Sounds more like an observational study than an experiment.
Out of curiosity, what "hostility rate" have you measured in games like COD, Battlefield, Battlegrounds, Rust, Fortnite, etc? Also, are you headed over to Madden to see how many players try to take tackle your team and take the football away? You are playing a game centered around thievery in a pirate setting. You really should have attacked the one ship that left you alone. They obviously had something to lose.
@ghostpaw You may be taking this a little more seriously than I was. š Actually, I joined the sloop for a bit and they had nothing. šš¼
Hmm... I was just considering doing something like this over the coming months, actually. I don't know that 10 ships is an entirely fair assessment, but your results are honestly about what I expect to reach as well, sadly. Over what kind of timeframe/number of sessions/servers did your experiment take place?
I just find it ironic; so much hype/pride in being a Pirate Legend yet many seem to ignore the quite obvious in-game mentality/theme of "stop you bloody in-fighting and stealing from each other and work together". I mean, for crying out loud it has a song for it, lol. I'm not saying that there shouldn't be PvP. It's great fun on occasion. But I'd love to see just as many moments with large alliances working towards something. I love the feeling of a good co-op. This might be helped if the devs added something more content wise to encourage this, besides a beautiful song and a well spoken pirate lord ghost, which most players seem intent on ignoring and just being in it for themselves. Just a testament to the shortcomings of humanity I guess. shrugs
@ghostpaw the game is more open ended then purely team vs team naval battles. I mean whatās the point of attacking and sinking ships that have no loot and are clearly not a threat? Thereās no benefit to it. I do enjoy the combat aspect of the game and steeling stuff but Iām not sinking a ship anchored at an outpost. Theyāve offloaded at that point so itās just a waste of cannonballs.
There have been times when Iām trying to complete a tall tale or find journals when Iād happily give all my loot up. I make enough gold, but respawning at the other end of the map is inconvenient.
Iāve gotten decent enough that I win more than I lose so I donāt mind being attacked but really I try to lshow a little restraint. If I really want to fight itās over to the arena.
@torch511 said in SoT Social Experiment Completed:
@ghostpaw I mean whatās the point of attacking and sinking ships that have no loot and are clearly not a threat? Thereās no benefit to it.
Maybe your client is different than mine. From a distance how do you know a ship has nothing of value on it? They all look the same to me. People often lie in this game. I've seen a lot of loot float to the surface after sinking someone who claimed "We have nothing on board!" And after the last several updates, you would have to ignore loot laying around not to have something of value on board. There are gems, chests, and skulls littering the beaches and shipwrecks everywhere you look!
Over the last few days I've been joining random galleon crews (my friends quit the game months ago). It's painful. These crews wander about almost randomly, picking up treasure and crates, and tripping over themselves trying to lead each other in different directions. That's the incentive. A ship of players who do not know each other and practicing poor communication is fun and easy loot. If you want to blame someone, blame these crews who cannot defend their treasure. They are rewarding the crews who can communicate and follow a basic plan, aim a cannon, and watch their ladders. Anything you reward you will get more of. Honestly, I cannot see why anyone wouldn't want to attack just about everything they see. Most crews are terrible. A decently run sloop with a few kegs and cursed balls can grow rich in no time.
I have also finished a little social experiment. While loading up cargo runs, I like the concept even if rewards are not rewarding, the Reaper's Bounty spawned - been ignoring them the whole patch, but why not, so I picked it up and sailed to the Reaper's Hideout. There was a Sloop with the Alliance offer flag parked, so I parked by them, well the empty ship parked by them, while I was taking the chest to the Masked Lady through the bottom of the sea and the opposite side of the island. The whole place was kegged. Which kind of friendly pirate does do that? Anyways, the kegs exploded, turned the chest in and killed them, seems like they were Xbox players fortunately for me... what happened to the Xbox players being nice? Then I continued my cargo run which was bugged.
(I was supposed to pick up 6 crates, already had 2, but when I returned got 6 more to the total of 8. Thanks for the additional gold, but Somebody should perhaps fix this.)
Anyways, the game doesn't really give players motivation to be nice to others so they aren't. It's not as much their fault as it is Rare's lack of foresight for underestimating their audience - it's survival game of course the social part can't work! People play this genre to be jerks. That's the reality we have to live in.
