Potential Suggestion on Sailing looking for player feedback

[Peacewhisper]

I don't know about the suggestions in the OP, but I do think steps to make sailing more accessible to more of the server would be nice. A couple of ideas:

1. More ships. Actual nice ships that can grapple and dive. Make at least some of them not tied to settlements so we can have independent mercenary crews. Give settlements multiple nice ships too so a whole city isn't stuck waiting on one single player to be able to sail.

2. Make the +5 sailing gear more common. I shouldn't have to drop two thirds of a million coins for an article of clothing. Come on man.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

Honestly, all of these are almost the repeat of this topic viewtopic.php?t=45009
There's no meaning at all.

Well, what it is and what was intended are two different things.

I had an idea, it was rough around the edges to be kind, I hoped to get a sense if people liked it and maybe flesh it out as a group effort if they did. The fact that every topic with sail in the title winds up the same is just the result of people using every topic with sail in the name to list their own personal preferences, either by ignoring the main topic all together or saying "I dislike it, but here is my idea" which at least addresses it but still ends up making the thread look like a repeat of the last.

Now, if you said, "you are crazy for making a suggestion open to the general player base," you might be on to something lol. I don't know why I repeatedly imagine these threads going one way when they always go the other, I guess it's just the dreamer in me.

As for the idea, the one mistake I made in my calculations is the assumption that everyone wants sailing to be more open. It would seem that there are folks that like it to be exclusive and gatekept by wonky builds. Saying that is not an insult to them, one of my favorite people related to Arelith Fallen Dabus (who worked harder on this stuff than most know) always hated any cap at all and just wanted the numbers to fly, and who knows maybe that is the answer. Because even if this idea was popular, the ship combat system would need to be looked at next since two maxed score ships can't really kill each other. But that's something that deserves its own topic, so I left it out of this.

[PowerWord Rage]

As for the idea, the one mistake I made in my calculations is the assumption that everyone wants sailing to be more open. It would seem that there are folks that like it to be exclusive and gatekept by wonky builds. Saying that is not an insult to them, one of my favorite people related to Arelith Fallen Dabus (who worked harder on this stuff than most know) always hated any cap at all and just wanted the numbers to fly, and who knows maybe that is the answer. Because even if this idea was popular, the ship combat system would need to be looked at next since two maxed score ships can't really kill each other. But that's something that deserves its own topic, so I left it out of this.

This touches a little on PVP aspect of sailing since you've mentioned that 2 maxed score ships can't really kill each other which is not true since I have probably, if not more Ship PVP experience than most players i guess?
I won't go on about this aspect since those who know my old PCs should believe me and tbh, I am a person who do not believe in Ship PVP as the core aspect of sailing RP even though i admit that it's enjoyable. But Warmongers do not last, full stop.
To quote an example, there're many times that whether i was Raom or Helkaros, i received Wisp / Messenger that literally tell me that XXX ship is on the direct opposite of the Archipelago, like some 10 quadrants or more apart, I generally DO sail towards there but do i ignore all other ships that i spot? Like Nelanther / Undead Galleon / Prisoner?
Nope, not at all. I treat these NPC ships as if they were PC ships. Unless Dreadnought / Lost Ark / Leviathan are simply just beside myself, I will usually focus less on pursuing something super far away and continue ship RP.
Does my Crew understand me? I hope they do and i'm always glad that they stick with me all the time.
There're other IC decisions that causes me to shelve characters but i'm always coming back, on other characters though, it usually take weeks if not months, for anything to grow and growth, is an experience that i enjoy.

And Sailing has always been open and recently, even more open which is a very positive change. But is it because of sailing mechanics? Nope. It's because of the content and also because we enjoy sailing RP.
Sailing has never been gatekept by anything but player's decision to decide what they like to do and enjoy.
Similarly that those who are excellence at QB and Hide/MS are usually not good at other aspects, it's a give and take. You can't be good at everything.

Ok that aside, the only reason that i dislike this suggestion is because i'm only aware that sailing department has always been the field for ActionReplay and the limited amount of time should be spent on increasing / improving content instead.
There are many differences in how we see the Sailing skill as a whole but it isn't something too complicated really.
Sometimes, all it takes is simply one epic skill focus : sail to be taken, is all. But does missing an epic feat cripples a character build? It comes down to mechanical concept once again ( another subject ) but does missing an epic feat cripples the Sailing experience or RP? I don't think so? I've welcomed and greatly enjoyed RPing with some players IG who totally don't add a single point in Sails but their character is so fun to be around that I can't help myself, asking them to join all the time. And did i ever send a /tell to OOC tell them how you can improve sailing score? I don't. My character is almost permanently on /notell.

