Sailing - Is it viable anymore?

[Cthuletta]

Hello! So this is probably gonna be a long one, of which I apologize for assaulting your eyeballs.
There's been discussion surrounding sailing, it's mechanics, if it's 'viable' anymore, or even fun anymore. I have a few thoughts on this as someone who played a Captain of a Navy faction about a year and a half ago, and as someone running a Navy in current day. The difference is really quite apparent, as I imagine anyone else who'd played sailing characters could also attest to, but for different reasons. I'm interested in knowing those opinions as well as stating my own, and to open up a discussion about it.
I'd like the topic to not be derailed from sailing that much, if possible. There's a couple things in particular that are related to other things in a way, and risk being moved from their relation to sailing specifically, so staying on topic is preferred.

Sail Skill Average vs. Content
So the sail skill mechanic is taking the ship crew requirement, adding them all together and down into an average. To do this effectively, the best method is having a small rental ship, and going out with a couple friends. If you're all invested, and especially if you have a bard, you'll see tiny rentals out on the Edgewaters destroying Undead Galleons. Because you have so few people, and the requirement is low, your average is through the roof, allowing for 'end-game' sailing content with relative ease.
However, if you are in a sailing faction, with a bigger ship, that requires more people? That average isn't as reliable.
Not everyone wants to invest into max sail skill, it IS something that you end up sacrificing something else for, whether that be feats, another skill, or even gear slots. But plenty of folks like the idea of sailing as it is. This is how you end up with Flagships and Factions with a far lower average skill, relegated to the inner/outer circles. Sure, you have more people... but that means more variety in builds. You want to be the best, you make it mandatory for those in your faction to heavily invest into sailing builds. Otherwise, you can kiss those Edgewaters and their NPC ships goodbye. I feel that's a little too exclusive, for my personal liking.

Ship Crew Requirements
To my knowledge, aside from a rental, most bigger ships require 4-6 people in order to get the full average of a sail skill. On paper, this isn't that big of a number, especially when you're in a faction of sailors. That said, I believe in the past it took into account EVERYONE on the ship. This includes folks with 0 sail skill, plummeting the average of a crew full of sailors, which... wasn't ideal. But now we have a bit of a different problem- there will be sailors on the deck who are perhaps 1 or 2 skill points below the top 6, who are effectively not contributing at all when it comes to the average of the ship. You're not even sure who those 6 are, either! Not without some OOC coordination and talks, that is.
I've heard a couple ideas about this one, one being to only take into account the single top sailor's skills and apply that as the average (realistically a Captain but probably not always), or lowering the cap of the average, and having anyone with hard ranks in the sail skill be applied to it, or having a time-based skill that builds, like bartending, or even a combination of the these ideas.
With any of them, the 'Crew Requirement' would be removed. If there's only three sailors, but they're all 90+ Sail Skill, why not be able to take out a Flagship/Brig/Galley that currently has a requirement of 4-6? It seems strangely arbitrary.

Solo Sailing > Group Sailing
If you want the biggest bang for your buck, the only route to go is 'solo sailing'. It's a sad fact, and I've seen people leave factions in every sailing settlement to pursue going at it on their own. Rentals take less crew, like I mentioned above, and then the doorway is open for those big ships. Because you're either on your own, or with such a small group (say 2-3 people total), those big ships and all their loot is yours for the taking. This is sellable loot, map pieces, gems, treasure chests from all those map pieces that you've no obligation to share because you did the work on your own.
Given the loot from sailing has been nerfed a few times to my knowledge, as well as how much some of them go for, sailing in a group is simply not profitable for the time invested. A couple years ago, a full crew of 8-10 people could go out for several hours, reliably find a bunch of loot, come back, and get 50k a piece for the work. These days, you're lucky to get 15-20k a person, and that is with dedicated searchers and appraisers. This isn't even counting the treasure chests. And may the Lord help you if there's a server crash while on the ship with a barrel full of booty, that is probably the most demoralizing thing that can happen to a crew. Someone a while back suggested upping the amount of gold you get from sinking the ships, that you 'Sell Treasure' to a dockmaster, as it's stored reliably and not lost in a crash. I thought it was a good idea then, and I still love that idea now.
All that is to say, however, that sailing is no longer inclusive and inviting to do as group content. One could argue that it should be the RP all together that brings folks in, and while I agree, everyone wants something for their time investment. Especially in such close quarters where a lot of the time, you're just standing there talking/waiting. However, I have an idea in the next point that might actually alleviate this.

