Without the option for Private Servers; the game has become impossible to enjoy/progress in

@chemorrhage So in a pirate game, you want to have the option to not have other pirates steal your loot? Yeah; that's very piraty of you...insert sarcasm. Look, I'll make this simple. Joe Neate himself said he doesn't like the idea of Private Servers because of what it would do to the game. Either get better at the game; or stop playing the game. If you truly feel that the reason you can't have fun in the game is because other people are "ruining your fun", this is not the game for you. Sorry.

If only it were to have them steal my loot. The majority of my issues have been getting attacked for nothing. As for what it would do to the game, I'm afraid I don't see the harm. If you've got specific points in mind I'd love to hear them.

@chemorrhage just avoid other ships then...when I play solo and park at an island to do whatever I need to do, I first check if another ship is in sight...if it's not that far away I stay on my ship to see what they're doing...if they come closer I leave for now and keep them in distance...it's been a very very long time since another ship sunk me...

@chemorrhage

1. Gold Farming: Without other ships to keep players in check, people would be able to farm gold easily.
2. Reputations: Reputation grinds would be much easier now that you don’t have to worry about wasted loot.
3. Excitement/fear: Fear and Excitement are gone, why turn in your 3-5 hours worth of loot at any point in time other than at the end of your journey; it’s not like you’re gonna sink.
4. Adventure Mode: Would actually be dead. Everyone would farm gold and rep in their own private servers with their friends. The only people who would go into adventure mode are people specifically looking for a fight; and at that point, play Arena.
5. Seperation: You would have to seperate all achievements and Commendations AND items into, private server/regular server items. It’s not fair to the people who are in the regular servers, risking their loot, to get the same rewards as a person playing easy breezy private servers. That’s just a fact. Which means Rare would have to find a way to distinguish every piece of loot and every achievement in the game between private server and regular server variants.

I can keep going...

@Zaannox

In counter to each of your points.

1&2. People already farm using the PvE server groups, and beyond that; the commendations and reputation grinds are all purely cosmetic with literally no affect on gameplay. The first PL's have long since been achieved that its much more commonplace. This argument got invalid with time.

3. Excitement/Fear. Sorry, for some that may be the case; for others that is only Frustration/Stress; I'm not the only one to agree and experience this from the multitudes of PvE requests since the game's inception.

4. Adventure mode would be unaffected. The game servers only allow a cap of 6 ships and merge seamlessly when the servers get too empty. At most currently that's 24 players (assuming all 6 ships were Galleons with full crews) And at the very least 6 Solo Sloops. Sorry to say but the Adventure mode would be just fine; as there ARE a number who enjoy the mix as you've said yourself. Some out of enjoyment others out of bragging rights.

5. Elite Dangerous does this seamlessly, allowing players to jump between Solo/Private/Open play with their stats carrying over between. And that game the ships/loadouts DO matter. In SoT its all Cosmetic as I stated earlier; which again, makes this entire point moot beyond personal opinion.

Now to further drive this point home; I'd like to add that Rare has stated time and again that they want players to enjoy the game and create a world where you play YOUR way. That means catering to BOTH the PvE and PvP community. Rare has already done so with the Arena mode for people more inclined towards a PvP experience. And just as some argue that there is PvE in Arena; the same could be said of Private Servers, as players could use such tools to create customized PvP scenarios. The point of private servers is to LET people who have bought the game enjoy it how they want to. Not everyone wants to PvP or be subject to it. The forums are full of those who feel that way.

Finally; if people who PvP as their means of progression would be out of targets (which I could understand is a valid point) they should remember that 90% of the time when they are attacking another player for loot, they are NOT risking loot of their own. In most situations, aggressors are at most at risk of losing time or their ship, not any loot. The guy getting attacked trying to do his voyages is the one who stands to lose everything. If you advocate for not allowing Private servers so much on that basis, then at the very least a death tax/bounty system should be put in place in it's stead to force aggressors to make a calculated risk if they choose to attack a non-hostile ship/crew. Otherwise the entire argument against allowing for Private servers is based in hypocrisy.

