The divide of Content Creators and Playstyles

  • Those that have interacted with me in Discord text channels know how insufferable I've been for the past two years (and still going, I'm just a stubborn soul). Some of the time, I've been backing my wild thoughts and opinions based on content creators and their thoughts. Someone can easily can write this off as "your opinion bro" or "it's not ALL content creators" or "my favorite content creator isn't like that", and I know it doesn't apply to all, but there are a few that make what I believe a noticeable impact.

    In Sea of Thieves, there is meant to be 1 overall playstyle, but in reality, there's a ton, and here's 3 I will highlight coming from Twitch's SoT scene. Casual, Hunter and Well-Rounded. Content creators can fit any of these roles whenever they want no matter how big, small, popular, or unpopular they are. They play how they like because of the game's excellent design in freedom. However, most of these playstyles I listed have a "hidden" con within them.

    Casual playstyles, are great relaxing watches where you can joke around, have a good laugh, maybe keg each other when no one is prepared for it, etc.

    A con though, is opinions and execution related to combat. Some may not see it, or care much about it, but you'd be surprised to see how your favorite content creator might react to a fight they have no legitimate way of winning. I know I could be in trouble for this, but an ex-NAL player known as Lt Loot pointed this out recently in a ranting stream (that currently has a VOD available | MAJOR WARNING: A metric ton of swearing in this VOD). His VOD goes into a fight where a casual content creator, as a Grade V Reaper, is met with a crew of incredibly skilled hunters, in which they struggled to deal any considerable damage and wound up giving up a loot haul on board in order to not say face to sinking to players that are double gunning, and to their assumptions, exploiting via the consistently debunked "quick swap" maneuver. This might look bad on the casual end, but I don't even want to offer a VOD for the next group I'm going to highlight.

    Hunter playstyles are quite simple. Log onto a session, see if a boat is doing something relatively valuable and attempt to go steal it. Hunters are usually categorized as Server Hoppers, and depending on the content creator, not a damn Death Defier will survive an inevitable fight against a skilled player with months to years of constant PvP experiences behind their back. Hunter playstyles seem to be the most consistently popular type of streams seen on twitch, as it's back to back attempts at PvP fights with crews of any size against crews of any size.

    The major con to this playstyle is hatred. Think about it. You've seen the numerous threads about pirates wanting a change to the way the Devil's Shroud works (pushing loot back into playable territory), ways to make the Reaper's Bones a "PvP-Only" trading company (can't alliance/loot can only be stolen to progress the flag's grade or be sold to the Servant), constant asks to make quality of life fixes such as the impossible-to-fix hit registration, the sixth ship, the return of a PvP mode to have back-to-back fights, fixing infinite black screens etc. PvP players, especially solo PvP players, are miserable because of the expected imbalance of some crew size fights, or what they may consider the "cowardly" playstyles less-experienced crews are performing in a combat encounter (items on anchor, sudden 2 ships vs 1 ship fights, endless running with no sign of giving up despite being clearly marked on the map, etc.) Some streamers will just consistently complain and bad talk the game and devs because of the constant frustrations they have with the game. This playstyle also get a bad reputation to casuals because a lot of hunters are inherited with extremely great aiming accuracy, especially when they are Double Gunning. Some would say "play something else", but the hatred towards the flaws of the game, to them, is a sign of genuine love they have for the game because there's nothing else like it, it can't be abandoned for something different because it's currently exclusively unique (and popular enough for anyone to get views on just by participating exclusively in this playstyle).

    TL;DR

    Casual playstyles can be criticized because some of the most popular creators not only stand by the "have fun" mentality despite the game's endless shortcomings, but the unfair berating of the opposite playstyle due to their preference in weapon loadout.

    Hunter playstyles are more engaging to watch just for the endless action alone, but it's depressing when the content creator cracks and explodes in a rant about how terrible the game has become because of bugs they have died/sunk to, especially against players they have judged as worse in combat.

    The common playstyle I see portrayed here on the forums is the "Well-Rounded" playstyle, as players here don't seem to care about the shortcomings of the game's combat as much (at least without getting their thread locked/hidden for breaking forum rules), and enjoy different facets of the game no matter how mundane it may feel (likely because Well-Rounded playstyles choose when they want to play the game and attempt to have fun with however long they intend to play it for). On Twitch, this can be seen, but it depends on the personality of the content creator themselves. It lacks cons because this playstyle approaches the game as "pick up and play", finding something fun to do for an hour or three, maybe sink and lose everything, maybe rule the server with an unbreakable alliance and make 500K gold (until everyone gets tired and logs off for the session). Ultimately, this playstyle benefits in the target demographic having friends to bring for the ride, or can be well-entertained by their stream chat's community/their own personality.