Ship NPC RNG
While we all seem to pray to RNGesus for various reasons, I'm starting to wonder if the RNG of ship encounters has gotten nerfed at some point and I missed it? More often than not, you'll be out on the sea for a couple hours, and only see a couple ships. This leads to that whole 'Not worth the time investment' thing, in my opinion.
If you're Andunorian or Sencliff, however, your prospects double. The Cordorian ships, the Waterdhavian Ships, Amnian Galleons, Merchant Vessels, Cargo Ships, the ocean is your oyster for plunder! Probably was my favourite aspect, when I was playing an Andunorian Captain, was that even on those slow RNG times, you could fire at literally ANYTHING you came across without worry.
Now take surface settlements. Unless you are... particularly shady, it's not really seen as acceptable to fire on other Surfacer ships. I've even had to work around justifying why we're shooting on a Longship when we're not sure who's on it. I can't really say, 'Well it's because there's only 5 types of NPCs we can shoot at, and the first we've seen in an hour, so we're taking this so we have SOMETHING.'
Sitting on a ship for an hour (or more) on a bad day, seeing absolutely nothing, hearing a 'DING DING', 'Cordorian Vessel spotted.' has had me facedesk my keyboard more than once. I think the RNG of the ship encounters needs to be upped CONSIDERABLY. Doing this, in my humble opinion, would really help alleviate a majority of the other problems I see, providing more opportunity, more to do, more gold to be made, which in turn makes more people want to sail and see what the hubbub is about.

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.

Ship PvP - Portal Lenses/Unable to Repair
Ship PvP was one of the highlights for me, personally. While I don't mind land PvP by any means, I feel like Ship PvP provides a more equal playing field that takes time, promotes RP, takes tactics and really KNOWING what to do in order to be successful. I find this more enjoyable, and used to really love it.
That said, there is no 'winning' anymore. You can't repair when in Ship PvP, which at times, can make the fight not worth seeing through. Being able to repair and use up your own resources should be an option, and would add another aspect to the PvP that we already see in PvE. Not to mention the rush of- 'Are we going to repair fast enough, will our supplies last, what's gonna happen, AAAAAAAA!!!'. Well, you don't stand that chance of finding out. Your ship is damaged, it's damaged. You don't have a counter for it, your only option is to sink or retreat.
So, what do you do? ... You pull out a Ship Lens, of course! After all, retreating isn't 'losing', right? There's no chase, no worries. Just a quick 'boop' and off you go to save face. In some cases I've even seen this turned into 'Haha they couldn't even beat us with X amount of members', on the side of the people who... portaled away from a fight. A minority, to be sure, but still a bit frustrating.
This is entirely personal opinion, but I rather be sunk. Ship lenses are pretty cool, and they came in handy during a DM event even, but overall it feels like Ship PvP is just a game of cat and mouse. Nobody really gets the benefit of a 'win', and with ship lenses existing, even if you do take the L and sink for the benefit of RP as a whole, you'll get those folks who say 'Why didn't you just lens away?' and get upset. I'd say keeping Ship Lenses, but not being able to use them in Ship PvP (similar to not using Portal Lenses when actively engaged in combat), is a better route. Again, definitely personal opinion here, but I think losing sometimes is quite healthy and promotes RP more than constantly dodging each other does.

Conclusion
Sailing is no longer viable, in my opinion. Not as a larger group/faction, that is. Sailing in general should be a fun way for people to work together and get some goodies at the end, but as it stands, more often than not, it's quite the boring time sink for little return. Standing around in a larger group (because it's required), having people sacrifice other portions of their build (because you NEED that average), just talking because the waters are empty (because the RNG is too low), and not getting anything out of it (because loot/selling was nerfed), doesn't make for a fun group experience as a whole. I rather sail with others than by myself, it's just not conducive anymore, and leading a Navy lately has got me feeling like Regina George is up in my face telling me 'It's not going to happen.'

What're your ideas? How would you solve issues that you find present in the current sailing system, or is it fine as it is?