@chemorrhage So since everything is just cosmetic as you threw two of my points out the window because of that. I’d be cool with private servers if you gained no gold or progress for anything you did while in said server.

Would you be cool with that?

@chemorrhage Side Noted: Don’t you lose EVERYTHING when you die in Elite Dangerous? How can you compare ED to Sea of Thieves when the game has this mechanic implemented into it? Sea of Thieves is nowhere near as punishing as this when you die. You just lose what you had on your ship. And you can always get it back too. So I don’t see why you compared Elige Dangerous to Sea of Thieves; two completely different games.

@chemorrhage
As long as there's no progression, but everything's unlocked. This would be to reinforce that it's not for grinding but for events, like rare wants private servers for

Elite Dangerous on Death you have a rebuy cost based on what you were rolling. And in reality; with SoT when you are killed/sunk you DO lose everything you had in most scenarios. And in the majority of cases its neigh impossible to get back. Particularly in a 1v4 scenario. To assume otherwise is simply asinine.

Onto some of the other counterpoints; I'm not discounting PL as insignificant, you're putting words in my mouth with that. I'm saying that given the amount of time people have had to reach PL in the game's current state; it's not exactly robbing them of anything to make Progression in Private a doable thing. If theres those who REALLY would get that bothered by that then by all means give them a title or something that says they got PL on Adventure only.

To get back to my point. To want to play the way you want to is entirely okay; you bought the game just as well as I did. You can play whatever gamemode you like. Just like myself and those who want to enjoy the game at their own pace. Particularly I'd like to role-play some, take my time exploring the islands and enjoying the world that Rare has crafted. Unfortunately I can't because the entire time I feel the need to rush or else I'm a potentially exposed target. Some may enjoy this, and power to them. I don't. And I'm not alone in that fact.

If Rare was to implement Private Servers it would most likely encourage people who had given up on the game like I am to come back and try knowing that they can enjoy the game in the way they want to. Some of them might even choose to try the open play adventure mode; and I'd wager they'd be a lot more receptive to it knowing that they CHOSE to play that mode. That they are given the option to go back and play private if they want to. It's healthier for the community as a whole. By segregating such players by making progression not cross over, you're only going to discourage people from trying one mode or the other; which is MORE likely to lead to the outcome you're afraid of with Adventure mode seeming emptier.

It's not about discounting one persons method of play over another; it's letting people enjoy an otherwise well done and interesting game the way THEY want to. Not how the community around them dictates.

@bloodybil I need to just have that quote on my desktop saved on a notepad at this point. This is ridiculous; way too many people who think Sea of Thieves is a single player game.

@chemorrhage You know what the difference between you and I is? I bought the game, knowing what it was. And when I make a suggestion; I do that with the game’s core concepts in mind.

You bought the game, not knowing what it was, and want the devs to change core game mechanics to suit your needs; just because you refuse to either socialize with others and get in a group OR get better at PvP Combat. This game was designed to be played with others, and to have other players surrounding you. It’s not Rare’s fault you either lack social skills or refuse to practice and get better at combat! OR BOTH!

I like that Joe addressed the issue of PvE farming. As I have mentioned in another thread, if players want to hang out and chill in PvE, I see no problem at all. Just don't let them earn achievements or achieve progress towards commendations. That should always be the sole domain of the Adventure mode

I still have the issue of not being able to join with friends or friend people due to the app. I have to use my phone and the people who can friend me are only able to join cause for some reason I’m unable to join other people gaming while I see they are playing...... if someone knows how to fix issue please post

@zaannox said in Without the option for Private Servers; the game has become impossible to enjoy/progress in:

@chemorrhage

1. Gold Farming: Without other ships to keep players in check, people would be able to farm gold easily.
2. Reputations: Reputation grinds would be much easier now that you don’t have to worry about wasted loot.
3. Excitement/fear: Fear and Excitement are gone, why turn in your 3-5 hours worth of loot at any point in time other than at the end of your journey; it’s not like you’re gonna sink.
4. Adventure Mode: Would actually be dead. Everyone would farm gold and rep in their own private servers with their friends. The only people who would go into adventure mode are people specifically looking for a fight; and at that point, play Arena.
5. Seperation: You would have to seperate all achievements and Commendations AND items into, private server/regular server items. It’s not fair to the people who are in the regular servers, risking their loot, to get the same rewards as a person playing easy breezy private servers. That’s just a fact. Which means Rare would have to find a way to distinguish every piece of loot and every achievement in the game between private server and regular server variants.

