Sailing requirements are too much

[stoneheart-]

So, ever since the sail system was added I've been a pretty big enjoyer and proponent of it. However, some time spent doing this has led me to see some pretty glaring cracks in the system.

Firstly, the only true requirement for sailing a ship effectively should be the sail skill. I know that there are plenty of people who would love to get in on sailing, but even if you've bought a full investment of sailing skill, that's not enough. It's not even enough to have a full investment+gear AND working skill focuses into your build, normal AND epic variety. It's not even enough to have four other people with you who have done the same thing. You NEED a bard, to hit the sail cap for your ship to sail in pve alone, to say nothing for pvp. You also NEED a carpenter/tailor for repairs, which I might add are some of the rarest professions around. These mandated requirements lead to people coordinating things OOCly, asking their friends to make a bard or to take carpentry/tailoring as a craft if they don't have one already. It's very hard to get this done through IC means alone and at the very least favors people who can lean on friends to make a sailbeast bard to get everyone at or near 100 sail skill.

This could be fixed if the bar for max average sail could be lowered to a sane number, attainable without a bard, and if repairs could be done with sail ranks instead of carp/tailoring. More types of people could be included, a bard becomes a comfort option rather than a requirement.

Secondly, speaking of gear: I think this could bear getting looked at. Fitting a +2 to skill on all your gear is doable. It might be more difficult for some than others, but it is doable. However, putting the optimal +1 to wis on every item is less so. This leads to people having to spend not only the money and effort of getting a full set enchanted/bought, but to invest (precious, for str characters) inventory slots on a "sail set", which is 11 inventory items, some of which are large like chest armors and cloaks (4x4) and boots and helms (2x2) as well as gloves (1x2). As an aside, having a bunch of people standing on deck with a dagger in each hand looks dumb.

Without feats, sail blessings from rituals, and with max gear, the most your average sailor would be able to run is _68, plus (or minus) base wis mod. This is WITH owl's wisdom and WITHOUT a bard.

If you don't have the (expensive, rare) +5 sail items, the number becomes 61. Maybe 63 if you compensate by adding more wis somewhere.

I feel this is the number that should be balanced around, NOT the maximum 100. Something around ₈₀ average or so would account for a bard, ESFs etc. as far as bonuses go, and it is also very attainable without going to extreme means.

If the number is lower, then the bonuses from blessings, skill focus feats, having a bard, having good gear etc. actually become MORE meaningful, not less, because these are things that make you valuable to a crew because you bring the average up from just the baseline. They're things that make you "a great sailor" rather than just "a sailor." Overall I feel the required average sail should be looked at and discussed; lowering it would make it easier to include more people, and in an organic sort of way.

[Biolab00]

Those who knows my sailing dude know that I've never arrange any sailing trips oocly as opposed to the mandatory requirement that you wrote about.
You may wish to refer to the below link. It has extensive posts on these sailing problems that you've written and more.

viewtopic.php?f=37&t=43226

[Dreams]

I also don't resort to OOC sailing, which means I very rarely get to do anything.

[stoneheart-]

Those who knows my sailing dude know that I've never arrange any sailing trips oocly as opposed to the mandatory requirement that you wrote about.
You may wish to refer to the below link. It has extensive posts on these sailing problems that you've written and more.

viewtopic.php?f=37&t=43226

Look, I wasn't @ing anyone passive aggressively here. I was calling attention to a real problem, which is the fact that it's hard to get enough sail together for serious sails without discord. I don't even blame people for doing that with the system as-is. It's just a symptom of the greater problem here.

[Biolab00]

Contrary to most claimed it to be, I find discord arrangement to be detrimental to sailing experience as a whole.
Just like settlement RP or any other form of RP, relationship needs to be warmed up.

If you decide to follow a crew then by all means, it's a work together relationship. The crew need to spend time together and one of them probably even need to actively arrange sailing trip ICly. For most part, it is whether you treat sailing as a form of RP enjoyment, loving the sailing dynamic among the crewmates or, simply just for treasures and loots. Of course, all these are not mutually exclusive. The best captain is the player who can brings the crewmate together while also having substantial rewards.

It is hard to arrange a sail because you'll need logistics too, not just sailing score, if you're going for long term and consistent sailing. And someone always have to do the dull job of maintaining the logistic. This is where crew harmony comes along. Perhaps it does not last long but for as long as it lasted, it's truly one of the best RP experience. Even more so that everyone gathers together not because of OOC arrangement but for pure love of Sailing RP.

