Does sailing interest you?

[Nurel]

I picked sail over spot because my faction owns a boat and we have no crew for it

My character was involved in seamanship before the skill was implemented (and in his prelude story) so it felt natural to max it and RP as a somewhat knowledgeable sailor.

Being able to sail was the first step of getting a crew for our ship so I maxed it after the skill rework and am now working to establish a fine crew

Granted, I was choosing between Spot and Sail, and given how Spot is in a really bad place right now (with total cover, disguise Godsaves, 10 minute timer on rolls etc), the choice was rather easy.

I find Sail quite interesting at this point, because I believe the staff will be expanding the exploration map in the future, and the skill will become even more relevant, as more sea content will become available. Like someone said IC: "We are on an island, we should all look to own a ship and know how to sail it or we are trapped here". I also believe there may be crafting-related updates to come, maybe even player constructed ships?

I am less interested in ship PVP, since it is very punishing to the loser and sets them back many days worth of grinding mats and gold.

Generally there has been much care and effort poured into sailing system by the staff, I feel there's Lots more to come when it comes to exploration map and player-owned boats.. But this is just my opinion and speculation.

[Kuma]

i'm very intimidated by the system and haven't experimented with the new systems

i was part of the crew of the first ship to sink another PC ship, though, and by GOD that was some of the most fun i've had in years

[Lexx]

Not really. Under the new or old system.

I feel it adds further gates and restrictions to content that only a smaller portion of the server got to experience as-is. And the new system further adds hoops to jump through to that end.

[Seven Sons of Sin]

I always wanted to play a sailor. I wanted to make a ship cornerstone of a character - evoking the classic space opera like Firefly or something.

The system looks incredibly dense and daunting. It makes me not want to play a sailing-based character. Tutorials seem like a great way to integrate. Or, transparent explanations of "what is good strategy" and not just the numbers-game.

[Borin Drakkmurl]

To echo Seven.

I think a system that scaled upwards, from most simple and accessible and then exponentially got more complex and expensive, would help a lot of people transition into, and experience more of, the sailing system.

A tiny version of what exists could be fun.

One man boats/canoes that could get you small distances along the shore line, with smaller events to run into.

Two person row boats / sail boats that could take you a little bit further off.

With smaller versions of all the current systems.

And move upwards from that.

Perhaps that'd make it so that it's more appealing to everyone, and entices them to try the more dense systems that, I think deservedly, go into running full on pirate crews / navy ships.

[ZeroPointEnergy]

To echo Seven.

I think a system that scaled upwards, from most simple and accessible and then exponentially got more complex and expensive, would help a lot of people transition into, and experience more of, the sailing system.

A tiny version of what exists could be fun.

One man boats/canoes that could get you small distances along the shore line, with smaller events to run into.

Two person row boats / sail boats that could take you a little bit further off.

With smaller versions of all the current systems.

And move upwards from that.

Perhaps that'd make it so that it's more appealing to everyone, and entices them to try the more dense systems that, I think deservedly, go into running full on pirate crews / navy ships.

There are actually readily accessible one man ships and three person vessels. My tutorial will be sure to mention the ships to get started with.

[Borin Drakkmurl]

...that goes to show that I haven't been playing for a good while and have no idea about what's actually what.

Thanks for letting me know!


I'll stay quiet now.

[Curve]

I’m pretty intimidated and overwhelmed by the new system, where I felt I had a firm grasp on the old one.

[Johnsmith]

I agree, the new system is too complex. I appreciate all the work the devs did on it, but it seems only their sailing characters can use it. It shut everyone else out.

[LovelyLightningWitch]

The system does not look complex to me at all.

The tutorial presented honestly makes it feel simple to me. You just set heading, sail. There's no trimming, considerations for tacking nor mention of wind direction in the tutorial.

Now, my perspective may be skewed due to my lifelong obsession with tallships, but still.

It's arguably less complex than Sea of Thieves, and that one simplified sailing quite a bit compared to older sims.

[Spriggan Bride]

Yeah but a lot of players don't play any sailing sims or strategy games. If you're coming into this as someone who just wants to RP being a sailor as a lark it's a lot to pick up. It's a new system that doesn't really build on D&D which generally is pretty simple (the mechanics at least, D&D's difficultly might be the endless lore)

I'm with the others who say it seems daunting. But I also play in off hours and unpredictably so I can't imagine being part of a crew that meets and sails regularly and that seems mandatory so I'm out of the running just based on that.

If there's an audience for it then great! I just don't see it being anything more than a side game for a niche crowd, but that's not inherently a bad thing.

[ZeroPointEnergy]

Yeah, there's no harm in admitting that it's rough for those tight on time. Fortunately, Arelith has the ability to do a dungeon and bounce and it's always there if you get lucky to find a chance to explore it.

It's not everyone's cup of tea and quite frankly if it was, there'd be absolutely no boats left at all times.

[Glowing Mushroom]

I really appreciate all of the work that has gone into the ship system but it is absolutely complicated and difficult to learn.

It desperately needs an in-game tutorial. You should not have to leave the game in order to learn it. A menu system with subjects and information within each, and subcategories if need be, would be ideal. But taking yourself out of a game to read through walls of text just to figure out what the heck you're doing is not effective game design. These things should be easy to learn, but difficult to master. Currently there are so many minute details and variables in place it really deters me from any desire to learn it.

This sounds abundantly negative but I am trying to construct it as more constructive. Ship systems are great, and there is a ton of passion being put into it. But it's going really far and it doesn't seem like it'll stop anytime soon. Players need to be able to learn this while they are playing.

