Watch before playing Sea of Thieves
Happy to see some people actually know what this game is about, how it works, and what isn't true and true.
But what do you fellow pirates think? True or is this pirate talking nonsense?
The video to explain SoT "Issues"
He's not wrong at all, people do have a habit of jumping to conclusion. Of course cheaters exist and it would be false to say otherwise, but not remotely as big of an issue as people claim.
This parts especially resonates:
SOT doesn't have a cheater problem. It has a blame shift and coping problem that gives it a bad reputation.
If you play, you will come across a wide range of players with various skill levels. Some will be chill and want to alliance. Others will just try to sink you for no reason. Humble fishermen, achievement hunters, cosmetic collectors, sweaty PvP lords, and of course, more experienced players.
You see, most players want the game to thrive and find its way into people's lives like it has for so many of us. To make an impact through unique encounters, making friends, sharing stories, having laughs so that this wonderful game can live on. We have to stop spreading that the game is full of cheaters and recognize that in reality it's just lack of game knowledge. Sea of Thieves is a lot of people's favorite game because of the fun player interactions they have with other players.
But what do you fellow pirates think? True or is this pirate talking nonsense?
I'm not saying this to be contrary like you always do in every thread ever posted here. But even without watching the video, I'm inclined to believe it is probably nonsense.
Ya'll like Occam's razor? Here's Bellamy's razor:
If someone who constantly makes inaccurate claims makes a claim, it probably isn't true.
I’ve personally received multiple ‘cheat detected’ errors and have been accused of cheating several times, despite never using any cheats or third-party applications.
There seems to be a strong culture of accusing others of cheating, especially in competitive scenarios. In reality, actual cheaters appear to be relatively rare — but when they do show up, they can completely ruin the experience for everyone involved.
For example, just yesterday during an Hourglass match, both me and my opponent were dying to something we couldn’t even see or identify in-game. Situations like that only reinforce the confusion and frustration around this topic.
I think it’s important to approach this with balance — not every suspicious situation is cheating, but at the same time, real issues do exist and have a significant impact when they happen.
Agreed. Stronger feedback according to the video by streamers saying “nah they aren’t cheating they just better” goes along way.
Realizing not everything is out to get you, make your gameplay horrible or every encounter is a bad actor.But one bad ripple spreads so greatly that it becomes a wave.
I haven't come across a cheater since around launch time, at least not one that I could easily identify. It's certainly not as big of an issue as it has been in some games I've played though, like Escape From Tarkov.
That being said though, I can see how it would give perma-bad experience, but I think Sea of Thieves has more important and pressing issues than cheaters tbf.
As well, I've never seen cheaters. Even in the Hourglass playfield, Ive only encountered "toxic" bad-behaving players and some very crazy actions that can be proven with simple "tool."
Does that mean cheaters arent there? No...but they arent as hellish as many seem to suggest and claim. One bad day turns into every other day for so many players.I think the issue is a mixed of both.
There is cheaters, and there is false positive reports / accusations of cheating.
In 2500 hours of gameplay, I recorded and banned maybe 10 to 20 cheaters (I record my game sessions just in case), this is not "a lot" per say, but when I did encounter them, I lost a lot of time and motivation (either loosing a big win streak in HG, or a 4 to 8h loot stack).
On the other hand, I've been accused of being a cheater several time too, never been banned though, so I have hope the moderation team is doing a good job at discerning false and true accusations.
In any case, I wouldn't say SoT cheaters is the first issue with the game, far from it.
Okay, so the big problem, as I've been saying since day one is that Sea of Thieves doesn't have any skill-based matchmaking. So you end up in a situation where new, naive, and low-skilled players get owned by TDMers and other sweats. They assume they're cheating or whatever because "no-one can be that good". The skill gap is just that large.
