Being able to enjoy the game

@burnbacon if you scuttle you still lose all the loot you worked for though right?

@dlchief58 Yeah I'm just new to the game so I'm trying to get it down just asking questions sorry I'm not a champion insider!

@bhbutcher1017 said in Being able to enjoy the game:

@dlchief58 Yeah I'm just new to the game so I'm trying to get it down just asking questions sorry I'm not a champion insider!

Hello there. We’ve all been new to the game, no worries.

Please understand that this game revolves around player conflict. I don’t speak for Rare, but it seems very obvious that their intention is for us to fight each other over events/voyages/anything at all.

As with any game, one cannot expect to be on the same level as those who’ve been playing the game for a while. I understand your frustration with the skill level of the players you’re encountering. Regarding cheating, as a new player, how capable are you at identifying a cheater? If they’re flying, teleporting, or any number of weird things, those are easily identifiable, and yes they do happen sometimes, but it’s not difficult for a new player to mistake someone with good aim as a cheater. Also, I haven’t encountered cheats that allow for one shot kills. The blunder buss used to have a one shot kill when fired close enough to the target, but now one shot kills don’t exist.

There are ways to minimize your interaction with other players until you feel comfortable pursuing bigger game like popular events.

1. Don’t raise an emissary, yes you get less rep and gold but so what, if you like this game you’ll continue playing it and those things will come naturally, there’s no reason to rush them. Reapers can see all emissaries on the map if they themselves are level 5 reaper emissary. In addition to that, everyone wants your emissary, not just reapers. A passing gold hoarder might decide that your level 5 emissary looks delicious. Ships without emissaries are less visible and less enticing, but that doesn’t mean some people won’t attack you anyway especially if they have reason to believe you’re carrying loot.

2. Don’t do popular events, and if you really want to be safe, don’t do events at all. Certain events like the fort of fortune (random) and the fort of the damned (player activated) are going to attract people most of the time. If there’s a cloud in the sky advertising an event, you should expect company.

3. Be vigilant. Be aware of your surroundings, be checking the map, shoot yourself into the sky for a good 360 view of your immediate area. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sailed towards someone as a reaper 5, all the way across the map, only for them to be surprised to see me when I arrive. That would never happen to someone periodically paying attention.

As a new player I spent a lot of time in the Roar doing Athena shipwrecks with no emissary (which was great). Then one day I decided I wanted to become more
competent so I started practicing in hourglass. It was rough for a while, but fun, and I got better with each session. Not to say it wasn’t frustrating, it was at times, but it’s a quick way to improve your survivability. There are also videos on YouTube demonstrating best practices during fights.

It’s a great game, and your opponents, at least the ones you need to be concerned about, are human. Some effort and learning of the ropes is required. As a new player you need to play to your abilities. You’re cheating yourself if you pass on the purpose of this game in hopes that safer seas offers you full rewards for leftclicking skeletons to death while half asleep.

@dlchief58 Fair enough and I understand the point, just trying to work out how things go in this game I really like it and I can't get my friends to stick it out to get good enough to hang with the better players. Maybe just some better matchmaking on servers would help I don't want the game to be too easy but you know if your a good player fighting a couple newbies is like shooting fish in a barrel and can't be that that fun even for the more experienced player. I don't know

@bhbutcher1017 said in Being able to enjoy the game:

@dlchief58 Fair enough and I understand the point, just trying to work out how things go in this game I really like it and I can't get my friends to stick it out to get good enough to hang with the better players. Maybe just some better matchmaking on servers would help I don't want the game to be too easy but you know if your a good player fighting a couple newbies is like shooting fish in a barrel and can't be that that fun even for the more experienced player. I don't know

It may not be a “good fight”, but the game is based on cosmetics, and cosmetics are often acquired via commendations from turning in loot. There are also commendations specifically for turning in other players emissaries. So fighting in sea of thieves isn’t necessarily about getting a specific type of fight. There are also lots of ways to steal loot and sink players without fighting at all.

I feel your pain regarding getting friends to play, though. I’m a relatively older gamer and I’ve been pvp focused in every online game I’ve played. I have access to discords with dozens of pvp focused players, and I can’t get them to play sea of thieves with me… and it’s definitely not due to them being pvp averse. In my opinion, if someone really likes this game, they’re going to play it regardless of a particular aspect they don’t like.

