Sail Skill

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Sail Skill

Post by -XXX- » Sat Jan 15, 2022 4:11 pm

Why is this skill wisdom based?

IMO it shoehorns crews into being all clerics with one bard on the deck.

Wouldn't divorcing the sail skill from any attribute or tieing it to a more generic one (like constitution) be better as it wouldn't punish more class/build-diverse crews?

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Re: Sail Skill

Post by Distant Relation » Sat Jan 15, 2022 4:20 pm

It's not as bad as it looks at first glance.

Let's say you're trying to hit a sail target of 99.

50 of that can come from soft sail: Bard song (16-20), Good Hope (2-6), Gear (22), Gift of Sail (6), Loremaster (12), Fathomlock (9). Relatively easy to reach in a mixed crew.

That means you need to hit 49 Hard Sail to reach your 99.
33 will come from Sail ranks, obviously, leaving 16 to go.

For that 16 you can do the following:
a) Take ESF Sail (10), SF Sail (3), and buff your 10 base wisdom to 16 (3)
b) Take ESF Sail (10), and buff your 10 base wisdom to 22 (6)
c) Take no skill focuses, but be a hypermaxed out cleric/druid with total wisdom 42 (16)

Or any combination of wisdom, sf and esf sail that lands in between.

I'm not wholly against swapping the attribute Sail keys to (other than wrecking existing builds, which as we know is 100% going to cause anguish), but whichever new attribute you pick will have the same problem, it will just reshuffle which classes can reach 99 sail without needing SF/ESF.

But as it stands, anyone who isn't playing a Wisdom 4 character can reach 99 sail, so long as they're willing to spend the feats for it.

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Re: Sail Skill

Post by The Rambling Midget » Sat Jan 15, 2022 4:31 pm

It makes sense, in that sailing is more about understanding the water and planning ahead than quick reactions.

The worst offender, as far as encouraging crew diversity, is Bard Song, by far. That's a flat +20 to your sail score, regardless of the minimum crew size. Having a Bard aboard has become a requirement for participating in ship combat, rather than a nice bonus. If your clique is able to produce a Bard on demand, whenever you sail, your equipment and build restrictions are drastically reduced. It's too much.
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Re: Sail Skill

Post by Distant Relation » Sat Jan 15, 2022 4:36 pm

I can agree with the above, very much.

I know some ideas have been suggested to ActionReplay to reduce the impact/need for Bardsong. +20 is just a very powerful swing that makes the difference between 'we get to sail tonight' and 'we best leave it until x comes back from vacation'.

Conversely, the highest tier content currently out there for sailors (T3-4 amnian galleons and undead galleons) pretty much need a crew that is not only sharpish on their deck presence but can also hit sail average sail 90+ for the whole encounter. Simply removing bardsong from the equation will necessitate those encounters to be rebalanced.

I can think of ways around this problem, but in the spirit of 'feedback is not for suggetions' I'll keep a lid on that. Just pointing out that it might be better to create an *alternative* to bardsong for bard-less crews than to simply remove Sea Shanties.

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Re: Sail Skill

Post by -XXX- » Sat Jan 15, 2022 6:02 pm

As I see it sailing is a minigame and most people treat it that way.
Having the entire crew Invest 33 ranks in sailing and convincing them to be bothered to swap into sailing gear can already be an acomplishment on its own. This yields ~60 sail for most generic crews (assuming they're all max lvl characters), 80 ~if~ they can get that bard on board. IMO this is what the highest PvE tier should be tailored to.

99 seems very memeworthy to me as it aims to absolutely dominate the sailing minigame. Reaching that milestone requires either heavy character build costs (SF, ESF which most players just won't bother with) for the entire crew or simply being on WIS based toons (who get the same bonus as a freeby).