    Overall though, I see some of these personalities as genuinely damaging to anyone trying to get a proper first impression or an opinion of this game. Casuals will want to only play passively and think Double Gunning hunters are griefers. Hunters will have a love hate relationship with the game, all while succumbing to the worst bugs the game has in store at the worst times possible. I know my lifeline on this game is currently Twitch brainrot and the small group of friends I may sail with wanting to goof about/hunt or do the newest content the game has to offer, but what are your thoughts on this spaghetti brained attempt at explaining the odd crossroads of playstyles between content creators? Content creators seem to be treated as the major backbone to the game's presence and exposure. The way they can communicate their likes and dislikes of the game can lead to a fan community making up the "vocal" opinions we bicker about to this very day.

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  • It's a low accountability environment where the center of attention is surrounded by people that are telling them they are great and they are right for hours and hours a day, where criticism and disagreement are regularly removed quickly.

    By design it's not balanced and isn't going to create much in the area of objectivity or consistency. Hypocrisy will run rampant as will entitlement.

    It is what it is, people can get involved in it or stay out of it but the chosen connection between game and twitch/streaming is here to stay and it's not going to change.

  • Oh the joys of witnessing turbo sweats steamrolling the people who taught us how to play the game. We all have choices to make. When engaging a superior crew do we;

    1. give up easily, criticize, condemn, complain or
    2. Take the fight, try our best, and upon defeat we complement the better crew?

    I'll be honest, I have done both, how about you guys? My pet trigger is meeting a galleon with 4 cracked snipers on the deck that keep me suppressed to the ferry of the damned anytime I get within half a mile of their ship. If I sit there and get sniped out of my mind every 3 seconds I'm not really going to be in the mood to say, "hey these guys are amazing!"
    What do you guys think about a shield? Like a pirate had a sword and shield for their two weapon slots? (Shields won't fit in our pirate game fantasy world right?) But I don't know how else the crazy skill gaps in the world of double gun can be disrupted or balanced.

  • I just don't understand our community sometimes.

    If someone wants to play only PVE..they are this or that,''sea of thieves not sea of friends''.

    If someone wants to play PVP exclusively, on an empty ship especially, this is fine now? A bit of hypocrisy

    This is like playing a mafia game and people would think all they do is kill each other instead of the goal to make money and killing is just a by product.

    You turn on Twitch to get those drops, and all the main streamers are usually doing nothing but PVP. At least when we had Flamenheart they would sometimes do that, because of the wraith curse balls and the resemblance to fighting other ships.

    This game is not a competitive game, there is no rankings apart from the PVE side.

    So when the best players in the game and the most popular ones (streamers) start playing the game in a weird way, everyone feels like this is the only way and this is normal.

    Imo opinion, you can play whatever way you want to play, but you should feel responsibility as well. If you see new players that you know you can sink in 30seconds, why would you? This is equivalent of going outside to shoot some hoops or play football and then competitively destroy second graders and feel good about what you did. A bit low.

    I am not directing this at anyone here, more to do with streamers who do nothing but PVP and rare rewards them.

    The game is designed to be played - You start, pick a faction, pick a quest, go for that quest and whatever happens after is the beuty of the game. You might get wealthier, you might have a fight, you might loose all you had.

    But by no means this game was created to start a game and do everything you can including exploiting (supplies,portal hop, etc) to just start fighting other pirates as soon as possible for no reason whatsoever apart from that you can.

    In my opinion if Rare is advertising, catering and selling this game as family game they should take more responsibility and make sure that their ''vendors'' (Content creators) are selling the product correctly, before they get supported and rewarded.

    Otherwise they should just drop the whole nonsense of a family friendly game, change the rating to 18+, get some blood, some gore and concentrate on balancing the weapons and gunplay, hit reg and server stability issues?

    Imagine you are 8-12 years old, you get a hold of this game, you watch some trailers by Rare- Pirates having fun, a little bit of sea fights or sword fights, lots of treasure, mysteries, Jack Sparrow etc..you have no idea how a ship works in real life, steering the thing, parking, being able to orientate around islands to find treasure etc etc. You get like 20k gold which is nothing but peanuts for the PVPrs, you are so happy, think about this cool hat or pistol you gonna buy, then people come and sink you, ''because its sea of thieves not sea of friends'' - WEAK.

    ''True courage is not about knowing how to take a life, but when to spare one''

  • I dislike streamers in general because big streamers because too many players try to mimic them causing the meta and exploits to spread like wildfire.
    That and they're all ego like you sortof highlighted.

    Also lowkey tired of the small streamers in my crew getting distracted by their stream.

