Level/Time Requirement for Hourglass

  • Worst TDMer
    Ship Mate

    When are we getting level/time requirements for hourglass? I remember hearing about it during one of the hundred "we're sorry about the state of the game" type videos months ago.

    With cross stamp matchmaking now in the game this should really be a priority. If you lose 500 chains, 300 pineapples, and 50 bonecallers to cheaters, now the entire continent is cooked until they get bored.

    With all the talk recently about boosting and how to approach enforcement on people being boosted, a time/level gate for hourglass would solve 70% of the problem. Literally just require PL to queue hourglass, it has the added bonus of swabbies not getting burnt out chasing silly curses and better quality fights for everyone.

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  • Drgn SOT
    Marauder

    @worst-tdmer

    If there’s a time limit and both ships survive to the end, then who wins?

    Do they both lose and lose their streaks? Or do both win, creating an easy exploit?

  • HiradC
    Lord
    Insider

    @xdragonman15558 he's talking about a minimum time or level requirement to engage in hourglass, as a form of gatekeeping for cheaters on alt accounts.

  • Drgn SOT
    Marauder

    @hiradc

    Would’ve been nice for a time played then.

  • HiradC
    Lord
    Insider

    @xdragonman15558 just read the actual post rather than responding to title...

  • Look Behind You
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    Deckhand

    @Worst-TDMer @xDragonMan15558 Your posts have been removed as they go against the Forum Rules and Pirate Code.

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  • BurnBacon
    Vanguard
    Insider

    If you lose 500 chains, 300 pineapples, and 50 bonecallers to cheaters

    Who wastes time collecting all that resources? You could still lose those during actual combat or other means.

    a time/level gate for hourglass would solve 70% of the problem.

    Not really. Many cheaters have already stock piled a good chunk of alts by now.

    Literally just require PL to queue hourglass

    Many youtube videos and friends have seen, PL takes roughly 24 hours if not less.

  • Worst TDMer
    Ship Mate

    @burnbacon

    Who said anything about collecting all those resources? These are resources that are passively gained through winning lol. And it's not about losing them, it's about giving cheaters those resources. A cheater with default supps is relatively sinkable. A cheater with god supps is almost untouchable.

    Doesn't matter how many alts they have, their alts are finite. Having a level/time gate on hourglass would give people a reason to actually report these accounts and get them banned. Once they burn through their "stockpiled" alts, they now have to grind their way through the new requirement.

    24 hours is a lot of time to a 15 year old script kiddie, especially when it just gets banned a day later.

    The point isn't complete prevention, it's deterrence. A level/time requirement would be a major deterrence.

  • Europa4033
    Captain
    Insider

    @worst-tdmer

    I could've sworn I heard something about some kind of restriction they were putting on it, but now I can't seem to find anything about it. I'm not sure if any restrictions made would do any good. If they require PL, they'll always have an alt account. If they require hours played, then they "time farm" by leaving the title screen up on said alt.

    I just think anticheat needs to be better, or something has to be done, as cheating is the bane of many games. I was watching a streamer on Twitch who had a streak of 109, only to sink to a cheater using invis, magic bucket and insta-repair. My heart was gutted just watching it. I heard in the news a cheater got sued for $175,000. A few years ago, Blizzard sent a "cease and desist" to a cheat developer who had no choice but to stop. Perhaps legal repurcussions are the next step? I don't know. With the amount of players and money game developers lose, I wouldn't be surprised if this is what's coming next. I don't even bother with hourglass because cheaters are everywhere in it.

    I don't know the answers, but I'm just as frustrated as anyone else.

  • Worst TDMer
    Ship Mate

    @europa4033 Yeah they said it a bit after the first "Fight Night" when everyone complained about cheaters.

    I can't agree, if they required PL it would take a lot of effort for the cheater to consistently have PL alts. People would be way more incentivized to report these accounts, as it would actually have an effect outside of "cheater makes new account and instantly is back in your hourglass game".

    It would be a time sink that most casual cheaters would not wanna be bothered dealing with. Plus I think hourglass should be an "end game" type of activity anyways, there's no reason we should be matching with day 1 swabbies who accidentally voted up hourglass and are confused why a ship spawned out of the water to sink them.

    I do think legal action towards devs should happen in addition to normal in game deterrence.

  • PotatoSord
    Marauder
    Insider

    Do you want EVEN LESS people playing hourglass? 1/40th of the player base has PL. You are saying that 97.32% of all players in the game should not be allowed to play hourglass because sometimes there are hackers and boosters? And yes I know that number is padded by gamepass players but it changes almost nothing. Lets assume 50% of all people who have ever played this game played it through gamepass and NONE of them ever got PL. That still means 19/20 players would not be allowed to play hourglass. It changes it from 97.32% to 94.64% that cannot play hourglass.