It's really not mechanics that limits a player but how the player RP and if they likes to stand on the small size of a ship, doing RP as you would in a tavern while also having the chance to do some PVE, collect coins meanwhile.

Bring along a fisherman's rod and RP fishing while on a ship.
Bring your food and drink and treat the ship as you would, a tavern, and RP how flavorful they are.
Describe how great it is to feel the sea breeze, shout and release your frustration on the Sea.
There're many different RP venues to be done and can be done!
It's never just standing on the ship, okay i can do combat, next okay i am a great sailor and just go silent mode.

There's no limit to imagination on how you can RP on a ship as you can, in a Tavern, in a Dungeon or even middle of nowhere.

Edit :

More ships. Actual nice ships that can grapple and dive. Make at least some of them not tied to settlements so we can have independent mercenary crews. Give settlements multiple nice ships too so a whole city isn't stuck waiting on one single player to be able to sail.

Make the +5 sailing gear more common. I shouldn't have to drop two thirds of a million coins for an article of clothing. Come on man.

I absolutely like the idea if we can have more ships that are not tied to settlements so that the age of piracy privateering is upon us and of course...2mil for epic sailing set is bugger.

[-XXX-]

About epic sailing gear:

• all three pieces combined improve the soft skill bonus of the basic basin gear by +8 soft sail
• they are about as rare/common as masterwork runes - is +8 sail really less valuable than, say, +6 discipline?
• unless the entire crew is oufitted with a full epic gear set, the shanty+boon combo is still needed and even if they are all it does is that the crew can now get by using lesser boons instead of greater ones.

The epic sailing gear generally makes a difference with smaller ships (sloop/brig) that can then be realistically max crewed by 2-3 deep sail builds outfitted with epic gear without needing any sea shanty bonus - that's it.

But TBH, only ever sailing at 100 and hyperstressing over the sail score dropping below 100 = sailing wrongTM

[Ruzuke]

Gate Keeping:
If sailing below 100 is wrong, why do the "Captains" of the shared ships tend to move to a rental when their crew is below that number? The rules for thee and not for me is not inclusive and do not build on a shared experience.

Captains on the various ships all work with one another. One of them decides they do not have a good rep goodbye sailing on the Starlight, Tempest, Leviathan, First and Second Sister and they also maintain close ties to the Crow’s Nest Crew. This is also true with the Under Dark and Sencliff.

Developer’s Free Time:
From every post I have seen on how the Devs work (being volunteers) aside from getting approval it is because a developer wants to spend their free time working on a project.

Just like the new reward system where the key investment is time and not chance. This proposal builds on time and not chance.

Why I Like This Idea:
Investing in an epic feat, maxed out sail gear, and a few other things may be a bit much to ask for most of the sailors who are asked to just use rentals. That even with maxed sail cannot compete. This opens up more people able to spend their free time in an activity I find fun.

Do I support the idea with more useful ships? Both rentals and owned. I do ones with bells and can support a decent size crew. The Underdark in particular does not have any good rentals. When it did have a decent rental added there was a player outcry that the Under Dark dared had a good ship where a decent crew could sink one of the Flag ships. It was removed due to gate keeping. This is why we cannot have nice fun systems.

[-XXX-]

Gate Keeping:
If sailing below 100 is wrong, why do the "Captains" of the shared ships tend to move to a rental when their crew is below that number? The rules for thee and not for me is not inclusive and do not build on a shared experience.

Captains on the various ships all work with one another. One of them decides they do not have a good rep goodbye sailing on the Starlight, Tempest, Leviathan, First and Second Sister and they also maintain close ties to the Crow’s Nest Crew. This is also true with the Under Dark and Sencliff.

I sail at lower sail scores all the time & actively encourage the rest of the crew to sail the ship even when I am not around. The Dreadnought crew also sails even when they don't have max sail and I have repeatedly seen Sea Leopard on skeleton crew as well - saying that the above applies universally is unfair.

I can also understand when somebody opts to take a rental sloop over a bigger ship when there's only two of them that want to go sailing at the time, but having half a dozen or more people assemble only to cancel the whole sail last minute just because the crew sail average isn't 100 is bad.