[LovelyLightningWitch]

Would the learning process be made easier if there were more 1-2 man rentals so people can "Low-stress" try things out?

[Xarge VI]

People seem to be under impression that you can't sail on your own. From my experience as someone who plays a lot on those slow times that's not true. You're not sailing 'Optimally' on your own but it's still very manageable.

[BlueRadish]

I tried this with the penny rose to go to rdd. I spent an hour and never left the square where I started. When I realized this, I told navigator to go back to brogdenstein in frustration. After another hour I still wasn’t back there, just sitting in the same square. I logged out massively annoyed to have wasted all my time to play doing absolutely nothing. Two weeks later I was encouraged to try again with help from discord. The same thing happened. Two precious evenings of my small amount of free time, ruined.

Before the new system, I was able to sail to rdd or Skal or wherever. Sure, it was hugely boring and took forever to stand there for an hour on deck, and rping “are we there yet” every few minutes, but after an hour of this I did actually arrive. But now it is the same sit-on-deck boredom rping except you don’t go anywhere and it take even more time.

It worries me about what is next. Will we need to invest in Walk skill or use complex dialog options to interact with the road or run from foes? This added complexity is only fun for characters who are very committed to that kind of play. But Arelith should be for everyone.

[-XXX-]

People seem to be under impression that you can't sail on your own. From my experience as someone who plays a lot on those slow times that's not true. You're not sailing 'Optimally' on your own but it's still very manageable.

IMO people are reluctant to do this with non-rentable player-owned ships out of the fear of losing all those pricy upgrades.
It's akin to the notion of losing all that runed gear upon PvP loss - people would be avoiding PvP like plague were that the case too.

[Vespidae]

Yes, I find it enjoyable. I didn't create Chalentha with sailing in mind but I took the skill after some thought. I enjoy the RP surrounding it.

I've been able to join the crew of the Leviathan on some voyages, which has made it accessible for me. The Diving Bell is especially good fun.

I probably wouldn't buy a ship unless I was really shooting for the whole Old Captain roleplay with a future character. Which I very well might!

[fulminea]

My experience with sailing is playing alot on Sencliff.

1. I love sailing, and I do appreciate that the devs are trying to make it feel more like you are controling things and can learn a thing or two. There are tactics you can learn and apply and it has changed so much from just renting a boat and cruising about to an actual activity that requires a crew working well together.

2. Participation was no problem, there are so many nice players on sencliff who love showing you the ropes.

4. I would wish for more vessels not associated for factions. For their sake but also for my pirate's sake >:)

[ActionReplay]

...

This is interesting and makes me think that you had your sails lowered. This is something I've seen popped up a few times players thinking it takes too long to go anywhere. If anything the Ship system today is much more faster than what it used to be. But they are probably Sailing with their sails lowered which is just 5% of their max speed. This is miss from my part not having it shown IG enough (Though it is prompted every 1 minute tick).

I'll add a IG Manual with the new NWN patch coming up so we can have proper UI for it, this is a high priority. Also I agree the Ship System has seen unreasonably amount of updates and mechanic changes. This is something I am slowing down on and will instead focus on content for future updates.

[Kuma]

...

This is interesting and makes me think that you had your sails lowered. This is something I've seen popped up a few times players thinking it takes too long to go anywhere. If anything the Ship system today is much more faster than what it used to be. But they are probably Sailing with their sails lowered which is just 5% of their max speed. This is miss from my part not having it shown IG enough (Though it is prompted every 1 minute tick).

I'll add a IG Manual with the new NWN patch coming up so we can have proper UI for it, this is a high priority. Also I agree the Ship System has seen unreasonably amount of updates and mechanic changes. This is something I am slowing down on and will instead focus on content for future updates.

<3 love your work

[BlueRadish]

This is interesting and makes me think that you had your sails lowered.

Thank you for posting Action Replay. It seems what confused me is that ships of this era LOWER their sails to RELEASE them to go forward. It's only modern yachts with triangular sails that RAISE their sails to go forward. Making it clear which sail setting is for which speed at all prompts might solve the issue.

But more importantly, adding noob-friendly dialog options for the most commonly used situation (getting where you tell the nagivator to go asap with no frills) would open sailing to a large amount of the people who posted here saying they are intimidated by the system. Perhaps give us the option to pay more to have the NPC crew handle the details. If I rent a ship with an NPC crew, I shouldn't need to tell them how to set the sails (or to sail around Arelith Island to get where I told them to go) unless I know more about sailing than they do. They're pros, they know how to do this stuff better than my foolish character. That's why I'm paying them instead of the other way around.

[helitron]

After reading the posts above, I think that there are two different types of groups. One that loves and welcomes the sailing changes and one that is a bit intimidated by the complexity and necessity to invest in sail to be able to handle a ship. I would assume, the latter is the majority of players of Arelith. However, I think from time to time they would like to take a ship and explore the waters, reach certain points of interest, etc.
Maybe to make it simpler for these players to get out, I think it would be good to have more simple ships with NPC crews that handle all the details such as automatic rigging of sails, provide an adequate sail skill (e.g. 30) and don't require a certain crew size. Something similar to the Penny Rose where the PC interacts with the navigator to define directions and to head to certain locations. These ships would come without rigging, grappling cannons, no weapons slots and also the PCs sail skill would not count. Add one of these to Guldorand, Sibayad, Cordor, and maybe 1-2 more locations, then everyone who is not invested in sailing will have an alternative.