As for the mentioned requirements of sail scores etc, there're good sailors in Arelith but it is simply whether we are able to click and whether you can convince them to join your sailing trip. If a Captain choose to keep nitpicking his/her sailors, there're only so much that you can choose from. And it's always important to manage as large a crew that you can so that you've more crewmates to choose from. Consequently, the treasures split and everything esle need to be fair. All these are the actions of the player.
Everyone is unique and we do things differently.

That is not to say that i agree the sailing requirement is not too much but i simply do not know also, where does the 'line' that makes it balanced stops at.

[-XXX-]

The sailing meta revolves around 100 sail - that's true.

What that really means is a sail build needs to have 50 hard sail ranks - that's it.
In practice we're talking about something like:
8 base WIS + SF:sail + ESF:Sail = 33 (base ranks) +5 (20 WIS mod) + 5 (SF) + 10 (ESF) = 53
12 base WIS + ESF:sail = 33 (base ranks) +7 (24 WIS mod) + 10 (ESF) = 50
10 base WIS + SF:sail + Secrets of Exploration = 33 (base ranks) + 6 (22 WIS mod) +5 (SF) + 6 (LM) = 50

The rest is basically a way of figuring out how to stack the soft skill bonuses toward the +50 cap, which is independent on build.
Gear: 22-30
Sea shanty: 10-20
Ritual: 7-12
Good hope: 2-4
Gift: 6

Reaching the soft sail cap is for the most part a TEAM EFFORT and the most common way of doing it is:
sea shanty (20) + ritual (7-12) + good hope (2-4) + basic gear (22) = 49-58
No epic gear is needed - only a bard + cleric/shaman (who doesn't even need to be on the ship - just performs the ritual every X RL days for the crew)

Basic sailing gear is [+1 WIS +2 sail] - costs around 1500gp a piece and is GOOD ENOUGH
Swapping gear has never been easier: -loadout

The prominence of Sea Shanties is what I personally find most annoying - maybe strengthening the bonus from rituals might help with the diversity of soft cap stacking.

BTW. it's still possible to reach 100 sail without a bard even after investing only the minimal 50 hard sail ranks - that's where gift, epic gear and greater rituals actually come in - it's nice, but NOT NECESSARY.
Problem is that most players are UNWILLING to compromise their PvP optimized build to reach even the bare minimum, much less go the distance to have their character perform at peak sail even without a bard.

As for Discord - I find it to be more of a detriment rather than a means for organizing sails TBH. It's much more common for players to miss unadvertised sails than partake in advertised ones if all they do is check Discord.
The best way to organize sails is to pick a regular time and... SAIL

[nicebreakfast]

You don’t need 100 sail to do pve content.

You don’t need 100 sail to pvp, but don’t expect you win every time.

People are too focused on min/max. I sail at 70 or 100 sail score and I always have fun.

[Cthuletta]

The sailing requirements can definitely be a little rough. I've played multiple sailing characters, some of them running crews, because I genuinely love the RP that surrounds it. That said, I've noticed a couple hurdles in pretty much each crew with various different players. Keep in mind I haven't played with Sencliff specifically, but in the UD/Surface.

The Sail Builds: Is it 'easy' to get a good sail build? Well, yeah. But you're sacrificing a lot of other stuff, whether that's a PvP-centric build, or a utility one. Focusing solely on a sail build leaves the majority of your mechanical talent on a ship and not really much elsewhere, and many players simply don't wanna do that. You're not on a ship the whole time, so it's rather unappealing to most. I personally don't think this is a bad thing, as everyone should play a character they enjoy in many aspects, not just one. I mean this purely in the mechanical aspect, as many 'sail-builds' have other means of shining via RP off a ship.

The Sail Requirement: Because it is 100, even if you're not looking for PvP (and if you are, let's be honest, most crews won't go out below 90), the PvE aspect still requires a pretty high overall skill, at least 80+, if you want to do lucrative sailing and find map pieces and such. Losing in a fight can be very interesting for RP purposes, of course, but if you can't make the coin to re-supply and repair afterwards, it's a bit of a downward spiral.

Crew Numbers: I will always agree that the more people you have on a ship, the more fun it is. More people, meaning it's much less likely someone is left out of the RP, lots of chattering and goofing around, is my personal ideal with sailing RP and why I like it. Those who enjoy this aspect, tend to also at some point invest in the sail skill to be more useful on the deck, too. However, there's been a pretty consistent complaint over the last year or two from characters and players.
Ever since the nerf to selling items, the more people on deck, means you make less gold at the end. A LOT less, compared to ye olde yonder years. The time invested for the gold made is a bit of hinderance, with the phrase 'I could make more gold circle-grinding the Orclands for an hour' being said more than once. It's easy to hand-wave that off as 'We're here for RP, not gold', but a lot of people want both, especially when we're in a game that values mass amounts of gold for gearing/supplies/materials. This is doubly-true when you have a bad sailing day and barely find anything for a couple hours. RNGesus, take the helm.

