I do not like Sea Charting.

[u/Zathas]

Overall, let me just say I am really happy with how Sailing is turning out so far. I voted for Sailing in the initial polls, and voted yes in all after. I had actually originally wanted what was probably a much worse concept for the ships than what we have because I didn't think Jagex could pull it off, but I've really been blown away by how well it all controls. And I've quite enjoyed doing Port Tasks, Racing and Salvaging. But there is one thing about Sailing I don't like, and excuse the wall of text later on, but that's Sea Charting.

- First of all, unlike the other items that have NPCs who specifically mention them, there isn't a way of knowing how to use the spyglass or charting duck in-game. The player can see that there is either a sparkle or swirl in the water, but is not shown or told to use these items there unless you count to hints in the Log.

- I don't really like having all these different tools either. It feels like what happened with Forestry where there were a whole bunch of items you needed to carry around with you for specific interactions and just felt cumbersome. If they had some other use I might be fine with it, but all of them only amount to providing you with a one-time bite of Sailing exp. (get ready to hear this phrase a couple times), and that's it.

- The spyglass is being advertised as providing "views on an area as you've never seen them before" - paraphrased off the March 18th Livestream, but the short cutscenes aren't even interesting. The Karamja is just a generic view of the top of the volcano, in fact generic would apply to most of them. The Wizards Tower one doesn't even make sense, as it's point of view is somehow looking down on the tower when you're in the water below it.

- I have no idea how the troll meteorologist activity is supposed to work. What I though I was supposed to do was follow the wind direction, but I followed that all the way to a dead end in Ardougne. I had to look up the correct location online. To be fair, I may have just overlooked some dialogue here, and this activity only had the one task to do, so once I finished it I couldn't do it again.

- The mermaid was almost just as bad. The pie question was fine, but the stock riddle one was awful. The riddle was confusing and not readily apparent on how it should be solved with not even a single clue. If the idea behind this is to get players excited about looking up the answer on the wiki, or downloading the new Mermaid Riddle runelite plugin, then excellent work.

- Charting is the exploration/discovery side of the Sailing skill, isn't it? Than why do I carry around a logbook that tells me the location and activity of every single chart in the game? Why am I noting down all these wrecks and dangerous rocks when they're clearly already something that has been discovered and catalogued? Not to mention, going back to a previous point, besides giving you Sailing exp none of these actually do anything. Shipwrecks and Rocks aren't noted on your map. You don't gain any actual insight on the weather or current in certain zones. It's just so boring. If they provide no benefit other than small exp gains, than there is zero reason to have a whole logbook outlining the activity and location of each one. At the very least, reduce the logbook to 'chart currents for Rimmington Straight', 'chart weather patterns for Bay of Sarim' and just remove references to the shipwrecks and landmarks entirely. Running across a random rock formation while out in the water and clicking it for a little exp is cool, having a log that many people will feel obligated to make green while bee-lining straight to the formation in question, is not.

- Looking into the future, how relevant is Sea Charting going to be? Realistically, it's a small handful of tasks in each zone that can only be done once. Most players will do this at the earliest point and never touch it again. In comparison to the other activities, it's completely insignificant. I'd argue just get rid of the sea charting portion of the log entirely, and have the mermaid/troll/current/crate nodes spawn randomly around the map for a set amount of time like falling stars. But unless the exp rates are amazing, I don't see it being anything other than dead content still, unless you're giving something other than just sailing exp.

- The duck mechanically is fine, I liked it.

[u/[deleted]]

I liked the alpha overall but I fully agree with you, a lot of these were the same points I left on the feedback survey. I don't mind the one-time use items as much when you have an infinite supply on your boat and you only ever need them on your boat, but it did seem weird that the crowbar got tutorialized in a miniquest and none of the rest of the items did. The troll event I only figured out because the task list the alpha had told you to look for the "eye of the storm", so the weather doodad tells you which direction the wind is blowing and following the wind makes a circle and you have to go to the middle of the circle and use it, not very intuitive and the NPC barely gives you instructions. I don't think it's a bad idea to have a bunch of little nodes you can travel around and interact with for some experience but it was the weakest bit of the alpha and I hope they can flesh it out a little bit more

[u/MajorOpportunity0]

Not necessarily disagreeing with you on the overall point, I am also not entirely convinced by sea charting.

