@tesiccl I think the words you're looking for are: That didn't happen.(my bad you already did those two.)
And if it did, it wasn't that bad.
And if it was, that's not a big deal.
And if it is, that's not my fault.
And if it was, I didn't mean it.
And if I did, you deserved it.
I never stifled you or implied you shouldn't speak, that's why I @'d you. ;) So don't try to DARVO this.
@crowedhunter So you took a literal one liner to have all that meaning?
How about reading the details here.
@habiki said in Stick to the Script on Safer Seas.:
I'm so sick of safer seas and the minefield it's turned this forum into.......
Safer Seas needs it's own forum.
@foambreaker It's really not very much meaning. It means "go away". And so does "move along". Just casual dismissals.
It doesn't take a degree in psychology to read between those lines, and don't act like I'm being crazy. You are not seriously going to try gaslighting me, are you?
Your next line is something like "that didn't happen" and the rest of the script is above if you need to consult your next move after that.
@habiki It's not a minefield, just be respectful to your peers. Or even just don't use textbook abusive tactics (not that you have, that I've seen).
Or heck, do even. Seems like the general population has become very aware of these tactics based on the posts I've read recently. I've sure been having a blast explaining them.
As a general reminder to ALL:
Don't make me turn this Thread around!
I've said it elsewhere on here, yet these 'Safer Seas' threads keep locking-
I returned as a player after a 4 year hiatus. Safer Seas brought me back, but is just beyond underwhelming, so I don't have long term plans to stay. It's unfortunate because this franchise has such a unique gameplay loop yet for many of us old vets we just want to sail in peace.
Having previously reaped the rewards of endgame, Safer Seas is a real slap in the face and drop in the pan. There is no viable longevity or sustainability in this game mode.
So I want to know what the play is? Rare did this, yet the gamemode feels passive aggressive and unrewarding, as if they're intentionally trying to kill it's success. They're really coming off as another developer who just wants to force folks to play the way they think they should, instead of looking at what many players have stated or the potential monopoly they'd have in the market with a true PVE mode.
Obviously this was designed a funnel, but when the funnel fails (as High Seas is why so many of us left) what then? Did our engagement and spike in your numbers mean anything to them? Does it allow them to see the potential profits they have? Or are they just narrow-mindedly committed to High Seas as the end all be all?
@sombermako Safer Seas is a complement to the main game, not an alternative to it nor a replacement for it.
The game design and intent for Sea of Thieves is a shared world adventure, and it always will be. Those who wish to play in the confines of Safer Seas will always have the option but we will not bring the rewards and activities in line with those of High Seas when many of the restrictions are in place due to the risk vs reward factor that is inherent in Sea of Thieves - removing any risk means rewards must be balanced accordingly.
That's a fairly tone-deaf response if I ever saw one.
Safer Seas is going to increase the player count temporarily. Rare isn't going to hold the influx they're experiencing BECAUSE folks just want a true PVE experience and Safer Seas is a bastardized version of this. It's unfortunate this game has no competition in terms of design and experience. Maybe then Rare would listen.
As I've said elsewhere yet again, Safer Seas is targeting former players- not new ones. This sentiment has been loudly proclaimed both here and on Reddit, Discord, and Twitter. Many of us have waited years to see this glimmer of hope at a return yet have been entirely underwhelmed by what was released.
I am interested if these numbers spike and dip over the next month or so and what Microsoft and Rare's response will be. My hope is pressure from Microsoft to better tune the rewards of Safer Seas. Even just allowing Emissaries so that earnings and questing feels worthwhile would be nice. They could cap them at Tier 3 and increase the amount of loot one must stack to achieve it.
My time feels disrespected and unvalued in this franchise, as it did back at the start of 2020 in High Seas and was a major reason I left. There's plenty of great PVE franchises that reward players' time & efforts, but the uniqueness of this game's gameplay loop has yet to be redone.
