Sail skill

[msheeler]

Gear swapping is what I despise the most

Here's a friendly life hack for those who arent up to date with the new functions.

wear your combat gear > type -saveoutfit combat
next, wear whatever sail items you have at the time > type -saveoutfit sail
every time you have a new sailing item obtained, wear it > type -saveoutfit -r sail.

You do not need to have sail on the same gear as your combat gear. There are exactly 0 instances as far as I know in this game where you need to function as a sailor rolling sail checks *while* in actual 'real' nwn combat.

I think her point is that this smells a lot like a cheesy OOC solution to a mechanical problem.

"Oh look a chest, let me just ah... change my boots, and this cloak.. oh and I need that helmet and don't forget the amulet... ah, good now let me get out of this armor and hand me that shirt and pants and ... oh yeah let me ready those two short swords. Okay, now lets see what is in this chest!"

[msheeler]

You guys realize that if you go out with a crew with an average score of 10 and have enough skill to take on the dungeons you want to get to you are more than likely going to be fine as long as you don't let the waves lull you to sleep out in the tougher parts of the sea, right? Yes, you will be going slow and will get boarded a lot, yes you won't be getting masterly roll xp (do you really care about that? You just want them runics amirite?) and yes, ship vs ship pvp is going to end poorly. But you can always surrender and roleplay that last bit out, just set your flag to white.

Cool so it's okay if we tell you there is a new skill "Land Lubber" that you're going to need an average score of 10 in to be able to get off your boat and walk into the city.... oh and like a couple hours or so of slow game play with a reasonable chance some other PC group can come along and just gank you, but really that would probably be cool, right?

[msheeler]

I'd also point out that Masterly Blade Runes were like a 2 or 3 in a year for the server thing before sailing, now I see one in every fifth shop. Oh, and the ONLY way to obtain some of the new items like a endless decanter, or bottled parrot is with a good sail skill, or and extra 1,000,000 coin to give to some one that has one.

[-XXX-]

While they certainly don't help, I wouldn't say that pirate treasures are the cause of the drastic decrease in masterwork blade rune value.

Masterwork runic material (including pure zardazik) loot drops have been made much more common at the start of this year.
Furthermore, we've gotten more runic craftable weapons since then, so many melee builds do not even want a keened MD weapon anymore, because there are superior alternatives available now.

The fact that these items are collecting dust in shops everywhere just means that the shop owners have not realized that what used to be priced at 2,000,000gp over a year ago, now costs only a small fraction of that.

Decanters I couldn't care less about. The parrots are an annoying flex thing - I wish they were one use only or went away completely.

[msheeler]

Fair point, but I hear (I've never actually seen one) that these treasure map chests drop like 1-2 ingots of addy + a chance at a random sail only item + like 4-6 other items which may or may not include runic materials, runes, and other top end items.

To me that is insane. It equates to 3 or 4 epic dungeon runs on surface.

[-XXX-]

You can find map pieces in regular dungeons too and I wouldn't say that the reward is that impressive considering all the hoops that one needs to jump in order to assemble the map, find the chest and get it open. You'll likely need a full party to get it done and if you split the loot, you'll end up with less than what you would've gotten if you spent the time soloing runic dungeons instead.

For me the actual reward is that you get to do something cool, fun and unique while chasing after the treasure. The loot itself is whatever - it's extremely unlikely that somebody's opening these at a rate that would matter in the big picture.

Pirate chests containing exclusive loot drops would be my only complaint here TBH.

[AstralUniverse]

From my experience (which is admittedly not extensive on this one), these chests worth more than 1 mil on average. Every one of the chests I've ever opened had at least two items with value of more than half a mil at the time. I'd say on average, even when considering a crew of 10 characters and ship upkeep costs, it's the equivalent of solo farming Zamishar for 2+ hours. I think sailing pays, unless masterwork runes and addy prices have DRASTICALLY dropped, which they havent, except blade runes.

[The Rambling Midget]

You can find map pieces in regular dungeons too

I've found map pieces FAR more frequently in regular dungeons than while sailing, because I don't need to find 5 sail maxed buddies and a bard to get them.

