Hi there! ^^

I'm sort of new to this whole message boards thing, so I am unsure whether what I'm trying to bring up is new or whether I'm just reinventing the wheel, but here I go.
So a few weeks ago I watched a video on YouTube by TheFearsomeRubberDucky. He was trying to address the issue of how to revive pirate101, and he said something that caught my attention. A lot of us are hoping for a new world -which I must admit is a reasonable desire as we haven't had much in that department for a while- though that isn't really looking at the big picture as a whole. I'll be blunt, a new world alone isn't going to revive pirate101, and though we might see a rise in number for a few years -a very optimistic outlook by the way- it won't very last too long.
Pirate101 has a few fundamental problems it has to address before it can see a revival. I want to talk about how most players don't even make it past Cool Ranch in this game. I remember the first time I played. It was all happy sailing until Cool Ranch, where I saw myself quitting due to the various unbearable defeat and collect quests. Now I know, that's more me being lazy and not really the game's fault -though to be honest in such cases having quests that tedious is a problem that should be addressed anyway, but I digress- but the motivation was simply lacking for me to push on. My only motivation back then were the cool-looking max-level players that hung around Avery every second of every day, but after a while, I began to wonder if that was it. Was I really grinding through all this just to look cool in Avery? And so I stopped playing, had I not come back because of my younger siblings I never would've finished the game.
What I'm trying to say is, even if we bring in a new world, we'll soon find ourselves in the same pit, whether it be 2 months after the update -if there will be any at all- or 2 years, we will soon be begging for another update on the questline. What I propose is that instead, we look to up our endgame game -hmm repetitive but I hope it makes sense. We need something to motivate new players to finish the game and retain old players -who probably have maxed characters for every class at this point.
Here are a few ideas of thought up, I'd be happy to hear what you think about them and what you propose to be done instead.
1. BRING IN CRAFTING PLEASE! - I mean, imagine how cool it would be to craft certain pieces of gear? Perhaps have it like wiz101 (though I'll be totally honest with you, I know it's easy to have the same stuff in both games, but I find it rather boring at this point. I'll write more on my ideal mechanic of a pirate version in another post.) Allow pirates to be able to craft cosmetic gear (I do like to look cool, and the variety of good-looking outfits isn't exactly cutting it) and maybe even bring in epic craftable gear on par with those that drop from bosses. It doesn't even have to end there, allow us to craft ship gear, I'll talk more on this further below. We would still have to grind to farm for crafting items, so it isn't much different from our grind now, but giving us a wider option of items and methods of acquiring them helps.
2. Pirate 101 has the rather unique feature of flying ships, which to be honest I feel can be taken better advantage of. As I mentioned earlier, introducing the option to craft ship gear would be cool, and give us more motivation to find ourselves in the skyway apart from when we are on a quest or trying to defeat DN. (On a side note, can you add armada-themed ships? Like perhaps say they were stolen for lore sense, but having those would be cool.) I am aware that there are a few ship activities currently (regeta was it called), but yeah no, I personally found them a little boring. But thanks for trying, appreciate it, maybe others enjoy it. The issue of ships leads me to my next idea.
3. It's high time we had fishing. Something to get us additional gold when farming fish, but that's not really my main point. What I'm really talking about is fishing for crafting materials. The two activities could tie up nicely and could be another worthwhile reason to actually be in the skyways. A lot of ships fall during combat in the skyway, who knows what fell along with them.
4. Now, this I expect a lot of no's for. I know the game was designed for kids and wasn't meant to be hard, but, hear me out. When we reach the max level, shouldn't we have an option for a bit of a challenge. Apart from the smuggler's den (which to me is easy, because well I've been grinding so long my PVE gear is good) I don't find anything else really difficult. Moo manchu is like a free gold spawning arena at this point, and Kane is a good boss at best when you have a team of fully stacked individuals. So I propose you add more boss mobs, and no, not obsidian boss mobs (but thanks for that, appreciate it.) I mean mobs that make it borderline difficult to win unless you actually think while playing. Of course have it beta tested to ensure its not impossible, but having something difficult to do in our free time would be nice. Though please add gear that is actually worth it, or maybe have them only drop crafting items so that we get gear through crafting (I hope the crafted gear is worth, I don't care how long it takes to craft tbh, just make it good). There is a wide enough pull of mob cheats, something new would be nice using a combination of the old. But I'm sure someone else can think up something better along these lines.
5. With the earlier idea it would be a good time to talk about guilds or something of the sort. I see it isn't really viable right now as there are a limited number of players, though guilds could be an interesting concept to bring in. I could actually go on and on on the applications of this but let me give a brief idea of my thoughts. My first thought on this is the possibility of Guild rankings. Perhaps have daily mundane quests like defeating armada ships, killing certain bosses or a certain number of mobs and the like and give points in exchange. Points determine the guild's rank and whatnot and also perhaps give some sort of guild-based currency (more on this). Or maybe have it in a PVP sense where guilds fight each other in battle and victors gain a higher ranking. We could also introduce a guild shop along with this to get guild exclusive items (though I'd rather have this purely cosmetic as I don't like the idea of the very top echelons of the game teaming up and not giving everyone a fair chance at good gear. Or maybe add a wider variety of items like the PVP shop)
I have so much more to share, though I grow tired of typing :P. I will continue posting later, until I've exhausted everything. For now, I leave you with this. I am not the greatest mind, so I am sure that some others can find better ways of implementing my ideas.
See you in the next post Max level Death Musketeer- Dante

