Solo Player Gold Reward Balancing

  • OneInsightning

    Hey there, I'm wondering whether the current gold rewards for solo players are treated fairly because as solo player you get the same amount of gold for an item (chest/skull/etc..) as each player in a 4 man crew does.

    Here are some reasons why the progress of earning the same amount of gold as a solo player is way harder.
    I did not put in the argument that sailing alone is harder (like managing the anker or the sail) because in my opinion
    it could potentially be done perfectly even for a solo player.
    Not every argument is extremely critical but putting them together they sum up pretty heavily.

    • You can carry only 1 item at a time. That affects:
      ..........Taking chests /skulls from the island to the ship
      ..........Taking crates with animals in it from the island to the ship
      ..........Taking empty crates from the merchant alliance from the shop to the ship
      ..........Taking empty crates from the ship to the island
      .
    • You can only take 5/10/5 resources of each type at once to your ship. That affects:
      ..........Bananas helping in order of the souls missions against enemies
      ..........Bananas helping in merchant alliance missions to feed pigs (required according to https://seaofthieves.gamepedia.com/Pig)
      ..........Bananas required to finish merchant alliance missions (once level is high enuogh)
      ..........Wooden planks required to finish merchant alliance missions (once level is high enuogh)
      ..........Gunpowder barrels required to finish merchant alliance missions (once level is high enuogh)
      ..........Cannon balls required to finish merchant alliance missions (once level is high enuogh)
      .
    • You can't dig at as many spots as a 4 man crew at the same time could
    • When searching animals you have to search on the whole island area which is way way slower
    • You are way weaker regarding the order of souls and the skull cloud events
    • Transporting snakes is way harder because every few seconds you need to drop the snake and play music to prevent it biting you
    • You are an easy victim on the sea since no slope boat tries to mess with a galleon meaning you have to visit the outpost way more often as solo player in order to prevent getting robbed. That's inefficient
    • You don't need to be afraid of outpost campers or any small ship at the outpost or on other islands as galleon
      .
      .

    Where as we got the following advantages for the solo players:

    • No team coordination required
      .
      .
      You could argue that there is also an option to sail in a crew with random players but as long as Sea of Thieves provides the possibility to sail alone there will always be solo players.
      Im not alluding by that to remove the solo player option because in my opinion its an important feature but if it exists then it needs to be treated correctly and equally.

    Discuss below please

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  • krankitrogue

    I think it's intentional. I think they want players to group up rather then go solo.

  • UVG Reign
    Founder

    @krankitrogue There is a big community of people who play by themselves, or the general single player market. In a SWAG game as they call in, they should balance everyones play style.

    Im pretty much playing duo and 4 man mostly, but I much prefer solo but feels like you just get so much less done

  • Ghost 0f Dawn
    Master
    Insider
    Founder

    You are one person. You can output the manpower of one person. Seems perfectly fine to me. If they boosted rewards for playing solo it would discourage group play. You'd effectively be punished for group play by giving solo players boosted rewards. Not gonna happen.

  • krankitrogue

    @uvg-reign I agree I usually prefer to play solo myself, but from what I've seen of developer videos and the like I think they prefer it to be a coop rather then solo

  • a13on
    Captain
    Insider
    Founder

    @oneinsightning First, solo mode is meant to be the hard mode for experienced players. Second, you dig just as fast as when with more players, the amount of shovelings to get a chest is multiplied by the number of players.

  • Pirate Kaggito
    Insider
    Founder

    I play solo and you re right its more difficult and you need more time to do things.
    But dont forget that in a galleon there is 4 guys..
    They have to communicate perfect to do something that you ll do in a sec.
    Someone thinks what they have to do, tell the others and if they agree then they start doing it.
    In solo you just do it.
    You dont have to argue with others, you just have to be alert and do things fast.
    And sorry for my english.

  • lRobin lHood

    As a solo player I'm definitely fine how everything is. Sure when I have about 10 chests on board a galleon comes by and tries to take my loot but I welcome it, since I enjoy taking on multiple enemies and feel even more rewarded when I do sink them and take their loot. If they added anything to buff solo players I would probably leave. The only problem I have with sloops is the difference in the amount of cannonball storage. Other than that I have no complaints :)

    If you are in a galleon and see a sloop coming after you it's most likely me and you will be sunk ;)

  • OneInsightning

    You are one person. If they boosted rewards for playing solo it would discourage group play. You'd effectively be punished for group play by giving solo players boosted rewards.