[Rei_Jin]

Hey Juniper!

Sailing is… a big complex thing.

I think it’s definitely viable still, but I can see how as a Surface player, it’s less viable for you than it is for me as an Underdark player. Those Cordorian ships are great loot, after all.

—-
Sailing Averages and crew requirements.
—-
The ship’s crew score has always averaged over the top X number of crew’s sail scores. There’s definitely an advantage in PvE to being on a smaller crewed ship though, in terms of it being easier to get that high sail score. You of course pay for that with higher repair costs, as combat takes twice as long, so you get hit twice as much on a ship with less HP.

There has been talk of reducing all ship’s required crew by 1, which would help a lot. Not sure if that’ll be implemented or not, and if so, when.

———
Solo sailing vs crew sailing
———
I think this is more of that above issue. Smaller ships have a definite advantage in PvE at the moment. The bigger ships are definitely advantaged in PvP.
Not a lot to do about it.

———
Sailing RNG and content
———
It may seem cheesy, but I’d like to see mechanics adjusted so that if you’re sailing on a main island surface ship, you don’t see Cordorian ships, you see Andunorian ships. Maybe you see the odd Cordorian ship, or Guldorand ship, but you can trade with them or maybe help them out (like a random encounter we get on land where a traveller is being attacked by giants or w/e). Have the inverse for Andunorian ships. Sencliff ships might get everything, and choose which way to align.
Same with the Amnian and Waterdhavian ships… maybe for main island surfacers they’re Gracklstugh Ironsides or Skullport Frigates.
All the ships are procedurally generated, so it should in theory be possible to do.

———
Barnacles
———
Yes, these are an issue, but honestly not that big of an issue. Make a note in your calendar, sail every 3-4 days, and you’re fine.

———
Ship lenses and repairs in PvP
———
Considering how laborious ship lenses are to get, I don’t see an issue with folks using them in PvP.
Repairs in PvP, I can absolutely see why we can’t do it, but I’d be open to it if (a) there was a repair station from which repairs could be done, and only from there, meaning only one person could repair at a time… and once you’re in PvP, you cannot change out who is repairing, and (b) repairing used crafting points.

[TheDoctor]

If there's only three sailors, but they're all 90+ Sail Skill, why not be able to take out a Flagship/Brig/Galley that currently has a requirement of 4-6? It seems strangely arbitrary.

Well think about it like this...
The same 3 people who can sail this with ease....

Cant sail this....

Solo Sailing > Group Sailing
If you want the biggest bang for your buck, the only route to go is 'solo sailing'.

I guess my buck and your buck are worth different things. If all you care about is coin then okay, maybe... I personally like everything else that sailing has to offer including but not limited to rp'ing with the crew.

[Aeryeris]

The big issue is that sailing is fun as a one off, or every-so-often activity to most people. However, the bigger ships require regular (multiple times per week) voyages to maintain a faction able to sail them at all. This takes a lot from the organisers who are often made responsible through RP to maintain those crews and the ship, or be IC viewed as incompetent.

This is so straining that I found my time as sailing faction leader more strenuous than my year as settlement leader.

The believe the big factors that make it particularly straining are:

• The expectation of high level sailing.
  • Edge water requires a crew average sail of about 80 at minimum
  • Smaller ships perform nearly as well as larger ships in edge water, making larger ships the inferior choice
  • Sailing closer to home earns the crew little. This is fun as a once off, but building a faction around an activity where half the crew is not involved in any of the systems, gets no meaningful reward, and feels like they have to show up to enable others to sail is very tough.
• People without close to 100 sail feel like they do not contribute (and in effect often indeed don't contribute) mechanically.
• In the past sailing was largely reward driven. The loot from treasure chests was exciting enough to keep people going. The excitement of this loot has diminished with how common it has become.
• 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.
• Sailing PvP almost never leads to an interesting resolution. Boarding is very hard to do, sinking ships in PvP is very hard to do. Most engagements involve some yells and some exchange of fire, and then people disengage and that's the end of it.

These are the reasons that I personally have no desire to ever run a sailing faction again. It is not fun and extremely strenuous to me.

[Waldo52]

There is an easy solution to the sailing skill investment problem that is narratively and rules-wise pretty straightforward.