[Rei_Jin]

It's so amusing watching people who don't have extensive engagement with the sailing system trash it.

Yes, map-piece chests are rewarding.

This is the return on investment for doing what is needed to take part in an entirely optional system.

I could make just as much coin, if not more, from solo running dungeons, as I do from sailing.

What I enjoy about it is the feel of it, the nature of it. It's something different and fun.

And in terms of the map-piece chests? They're very, very swingy in terms of the value.

I've had chests with nothing but vendor trash and a single adamantine ingot in them, and that's with having to have put in either HUGE numbers of hours solo grinding small ships or dungeons, or taking much higher risk ships which come with a higher chance of reward, with a crew and a ship, and the gear investment, etc, etc.

Yes, I've had some rewarding chests. They're nowhere near as common as the mediocre ones. That's RNG for you.

Sailing is like every other system in Arelith, in that it rewards those who invest their time and effort into it.

Want to be best at PvP? Build your character and equip for it, and train, and practice.
Want to be best at political RP and intrigue? Build your character and equip for it, and train, and practice.
Want to be best at sailing? You can see what I'm going to say.

And sure, a PvP built character CAN do political RP and intrigue. But they're not going to be top tier at it, due to the fact that there are some mechanical aspects that can make a real difference that they're probably lacking. Same with the inverse.

I'm sorry that one character can't do everything... actually, no, no I'm not.

Make some choices, and accept that you need others to work with to explore everything the server has to offer. Arelith has always encouraged character interaction, and sailing is no different.

[Subtext]

From my experience (which is admittedly not extensive on this one), these chests worth more than 1 mil on average. Every one of the chests I've ever opened had at least two items with value of more than half a mil at the time. I'd say on average, even when considering a crew of 10 characters and ship upkeep costs, it's the equivalent of solo farming Zamishar for 2+ hours. I think sailing pays, unless masterwork runes and addy prices have DRASTICALLY dropped, which they havent, except blade runes.

Then I would consider you having had quite a bit of luck with your chests. I've opened...a lot, at >100 search too. There certainly are amazing and valuable chests but they can be very very disappointing too. I've lost count but it's somewhere around 40-50 chests
I've had one with a MW etched rune, a sail coat, a sail cloak, a parrot cup and a mirror....but I also had one with only vendor jewelry and uncut gems with an overall value of less than 100k even including the adamantine.
Edgewaters seems to spawn noticeably less vessels as of late too so lately we often don't even manage a full map in an evening anymore.

When it comes to making money, chasing for map pieces isn't worth it even with a maxed out crew going hard on edgewaters and a 100 search lootbot. It's not the point really either. I personally find it exciting to hunt for map pieces and to get to open those chests...seeing nice rewards in there just makes it better. I like the special items from it too. Most of it isn't even terribly powerful, the only ones with a substantial benefit being the damaged mirror and the parrot cup. None of those things are utter must-haves however and I think that's great.

If you want to make money through sailing? Hunt pirates, collect the iron rapiers and sell them to the dockmaster. Bonus points if you find someone who actually invested in appraise. You'll find that it's much more reliable and profitable in the long run than the map piece hunt. You don't even need a ton of sail for that.
And when it's just about you, even that pales compared to farming certain dungeons that I will not mention here.

[LichBait]

It's so amusing watching people who don't have extensive engagement with the sailing system trash it.

Yes, map-piece chests are rewarding.

This is the return on investment for doing what is needed to take part in an entirely optional system.

I could make just as much coin, if not more, from solo running dungeons, as I do from sailing.

What I enjoy about it is the feel of it, the nature of it. It's something different and fun.

And in terms of the map-piece chests? They're very, very swingy in terms of the value.

I've had chests with nothing but vendor trash and a single adamantine ingot in them, and that's with having to have put in either HUGE numbers of hours solo grinding small ships or dungeons, or taking much higher risk ships which come with a higher chance of reward, with a crew and a ship, and the gear investment, etc, etc.

Yes, I've had some rewarding chests. They're nowhere near as common as the mediocre ones. That's RNG for you.

Sailing is like every other system in Arelith, in that it rewards those who invest their time and effort into it.