IMO it is weird that sailing hinges on a very specific subset of classes while the rest of them serve as little more than glorified passengers regardless of their investment in gear and the sail skill. Not even PvP balance seems to be skewed in this way.
Last edited by -XXX- on Sat Jan 15, 2022 6:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Sail Skill

Post by The Rambling Midget » Sat Jan 15, 2022 6:13 pm

It does seem like Sail would benefit from diminishing returns, like Parry, so that there's a reasonable threshold for participation after which additional skill equates to an advantage, rather than the current absolute guarantee of victory.
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Re: Sail Skill

Post by Distant Relation » Sat Jan 15, 2022 6:26 pm

-XXX- wrote:
Sat Jan 15, 2022 6:02 pm
As I see it sailing is a minigame and most people treat it that way.
It really is not, not anymore.
-XXX- wrote:
Sat Jan 15, 2022 6:02 pm
Having the entire crew Invest 33 ranks in sailing and convincing them to be bothered to swap into sailing gear can already be an acomplishment on its own. This yields ~60 sail for most generic crews (assuming they're all max lvl characters), 80 ~if~ they can get that bard on board. IMO this is what the highest PvE tier should be tailored to.

99 seems very memeworthy to me as it aims to absolutely dominate the sailing minigame. Reaching that milestone requires either heavy character build costs (SF, ESF which most players just won't bother with) for the entire crew or simply being on WIS based toons (who get the same bonus as a freeby).
Having to build to excel at something is a core concept. There are people who will make sacrifices to become better sailors. Those people are now specialists you should recruit and contract to your faction.

You are essentially saying 'I want to be able to have my cake and eat it too' by being able to 'dominate the sailing minigame' with the standard hyper optimized discord 3.0 pvp builds. Instead of playing the game, you want to change the rules of the game to fit you.

If players 'just won't bother with' spending two feats, then they should, RIGHTFULLY, be behind in the content that uses that skill. What next? Remove ESF Appraise because people who use it get more money out of selling things?
The Rambling Midget wrote:
Sat Jan 15, 2022 6:13 pm
It does seem like Sail would benefit from diminishing returns, like Parry, so that there's a reasonable threshold for participation after which additional skill equates to an advantage, rather than the current absolute guarantee of victory.
These diminishing returns already exist. There's not much benefit to going above 90 average sail skill for pve content. There is no benefit at all for going higher than 95, and average sail is hardcapped at 99 on top of that.

Sail AC and AB go up as a fraction of average sail (it used to be full, as in Average Sail 99 was AB +99, imagine shooting at someone with Average Sail 60 therefore Ship AC 60). These numbers keep getting tweaked to smooth the difference and remove nasty edge cases, like some ships being unable to spot others even when under fire due to excessive sail skill difference.

Additionally, 60 average sail is more than enough for the majority of pve sailing content. If your intent is to stay in local to middle waters and farm pve, 60 average sail will 100% get you there. 90+ is for going into the high risk high reward scenarios in edgewaters.


Please, for the love of all that's holy, stop trying to change the sailing "minigame" to fit your vision of what a peak arelith one-stop-shop can-do-everything build is.

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Re: Sail Skill

Post by The Rambling Midget » Sat Jan 15, 2022 6:57 pm

Distant Relation wrote:
Sat Jan 15, 2022 6:26 pm
These diminishing returns already exist. There's not much benefit to going above 90 average sail skill for pve content. There is no benefit at all for going higher than 95, and average sail is hardcapped at 99 on top of that.
Oh, just 90, is that all? lol

I'm talking about PvP. Even with the new rules of engagement, a purpose built crew gets to go around deleting any ship that doesn't have a purpose built crew, with no hope of running away, let alone putting up a fight. It's making the system inaccessible.

No one's trying to make it accessible without any investment. We're trying to get it to a point where builds that do more than one thing are allowed to participate.
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Re: Sail Skill

Post by Aog » Sat Jan 15, 2022 7:02 pm

The Rambling Midget wrote:
Sat Jan 15, 2022 6:57 pm
Distant Relation wrote:
Sat Jan 15, 2022 6:26 pm
These diminishing returns already exist. There's not much benefit to going above 90 average sail skill for pve content. There is no benefit at all for going higher than 95, and average sail is hardcapped at 99 on top of that.
Oh, just 90, is that all? lol

I'm talking about PvP. Even with the new rules of engagement, a purpose built crew gets to go around deleting any ship that doesn't have a purpose built crew, with no hope of running away, let alone putting up a fight. It's making the system inaccessible.