---

TBH a more frequent problem than the bard leaving/not showing up is when all the carpenters/tailors leave/don't show up, because unlike the crew sail average droping to values suboptimal for ship PvP, losing the ability to repair the ship objectively makes further sailing PvE unsustainable.

[Peacewhisper]

Gate Keeping:
If sailing below 100 is wrong, why do the "Captains" of the shared ships tend to move to a rental when their crew is below that number? The rules for thee and not for me is not inclusive and do not build on a shared experience.

Captains on the various ships all work with one another. One of them decides they do not have a good rep goodbye sailing on the Starlight, Tempest, Leviathan, First and Second Sister and they also maintain close ties to the Crow’s Nest Crew. This is also true with the Under Dark and Sencliff.

Either they swap to a rental or they just sail to Brog and back and act like that was a serious voyage. Oh and you're totally a part of the crew now except you never get called to any actual voyages ever again.

This is why I wish every major settlement had at least 3 good ships other than their flagship that were up for grabs, and why I wish there were non-settlement vessels we could own to create our own privateer RP. Right now all the sailing RP is gatekept by less than a dozen people, whether intentionally or not. Even if they are trying their best to be inclusive they can only play so many hours and anyone in another time zone is just left dry even if they have their own crew. A whole city's navy shouldn't be crippled every time one guy logs out. And you can't tell me to go rent the penny rose etc. for serious sailing RP, those ships are fine for learning and doing writ work solo, but I would not want to take those into a naval battle even against some of the NPC ships. Arelith as an archipelago should be teeming with ships. Imagine a Grand Theft Auto RP server where there were only seven cars. Yeah the streets would seem pretty dead. And you can't point to a bicycle (the pennyrose) and say that counts as a car. Because it's not.

[Ruzuke]

Gate Keeping:
If sailing below 100 is wrong, why do the "Captains" of the shared ships tend to move to a rental when their crew is below that number? The rules for thee and not for me is not inclusive and do not build on a shared experience.

Captains on the various ships all work with one another. One of them decides they do not have a good rep goodbye sailing on the Starlight, Tempest, Leviathan, First and Second Sister and they also maintain close ties to the Crow’s Nest Crew. This is also true with the Under Dark and Sencliff.

I sail at lower sail scores all the time & actively encourage the rest of the crew to sail the ship even when I am not around. The Dreadnought crew also sails even when they don't have max sail and I have repeatedly seen Sea Leopard on skeleton crew as well - saying that the above applies universally is unfair.

I can also understand when somebody opts to take a rental sloop over a bigger ship when there's only two of them that want to go sailing at the time, but having half a dozen or more people assemble only to cancel the whole sail last minute just because the crew sail average isn't 100 is bad.

---

TBH a more frequent problem than the bard leaving/not showing up is when all the carpenters/tailors leave/don't show up, because unlike the crew sail average droping to values suboptimal for ship PvP, losing the ability to repair the ship objectively makes further sailing PvE unsustainable.

This misrepresents that all the permeant ship holders of the UD and Seacliff have keys to one another ships. I am on the Dreadnaught unofficial discord too. Hi!

While many of them will take on people with no sail score. There is a bard who owns it, predated by Glub who had bards to buff up the sail score and decisions which ship to take out.

The Sea Leopard as you mentioned yes has sailed with a low sail score (I was one of the people on that ship) to ensure the ship went out to sea so it was not lost. Because the Captain at that time could not keep a crew. In fact by these “Captains” sharing crews for their ships on discord they can keep themselves with ships. Keep it going out. Which drives home the point in gate keeping.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

I think this thread is dead already, so if anyone wants to lock go for it. I don't know why random captains are catching strays in a thread that made a rough suggestion about the mechanics of sail, but here we are.

I will say this though, that if you are finding it hard to get a second trip it's likely due to lack of effort on your part. Running a ship is hard work involving juggling lots of folks, probably the hardest thing to do on arelith short of settlement leadership. And I think that you will find that if you use the speedy system to contact the captain and ask to join them if they are out sailing, you will be conjured over in short order more often than not. That's always true, but it's especially important when you are a face they only saw once or twice so far.

