I have been playing Sea of Thieves for nearly 3 years and have been supporting the game via the Pirate Emporium and watching countless streamers on Twitch. However, I still find the way the Twitch Drops for this game are handled could be better. Most days, I am unable to sit down at my computer, let alone watch a stream. For the drops to be a "once a day; watch now or you miss it" deal is very disheartening. I think it would be better if the drops were like other titles, where the viewer has to watch a stream for 4 hours for each item while the deadline for the set is a week at most.
Reconsider Twitch Drop system
You think that forcing someone to watch 4 hours of streaming over the course of a week, instead of 20 mins once, is somehow more accessible?
The current setup is incredibly easy, even if you aren't actively watching the stream. Turn on a stream, make dinner / bathroom break / watch a show on Netflix, come back and redeem your item.
I'm not into twitch type stuff and I don't generally enjoy streaming content.
The talking to chat all the time thing isn't something I'm into and the general exaggerated for the camera style of presentation that is often found there just isn't for me
but it generates activity and interest in the game which ultimately benefits me as someone that enjoys the game and healthy server activity
so I pick one and watch it and I think it's a fair trade off and certainly not an unreasonable arrangement.
even if one doesn't subscribe to the spirit of the arrangement they can simply throw it on/ mute it/ and claim it
We get a lot of free stuff. A lot of effort goes into that free stuff. I don't think asking us to put a little effort into obtaining the free stuff is too much to ask or needs any real altering.
@d3adst1ck I do wish you could watch more one day to make up for some that you missed in a given twitch drop.
While a lot of effort does go into creating the free stuff, I feel like not a lot of effort went into getting players/viewers to appreciate the sets that are created.
I'm betting there are plenty of people in the community that have incomplete sets because of the current structure. I'm also betting there's a huge portion of that subset that will never use any of those sets because they're incomplete, and thus, are wasted efforts.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I doubt it.
@sweetsandman said in RECONSIDER SEA OF THIEVES' TWITCH DROP SYSTEM:
While a lot of effort does go into creating the free stuff, I feel like not a lot of effort went into getting players/viewers to appreciate the sets that are created.
I'm betting there are plenty of people in the community that have incomplete sets because of the current structure. I'm also betting there's a huge portion of that subset that will never use any of those sets because they're incomplete, and thus, are wasted efforts.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I doubt it.
Personally I think the current structure is fine but I'm also completely fine with things making a comeback in one way or another.
Doesn't make sense to allow people to buy them as they are after the activity itself otherwise they could have just made the item and emporium item
altering the current structure will just mean people will do the least for the most which doesn't help their activity goals as much as the current
Maybe something like a throwback twitch thursday where a random item or 2 from past twitch drops are available weekly which generates activity and still doesn't disincentivize their current strategy. No idea if something like that is possible but I think there could be ways to work some of those past items back into the rotation.
Agreed. The "throwback Thursday" idea is a great compromise that doesn't impact the current structure that's been in place for so long.
I quite like the current structure, but it is a shame that so many great cosmetic sets get abandoned by the player base because they missed a couple items and don't have the complete set.
I would personally agree that Rare should change the structure slightly. I think even the SOT Partners would agree that having a different item every day is not really beneficial and only annoys viewers.
Having all items available every day during the promotion and basing unlocks on accumulative time would be better for everyone. It takes the stress off Partners feeling they have to stream every day and viewers are less likely to be upset at missing out on an item.
The current system is too restrictive, IMHO, and only breeds contempt towards streamers.
@d3adst1ck said in RECONSIDER SEA OF THIEVES' TWITCH DROP SYSTEM:
You think that forcing someone to watch 4 hours of streaming over the course of a week, instead of 20 mins once, is somehow more accessible?
The current setup is incredibly easy, even if you aren't actively watching the stream. Turn on a stream, make dinner / bathroom break / watch a show on Netflix, come back and redeem your item.
Forcing?? Thats a big word for people who chose to do it for living and earn often well from it.
If anything the streamers are extremly thankful that they do that....
As for Twitch, i see no problem with their goal to help streamers and make their game more known, the only thing that im not a fan of is that now you need to claim your reward and not just being given out like before, and reskins are just lazy.
Just watch it on your phone, thats what i do.
I leave it on stream while i do other stuff, click on the claim button and BOOM!@faceyourdemon said in RECONSIDER SEA OF THIEVES' TWITCH DROP SYSTEM:
@d3adst1ck said in RECONSIDER SEA OF THIEVES' TWITCH DROP SYSTEM:
You think that forcing someone to watch 4 hours of streaming over the course of a week, instead of 20 mins once, is somehow more accessible?