All that said, this game has always been severely time-gates, so Safer Seas feels even more disrespectful than High Seas to many gamers. And for myself, that's a wrap. I'll finish up these new Tall Tales I never played and then it's an uninstall. No money will be spent by myself, just a 2-3 weeks of adventuring with 2 friends who've never played.
But the longevity and player retention just isn't there.
@sombermako I'm sorry to hear that you feel that way. I don't believe that Rare(at least the majority) is actually trying to disparage anyone with the game mode. I believe it's more about the outrage people are having toward the mode. People were losing their minds about it. It was and is a much bigger explosion than the DA sails was (and that's a change that actually affects people). The day it launched, I ended up as part of a brief server alliance. These guys were running around introducing themselves as only doing alliances to "protest Safer Seas"(wat???). Which annoyed me, but the dude I was running with was way better at talking to people and took over in a flash with conversational finesse. Anyway, my point was that people are so mad that people have even this little bit of reprieve. They're even trying to push players of SS out of the game entirely so that the mode ends up dying like Arena did.
And while the mode may not have been intended as an alternative, that's exactly what it is. You can do either or, you can mix it up, but you can't do both at the same time. You would alternate between them, as designed. Ofc they hope against hope that people will return to the High Seas, but if people don't want to then they don't want to. They'll do like you do and check it out, then leave again.
I think the issue is that despite the narrative that everyone is PvPvE, there are many who are exclusively PvP and PvE. I would call these two groups "farmers" and "raiders". Raiders get to be raiders and they have no penalty. But farmers get the short end of the stick. They will never raid, and they don't want to fight for whatever reason. Safer Seas won't change that, and I'm mostly confident that Rare is capable of recognizing that fact. As well as they are that raiders make them money and are a larger group.
I would wager that this is a test to get data on how many farmers they can get if they start to cater to them while also playing it mostly safe to the raiders who will throw a tantrum and start "protesting" on HS. "Don't worry raiders, this will actually feed more players for you to punch down on into HS!" I find it hard to believe that they actually expect the majority of SS players to change into HS even if that's the narrative. It just doesn't make sense. Even the raiders know better, hence all the tantrums/abuse on forum and HS.
@sombermako said in Stick to the Script on Safer Seas.:
That's a fairly tone-deaf response if I ever saw one.
Safer Seas is going to increase the player count temporarily. Rare isn't going to hold the influx they're experiencing BECAUSE folks just want a true PVE experience and Safer Seas is a bastardized version of this. It's unfortunate this game has no competition in terms of design and experience. Maybe then Rare would listen.
As I've said elsewhere yet again, Safer Seas is targeting former players- not new ones. This sentiment has been loudly proclaimed both here and on Reddit, Discord, and Twitter. Many of us have waited years to see this glimmer of hope at a return yet have been entirely underwhelmed by what was released.
I am interested if these numbers spike and dip over the next month or so and what Microsoft and Rare's response will be. My hope is pressure from Microsoft to better tune the rewards of Safer Seas. Even just allowing Emissaries so that earnings and questing feels worthwhile would be nice. They could cap them at Tier 3 and increase the amount of loot one must stack to achieve it.
My time feels disrespected and unvalued in this franchise, as it did back at the start of 2020 in High Seas and was a major reason I left. There's plenty of great PVE franchises that reward players' time & efforts, but the uniqueness of this game's gameplay loop has yet to be redone.
All that said, this game has always been severely time-gates, so Safer Seas feels even more disrespectful than High Seas to many gamers. And for myself, that's a wrap. I'll finish up these new Tall Tales I never played and then it's an uninstall. No money will be spent by myself, just a 2-3 weeks of adventuring with 2 friends who've never played.
But the longevity and player retention just isn't there.
Well, I suppose you're free to leave then? Rare really hasn't been disingenuous at all here. They've been up front on their vision for SoT as a whole, and they were pretty clear on their intention for Safer Seas as well.
It's obvious that some portion of the player base were hoping it would be something other than advertised, and it's also pretty clear that a sub-section of those players are waging a campaign to get Rare to compromise on their vision.