I can keep going...

1and 2.make gold and XP earned at a slower/reduced rate meaning it becomes equal to doing it on adventure with added risk!

3. Everyone who wants PVE or private servers doesn’t find it fun to lose progression or to worry about other players when their fun comes from exploring and doing the content! We will earn it slower but without taking it from someone else!

4. Should be dead as all PLs should have nothing to do with any of the old trading companies and only reason they should be on it is for Tall takes so anyone in adventure mode should be noobs and new players to start the trading companies grind and to lose that loot to someone who doesn’t need the gold or XP is a p$^* take! So adventure mode should be a place for player vs player commendations!

5. Everything should be replicated into another server not separated into different things, everything that isn’t “shoot another player with this curse” would stay as goals and content for PVE and everything the requires you kill players would have to be done on PVP obvs, the new server would require a new pirate from everyone and would require more server space for the data but other then that they could charge a monthly fee for players to maintain they private servers so if player base grew and people maintain they own server SOT could poteinally be rolling it in!

Please continue we need these debates to get the game to a amazing level and all I can see is that pve would ruin the game for grievers and real fans of the game who don’t want PVE saying “if it makes u happy and could increases players then I don’t see a problem!”

@steveboddy said in Without the option for Private Servers; the game has become impossible to enjoy/progress in:

@zaannox this. He said getting Pirate Legend isnt a big deal cuz lots of people have got it now but in his original post, he says he's unable to progress cuz of other players.

If we got there and he cant, why does he claim PL is insignificant?

I only endorse PvE only servers if you crank up the difficulty.

Skelly ships aggro on sight, kraken spawns anytime, forts are twice as long with multiple captains, more storms, more megs, more ships, the need to eat, less food, less supplies in barrels. Make Sea of Thieves a hardcore place to play in PvE mode.

But these people wouldnt want that either cuz its not actually PvE that they want, its an easymode to PL and commendations they're after.

Even if they claim its no big deal.
RARE PLEASE LISTEN TO THIS GUY MAKE PVE EXCATLY AS HE JUST STATED PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE !! I want an extreme challenge without losing progression to another player, I want to have to team up with other crews to complete some of those tasks I WANT TO ENJOY YOUR CONTENT PLEASE DO A PVE SEEVER THAT IS HARDCORE MODE WITHE GRIEFING PLEASE

@itskingbertie said in Without the option for Private Servers; the game has become impossible to enjoy/progress in:

@steveboddy said in Without the option for Private Servers; the game has become impossible to enjoy/progress in:

@zaannox this. He said getting Pirate Legend isnt a big deal cuz lots of people have got it now but in his original post, he says he's unable to progress cuz of other players.

If we got there and he cant, why does he claim PL is insignificant?

I only endorse PvE only servers if you crank up the difficulty.

Skelly ships aggro on sight, kraken spawns anytime, forts are twice as long with multiple captains, more storms, more megs, more ships, the need to eat, less food, less supplies in barrels. Make Sea of Thieves a hardcore place to play in PvE mode.

But these people wouldnt want that either cuz its not actually PvE that they want, its an easymode to PL and commendations they're after.

Even if they claim its no big deal.

RARE PLEASE LISTEN TO THIS GUY MAKE PVE EXCATLY AS HE JUST STATED PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE !! I want an extreme challenge without losing progression to another player, I want to have to team up with other crews to complete some of those tasks I WANT TO ENJOY YOUR CONTENT PLEASE DO A PVE SEEVER THAT IS HARDCORE MODE WITHOUT GRIEFING PLEASE

Sorry for repeated posts just wanted to correct my mistakes loool!