No one's trying to make it accessible without any investment. We're trying to get it to a point where builds that do more than one thing are allowed to participate.
The end result of this change would be that hyper PVP focused builds are ALSO extremely adept at sailing. Sounds like a way to have your cake and eat it too. It SHOULD be a non-meta investment, especially now that there's so much cool stuff out there. Totally fine as is.

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Re: Sail Skill

Post by -XXX- » Sat Jan 15, 2022 7:07 pm

Distant Relation wrote:
Sat Jan 15, 2022 6:26 pm
-XXX- wrote:
Sat Jan 15, 2022 6:02 pm
As I see it sailing is a minigame and most people treat it that way.
It really is not, not anymore.
Is it OK though? Getting a bunch of characters together to work toward a common goal is the greatest feat that any mechanic can accomplish.
Why give this up for rewarding build memes?
Distant Relation wrote:
Sat Jan 15, 2022 6:26 pm
Having to build to excel at something is a core concept. There are people who will make sacrifices to become better sailors. Those people are now specialists you should recruit and contract to your faction.
I'm saying that there is a subset of classes that natively excel at this. Why'd anyone ruin their build with a niche set of feats when they can achieve the same results by rolling up a WIS based toon or a bard or what have you?

Which brings me closer to the second point - the sail skill has been enabled as a class skill for all classes during the skill overhaul. This would hint at sailing being intended for everyone and allowing for any toon regardless of build to become a sailor, which is misleading as some classes are able to surpass and outclass other builds by a margin that makes them uncontested in naval combat.
Distant Relation wrote:
Sat Jan 15, 2022 6:26 pm
You are essentially saying 'I want to be able to have my cake and eat it too' by being able to 'dominate the sailing minigame' with the standard hyper optimized discord 3.0 pvp builds. Instead of playing the game, you want to change the rules of the game to fit you.

If players 'just won't bother with' spending two feats, then they should, RIGHTFULLY, be behind in the content that uses that skill. What next? Remove ESF Appraise because people who use it get more money out of selling things?
I believe that the "I want to have my cake and eat it too" sentiment is not so unreasonable given the volume of content that hides behind sailing. It should be OK for crews to form organically and at least be able to participate without the need for heavy build optimization.

I'm not saying that I want to be able to dominate the minigame with no investment. (Btw. 33 ranks in sail is already an investment).
I'm saying that the nobody should be able to dominate - the ability of cliques with meme builds to gatekeep the sailing content from everyone else should be mitigated/moderated.
Last edited by -XXX- on Sat Jan 15, 2022 7:11 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Sail Skill

Post by Aog » Sat Jan 15, 2022 7:10 pm

By 'cliques with meme builds' do you mean... crews? With.. with high sailing investment? I simply cannot understand this take.

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Re: Sail Skill

Post by -XXX- » Sat Jan 15, 2022 7:21 pm

Yes, that's precisely what I mean. It's not meant to be an attack or criticism aimed at anyone who's currently doing this, btw. There's nothing wrong with mechanical optimization and I do not believe that anyone who's doing it is doing anything wrong.

That being said:
Most builds aim to achieve optimization in getting multiple attributes/stats/skills to a "good enough" value for the meta. Meme builds sacrifice other aspects of the character just to demonstrate what values can be achieved by going all in on one aspect of the character.
ATM it seems that only sail and open lock actively reward this niche form of building by introducing an "I get to win at my game always anytime no matter what" kind of dynamic.

My initial premise also outlined how WIS based characters get to meme on sailing without any mechanical sacrifice.
Last edited by -XXX- on Sat Jan 15, 2022 7:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Sail Skill

Post by Aog » Sat Jan 15, 2022 7:24 pm

I respectfully disagree. I think with something as niche as sailing, in order to have a leg up, it's perfectly reasonable to expect you to invest in something off meta, and as illustrated earlier in this thread, is honestly not even particularly hard to do on a non-wis char.

