People getting banned for taking down PVE Alliance servers?

@skylerpk

I haven't read the article (couldn't find it), but you're wrong that "mountain tip" is a SoT Partner.

If there are rules specific for PvE Alliance Servers that gets you banned from SoT, that's wrong; if infiltrated player has broken SoT or Xbox rules, then of course they should be banned/ warned, whatever the correct punishment is, no matter if he is streaming, partner or a "normal" player.

The only way I see people getting Banned for doing these things. Is by having the whole group on the Alliance server gang up and mass report the one single player.

Enough reports on a player, 90% of the time they will be punished, even if no evidence is given. Just the sheer amount of reports on a profile is "evidence".

Anyways, this just proves in its own way, Alliance servers need to be dealt with.

@burnbacon I still don't understand the infatuation people with alliance servers... they're putting in the work and hours to do something. Just let 'em. It doesn't hurt you so why not let them be happy? When you fight someone, what they have on their character or ship means nothing and so many PvP'rs treat it like some badge of honor when they themselves got PL after all the nerfs. It's a badge of time put into the game. It certainly doesn't mean they can fight, or win against a skilled player and if they can't, then why bother with them?

@ghostpaw I don't think anyone should be banned for it, it only shows that person's personality and why they would want to even bother people doing their own thing. So, yes, I do see how easy that was and thanks for showing your feelings.

@drizkillz said in People getting banned for taking down PVE Alliance servers?:

@ghostpaw I don't think anyone should be banned for it, it only shows that person's personality and why they would want to even bother people doing their own thing. So, yes, I do see how easy that was and thanks for showing your feelings.

No one is bothering people doing their own thing. They are hunting emissary ships in a target-rich environment. Nothing more so than an alliance server as they likely all have them up as there is zero risk for all the multiplier reward.

@ghostpaw that's cool. I just let people enjoy themselves how they want and try not to go out of my way to stop them.

@v*ca-hombre said:

You know why they were angry. You did it specifically to make them angry. I'm not saying you should be banned for it, but don't play innocent. Be a man, own up to it, and stand in your truth. I may not agree with you, but I might have a modicum of respect for you... I doubt these people were banned for infiltrating an alliance server. More likely they were just banned while infiltrating an alliance server and conveniently forgot to mention what else they were doing at the time.

I was holding onto this for a few weeks now. Wasn't sure if I was going to make a separate thread about it, or just keep it to myself & DM to others as needed. But a reply to this type of comment seems like a good place.

There was another thread like this recently. While it was still unlocked, I reached out to support for some actual answers; which I should have known from past experience, I wasn't going to get any of those answers easily. While asking practically the same question twice, of whether or not infiltrating and betraying an organized alliance could be considered harassment, I was given the responses: 1) attacking a ship is acceptable provided that you don't violate CoC, and 2) betraying an alliance is not against CoC. Neither of these fully answered my question, and so I re-phrased it one last time. The answer I got wasn't the one I wanted, but it was the one I expected all along.

Not that I'm concerned with losing your "modicum of respect," but it doesn't really matter what my reasoning is, when you're going to disregard it before making your judgement anyway. I attack ships in normal servers almost all the time. What I've learned from doing this over the years is that this can anger some people. So, should I not? Should I stop attacking, solely because it might anger them, even though their anger wasn't what I was after?

I like tough fights and being focused by multiple ships. These servers are unfairly grinding massive amounts of loot and I want to steal it all, like the non-lovable-schlub pirate that I am. I've been booster-busting since I was inspired by Sandy Ravage in my very early CoD days lol. Is the alliance going to be angered by the fact that I infiltrated them dishonestly? Yeah, probably. I'm aware of that.

But if that's all I'm doing (i.e. no hot-mic'ing, no pirate-chat/RODL-spam, no bucketing, no other forms of taunting); if I only join their vc/party during the set-up, then leave some time after & mind my own business while carrying about my PvP, they really have no other reason to be angry. They certainly have no reason to call it harassment.

Unfortunately, that's not how Rare sees it.

Why is rare banning players for spawncamping a ship through sheer PVP skill when the option to scuttle and switch server is freely available to every player and even encouraged on the Ferry of the Damned?

Sea of Thieves delivers multiple different ways to fight each other. However, the goal should never be to spawncamp just because you feel like killing some peers (unless it is accepted from the other crew). While I do agree that players are given the option to leave and scuttle, it should be seen as a last resort.

Rare isn't just banning players for PVP'ing. It is often combined with a toxic attitude and name calling. Victims have to submit evidence to succesfully report a player. Furthermore, players can get banned by breaching the Code of Conduct.

skylerpk said:

What they did was, they had infiltrated these alliance server discord by having been invited in a legit way by a man on the inside and then proceeded to turn on the alliance server by engaging in PVP. Yes, they broke the rules of the paticular Discord server but not Rare's SOT rules. Why were they banned?