As someone who's played since beta, taken several breaks here and there, mainly engages in PvE content, and has north of 2k hours in the game, I feel like my time has been greatly respected.
Seriously, the devs have a pretty consistent stream of communication with their players.......content updates are fairly frequent and always free.......and the team is actively expanding to try and address community issues like cheating, quick-swapping, sword blocking, etc.
SoT seems to be pretty successful, which is a testament to the vision the team has held to and evolved. Not every game is for every person, and that's okay. But I'd counter that player retention and longevity is certainly here for this game six years into its lifecycle. The fact that you aren't one of the players it retained doesn't negate that fact.
@sombermako said in Stick to the Script on Safer Seas.:
So I want to know what the play is? Rare did this, yet the gamemode feels passive aggressive and unrewarding, as if they're intentionally trying to kill it's success. They're really coming off as another developer who just wants to force folks to play the way they think they should, instead of looking at what many players have stated or the potential monopoly they'd have in the market with a true PVE mode.
This is a PvPvE game. Not counting Safer Seas, you are at risk of being attacked at anytime/anywhere in this game by another crew. That isn't Rare "forcing folks to play the way they think they should," it's the main point of the entire game. You don't see casual players in WoW demanding they also get the best gear/weapons like the mythic raiders do. There's a way to acquire such items: you have to go out and get them yourself by working/competing for them.
In Safer Seas, you are at zero risk for being attacked by another crew. As such, the risk vs. reward system is tweaked to account for that. If they relaxed all restrictions in Safer Seas, everyone would go there and there'd be no point anymore. There are many different opinions as to what Safer Seas is meant for (an extension of the Maiden Tutorial, a place where families/their kids to play, a place where veterans can explore around the game fully in complete safety) and they're all correct, regardless of who said what, when.
The learning curve of this game is high. It takes experience to get better. With that experience comes many failures. I've been sunk countless times, and each time I look back and ask myself, "What could I/we have done differently?" and new strategies are developed. I read so many examples of people claiming how toxic players sunk them, and I shake my head, because sinking other ships in this game isn't toxic. It's the filth that comes out of their mouths that's toxic, and I always ask myself why aren't people recording and reporting this? You don't have to tolerate filthy language (toxicity), and Rare will ban them for it.
"Or are they just narrow-mindedly committed to High Seas as the end all be all?" To answer your question, yes. High Seas is the end-all be-all of this game. Back when I first started, there was no such thing as Safer Seas, so I had to learn from the School of Hard Knocks, and I learned a lot thanks to it. Safer Seas will always be around for players (new, young, and veterans) to experience the game for themselves. If it no longer appeals to them, their only other option is Higher Seas. Not a server where they can pointlessly farm FotD all day, earning difficult achievements that took nothing nothing to get.
@habiki "Waging a campaign"? Do you think these people are having meetings? They're advocating for their own interests. There are just a lot of them.
@bloodybil so respect other people's opinions as well. SS doesn't effect you whatsever in your gameplay if your a HS player. Allowing the Dev's to tailor SS as it becomes a part of SOT is going to happen if you like it or not. At the end of the day it boils down to money. If they find it's lucrative they'll invest more into it and in doing so be aware that HS will still be the complete game with SS giving enough for the PVE experience players to enjoy.
@crowedhunter said in Stick to the Script on Safer Seas.:
@habiki "Waging a campaign"? Do you think these people are having meetings? They're advocating for their own interests. There are just a lot of them.
It's a figure of speech. Don't be disingenuous by twisting the words and making them out to be more then they are.
But, if I have to break it down so that my words aren't twisted and misconstrued..........
Of course I don't believe people are having meetings and making some kind of coordinated effort. I mean to say that there seems to be several of the same folks who are creating threads and responding to existing ones in the forums about Safer Seas. They're all saying the same thing, over and over, after clear instruction from mods that their requests for Safer Seas is not in line with the intended design of the game mode.
Seeing locked threads and (quite a bit of) vitriol everywhere because these handful of posters won't give up on this "campaign" of theirs is getting tiresome.