The current setup is incredibly easy, even if you aren't actively watching the stream. Turn on a stream, make dinner / bathroom break / watch a show on Netflix, come back and redeem your item.
Forcing?? Thats a big word for people who chose to do it for living and earn often well from it.
If anything the streamers are extremly thankful that they do that....
I think you misread my comment.
@d3adst1ck Now that im reading it again, i did ^^" sorry!
It sounded to me like you were saying "Rare for them to stream for hours and 20 minutes is too much for you?" Read as in work so i didnt paid too much attention.Honestly I have not once bothered with the twitch stuff and even shun the idea of these types of cosmetics.
A game should be just that, it should be something stand alone, something that I buy into and enjoy, the idea of having things locked behind time specific quests or even third party systems is just bizarre to me.
A game should allow you the ability to unlock all of it's content as part of the game itself, paywalls should simply be a way of speeding up the process (such as it is with the ancient skeletons giving ancient coins for the emporium) and no item should ever be kept unaccessible to the player base unless interacted outside of the core system, as in via the use of third parties.The only exception to this would be from pre-ordered, which although I am not a fan of I can at least understand the process as a marketing tool.
I am not in the greatest vote pool, I'm sure, but those are my thoughts on it.
@laughsmaniacaly said in Reconsider Twitch Drop system:
Honestly I have not once bothered with the twitch stuff and even shun the idea of these types of cosmetics.
A game should be just that, it should be something stand alone, something that I buy into and enjoy, the idea of having things locked behind time specific quests or even third party systems is just bizarre to me.
A game should allow you the ability to unlock all of it's content as part of the game itself, paywalls should simply be a way of speeding up the process (such as it is with the ancient skeletons giving ancient coins for the emporium) and no item should ever be kept unaccessible to the player base unless interacted outside of the core system, as in via the use of third parties.The only exception to this would be from pre-ordered, which although I am not a fan of I can at least understand the process as a marketing tool.
I am not in the greatest vote pool, I'm sure, but those are my thoughts on it.
As long as the 3rd party thing is free and accessible to many I don't see much of an issue. I have nothing to do with twitch or streaming and my account entirely exists based around twitch drops for SOT so if I can do it pretty much anyone can do it. It's free and it's easy.
If people have some sort of platform objection for whatever reason that is theirs to have but Rare doesn't really need to get into people's personal objections over something. They have activity to incentivize and a game to run. Site is easy and free to use and pretty much everyone that can access the game can put in the little effort to get the cosmetics on twitch.
and all the main content is free and included in the updates these are just extra cosmetics that people can choose to chase or not but as long as it's accessible to pretty much everyone I don't see it causing any harm at all how it currently is
@wolfmanbush said:
but as long as it's accessible to pretty much everyone I don't see it causing any harm at all how it currently is
Except it isn't - there's a lot of previous content that was time-limited that hasn't yet, or won't ever, come back. That means that it isn't (yet) accessible to anyone new to the game.
So, pretty much NOT everyone.
@LaughsManiacaly said:
A game should allow you the ability to unlock all of it's content as part of the game itself.
This pretty much sums up how I feel about it. 3rd party? Nope! Promotions? Nope! Pay to use? Nope! It's in the game, accessible at any time, and earnable.
@galactic-geek said in Reconsider Twitch Drop system:
@wolfmanbush said:
but as long as it's accessible to pretty much everyone I don't see it causing any harm at all how it currently is
Except it isn't - there's a lot of previous content that was time-limited that hasn't yet, or won't ever, come back. That means that it isn't (yet) accessible to anyone new to the game.
So, pretty much NOT everyone.
I'm talking about access to the platform to unlock the rewards when they are live not unlocking previous awards
they could just as easily have in game rewards that don't stick around forever. Stuff comes and goes within game events as well
My argument isn't with the access to the third party but the fact that the third party is involved as part of the progression itself.
Imagine if you played halo but had one of the guns locked behind the need to download a two week special offer free copy of Microsoft office.
While the process isn't complex or unaccessible, it is weird to need the third party involvement at all, surely that gun should have been part of the game to begin with or stripped out if not needed, not half heartedly slapped on the side as a marketing ploy.In terms of sot, I can see that many decisions have been made to maximise the marketing side of things without full consideration to the impact that might have on the general community.
I'm not going to point the finger solely at rare on this decision either as I'm fairly sure that much of that cash cow attitude comes from the higher ups that supported the early development and want to see their returns on investment, IE Microsoft.
To sum up, the locking of cosmetics behind time sensitive periods and third parties, isn't a great way to increase player engagement but actually helps to divide player bases and gradually erode support.