I'm in the middle somewhere, skill-wise, that's why I don't attack swabbies (unless they instigate it or opt-into a PvP-focused activity) and I also get totally owned by sweats. Exploiters are a thing but, in my 8 years on the seas, I've only met a handful of actual external software cheaters. In my skelly curse grind, I did 250ish fights and had only one hacker. And that was a couple of years ago.
I don't know what the answer is, this is just unfortunately a knock-on of the game's drop-in-drop-out session-based design, 8 years of players getting skilled, and any attempt to split the playerbase on skill-level is both frought with issues and likely to garner a lot of backlash.
So you end up in a situation where new, naive, and low-skilled players get owned by TDMers and other sweats. They assume they're cheating or whatever because "no-one can be that good". The skill gap is just that large.
I use to think this until I found more newer players who are actually smart to watch YouTube videos and learn about the game, practice and start being the underdogs against sweats. Where people assume these “new accounts” are cheaters because they are doing things outside the meta.
Glad there no skill matchmaking because all those upper people who assume these are skillful will always meet someone who thinks outside the box and show off unnatural adaptations of using the sandbox world.
Tools always win.
I've ran into a number of cheaters over the years. Teleporting, magic bucket, flying, aim botting, machine gunning - I've seen them all. But I haven't seen anything overt like that in quite some time.
Soft cheating is harder to detect. I'm sure there are some people who just sweeten their aim just a bit for example. They don't do anything impossible, so it can't be confirmed. There are people who are legitimately that good a shot, so they are fairly indistinguishable.
I am far from a top tier player, but I have been hackusated a couple of times. Mostly a series of very fortunate shots. I take it as a compliment.
I’ve encountered countless cheaters, and I’ve submitted video evidence for a dozen or so of them with the result being rare agreeing with me and banning them for the majority of my submissions. I haven’t been playing much lately, but in my recent sessions I haven’t noticed any, so that’s nice.
I agree that many people claim cheats for the smallest thing, I feel great every time I’m blessed with an accusation, but that doesn’t mean cheating isn’t a problem in sea of thieves. Your post on the subject are consistently “no cheats to see here” and it can be frustrating to those who are legitimately experiencing cheaters. The whole reason I came to these forums in season 9 was to see what was being done about cheating, and multiple people on these forums would respond to post about cheating with dismissal. There I was with people flying around the map and shooting me on my ship before I even rose above the water for an HG match, and people on the forums acted like cheats don’t exist. Well, rare disagrees with you, considering I have several “we have banned a player or players based on the evidence you submitted, etc..” messages in my email inbox.
I’m sure many factors impact how many cheaters you encounter. It seems like pc players are definitely experiencing the most, as one would expect considering an increased ability to tinker with the files. Hourglass definitely has more cheaters than the open world, so if you’re not doing HG you may experience significantly less cheaters; I’ve definitely encountered them in the open world but far less than in HG. Also, many players probably can’t tell if someone’s cheating or not. We know for sure that people toss out haxusations for the smallest thing, so it’s clear that many aren’t capable of identifying a cheater.
I see post on these forums which seem like bogus claims of cheating from new players who don’t know the difference, there’s one that got locked today still sitting on the front page. I get that claims are often nonsense, but the cheats are real, my friends.
Congrats on not seeing any or seeing very few (or being unable to tell). Happy for you :)
Cheats are real, but always with a few factors.
Consoles tend to never have the problem, so that is why many others and I don't. As the video claimed, not everything is a cheat, but players are always quick to jump and say it is so.
Focusing on cheaters and saying it ruins the game just makes matters worse. Why? Because those cheaters also have access to the forums, Discord, and Reddit. So when they see a person getting annoyed and making threads about it, complaining rarely does anything about it (no gaming company in history has won, mind you). It just makes those cheaters happy and will continue.
Fuel the fire.Do they happen? Yes. Cheats in games are part of everyday; some are not even used against players.
Do they happen a lot? No.
and so far, the only time I hear a cheater was sighted...is during Hourglass.
12 out of 16