@habiki I wasn't being disingenuous at all. I was very directly criticizing what you literally said. You described it like it was a conspiracy. My point stands. There is a demand for it. It isn't an artificially inflated demand like your message implies. The reason these people are posting their ideas and voting on multiple posts is because now they are actually being facilitated and the people who try to be covertly abusive aren't succeeding at chasing them off anymore.
Calling it a campaign is what is disingenuous. Words have meanings and I believe you are intelligent enough to know exactly what you're doing.
Especially after that blatant attempt at pretending that SS is what's tearing forums apart when really, it's the people who don't want SS throwing a tantrum, provoking negative responses, telling people to leave the game, and gaslighting people about it when they get called out.
@shadow-xlii said in Stick to the Script on Safer Seas.:
@bloodybil so respect other people's opinions as well. SS doesn't effect you whatsever in your gameplay if your a HS player. Allowing the Dev's to tailor SS as it becomes a part of SOT is going to happen if you like it or not. At the end of the day it boils down to money. If they find it's lucrative they'll invest more into it and in doing so be aware that HS will still be the complete game with SS giving enough for the PVE experience players to enjoy.
As long as the risk vs reward factor is kept true and that people have incentives to play in HS, indeed SS won't affect HS.
I play both modes, and find that SS already became a great part of SOT, especially because of the fair compromise that was made about it. Because it is fair, whether you like it or not.
Agreed, it does boil down to money. Rare seems to currently follow the more lucrative path, catering to everybody via PVEVP.
@europa4033 a dit dans Stick to the Script on Safer Seas. :
@sombermako said in Stick to the Script on Safer Seas.:
So I want to know what the play is? Rare did this, yet the gamemode feels passive aggressive and unrewarding, as if they're intentionally trying to kill it's success. They're really coming off as another developer who just wants to force folks to play the way they think they should, instead of looking at what many players have stated or the potential monopoly they'd have in the market with a true PVE mode.
This is a PvPvE game. Not counting Safer Seas, you are at risk of being attacked at anytime/anywhere in this game by another crew. That isn't Rare "forcing folks to play the way they think they should," it's the main point of the entire game. You don't see casual players in WoW demanding they also get the best gear/weapons like the mythic raiders do. There's a way to acquire such items: you have to go out and get them yourself by working/competing for them.
In Safer Seas, you are at zero risk for being attacked by another crew. As such, the risk vs. reward system is tweaked to account for that. If they relaxed all restrictions in Safer Seas, everyone would go there and there'd be no point anymore. There are many different opinions as to what Safer Seas is meant for (an extension of the Maiden Tutorial, a place where families/their kids to play, a place where veterans can explore around the game fully in complete safety) and they're all correct, regardless of who said what, when.
The learning curve of this game is high. It takes experience to get better. With that experience comes many failures. I've been sunk countless times, and each time I look back and ask myself, "What could I/we have done differently?" and new strategies are developed. I read so many examples of people claiming how toxic players sunk them, and I shake my head, because sinking other ships in this game isn't toxic. It's the filth that comes out of their mouths that's toxic, and I always ask myself why aren't people recording and reporting this? You don't have to tolerate filthy language (toxicity), and Rare will ban them for it.
"Or are they just narrow-mindedly committed to High Seas as the end all be all?" To answer your question, yes. High Seas is the end-all be-all of this game. Back when I first started, there was no such thing as Safer Seas, so I had to learn from the School of Hard Knocks, and I learned a lot thanks to it. Safer Seas will always be around for players (new, young, and veterans) to experience the game for themselves. If it no longer appeals to them, their only other option is Higher Seas. Not a server where they can pointlessly farm FotD all day, earning difficult achievements that took nothing nothing to get.
I have to say that you're talking absolute rubbish.
Daring to claim that if the rewards on SS would be equal to HS would make all players leave HS to go to SS is a fabrication.
The proof: how many of us like to fight? Enormously. So stop talking nonsense.
If the rewards are equal (and I'm convinced that this will be the case in the coming months), the only players who will go to SS will be those who don't really like pvp, that's all.
