The Game Needs Disclaimers/Warnings for Solo Play

@peteloaf777 said in The Game Needs Disclaimers/Warnings for Solo Play:

Absolutely agree. Whilst solo play is permitted, it should be discouraged.

Not discouraged completely. I will sail solo to just mess around or do a merchant quest for some quick gold. Solo should be unlocked after reaching lvl 30 perhaps. Then again open crews are not that great either.

Maybe, more than a popup, they should add like icons in the Ship Select menu to represent the difficulty of each ship.

Since Rare has pushed players to join crews and made Solo play the hardest, I've often wondered why they even bothered to include it.

With that said, I think it would be good to have some kind of difficulty description on the menu when you're picking your ship. Like a little bio, highlight each ship, giving some info about the ship and something along the lines of:

Galleon: "SoT is best experienced with a full, hardy crew; facing the dangers of the world together."

Brig: "A crew of 3, manning the lines and setting off for adventure. The dangers are real, but manageable."

Sloop: "For the loner or two man crew who likes a real challenge. The world is a cruel mistress and she will throw everything she has at you. Only the toughest and smartest pirates will survive long enough to make their fortune."

@peteloaf777 it shouldn’t be discouraged. Wrong term. There is nothing wrong with solo play. They should just be warned. That being said I agree with @Galactic-Geek the game has been nerfed so much that solo isn’t that bad and the only real threat are other players.

They already do state either on the loading screen or sloop discretion I can’t remember that solo is for a more experienced players go solo. They just don’t make it obvious.

@andyxxpanda1290 I don't find playing solo has been made easy in any way. Most players just wanting to fight and sink everyone, how does one actually complete a voyage? Now the skellie boats and megladon's are attacking at the same time. Try defending yourself, patching and steering at the same time. I can only solo so far, getting on a larger boat at random is a joke. This game is beautiful and I will continue to play, I am getting better, it's just very frustrating that complicated voyages are never completed. I would be nice if one could easily team up with others.

@peteloaf777 Discourage Solo Play and Rare would lose many customers. How many Solo Players are there in the Video Game world?

@stepednit I mean Team Up with people who understand the meaning of Team.

@stepednit They nerfed volcanos, skelly ships, mega, kraken, skeletons, skeletons in cannons, and geysers. You can view it in the patch notes. After playing the game straight since launch it saddens me to see the lack of challenge anymore. It may still be difficult for new players because they are new but it used to be more challenging. I can literally fight a skull fort solo while the rest of my galleon goes off and goes their own thing. The game has for sure been made easier and their are patch notes and other people that state the same.

Agreed!!

The game already has been made with a clear indicator that the ship is supposed to be played with multiple people. The ship charter has 2, 3, 4 slots, which indicate to invite a friend.

Adding an annoying pop up isn't going to make people wanting to set out solo all of a sudden think... mmmh maybe I should go into the roulette of open crew. They just will hit Ok and move on. They just aren't interested in searching for a crew, using third party systems and the open crew system isn't where it needs to be in all honesty.

Most of them just want to log on, hit the seas and it has become more accessible with the changes. The PvE encounters now scale, the more difficult ones are taken out of the pool of spawns and those type of actions.

I get the idea of letting people know what they are signing up for and all, but truly the majority already know and the game is already hinting and implying that the smart choice is to team up. A pop up, is just a message that will be ignored.

The ability to just log in and find an open crew that want somewhat of the same thing and can communicate is a better way to combat solo queue.

There used to be a message letting soloers know that they are picking hard mode. I wish they would bring that back.

@chronodusk maybe a combination of this idea and the servers for low level/new players could work.

Have it so that if you try to sail a solo ship as a low level you get a pop up saying "Solo is for experienced Pirates, are you sure?" Followed by another pop up that says "are you really, really sure?"

@boxcar-squidy

Yes, however I do not agree with having server queues and matchmaking that's based on player reputation, not for Adventure anyway.

Part of what makes Adventure so unpredictable is that we can run into a pirate of any reputation level at any time.

I remember my stories when I was a new Pirate and I encountered Pirate Legends for the first time. I was so jealous and enamoured by their status. And equally, many Pirate Legends create unique stories of donating treasure and high level voyages to newer pirates they see out on the seas.

