Played a bit more today. Still not feeling it much, but man, when it clicks, it's pretty awesome. I guess the only question is, how often would it click for me? Probably not very often. Outside of a few streamers, no one on my friends list plays it much. It really is a game like Destiny where it has almost nothing to do with the content you're playing and everything to do with who you're playing it with.
I completed my first voyage, finally. I left the outpost sailing for a small island. When I left, the weather was calm. But on the way to the island it started raining and a storm hit. The water in the game really is amazing. You see, hear, and feel the difference in the waves once the weather gets rough. My voyage was one of the "initiation" voyages, so my destination was literally a straight shot from the outpost. But even with it being a straight shot, thanks to the winds and waves throwing my boat around, I ended up sailing left and away from the island. Eventually I was able to turn around and anchor on the beach.
As soon as I touched the sand on the beach, skeletons started spawning. It was pretty cool, sword fighting skeletons, blasting others. But meh, it got pretty old. Eventually I was just hoping they'd stop spawning. Maybe the strength of your enemies changes depending on your crew size, idk. But these guys were just boring. I made my way to the X spot on my treasure map and dug, unearthing my quest prize. As soon as I picked it up the skeletons spawning seemed to be stronger. More of them had swords, some of them now even had guns. I almost died just casually walking my chest back to my boat because I didn't realize two of them were shooting me.
So I make my way back to the outpost. The weather is still rough. As I get ready to anchor, I look in the distance and see a giant boat just sitting there in the ocean, off by another island. I tuck that away for now. I turn my chest in and get some coins. What are the coins for? Fuck if I know, the game literally tells you nothing.
I get back on my boat and go to investigate the big boat. I had no real plan, but I figured if nothing else, I'd maybe abandon my boat and steal theirs, Captain Jack Sparrow style. However, as I neared the boat, I realized cannonballs were raining down all around me. Not only from the ship, but from the island itself. Turns out it is a fort. I am dodging cannon balls and trying to maneuver my small ship around to get a good line of sight on the big ship to try and blow it to smithereens. I miss a ton of shots but do line up one good one and hit the front hull.
Our little battle continues awhile and then they really start tearing into me. I get hit a good 4-5 times at least by cannon balls, all I hear is splintering wood. So I decide I'll try to hop aboard their ship. I figured since I was being pelted by cannon balls from the fort, maybe only 1-2 people were on the ship. I line my boat up, run across the deck and up the bowsprit and leap on board... only to find 4 people there. So who the fuck is tearing into me from the fort? I wonder if AI attacks you from the fort. That's incredible if so. As I ponder that, I run to a cannon being operated by some female pirate as she bombards the fort, and I kill her with my gun. The other three are on me with swords immediately, I feebly try to shoot one of them a couple times but miss badly and they finally kill me until I die from it.
Session over. Very fun, indeed. I can see groups with imagination having tons of fun on this. Not for me, though. Imho they need to make big combat changes. It doesn't have to be something like Destiny with classes and unique abilities or skill trees or anything, just give us more combat options.
