[Mega Thread] Balancing Exploration and Player Combat

  • Ok, so this thread has become TL,DR. I have not kept up with it over the past two weeks but here we go.

    Solo sailing is punishing. I have played few solo missions due to few perks for doing so. I love to cruise around exploring solo and finding easter eggs. It's the only reason I would sail solo at this stage however.

    I am not concerned about playing solo and PvP. There are plenty of other threads and resources dedicated to that aspect. I am focussing on current game balances and mechanics.

    First and foremost:
    Rewards for solo or duo teams need a reward multiplier on them. Why would a solo reward cashed in provide the same cut as a four man team? I want to see at least four or more times the reward for sailing solo. Provide a much greater incentive for solo sloops and smaller teams.

    Secondly:
    The option to purchase additional animal cages, coops, and baskets from Merchant Alliance, as well as having your free allotted cages for an assigned voyage. Loose a ship, for whatever reason, and you loose all hope of fulfilling an assignment. Just having the option to purchase cages without a quest requirement could be advantageous.

    Finally, and most complex:
    I have been disconnected from the game servers whilst on missions sailing solo. If disconnected from a game with crewmates they will essentially reserve the ship and your slot until such a time as you can reconnect.
    Currently if you are disconnected from a game server your current session ends and you have to restart.

    Can we have some sort of mechanic that essentially freezes a solo ship and preserves progress due to disconnects. That may come in the form of removing the ship from it's current location ingame, preserving everything, and respawning it exactly where you were, or having an anchor drop and timer to rejoin before having to restart from scratch.

    [Edit]
    On the topic of PvP and bounties and such:
    I do not know if there are plans to alter the top most flags with cosmetics. Use the top flags as a form of signal to other ships of the current status of the crew and their infamy, or allegiances. Have they sunk a ship or two, have it fly a jolly roger. Have they completed recently completed a voyage, fly the colours of the faction. I would favor showing the colours of a recent completed voyage, rather than a current assignment. Sinking a ship or killing players would override any other colours. Of course server hopping would circumvent the mechanic, but that's a whole other issue.

  • Forts are exploited, with the highest rewards possible in the game. Server hoping is known and has been watched in twitch and you tubers. This gives them a better pvp viewing to subscribers.

    Respawning was the worst. (Being worked on)

    However the problem that is so easy to jump towards was the constant pvp grieving of a sloop or ship at the fort but nobody really addressed the exploiting first and foremost at the forts. Spamming the cannons while crowd control to wipe the fort as fast as you can.
    Has made this process easy, but what was failed to be mentioned was the fact people exploited the forts. Oh fort isnt up go check another server guys, then send invites.

    Everyone saw 50 level, the grind, so the best way is to look for fast and easy methods to beat the best payday they can to obtain the 50th rank. Then we saw you tubers, and twitch popular players go around asking members and subscribers to send invites to fort attacks so they could get to level 50 asap.

    Sad days for a game so new. However fix the skellies, make it harder, add new mobs to the system, with random attacks different from each other such as AOE attacks, and Acid, or poison attacks that spread outwards. Also have large prey attack the ships while docked. Whatever works if people are quick to complete these exploits. Slow it down if you have to and make it 100% harder. The major one is the fort first, fix that and maybe sailors will try to work on the quests some too.

  • You could also make some skellies invul to cannon attacks. Especially at that fort. Randomize the skellies to attack with different abilities. Also having a dum AI sit at the waters edge is horrible. allow them to attack the ship to sink it too. Otherwise add in water creatures or Ghost AI or something even go as far as the royal navy, Spanish gally attacks to add more pve into the pvp.

  • @hwm-mc so the bounty system. I would propose after sinking an enemy ship the victorious boat gets a black flag and a 500 coin bounty if it's a sloop and 1000 for galleon. Each subsequent ship results in a doubling of the bounty. The black would also reflect the additional bounty by adding a cross bone for 2nd and 3rd ship then a skull to complete a skull and crossbones pirate flag that would signal which ship is a max bounty target. This I think encourage at sea battles. Sink the ship a chest floats to the surface the victorious crew collects it. The progression to the kill and crossbones flag will serve as a signal to other crews as the bounty rating.