    I'm not saying I must be right but according to the disadvantages of a single person compared to a whole crew that "punishing" you described would rather be a balancing at this point. Its the same as with the different companies who are already balanced (or at least tried to be). The merchant alliance brings the most gold per item in average but that doesn't mean gold hoarders are being punished. This difference is caused by the difficulty and the time you need to spend into the mission again.

    @oneinsightning First, solo mode is meant to be the hard mode for experienced players. Second, you dig just as fast as when with more players, the amount of shovelings to get a chest is multiplied by the number of players.

    Of course it is harder to sail alone than in a crew when it comes to managing the ship but that doesn't mean that solo players have to earn less gold for spending more time. Also rare never mentioned that solo mode is only meant for experienced players, instead the harder ship management is only a side effect. A ship needs to at least own an anker and a sail in order to sail from island to island no matter if the game can be played by 1,2 or 4 players. In consequence that automatically puts the solo players in a harder situation.

    @oneinsightning you dig just as fast as when with more players, the amount of shovelings to get a chest is multiplied by the number of players.

    Acknowledged, I removed it from the list.

    But dont forget that in a galleon there is 4 guys..
    They have to communicate perfect to do something that you ll do in a sec.
    Someone thinks what they have to do, tell the others and if they agree then they start doing it.

    I added that to the list. In general its true but its only a slight contra argument because you only have to communicate perfectly when it comes to sea fights. In other situations like chest searching or skeleton fighting you only take profit out of more players.

    If you are in a galleon and see a sloop coming after you it's most likely me and you will be sunk ;)

    On average its not the case to sink a galleon as a single person because the only advantage in a galleon compared to a sloop lays in its cannon power. Sure you can say that the sloop has some advantages as well like being more flexible etc but the galleon is obviously designed for being successful in sea fights due to its cannons amount. That means if rare is able to successfully balance the ships (I wont comment here whether thats the case currently because that belongs to another thread) you are supposed to lose a fight when managed by the matchmaker correctly.

  • Archenon
    Rogue

    I feel the same here... Running solo seems like a waste of time. I have a large group of friends/community that play this game so I can play with a full Galleon when we have ppl online. Problem is when they aren't...... Why would they not have thought the solo aspect would be a market driver with an increase payout for higher difficulty reward? The game is pretty much forcing you to play in a group for progression, which isn't a 100% bad idea, but in this implementation yes... yes it is. You have a solo mode, which feels like it was only included to check that box that it is 1-4 players (on-line) that you see on the back of an XBone game box. To me it seems like there's no motivation to play this game without a group of people. Going solo item costs (skins) take at minimum 3 hours to buy a single skin (item skin). That's without dying or running into groups in open seas, or at the quest location. I got lucky because I found 2 message in a bottle, one which had about 5-6 chests.

    I love the game, and thought there would at least some motivation to play when I didn't have my group of friends on. Yes you could say there's the option to join a group, but it results in long benefit time because people are either uncommunicative and/or put you immediately in the brig forcing you to quit. Don't get me started on the integration into the Xbox app to manage friends and this game.... to keep it short, nightmare.

    Please Rare, you have the opportunity to NOT implement micro-transactions here, and adjust the payout to solo players. It doesn't have to be crazy, just enough to feel worth the $60 without having to grind 80+ just to get sail skins solo. Playing solo for progression in this game is worthless at this point in time. Unless I'm missing something.

  • Red Moose Jesus
    Ship Mate

    i think its perfectly fine. I played 8 hours solo yesterday, trying to do merchant voyages. I got next to nothing as far as reputation goes, got like 5k gold. Why? cuz i just didn't have the manpower to do things faster, and i didn't have the manpower to watch for galleons and get the hell outta dodge before they were on top of me. My pigs kept dying, my ship kept getting sunk. My snakes even got struck by lighting. Everytime i got sunk, i lose my cages, so i have to abandon the voyage, start a new one, get new cages. (i tried going back to find my cages in the ocean, couldnt). It sucked yeah, felt like i wasted my time, but i knew it was gonna be harder before i started. More people=more efficient. You shouldn't increase the rewards for a person who chooses to play solo in a team oriented game. If you wanna do the work of 4 people by yourself, its gonna be 4 times as hard. That's a choice you are making.