@bugaboo-bill

It's not about jealousy, or ego. My interest is ensuring that people are motivated to play the Adventure mode, instead of abandon it altogether when they realize that there is a much safer and easier way to get everything

I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't mind having don't want a PvE mode with all the upsides of PvP, and none of the downside. But I would also expect there to be a trade-off for playing this mode. If it meant I couldn't progress in my commendations and achievements, I'd accept that. It gives me a reason to go back to Adventure Mode.

@bloodybil said in Without the option for Private Servers; the game has become impossible to enjoy/progress in:

"Shacknews: I’ve got more than three friends who want to play, and we like to play together, have you thought about making it easier for groups to join together?

Joe: We have. We need to figure out – we know that for multiple reasons players will want to come together in the world. Whether that’s to have a competition together or to make up your own game modes and mess around or record your own machinima or whatever, there are reasons people would like access to a private world a private server or something. Definitely looking at that, definitely looking at how we can bring that in. But the number one thing we have to consider with that is like, PVE farming, gold stuff, and all that, that doesn’t quite sit right with us I don’t think."

A nice peaceful mode with no player threats, no rep, gold or progression for our merchant friends! No stress to ever lose loot! True peace and relaxation at last! Rejoice!

Sooo basically they bringing a mode out for no one ?! A mode where you can’t do the main content lool what a waste of time investment and server space lol.

Make it a hardcore mode where u get everything the same but much harder and it cannot carry over to the original server! Why worry about gold farming or rep farm when it doesn’t affect any ones original grinds and still gives access to the game for people who don’t want to be greifed.

@callmebackdraft said in Without the option for Private Servers; the game has become impossible to enjoy/progress in:

@itskingbertie you want to enjoy all the content...

People that get on the “i want pvp-less servers” dont seem to get one thing, a thing that has been stated by Joe Neate and the devs MULTIPLE TIMES!!!

Running the risk of losing loot, gold, your ship and its contents is a CORE gameplay mechanic of the game.

A game’s core mechanic contains the experiential building blocks of player interactivity. It represents the essential moment-to-moment activity of players, something that is repeated over and over throughout a game. During a game, core mechanics create patterns of behavior, which manifest as experience for players. The core mechanic is the essential nugget of game activity, the mechanism through which players make meaningful choices and arrive at a meaningful play experience.

This would be the same if i started playing pubg or fortnite br whilst i hate the whole BR concept and then asking the devs to remove the br aspect of the game

You can it’s called creative mode on fortnite

@callmebackdraft progression is different in fortnite as it’s based on killing online players solely, sea of theives isn’t it has nothing to do with player killing or sinking of ships only the fact that is needed for survival. So therefore u cannot profess when there’s no one to kill on fortnite where sea you can.

Sea you could have progression because you can now go about getting tall tales or get a couple of levels of rep! It doesn’t say “u have to kill 3 players before cashing anything in! “ that’s a feature of the game but is not essential and also about your point of fortnite being a PVE game then adding a PVP to become more popular/ make game profitable as more players means more chances to sell V-bucks and battle passes! A trend sea of theives tried copying by adding an arena mode and then tryna add mixer loot to try create a buzz on streams around it!

Yet they can’t copy them by adding a mode that is completely against the basics of the game to suit half/ some of the fan base. Fortnite never needed a building mode, building was just a MAIN FEATURE OF THE GANE didn’t have to have its own mode but they did and boom it grew it’s fan base!

Sea of thieves having PVE is a game feature it’s essential doesn’t means it needs it’s own game mode! But with the outcry why not?!? Cus it goes against the games main mechanics! Soo all great and successful games said you know what we love our game and it’s good but let’s make it a success! A game that doesn’t need loot to draw people in to watch streams people would go and watch what some people do on their private servers and so on...