  • Are we ever going to get an update on the PvP/PvE? So I can stop playing this game and visiting the forums altogether if they are going to officially ignore all PvE players.

  • Give the Sail Alone option a PvE experience

    I personally like the PvP aspect of the game, but if my friends cannot play and I sail alone...I have little to no chance against crews of 2 or more when being shot at, having to repair, and re-gather for a second attack. Plus, you're not going to take down many skull forts alone.

    Simply make the sail alone selection a PvE or PvP option.

  • @zsneakydude This is a big one. If I could wave a wand and make some changes, I'd add 2 things to the skeleton's AI.

    1. If a player is standing in an area that the skellies can't reach, they can use a left for dead style "hunter leap" and jump to the player. This would make anyone just chilling on deck or firing cannons suddenly vunerable as the 3 or 4 shade skellies swarm them.

    2. If a skellie isn't currently fighting a player, and there is a ship in line of sight of a cannon, the skellie should man the cannon and start firing at the ship. This would 'fix' people parking on the fort's front doorstep and have to hang back a bit till the fort is cleared. At the very least spawn some skellies in the defensive towers every few waves. If the ship has pressure on it, it can't be used to sit and camp the guys on the beach.

  • @bluejacket-1272 agree. See my post below.

  • After playing this great game since the alpha and counting, I really see one big problem which most pvp roots in
    Rare says players choice matters, and i‘m Onboard with that, and when I see I ship, I play some music and wave, and then i‘m Welcomed by cannons most of the time. This is the choice of the other player
    I think that the problem here is, that there are a few players, or maybe more then we expect, who play the game to loot and kill, which in turn makes other players suspicious. Which wouldn’t have been done in a normal pirate world, where the reason they would loot your ship would most likely be because they want your treasure, and that was the way rare intended it

    I think a possible solution would be splitting the server in 2 parts. One part stays as is, and the other is a pvp like server that gives rewards for killing other players.
    Then most of the people doing it for the kill would switch to those servers, and the remaining ones would play the game as intended
    And i‘m Not talking about 2 different worlds here. Just this one little difference, to not give players incentive to switch to a different „playstyle“ for different loot. Maybe different Achievements to lure them in the right direction

    Just give this Skullheads what they want and maybe they'll leave us alone sailing in the sunset!

  • After reading a large portion of this thread I convinced our Galleon crew that the next few Sloop we would find that we would demand tribute but not sink them. Sloop #1 encounter went as follow- Found sloop anchored at shore, proceeded on shore and requested tribute of 10 canon balls or one chest or one skull, Players response eat lead, sadly he died and we took all his loot, but we did leave the boat intact. #2 Sloop number two also anchored on shore however he was aboard his ship, same tried to demand tribute of 10 canon balls or one chest or one skull, he persisted on trying to raise his anchor so we shot him, after several tries of convincing him for the tribute and him attempting to leave we shot him, took the chest and the canon balls and left with ship intact. So the lesson we learned here was that most people take it way to personal and will not pay tribute which is a shame, it just easier to sink people and take the loot. Also may I offer the following Tip, if your sailing by yourself don't sail for 3 hours collecting 12 chest without going to an outpost. At most you should only carry 2-3 chest before cashing in, anything else you are just asking for it.

  • @tz50000 Playing alone in this game is possible but not recommended in my opinion, join some random 2 man crews or 4 man galleon crews, make some new friends, add to friends list and voila you now have people to play with.

  • On blunderbuss strength:

    I am getting of being killed by 1 blunderbuss shot from 25 feet away. You seriously need to decrease the power of blunderbusses in the game.

  • @angrycoconut16
    I meant to @ someone else I apologize, someone posted something shooting down the ideas I introduced calling them stupid and saying that I should stop playing, my apologies

  • @kraxuss-of-yore love the flag idea to identify the type of player.

  • How about we pay the mermaids like a parking meter. You need to pay for protection time by the mermaid of your ship and its treasures. The bigger the crew, the more expensive it gets.

    As soon as you attack another player or time runs out, the ship is resumed to normal. Same if you move it or fire from the canons.

    Good thing is that it's not free. It offer an alternative to being a meerkat. Don't need and can't use unless you actually have treasure. Would solve partly the issue of this thread.

