Hello guys,
So I've been playing for almost a year, intensely, and I'm almost exclusively searching for PvP all the time... Yes, I know, you're going to tell me that I'm a monster, that I should get a very serious and lethal disease, and that SoT is not a PvP game, but it's alright, I've already heard all of that.
During their streams, and also during panels and interviews, Rare devs have repeatedly explained how they wanted players to feel when encountering another ship : uncertain. Are these guys going to attack you ? Are they going to offer an alliance ? Maybe they'll just be funny dudes playing music and firing monkeys at you with their cannons, or maybe they'll be ruthless pirates who'll sink you and take all your loot without saying a word ! And I think that this concept is indeed the core of the game, and a great part of what makes it so interesting...
So why are players able to alliance an entire server and get rid of that uncertainty entirely ?
The prospect of unwanted PvP is what keeps you on your toes in this game, it's what makes the adventure exciting, and hard. If you can be 100% sure that everyone on the server is friendly, then you can just do everything you want without having to worry about anything. You can be AFK on your ship half the time and still make millions of gold in a single evening while you're watching Netflix.
I'd have almost no problem with that if it was something that happened organically (i.e. you find a ship, alliance them, then another ship who's friendly too, then another, and bit by bit the alliance grows until the 6 ships on the server are part of it). This is not what happens. Not in the real world. What happens instead, is that people use 3rd party software to detect which server they're on, and who else is on the server, until they find an empty server on which they can bring all their buddies to alliance them and form a ginormous 100% safe PvE team. And this, my fellow pirates, is by far the fastest way to farm gold and rep. Not just by far, by light years.
So to recap : people are allowed to use 3rd party software to gain an unfair advantage over the rest of the player base, on what are essentially PvE servers, and of course all the progress they make there is carried over to the "regular" servers.
To me, there is no worst case of cheating. Even if you have an aimbot, you can still be killed. Even if you could hack the game to be invincible, sneaky players could still steal your loot without you noticing. When you're in a 6 ship alliance, there is almost no way you could loose any of your loot (except if you're bad enough to die to PvE and then let your loot sink before you manage to get it back). Furthermore, with these 6 crews effectively working for you, you'll make profit much much faster than any "legit" player can. So in my opinion, this should be worth a ban. (Remember, almost everyone who does that does it with the help of 3rd party software).
But, maybe it's difficult or impossible to track exactly who is indeed using 3rd party software to do that, and to ban every single one of them. Fine. There's a better solution anyway.
Why not simply limit alliance size to, let's say, 3 ships ? (that's basically half the server)
There would still be great benefits to alliancing other players. You'd make reputation 3 times faster, and in case of a fight, you'd have three times the fire power. But you wouldn't be 100% safe all the time. You would still be playing that awesome mix of PvE and PvP that is Sea of Thieves. You'd be doing something that every other player, from time to time and with a bit of luck, can do. Basically, you wouldn't get as much of an unfair advantage over players who don't use 3rd party software but just play the game the way the devs intended it. And from time to time, you'd probably get humbled by PvP players.
So now, I have little hope that this suggestion will ever be implemented in the game. I know that many of you will disagree with basically everything I just said. I just want to know what you, my fellow pirates, think about all this. You guys who farm PvE like crazy and sometimes get sunk when your ship is full of loot, don't you think that it's unfair ? And you who love PvP like I do, don't you think that there shouldn't be a way for people to escape it entirely ?
Perhaps my suggestion is not the right solution. Yes, not being able to bring a 4th ship into your alliance would take away the uncertainty from any new encounter as well, just in the opposite way, and I understand if you think that's no better. But perhaps you have a better idea in that case ?
Anyways, that's it for my one big rant about this game. I think it's fantastic otherwise, and that Rare is doing a wonderful job, keeping the game interesting and full of fresh content with every update. I'll let you guys pick it up and tell me what you think of this issue.
Good fortune on the seas to y'all.