That kind of stuff would be lost if Adventure had reputation or experience based sever queueing, so I'd have to say no on that one.

@viperishemu2992 said in The Game Needs Disclaimers/Warnings for Solo Play:

You are on to something here. Jumping straight into Solo is probably not the best way to learn how much fun this game can be.

I don't know how much Rare can do about it? It is certainly not helping their player count when people quit after a few bad first time experiences. Which is what Solo is going to be, until you Get Gud.

Yes, my guess is that they don't want someone to turn the game on for the first time and feel like there's a barrier of needing a crew before they can set sail... but at the same time their game is based on crews and balanced for team play so they can't really have it both ways lol.

Some tutorials and tips installed on to the front end UI might even be beneficial.

@chronodusk yeah I don't think they should be on different servers. The cost to matchmaking and sailing in populated servers might be too much.

Give them a pop up to warn them about solo, but put them on regular servers all the same. Tbh, I agree with the people above who say that the pop up wouldn't make any difference, they'd just skip it, at least we'd be able to point out that they had fair warning when they come round here complaining though.

@dislex-fx said in The Game Needs Disclaimers/Warnings for Solo Play:

There used to be a message letting soloers know that they are picking hard mode. I wish they would bring that back.

Yeah they should bring it back...

The biggest overall issue I'm concerned with is community feedback and their telemetry data being skewed because they're collecting feedback and data points from these brand new players going out by themselves and having no idea what their doing and what kind of game they're playing.

This kind of stuff has already affected change in the game, and I fear may affect the game in more negative ways in the future.

lately ive been wondering why i find so many new players soloing not only sloops, but brigs and galleons as well.
after looking at the 'select your ship' page it is pretty clear to me that the current ship descriptions are a major reason why this happens:

galleon: set sail for the most memorable adventures in this large, well equipped ship.
brigantine: adventures await on this capable mid-sized ship.
sloop: set sail in a small, nimble ship which is more fragile.

'the galleon seems like the safest ship for a new player like me, lets take that!'

it isnt until the 'set sail' page that there is any indication that these arent single-player ships. and even then, 'invite a friend' doesnt convey the reality that the galleon is a 4-player ship very well.

the solution is pretty simple:
galleon: set sail for the most memorable adventures in this large, well equipped 4-player ship.
brigantine: adventures await on this capable mid-sized 3-player ship.
sloop: set sail in a small, nimble 2-player ship which is more fragile.

@eggamer13 a dit dans The Game Needs Disclaimers/Warnings for Solo Play :

Maybe, more than a popup, they should add like icons in the Ship Select menu to represent the difficulty of each ship.

The difficulty of each ship really depends on many factors, I don't think it can be that easy to rate. In my opinion, Galleon is the hardest ship because you need crew coordination to make it work. I also think it's the easiest to sink because of how big it is. But I've seen many people saying that the sloop is the hardest ship because you're only 1 or 2 players, only 1 cannon, etc.

I believe all of these reasons are valid, which make the "rating" of ship difficulty very dependant on what type of player you are.

But I'll agree with everyone here that solo-slooping pretty hard, especially for an inexperienced player.

@charda1741 said in The Game Needs Disclaimers/Warnings for Solo Play:

@eggamer13 a dit dans The Game Needs Disclaimers/Warnings for Solo Play :

Maybe, more than a popup, they should add like icons in the Ship Select menu to represent the difficulty of each ship.

The difficulty of each ship really depends on many factors, I don't think it can be that easy to rate. In my opinion, Galleon is the hardest ship because you need crew coordination to make it work. I also think it's the easiest to sink because of how big it is. But I've seen many people saying that the sloop is the hardest ship because you're only 1 or 2 players, only 1 cannon, etc.

I believe all of these reasons are valid, which make the "rating" of ship difficulty very dependant on what type of player you are.

But I'll agree with everyone here that solo-slooping pretty hard, especially for an inexperienced player.

I mean like icons for ship stats, like how hard is the maneuvering, how fast is, how hard is to rotate the helm completely etc