If you add it to the game, then add it to the game, even if this means that later players need to do more work to unlock it or purchase with real money rather than relying on outside influences.@laughsmaniacaly said in Reconsider Twitch Drop system:
Imagine if you played halo but had one of the guns locked behind the need to download a two week special offer free copy of Microsoft office.
While the process isn't complex or unaccessible, it is weird to need the third party involvement at all, surely that gun should have been part of the game to begin with or stripped out if not needed, not half heartedly slapped on the side as a marketing ploy.Not the greatest analogy. A gun has functionality and alters how you play. You'd be better off using a different colored helmet as an example, since it wouldn't affect how you play Halo and if it didn't exist no one would notice which would be similar to what we are getting here.
Granted, but the point still stands that it makes no sense to have an in game item be locked behind an out of game third party involvement.
@laughsmaniacaly said in Reconsider Twitch Drop system:
Granted, but the point still stands that it makes no sense to have an in game item be locked behind an out of game third party involvement.
It does if it's specifically meant as a promotion to get people to watch the game on Twitch. It's a mutual benefit for both Twitch and Rare; Twitch gets extra viewers that they can use to market partnerships with other games, and Rare gets a bunch of eyeballs watching their game and hopefully impulse buying because of it.
Or if you want to get people to pre-order (Black Dog pack) or to buy a special controller (Ferryman set), or buy an RPG game (Lord Guardian & Bonne Belle sails).
At least the twitch drops don't require you to drop money in order to get them.
Sadly this is the nail on the head of the issue.
Cash cow attitudes.
The reason these things exist is because it works as a marketing play to give money in pocket to a mutual deal, in this case rare and twitch.
In personal opinion it's as annoying a part of modern game culture as loot boxes are and sadly doesn't need to exist for the mutual benefit to work.
Simply giving a gold or ancient coin based incentive would have the same outcome without the unnecessary exclusivity
@laughsmaniacaly said in Reconsider Twitch Drop system:
Sadly this is the nail on the head of the issue.
Cash cow attitudes.
The reason these things exist is because it works as a marketing play to give money in pocket to a mutual deal, in this case rare and twitch.
In personal opinion it's as annoying a part of modern game culture as loot boxes are and sadly doesn't need to exist for the mutual benefit to work.
Simply giving a gold or ancient coin based incentive would have the same outcome without the unnecessary exclusivity
It's pretty undeniable that a pretty large chunk of the success that this game eventually found occurred because of streamers and content sharing outside of the game itself
Over time the devs brought a lot to the game but earlier on it was the people spreading the content out there and getting people to latch on to stuff like all the tuck plays that were so popular and vital to the growth of the game
This game and streaming are tied together even more than most games imo. The wholesome stuff brought people in all the edgy pvp everyone all day stuff brought people in, the personalities that people latched on to brought some people in. Communities were formed outside of the game as well.
Imo without the streaming/content building up interest long enough to get people and the devs over the hump of a lack of perceived stuff to do it may not have made it to where we are today. It's not how I ended up here but it's how a lot of people did end up here.
You do have a point that the games advertising came mainly from streams and the community in the early days which sort of stands to the poor job of the advertising and content at launch.
While the game is a far stretch from those days now with a fair volume of content and continually growing, is it still needed to have stream based exclusivity?
I doubt I'll win hearts and minds with my arguments but I stand by them none the less.
The content for the game should be housed solely within the game.
@laughsmaniacaly said in Reconsider Twitch Drop system:
You do have a point that the games advertising came mainly from streams and the community in the early days which sort of stands to the poor job of the advertising and content at launch.
While the game is a far stretch from those days now with a fair volume of content and continually growing, is it still needed to have stream based exclusivity?
I doubt I'll win hearts and minds with my arguments but I stand by them none the less.
The content for the game should be housed solely within the game.
There are plenty of people that agree with you
I just don't think we turn our backs on the people and the platform that were there for support when it was needed even if we are in a more fortunate position now. The game still benefits from their efforts even if they are personally benefiting from their own efforts so it still makes sense to maintain that relationship imo
@trepidanos said in Reconsider Twitch Drop system:
I have been playing Sea of Thieves for nearly 3 years and have been supporting the game via the Pirate Emporium and watching countless streamers on Twitch. However, I still find the way the Twitch Drops for this game are handled could be better. Most days, I am unable to sit down at my computer, let alone watch a stream. For the drops to be a "once a day; watch now or you miss it" deal is very disheartening. I think it would be better if the drops were like other titles, where the viewer has to watch a stream for 4 hours for each item while the deadline for the set is a week at most.
My problem with Twitch drops is anybody can get them. Being a cosmetic game i want something nobody else has.
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