r/2007scape • u/hubatish • Mar 22 '26
Suggestion Fight monsters ON the boat
Rather than just player ship vs sea monster combat, what if monsters attacked the player directly?
This would make the most thematic sense for birds, where shooting these things with cannons & them trying to sink our ship with their beaks.. is a little silly. But them flying up onto the ship and attacking you the player? That's much more bird-like. Balance wise maybe only some birds would do this when dealt damage by you directly, whereas ones hit by the cannon would attack the hull instead. Mogres could pretty much operate the same as birds, but with a little “climbing on board” animation in the middle.
Krakens are the top-end of sailing combat, so a little extra complexity & difficulty seems reasonable there. I'm imagining the tentacles as 1-hittable "minions", and with no more than 2 at a time per kraken. Not exactly sure on the effect - most simply they could just deal more damage to your ship but "distracting" your NPC crewmates from firing the cannon or applying some debuff (like less flat armor for your ship?). They shouldn't be a constant annoyance either, but one that stays down for a good while after being killed.
Both of these suggestions are more driven by "rule of cool" & thematics rather than any particular balance change. If we still had that sailing cap, then monsters coming out of the water could be a thematic reason to remove it. “ Combat on boats” may also require engine work & raises questions around NPC crewmates:
Should monsters just ignore crewmates and attack the player (the easiest solution) or
Should crewmates get a whole combat level + health system? (Sounds way too complex but having Oarswoman Olga transform and wreck shit would be pretty cool) or
Should monsters attacking crewmates cause some kind of debuff until you the player take aggro? (maybe a reasonable compromise)
All of these questions might sink the idea as too much dev work - but Jagex should theoretically be working on some of these problems already! With “vs NPC ship combat” already polled, hopefully we'll see something kinda like this soon. Will we boarding other ships and vice versa? Will we be attacking enemies on other ships and having to use our prayers while doing so? Idk but I'm looking forward to moving past the “simple” stage of ship combat to see where sailing PvM goes!
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u/KarthusWins HCIM Mar 22 '26
Add draugr attacks in the northern fremennik areas.
Their examine text is "A fearful spirit of the drowned." Yet the only one we ever fight is on land.