  • @zig-zag-ltu Sometimes I wish I was a bit more verbal or had synapses fire off faster to make interesting verbal conversation (Well, it helps if I have someone to bounce off of, but my career so far has had no one interact with me), so that I could stream the game and try to bring a bit more of a different perspective to playing the game.
    But let's be honest, unless people have the PvP skills of someone using a Sandevista*, or are the most entertaining people on the planet, chances are your average player/"Content Creator" isn't gonna get far without getting help from being propped up by bigger channels, or having a lot of persistence.

    Which is sad. Could go with more people publicly playing the game with a more "Carefree" mindset rather than by trying to go all-in and doing PvP like it's the only thing you can do in this game.

    *If anyone gets the reference with the Sandevista, you will earn my admiration.

  • @kalgert said in The divide of Content Creators and Playstyles:

    @zig-zag-ltu Sometimes I wish I was a bit more verbal or had synapses fire off faster to make interesting verbal conversation (Well, it helps if I have someone to bounce off of, but my career so far has had no one interact with me), so that I could stream the game and try to bring a bit more of a different perspective to playing the game.
    But let's be honest, unless people have the PvP skills of someone using a Sandevista*, or are the most entertaining people on the planet, chances are your average player/"Content Creator" isn't gonna get far without getting help from being propped up by bigger channels, or having a lot of persistence.

    Which is sad. Could go with more people publicly playing the game with a more "Carefree" mindset rather than by trying to go all-in and doing PvP like it's the only thing you can do in this game.

    The PVP aspect could stay, but this is when I would point my fingers at the developers. Why these bloodthirsty pirates with high skill get matched with people who tend to not engage in combat that much. If a new player ganks a ship and sinks it, Kudos! If someone with 3000hours has pleasure sinking noobs (opinion formed reading UK Sea of Thieves community on Facebook and others) its just weak and compensating for something in real life.

    Rare either needs to sort their mess out and create a good competitive PVP environment, where there is a proper matchmaking based on skill/tendencies/gameplay time
    Or they need to do something to tone it down.

    I have a proposition.

    What if Reaper emissary is not just press E to vote, but you have to actually buy an Emissary flag for a hefty price tag which would depend on your promotion level. So lets say level 0-10 reaper would have to pay 5000 coins to become a reaper. But someone with level 75, would need cough up 150k or so? Which is not much, but then at least after finishing a voyage and you see this cheap empty level 5 ship sailing towards you, you might actually have an incentive and motivation to fight them.

    Please don't get me wrong, there is nothing more exciting than having a sea battle on a Galleon or even Brig. But it just feels like a waste of resources to fight a ship that has nothing.
    I am not talking about people, who have finished playing and before logging off attempt to steal your loot. I mean level 1 reapers whose crew is super good going after lesser targets or server hoppers.

    And if another player beats them, they get that money straight into their pirate account? (The last part might be a bit lore breaking, but so is portal hopping for reapers using POTC tall tales)

  • @scheneighnay said in The divide of Content Creators and Playstyles:

    I dislike streamers in general because big streamers because too many players try to mimic them causing the meta and exploits to spread like wildfire.
    That and they're all ego like you sortof highlighted.

    Also lowkey tired of the small streamers in my crew getting distracted by their stream.

    any of us could get caught up in it, it's more the environment than the individual

    it's a lot of extreme attention where the praise is flooded, the criticism is also extreme but it's filtered out but still has impact

    it's non-accountable power, there is no system built in for checks and balances it's all about "protecting" the participant

    it's also constant footage of being the center of attention which is constant attention that goes both ways positive and negative to extremes.

    nobody really handles it well in reality, either it's a struggle publicly or privately but the environment is one that eventually chips away at the balance of everyone

    Personally I view it as a trap someone falls into (one that literally anyone could fall into) and don't really think that it shows who someone is.

    At the core and the origin of the journey it's chasing passion, money to survive, and community which is really what everyone does, it's just a bubble that is a struggle to navigate long term and has some extreme effects.

    It's also a system of networking which can dig at people long term. Networking is different than being close, it can get pretty lonely when someone stops serving the network and/or when someone pushes for more accountability within the network.

  • @scheneighnay said in The divide of Content Creators and Playstyles:

    I dislike streamers in general because big streamers because too many players try to mimic them causing the meta and exploits to spread like wildfire.
    That and they're all ego like you sortof highlighted.

    Also lowkey tired of the small streamers in my crew getting distracted by their stream.

    When i see something from a large streamer, i like to take what i learned that may be useful, but in any game i play, i will never play what people think is "META" because all meta means in anything is what the majority THINK is the best, even if things can be better, thats just what people believe to be best, and some times people just deny that something is better because its not meta. If no one explores or tries new things, no new metas will be found, cause, every meta eventually started from some one trying something different.