So the only real solution to the three things above, is to have a small crew for better gold, meaning reaching the highest sail skill with a minimum amount of people, meaning... sail builds! How do many small groups of people get together with sail builds? Discord.
I believe there was a thread some months back about sailing becoming more exclusive for this reason, with a variety of solutions proposed that I still personally think are good ideas from what I can recall.
Though lowering the sail-skill cap for PvE content specifically (Make those Edgewater baddies a bit easier, maybe up their RNG a little for appearing) I think would really lessen the strain we see that're voiced more often these days. More people would be able to go out without having to build-invest as heavily, and still get goodies for their effort/time investment. Keeping the cap at 100 for PvP reasons I don't think is unreasonable- if you're the best, it's because you have that crew that is the best and put in time and dedication for it, which should be rewarded since it DOES take sacrifices.

I'm notoriously longwinded, so...
TL;DR - Keep the sailing cap at 100, but lower the NPC enemy DCs.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

I strongly disagree with the premise of the title of this thread. Sailing requirements are not varied enough to make combat dynamic. I'd personally like to see spotters playing a massive role, as well as ab for the gunners. The more you make it impossible to have the perfect crew, the better.

XXX got most of the tips for getting to 100 but left out one thing. As I understand it, If I have a sail score of say 115 because I done went all in on sail, and you have a sail score of 85 (reachable without the feats), and we are on a two-man boat? Our sail score is 100. It's true that 100 is the max team score, but it's not the max individual score meaning anything over 100 helps with the average. Anyone running a crew properly has a balanced mix of sailors to rule the sea and pvpers to make sure you don't get your Snuggybear kicked on land.

As a final note, on the gold comment above, I have two things-

One, this is likely a product of trying to diminish the gold count players have, which is a noble goal save for the fact that it does nothing for existing wealth. Thats another topic, but I like to point it out where it applies to a topic at hand.

Two, if someone says they would rather be off making gold circle grinding then spending quality time with a group roleplaying? I say open them a portal and send them on their way, their singular focus is likely only bringing the vibe of the trip down anyways.

[stoneheart-]

Reaching the soft sail cap is for the most part a TEAM EFFORT and the most common way of doing it is:
sea shanty (20) + ritual (7-12) + good hope (2-4) + basic gear (22) = 49-58
No epic gear is needed - only a bard + cleric/shaman (who doesn't even need to be on the ship - just performs the ritual every X RL days for the crew)

Basic sailing gear is [+1 WIS +2 sail] - costs around 1500gp a piece and is GOOD ENOUGH
Swapping gear has never been easier: -loadout

The prominence of Sea Shanties is what I personally find most annoying - maybe strengthening the bonus from rituals might help with the diversity of soft cap stacking.

BTW. it's still possible to reach 100 sail without a bard even after investing only the minimal 50 hard sail ranks - that's where gift, epic gear and greater rituals actually come in - it's nice, but NOT NECESSARY.
Problem is that most players are UNWILLING to compromise their PvP optimized build to reach even the bare minimum, much less go the distance to have their character perform at peak sail even without a bard.

I have no problem with it being a "team effort" to crew a ship. However it's not really a team effort, it's a "cleric and bard" effort. If there was a lower cap, it could actually be a team effort. People who went above and beyond with their gear and build could be the shining stars that bring the average up, without requiring a certain class combination to succeed. If a wider variety of bardless options are available for reaching the cap, it's less of a pain, but I remain unconvinced that a 100 cap is healthy.

Yes, it's easier to -loadout, but the fact is that it still takes quite a bit of inventory SPACE to keep the gear, which is the issue. If you are a str character all but the last of your inventory pages is probably full of things, hell, even my last sorcerer was nearly full up with different wands and potions.

My whole argument is that sailing should be more accessible to anyone. I don't think that the norm should be to sacrifice your whole character on the altar of sailing, such individuals should be the highly sought-after sailors of the world, not every single sailing body. A lower cap would accomplish this. If we disagree, that's fine, but I don't think either of our arguments are more or less correct than the other.

[Shadowy Reality]

For someone entirely out of the loop and who has never really engaged with sailing: I know 100 is the magic number, but what is the effective difference between 100 and say, 80 or 50? I know sailing is used to avoid encounters, going slower in storms, but what else?