@loneshadow29 said in Being able to enjoy the game:

@bhbutcher1017 said in Being able to enjoy the game:

Can you guys please open up safer seas to all the rewards I've gotten 4 friends into the game and they all quit playing because there are constant cheaters / or players that are just to good that keep ruining a great game. I love this game but im to the point where I'm about to stop playing too. The servers are just too unevenly matched. My friend and I were held hostage on our ship the other day by two other players would not even sink us the just kept one shot killing us over and over until we had to quit we had no chance. I would like to get better at pvp but dont even get a chance. Pvp should only be in hourglass. Well there it is for what its worth. I love your game but if it keeps going the way it is I will probably start playing something else like a lot of other people I've talked to. Thanks Rob

Unfortunately, there is absolutely no chance that something like this would happen anytime soon. And of course, the dedicated PVP players will be the most vocal on how the game should remain as it is even though there are a good number of PVE players who would want full progression on safer seas. And, like the comments that you’ve seen already, it’s pretty much either server hop and hope for the best, stay and try to fight, even though the players who aren’t skilled in PVP are going to lose to the more skilled player, and not to use mechanics in the game because the reasoning is that it makes you a bigger target, but the toxic PVP players aren’t going to care whether or not you are flying emissary. So, honestly, your options are either try to just grin and bear it, play on safer seas and just accumulate gold if your faction levels are already over 25, or do your friends and many other players and just stop playing.

It’s a video game clearly designed with player conflict in mind. If you have to “grin and bear it” why’d you buy the game to begin with? I’ll never understand this mentality.

And by “toxic pvpers” do you mean people playing the game as intended? I think calling people playing a pirate game toxic for sinking you is toxic in of itself.

@loneshadow29 said in Being able to enjoy the game:

@capt-greldik said in Being able to enjoy the game:

It’s a video game clearly designed with player conflict in mind. If you have to “grin and bear it” why’d you buy the game to begin with? I’ll never understand this mentality.

And by “toxic pvpers” do you mean people playing the game as intended? I think calling people playing a pirate game toxic for sinking you is toxic in of itself.

Because the thought of playing and open world pirate game, where you can complete quests, play through the campaign, interact with random encounters along the way while potentially socializing with other players. That is why I joined up day one. What had me leave for a couple of years where those toxic PVP players who are playing as what you define as “intended”, spawn, camping, attacking ships for no other reason than because they can, joining alliances only to turn around and attack players, etc. Buy your own admission, you are a dedicated PVP player, so, why is it so difficult to understand that there are people who are playing this game because they enjoy the casual experience and not wanting to get jumped on the way to a mission or to the next checkpoint in their voyage/tall tale? If PVP players want to PVP that bad, they should either be running reapers bones emissary or the PVP flag so they can show up on the map and can attack each other at will and give PVE players a chance to try to avoid them all together. It’s a PvEvP game after all. That way, everybody wins. No more salty PVP players in the PVP players will know who to attack.. But we both know that PVP players generally do not want to other PVP players outside of HG, because it is about attacking lesser skilled players

It’s a game about cosmetics, it’s not “pirate deathmatch”. Turning in loot and accomplishing various feats to unlock desired cosmetics is what it’s all about. How do you explain commendations which specifically require sinking other players, such as “turn in x amount of x emissary”? Is Rare, by your definition, toxic by making commendations which require players to sink one another? It’s so painfully obvious that rare wants us to fight each other, but since you can’t be bothered with a significant aspect of the game you cope by calling those who do, toxic.

The “pvpers only want easy kills” thing doesn’t even make sense. First of all, everyone in this game is meant to pvp. If someone in this game is only a pvper, you aren’t meeting them because they’re in hourglass, otherwise, those pirates you’re meeting are players playing the game on the high seas how they see fit, and loot is probably on their minds. There is no flag representing who is skilled or unskilled. If you’re at an event and I too want the spoils of the event, I’m attacking who is there, if I sink, I sink. How would I know if they were skilled? Do you think that pirates are sailing up to one another asking how many hours and/hg matches they have? Nonsense. Do you think that reapers don’t attack other reapers? Nonsense.

