"Cop" NPC ships could help prevent PVP griefers and give them a new target

@ersatz-nihilist Would this dissuade PVP?

If you killed one galleon/4 people.. your infamy only increases a little. If you kill the same people again, your infamy increases a lot. The first time you killed them, you might gain some loot as a reward. The second time? Nothing. But with this installed, you could gain the ability to fight the Navy, which could have its own quests.

And who didn't like fighting the cops in GTA? Spawn me down a tank and let's go.

@amarijuanacan69 Just populate the servers with an admiralty: an NPC fleet that patrols the seas and acts both as peacekeepers, questmakers, increases frequency of encouters, merchant ships that can be raided for notoriety penalties, etc.

@noodlekranker I like the bounty system and that could be done as well. It could be bounties for the Royal Navy instead of just for gold.

PVP - PLAYER VS PLAYER.

What part of that makes you think that PVP'ers would want to fight NPC ships? We like to engage players and test our skills against others playing the game. If we wanted to fight against NPC aimbots, we would play AC: Black flag. Instead of changing PvP to suit the needs of role players, how about practicing and getting good like everyone else has to, as the game intended?

What a toxic community. Every post.

@soopavillain420 I like PVP. I've done more PVP (in the betas) than PVE. But at a certain point, a very skilled galleon crew can make quick work of PVE newbies. This would just be a new, more difficult target. And it would be cool to team up with other ships to take on an armada.

I do like the royal navy idea. +1 for this

@powerbread40615 said in "Cop" NPC ships could help prevent PVP griefers and give them a new target:

I do like the royal navy idea. +1 for this

Thank you. If you don't mind me asking, are you a primarily PVP or PVE player? I think that something similar to this could benefit both sides and I'm surprised with the negativity towards a suggestion.

@amarijuanacan69 said in "Cop" NPC ships could help prevent PVP griefers and give them a new target:

@soopavillain420 I like PVP. I've done more PVP (in the betas) than PVE. But at a certain point, a very skilled galleon crew can make quick work of PVE newbies. This would just be a new, more difficult target. And it would be cool to team up with other ships to take on an armada.

Again, skill comes with practice. Going against an NPC opponent is not PVP. If players can't embrace both sides of this game (PvPvE), than perhaps this wasn't the game for them to begin with.

Your way, directed at OP, as a sloop solo player at times, I should be punished for destroying a crew of 4. I may not kill them all, but I don't let them kill me either, so I should be punished for harassing 4 people solo?

Why not make it so you build a bounty of "x" reward per kill, and the first person to kill that person cashes in that reward. Make it scale higher, if you repeat kill in "x" time period the same person.

On the other side of things, make it so if I kill "x" players and can get to a hideout island, I remove my bounty, and cash in "x" reward as well. This reward doesn't have to be a larger one than the bounty reward for someone who kills you, but it can at least be incentive for the aggressor.

Rewards the people being camped if they get the kill, and makes PvP more fun for people like me.

@amarijuanacan69 NPC ships could help prevent PVP griefers and give them a new target

There are no PVP griefer's in this game, they are just pirates...

@amarijuanacan69 I do a little of both. Every once in a while I definitely like getting into battles with players but it would be fun and challenging to take on some royal navy NPC ships. Also, there are a lot of times where I will go for hours without seeing another player ship.

@powerbread40615 said in "Cop" NPC ships could help prevent PVP griefers and give them a new target:

@amarijuanacan69 I do a little of both. Every once in a while I definitely like getting into battles with players but it would be fun and challenging to take on some royal navy NPC ships.

You all say that now, if they introduce this idea, and you have to deal with Auto-Aim NPC ships that can now chase..... NVM I want to see this pass, so I can get some free salt ;)

@atrocity-v85 I do like the idea of making it weighted based on your crew size... this would also be interesting to see multiple sloops teaming up on galleons, since they wouldn't be punished as much for it.

I think the bounties are a great idea. Why not make the bounties given by the "Royal Navy" (or whatever you want to call it) so you can EXP from them too?

@powerbread40615 said in "Cop" NPC ships could help prevent PVP griefers and give them a new target:

@amarijuanacan69 I do a little of both. Every once in a while I definitely like getting into battles with players but it would be fun and challenging to take on some royal navy NPC ships. Also, there are a lot of times where I will go for hours without seeing another player ship.

I'm the same way. It seems like we can never find a ship (and definitely not one with any loot) whenever we are looking for them. But the second that I recruit a couple new players to help them out, we are ambushed by a legion of pirates.

I'm not sure that the NPC's will be "aimbots"... I think Rare is smart enough to make challenging, but beatable NPC ships.