@ghostpaw That's something I also don't understand. I outright have only ever used open crews maybe a few times in the game's life cycle. I don't really play with randoms. I always treat another ship with the caution that they are a well-communicated threat, but its often not the case. Heck, now? Our ship rarely has less than 5K in loot on board at any given time. Turned in outpost treasure? Now you still have all that fish. Sell up the gems and fish to hunter's call? You found some loot before you got to a seapost, a never-ending cycle. Yet, I will watch another ship in the distance visit 2-3 islands, never an outpost, only to find that they have nothing aboard, or almost nothing.
I feel we are the only crew that will engage someone else with our own loot aboard at risk. Perhaps many of these crews are afraid of the loss. Playing one-and-done loot grabs, turning to an outpost any time they find loot, as to make sure they don't lose it. I don't know for certain. There also seems to be a major lack of supplies. Just the other day a we took a Reaper's Bounty as a Sloop with a Galleon on our tale. One of my go to strategies is to board the enemy ship to scout their supplies and see what we are up against purely on logistics. 10 planks and stock cannonballs to boot. Many time's I don't even need to actually WIN a fight, I just need to endure the cannonfire for long enough and they won't be able to fight back. Resources and loot is easier to find than it ever was before, and yet I see less of it on others ships than days of old.
@ghost-0f-dawn you are not the only crew that brings treasure to a fight. I engage with easily 10k on board, I dont sell often.
It are mostly more experienced players that have loot.
How did you approach? Flying an "let's alliance" pennant, or not? With cannons raised high as if hit by a peace ball? From what angle? Broadside to broadside, or at an angle where neither of you would have a good opportunity to fire? Did you hail them by pirate chat or speaking trumpet? Did you stand on the deck, waving?
I guess it depend on the situation. Most Galleons are willing to fight whoever. What I want to know I guess is how many were sloops, brigands, and galleons, and what kind of ship were you.
These questions would help assess what he situation and depend on what world are you talking to. If you were a sloop, many brigands, and For sure Galleons would Brie you as easy prey to pounce on you.
Interesting, but I think you might want to try a larger sample size than 10 ships for your experiment!
@ghostpaw On the other hand a solo player on an island that has his/her boat approached by a decent galleon or brig is a sitting duck. So that 'attack anyone indiscriminately' mentality can and has pushed some people away from the game. Not to mention sometimes its just cheap.
@surveyorpete Good questions. No Alliance Flag up...completely neutral. Each time I stood up on the tarp top and spoke through the trumpet. Said things like "Hello", "Just Passing Through", or "Need Any Help?"
@mr-creeper-2627 said in SoT Social Experiment Completed:
@Hombre
š why exactly?
Cause other people give me the sweats. And dealing with things that make you uncomfortable is for mature, well-rounded individuals. Not fidgety little couch weasels like me.
@ghost-0f-dawn said in SoT Social Experiment Completed:
@ghostpaw That's something I also don't understand. I outright have only ever used open crews maybe a few times in the game's life cycle. I don't really play with randoms. I always treat another ship with the caution that they are a well-communicated threat, but its often not the case. Heck, now? Our ship rarely has less than 5K in loot on board at any given time. Turned in outpost treasure? Now you still have all that fish. Sell up the gems and fish to hunter's call? You found some loot before you got to a seapost, a never-ending cycle. Yet, I will watch another ship in the distance visit 2-3 islands, never an outpost, only to find that they have nothing aboard, or almost nothing.
I feel we are the only crew that will engage someone else with our own loot aboard at risk. Perhaps many of these crews are afraid of the loss. Playing one-and-done loot grabs, turning to an outpost any time they find loot, as to make sure they don't lose it. I don't know for certain. There also seems to be a major lack of supplies. Just the other day a we took a Reaper's Bounty as a Sloop with a Galleon on our tale. One of my go to strategies is to board the enemy ship to scout their supplies and see what we are up against purely on logistics. 10 planks and stock cannonballs to boot. Many time's I don't even need to actually WIN a fight, I just need to endure the cannonfire for long enough and they won't be able to fight back. Resources and loot is easier to find than it ever was before, and yet I see less of it on others ships than days of old.
Oh, man - you would have loved my sloop yesterday!
...and over 300k in gold loot over the course of 11 hours.
Only ever got chased once off an island by another crew but wasn't pursued. Sunk 2 cursed sloops, and vanquished 3 megalodons.