@tre-oni said in People getting banned for taking down PVE Alliance servers?:

Toxicity gets you banned... Joining a group that IS in an alliance server, and sabotaging your own crew you got placed with after pretending to be interested in helping them in the server just so you can spite the whole alliance server.. is toxic.

You literally told the mod in your example that you wouldn't be inflitrating naturally, and you'd try and push for outside group invites. They read between the lines, as the rest of us can as well, and considered that too far.

I think it's important to just read first, before trying to read between.

Sabotaging your own crew is toxic. It's griefing. It violates CoC, and I don't advocate for that. But that's not what OP described. And that wasn't what I wrote in my support ticket either, yet it was still considered harassment.

If you & your buddies make it into one crew without sabotaging & harassing others out of it, there's nothing "toxic" going on, is there?

@theblackbellamy said in People getting banned for taking down PVE Alliance servers?:

But if that's all I'm doing (i.e. no hot-mic'ing, no pirate-chat/RODL-spam, no bucketing, no other forms of taunting); if I only join their vc/party during the set-up, then leave some time after & mind my own business while carrying about my PvP, they really have no other reason to be angry. They certainly have no reason to call it harassment.

Perhaps if you end up infiltrating the same group of players again and again, but the chance of you ending up with the same players is probably not likely if they have a large group of potential players in a server. Otherwise IMO it wouldn't be harassment.

Unfortunately, that's not how Rare sees it.

Aye, it seems that Rare (or some mods) are more in favour of (condoning) PvE servers than their public stance.

Wondering if when one player infiltrates and invites another player to a session without telling it's an pre-organised alliance server ... the former might be breaking discord rule, but that's it...

@v*ca-hombre said:

This is a false equivalence... This is about seeking out a group of people outside the game, agreeing to play by their rules to gain access to a server, and then breaking your promise by attacking them.

I wasn't attempting to equate the two situations by how they're carried out. You suggested folks infiltrate/betray just to anger others. Just after the text you quoted, I was listing personal reasons as to why your assumption is wrong. And when I made that comment, I was only pointing out that if others' potential anger was such a deterrent, I'd get nothing done in the game.

In both situations, the result is anger, and in both situations, I'm playing by the rules of the game and abiding by CoC. But only in one situation, the consequence is a ban.

My point was that I'm tired of people playing coy about it. If you want to attack alliance servers, then just say you want to attack alliance servers. I'll still think it's silly, but that's just my opinion.

I, TheBlackBellamy, would love to infiltrate and betray an organized alliance.

But I love my account more, and I'll be damned if I lose it just because my actions were misinterpreted as "harassment." So, I think I'll pass.

Call me old-fashioned, but if you're talking about a deliberate and calculated attempt to "infiltrate" alliance servers I'm not sure why there is even a question...

All of this was done with the clear intention of harassing players on said Alliance Servers, and the fact that it was premeditated and not just happenstance only reinforces that.

If someone gets that riled up and goes to those lengths over a video game, maybe Alliance Servers aren't actually their biggest problem?

@thagoochiestman said in People getting banned for taking down PVE Alliance servers?:

Call me old-fashioned, but if you're talking about a deliberate and calculated attempt to "infiltrate" alliance servers I'm not sure why there is even a question...

All of this was done with the clear intention of harassing players on said Alliance Servers, and the fact that it was premeditated and not just happenstance only reinforces that.

If someone gets that riled up and goes to those lengths over a video game, maybe Alliance Servers aren't actually their biggest problem?

PvP in a game with PvP is not harrassment, doesnt matter if you do it for practice or because you dont like someone's ship set, PvP is just PvP and it is part of the game. Let me give you a simple analogy using your own argument:

Imagine if you spawn on a server and see 3 athena emissaries doing a fof and you make a plan to sink them, now imagine you are being reported because there was "a deliberate, calculated, premeditated and clear intention to harrass" this poor innocent alliance, just because you wanted some action.

Give. Me. A. Break

@v@ca-hombre said in People getting banned for taking down PVE Alliance servers?:

@theblackbellamy said in People getting banned for taking down PVE Alliance servers?:

I was only pointing out that if others' potential anger was such a deterrent, I'd get nothing done in the game.

And I was just pointing out that it's two different situations, so the anger isn't really comparable. Making someone angry isn't what matters. What matters is why you made them angry.

I, TheBlackBellamy, would love to infiltrate and betray an organized alliance.

But I love my account more, and I'll be damned if I lose it just because my actions were misinterpreted as "harassment." So, I think I'll pass.

Cool. Then we have nothing more to discuss. Good luck in all your future endeavors.

Sorry but no. Why you made someone angry does not matter in the least What matters is that you didnt cheat or insult anyone. The rest is just "tools not rules" playing the game how it was always intended.

And yes, we clearly do have much more to discuss. You may want to sweep these threads under the rug but its a real problem that needs to be discussed because innocent people who never broke the rules are getting banned which means they were essentially robbed of their money.

