Ships: they are a key part of AO’s gameplay but currently there is only a choice of 4 + the brig.
So I’m here to make some suggestions on how they might be able to progress in the future.
I think we all agree that linear ships are getting… dull. So I think it’s best if the next ships branch out into different categories.
The first split:
The ships after the brig should start falling into 3 basic categories:
Heavy Ships such as the Frigate and Galleon
Medium ships similar to the caravel or ketch
Lightweight ships such as the gunboat
Each branch of the ship tree should split into two or three more categories eventually.
For Heavy ships:
Behemoth: Massive, slow ships with many cannons, huge amounts of health in exchange for little turning speed, reduced sailing speed, and lower stability.
Survivors: High stability ships designed for dark sea travel. Decently high health but less combat capability. Ironclad could fit into this category possibly.
Battleships: High damaging ships with decent speed but less health and stability than the other heavy ship options
For Medium ships:
Balanced class name here: A class of really balanced ships for people who can’t make decisions.
Class based of ramming:Enjoy ramming your ram into peoples boats? Choose this class. It likes ramming things.
Cannon ships: Who doesn’t like guns? A ship class specifically based around having mediocre speed and health in exchange for many siege weapon slots and cannons.
Light ships:
The Travelling boat: Why don’t we make a large, lightweight ship with big sails, but little armour and firepower. Good for risky cargo runners.
The Glass Cannon: Do I need to explain? It goes zoom. It goes boom. It goes boom. Especially boom when you hit it with a lvl 1 wind Mage blast… It dies flamboyantly.
The Hunting Boat: Hate pirates? Love power potions? How about a class of ship which gains bonus damage against sea monsters and has a ton of attachment slots!! The Hunting ship is great for all your shark and whale nuking needs.
And that’s not it!! If you get bored of the lack of ship variety, just add more!!!
Add a whole ship type based on customisation!!! A sea based gallery and tea room? Count me in.
I get the idea, but wouldn’t deckhands kinda of make it pointless. Like bigger ships (which are generally heavy ships) could become faster than light ships (exception being traveling boat?) with legendary deckhands, hence making the “light catergory” pointless. Unless there’s going to be vast differences in their respective stats or all ships have the same deckhand amount, this might not work out.
(Just a potential oversight)
I like the idea of having specialized ships instead of a single ship that reigns over the others. Maybe the hunting boat could be the redwake longboat since they’re kinda known for hunting sharks.
I don’t like the amount of categories you are suggesting. First of all it’s way to many, second of all sorting them by size in the first split will probably not be balanced, and third of all it seems like a quantity over quality thing. And the ideas of each sub category sounds like something you can do with the stuff you add onto your ship anyways (everything that affects gameplay in the shipyard menu). It’s sort of like Overwatch classes and TF2 classes. Overwatch has lots of classes with some doing similar roles while TF2 has a few classes but each one is fleshed out with many weapons for individual customization + subclasses if you pick certain weapons (I haven’t played either game I hope I’m getting these right).
I think better categories would be Combat, Survival, and Utility/Specialist (you can split the last one into two if needed). Combat is used for ship combat (both PVP and PVE and for tussles with big sea monsters). These ships are usually big, tanky, and have lots of slots for cannons and weapons. The second category is used for general use or exploration (includes the dark sea). These ships are well balanced and some are better suited for the dark sea. The third category are ships that are specialists, such as being really fast or having a gimmick in combat. Also I would focus on individual ship customization rather than a lot of ships with the gimmicks already premade. And each ship would be good in their own way.
Overall a somewhat high effort suggestion, but I don’t like the ideas you are suggesting.
I had some similar ideas and once I reach trust level 2 I’ll post it as a suggestion (I joined the forums in the first place to suggest said ideas). I think your idea is somewhat overcomplicated with the many different classes, but the general idea of having more specialized ships that can fill many different roles and not just a linear upgrade path is a great idea and one integral to my suggestion.
opposite of glass canon; the tank, high health, very high, so high that its health bar is thicker than the entire war seas, but it moves like a snail and does as much damage as a lvl 1 wind mage blast