    Neh ?

  • Not sure where the best place to put this is. Please cease cross-platform functionalities. PC players have an unfair advantage in PvP and some are known to use mods. Leave the “M*********e” to sail their own virtual seas.

    Desperate need of more content too. This game will die like Poke’mon Go without more to do and soon.

  • What if players could choose between different amounts of players on a server? We could choose from something like
    Journeyman: less ships/players than normal, great for players who would prefer not to encounter as many other crews while questing. Maybe higher amount of PvE events, such as appearances of monsters, AI skeleton crews, and possibly reduced bounties of skull forts and other treasures.
    Common Scalawag: same amount of ships/players as normal
    Swashbuckler: more ships/players than normal, great for those who are more aggressive and PvP based, maybe increased values of bounties such as skull forts, quest treasures, AI events (when/if such things are added)

    I don't think that taking away PvP in some servers is the way to go, since it would mean taking away a huge chunk of the SoT experience, as the name is sea of thieves, it's essential to the pirate experience that there are also other pirates sailing the same seas.

  • @lacyclover26906 said in [Mega Thread] Balancing Exploration and Player Combat playstyles:

    @bluejacket-1272 said in [Mega Thread] Balancing Exploration and Player Combat playstyles:

    This game needs a PvE option. To each their own. Give people a choice. Let the PvP players kill each other if they want. Out of the 12 people I met in the game the first couple nights post release only 2 still play it. To say that trend won't continue is turning a blind patched eye. Getting chased for 30 minutes 4 vs 1 by people just trying to snipe kill the 4 specific colored pigs a person took an hour to collect just isn't everyone's idea of fun.

    Only 30 minutes? I've been chased for hours at a time. It's got to the point I'll just dump my loot while being chased so they either pass it up or have to stop for it, kill the animals, and log out. Because face it, your not going to get anything done so might as well leave nothing but an empty ship or a few animal crates behind.

    I just sail off the edge of the map that way they don't get the loot or the kill and they might even sink too if they're idiots. Then i log out lol.

  • @bluejacket-1272 Fair enough. Although this game does have a solo player option, what you're asking for is essentially a different gamemode. Don't get me wrong, I have had people attack me and lost loot or had time wasted because of it and I completely agree it's irritating sometimes, I just personally feel like there are smaller options to consider which could make a massive difference without removing a significant aspect of the game. (Rare are increasing the spawning distance when you have sunk, I think a safe zone in outposts would be a decent idea if enough people wanted it, etc) But I see your point.

  • A few suggestions have been tossed out, and I've made this suggestion in it's own thread, however it quickly sank.

    Basically, it combines a few of the different ideas into a more cohesive whole. Players that actively PvP become more "notorious," which resets slowly over time. This is indicated by their ship's flag and the color of their gamertag. Notorious players drop bounty vouchers when killed by another player, which are turned into a "Bounty Hunter" trading company for gold and rep based on how notorious the pirate was when killed.

    "Voyages" for the Bounty Hunter trading company instead reveal the last known locations of notorious players on the map when activated (voted on by the crew). Higher ranks in the company may update the map to reflect new locations, or may outright track a single, notorious target for a certain duration.

  • @kraxuss-of-yore I wanted to comment on one of your ideas 'provide a much greater incentive for solo sloops and smaller teams', I mean I see where you're coming from but where would the incentive be to be on larger teams if people got more gold solo? I completely see where you're coming from - if you find treasure you get all the gold, if two people you have to divide by 50% so get less.. etc etc.. but I feel like it will do completely the opposite and make people less likely to play on larger groups! cus less gold! I don't think players need more incentive to play solo, why in a multiplayer game? Solo game should be for those who want to do it, but I don't see why people should get 'extra' for playing solo, especially on a game that if anything should reward multiplayer...

  • @ironuzuka said in [Mega Thread] Balancing Exploration and Player Combat playstyles:

    How about we pay the mermaids like a parking meter. You need to pay for protection time by the mermaid of your ship and its treasures. The bigger the crew, the more expensive it gets.

    As soon as you attack another player or time runs out, the ship is resumed to normal. Same if you move it or fire from the canons.

