A Naval Combat/ Sailing Idea

Ok in my feature thread, someone mentioned being able to sail on the open seas and engage in naval combat against NPCs and other players similar to BDO and Archeage. I think it would be a cool open world content update. Although I know it may never be implemented, I wanted to expand on the idea from that thread. From here on out is how I would make such a system, so feedback on the idea would be appreciated

Content

-You have a customizable ship which can be upgraded by playing various missions that you can get from NPCs on randomized small islands or a set of dev curated islands.

- For what you are doing while on the water, you could have a variety of missions like deliver items, kill NPC crews, fishing (could use ocean fishing as a backbone)

-For PvP naval content you could have piracy on the water (opt in with greater rewards?), Instanced ship battles where you zone into a large team 1 on 1 battle.

Naval Combat

- The easiest way to do this imo would be to use the already existing custom actions system where you're given a set number of abilities based on what your doing. (Manning cannons, steering the ship, lookout, etc.)

- Boarding enemy ships could be possible where you have to fight it's crew?

Airships

- Would have a similar function to the ships but could invoke a y-axis and (possibly more powerful technology?)

- Airship is similarly customizable; custom sails, weaponry, faster engines etc.

Will add to this as people comment ways to improve it (it's also quite late here atm)

I love naval combat, but this is a Final Fantasy game, we need Airships :O

YES! , finally my lominsian roots can be of good use. Come to me brothers and sisters, lets saw those landlovers what it means to be a nation of former pirates. (ignore how in moogle at least we already kick major ass in the frontlines, to the point of seeing 2 enemy alliances work together to fight us)

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Originally Posted by Kiurai

Ok in my feature thread, someone mentioned being able to sail on the open seas and engage in naval combat against NPCs and other players similar to BDO and Archeage. I think it would be a cool open world content update. Although I know it may never be implemented, I wanted to expand on the idea from that thread. From here on out is how I would make such a system, so feedback on the idea would be appreciated

Content

-You have a customizable ship which can be upgraded by playing various missions that you can get from NPCs on randomized small islands or a set of dev curated islands.

- For what you are doing while on the water, you could have a variety of missions like deliver items, kill NPC crews, fishing (could use ocean fishing as a backbone)

-For PvP naval content you could have piracy on the water (opt in with greater rewards?), Instanced ship battles where you zone into a large team 1 on 1 battle.

Naval Combat

- The easiest way to do this imo would be to use the already existing custom actions system where you're given a set number of abilities based on what your doing. (Manning cannons, steering the ship, lookout, etc.)

- Boarding enemy ships could be possible where you have to fight it's crew?

Will add to this as people comment ways to improve it (it's also quite late here atm)

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I don't think this is the game for naval combat. We don't even have mounted combat.

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Originally Posted by Tint

I love naval combat, but this is a Final Fantasy game, we need Airships :O

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I mean they added a literal Gundam fight so asking for this and ship fights is not that far fetched.

Yes, please! This is something they showed off during 1.0 as potential future content, but like most of Hiromichi Tanaka's open world or other ideas, it was scrapped.

It's also one of the things that gathered the most excitement towards ArcheAge.
Now that they have the development time and money, and aren't in a rush to get A Realm Reborn launched like they were all those years ago. And on PlayStation 3 then, no less. Now would be a great time to revisit abandoned 1.0 plans.

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Originally Posted by Edax

I don't think this is the game for naval combat. We don't even have mounted combat.

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I see your point, but I'm not sure this is a case of "you need to crawl before you can walk."
They're so different and unrelated I could see is having naval combat without mounted combat.
Heck, because there are already systems in place to fight WITH your chocobo, it'd seem kinda weird if they eclipsed that with combat ON your chocobo.

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Originally Posted by ItMe

I see your point, but I'm not sure this is a case of "you need to crawl before you can walk."
They're so different and unrelated I could see is having naval combat without mounted combat.
Heck, because there are already systems in place to fight WITH your chocobo, it'd seem kinda weird if they eclipsed that with combat ON your chocobo.

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My point was that this game is absolutely not optimized with vehicular combat in mind. The kind of gameplay depth you get would be something akin to a FFVII (original) minigame.

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Originally Posted by Tint

I love naval combat, but this is a Final Fantasy game, we need Airships :O

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God please airship content, this or the next mmo please lol. I really want some FF airship content that has the potential scale, long lasting nature, and customization of an mmorpg but the personability and nostalgia of the single player FF games.

Not that I want this game to die, cause it's quite fun and doesn't have a lack of stories to tell, but I can see the naval or airship content working a lot better if their game engine was a bit more meaty and they started content design anew (as I feel the value of introducing what amounts to a secondary character, like housing was in some mmos, would be smarter if it was done earlier rather than 6 expansions in lol). I'd take it twice though, lol. Not an argument against it just a "I feel the engine is going to throw a fit and hold up features", but if they can make it work then.. hey..! they can make it work! :D

On naval vs air though- could very well have both with logic though. It takes a lot more energy to fly than float, so going across the ocean would logically have you on top of the water unless you needed to lift off. Of course there are storms and such too where you'd want to be in the water unless your airship was advanced enough to skim on top of the storm itself.

Naval or airship conbat, either one could be great. Naval combat was one of the greatest experiences I had in Archeage. Of course it will need to be different but its one of those things that evokes adventure, camarederie, danger, risk and reward.

Definitely we can involve the Disciple of Hands and Lands in the construction and upgrading. Who knows maybe it can be something like Diadem although I prefer it in the Open world.

On an off topic, I made a thread 7 years ago of making Airships as FC housing. Many FF in the past had steerable airships that have shops, inns, beds, and even decks to hangout on.

Most of these are already in the game to some degree, the dart minigames could be the basis for the look around to shoot and then have the place aoe button as a predictive fire mode with some edits.

I like the idea of airships as well, this game does have sky pirates and places like Dun Scaith floating around in the clouds so it's entirely possible to make pirate outposts on both sky and sea, we've been to one already in the Mhach questline.

When I get back to my PC I'll add some for the ideas like airship content.

This also feels like a means of getting crafters into group combat. Ship type, artillery, crew abilities, and even crew buffs could all be crafted by and determined from whatever crafting classes are involved.

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Originally Posted by Edax

My point was that this game is absolutely not optimized with vehicular combat in mind. The kind of gameplay depth you get would be something akin to a FFVII (original) minigame.

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Oooh... I see. I misunderstood.
Yeah, unless they did that or something like Guns of Icarus where you go around interacting with different bits of the ship I really don't know if 14 could pull it off.