Regarding the suggestions about Sailing Encounters

[Tikin]

The matter is not new (for good reasons), and many players have made suggestions in the direction of this post :

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=43786

As I can easily imagine that our team could think « it’s up to players to decide wether their char wants to engage on a path or not, even when it comes to doing evil feats on a settlement ship », and I would probably agree …

As I (and I guess everyone) can also agree with the problem of the ship encounters …

My idea:
Why not an option on the ship, that the active crew can use to decide what kind of encounters they seek out … Like Evil, Good, Neutral, or indifferent (indifferent could be the default option always whenever the ship is empty of chars)?
That way the fun would be there for players, and they’d still have possibility to drive their char’s story as is of course desired by all.

[DM Monkey]

It's a randomised system with better chances of particular encounters in particular locations. Characters already choose whether to engage or not, and already have the choice to accept boarders even when able to avoid them. It's as simple as you encounter what you encounter and decide if you want to attack it or not. I realise the suggestion is asking for a higher chance of encountering what you want to encounter, but you can do that by sailing in those particular locations.

[Aeryeris]

All sailing locations have a mix of 'evil' and 'good' targets. For crews who do not want to engage in piracy, the number of viable targets is drastically reduced.

This was not such a problem in the past, but:

• The total number of ship encounters has been reduced with the implementation of sea creatures

• Sea creatures do not provide nearly the same level of reward as ships

• The overall rewards for sailing have been reduced (Rapier nerf, value reduction of runics from chests, mirror nerf

At this point sailing without engaging in piracy has become tedious and a poor investment of time for people looking to make gold.
The barrier to entry is significant, and putting together a crew is a lot of work. More and more people are finding the stress levels of organizing a crew, or the investment of being a useful crew member (sail, feats) no longer worth doing.

A year and a half ago we had 2 to 3 'good' non-pirate sailing crews who could consistently crew a flagship to 100 sail. Now we have 0. We have had 0 for many months. The crews that do sail struggle to get sufficient numbers to do the highest tier sailing content which further reduces the will to sail for the people who still invest.

I think saying that 'it's a choice to sail in these areas' misses the point. There is no place a 'good / non-pirate' sailing crew can go to avoid all of the targets they aren't supposed to touch. Personally I have been on sails where we were prowling around for literally irl hours without finding a single viable target. This isn't a one-off either, this is probably half of the sails I have conducted in the last 6 months.

I am sure there will always be a group of players who engage with the system for the sake of it. However, the difference of pay-off and actually having content to do between the UD/Sencliff and 'good' surfacer side is very stark.

[PowerWord Rage]

Who ever feels the sheer frustration when you sail for about 2 hours and longer as good faction and....PING
"Cordorian Vessel spotted!"
Then....."Cordorian Vessel spotted!"
and....."Cordorian Vessel spotted!"
finally...."Cordorian Vessel spotted!"

Not to mention there're landmarks and sea creatures in between.
Perhaps in the past, via theory, we all agree that it's fine to have randomised encounter and...it's fine that once awhile, you meet good faction ship and RP along...
Yet....the actual fact now is...there isn't really any public/settlement Crew. I say public/settlement, because i am aware that there're some groups that do their own sailing amongst -only- themselves. They can RP however they like, ofc.

While the rewards from gold is not exactly terrible, the stark differences between -able to sink anything- versus -able to only sink some- are rather terrible.
The only reason that i say -some- is because @ edgewater region, most good aligned faction avoid Amnian / Wateredhavien....and that only left you with Nelanther warship OR Undead Galleon if you sail at night.

To assemble a full crew of 100 sails to roam edgewater and simply PING Amnian / Wateredhavien ship for the entire voyage...at least i've only experienced that once, it was funny as much as it was horrible.
It's wordless between us but, as players, I inherently have the feeling to avoid this kind of nightmare.

And i'm not challenging DM Monkey's statement but summarising from my experience in the sailing system. "It's a randomised system with better chances of particular encounters in particular locations" but these are all RNG, both in encounters and in quadrants. Better chances of particular encounters which belongs to unknown are usually just not -there- and equates to simply -chance to encounter anything-

[Wethrinea]

The Waterdeep/Amn conflict did bring in a welcome justification for non-pirates to target settlement ships. More tension of that kind would open up the space for privateers, or dare I say, sea-based vigilantes?

[PowerWord Rage]

Unfortunately, the conflict is long over, at least in Arelith.

While we may RP otherwise, IC politics and a player's disposition towards good and evil will usually just make it so, to avoid both Amnian and Waterdhavien ships. It is common to see Player A appears, perhaps enquire a few times about why and why, stays quiet and suddenly, you're given cold shoulder. Or, someway or somehow, you've been aligned as 'shaddy' in-between.

This is not too prevalent if you're privateering but for a settlement sailor, especially when you're crewing the flagship, it's quite a serious consideration and troubling for the captain.

For example...should Tempest target Amnian ship? Or....should Leviathan target Waterdhavien ship? Or...Should Ironhelm target both Amnian and Waterdhavien ship or simply remain neutral, targeting none of them.

The impact of these encounters are especially troubling for settlement sailors when they require -more- upkeep to maintain yet, they have less choices to choose from and therefore, even lesser rewards to gain.