I've said this privately to my family for years.

I prefer P101 over W101. I love the battle mechanics. I love the running commentary by my crew. I love the over the top pop culture references.

But aside from questing (unlike W101) this is NOTHING to keep me coming back. As soon as I maxed out my first pirate I took a break as running the SAME story again so soon was not appealing. I will admit that questing on a new Pirate with my grandson is better than soloing everything. But even there, the quest is overly familiar.

Pirates biggest problem is once the new quest(s) including the recent Sinbad addition are done there is literally NOTHING else to do but start a new Pirate and run it all over again.

I am glad to see some life on the boards. My circle of Pirate friends are energized and excited for upcoming updates. But new worlds, new skyways on existing worlds, new quests in familiar places are only going to hold the interest of returning players and new players for only so long.

Previous management never fully supported Pirates. I'm glad to see that new management seems to be realizing the potential for this game. Please give our Pirates a reason to come play in the Skyways of the Spiral on a daily basis. Until there is more to do than just going on another quest, Pirates will never be as popular as Wizards.

But late to the commentary, but if there's something worth talking about I might as well poke my head in here. I can completely and wholeheartedly get behind the addition of more difficult combat and post-game content. I have been longing for forever to have something akin to Wizard101's Four Dungeons or Catacombs; a challenging and downright unforgiving experience to really give combat the push that it has been lacking. Even the Machine dungeon, the game's final current story dungeon and supposedly one of the most difficult, becomes easy and methodic once you know what you're doing. Which is why I really hope the upcoming continuation of last year's Sinbad quest provides that challenge. (Hint, hint, Kingsisle)

As for more side activities? Well, that's one of the reasons people stop playing in the first place. Over on Wizard101, where I'm a more currently active player, there are a plethora of hobbies ranging from Fishing to Gardening to running Gauntlets (with my personal favorite being Monstrology). Here, few of those things exist, and even those that do like the Smuggler's Arena do not have the proper support and excitement to enable them to be engaging. More of this would not only attract players, but keep them as well.

And yes, Castle Tours. Please.

anecorbie on May 26, 2022 wrote:

Have you soloed Kane or the Smuggler's arena?

I have, indeed, successfully managed to solo the entire Smugglers Arena. It was quite the challenge and length of time spent. Really hoping we can see another challenge like it someday.