Want to be best at PvP? Build your character and equip for it, and train, and practice.
Want to be best at political RP and intrigue? Build your character and equip for it, and train, and practice.
Want to be best at sailing? You can see what I'm going to say.

And sure, a PvP built character CAN do political RP and intrigue. But they're not going to be top tier at it, due to the fact that there are some mechanical aspects that can make a real difference that they're probably lacking. Same with the inverse.

I'm sorry that one character can't do everything... actually, no, no I'm not.

Make some choices, and accept that you need others to work with to explore everything the server has to offer. Arelith has always encouraged character interaction, and sailing is no different.

A big +1 to this. When it's good it's /really/ good. It's lucrative. But when you consider that you can't solo sail. Flagships have a min crew size of 6. But there's usually like 10 people. Those splits are that many ways. AND they take literal hours of time to get up to that point. It all kind of evens out.

As for the sail skill itself, I wouldn't mind ditching the gear bloat and keeping the strictly lootable pieces and crunching the cap down 20 points. This will make skill/feat sacrifice a real thing to interact with it, without making the inventory cry over much.

[stoneheart-]

On a lark I decided to take sail on my current character. Usually I don't bother.

I'm glad that I did! Sailing is very fun. Still, when I'm playing a character that doesn't have sail, I don't feel as if I'm "missing out". It's just a different experience. Personally I don't think sailing is a "one size fits all" thing for my characters, so I don't see it as missing any content. It's like thinking of a surface character as missing out on Underdark content when.. it's just a different way of playing. Not every character is going to do everything all the time, that would take the fun out of making new characters. Try making a character with a full investment in sail and get into it. It's fun. In fact, I hope they expand the sail/sea system and add more underwater areas.

My criticism of it is that it's very punishing to bring non-sailors aboard if you don't have a bard, due to the hit to average sail score. I'd like it if bards were less mandatory. Also, I'd like it if the little neat rp treasure items (parrot cup, endless water bottle, magic paint, etc) were a little more common.

[Rei_Jin]

On a lark I decided to take sail on my current character. Usually I don't bother.

I'm glad that I did! Sailing is very fun. Still, when I'm playing a character that doesn't have sail, I don't feel as if I'm "missing out". It's just a different experience. Personally I don't think sailing is a "one size fits all" thing for my characters, so I don't see it as missing any content. It's like thinking of a surface character as missing out on Underdark content when.. it's just a different way of playing. Not every character is going to do everything all the time, that would take the fun out of making new characters. Try making a character with a full investment in sail and get into it. It's fun. In fact, I hope they expand the sail/sea system and add more underwater areas.

My criticism of it is that it's very punishing to bring non-sailors aboard if you don't have a bard, due to the hit to average sail score. I'd like it if bards were less mandatory. Also, I'd like it if the little neat rp treasure items (parrot cup, endless water bottle, magic paint, etc) were a little more common.

Glad you enjoyed the sailing.

So you know, it's not an "average" sail score. It takes the average of the top X number of folk on board, depending on how many crew the ship needs. If you have six sailors with capped sail skill on a flagship (6 crew required), then you can bring as many no sail skill folks as you wish with no penalty.

And, the neat RP treasure items are as rare as they are, so that they stay special.

[Waldo52]

I personally don't like the sailing system. I'm not going to hold back, because while I realize that for certain devs the whole naval thing is kind of a cherished pet project, I'm just not feeling it. For me the main problem is that sailing creates a caste of wannabe "badass" characters who don't do anything.

You summon zombies or have a peg for a leg or drink rum or something. You have tattoos. What are you actually doing? You're sailing in circles for MORE tattoos or adamantine ingots. You think you're rolling with the Hell's Angels but you're really a Kpop band following orders when the photographer gives you leather jackets and asks you to make a bad boy face.

Okay, so SOMETIMES incidents happen. There are occasional stories of pirates raiding actual player run vessels. I played as a pirate for over a year and heard about this very rarely. Unless things have seriously changed in the past six months when I retired my last pirate, sailing seems to be a system that drains people from the server and pulls them into a meaningless minigame.