  • PotatoSord
    Marauder
    Insider

    @worst-tdmer "It would be a time sink that most casual cheaters would not wanna be bothered dealing with" Most PLAYERS wouldn't be bothered dealing with it. 39/40 players DO NOT HAVE PIRATE LEGEND. blah blah gamepass blah blah if half of all players who have ever played this game played it through gamepass and didn't get PL, that would still make it so that 19/20 players would not be allowed to play hourglass. This game has been out for 7 years and right now is the easiest it has ever been to get to PL, and still 97+% of the playerbase doesn't have it.

  • RealStyli
    Vanguard
    Insider

    As written by Drew Stevens AKA Sonicbob, 10 months ago:

    As part of coming updates, we’ll be placing restrictions on certain parts of the experience that will require play time in order to access, such as locking Hourglass play behind a reputation lock. While these were not part of the feature’s initial design, we want to add friction for cheat developers by placing barriers on cheaters to stop them impacting your play experience.

  • Drgn SOT
    Marauder

    @hiradc

    I did…

  • HiradC
    Lord
    Insider

    @realstyli 🫵😅

  • Worst TDMer
    Ship Mate

    @potatosord This isn't a negative to me, those fights with non-PL players are usually low-quality for everyone involved.

    Swabbies don't need the distraction of hourglass and curses, best case scenario it just leads to burn out. Let em learn naturally and whenever they get into the game enough to earn PL, hopefully they'll be ready.

    Especially with cross stamp matchmaking now in the game, this is almost a non-issue. We don't need to use swabbies as cannon fodder to speed up matchmaking anymore.

  • PotatoSord
    Marauder
    Insider

    @worst-tdmer Its not a non issue, especially when you already have to be sitting in queue for like 5-10 minutes before it kicks into cross region mode

  • Worst TDMer
    Ship Mate

    @potatosord In my experience it's more like three minutes, and regardless, if the devs do go through with a level/time gate they can tweak the time before cross stamp matchmaking kicks in

  • PotatoSord
    Marauder
    Insider

    @worst-tdmer I still disagree because I only got PL for one silly specific reason. Had I not had that one reason, I would have been locked out of HG despite today having over 320 ally and both curses. I only got PL like 3 months before I started HG and I've been playing this game since 2020.

  • Worst TDMer
    Ship Mate

    @potatosord I mean, you say you've been playing since 2020, but you have a four year gap in achievements between December 2020, and December 2024. I'd say you really started playing in 2024, which is fine, but the competitive game mode shouldn't be balanced around people that aren't actually into the game. PL is a pretty low bar and the first real milestone most players aim for.

  • Look Behind You
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    Please avoid engaging in personal arguments and derailing the topic of the thread. It is fine to debate the content of the post, and the viewpoints therein, but disrespecting any of your fellow pirates personally is against the pirate code, and our forum rules.

  • PotatoSord
    Marauder
    Insider

    @worst-tdmer I devoted nearly all my time to reapers, literally only reapers, from the time I bought the game may 2020 to when I stopped in december 2020, because the voyage system made no sense to me so I just did only reapers. I got bored of the game at that point and came back to it recently. If I had any reason to care about being PL back then I would have. I sold thousands of treasures to reapers in that time, getting my reapers to level 40 off of just loot selling with no emmi, no PVP.

  • Worst TDMer
    Ship Mate

    @potatosord The specifics of your situation are kinda irrelevant, and if I talk any more about it I'm guessing it'll just get deleted by a mod.

    Regardless though, the point stands, PL is a very low bar and the first real milestone most players go for. If they aren't engaged with the game enough to get 3 companies to 50, they probably don't belong in hourglass.

    Eventually they'll run into a ghost/skelly player, and they'll be incentivized to grind PL and start hourglass.

  • MisereNZ
    Captain
    Insider

    @potatosord

    I do not think they are saying you NEED to be PL for HG. Thats really a place holder suggestion. What level is required can be debated, I would not get hung up on it being PL or nothing. All it needs to be is X levels accross all trading companies or for X hours.

    To deal with slower progression at higher levels Rare could make all new accounts start with negative levels in Guardians and Servants. Say negative 10. As you level the trading companies you earn levels upto level zero. So levels 1 to 10 in reapers equal 1 level, 11 to 20 equals 3 levels etc. So of you are 15 reaper , 10 HG , 5 OOS, 20 Merchant you would be -4 (-10 + 1.5 +1 +0.5 + 3 = -4).

    Raising HG requires all players being level 0 or higher. Joining a ship with HG raised requires you to be level zero or higher.

    Or you can make it 40 hr of play time.

    All of this would make it harder for cheaters to mess with HG. Question is, does this just mean they will switch their focus to the main world.