Ships, based on size, could be able to remove X number of characters with the lowest skill from the sail average calculation representing the ability of sailors to take non sailors on board, so long as a minimum crew is present.

For example, a tiny vessel can disregard the one person with the lowest sail skill and a massive ship the lowest three.

Rationale: The HMS beagle did not suddenly run into problems with choppy seas just because Charles Darwin got on board. Airforce One does not suddenly fly worse because the president and first lady with no flight skills get on board.

Transport missions are real, and we should be able to ferry guests around without shooting ourselves in the feet. There has to be some meritocracy, and we can't just remove all gatekeeping from boat role play. But we also need to facilitate more interactions between sailors and non sailors who at times seem to be playing two different games.

[AstralUniverse]

Not much of a sailing expert here by any means but I've read the OP with interest and I'm left wondering why 'ship lenses' (is that really what it's called in game??) are even a thing.

[-XXX-]

Sailing skill:
Bigger ships make up for the average sail skill loss with raw stats. A flagship crewed by avg 80 sail crew (that's 33 sail ranks + basic sailing gear and a bard) can beat a 100 sail crew galleon.

Solo sailing:
While I don't dispute that this exists, IMO it's not a concern because soloing edgewater PvE content on a small ship can be a rather time-consuming and resource micromanagement intensive excercise when compared to the alternatives (like running circles around Zamishar's Woe or simply clearing other runic dungeons).

Ship PvP:
I'm strongly against any form of ship repairs during PvP

• even now certain crews just won't sail without a bard on board, this would also add a carpenter requirement on top of that
• there's plenty of ways to break off ship engagements. Adding a strong attrition element to naval battles would only excerbate the issue of ships rarely getting sunk

Could agree on ship lenses though - sure, they aren't easy to get but almost every crew that sails regularly has a couple and the way these play into ship skirmishes can be quite anticlimactic and generally unexciting.

[Biolab00]

Having managed and lead few sailing crews, i'll agree that surface sailing is handicapped by their inability to fire at -all- kind of ships.
While my opinion may not matters, I do propose that the outerwater, fourth quadrant from main isle to have ship npc encounter to only those pirates/slavers/nelanther ships.

My rationale behind this is because taking the ship out to sail on the fourth quadrant will commit the ship to interesting ship pvp encounter for surface sailors against pirates/underdark faction and that with bigger risk, comes bigger rewards.
Additionally, it is often quite true that the Sea further from the main isle are always infested by pirates and more dangerous.
As for edgewater sailing, there's no need for changes because Amnian/Wateredhavien ships actually belongs to outer territory that is not within the boundary of Arelith hence, it is justified that they're at edgewater.
Although i'll propose that perhaps the edgewater quadrants can be split into Amnian/Wateredhavien/Undead Galleons and Nelanther Warships/Scarlet Corsair/Undead Galleon (Yes, Scarlets) equally or randomly across the entire edgewater.

In a nutshell
Local water - Pirate/Merchant ( Unchanged )
Merchant water - Unchanged
Innerwater - Shift down Privateer and remove with Nelanther vessel
Outerwater - Slaver Ships replaced Privateer and remove Cordorian vessel from Outerwater(It actually does not make sense for Cordorian ship to be so far away from Arelith since the patrol boundary should be within 2 quadrants(logically, at least imho)
Edgewater - as i suggested above.

With that, perhaps Nelanther and Slaver ships can have their difficulty and loots adjusted accordingly and Privateers as well accordingly to their difficulty or actually, not even required.

[helitron]

I strongly think that sailing is very viable - however, this depends on the faction/settlement you sail with. As the OP pointed out, something needs to change to make this more viable/attractive for the surface settlement flagships. A few notes to some of the points raised:

1) Sail Skill Average vs. Content/Ship Crew Requirements:

• I think that sail skill calculations and ship crew requirements are in a good spot right now. The better the ship is in battle (more hull HP and weapon slots) the more sailors you will need.
• I agree that it is odd to see small rental ships sinking edgewater galleons - maybe it would be good to look into that a bit: For example, one change could require to have at least 3 weapon slots on a ship to be able to attack these NPC galleons (requiring 4-6 man ships); or at least T4 ammo to penetrate their hulls. Alternatively, increase their sailing DC by 2.

