Bounty system

@serenenecrosis said in Bounty system:

@wolfmanbush

Not really. It was advertised as a treasure collecting adventure game, and when people kill for no reason and don't even take the loot, it's become something other than what was advertised.

That's...not true. C&P from the Steam Page, very first words it has in About This Game:

Sea of Thieves offers the essential pirate experience, from sailing and fighting to exploring and looting – everything you need to live the pirate life and become a legend in your own right. With no set roles, you have complete freedom to approach the world, and other players, however you choose.

Whether you’re voyaging as a group or sailing solo, you’re bound to encounter other crews in this shared world adventure – but will they be friends or foes, and how will you respond?

I mean, they make it pretty clear this is a shared world, you will encounter other players, and you will fight other players. It isn't like they market this as something that it isn't.

Bounty System would not work well here since it is a session based gameplay loop, so there isn't a good way to implement this without fundamentally altering the core gameplay loop. Passive options won't work well because you'll either turn Adventure into a more hardcore PvP area (the game is meant to be PvEvP) and server populations are too low to allow even a single Ship on a server to elect into a passive state (and there are so many technical hurdles this would create that have been discussed endlessly over the years here).

So, unless you have something less generic than "make a bounty system" or "make a passive mode" that actually addresses all the pitfalls I really don't see it happening. I can't imagine Rare is putting a lot of thought into it when that wasn't what they wanted to make to begin with, and at this point the game is 3 years old and people should really be able to understand what the game is at this point.

They are clear about what the game is in their marketing, and I wouldn't expect to see such drastic changes coming. If you give it time, attempt to learn and adapt, you'll eventually develop the skills needed to do what you want as you like. I've been sunk by another player less times in the past 6 months than I have fingers on one hand - because I know how to avoid conflict when I need to, and if I get in to conflict I can defend myself as needed. I've done all the Tall Tales (save for Pirates Life stuff, cause I'm not a how PotC fan so I'm in no real rush on that, and will likely wait to do them with my wife or nephew), and I did them before we had Checkpoints or having the skills I have now (now that was a pain). So keep at it and you'll get there. If you can't do that, then this might not be the style of game for you (nothing wrong with that, loads of different types of games for different tastes).

@serenenecrosis said in Bounty system:

@redeyesith
The back of my disc box says "enjoy total freedom in a multi-player world bursting with buried treasure ancient shipwrecks and thrilling ocean battles"

You do though, but so do the other players in that multi-player world. Freedom to do what you want does not mean an assurance that you will automatically accomplish goals you set out to do, just like in life. So nothing about that is incorrect or counter to what the experience actually is.

It's not exactly freedom if I can't even complete a single solitary story quest without getting griefed.

Being killed is not being griefed, being sunk is not being griefed. Having the skills to accomplish what you want might also take time to acquire and hone. You still have the freedom to go out and attempt whatever, but you may well encounter someone else with different objectives that may put them into conflict with your own goals.

You can pull whatever obscure disclaimer you want from the internet, but the fact of the matter is that griefing is a toxic behavior that alienates new players, gives unfair advantages to people who have the money to pay for better internet connections, and generally makes the game less fun for people who want a nice pirate themed RPG environment, not a COD-style free-for-all

Obscure disclaimer? It is the very first words describing what the game is on a prominent game sales website (and the description I am pretty sure is the same on other major platforms). This is not obscure, this is the primary marketing copy. The game has tools to report actual toxic behavior, so of someone is actually being toxic then capture that and submit a report. Unless you have truly archaic internet speeds then that isn't gonna be too huge of a factor here. And the game makes no claims at being a pirate themed RPG environment. This is not Skyrim with a pirate skin to it. It is, by nature, much closer to a CoD free-for-all than that in reality, and says it is in more flowery language. If you expected something else, I don't know what to tell you.