@v*ca-hombre said:

And I was just pointing out that it's two different situations... Making someone angry isn't what matters. What matters is why you made them angry.

Lol yeah you pointed that out after trying to say I was making a false equivalency, when I hadn't. I'm not disagreeing that they're two different situations. I'm aware that people will get angry for whatever reasons trigger them.

Your first comment, what started this fun back-and-forth, was that people infiltrate/betray "specifically" to anger others. I offered my perspective, on why I would do it (if it weren't bannable), and gave reasons, none of which are to generate any anger.

I didn't say that they wouldn't be angry because of the betrayal. I acknowledged that they might be. But "they were angry" doesn't seem like a good reason to hand out bans, unless CoC/ToS violations were the cause of the anger.

Cool. Then we have nothing more to discuss. Good luck in all your future endeavors.

Adios, Hombre.

Guys quit trying to talk sense with @like-500-ninjas, the person literally thinks the entire Reaper faction is built around griefing instead adding a risk for the 2.5x reward of other emissary ships.

If they don't know the definitions of basic terms, I doubt you will be able to use logic with them.

@theblackbellamy

I would have safety answered your line of questions too. You were looking for a line to draw in the sand. Presumably to go dance around that line and pull up the conversation any time someone tried to call you on it. Not saying YOU specifically would have done much more than nuke a couple of Alliance servers 🙃

@theblackbellamy said in People getting banned for taking down PVE Alliance servers?:

This is mildly concerning, but I see how this is a grey area. PvP, even in an organized alliance server, is not against CoC, ToS, or anything. The issue comes down to the lengths you have to go through just to go play the game, betray your crew, and then try to destroy the organized alliance server within the game. This scenario (even though this is a borderline waste of time because they'll just start up another one and live in peace after they ban you from their discord server,) involves you lying and being deceitful to numerous people outside of the game to stir an impromptu PvP match against a ton of people not fit for advanced PvP fights.

The lengths gone through are impressive, but even Support is acting like this is a little much just for some stealing... I don't like alliance servers, and coming from someone who ended up joining some (and inevitably leaving them) as a naive, fresh, Pirate Legend all the way back in August 2020, this method is a little too much on the iffy side between in-game and out-of-game to say it's worth touching. Support just can't do nothing about a mass report, but at the same time, it's probably not worth the effort needed just to steal from players that were never going to play the game as intended and continue playing it that way.

[EDIT] To add to this, why on earth is there any moderation over what happens outside of the game? If the exact details of the scenario are "This user entered our discord server, lied to all of us, got placed onto a ship after we approved for them to be on said ship, betrayed the crew, and then started sinking all of the other crews that were actively playing in the alliance at the time", how in Ramsey's Ghost is that an issue for Support to have a decision on? A discord server is out of their jurisdiction surely, so either the users getting banned weren't as innocent as they were assumed, or moderation is meddling with affairs they should have no business in, period.

@v*ca-hombre said:

Comparing someone getting mad at you for attacking them when you find them in Adventure mode is different than someone getting angry at you for lying your way into an alliance server.

I thought we said our goodbyes, but okay. Once again, I understand that the two situations are different. I understand why people might be getting upset in either situation for different reasons. I wasn't equating the two in the way you keep bringing up.

When I asked:

if you should not attack people because it might anger them.

It was to point out that in both situations, my actions should be acceptable according to CoC and ToS. In both situations, I might anger the others involved. But in neither situation is it my intent to do so.

Perhaps I should have put it simpler: I don't attack anyone "specifically" to anger them, as you initially suggested. Whether it's a stray non-allied boat, or a boat I temporarily ally with in an organic server, I do it because this is the sort of pirate I like to play as.

Promising you would follow the rules and then attacking them was. And while this is acceptable within the game, the point is that this was outside the game. And that's where the gray area comes in.

Well, that's the thing. So what, is it against SoT's CoC or ToS to lie in a discord or xbox party chat? Lol.

What if, as said above, I made an organic one and jumped in a party just to lie, only to betray them after? I've done that before. Ban me now? I mean the only difference is that we didn't spike the server. So it's against CoC or ToS to lie about why you want to spike a server?

I'm not saying I want to attack them on other services. I want to sink them and steal their loot in the game. Not "outside of the game."

I guess that's on me for getting a little hyperbolic. Still, my overall point (which I thought I laid out fairly well) was that whatever the reasons, both sides are stepping outside of the intended use, so neither is anymore innocent than the other and shouldn't be surprised when things get vague.

Idk, I'd put it a little differently: Neither side is more guilty than the other.

Or I guess, neither side should be guilty. Support disagrees. Is what it is.

Until Rare feels motivated enough to start cracking down on those servers, they're not breaking any rules. So they're not guilty of anything. But infiltrating and betraying, even though otherwise abiding by CoC and ToS, apparently is viewed as "harassment."