2) Ship NPC RNG

• This is the biggest setback for settlement flagships, and there were already a few good suggestions in this thread. I believe changing this to increase spawn rates of ships that can be attacked by settlement flagships (AND that bring map pieces) would be a big step to increase attractiveness. Maybe add Sencliff Pirate NPC, Andunor Marauder NPC ships to the mix so that pirate and UD PC ships would also be confronted with ships they should not attack.

3) Ship PvP

• I don't think allowing repairs is a good thing - then it's again an attrition game that depends on the number of sailors with invested carpentry CPs on deck and amount of wood. If that would be changed, then the repair mechanics need to be changed allowing only one crew member to repair the ship (as suggested by Rei_Jin).
• ship lenses: I love and hate these things at the same time, but the point is obvious. Either decrease their spawn rates in chests to make them even more rare; Or maybe a better suggestion: ship lenses only work if the hull is above 75% (otherwise the ship breaks during the process). That way, a crew has to make an early decision if they want to flee or fight it out. There is no more lensing at 4% hull.

[Clerical_Error]

My biggest axe to grind with sailing is the PVP rules.

Did you know you are not required to RP at all? A ship only has to raise black, and fire a warning shot. The first shot can come literally in the same second after the warning shot. We talk about "No PVP without RP" on this server all the time, but somehow that doesn't apply to ships? It's quite odd to me and really lowered my expectations when sailing.

That said, I have seen LOTS of great ship PVP RP and I must offer kudos to those of you that do.

[Cthuletta]

I'm finding this to be a really interesting discussion so far and I enjoy what people have brought up.

Ship PvP:
I'm strongly against any form of ship repairs during PvP

• even now certain crews just won't sail without a bard on board, this would also add a carpenter requirement on top of that

This actually isn't something I considered and while you are correct- most crews have a tailor/carpenter as a requirement already unless you want to risk getting a Tempest or Shipkiller spawned on top of you that you perhaps aren't prepared for. Or if you're planning to go out and find Galleons. Though I do agree adding it as a requirement in another area may not be the best route, so that's something to think about.

While my opinion may not matters, I do propose that the outerwater, fourth quadrant from main isle to have ship npc encounter to only those pirates/slavers/nelanther ships.

———
Sailing RNG and content
———
It may seem cheesy, but I’d like to see mechanics adjusted so that if you’re sailing on a main island surface ship, you don’t see Cordorian ships, you see Andunorian ships. Maybe you see the odd Cordorian ship, or Guldorand ship, but you can trade with them or maybe help them out (like a random encounter we get on land where a traveller is being attacked by giants or w/e). Have the inverse for Andunorian ships. Sencliff ships might get everything, and choose which way to align.
Same with the Amnian and Waterdhavian ships… maybe for main island surfacers they’re Gracklstugh Ironsides or Skullport Frigates.
All the ships are procedurally generated, so it should in theory be possible to do.

Both of these ideas in terms of the ship encounter RNG are really good, I'd love to see something like this implemented myself! Personally I think the RNG of sailing (especially as a surfacer but I know Sencliff/Andunor faces this issue as well) being increased or changed like you two propose would alleviate a lot of the other issues or make them seem less significant. A combination of both your ideas would be really cool to see.

My biggest axe to grind with sailing is the PVP rules.

Did you know you are not required to RP at all? A ship only has to raise black, and fire a warning shot. The first shot can come literally in the same second after the warning shot. We talk about "No PVP without RP" on this server all the time, but somehow that doesn't apply to ships? It's quite odd to me and really lowered my expectations when sailing.

That said, I have seen LOTS of great ship PVP RP and I must offer kudos to those of you that do.

If I'm correct, you have to choose two of four methods before you can outright attack another ship. That's either raising a flag indicating you're gonna attack, a warning shot, yelling in the same quadrant so they can hear, or sending the other ship a message via parrot/wisp/illusion using the '-project_image dialog' command.
This can sometimes be a little difficult with timing, I personally try to give at least a minute or two for the other crew to respond to whatever methods are used, but there are also ships that are well hidden at night (Andunorian ships) and that pretty effectively makes at least the flag option non-viable for them. Being in the same quadrant and able to shout at somebody can also take a while since the bigger the ship, the further you can see out. It's a bit frustrating at times when you WANT to give ample warning and RP the only way we can, but it's so limited, I'd like to see that looked at as well.