  • TynaeusVane

    The option to play solo is there, yes. The rewarding system is more efficient at earlier reputation levels, and it feels great to be able to do that solo, but my problem comes with the state of the current solo mid-game (Rep. lvl. 20+) because it doesn't feel as rewarding when you have to sail across the whole map in order to reach your quarry. I understand that risk is a major part of playing solo, but I can't honestly say it feels good when I don't earn reputation or gold for completing a voyage. If nothing else, while playing solo, just a slight increase on reputation, or a multiplied amount gained by the amount spent on the quest (80 g spent = 160 g earned at a quest giver after completion as an example). It wouldn't be much, it would be something to reward the solo player, and it would be a waste of time for someone to exploit.
    Also, for the Merchant Alliance, it would not matter regardless, and I understand that. I'm mainly thinking of the fun Guilds. I'm not giving up my cannonballs and bananas for some wealthy so-and-so.

  • Piasecznik
    Marauder
    Insider

    @ghost-0f-dawn said in Solo Player Gold Reward Balancing:

    You are one person. You can output the manpower of one person. Seems perfectly fine to me. If they boosted rewards for playing solo it would discourage group play. You'd effectively be punished for group play by giving solo players boosted rewards. Not gonna happen.

    I hope it will never happen as well

  • Jelly Toast 954
    Seafarer

    I feel when your solo the only thing that need to change or double up is the storage capacity for items (Bananna’s,canon balls,planks, ammunition)

  • SupriseAutopsy
    Ship Mate

    When you choose to play solo, the option is labeled a "perilous voyage alone," so one should expect it to be more difficult from the start. I play mostly solo and I would say I don't feel like other crews have any extremely significant advantage over me. The only differences I find are taking more time to complete some voyages for 2 reasons: one being if a gold hoarder voyage has a lot of chests on multiple islands, I'll stop at an outpost so I don't lose everything if I get attacked, and the other reason it could take longer is if I run away from an attacker and don't feel like fighting back. Other than that I feel its expected territory, maybe Rare could take a poll or look over performance of solo players compared to larger crews and see if its drastically different. If your only goal is to grind out pirate legend as fast as possible, I guess start a twitch account and convince people to give you chests for free.

  • vDracule Mihawk
    Marauder
    Insider

    In any game where you can choose your difficulty level, the rewards are based on that difficulty rating. SOT should be no different.

    Logistically speaking it just makes sense too that a treasure would be split amongst the crew and as well as the reputation acquired after the voyage was complete. Think about it, let's say you defeat the Kraken by yourself vs with a crew, your reputation would be much greater!

    To make it fair I'd like to see this implemented:

    Solo players - 25% boost to gold and reputation
    Duo players - 10%
    3 Players - 5%
    4 players - no boost

  • Filthee Mudblud

    Well, soloing ought reward more per chest/skull/whatever, obviously. in money, sure, but more so in rep. Think about it.

    You're not splitting the money with anyone, though you're taking the higher risk, so obviously, by any sense of logic, you would get higher pay.
    But the rep.
    When people talk about the superbadda** crew that does the thing from island to island, sure, word would get round they're dependable.
    But when people talk about that pirate who handled their business ALONE...
    Well...That would be considered quite the achievement and well worth some notoriety among factions as well as other pirates.

  • Filthee Mudblud

    @supriseautopsy said in Solo Player Gold Reward Balancing:

    If your only goal is to grind out pirate legend as fast as possible, I guess start a twitch account and convince people to give you chests for free.

    Could we please not encourage further douchebaggery to happen within this game and its community?

  • OldManSutii
    Captain
    Founder

    @ghost-0f-dawn said in Solo Player Gold Reward Balancing:

    You are one person. You can output the manpower of one person. Seems perfectly fine to me.

    Ok, logic is good so far, can't deny this.

    If they boosted rewards for playing solo it would discourage group play. You'd effectively be punished for group play by giving solo players boosted rewards. Not gonna happen.

    And now it falls flat on its face. The manpower available impacts how much work can be completed within any amount of time, not how much that total amount of work is worth.

    Admittedly, if they did increase the solo rewards to be 4x (and duo 2x) it would likely discourage a lot of folks from group play. If they increased it by a smaller amount though (say 1.5x solo and 1.2x duo or something) it would at least balance it somewhat, as the earnings per hour for doing the same tasks would still be greater the larger the crew.

    As it stands right now the solo / duo crews are the ones effectively being punished, beyond the increased difficulty of the experience.

    @x1-two said in Solo Player Gold Reward Balancing:

    you dig just as fast as when with more players,

    Not really, multiple people can dig up a single chest together, and in the case of multiple chests on a single island they can go to different ones. Both reduce the time required to clear that island.

    the amount of shovelings to get a chest is multiplied by the number of players.

    Not in my experience it isn't.

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