I hate pvp but really want the curses

@shenlongkazama said in I hate pvp but really want the curses:

@lordqulex I hope the thread stays at the top so the devs know the mode fixes should be a priority.

I don't think I can overstate it mate, I love the idea of exclusive PVP cosmetics. I want PVP'ers to have exclusive rewards that show off their unique journey as much as the gold curse and the triumphant sea dog sets. I think the way I put it early was "I want PVP'ers to unlock a figurehead that will shroud their ship in a pillar of fire/energy that can be seen from the horizon that screams I AM A PVP DIETY ABANDON HOPE ALL YE WHO ENTER MY GAZE." I still feel that way.

The argument isn't about content being locked behind PVP, the argument is that two of the most requested curses by pirates from all communities (PVE, PVEVP, PVP) are locked behind a single play mode. That's the problem. They took what amounts to the BIGGEST prize in the game and made it so only a fraction of the community could reasonably enjoy unlocking them. The flip side of the coin is that I also don't believe they should be locked behind a Tall Tale! PVP'ers deserve them too!

I like how they put them in the hourglass, I like how people who have proven their worth to their Faction can earn these curses. But what I don't care for is the mechanics that the only (effective) way to earn them right now is PVP wins. Do spies not benefit their side during a war? Do transport, logistic, reconnaissance, funding, production, morale mean absolutely nothing in war time??? I don't believe the curses should be the "Ace Fighter Pilot" medal for the battle over the Sea of Thieves, there are PLENTY of examples in history when non-combatants made monumental strides in advancing strategic and tactical advances during wartime. There should be more than one way to earn these, that's always been my stance.

In the end, Rare could decide the curses are the Ace Fighter Pilot medal. That's fine, I'll still unlock both by mid next year at my rate. But I think that would be an incredible mistake as they would disengage a large swathe of loyal players.

@slickwillywonka said in I hate pvp but really want the curses:

@lordqulex
But you yourself said that skill ceilings exist. If a player has reached what they consider their peak and can't get past their opponents then joining others is the path they need to take. Besides if they are on the ship and contribute to repairs and what have you to the best of their ability they are not being carried they are part of the crew. A crew succeeds or fails together.

Can't argue with that. The chain is only as strong as the weakest link and everyone on the crew contributes. You have earned a tip of my hat good sir. 🎩

@jj-h816 said in I hate pvp but really want the curses:

@lordqulex I don’t get the mentality of throwing matches. Get in, throw hands, if you win you get way more allegiance, if you lose then at least you may have gotten better. It’s not hard to find decent crews on LFG and solo slooping hasn’t been bad either. I’ve been using solo sloop diving as a way to practice boarding more and double gunning and I’m already seeing an improvement. Lean into the fighting or you’ll never get better. Even if you won’t pvp after the curse, imagine how much better you’ll be at defending your loot from attackers. Pvp has made the game much more fun imo. I used to hate seeing other ships, now I’m usually the one server hopping to steal Athena’s 🤷🏼‍♂️

This was far more accurate years ago than any time recently.

This game's pvp turned into low organic activity (which kills off varied pvp) and high hopping pvp which is overpowered crews taking out pve targets

Season 8's content turned out to have poor matchmaking for a significant portion of the season which doesn't serve the inexperienced/non fighters.

What doesn't make sense is people that had no issue taking out non-competitive targets for years having some issue with taking easy wins now.

@jj-h816 said in I hate pvp but really want the curses:

@lordqulex I don’t get the mentality of throwing matches. Get in, throw hands, if you win you get way more allegiance, if you lose then at least you may have gotten better. It’s not hard to find decent crews on LFG and solo slooping hasn’t been bad either. I’ve been using solo sloop diving as a way to practice boarding more and double gunning and I’m already seeing an improvement. Lean into the fighting or you’ll never get better. Even if you won’t pvp after the curse, imagine how much better you’ll be at defending your loot from attackers. Pvp has made the game much more fun imo. I used to hate seeing other ships, now I’m usually the one server hopping to steal Athena’s 🤷🏼‍♂️

I feel loss farming is a plague on hourglass and needs to be eradicated. But getting the curses efficiently is about recognizing when a match is going too long (1). To me the ironic part is when a match goes on for a while it means the crews are equally skilled: crew A goes for a reset and crew B didn't recognize/react in time to secure the sink. Matchmaking is so broken right now, with the long queue times, that to compensate I feel my matches need to be faster to be efficient. So I'd rather lose at the 15 minute mark than experience one of those 4-5 hour battles that some people are posting about. I can get an entire level of losses in 4-5 hours, I'm not gonna scratch and scrape for a win if it takes that long.

1. Loss farming is a symptom of a broken system. It means players who don't like or don't want to participate in good faith PVP aren't incentivized enough to even try. In my opinion, Rare needs to boost allegiance rewards, some how, to reward good-faith PVP attempts. I really like the first win/10 matches daily level or a bones rush to mirror gold rush every day. The goal is to get people INTO hourglass and TRY. Right now the match making engine is so broken and people are paired against much higher skilled players that people who want the curse aren't even trying. The main issue is that they put two of the most requested cosmetics in the game in a game mode they 1) knew was broken and 2) knew half or more of the players frankly don't even want to participate in.