[Peacewhisper]

We just need more good ships so more players can have the opportunity to be a captain or part of a crew. The dinky little rental ships we have are not good enough to motivate people into building for 100 sail or to spend all their time crafting javelins. People see the fancy flagships once in their lives, then they only get to use the pennyrose, and you can't blame them for being mad. You can't present primates with an unfair disparity like that and expect them not to get mad. We're putting them in a demolition derby with the Mach 5, the Batmobile, and Optimus Prime, on a bicycle, and then gaslighting them when they ask why they can't at least have a Honda Civic. Please just copy and paste an actual good decent sized ship schematic with all the essentials 3-4 times into every harbor already. Considering we have 4 major trade cities, and several major world powers with their own navies fighting over resources on a nearby island, there should be a lot more big ships around this archipelago.

[-XXX-]

This misrepresents that all the permeant ship holders of the UD and Seacliff have keys to one another ships. I am on the Dreadnaught unofficial discord too. Hi!

While many of them will take on people with no sail score. There is a bard who owns it, predated by Glub who had bards to buff up the sail score and decisions which ship to take out.

The Sea Leopard as you mentioned yes has sailed with a low sail score (I was one of the people on that ship) to ensure the ship went out to sea so it was not lost. Because the Captain at that time could not keep a crew. In fact by these “Captains” sharing crews for their ships on discord they can keep themselves with ships. Keep it going out. Which drives home the point in gate keeping.

Nice hot take, but we can fully crew the Maiden even without Treadstone help and vice versa. However, if you believe there's not going to be a degree of cooperation against the navies who are doing the same, then I've got a bridge to sell you.

Both ships frequently end up with a crew complement that'd meet their crewing requirement many times over because sailing has a snowballing effect and what often starts as a small sail tends to end up in a crowd several "you're sailing? bring me along!" speedies and -yoinks later.
This, however requires the inital spark - somebody needs to actually take the ship out and not be afraid to sail her at 60-70 sail, which was my point all along.

[Ruzuke]

This misrepresents that all the permeant ship holders of the UD and Seacliff have keys to one another ships. I am on the Dreadnaught unofficial discord too. Hi!

While many of them will take on people with no sail score. There is a bard who owns it, predated by Glub who had bards to buff up the sail score and decisions which ship to take out.

The Sea Leopard as you mentioned yes has sailed with a low sail score (I was one of the people on that ship) to ensure the ship went out to sea so it was not lost. Because the Captain at that time could not keep a crew. In fact by these “Captains” sharing crews for their ships on discord they can keep themselves with ships. Keep it going out. Which drives home the point in gate keeping.

Nice hot take, but we can fully crew the Maiden even without Treadstone help and vice versa. However, if you believe that there's not going to be a degree of cooperation against the navies who are doing the same, then I've got a bridge to sell you.

Both ships frequently end up with a crew complement that'd meet their crewing requirement many times over because sailing has a snowballing effect and what often starts as a small sail tends to end up in a crowd several "you're sailing? bring me along!" speedies and -yoinks later.
This, however requires the inital spark - somebody needs to actually take the ship out and not be afraid to sail her at 60-70 sail, which was my point all along.

Yeah, I been in the same discord with you for years. It is hard to make a pirate that isn't involved in the UD. Of course, you know that being on that same discord. Let's not pretend there is not a lot of crossovers between Captains. But like I said there is the same thing for the Surface side as well. Also being on there for years the same time as you it has been going on for the last 5-10 years.

Of course, I remember sailing back when the UD and Sencliff didn't have discords with each other and didn't sail together either. That was back when slavery was allowed on the cliff.

[PowerWord Rage]

Back to suggestion on Sailing skill.
While i dislike this suggestion but if it does not give more things for the devs who is in-charge ( ActionReplay? I'm not sure who esle other than him ) to do, I am generally not against it since I love RP sailing and therefore, work up on the mechanics as well.

I'm only against OP's idea if this will simply adds on more work and disrupt new content being released...Honestly, i'm very much looking forward to shipbuilding ( not confirmed but simply a guess ).

And please do not pinpoint directly at how other players play their Sailors or how the different Crew works among themselves.
Whether you only sail the ship at 100 sails or 70 sails or no sails at all, all it matters are that the ship gets moving and people enjoy themselves.

At least, i've not actually see the current 'Sail' skill as a major obstacle to enjoy sailing therefore, isn't really a priority at all, to work upon.

Edit: OP's idea on changing how Sails interact, if i were to be frank, is a pretty good direction but it still need alot more adjustment and not in it's current form ( i still think that the current form suggested tilts against Sencliff which is a 'settlement' that exist almost only on sailing ). But I dislike this suggestion because of that, it takes more time and effort...I really want more contents to be released faster rather than working on existing one...yep just myself.

