One: Ship Combat Upgrade.
First, replace the scripting ship combat with zoomed-in real-time isometric ship combat, with a selection of (editable) AI options. Remove "close to board" as an approach option and instead only make it available when you've actually gotten your ship alongside the enemy.
Additionally, make attacking ships matter for your reputation — both faction rep and disposition. There should be options to be an all-out pirate, a privateer, or an actual hero who doesn't, y'know, sink merchants just to get more swords, hats, and coats to sell at the nearest fish shop. Towards that end, there should be many more ships at sea, including some that are full of vampires, vessels, and clearly hostile wilders. And make the latter come to you and chase you down some of the time (as would ships from factions that aren't happy with you).
Seriously, I'd happily pay $25 for this upgrade.
Two: Free form pirate mode
This is a little different, but it's basically a request to get some replay out of the fun character class and combat engine. Maybe this would be part of the above, or maybe it'd be its own thing. Either way, I'd pay. The idea is:
1. You create a whole crew, with five character-class characters and a complement of ship's crew. No pre-gen companions, just all roll-your-own.
2. There's a randomly-generated map — islands could stay as in the main game, but add completely randomized encounter maps. Use the existing maps, throw in thematic enemies at random. Give XP for clearing each of these.
4. Keep Neketaka, Port Maje, etc., but limit interaction to merchants and inns. Maybe have the bounty-assigners available.
5. And have lots of ships to attack and otherwise interact with. Possibly you could pick a faction alignment to start.
6. Level-capped: when you get to the top of the XP ladder, you're given a leader-board score and are done.
Sure, the main story of the game is great — and don't get me wrong, I love its depth and wouldn't be playing PoE without it — but it doesn't really invite constant replay. A mode like this would be fun and exploits the existing depth of the game engine to create a new experience.