I find the insinuation that those who have invested in sailing are playing 'meme builds' somewhat insulting, as well.

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Re: Sail Skill

Post by Distant Relation » Sat Jan 15, 2022 7:26 pm

-XXX- wrote:
Sat Jan 15, 2022 7:21 pm
Yes, that's precisely what I mean. It's not meant to be an attack or criticism aimed at anyone who's currently doing this, btw. There's nothing wrong with mechanical optimization and I do not believe that anyone who's doing it is doing anything wrong.

That being said:
Most builds aim to achieve optimization in getting multiple attributes/stats/skills to a "good enough" value for the meta. Meme builds sacrifice other aspects just to demonstrate what values can be achieved by going all in on one aspect of the character.
ATM it seems that only sail and open lock actively reward this niche form of building.
Repeatedly calling sail investment a 'meme build' is the whole problem here.

Is building for high Discipline a meme build?
Is building for 80 Lore a meme build?

Why are meme builds only those that don't correspond to the established land pvp meta? Do you -have- to win at every form of pvp to be a real, non-meme character? Who the hell decides what a meme build is? The Discord 3.0 hivemind?

More to the point:

If taking Sail feats is a step too far.
If getting your crew to equip sail gear is a step too far.
If recruiting sailors into your group (you know, that part you were saying about people working together) is a step too far.

How many steps back until you're basically being served breakfast in bed?

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Re: Sail Skill

Post by Lewtzy » Sat Jan 15, 2022 7:27 pm

The sentiment I am feeling here is somewhat relatable.

If you want to have a chance to not get knocked down. you should take ESF disc. and 33 points in discipline and +2 on all gear.
If you want to be able to use disguise effectively you should go deep into bluff/perform and take all the feats. Preferably even play a charisma based character.
If you want to "Enter activity" you need to "enter specifications in regards to skill and feat needs".
-XXX- wrote:
Sat Jan 15, 2022 7:07 pm
I'm not saying that I want to be able to dominate the minigame with no investment. (Btw. 33 ranks in sail is already an investment).
I'm saying that the nobody should be able to dominate - the ability of cliques with meme builds to gatekeep the sailing content from everyone else should be mitigated/moderated.
If 33 ranks into sailing is an investment for someone who wants to be a sailor. I'm sorry. But even RP-wise. You cannot expect a landlubber to suddenly be great at sailing without putting the time and effort (read: learned skill) into it.

As Distant Relation already stated. The sail skill is quite accessible obtained by taking some feats and skillpoints.
I do understand that if your character was built before it considered to go sailing that you might feel locked out of content.
RP-wise though. Why would your character suddenly be amazing at something they've never done?

They can always rent a crew to sail with to show them the content. Leads to more RP for all.

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Re: Sail Skill

Post by Yvesza » Sat Jan 15, 2022 7:29 pm

Honestly the only issue I see with sailing is that bards are mandatory, you can easily push enough skill with just 33 points, a bard and gear to low to mid 70's sailing skill and that'll let you do most content. You can even punch above your weight class by bringing materials and carpenters to repair.
I'm not really sure I understand the sentiment that highly specialized sailors shouldn't be dominating the seas though, when someone doesn't invest into ESF: Discipline they're either a strength build (Or a Wisdom build in this case) or they're just willing to accept that sometimes they'll die to a knockdown and they're fine with it. In this case you don't invest into ESF: Sail and sometimes you're just going to get sunk.

I don't really think it's all too much different here? There's not a hard bar for entry when sailing with the exception of absolutely needing to check off the bard box, so long as you invest 33 points and wear the outfit you're absolutely viable for the content.