What's worse, Sencliff is basically the only niche for significant numbers of evil surface characters. So basically non-underdark antagonists are pressured into sailing which makes them virtually invisible to the world at large because they're sailing in circles uselessly.

I have a lot of in-game friends who sail prolifically. I respect their differences in play style. But personally I detest sailing in its current state.

[Arkadia Vaskerkin]

I personally don't like the sailing system. I'm not going to hold back, because while I realize that for certain devs the whole naval thing is kind of a cherished pet project, I'm just not feeling it. For me the main problem is that sailing creates a caste of wannabe "badass" characters who don't do anything.

You summon zombies or have a peg for a leg or drink rum or something. You have tattoos. What are you actually doing? You're sailing in circles for MORE tattoos or adamantine ingots. You think you're rolling with the Hell's Angels but you're really a Kpop band following orders when the photographer gives you leather jackets and asks you to make a bad boy face.

Okay, so SOMETIMES incidents happen. There are occasional stories of pirates raiding actual player run vessels. I played as a pirate for over a year and heard about this very rarely. Unless things have seriously changed in the past six months when I retired my last pirate, sailing seems to be a system that drains people from the server and pulls them into a meaningless minigame.

What's worse, Sencliff is basically the only niche for significant numbers of evil surface characters. So basically non-underdark antagonists are pressured into sailing which makes them virtually invisible to the world at large because they're sailing in circles uselessly.

I have a lot of in-game friends who sail prolifically. I respect their differences in play style. But personally I detest sailing in its current state.

So, as someone who has been playing a Sencliff pirate for a bit I can confidently say that the experience is what you make of it. Sure, there are those that want to be the badasses that you mentioned, but there are also people playing silly pirates more akin to Our Flag Means Death instead of aspiring toward Hell's Angels. I mean sure they may summon some spooky undead or a demon from time to time, but that's the beauty of starting in a morally grey area; you play what you want.

Your criticisms don't sound like a problem with the sailing system at this point, just personal play style. I've been involved in a number of marine 'tax collecting' incidents where you board another vessel and demand payment or threaten to bring on a potential fight. Some people just want to master the sea and take all the treasure they can from it, ignoring PVP as much as possible. Some people start in Sencliff just for the level 6 boost and never choose to sail ever. Nothing is mandatory. Again...Personal Play Style.

To cap this reply about the sailing system itself:

Sure, it has flaws. But I've still been having a lot of fun with it.

The people with 100 Sail scores aren't the norm. It takes work to get there and is rewarding when playing a character that wants to foster a crew or other baby sailors. But it's not mandatory. Edgewaters and big 4-mast galleons can be done even if there isn't a single person on board with a 100 sail. You just need to get creative, bring a carpenter, and carry a ton of wood for repairs. I will admit that if you want to really shine you HAVE to have a bard on deck, but you can still do content just fine without one.

Since the sail score taken into account for the ship is the average of the top (x) people ('x' being the minimum number of crew the ship needs based on type) it's not mandatory for every person on the ship to even have a single point in sailing. Most crews like to separate those on board into 'sailors' and 'boarders' as both are needed. People with high sail scores help the ship get where it needs to go, and people who are not as good at sailing but great at fighting are then given their time to shine when enemy ships are taken or there is a PVP boarding encounter. Teamwork makes the dream work in the way sailing is currently designed.

Map chests, as Rei_jin said, are not a guarantee of anything. I just had one the other day that was not at all worth the effort it took to collect the pieces, obtain the chest, then jump through the hoops to get the chest opened: 1 adamantine ingot, some assorted random jewelry, and a single masterwork etched rune. Then you get to splitting the plunder with the rest of the crew involved and it really amounts to very little. But, you win some and you lose some. That's what makes the system fun.

If there is an issue with making a dedicated sailor to access content, there is nothing stopping someone from hiring a vessel to take them out to sea. It's the RP part of the RPG. Can't sail yourself? Offer someone a nice amount of coin and ask for a ride.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

I personally don't like the sailing system. I'm not going to hold back, because while I realize that for certain devs the whole naval thing is kind of a cherished pet project, I'm just not feeling it. For me the main problem is that sailing creates a caste of wannabe "badass" characters who don't do anything.