@w0lf3112 said in Being able to enjoy the game:

It’s been 9 hours and this isn’t locked with the same auto-mod copy paste? Odd. But this is what many of us want but will never get. PvP isn’t fun, playing with the uber try hard pvp players isn’t fun. Playing in safer seas making zero progress isn’t fun, playing on high seas running from pvp for 45 minutes isn’t fun yet these players and devs would rather the game die than let a casual player enjoy it.

The game is what, 7 years old? When are you anticipating its death exactly?

I have a lot of pvper friends from other games who won’t play sot. For one, it’s solely cosmetics, no player progression, no gear, no crafting, and on top of that it’s janky in a lot of ways. Plus it’s 7 years old. How many online games do you know of which didn’t lose players over 7 years?

I love the game, and I started years after it launched, in 2023. I’m okay with the jankyness and I appreciate the equal footing of cosmetics only progression. Have you considered the possibility that your being upset about PvP in PvPvE pirate game might not be the only factor to consider here? Maybe they will give you a Netflix & sail server someday, but how long to you plan on being entertained by left clicking skeletons? I’d wager not long, I’d also wager that rare considered that as well, but hey, maybe they’ll give it a shot someday. Until then, maybe try having an ounce of video game resiliency and try playing the game you bought (presumably) as it’s intended to be played.

Or gripe on the forums, your choice.

@loneshadow29 said in Being able to enjoy the game:

@capt-greldik said in Being able to enjoy the game:

It’s a game about cosmetics, it’s not “pirate deathmatch”. Turning in loot and accomplishing various feats to unlock desired cosmetics is what it’s all about. How do you explain commendations which specifically require sinking other players, such as “turn in x amount of x emissary”? Is Rare, by your definition, toxic by making commendations which require players to sink one another? It’s so painfully obvious that rare wants us to fight each other, but since you can’t be bothered with a significant aspect of the game you cope by calling those who do, toxic.

The “pvpers only want easy kills” thing doesn’t even make sense. First of all, everyone in this game is meant to pvp. If someone in this game is only a pvper, you aren’t meeting them because they’re in hourglass, otherwise, those pirates you’re meeting are players playing the game on the high seas how they see fit, and loot is probably on their minds. There is no flag representing who is skilled or unskilled. If you’re at an event and I too want the spoils of the event, I’m attacking who is there, if I sink, I sink. How would I know if they were skilled? Do you think that pirates are sailing up to one another asking how many hours and/hg matches they have? Nonsense. Do you think that reapers don’t attack other reapers? Nonsense.

Yes, it's a game about cosmetics but the toxic PvP players are playing it like it's a pirate deathmatch. It seems like in their mind, it's not about looting other ships, it's simply about sinking them. BIG difference. And, yes, there are commendations around PvP, because as you said, there is PvP in this game, but if someone wants to be a completionist, they'll have to PvP. Otherwise, they don't have to.

And, I have to say that you're making a poor faith argument that because the game has commendations around PvP that means that Rare is toxic. The fact is that you refuse to acknowledge that there is a good size of the player base who don't want to PvP and the toxic PvP players are what's driving away a lot of the player base.

And, yes, PvP players want easy kills. If they wanted to actually want to battle against other PvP players, they would use HG, but they don't. Only because of the current event have I seen any HG matches on the map. And, if everyone is meant to PvP, then why add PvE elements at all? It should just be a pirate themed battle royale like every other multiplayer game out there. The people who HG will only do so until they unlock the cosmetics, then what? oh, that's right... prey on the other players on the server. If PvP players were such a majority of the player base, Arena wouldn't have been mothballed.

And, I love how you completely skip over the part about using the PvP specific flags to identify PvP vs PvE players, you simply went to skilled vs unskilled which is, once again, the typical PvP argument of "get better at PvP". The reason why PvP players don't want a Safer Seas to be full progression isn't because people will get bored, it's because the PvP players will be left alone to fight each other which they obviously don't want to do because that would require them actually working for their kills. And while I have seen reapers attack other reapers, I've seen more reapers attack other ships regardless if they're flying emissary or not. So, you have and I'm sure will continue to argue in bad faith

Yeesh. So many holes to fill here. I’ve seen your other post chains, not even worth it.

Good luck with your forum crusade.

Edit; let’s not forget that my initial post in this chain was advice to a new player on how to navigate the seas. Now this has been hijacked and turned into a please make the PvPvE game Netflix and Seas.