  • @goldsmen
    I try to do countermetas myself, but it's annoying to keep running into tryhards using the same gimmick strat over and over

  • @scheneighnay said in The divide of Content Creators and Playstyles:

    @goldsmen
    I try to do countermetas myself, but it's annoying to keep running into tryhards using the same gimmick strat over and over

    When people use the same tricks over and over, it makes them more predictable, and i find that some one using something thats predictable, no matter how good that thing is, can always be countered, when people do the same thing, you can learn, and generally outplay them!

    Predictable people are some of my favorite cause you can have the greatest laughs at their expense, the number of people who i have tricked into crashing their own ships, the number of people who blow up their own ship by shooting or cutting you when you carry a keg up, its perfect comedy.

  • @goldsmen
    Again, the point is that it's annoying and not fun when every encounter goes down the same

  • @scheneighnay said in The divide of Content Creators and Playstyles:

    I try to do countermetas myself, but it's annoying to keep running into tryhards using the same gimmick strat over and over

    I never understood the tryhard thing

    1. Everyone benefits by putting in effort into something they want to perform on and/improve with

    2. People can play however they want on the pvp/pve side and preferences are all fine from weapons to strategies.

    People aren't obligated to meet expectations of others, that's the entire point of this game.

  • Where does "try-hard" begin though? Should I put in 50% effort? 30%? What's your preference? :"D

  • @scheneighnay said in The divide of Content Creators and Playstyles:

    @goldsmen
    Again, the point is that it's annoying and not fun when every encounter goes down the same

    This is true, i just try to create my own fun finding ways to mess with predictable people.

  • @unleet1 Being a try hard really isnt an issue, it annoys some people, but at the end of the day, others probably wont remember you over the adventure they had, so play how you like!

  • @unleet1 said in The divide of Content Creators and Playstyles:

    Where does "try-hard" begin though? Should I put in 50% effort? 30%? What's your preference? :"D

    Since I was a kid I've aimed for Bo Jackson level effort in everything I do.

  • @unleet1 I’d say “try-hard” begins where winning and subservience to the meta subjugates self-expression, enjoyment of the game, and good sportsmanship. Nothing wrong with being highly motivated or always doing your best, but it’s problematic when it turns into a win-at-all-costs mentality.

    Coming from someone who’s about as far from “try-hard” as it gets, to the point of meandering indifference on occasion 😁

  • @sn0kanon said in The divide of Content Creators and Playstyles:

    @unleet1 I’d say “try-hard” begins where winning and subservience to the meta subjugates self-expression, enjoyment of the game, and good sportsmanship. Nothing wrong with being highly motivated or always doing your best, but it’s problematic when it turns into a win-at-all-costs mentality.

    Coming from someone who’s about as far from “try-hard” as it gets, to the point of meandering indifference on occasion 😁

    Exactly it's not a difficult concept to grasp.

  • @scheneighnay said in The divide of Content Creators and Playstyles:

    @sn0kanon said in The divide of Content Creators and Playstyles:

    @unleet1 I’d say “try-hard” begins where winning and subservience to the meta subjugates self-expression, enjoyment of the game, and good sportsmanship. Nothing wrong with being highly motivated or always doing your best, but it’s problematic when it turns into a win-at-all-costs mentality.

    Coming from someone who’s about as far from “try-hard” as it gets, to the point of meandering indifference on occasion 😁

    Exactly it's not a difficult concept to grasp.

    Considering literally the only times I have ever heard try hard in this game is at the beginning of an interaction or after getting simply sent to the ferry/sunk my guess is that there is far less thought put into the accusation than being posted here.

    People put these odd expectations and assumptions on others. If they wear this they are that, if they play this way they are that, if they use this they are that.

    Doesn't make it accurate or objective.

  • @wolfmanbush suspect it’s used about as accurately as “toxic” and “cheat”…

  • @sn0kanon said in The divide of Content Creators and Playstyles:

    @wolfmanbush suspect it’s used about as accurately as “toxic” and “cheat”…

    people only have so many ways to dress here, only have so many ways to approach combat here, only so many ways to decorate a ship, play pve, pvp to me it's just silly to act like anyone is anything just because they participate how they do.

    Plenty of these newer players probably have no idea who some of these streamers even are or what people are even talking about anymore with this stuff.

  • @sn0kanon This is a fun(ish) game to me. I was being sardonic and you know where the lead-in bait question goes. "At what point is trying acceptable. Should I "throw"?. Sometimes it is funny to throw, btw. It's a deep rabbit hole.

  • On topic, must say I have encountered a few "streamers". and never had a bad experience. Enjoyed every moment dunked or not.

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