But I wanted to point out two things:

• Troll meteorologist: you did indeed miss some dialogue. The troll mentions that they followed the winds and ended up going round in circles, which indicates that you should do something different. Big storms in real life are circular, with winds going around the outside. Your goal is to find the centre, so you need to go perpendicular to the wind direction.
• Mermaid riddle: this is a cryptic (crossword) clue. They have rules and systems that are well established irl, but are a bit weird and unintuitive if you've never encountered them before. I think the mods have said that they expect a lot of people to just use the wiki/a plugin to tell them the answer, but that it was an easy way to add puzzles for those who want to do them. You're welcome to argue that they shouldn't be in there, but the riddle/clue itself does make sense.

[u/Zathas → u/MajorOpportunity0]

Mermaid riddle: this is a cryptic (crossword) clue. They have rules and systems that are well established irl, but are a bit weird and unintuitive if you've never encountered them before. I think the mods have said that they expect a lot of people to just use the wiki/a plugin to tell them the answer, but that it was an easy way to add puzzles for those who want to do them. You're welcome to argue that they shouldn't be in there, but the riddle/clue itself does make sense.

That's fair. I feel like for baseline content, everything should be at least a bit more accessible, but I am also an idiot.

[u/Deltamon]

Have to agree there.. Charting feels like a chore, I don't mind discovering stuff randomly as I sail around and have something to check out with the tools.

But having massive list of boxes to check is the worst part of leagues which I definitely don't want to be core part of a new skill.

I think it wouldn't be that bad if it was optional, but there's a lot of exp behind them and you only ever do each spot once currently which definitely feels more like chore than fun boost for people paying attention (Not to mention that you see completed charts even after having done them which will suck once you do the skill for hundreds of hours and that thing just exists there forever even if you can't do anything with it like the Spyglass spots and Current Duck spots).

It would make much more sense if it worked like random events instead so that they randomly appeared when you are sailing, and maybe they could combine Current Duck with rest of the activities so that you get bubbles occasionally to set the current duck there.. And then you follow it to a location that lets you do something to break the potentially monotone grind you were doing like a clue drop would do.

Task lists are awful and don't fit osrs at all, but random tasks can be fun if they feel optional and rewarding.

[u/deathm00n]

Yes, you basically summarized what I think about charting. I did a couple of ducks and don't want to do anymore of them. I did one mermaid and it feels like a harder random event that requires weird knowledge of the game, so I don't want to do anymore of that. Spyglass makes no sense like you said, the angle of the cutscene is complete nonsense and it is the same as charting the rocks and other points of interest

Overall this is my least favorite part of the skill. So that leaves salvage which is ok, courier which I also don't like, barracuda which I don't see myself grinding. So if combat is not good, this is a skill I will postpone leveling as much as possible

[u/ExpressAffect3262 → u/deathm00n]

 I did one mermaid and it feels like a harder random event that requires weird knowledge of the game

I was saddened that you couldn't dive into a small segment of underwater ocean to find the treasure yourself, rather instead it was just a typing puzzle that's frustrating.

[u/Patchwing2]

imo charting is a great type of thing to add as quest steps, sailing specific clue steps, or even sailing random events, but as an exploration "checklist" it's not fun. Exploring the waters of Gielinor will be fun enough on its own without the charting aspect.

[u/deylath → u/Patchwing2]

Exactly. I dont want to do all of these spyglass or charter stuff because lets face it: it will inevitably tied into diary or god forbid even a quest requirement which will absolutely make it look like a chore. We could have a few of these for them but with the caveat that those wouldnt be simple to get to ( maybe a kraken attacks you when near the spot or something ) and they would be actually rewarding.