  • PotatoSord
    Marauder
    Insider

    @miserenz I understand wanting to limit cheaters but I think there should be no limits because legitimate players should not be locked out of gameplay features until they pass an arbitrarily defined boundary. Any type of calculation that would try to account for how long to make an account exist for would inherently take bot playtimes into that calculation with little way to separate them.

  • Worst TDMer
    Ship Mate

    @potatosord There are already limits for gameplay features in SoT, you have to be Pirate Legend before you unlock Athena voyages, you have to reach certain levels before you unlock different voyages for factions, you have to get a few hundred thousand gold to become a captain, etc.

    It's a really basic gameplay mechanic that's in nearly every game. Again even with the cheater issue aside, there is no reason we should be matching with day 1 swabbies who accidentally voted up hourglass.

  • Worst TDMer
    Ship Mate

    @miserenz .

    Question is, does this just mean they will switch their focus to the main world.

    I think this is probably why devs are hesitant to implement this, but it's important to remember the history of cheats in the game. Before hourglass, cheats were a rumor that most players dismissed. I remember being told adamantly countless times that cheats did not exist/were impossible.

    The TDM community (i.e. competitive players) was really the only part of the playerbase pre-hourglass that knew about cheats.

    I think most cheaters are either boosting people, hunting specific players (streamers, namers, ragebait targets), or trying to pretend they're better than they actually are for clout. I can't imagine there being as many cheaters that'd play normal adventure as there currently are in hourglass.

  • PotatoSord
    Marauder
    Insider

    @worst-tdmer Athena was supposed to be the secret faction you only get to see anything with once you get to PL, it was a reward in and of itself for "beating the game"

  • Valor Omega
    Champion
    Insider

    I definitely agree with this, even if it will only briefly delay the most dedicated cheaters.

    But these types of people already have low attention spans, and get their giggles from making other people upset, so having to grind 50/50/50 in High Seas will hopefully deter most, especially if they have dozens of alt accounts.

    That said, I do worry for the state of High Seas if this is put into play.. I don't really want to see High Seas become a cheater's paradise out of some weird spite, from their end, just to save an already dwindling competitive mode.

  • MisereNZ
    Captain
    Insider

    @potatosord said in Level/Time Requirement for Hourglass:

    @miserenz I understand wanting to limit cheaters but I think there should be no limits because legitimate players should not be locked out of gameplay features until they pass an arbitrarily defined boundary. Any type of calculation that would try to account for how long to make an account exist for would inherently take bot playtimes into that calculation with little way to separate them.

    The game already has limits, PL, voyages etc. So providing the lock out does not take to long to over come if you are playing for real its no problem. Forcing the cheaters to spend more time creating accounts that will finally qualify is the way to go.

  • Capt Greldik
    Master

    This conversation is full of assumptions and borderline convoluted. Is there actual data on the percentage of players who participate in HG who aren’t/are pirate lord?

  • Raft2c7c
    Marauder

    I returned to this game for Fight Nights. Since then (i.e. since 2-3 weeks ago),

    I have created many support tickets on cheaters. 11 tickets (each with different accounts reported) were closed with "One or more players that you recently reported were investigated and permanently removed from Sea of Thieves based on the evidence yourself and others have provided." And I have just created another ticket on another 2 blatant cheaters, who invaded us yesterday.

    • Some these blatant cheater accounts were created 15 minutes ago. Some were created 4 years ago but have only 1-2 days time played.

    I have also created 5 tickets with links to videos showing my experience of surfacing at an outpost (20 of 30 dives) or early scuttle with no rep given to opponent (5 of 12 dives). Some of these solo galleons (if they didn't alt+f4 and we don't sink them quickly) invite their cheater accounts to fight us. Some of them surface at a nearby outpost and we can sink them and check out their log books.

    Any time barrier would help. Even if not pirate legend, maybe 1M gold earned, or 10 voyages completed. Something. Better than nothing.

    For this to be an effective measure, at the same time, Rare should also track who's joining/leaving any ship at any given time, in case they use 1 account for activating hourglass, and another account to actually run the dives.

    And yes that means Rare should also start punishing those who team up with cheaters deliberately repeatedly. If an account has been found supporting blatant cheaters in 7 matches within 1 week, continuously, intentionally supporting (and being supported by) cheaters, there should at least a temp ban and progression wipe as a start, escalated to a permanent ban if an account keeps supporting blatant cheaters.

    I understand not wanting to punish genuinely innocent players for ending up with a teammate who cheated. Some cheaters might even deliberately join random or targeted crews to get the genuinely innocent players punished. But I've seen the same "fake innocent" players team up with blatant cheaters repeatedly, mocking us with the blatant cheater. Only the blatant cheater account is banned. The "fake innocent" / "cheat supporter" accounts with pvp curses and shores of gold curses (i.e. experienced "fake innocent" players) get away scot-free. Cheaters and cheat supporters are exploiting this loophole.

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