You summon zombies or have a peg for a leg or drink rum or something. You have tattoos. What are you actually doing? You're sailing in circles for MORE tattoos or adamantine ingots. You think you're rolling with the Hell's Angels but you're really a Kpop band following orders when the photographer gives you leather jackets and asks you to make a bad boy face.

Okay, so SOMETIMES incidents happen. There are occasional stories of pirates raiding actual player run vessels. I played as a pirate for over a year and heard about this very rarely. Unless things have seriously changed in the past six months when I retired my last pirate, sailing seems to be a system that drains people from the server and pulls them into a meaningless minigame.

What's worse, Sencliff is basically the only niche for significant numbers of evil surface characters. So basically non-underdark antagonists are pressured into sailing which makes them virtually invisible to the world at large because they're sailing in circles uselessly.

I have a lot of in-game friends who sail prolifically. I respect their differences in play style. But personally I detest sailing in its current state.

I agree with a lot of what you said here, I just don't get why you blame the sailing system and not the combination of player choices and server philosophy that are the real culprit. When nothing you do really matters beyond the time frame it takes you to do it, and sticking your neck out to do something ebol immediately results in you being involved in a circle pvp war that requires you to always be ready for a mob coming to get you, it's no surprise no one wants to stick their neck out unless they are from anundor because that at least creates the illusion of safety from the goodly mobs from above, even if technically a mob of paladins can just come down and get you anyways.

So yeah, I was often frustrated as a pirate when i would come up with an idea to do something to shake things up, and the response I got was "that would just lead to us being hunted by the radiant heart non-stop", or "the black archers non-stop", and as a result we just went back out hunting for more map pieces. But I also get why that was their response. It would be tough to deal with even if the cool thing we did lasted through a reset, having it vanish and be forgotten almost instantly does make it all seem pointless.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

You guys realize that if you go out with a crew with an average score of 10 and have enough skill to take on the dungeons you want to get to you are more than likely going to be fine as long as you don't let the waves lull you to sleep out in the tougher parts of the sea, right? Yes, you will be going slow and will get boarded a lot, yes you won't be getting masterly roll xp (do you really care about that? You just want them runics amirite?) and yes, ship vs ship pvp is going to end poorly. But you can always surrender and roleplay that last bit out, just set your flag to white.

Cool so it's okay if we tell you there is a new skill "Land Lubber" that you're going to need an average score of 10 in to be able to get off your boat and walk into the city.... oh and like a couple hours or so of slow game play with a reasonable chance some other PC group can come along and just gank you, but really that would probably be cool, right?

I'm trying to get where you are coming from here, but I'm still not seeing your point. Investing heavily in sail does mean that you are going to be weaker than a pvp powerbuild for every class save wisdom classes and swashbuckler/loremasters, and as a pirate at least you do run the risk of getting ganked "just because" every time you go on shore. So...?

[TurningLeaf]

Since the sail score taken into account for the ship is the average of the top (x) people ('x' being the minimum number of crew the ship needs based on type)

Restating my initial feedback in these terms, 'x' is too high. Any random PC with 0 sail skill should be able to competently do basic albeit necessary jobs on a ship. Instead of a lot of ships using x = top 3 sailors divided by 3, those ships should be x= top sailor, and all you need are any other 2 PC's on deck to prevent a malus. Likely some compensatory adjustment would be appropriate like making the skill give bonuses to shipboard combat rolls or perhaps enabling 1 person to count as 2 for on-deck check, or something else of that nature. Right now having multiple high sail people on the crew is overemphasized and unreasonably restrictive.

[-XXX-]

Investing heavily in sail does mean that you are going to be weaker than a pvp powerbuild for every class save wisdom classes and swashbuckler/loremasters

There aren't many builds that would be severly weakened by taking gift of sailing, 33 sail, skill focus: sail and epic skill focus: sail.
The problem here is that doing ALL that puts the character at 81 sail which is like... the bare minimum one needs to do engame PvE sailing and still very much bard dependant.