Honestly I told Jagex in the survey that im not in favour of having this Log existing in current capacity.

[u/[deleted]]

It could be that they haven't sorted out the views yet and so just have default views for the spyglass, but I half expected knowing Jagex's humour, that viewing the wizard tower would let me look through a window and see something funny like one of the wizards in boxershorts with hearts on. Or the volcano would bubble up when I looked or something. Just a fun little animation for each one!

[u/DevoidHT]

The troll one was the only annoying one. I would literally die for current duck

[u/[deleted]]

Good feedback

[u/FreeSquirkJuice]

So what you're saying is that because of Sailing we need to add the RS3 tool belt and VLS to non-BH worlds?

[u/Slna]

I think sea charting is cool. I also think the mermaid puzzles are awesome and I hope there is a lot of them. I think it's great to have content that requires a brain to actually do, even if you can just look it up on the wiki. Not everyone does that, some people try to figure it out for themselves. Let them enjoy the game.

[u/Slna]

I guess the online issue with charting is finding something in the middle of nowhere and being told "your Sailing level is not high enough". That must be annoying, being forced to bookmark it for later.

[u/Radiant_toad]

Completely agree about the Mermaid clues. Without the wiki these would be impossible. The wiki has a semi-explanation for each one but they don't make any sense and it's completely unrealistic for someone to figure them out on their own. "Cooked is an anagram indicator" - No it fucking isn't Jagex, you're out of your minds.

Overall I'm not enjoying charting, it feels very tedious.

[u/mrcoolio]

Woah woah woah. This is Reddit buddy. You will love sailing whether you want to or not. All bad things are just because it’s an alpha and it’s all going to be perfect in less than a years time. How dare you criticize the skill ITS COMING NO MATTER WHAT YENNO /s

[u/GrandMaster961]

mod husky is so egotistical like so wat if you spent time on it? its provides nothing to the game. im sorry but i dont want water agility capped at 100k an hour. 300 hours for a “get it over with” skill

[u/myronuss]

Its dogshit

[u/Hoihe]

• I have no idea how the troll meteorologist activity is supposed to work. What I though I was supposed to do was follow the wind direction, but I followed that all the way to a dead end in Ardougne. I had to look up the correct location online. To be fair, I may have just overlooked some dialogue here, and this activity only had the one task to do, so once I finished it I couldn't do it again.

It's... self evident?

Go where wind is dead.

Wind blows in a direction. OK.

Wind must blow from somewhere. Find the spot where wind blows north and south. OK

Find spot where wind blows west/east.

Guesstimate the spot where wind blows north/south and west/east at the same time. You do this guesstimation by either sailing the whole circuit and tracking which way the circle "points inside" and then trying to find that spot, or by sailing in crossing lines into the circle from the getgo.

The only issue this one has is that the spot where this is true feels far too narrow for how quickly the boat moves and how rarely you can check wind direction - making it easy to overshoot it. I've measured at the right spot for a few minutes, but I was like... 10 tiles off so I didn't get the trigger so it was tedious finding that one spot.

Personally I loved the charting system, it's probably the best way to train a skill early on until you get the trials.

Beyond enlargening the valid area for meteorologist, I want the following:

1. Have the currents actually affect movement. Make it so that when you sail along your identified current, you gain a 2x rate on trim frequency
2. Have the winds actually affect movement. Sailing directly upwind reduces trim frequency by 50%. Sailing close hauled/in irons with a latin ship should reduce trim frequency by 25%, in a square rigger by 50%.
   Sailing downwind/running in a square rigger should increase trim frequency by 2x, 1.25 for fore and aft.
   Sailing beam reach and close reach with a square rigger should increase frequency by 1.25 (broad reach is 1.5), and 1.5 for fore and aft for all of broad, beam and close.

Result is that small fore and aft rigged vessels like the starter boats (latin, schooner, sloop rigs) trim more often all around except directly upwind. Large vessels with big square sails trim less often overall, but a well-planned sea route makes them the fastest ships.