Really good suggestions and comments from everyone! Thank you! ^^

[Biolab00]

A correction to above post.
Even if your ship is hidden from sight, flag raised can still be seen via the command chat.
Although you will still not be able to spot the ship despite that.

Usually, the reason behind firing after the warning shot immediately (probably, 12 seconds later) is to lower opposing ship's hull so that the speed of the ship will be lowered.
Effectively, if the ship hull is extremely damaged, their movement speed is only slightly better than furled despite being on full sails.
It really depends on the person commanding the ship on what they want to proceed from there.

During the time while the ship is firing, the enemy ship should send a Wisp or illusion to the opposing ship to ask them to follow their demand and/or the motive.
There's more than ample time to do that while the ship is firing.
After all, It takes several minutes to sink a ship, no matter how low their sails are.

It really depends on your personal experience.

[MRFTW]

Usually, the reason behind firing after the warning shot immediately (probably, 12 seconds later) is to lower opposing ship's hull so that the speed of the ship will be lowered.

This reminds me of when people throw something at your face, and then yell "Catch!" a split-second before it hits.

[Biolab00]

Unfortunately, that was usually the case of both inexperienced and experienced player.

Inexperienced player usually gets hot headed quite fast as Ship PVP isn't truly that common.

Experienced player will usually use their spyglass to gauge the movement of opposing ship and if they realise that should nothing be done to slow down the opposing ship, the time will not be sufficient for them to catch up ( perhaps they are within 1 quadrant of Arelith )

Tbh, rented ship are common property so, i'll really discourage against sinking them just for the sake of sinking it.
Even forcing them to lens off (because they are afraid of being sunk/boarded) and leave the ship on the sea to idle, is better than sinking them without anyone on board.

[Rei_Jin]

Unfortunately, that was usually the case of both inexperienced and experienced player.

Inexperienced player usually gets hot headed quite fast as Ship PVP isn't truly that common.

Experienced player will usually use their spyglass to gauge the movement of opposing ship and if they realise that should nothing be done to slow down the opposing ship, the time will not be sufficient for them to catch up ( perhaps they are within 1 quadrant of Arelith )

Tbh, rented ship are common property so, i'll really discourage against sinking them just for the sake of sinking it.
Even forcing them to lens off (because they are afraid of being sunk/boarded) and leave the ship on the sea to idle, is better than sinking them without anyone on board.

There are two important things here.

1. Sinking a rental usually means it is not available until server reset. Rentals sunk that are based at Sencliff or Treadstone can usually be repaired and sailed, although they look like they're sunk (and they cannot always be repaired, I'm still not sure which way is the glitch on that). Therefore, I try to not sink rentals, as it disadvantages everyone who uses that port.
2. When firing on a PC ship, whether it is a rental or an "owned" ship, there is no "crippled" state. It's either sunk, or still able to sail. That means that when you are firing on it, one should try to stop BEFORE they sink it, if they want to roleplay, as you won't get a chance afterwards. This also means knowing how much damage a crit can do, just in case you ACCIDENTALLY sink a ship, which I have done!

[-XXX-]

I'm a proponent of rental sinking myself TBH.

Otherwise there's nothing stopping players from lensing out of the ship under fire, recalling it and just picking up things where they were before they ran into trouble.

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

Remove enchanting sail on to gear and rescale DCs.

Its not just investing hard skill points, its the time and resources of investing in sail gear that can discourage.

Further more if you are missing a properly invested sailing member, the amount the bring your crew's average down is less with DC being less.

example 0 + 100 / 2 = 50 vs 0 + 50 / 2 = 25. In this hypothetical example, if your 85 DC becamse a 40 DC then you would still be able to roll a 15 and succeed. (your max skill went down by 50 in said situation if we assumed in a vacuum that gear was 50 (which its not, someone else can do exact math for gear dc scaling) and lowered DC only by 45 vs a 50. Then you still have a better chance of passing DCs with your one 0 dead weight sailor.

[Flower Power]

Sailing skill:
Bigger ships make up for the average sail skill loss with raw stats. A flagship crewed by avg 80 sail crew (that's 33 sail ranks + basic sailing gear and a bard) can beat a 100 sail crew galleon.

