Concerns regarding exploitation on safer seas and how this can affect the real game

@phantaxus That's true but there is also no benefit to anything in the game other than cosmetics. Nothing provides an advantage other than experience and skill level. Even the PVP hourglass fights only reward you with cosmetics as you level and I think most people would agree that it's problematic to allow people to exploit the game for their benefit in PVP even if the only reward is cosmetics.

So players are making more gold than HS, but they can’t progress any further, not spend that wealth on higher priced items

Meh. Not a problem. Gold ingame has always been an easy thing to gather. You can hit every fortress, shrine and come out on top

@thewatcher1307 I feel like you actually just want alliance servers on safer seas. Other pve players will not seek out and report people just for doing things faster than normal.

@captain-fob4141 I honestly hadn't even considered anything about alliance servers. The concept of safer seas in general doesn't make much sense for this game. I'm more so concerned that this will allow exploiters to achieve large quantities of gold that they can then take into the main game.

@phantaxus it would be slower yes, but it would be extremely safe since no other player would be able to report them. Also, you're right, this isn't about HG, I was simply pointing out the flaw in the logic about it only being about cosmetics.

@thewatcher1307 yeah, again adding more people won't make them less likely to exploit the game. Other PvE players will still just ignore/avoid each other. Additionally, it'll give rise to people trying to just hold on to 3xpensive loot knowing they can't be killed.

@captain-fob4141 That's a fair enough point, it still means that rare needs to implement something to monitor SS for exploitation.

@phantaxus Your point seemed to imply that the exploitation wouldn't matter because gold can only be used for cosmetics. I pointed out that the entire game doesn't provide advantage for anything other than cosmetics. If that wasn't your meaning, you'll need to reword it.

@merlin-mav-k said in Concerns regarding exploitation on safer seas and how this can affect the real game:

@thewatcher1307

People are really twisted up about the mere idea of someone playing alone. Why is there any reason to believe Rare is or isn't "monitoring sessions or anomalous activity" in SS any less than they always have with the game?

Not really twisted about people playing alone, the issue is people being able to play alone and then bring those rewards into the real game which opens up the possibility people will get an unfair way to unlock cosmetics that take real players significant time to unlock.

On your second point, there isn't much evidence to suggest that rare has ever been watching or monitoring for exploiters or hackers without the input of other players. AFAIK, all players who have hacked have been removed due to players reporting them with video from in game capture or via a video streaming service capture like twitch.

If some one is cheating exclusively on safer seas, they are going to still hit the same block as anyone who plays it exclusively, and if they wish to progress, will have to move to high seas and either stop cheating (which im willing to bet they wouldn't stop), or risk getting caught and banned still.

I agree with the non issue sentiment.

People using cheats tend to haunt HG.

@goldsmen You can jump on safer seas when you have max level in all the emissaries if you wanted to

@pithyrumble doesn't mean rules shouldn't apply to safer seas as well. Just because a law might mostly be applied in a certain area or for certain people, doesn't mean it shouldn't be applicable everywhere (I.E. more speeding on highway but speeding is still against the law on city streets).

@merlin-mav-k just because something happens mostly around PVP doesn't mean that the rules don't apply to pve as well. By the logic of "well we only should punish the people who are interested in PVP", we also shouldn't punish users who aren't interested in PVP and are only using exploits to avoid PVP encounters in the real game such as by completing a fort of the damned quicker than intended, getting large amounts of loot on their ship more quickly, teleporting themselves holding loot directly to a selling location, etc.

@thewatcher1307 said in Concerns regarding exploitation on safer seas and how this can affect the real game:

@goldsmen You can jump on safer seas when you have max level in all the emissaries if you wanted to

You can, but it will take a lot of time still to get there, and at that point, all the cheater has done is robbed them self of actually enjoying everything, since everything is done at that point. But when people cheat, they dont do it because they want to avoid people, they do it because they want to "win" at any cost.

@merlin-mav-k

Considering what his username is, maybe there ARE police boat players out there whose sole purpose is wandering around from ship to ship on the server and monitoring other people to make sure they're playing the game "correctly".

"Correctly", in this case, being used in place of "the specific way he's decided on his own that it's right for other people to play and no other way".

As to the OP's point, even with hacks it's IMPOSSIBLE to grind gold efficiently at a 70% reduction rate and no way to apply multipliers. The most valuable piece of loot you can obtain in SS is the Ashen Winds Skull, and with the nerf in turn-in value you're earning 3,000 gold instead of 10,000 in High Seas. All the loot from an Ashen Winds world event together would barely equal the value of a single AW Skull in High Seas. It's logistically impossible to grind massive amounts of gold even with every cheat ever invented by hackers turned on.

for Athena's sake @TheWatcher1307 just let people play Sea of Single Thief and not worry about how people who you'll never meet might never affect you in a session you'll never encounter them in.