My ONLY goal that entire session? Tome of Fire 3 (got it, BTW).
@surveyorpete said in SoT Social Experiment Completed:
How did you approach? Flying an "let's alliance" pennant, or not? With cannons raised high as if hit by a peace ball? From what angle? Broadside to broadside, or at an angle where neither of you would have a good opportunity to fire? Did you hail them by pirate chat or speaking trumpet? Did you stand on the deck, waving?
This is what I was actually wondering - how you approach can make all of the difference in regards to context.
@hitmanoooo your social experiment is literally n=10 (meaning your subject base has only 10 ships in it) before any real conclusions can be drawn your test has to be broadened in a couple of ways.
For one n=10 is way too low for any conclusions, n=1000 is way more trusting but will take more time.
Then you have to be checking which ship you are sailing (sloop, brig, galleon) and probably the test should be done on each type, with each type probably having their own test batch.
Also you would have to make sure that testing is fair so none of the participants need to have any preconceived notion of hostility (eg they havent been attacked that day or week during testing)
And then you would need to check if any of the in game cosmetics/flags have more of a tendency to draw in heat or friendlyness.
And you would have to approach each ship in the exact same way (angle of approach, speed, cannon angles etc)
@marsmayflower sagte in SoT Social Experiment Completed:
where are all these hostile pirates? I play on the crossplay servers and all I ever see are ships of all sizes that just run with I try to engage them on my solo sloop. Ship combat is the best part of this game and people just don't want to partake, it seems.
It's about a bad boarding meta and spawnkilling what makes people more salty imho.
I agree ship combat is great, unfortunately to sink a ship people sometimes shoot only one hole into the hull, then board and spawnkill kill the crew until it's sunk instead of having a real ship fight.
I made a suggestion to increase the difficulty for boarding and make the ladders tracktable so you have to shoot yourself onto another ships deck with a cannon or you need to do a proper boarding maneuver or ram the ship. All this leads to more ship and less pirate combat, but imho this should exactly be the way to go.
Do it for a Month and lets see what the outcome then is.
It not only depends on cosmetics, but also how you do it, how your voice sounds ingame etc...
@miyoryu-suyuki sagte in SoT Social Experiment Completed:
Hmm... I was just considering doing something like this over the coming months, actually. I don't know that 10 ships is an entirely fair assessment, but your results are honestly about what I expect to reach as well, sadly. Over what kind of timeframe/number of sessions/servers did your experiment take place?
I just find it ironic; so much hype/pride in being a Pirate Legend yet many seem to ignore the quite obvious in-game mentality/theme of "stop you bloody in-fighting and stealing from each other and work together". I mean, for crying out loud it has a song for it, lol. I'm not saying that there shouldn't be PvP. It's great fun on occasion. But I'd love to see just as many moments with large alliances working towards something. I love the feeling of a good co-op. This might be helped if the devs added something more content wise to encourage this, besides a beautiful song and a well spoken pirate lord ghost, which most players seem intent on ignoring and just being in it for themselves. Just a testament to the shortcomings of humanity I guess. shrugs
We had only a few real coop needed situations.
The Hungering One and the Throne Event.
Problem is, Rare made World encounters like the Meg and the Kraken scaling and no threats to Sloops.
So why coop?
Even the Ship Raids are relatively easy and people can even solo them.
There is nothing that needs cooperating and therefore Alliances are very much fragile because not realy needed.
If all Megalodons were like the 1st Hungering One and if the Kraken were a hard beast and the Ship Raids more unforgiving and maybe even impossible on a Galleone only, but need at least 2 Galleones work together the Alliances would be more stable.
I am fine with betraying, but to have no incentive to not to betray other than "honor" is a bit weak.
The Ship events should need an alliance for sure and the way an alliance distributes the booty should be 50/50 no matter who sells it.
Another thing is, that Alliances can be broken, but the one who leaves an alliance should be somehow punished for doing so.
You can still betray, but it need to come at a price.
An Alliance should weigh more and should last for a whole session ir the one who leaves pays.
@hitmanoooo i understood that however you put down a statement that maybe less educated or people not willing to think about it further can go and run with and say:
āSomeone tested it and 90% of encounters on sot are hostile in natureā
Whilst you yourself already noticed that it is not as simple as that just the next day ;-)
This can create a wrong view about the game and its intricacies