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Re: Sail Skill

Post by The Rambling Midget » Sat Jan 15, 2022 7:31 pm

The trouble with sail PvP, right now, is that you can build for it, to the exclusion of absolutely everything else. You don't need AB or AC or skills of any other sort. You just go over to the navigator and say "no boarding plz", and sail takes care of it. Then you head out onto the water, find everything that's not you, and blow it up without any risk, because your maxed skill makes you unbeatable, and the rules of engagement allow you to go for the aquatic killbash after a warning shot and a flag change, neither of which require interaction from your opponent.

It's busted. There needs to be a chance for others to at least get away, if not fight back. There isn't.
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Re: Sail Skill

Post by Aog » Sat Jan 15, 2022 7:35 pm

The Rambling Midget wrote:
Sat Jan 15, 2022 7:31 pm
The trouble with sail PvP, right now, is that you can build for it, to the exclusion of absolutely everything else. You don't need AB or AC or skills of any other sort. You just go over to the navigator and say "no boarding plz", and sail takes care of it. Then you head out onto the water, find everything that's not you, and blow it up without any risk, because your maxed skill makes you unbeatable, and the rules of engagement allow you to go for the aquatic killbash after a warning shot and a flag change, neither of which require interaction from your opponent.

It's busted. There needs to be a chance for others to at least get away, if not fight back. There isn't.
How is this trouble? Sail makes you superior at sailing. Why is this suddenly shocking?

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Re: Sail Skill

Post by Thomicus » Sat Jan 15, 2022 7:35 pm

Most builds aim to achieve optimization in getting multiple attributes/stats/skills to a "good enough" value for the meta. Meme builds sacrifice other aspects of the character just to demonstrate what values can be achieved by going all in on one aspect of the character.
This is simply min/maxing and we all (broad generalization) do it. Most rogues or SD's hide gets into the hundreds but nobody says anything about that being too hard to hit or metabreaking even though it easily allows them to do more than others.
Having a high skill investment is part of the server for some mechanical options (Hitting 70+ discipline on a martial, 60 OL to get all PvE locks, 99 sail, 112 max hide easily, etc.). Essentially what I'm saying is this refers to all builds as meme builds.
niche form of building
Additionally, niche building is the backbone of the server (and any mmo with customization for that matter). We have, sailors, lockpickers, mage-killers, glass cannons, tanks, trappers, sneaks, etc..

TL;DR: While fulfilling a niche is important and creates more rp, just because you do not have 99 sail, does not mean you can't sail. And just cause you have -1 or -2 WIS mod, doesn't mean you can't hit 95+ sail with a small investment (if that's what you choose for the character).
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Re: Sail Skill

Post by FallenDabus » Sat Jan 15, 2022 7:39 pm

I've been long been a proponent of a diminishing return element to the way sail skills is handled. That once there is a difference of more than 20 - 25 sail between two crews, the benefits begin to taper off significantly.

Meaning mechanically there would not be as much difference between a 40 sail and 95 sail crew, and between a 60 and 95 sail crew. The "flavour assumption" being you outmaneuvered and gained as much as an advantage as you can have at a certain point. We already have this in effect in terms of crit-range gained by sail advantage, but IMO it should also happen to ab and ac gain.

In regard to the other things, and general balance issues aside (like the combat hide issue), I feel the better approach is to ask how to be more inclusive of other classes being able to contribute in interesting and rewarding ways when sailing.

For instance:
  • I love the idea that flying animal companions (druid & ranger) and familiars (hexblade and sorc/wizard) could be used to scout neighbouring quadrants. Or to deliver messages to ships a quadrant away.

    I love the idea that tribesman barbarian or shaman would give their two henchmen half their sail skill (capped at something like 35-40).

    I love the idea of a ritual circle on a ship that allows a spell to be cast through it at other ships (or your own ship) every 6 rounds. Giving casters meaningful ways to contribute in a variety of ways, and making it inclusive of non-sailing point characters.

    I love the idea of a high-level spell that summons a ghostly siren that sings a level 18 bard song.
Those I feel would be rewarding additions.

As for the other stuff, I do not see a difference between a sailing character optimized for ship PvE / PvP and a non-sailing character optimized for landbound PvE / PvP. But then again, I do not consider sailing a side activity / mini-game like fishing, but an incredible expansion to what the server has to offer.
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Re: Sail Skill

Post by Eyeliner » Sat Jan 15, 2022 7:49 pm

The investment of skill points, feats and gear is appropriate.