[Cthuletta]

For someone entirely out of the loop and who has never really engaged with sailing: I know 100 is the magic number, but what is the effective difference between 100 and say, 80 or 50? I know sailing is used to avoid encounters, going slower in storms, but what else?

It also determines how well you attack or defend against other ships, both player-ships and NPC enemies.
Think like AB/AC, but for the ship.

[-XXX-]

I have no problem with it being a "team effort" to crew a ship. However it's not really a team effort, it's a "cleric and bard" effort. If there was a lower cap, it could actually be a team effort.

It is a team effort - a crew of characters with 50 hard sail ranks is still needed to get the full potential out of that bard/cleric bonus.

Lowering the cap would have had the exact opposite effect - sailing would truly become ALL about bards and ONLY bards, because then you could just pick any random build, simply take sail ranks on it, get basic gear, slap sea shanties on top and BAM - 80 crew sail with 0 commitment or tradeoff.

33 (hard ranks) +5 (WIS mod) +22 (gear) +20 (Sea Shanties) = 80 sail

Furthermore, lowering the cap would also guarantee that nobody could surpass characters with sail ranks only - there'd be 0 incentive to go beyond 33 sail.

For someone entirely out of the loop and who has never really engaged with sailing: I know 100 is the magic number, but what is the effective difference between 100 and say, 80 or 50? I know sailing is used to avoid encounters, going slower in storms, but what else?

From WIKI:

Ship Weaponry Attack Roll: Ship AB = 1d20 + (Crew Sail Average / 5)
Ship AC: Ship AC = 10 + (Crew Sail Average / 5)

Furled Sails: +10 AB/-20 AC
Half-mast: +0 AB/+0 AC
Full Sails: -20 AB/ +10 AC

Ship class and stats also play a big role here - bigger ship = more HP and firepower. That can bridge a sail score difference or become a decisive factor when sail scores are evenly matched.

[ReverentBlade]

I think introducing Sail as a mechanical skill -at all- was a mistake. Let people that want to do the content do the content and call for mundane ability checks that require having at least a vaguely balanced adventuring party and leave it at that. Presently, hundreds of hours of dev time have gone into content that many people will never even dip a toe into because of the gatekeeping aspect.

[Hazard]

I think introducing Sail as a mechanical skill -at all- was a mistake. Let people that want to do the content do the content and call for mundane ability checks that require having at least a vaguely balanced adventuring party and leave it at that. Presently, hundreds of hours of dev time have gone into content that many people will never even dip a toe into because of the gatekeeping aspect.

That's the main reason I've never had any sailing characters since the change (I used to sail all the time when we had no mechanics around it and were just pretending). It's a whole extra skill I often just can't afford to invest in and build around.

[-XXX-]

Why stop at sail?

Why not cap bluff, hide/ms? I wanna see everybody all the time because I got 33 spot ranks!
33 lore? Shouldn't that give me access to all spells and translate every language by default?
33 search? Why don't I automatically see all traps and double all my loot?
33 open lock means I should be able to enter every quarter, right?!
33 leadership? Edward better abdicate right now, because his throne belongs to me!

Point being: can't have that cake and eat it too.

Furthermore, waiving sail doesn't even lock people out of the sailing content - they just shouldn't expect their toon to become an S-tier ship PvP menace.
If they choose to avoid elements of the game that their character isn't automatically the best at, that's on them.

[Peacelily]

Even if you've no Sail, a lot of ships will want you on. Ships engage in boarding actions, and someone who can't sail well, but stays ready for boarding and slaughtering, or searching and scavenging once on board, is still useful.

Sailing is about a lot more than just the actual sailing part.

You need to get siege weapons and ammunition.
You need to actually sail.
You need to fight on enemy ships.
You need to loot on enemy ships.
You need to actually sell the loot you get.

People say bards are essential, but they still can't do the Fighting part - high level sailing will wreck a frontline bard who's sail-specced.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

For someone entirely out of the loop and who has never really engaged with sailing: I know 100 is the magic number, but what is the effective difference between 100 and say, 80 or 50? I know sailing is used to avoid encounters, going slower in storms, but what else?

The magic number is actually 95, and like someone mentioned above its because of ab/ac. But like all thing's ab related, its subject to a fail on a one, so 95 and 100 are effectively the same in combat.

Edit-
Just going to correct myself here, it's actually 96, not 95 I think. I used to rely on Fallendabus for this sort of information, and its been a while.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

I'm also going to double down on what people are saying about being fine sailing with less than max, because you can always try and run away from a more powerful pvp enemy. And that escape will more than likely create a more interesting story than "we sat there, they rolled higher than we did, we lost".