@amarijuanacan69 Yeah because if you go to a skeleton fort, the skeletons will shoot cannons at your ship when you are coming in and they aren't perfect at aiming but they are pretty good.

NPCs do not cry themselves to sleep after rage quitting the game so this wouldn't work on me.

@powerbread40615 said in "Cop" NPC ships could help prevent PVP griefers and give them a new target:

@amarijuanacan69 Yeah because if you go to a skeleton fort, the skeletons will shoot cannons at your ship when you are coming in and they aren't perfect at aiming but they are pretty good.

Yea, that's a good example. The skeleton cannoneers are probably better shots than 90% of the players, but they absolutely do not hit every time. Rare would have to be creative with the melee combat of these NPC ships so they aren't just tanky NPCs like the current raid bosses. Maybe give them a bit more health than a normal player, but try to make them as real as possible.

@sorenthaz said in "Cop" NPC ships could help prevent PVP griefers and give them a new target:

I'd like to see more life in the waters/islands in general but I doubt we'll see anything like that. Rare doesn't seem to want to add in NPC ships unfortunately, even though that would be such a great treasure trove of possible content. They also don't want to add any sort of protection at outposts, and I think the idea behind Sea of Thieves is that it's still largely an untamed region that doesn't have government influence.

The government influence bit is interesting. Something like this could possibly come along later as a DLC/expansion, where the British or whatever gov't is trying to control the seas. Then you'd have a real story behind it too.

@soopavillain420 said in "Cop" NPC ships could help prevent PVP griefers and give them a new target:

@amarijuanacan69 said in "Cop" NPC ships could help prevent PVP griefers and give them a new target:

@soopavillain420 I like PVP. I've done more PVP (in the betas) than PVE. But at a certain point, a very skilled galleon crew can make quick work of PVE newbies. This would just be a new, more difficult target. And it would be cool to team up with other ships to take on an armada.

Again, skill comes with practice. Going against an NPC opponent is not PVP. If players can't embrace both sides of this game (PvPvE), than perhaps this wasn't the game for them to begin with.

But what if the Royal Navy presented a greater challenge and reward than going after the same new player galleon repeatedly? Isn't part of the allure of PVP because of higher risk and reward? So if you created an even riskier enemy that provides a higher reward, I'd consider that a good thing. That is coming from a nearly 100% FPS background. Sea of Thieves is the only PVE game I've played in years.

If you don't like it, that's fine too. But something is likely going to be done eventually to protect PVE players, otherwise Rare runs the risk of alienating a very large player base. I don't want that to happen because I love this game and want it to last a long time. Just trying to come up with something that could benefit both sides.

@ersatz-nihilist said in "Cop" NPC ships could help prevent PVP griefers and give them a new target:

@amarijuanacan69 said in "Cop" NPC ships could help prevent PVP griefers and give them a new target:

I don't want that to happen because I love this game and want it to last a long time. Just trying to come up with something that could benefit both sides.

Then why are you trying to fundamentally change it? I suspect you're mistaking "vocal forum users" for a large portion of the player base.

It would be foolhardy to not believe that there is a very large player base that greatly prefers PVE content. I'd guess that the majority of forum users here are PVP-focused based on what topics are attacked and what is upvoted, so what does that say about the "vocal forum users"?

I'd even venture to say that there are players who are avoiding this game due to the complaints of griefing. Rather than saying "choose a different game", I'd rather figure out something that would benefit current players and encourage new players to join. That is how you create a game that lasts. Otherwise it'll just be a small clique of pirates constantly killing each other.

I disagree that this would be a fundamental change rather than just another layer to the dynamic world.

@soopavillain420 I get that, but forcing pve players into pvp is also not right. Gotta find a balance

@lukaslu said in "Cop" NPC ships could help prevent PVP griefers and give them a new target:

@soopavillain420 I get that, but forcing pve players into pvp is also not right. Gotta find a balance

You joined a PvPvE game, the balance is already there. If players can't handle half of the game, perhaps it wasn't the game for them to begin with.

@lukaslu said in "Cop" NPC ships could help prevent PVP griefers and give them a new target:

@soopavillain420 I get that, but forcing pve players into pvp is also not right. Gotta find a balance

Agreed. I think all the PVP-focused players are kidding themselves if they don't see the writing on the walls that Rare is going to do something to protect PVE players. Unfortunately for PVP players, this game was designed first and foremost around PVE. If PVE players aren't taken as a priorty, then they'll leave and the game will crumble.

So instead of arguing against all of the "safe-zone" topics, I've decided to make a suggestion that many PVP and PVE players would probably be in favor of.