New Major Award: Ship’s Captain
Benefit: You have a mystic connection to a ship which you, and only you, can conjure forth.

This ship can be conjured at any dock on the server once per server reset (ie. a single conjuring pet reset, not per dock per reset), with its crew size selectable at that time. It will then persist until server reset or when sunk, and can be conjured again upon server reset.

It has a consistently sized below deck area with storage, and a single storage chest on deck that is intended to hold ship repair materials and ammunition, as well as any spare ship weapons (if you change the crew size, it changes the deck to another map, so any fixtures do not transfer; you’d either have to have multiple, or store them in the chest or below decks between resets unless you’re going to conjure the same sized ship.)

Taking this Major Award requires you to also select the lesser award of seafaring and to keep max ranks in Sail, or the ship will not be conjured forth.

Furthermore, you may not take a quarter anywhere else in Arelith; the sea is your home.

When i see this suggestion from Reijin's post from another topic...I was for a split moment, really excited. But yea, it's still pipe dream.

[-XXX-]

Of course, you know...

Yeah, I've honestly no idea who you are IG or on Discord. Tells us everything about our shared experience.
At this point I can only concede that your point about people somehow gatekeeping others from sailing by sharing ship access with others has great comedic value and move on.

Whether you only sail the ship at 100 sails or 70 sails or no sails at all, all it matters are that the ship gets moving and people enjoy themselves.

This is the exact same point that I was actually trying to make, btw.
The 100 crew sail average only comes up when one is actively trying to seek out ship PvP, but very much like the general arelith experience even sailing is 99% PvE, the overwhelming majority of which can be comfortably engaged at 40 crew sail average and gets fully unlocked at the 80 sail threshold.

On another note, I disagree with Peacewhisper in rentals being bad. I think most of them are actually quite good, especially Couriers and Liberator. Their major downside being that they are not always available. However, if somebody struggles with making sails work using those, I can only wonder what difference them holding a long lease ship is really going to make.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

Yeah, I've no idea who you are IG or on Discord. Tells us everything about our shared experience.

I don't know who "Us" is, but I requested the thread get locked and no one read it that can do that which tells you everything you need to know about who's actually still paying attention to this thread at this point. I will say that being dismissive is only going to exasperate their perceived issue though, and I probably would have hunted them down on discord myself and made an attempt to make them feel more welcome, even if their issue is probably mostly on their side of things. You really do have to waive your arms and say, "remember me!" on new characters that want to get involved, because it's really hard for people in positions of power to keep up with every face they interact with one time.

I'm not judging you guys for getting into what looks like a pointless debate to everyone else, you only have to scroll down a few threads to see me getting sucked into the very same thing. I'm just saying, we can all try to be a little better. I'm going to be sending a request to lock this thread through the astrolabe once I get past the scary new (to me at least) thing, so if you guys' breeze past this post and continue on and suddenly find it locked it's probably that more than anything the last post said.

[PowerWord Rage]

I probably would have hunted them down on discord myself and made an attempt to make them feel more welcome, even if their issue is probably mostly on their side of things

Sorry, i can't help myself but strongly disagree with this sentence.
I don't think that we're saints nor do i think that everyone is obliged to offer freebies all the time.
It is truly 'post' like this, making 'us' look bad.

We're players like everyone are.
We're also playing to feel enjoyment for ourselves.
This isn't charity that we actively hunts down new player to welcome them to your embrace.
It takes both hands to clap and it's the chemistry and willingness to join on either sides that matter.
Please do not write such remarks that simply downplay other player who actually also hold good intention and are very welcoming to other fellow players just because, we're not actively going out of the way, to help people.

End of the day, We're also among the players that are playing this game, to enjoy ourselves.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

I get your point, but it's tough to disagree with me telling you what I personally would have done on the merits of the sentence alone. If I was saying you had to do that yourself, that would be different.

[PowerWord Rage]

I may not fully understand what you mean though but i'll just speak my piece on what i simply understand.
For myself per se, i do not reach out to anyone at all, for the matter, on discord when playing in Arelith.

But if they're IG and we happens to be speaking maybe in Guldorand, Cordor etc, i mean, sure why not?
I'll like to keep these IG stuff within game itself.

[DM Herald]

This thread has run its course and devolved into personal arguments. Locking.