The water is such an unused space atm here is a concept you might find interesting... I know we players sure would.

Create docks that have a port based function. When you go to this type of dock and click on the activator you switch into a model of a ship, frigate, cruiser ect,

Frigate is a battle ship = more cannons and cannons front, side and rear for all direction cannon shooting.
cruiser is meant for speed = half the cannons of the frigate and only 1 in front and 1 in rear.
sailboat = lesser of both with only 1 cannon in the front.
raft = basic starter boat with no cannon ability but sail capacity.

In the learned skill tree Sailing 0-100 levels as you said you gain exp much like pvp points. Should take a considerable amount of time to do so.

It could be set up that each vessel has a set amount of HP and as sailing is increased the crafts HP increases. Or that each craft type has a predetermined amount and never increases. All depends on how you want to set it up really.

For EJ: This could easily be scripted using a GAS MODE script that has a model swap to a VESSEL model that provides an automatic swap to the VESSEL inventory. This GAS MODE script would include an ability to fire based on the VESSEL capabilities or in such case as a RAFT just a faster travel. Ships could be given a ramming ability and this could be placed under SKILLS in the use menu or OTHER if that is what you want. This GAS MODE would only be accessible from these PORTS designated. Damage reduction from player to vessel would be significant so that players cannot trans after them and destroy a vessel, a 90% or greater reduction in player damage to a vessel or otherwise would be used. You could input a merchant that may use boss mats or seafaring materials to obtain upgrades or components. Much like Void armors, you would use those Boss mats to craft vessels, then use those vessels to obtain materials at sea to construct high grade cannons, sails, ammunitions. Only the basic equipment for cannons should be purchased at first and farming, gathering of high grade materials used to create or craft from the merchant to build constructs like the frigate. It would be wise to first initiate a raft quest and gain your first vessel, then require this raft to travel around and collect the basic materials to combine with boss materials to form the first attack vessel the sail boat, this boat would then be used to farm or MINE sea based ores, and upgrade your vessel from one stage to another, Raft might even be the first step and be capable of harvesting minerals, ores or other to get the required materials to build your first combative boat the SAILBOAT. From here you can progress using both sea found materials and boss mats to create the cruiser or frigate, or if you choose just to farm the materials to unlock it for use. In some cases a cruiser could be just as dangerous as a frigate due to speed of movement and maneuverability. Since cannons hit rate is dependent on the skill level as well as the type of shot you use it would stand to reason this would add a new diverse form of gameplay.

Items obtained to boost sailing speed such as a sail of different kind can be crafted and equipped to your sailboat item menu.

Combat capabilities are Cannons, these cannons can be of different grades like vex cannon - oblivion cannon or demonic draconic ect and have varying stats to match your likings. They may have different types of cannon balls you can create, like slug (heavy duty single shot cannon balls - basic), grape (faster shooting but spreading volley with less damage), exploding (on hit effect of explode - explode effect has a chance to catch fire to a ship and do some damage over time), chum shot (shoots - dead fish which attracts sharks for 5 mins within range), heavy ball (slower fire rate but heavy hitting dealing more damage per hit).

These cannons are filled with cannon balls much like arrows for bows and would require to be loaded, thus cannoning would have a learned skill also in the skills menu - 0-100 levels. If you have 4 cannons for say a frigate - you need to load 4 cannons with ammunition. Each cannon can hold any of the above types of cannon balls. Chum shot can be used to attract sea monsters to another player or to yourself. When in vessel combat you drop vessel based equipment, IE cannons, cannon balls, repair items, sail.

A repair function would be required to replenish and repair the vessel and some form of item can be consumed to boost repairs but they should not be instant types but boost repair speed over time. This would be best upgradable by skill level in the learned skill tree and with higher item potential. So your skill level as well as your item level increases repair rates. The same should be said for sailing ability, the higher you sailing skill is the faster you sail as well as with the better your sail is itself. A frigate with max sailing, best ingame sail would not be able to catch in speed a cruiser with max sailing and the same sail. Comparably so for Cannons, max cannons would be more accurate and have a higher hit rate then lower level cannon skill.

A player attacking a vessel would do little to no damage, they would however take a considerable amount of damage themselves so a player caught out at sea by one in a vessel would very likely be blown out of the water.

This opens up the waterways for monsters like sharks, orcas, octopus (which would potentially latch onto your ship reducing its travel speed while damaging the ship over time). Other various forms of sea like discoveries, cave systems only explorable by vessels. Coral reefs that require a ship to enter and hold monsters in them with little area to kite around, making it best to explore in a group.

Monsters on death could drop potentially unique items, usable to craft sailing equipment, cannons, and other various items.

In other words a whole new world to explore and expand the content that will give everyone an alternative game style.

Basic Skill explanation:
https://ibb.co/Bfv5X8j

Basic Skill tree additions:
https://ibb.co/99S6rWs

Frigate image -
https://www.history.navy.mil/content/hi ... peake.html

Cruiser image -
https://www.history.navy.mil/content/hi ... 1862-.html

Sailboat image -
https://www.history.navy.mil/content/hi ... 84436.html

Raft with sail image -
https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/mov ... w/2071807/

then you woke up.

tldr

[quote="Oni"]then you woke up.[/quote]

If your just going to troll then piss off newb. Ej will at some point need to begin to give the players new forms of gameplay, something other then the constant grind and cookie cutter char creation that he has if he wants to keep players engage and hooked into the game.

New avenues to utilize and diversify ingame play is essential to maintaining larger player bases and even drawing larger amounts of new players in.

What builds a thriving game?

Diverse game and the use of ingame hooks. Player retention should be higher then players exiting the game, this should be higher then the amount of players entering the game also which will give the game itself a growing community. If the gameplay is stagnant then players get bored. If players run out of things to do overall they become bored and find new things to play. As the retention of players increases through the use of hooks like leveling seafaring abilities, leveling chars, leveling craft skills, building houses or even farming for equipment new players enter the game, the key here is to create these so that retention and hooks outweigh the new players entering and exiting.

Don't do this and you have a diminishing game with very little retention at all and your community drops to the single digits. I have personally gone through this several times myself and can attest to the fact you must have diversity in gameplay to retain newer generations of players.