiplenses (and lensing to port to return the rental) are incredibly anticlimactic and should not be able to be used while the ship is flagged for PvP (like no repairs or docking possible during that time).
I don't believe much extra explanation to that is required.

That's all from me for now.

I'll agree with point 2 but disagree with point 1.

SOFT Sail skill is in fact, the actual investment and what in an RP sense, classify landbubbers and sailors.
The Avg Sails score required for 75% of the Sailing Content does not actually require more than 50 sails score which is easily achievable by having 33 hard rank + 22 ( sailing equips ).
It is the further -investment- that usually what pains us, such as skill foc & epic skill foc WITH gifts, bard song or blessing that is required to enjoy the rest of 25% ( edgewater sailing )
The above simply refers to PVE experience.

[-XXX-]

I think sailing brings up the reluctance of players to partake in any activity that their character cannot be immediately best at / isn't optimized for. Which is a shame, because it doesn't take much effort / build investment to get the most out of it.

Between the epic sailing gear, greater sea god rituals and gift of sailing any character can reach +48 soft sail bonus without sea shanties. That means any character with 52 hard sail ranks (33 ranks, SF, ESF, +4 WIS modifier) has the potential for sailing at capped out sail without a bard. WIS builds can then usually afford to skip the ESF, meaning most cleric/shaman builds can get to 100 by taking a simple SF:sail (and skip even that if cleric with the right domains or shaman/LM combo).

[nicebreakfast]

I do think that sail skill is not a problem considering how does it work now.

The problem is size of ships.

I barely see "bigger" ships sailing around. Cliff ships are quite often on the sea, sometimes I can see also Ironhelm or Leviathan.
But there are a lot of ships I havent's seen since... a while, like The Guldorand Flagship or First Sister.

I understand why, because It is really hard to gather 5 people for galleon or 6 people for flagship that hit ₁₀₀ sail sometimes .

What would be helpful for sailoirs is reduced number of crewmates required to sail particular ship.

Why not then :

• Remove flagships type of ship AT ALL
• Change existing flagships to galleons. This way we would have : Andunor Galleon, Brog Galleon, Cordor Galleon, Gulodrand Galleon and Sencliff Galleon (Yes, Maiden stays as is)
• Change existing Guldorand long lease ships from Galleon to Brigantine
• Add one Galleon and one Brigantine (both long lease) to Andunor

[Yensent]

I would rather see Sailing shifted to only be about hard ranks and feats, than see it shifted to run off another stat. No more basin, no more bardsong, no more rituals, no more sail gear in chests. Everyone can suffer the same way.

This would be more fun, and I like to make the sacrifice on my characters to invest in skills and feats if it fits the character. I worry that their would need to be a keen eye on DCs and crew requirements, but I think this would be a way forward that doesn't needlessly overcomplicate things.

[PowerWord Rage]

I think...we can all agree that any mass deletion/removal ( not changes as i'm also referring to unique sails loot which are sought after only because of the +sail stats ) of items are extreme steps that should not really be within the scope of consideration unless the situation proved detrimental and has escalate so terribly severe.

[Rei_Jin]

Removing +sail from items (other than perhaps the epic sail items) would mean that folks would no longer need to gimp their gear for sailing, and would reduce the seeming requirement for multiple gearsets.

With that said, it is a significant shift that would cause a lot of grief, no doubt.

[AstralUniverse]

Again, not a sail expert here.

I'm under the impression that removing sail gear has only upsides. Please correct me if I'm wrong but pretty much anyone can get about the same sail gear, and doesnt need anything else on that gear set because you never sail and normal-combat at the same time to my knowledge. All it does afaik, is it saves a lot gear space for sailors. Granted, different DCs on sail content would be adjusted accordingly to account for the lack of gear bonus. I only see upsides to player QoL here.

[Rei_Jin]

Thought experiment here

One could cut the sail DCs down from 100 cap to as low as a 60 cap, incrementing by 3 instead of 5, if basined Sailing gear bonuses are removed, and if Sail no longer gets a boost from any of the Stats, and if one removes the Sea Shanty bonus to Sail, meaning that at best, a Bard with Song of the Heart would give +6 to Sail.

Most Bards, using whichever Bardsong they like, would give +5 to Sail.

Good Hope is another +2 (for most) and +4 (for Enchantment specialised Wizards)

The Greater Blessing of the Sea Gods is +12, with the Lesser being a +4 to +8 bonus.

33 Ranks can be invested

5 from Skill Focus.
10 from Epic Skill Focus.

3 from Strength Domain.
3 from Travel Domain.

6 from Loremaster Secret of Exploration.

6 from the Lesser Gift of Sailing.

3, 6, or 9 from Warlock Fathomless Pact

Keep the Epic Sail items that give a total of +14 to Sail.

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MATHS TIME

Now, if you wanted to do a "Sailing meme" build, as they are called? Well, my current character, Ner'enthis, is a "Sailing meme" build, meaning that I deliberately maxed his Sail score so as to reduce the burden on others.

Under this change, his Sail score would drop from 116/100 to 87/60, without a Blessing of the Sea Gods. The +8 bonus from the Lesser Blessing of the Sea Gods is not hard to get, so let's call it sustainably 95.

If he is in a crew with folk who have NO investment in Sail, and no gear, they can get 15/60, with a Lesser Blessing of the Sea Gods, Bardsong, and Good Hope.

On a three crew ship (functional combined Sail cap in the current system is 300, or 180 in this theoretical system), that gives us 125/180, which is functionally 65/100 (69.4, but rounded off to the nearest 5) in the current system, which is, again, enough to do second ring naval combat, or sail anywhere in the waters of the Trackless Sea.

What that means, is that one sailor, with two characters who have no sailing experience, can do an awful lot at sea in that scenario.

Yes, for edgewaters naval combat and for naval PvP you want as close to the Sail score cap as possible, but that is, in my opinion, not necessary to explore and engage with most of the content.

And, if, over time, one got together a crew who had all the same lack of investment, but they had the Epic Sail items, said score goes up to 153/180, which is 85/100 in the current system. Enough to do Edgewater naval content, and compete in naval PvP at the top end.

Note that this is just on a three crew ship.

On a six crew ship, one would need a second "Sailing meme" build to offset the two additional non-sailors, but the numbers would then work out more or less the same.

If you shift it so that instead everyone has 33 ranks in Sail, but no gear or any other bonuses, that's the same as having a 55 Sail in the current system. Again, perfectly viable to sail everywhere, and do second ring content. Add in a Sailing meme build or two, and you're golden, because in that situation, my Sailing meme build, with the aid of a cleric, druid, or shaman, can get the crew members with 33 up to 48, which is the same as 80 in the current system.

Again, on a three crew ship, we're now talking about 191/180 without any Epic Sailing items for the other two crewmates. In the current system? We hit the 100 Sail cap.

And if we're on a 6 crew ship, and 5 have the 33 ranks, aided by said Sailing meme build and a +8 Lesser Blessing? We hit 335 of 360, which is (functionally) 90/100 in the current system... plenty to do even edgewater naval content and naval PvP.

TLDR: Removing Sail from the basin, stat boost for the Sail skill, and the additional +10 from Sea Shanty, reducing Sail to a functional cap of 60 with increments every 3, and making NO OTHER CHANGES, the system becomes a lot more equitable and easier to engage with. Bards become less necessary, you have a number of different ways to hit the cap, and so on.