Or maybe your message confirms something I've been saying all along: the vast majority of SoT players are PvE players who couldn't care less about PvP. And if that's the case, then Rare has simply missed the mark. And the release of SS and its success (apparent since we don't have the real numbers) prove it.
In any case, we all need to understand one thing: Rare is a company. Its purpose is to make money.
The fact that SS is out, something they swore they'd never do, proves that the coffers are empty.
If SS is a success for them, then you can be sure that one day all the restrictions will be lifted. Whether you like it or not.
And if all the PvP players leave as a result of this decision, they won't mind in the least, since they'll be replaced by other players.
@zeyrniyx Saying that Safer Seas is Rare doing something they said they'll never do gives a bit of false hope to those wanting to see a full PvE mode. Let explain why - what has been consistently said to not be implemented is exactly that - a full PvE mode. At that time, a mode such as Safer Seas had not crossed anyone's mind. What players were all asking for was a full PvE mode and that was what they were consistently told wasn't on the table. Thus far that has not changed.
@zeyrniyx I disagree with that. I think they are just trying to expand their income. All companies do it. Big companies like microsoft say that a company dies when it doesn't grow by n% each year.
Rare just wants to expand its audience, I think. I'm confident they don't want to alienate the raiders because they are a source of income too. Ideally, they'll appease everyone. But the problem is that there are many who just want easy targets on High Seas and want Safer Seas' population to die so the mode will be removed and give them more easy targets again. If Rare didn't care about that group too, there wouldn't be the narratitive about SS being a gateway and SS would only differ in terms of reward value and Reaper commendations.
@crowedhunter said in Stick to the Script on Safer Seas.:
@habiki I wasn't being disingenuous at all. I was very directly criticizing what you literally said. You described it like it was a conspiracy.
I very directly responded and laid out in basic terms how the figure of speech I used is normally interpreted. Misunderstanding it in the context of an online forum in completely understandable. Willfully continuing to 'crticize' someone after they've explained what they've said is obtuse and not constructive. Do better.
Calling it a campaign is what is disingenuous. Words have meanings and I believe you are intelligent enough to know exactly what you're doing.
Yes words have meaning. Hence, my explanation when you failed to understand them. If you're too upset to accept the explanation, I can't do anything further.
Especially after that blatant attempt at pretending that SS is what's tearing forums apart when really, it's the people who don't want SS throwing a tantrum, provoking negative responses, telling people to leave the game, and gaslighting people about it when they get called out.
It wasn't a blatant attempt.......I said what I said quite successfully. The last two weeks on these forums have been very divided because of Safer Seas. And the overwhelming two topics I see are Safer Seas players saying they want more gold/rep and captaincy.
If everyone's being honest here, there's been a lot of negativity from folks on both sides of the topic.......that nonsense needs to stop. One thing that is clear, however, is that Rare has a definitive stance on this. Continuing to make new threads on these Safer Seas topics and aggressively provoking people on the forums is needless and a source of the animosity we're seeing.
On a personal note, I try to make it a point not to direct my responses too pointed towards any one individual......but you called me out pretty hard here. No hard feelings but you've been seizing on one figure of speech I used and, after I explained my intentions, you doubled down instead accepting the explanation. Take a step back and have a constructive dialog.
Happy sailing!
@mopwieldinghedgehog a dit dans Stick to the Script on Safer Seas. :
@zeyrniyx Saying that Safer Seas is Rare doing something they said they'll never do gives a bit of false hope to those wanting to see a full PvE mode. Let explain why - what has been consistently said to not be implemented is exactly that - a full PvE mode. At that time, a mode such as Safer Seas had not crossed anyone's mind. What players were all asking for was a full PvE mode and that was what they were consistently told wasn't on the table. Thus far that has not changed.
I'm sorry to disagree with you. The current SS is the HS of 2018-2020 neither more nor less. So they are PvE servers but from the era we have here.
So yes, there are currently restrictions (some of which are still valid) but what happens if there are more players in SS than in HS? What decisions will be made?