I'll be honest, I loved the sail system when it first was implemented because the only people who tried it were people who wanted to roleplay being a pirate. A year on from then, and pvp on the seas and how much loot people were making became the obsession, and frankly I haven't engaged with the system since. It's amazing that we even have a sailing system on a game like this (thank you action replay!) but it still requires a lot of imagination to be fun. And while I'm sure its unintentional, if all you want is balanced pvp and max loot intake you are kind of a cancer upon the spirit of it all.

[Biolab00]

Why stop at sail?

Why not cap bluff, hide/ms? I wanna see everybody all the time because I got 33 spot ranks!
33 lore? Shouldn't that give me access to all spells and translate every language by default?
33 search? Why don't I automatically see all traps and double all my loot?
33 open lock means I should be able to enter every quarter, right?!
33 leadership? Edward better abdicate right now, because his throne belongs to me!

Point being: can't have that cake and eat it too.

Furthermore, waiving sail doesn't even lock people out of the sailing content - they just shouldn't expect their toon to become an S-tier ship PvP menace.
If they choose to avoid elements of the game that their character isn't automatically the best at, that's on them.

I got a good laugh here.
Yes, his throne belongs to me!

[Kythana]

I think introducing Sail as a mechanical skill -at all- was a mistake. Let people that want to do the content do the content and call for mundane ability checks that require having at least a vaguely balanced adventuring party and leave it at that. Presently, hundreds of hours of dev time have gone into content that many people will never even dip a toe into because of the gatekeeping aspect.

+1

It would be like if a dungeon was locked behind 90+ climb requirement.

Not only does sail require significant investment, but it also requires others to make that same investment, and a specific comp.

Want to do an epic level dungeon? Sure, just grab some friends and head out. Doesn't really matter if you don't have a certain class, or someone's build isn't completely ready for it. Doesn't matter if you don't have any skills to disable traps or open locks, no need to search for hidden doors, or any kind of other weird aspects. Just- Go and do it. Maybe there's some bonus content it grants access to, but it's never a hard stop. As long as you can clear it(and eventually you will reach a point where you can), you can do it.

Contrary to sailing which is:

Don't have at least 3 people invested in sail? Okay, we're not going.

Don't have a bard? Probably not going.

Don't have a ship, because either the rentals are in use or you don't have access? Literally can't go.

What I've witnessed on my sailor character is that new crews/captains often get significant burnout from the constant crew turnover and recruitment that has to happen because of it. And since you're requiring people with certain builds, it makes it very counterintuitive to break into.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

Sail is not locked behind 90+ lol... I remember a cleric with 0 ranks of sail that would take the penny rose to gnitwhatever and circle grind it. Shortly after the edgewaters became too dangerous to solo and the dungeon at said island became a lot harder. And honestly a dungeon that had required 50 climb to get to would be totally fine if there were more stuff to do with climb. Sail had something like 25 unique things you could do when I last checked, probably more than that now.

As far as gathering crews, I feel ya there. Running a crew is real work on sencliff and its a lot harder anywhere else. Thats why boats need to be policed more than anything, because if someone willing to put in the work can't get a boat when some blessed hearted person is sitting on one for status or whatever...

[Peacelily]

As far as gathering crews, I feel ya there. Running a crew is real work on sencliff and its a lot harder anywhere else. Thats why boats need to be policed more than anything, because if someone willing to put in the work can't get a boat when some blessed hearted person is sitting on one for status or whatever...

This point, by the way, is why I feel Sencliff probably threw in with Andunor. Sencliff needs numbers to sail. 3 sailors on and a 4-man boat available? Might not be able to do anything. Having a 2-man rental for Sencliff might help in a lot of ways.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

More than likely sencliff throws in with the underdark because they need friends. At least, that's how its been in the past. With the ease of access to sencliff and the fact that anyone can go there and pick a fight coupled with 80-90% of pirate builds actually not being min maxed for pvp (unless this has changed) you need some powerhouses on your side. And while that sounds like an argument for allowing pvp min maxers to also be S tier sailors, it only relates to sencliff and sencliff alone, and its actually in my mind at least an issue with folks not respecting the setting.

But if you are going to take any absolute conclusion of what the above paragraph is saying, it's that there is plenty of room for pvp builds to be part of sailing crews even if they can only push 82 max sail after gear and buffs. Especially on Sencliff. Trust me, those bards, clerics, and lore master wizards are going to treat you like a god.

[Eyeliner]

Keying sail off dex OR wisdom, whichever is higher, would go a long way.