Peter_Plankskull
Buccaneer
I highly doubt this hasn't been suggested before, but I couldn't find any other thread on it... so here is my spin and take.
We all enjoy our ships and our wacky mix and mash ups of mystical upgrades, from a stormchaser war sloop, to copperhead frigates, to fortune hunter war brigs etc. etc. However, despite such a large variety of upgrades presented to us, we can only hold a small handful of ships at our disposal, (three) were limited not only by our lack of materials, but hard capped by how many ships we can have in storage at once. I believe adding in more ship bottles (how many ships you can have on one pirate at any time) will be a beneficial change for the future of TLOPO to help spend less time grinding, to be more efficient with materials, and to get rid of the need for slogging through a alt.
Now I realize some people are going to go "why don't you roll a alt!" and on paper that wouldn't seem like a bad response, but if you compare TLOPO to other games, it just doesn't hold water due to its lack of features. As I've mentioned before, I play SWTOR, arguably a MMO that is generally the most alt friendly and alt encouraging game around. If you don't know SWTOR, It's a heavily focused story based MMO, there are 8 different classes each, with all classes featuring a different broad story with different endings, different ways to interact in cutscenes, and even a morality based scale that can affect a few decisions in the story. Starting off... you can clearly see the need for SWTOR to have alts... each class has a different story... and each story can be played in a variety of ways provided through character interaction, but were not even getting into the gameplay features here.
SWTORs group content revolves around a trinity system, it's a exact copy and paste of WoW combat if your familiar with the game, the only thing different about the combat are aesthetics and names, on a mechanical level, it's exactly the same. Each group combat revolves around a tank- someone to soak up damage, a healer - someone to well... keep the other group members alive, and a dps - someone to do damage to the enemy, working together to defeat a enemy. At times, more so now that the game is in a poor spot, you don't always have friends or people to take up certain roles, you need to at times create a alt of your own to fill a certain specification. This, in relation to classes, depends on your class options to do some of these roles. Some classes have access to either a dps or healer/tank... some just a pure dps. In TLOPO however... each pirate is mechanically the same from one or another, every pirate has the option for the same abilities and the same weapons. I realize we got off topic here, but what im trying to say is that TLOPO has no need for alts, and never encouraged in the past to have done so, so why now?
To continue accentuating my point, is to progress onto arguably one of TLOPOs biggest draws for fun, entertainment, and a time killer, which is looting legendries, or loot in general. We all remember stumbling along to our first legendary ( if we have one) or at least famed, telling our guilds, our friends, and even occasionally making a forum post about it, it's a lot of fun for the pay off and reward for people. Despite all the work were doing, grinding in the gold room, killing Dark Hart for the 100,000th time, showing Palifico a good time, all the cool weapons we get stay on one toon. All those neat and cool weapons you have? you can't trade them around to your alts or anything, they remain stuck on that character forever. SWTOR has the option to trade the gear you obtain from character to character within reason, a small amount is locked but can in one way shape or form, can normally be swapped to a alt. The same thing remains for materials in TLOPO. That extra steel you have on your main? well you can't hand it down to a alt, and do you really want give up one of your maxed ships already? Your materials remain trapped there, forever... or perhaps not... hint hint, nudge nudge, smirk smirk, devs.
TLR: Basically what im trying to say is.... TLOPO never has been a game with a need for alts. The only time you need a alt is when you want to customize your character, or perhaps you've been kicked from a guild, or branded as a widespread troll (the last two im joking of course.) On a purely mechanically level, all pirates have the same weapons, skills, and play exactly the same, and without access to move loot around ( a primary component in TLOPO) alts are nullified even more. I had a friend in POTCO actually make a alt her main purely because she got a legendary on that toon, shortly after she never played her main again. No more need for trapped materials anymore, creativity and experimentation with certain ships should be allowed and encouraged.
We all enjoy our ships and our wacky mix and mash ups of mystical upgrades, from a stormchaser war sloop, to copperhead frigates, to fortune hunter war brigs etc. etc. However, despite such a large variety of upgrades presented to us, we can only hold a small handful of ships at our disposal, (three) were limited not only by our lack of materials, but hard capped by how many ships we can have in storage at once. I believe adding in more ship bottles (how many ships you can have on one pirate at any time) will be a beneficial change for the future of TLOPO to help spend less time grinding, to be more efficient with materials, and to get rid of the need for slogging through a alt.
Now I realize some people are going to go "why don't you roll a alt!" and on paper that wouldn't seem like a bad response, but if you compare TLOPO to other games, it just doesn't hold water due to its lack of features. As I've mentioned before, I play SWTOR, arguably a MMO that is generally the most alt friendly and alt encouraging game around. If you don't know SWTOR, It's a heavily focused story based MMO, there are 8 different classes each, with all classes featuring a different broad story with different endings, different ways to interact in cutscenes, and even a morality based scale that can affect a few decisions in the story. Starting off... you can clearly see the need for SWTOR to have alts... each class has a different story... and each story can be played in a variety of ways provided through character interaction, but were not even getting into the gameplay features here.
SWTORs group content revolves around a trinity system, it's a exact copy and paste of WoW combat if your familiar with the game, the only thing different about the combat are aesthetics and names, on a mechanical level, it's exactly the same. Each group combat revolves around a tank- someone to soak up damage, a healer - someone to well... keep the other group members alive, and a dps - someone to do damage to the enemy, working together to defeat a enemy. At times, more so now that the game is in a poor spot, you don't always have friends or people to take up certain roles, you need to at times create a alt of your own to fill a certain specification. This, in relation to classes, depends on your class options to do some of these roles. Some classes have access to either a dps or healer/tank... some just a pure dps. In TLOPO however... each pirate is mechanically the same from one or another, every pirate has the option for the same abilities and the same weapons. I realize we got off topic here, but what im trying to say is that TLOPO has no need for alts, and never encouraged in the past to have done so, so why now?
To continue accentuating my point, is to progress onto arguably one of TLOPOs biggest draws for fun, entertainment, and a time killer, which is looting legendries, or loot in general. We all remember stumbling along to our first legendary ( if we have one) or at least famed, telling our guilds, our friends, and even occasionally making a forum post about it, it's a lot of fun for the pay off and reward for people. Despite all the work were doing, grinding in the gold room, killing Dark Hart for the 100,000th time, showing Palifico a good time, all the cool weapons we get stay on one toon. All those neat and cool weapons you have? you can't trade them around to your alts or anything, they remain stuck on that character forever. SWTOR has the option to trade the gear you obtain from character to character within reason, a small amount is locked but can in one way shape or form, can normally be swapped to a alt. The same thing remains for materials in TLOPO. That extra steel you have on your main? well you can't hand it down to a alt, and do you really want give up one of your maxed ships already? Your materials remain trapped there, forever... or perhaps not... hint hint, nudge nudge, smirk smirk, devs.
TLR: Basically what im trying to say is.... TLOPO never has been a game with a need for alts. The only time you need a alt is when you want to customize your character, or perhaps you've been kicked from a guild, or branded as a widespread troll (the last two im joking of course.) On a purely mechanically level, all pirates have the same weapons, skills, and play exactly the same, and without access to move loot around ( a primary component in TLOPO) alts are nullified even more. I had a friend in POTCO actually make a alt her main purely because she got a legendary on that toon, shortly after she never played her main again. No more need for trapped materials anymore, creativity and experimentation with certain ships should be allowed and encouraged.