One thing's for sure, when I see messages saying that the current state of SS is definitive, I can't believe it precisely because of what I've just said.
Mind you, I'm happy to have SS, just as I'm happy to have HS. But when I see messages here and everywhere on the networks screaming the death of SS, denigrating all the players who choose to play in SS (and who very often alternate between the two modes), well, I wanted to make it clear that yes, there are decisions made because of the financial side, and that's quite normal.
I'll always be grateful to Rare for finally giving players the choice to play the way they want.
But I have to admit one thing: SS has restrictions that I can't understand (not the 30%, but even the captain ships (even without milestones). I don't understand, but I'm patient and enjoy both game modes. Although I must admit that I'm currently enjoying SS more than HS, while waiting for the anticheat that's still a long way off.
@zeyrniyx said in Stick to the Script on Safer Seas.:
@europa4033 a dit dans Stick to the Script on Safer Seas. :
Or maybe your message confirms something I've been saying all along: the vast majority of SoT players are PvE players who couldn't care less about PvP. And if that's the case, then Rare has simply missed the mark. And the release of SS and its success (apparent since we don't have the real numbers) prove it.
Safer Seas is a success because we don't have numbers to prove it?
@mopwieldinghedgehog Hope is false by nature. It's a belief in something that may not exist. Letting people hope for things isn't the same as promising it.
And for all we know they might expand on it. I understand that your role is not to speculate though as a literal advocate/PR of Rare. So I'm sorry if this sounds more critical than defensive as that was not my intention.
@crowedhunter a dit dans Stick to the Script on Safer Seas. :
@zeyrniyx I disagree with that. I think they are just trying to expand their income. All companies do it. Big companies like microsoft say that a company dies when it doesn't grow by n% each year.
Rare just wants to expand its audience, I think. I'm confident they don't want to alienate the raiders because they are a source of income too. Ideally, they'll appease everyone. But the problem is that there are many who just want easy targets on High Seas and want Safer Seas' population to die so the mode will be removed and give them more easy targets again. If Rare didn't care about that group too, there wouldn't be the narratitive about SS being a gateway and SS would only differ in terms of reward value and Reaper commendations.
So yes, currently the pvp players (we'll call them what that, even if I prefer to say the players who play the game as it was designed) are a base on which Rare can still rely, it's true.. But the question is: until when?
Why am I asking this?
Since season 8, there have been a mass of cheaters that have kept many people away from the hourglass, then from normal adventure mode.
Season 9 didn't bring anything new (aside from a chest and an adjustment to world events (which is cool for beginners and solo players).
Season 10 brought the guilds, but which are not worked on enough, then the mermaid skull (which is already no longer contested) and finally the safer seas.
All this lack of content has already scared away a lot of people (I'm a witness to it)
On top of that, you add all the PvP nerfs that there have been (and will still have in future updates) and that will still scare away a lot of people.
Mainly SoT content creators have become multigaming, that already sends a message here.
I could give you another example but it would take too long.
In other words, the health of the game has taken a hit. Not admitting it to ourselves is not seeing what is in front of our eyes.
And that, whatever anyone says, obviously weighs in on revenue for Rare.
@habiki a dit dans Stick to the Script on Safer Seas. :
@zeyrniyx said in Stick to the Script on Safer Seas.:
@europa4033 a dit dans Stick to the Script on Safer Seas. :
Or maybe your message confirms something I've been saying all along: the vast majority of SoT players are PvE players who couldn't care less about PvP. And if that's the case, then Rare has simply missed the mark. And the release of SS and its success (apparent since we don't have the real numbers) prove it.
Safer Seas is a success because we don't have numbers to prove it?
Un succès apparent (je l'ai précisé) nous n'avons pas les chiffres. Seuls les développeurs les ont.
En tout cas, je vois énormément de personnes qui vont dans ce mode de jeu, c'est sans doute un avis subjectif, mais c'est un avis à défaut d'avoir des chiffres que nous n'aurons sans doute jamais.