The fact that I've near-sunk (they portal lens'd out) a crewed flagship with a cog before suggests otherwise.

The small 100-skill ship will be +4 AB and +4 AC up over the 80-skill ship; this means that the penalty for going full sails is now almost completely negated, allowing them to be a grand +7 AC up over the less skilled ship, while still having roughly the same AB (and a much lower AC they need to hit.) Add in that a lot of the much smaller ships are both prone to vanishing completely (because they have massive stealth bonuses, and can still fire on you out of stealth while you can't retaliate or repair at all) AND get additional AC bonuses, and you're looking at a situation where the larger ship is only hitting on 19-20, while the smaller ship is hitting on half of their shots on average (and critting most of the shots that hit for triple damage, which adds up FAST since light javelins shoot so rapidly, due to their sail advantage.)

The difference in ship sizes only really matters when sailing skill is equal or near equal. The difference between the 75-80 skill average you're going to get with people who just put ranks + basic gear into it and the crew with 100-skill is night and day. This is why the Sencliff flagship has lost to cogs before. This is why the Dreadnought gets sunk by brigantines.

[-XXX-]

Sailing skill:
Bigger ships make up for the average sail skill loss with raw stats. A flagship crewed by avg 80 sail crew (that's 33 sail ranks + basic sailing gear and a bard) can beat a 100 sail crew galleon.

The fact that I've near-sunk (they portal lens'd out) a crewed flagship with a cog before suggests otherwise.

I believe that I specifically mentioned the flagship vs galleon comparison.
Cogs and galleys are increasingly becoming a balance concern as their stealth bonus seems to be more often (ab)used to shoot at larger ships without getting shot back at, rather than to slip away.
i.e.: cogs/galleys = OP - Make ships reveal themselves automatically while shooting.
p.s.: Sencliff flagship losing to cogs is fake news. Sencliff has no flagship.

[ReverentBlade]

I think Sail should only really matter for the Captain, if I'm honest. Averages are way too exclusive. Just make it the character's normal physical skills for the crew.

You're still going to invest in Sail if you want to be an Important Sailing Person like a Captain or First Mate, but finding a crew won't be miserable. My own experience with the content is extremely minimal...because of the above. My characters are always too pressed on skills to take Sail and participate.

[Eyeliner]

I never understood why sail skill has to key off wisdom. Should at least be be dex based if it's higher, or just dex instead.

[Rei_Jin]

Sailing runs off wisdom, because it's about the insight of what is the correct way to respond to the situation at hand.

It's not about book learning on sailing and how to respond in different situations (int) or presence in commanding your crew (cha) primarily, although these things do count for it somewhat.

It's not about your ability to pull on a rope (str), or your skill at tying knots (dex) or your stamina to do it for an eight hour shift (con), although these things do count for it somewhat.

This is the thing. One could argue that all of the stats work for sailing, in some way, which then makes it a matter of discernment and insight (wis) as to when to do what, and when to NOT do what.

[Eyeliner]

That's romantic and fine, but you could say that about any aspect of the game (like say, melee combat).

Practically speaking wisdom classes like druids, shamans and (most) clerics aren't really sailor archetypes like swashbucklers, fighters and rogues so I'm not sure why they have such a massive advantage.

Mostly I'm arguing for flexibility-- keep wisdom, fine, but maybe dex could be used for sail too if it's higher.

[Rei_Jin]

So many of the arguments I have seen from others about why sailing should change in this way or that way, seem to have at their heart this desire for them to be able to be able to not give up anything in their build and yet also be expert sailors.

Every choice in Arelith comes with costs.

Everything you invest in, cuts off investment options elsewhere.

And whilst I would be completely okay with the system changing from what it is so that it becomes more like darts, so that those who sail more, gain more skill? That's not how it is implemented right now, and gating it behind that will discourage newer folk from taking it up. That works okay for darts, but less so for something where there is content behind sailing, and it is part of the conflict systems of the server.

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.

No-one gets to be best at everything, because otherwise no-one needs anyone else.

We need crews to take ships out of port, because otherwise no-one needs anyone else.

A big part of the foundation of Arelith is character co-operation and working together to accomplish goals.

[-XXX-]

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.