    Good thing is that it's not free. It offer an alternative to being a meerkat. Don't need and can't use unless you actually have treasure. Would solve partly the issue of this thread.

    Neh ?

    I would make use of a system like this, and be quite glad of it too. Thanks for the idea :)

  • Check out "changes in gaining experience". Please upvote if you agree!

  • They need to add a baseline of XP for completing a Voyage because the rewards are RNG im level 45 doing gold hoarders quests and still getting castaway chests. I would also like to see a UI improvement so I can see HP of enemies and myself in combat, as-well as being able to see how much XP I need for my rankup and how much I am receiving.

  • At first i want to say i'm more a PVE than a PVP player.
    Here's a bit of my 3 days of gaming experience.
    The first two days were really pure fun just a friend and me sailing the seas.
    Day three we had some treasures on deck until we were attacked by a cheater which one hitted both of us.

    It would really be great if you could choose at the start of the game wether you want to participate in PVP or not so both playertypes wouldn't get any damage caused by the other players.
    Alternatively i believe the introduction of pure PVE servers might be a great idea.

    But until this isn't fixed i'm happy i'm testing it for free for 2 weeks and will never play it again after.

  • @hecklan what a fool! I offer up a chest or skull if I think I can get away with it - I solo a lot and have payed tribute of my own volition to them when they've lurked at outposts I've had to stop at - it's called diplomacy, people should learn that word.

  • @khaleesibot reading https://www.seaofthieves.com/news/top-feedback-points

    About "Content plans" and the not mentioned/not addressed issue of Exploration vs Combat playstyles, I've suggested this previously.

    Ship encounter frequency/probability has a huge impact on the playstyle, AFAIK.

    Map size is/was one of the major factors in this Ship encounter requirement.

    So, providing the choice of 2 (or 3) maps, like the current sized one (maybe a 3rd even smaller?) and the initially planned "big sea" 4x sized, could help players decide which would fit their playstyle mood.

    This would help those complaining about not seeing any ships by going with the smaller sized map, improving their chances to see someone to fight.... er... interact with.

    Same for those complaining that there's too many ships around them. Choosing a 4x map (same islands, but distances 4x scaled so everything would be 4x further apart forcing everyone to do longer distances).

    Personally I complain about almost seeing all the islands around an outpost without a spyglass, sometimes even spotting the other nearby outpost, never having a true sense of being on "the open sea". It feels like we're sailing on a pond/lake full of rocks :P
    Anyway, personal comments aside...

    Both maps (2 or 3 if a 3rd smaller one was added) would have their play challenges because players would be choosing island distances vs ship frequency, decreasing the probability of encountering PvP-only ships while having to deal with the practical (time spent) and psicological (getting bored?) "hardships" of sailing longer and having to also deal with sea environment (Storms, The Kraken, Chests of Sorrow, Hungry Pigs, ...?) for a longer duration which may have some impacts with the success of their runs.

    This would naturally drive PvP-oriented players towards the smaller map(s) with no desire or patience to sail such longer distances.
    It would also naturally drive PvE-oriented players towards the bigger map(s) that enjoy the sailing and the quests.

    Of course, those in-between, liking both PvE & PvP would go towards their mood that day which would keep the "PvP danger" present on any maps anyway, but with a lower probability of happening though still possible with no artificial game-rules preventing PvP from happening, like today.

    PS: ...and yes, I obviously accept the «we will not pay you compensation or give you credit or be obligated to limit how we use or don’t use the Feedback». You guys making the game "work" is compensation enough for everyone that (literally in a virtual way) "jumped on board" and bought it, I guess ;P

    1. The Spawn : ship sink will respawn in outpost on different lobby ( if you die in a lobby should like you died forever and cant come back after 2 min)
      2: lets us conquist the other ship just for 1 min for take them stuff and take enemy player in our cage, ship can be conquisted just if no one of the owner player is on the ship ( dead, or in sea/island)
      3 player spawn, when you die and go to damned ship you will have to do action that the captain will say to you for comeback in the world, and we you respaw you will be in a lifeboat drived by a skeleton that will take you just under your ship, NO RESPAWN ON THE SHIP.
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