What sets the wis and swash/loremaster builds apart here is that not only they don't need a bard to reach 90+ sail, but once they get one, they become unbeatable.

Point being, regardless of how taxing the investment might seem, you can't just randomly slap the gift and skill focus feats on any build : the maximum sail score that you'll end up with is still not going to be good enough for competitive naval PvP.

[msheeler]

You guys realize that if you go out with a crew with an average score of 10 and have enough skill to take on the dungeons you want to get to you are more than likely going to be fine as long as you don't let the waves lull you to sleep out in the tougher parts of the sea, right? Yes, you will be going slow and will get boarded a lot, yes you won't be getting masterly roll xp (do you really care about that? You just want them runics amirite?) and yes, ship vs ship pvp is going to end poorly. But you can always surrender and roleplay that last bit out, just set your flag to white.

Cool so it's okay if we tell you there is a new skill "Land Lubber" that you're going to need an average score of 10 in to be able to get off your boat and walk into the city.... oh and like a couple hours or so of slow game play with a reasonable chance some other PC group can come along and just gank you, but really that would probably be cool, right?

I'm trying to get where you are coming from here, but I'm still not seeing your point. Investing heavily in sail does mean that you are going to be weaker than a pvp powerbuild for every class save wisdom classes and swashbuckler/loremasters, and as a pirate at least you do run the risk of getting ganked "just because" every time you go on shore. So...?

My point is that there is content virtually locked behind having going for a certain skill build. There are, to my knowledge, no land areas on any server that require you to have a heavy investment in one skill. Like, for example, requiring you to have a 80+ open lock, or requiring you to have an 80+ climb. Every area built has some other work around or requires only some minimal investment from one person in the party (I am thinking of a very few places where you have to have open lock of like 5 and some lockpicks) and exactly none of those requires you to watch the screen for long periods of time waiting. I am not referring to the open waters encounters and such, just the places you sail too.

[-XXX-]

I am not referring to the open waters encounters and such, just the places you sail too.

I can confirm that 60 sail is sufficient to safely sail everywhere. I've done that - solo.
With a strong party (or even a single strong build) that can repel boarding PvE encounters, you can do it even with 0 sail too - it just takes a while.

The only PvE content that is truly locked behind very high sail scores are those tier 4 galleon encounters (which are technically still runic dungeons).

[I will never sleep]

the details can be thought out. all i know is that at the question "is skill dump enough to sail?" the answers ive usually got are "no, either have gear or dont bother". this is enough to get me disinterested and im guessing that's the case with others

More or less sums up my thoughts. I don't think needing to play a glorified quarterbreaker to access content is good, either, in lieu of what other people have said.

[Eyeliner]

Why is it wisdom anyway? I get that it's poetic but you could easily argue for strength or dex to be as important for working the sails. Or even intelligence to know how to use ship instruments and map the stars.

Maybe it could be ability agnostic so no class has a leg up.

[Alyxnia]

I can confirm that 60 sail is sufficient to safely sail everywhere. I've done that - solo.
With a strong party (or even a single strong build) that can repel boarding PvE encounters, you can do it even with 0 sail too - it just takes a while.

The only PvE content that is truly locked behind very high sail scores are those tier 4 galleon encounters (which are technically still runic dungeons).

And there are no places on the surface that require you to have a soft 60 in a skill to access them. Not a single one that you're locked out of. Roughly half of the servers endgame content is locked behind sail.

[-XXX-]

[And there are no places on the surface that require you to have a soft 60 in a skill to access them. Not a single one that you're locked out of. Roughly half of the servers endgame content is locked behind sail.

Anybody can do 60 just by getting 33 hard sail ranks, but you can still sail everywhere even with 0 sail.
The only PvE content really locked behind sail are the tier 4 runic mini-dungeon NPC ship encounters.

Now, the actual problem that I see here is that the sail skill required* to defeat and board these is highter than the absolute maximum sail that generic builds can attain even with the gift, all skill focus feats and maxed out gear.
That means they'll still need the sea shanty bonus to get the sail needed, i.e. get a bard or go home - I'm SO over that by this point.

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* that's not 60 - it's 90+