Maybe wisdom shouldn’t be necessary. Maybe it could be a skill check that doesn’t take any attribute into account.

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Re: Sail Skill

Post by -XXX- » Sat Jan 15, 2022 7:49 pm

The Rambling Midget wrote:
Sat Jan 15, 2022 7:31 pm
The trouble with sail PvP, right now, is that you can build for it, to the exclusion of absolutely everything else.
But you don't and therein lies my main issue - most build requirements for max Sail stat can be supplanted by simply playing a WIS based character.
Currently the difference between a sea dog and a land lobber is that both have taken 33 sail, but one of them prays a lot.

Both maxed WIS and/or sail skill foci give enoug bonus to kill variance during naval engagements. So yes, I'd even go as far as to say that ESF might not be good for the sailing dynamic either.


Btw. me calling skewed builds meme was not meant to be derogatory, so let's not get needlessly defensive. Especially since the idea here is that building for sailing isn't really a thing because one can achieve the same results by playing a WIS build.

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Re: Sail Skill

Post by The Rambling Midget » Sat Jan 15, 2022 7:54 pm

Aog wrote:
Sat Jan 15, 2022 7:35 pm
How is this trouble? Sail makes you superior at sailing. Why is this suddenly shocking?
It's not shocking.

It's bad.

It encourages the creation of single purpose builds that dominate entirely in their field, because they're free to completely ignore all other aspects of the game. This is a problem, because players are already using this to easily and actively exclude others from the content through PvP. That's why the RoE were changed, although not enough to make any difference or require interaction, as land based PvP would. Yes, the victims could then engineer their own sail clique teams to counter it, but they shouldn't have to.
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Re: Sail Skill

Post by Thomicus » Sat Jan 15, 2022 8:07 pm

All I am saying is that it is not hard to hit 99 sail. And people who do simply...plan to be sailors or pirates
Check this (basically what my character has):
8 Base WIS (-1 to sail)
33 ranks (32)
+12 WIS gear when in sea combat (38)
+22 from all +2 gear (60)
+3 SF: Sail (63)
+10 ESF: Sail (73)
+20 Good Hope from another person and bardsong from another person in crew (93)
And there are some +5 Sail items (rings I believe so another +6 over reg +2 gear with both) while rare, would bring me to 95+

As a full martial character, 8 base wisdom, I hit the "requirement"

Also,
It encourages the creation of single purpose builds
Show me a single purpose sailing build (Clerics with healing and summons, battlebards, fighter/rogue magekiller in my case)
although not enough to make any difference or require interaction,
There are warning shots and you can /s (shout) to people in the same zone as you (if you can engage, you're in the same zone). If you are being no-rp-pvped at sea, that is a separate issue you should take up with the DMs.

Essentially, what I'm saying is that the mechanic requires building to be good at, like every other niche. If you don't like it, don't sail
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Re: Sail Skill

Post by ProgENItorZ » Sat Jan 15, 2022 8:19 pm

So... My take here is something like this... Builds that are built to specialize in one thing and one thing only dominates thus it's bad. Why is that any different than an RDD build with Bonkers STR and ESF:Disc being practically immune to knockdown?

Gatekeeping content due to PvP? It is like a lvl 20 surfacer going into the UD and meeting lvl 30 Underdarkers. You can submit, or you can resist. You may or may not end up getting killbashed. I say lvl 20 vs lvl 30, because that is all I can think of when you do not take in that meme of a feat called ESF:Sail if you are not a wisdom build.

A clique of sailors? What about a clique of paladins specialized in smiting evil? A clique of commoners hoggin the market with cheap mass produced equipments?

I know some are afraid because they are entering a new realm they are not used to and are met with aliens that are already accustomed and adept in the new environment, but relevels and remakes are available to everyone. Try it, some folks are just saltier than the sea itself sometimes.

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