The point is sea of thieves is based on you running into other players! It was also designed to create an amazing community of people teaming up, fighting and enjoying the content atm I see a community split on “its the game” and “I want to be able to enjoy the game” and a game where you cannot have an interaction that isn’t combat, yeah it’s pirates so you can’t trust anyone but the environment this game has created is you can’t trust anyone not cus their pirates but because if they kill u and loot you it’s meant to be part of it but if they grief you and continue to it’s jusg something that is your fault cus your not good enough! And if your doing any of the content it’s a waste of time cus griefers haven’t been punish so it creates a sense of “I won’t waste my time I’ll just waste others and if I get some loot aswell then it saved me time grinding the Trading companies cus BEEP spending hours enjoying the map and islands when I can sit at an outpost or just round from it and steal other peoples time and progression!

Pirate game based off real people is always gunna be exploited! This generation and attitude at the min is why do something when I can take it for no hassle! Why waste time when I can have it for ten mins of shooting at a outnumber noob lool! And you know what it doesn’t just work you get PL for it instead! Something you come onto here to say to everyone else “you have to deal with me and others taking advantage of a game design because without you on my server I can’t take noobs and bad players stuff so I’ll moan that we shouldn’t have a PVE Mode yet I’m not good enough to go on the PVP mode?!?!? Want danger and PvP they have given you a mode already let us have ours and don’t like it then say
“oh rare, I don’t want to go on the PVE server cus it’s for bad players, but I can’t stand the new adventure mode where I get bullied by good players!, wash wahh wahh can’t we have the noobs back so I can bully someone to make me feel good again!!”

Having a main game mechanic is something that can be used as a game mode! PVP is essential for SOT so they added a PVP mode, PVE is essential as you need to have actual stuff to do on the game! Once again can be it’s own game mode just people who are against it see it as a problem as it takes players off the adventure mode! Yet what did PVP mode do! It split the fan base so why would doing it again but pleasing majority of players be a bad thing?!

In response to alot of what Ive seen on this thread; many claiming that “without risk the game loses it’s value”. I ask; where is the risk to the player attacking someone else for their loot? Is there a requirement to carry loot aboard your ship to attack someone else? No. Is there a penalty for attacking someone else? No.

The reality is that the current game mode is skewed that it favors; even encourages hostile interactions. Players aren’t a sign of “oh I wonder if they’re friendly or not” it’s simply another sail means get ready for an fight. And thay hostility transfers into posts like these when players who’ve gotten sick of it ask for change.

If there was some sort of death tax or bounty mark on a crew for opening fire on another ship that didnt already have a mark, some sort of penalty or danger to that galleon picking a fight with that sloop, then Id say these points carry more weight, but there isnt. It’s a toxic system and some wish to escape it.

By all means make private modes have their own progression. You’ll see people come back to the game to play that mode and you’ll never see them play anywhere else. You’ll get that exact loss of community you fear.

Or do nothing and let the people sick of this system leave; not wanting to play a game solely to be the product of someone else's enjoyment.

The alternative that people pushing for Private modes is that by giving them the tools to enjoy the game the way they want to; they are making the game more accessible to a wider audience. Those tools aren’t even exclusive to a PvE standpoint as I indicated in an earlier post. Being able to setup private PvP scenarios would be a fantastic use for a Private Mode.

To clear up where I’m coming from since people have made that a point of attack rather than purely the arguments I’m making. With the exception of a brief hiatus after hungering deep; Ive been playing this game since day 1. (Owner of the black dog pack if thats any indication) I’ve learned how to solo sloop and survive; Ive had my fair share of cool stories spring from the adventure mode. I’m not discounting any of that from the merit of the mode, however for every enjoyable moment Ive had, I know myself I’ve experienced well over ten bad moments between. Moments that make me look at the game and go “why am I doing this to myself?”

The moments I’m not being attacked; Its because Im dedicating my energy to being vigilant of attack. Im not focusing on immersing myself or enjoying the world and the game that Rate has crafted. So those good days are just waning more and more between the bad.

Again; I am not discounting the enjoyment some get out of that type of gameplay and mode. All I’m asking is for myself and players like me to be given the options to play how we would like to.