@nex-stargaze said in I hate pvp but really want the curses:

@wolfmanbush said in I hate pvp but really want the curses:

What doesn't make sense is people that had no issue taking out non-competitive targets for years having some issue with taking easy wins now.

From what I'm seeing in regards to that: People queued into the mode for a tough, legendary fight. Free wins are nice, but that's not why they're playing the mode. They're playing for those amazing tough skirmishes you only had like once a night as a hopper pre-S8. Now that sweats are finding sweats far above what they normally find organically, some thirst for those tougher than normal fights to improve their own skills.

Of course, that is a minority, a lot of people are getting exhausted from getting rolled more than 2 times with the same people after waiting for several minutes, or just getting no fights at all because their stamp is empty for the opposing side. Most of the top players weren't necessarily targeting the curses like many of the people across social media are, outside of those that missed PL curse from S1.

It's on demand pvp and poor matchmaking isn't on those that tank fights. What people want it to be doesn't mean that's what it is. Pvers have to deal with that all the time as well.

as far as legendary fights go they got blunderbombs nerfed for everyone in the game because they couldn't handle a completely legitimate strat in skill vs skill fights so..

Something that was actually good for the mode because it finished fights. Nobody was losing to inexperienced people using blunderbombs, they were losing to blunderbombs used at the right time with sufficient performance.

Actual spam is what many of them have been doing in adventure mode with mass chainshots against pvers for a couple of years lol.

I’m not sure if this has been mentioned, I skipped through the last couple of pages as this whole thread seems to be people repeating themselves.

For context, I have the ghost curse, it’s nice and I don’t really care what they change in the future to appeal to either side. A big problem with the idea that there should be a PvE method is the immense amount of work it would take Rare to make these changes.

For example, the cutscenes are directly centred around your PvP progress. I can’t remember exactly, but I know the Reaper one mentions ‘countless vessels sunk in our wake”. From the months of testing on Insider I know that Rare put a great deal of heart and work into those scenes, overhauling how they are earned would mean overhauling very well crafted cutscenes, or developing brand new ones. It wouldn’t make sense for a player who earned a curse via PvE, to be praised for sinking ships.

This isn’t me saying they can’t do that, but it throws months of their work out of the window, work that is clear they are very proud of.

Similarly, their environment and soundtrack work will be put to waste as I can guarantee if a PvE method was implemented, the vast majority of the community would opt to do that and never touch the tunnels or battles again. As well as this, the faction’s UI would need to be changed to incorporate the new methods, as well as more commendations added.

I agree with somebody’s point that these curses were probably the wrong choice for PvP rewards, they’re probably the most asked for cosmetics in the game however Rare chose to do this.

The fact is, what some people expect to be simply adding a new method to gain the rewards actually involves overhauling months of their work and making other parts of it almost meaningless. The time to rant and argue over this was during development, which everybody had/has an opportunity to be involved in by joining the Insider Programme.

Yes there are changes that can be made particularly with defending and the upcoming matchmaking changes, but asking them to completely change a system that the team worked on tirelessly is unfair and I don’t think many people have considered how proud they are of what they’ve created, no matter what side of the argument you’re on.

This community is very difficult to please, PvP players don’t want to slug through tall tales they don’t enjoy for one cosmetic, and PvE players don’t want to farm losses or get constantly out played by better players. They’re doing their best to please both sides of their community, as well as the ones in the middle like myself. I think this is gonna be a simple case of suck it up and play, or don’t get the reward. They’ve worked hard to give us this update wether you enjoy the content or not.

@nam-ssob1 said in I hate pvp but really want the curses:

For context, I have the ghost curse, it’s nice and I don’t really care what they change in the future to appeal to either side. A big problem with the idea that there should be a PvE method is the immense amount of work it would take Rare to make these changes.

Probably not. Let's take a look.

For example, the cutscenes are directly centred around your PvP progress. I can’t remember exactly, but I know the Reaper one mentions ‘countless vessels sunk in our wake”. From the months of testing on Insider I know that Rare put a great deal of heart and work into those scenes, overhauling how they are earned would mean overhauling very well crafted cutscenes, or developing brand new ones. It wouldn’t make sense for a player who earned a curse via PvE, to be praised for sinking ships.

Why? If you "don’t really care what they change in the future to appeal to either side," then just open the PVE path and don't bother changing the cutscenes. No work, done. 🤷‍♂️

Similarly, their environment and soundtrack work will be put to waste as I can guarantee if a PvE method was implemented, the vast majority of the community would opt to do that and never touch the tunnels or battles again.

If it ain't broke why fix it? If the soundtrack is good, leave it. Let's be honest, the loss grinders and curse coveters aren't going to touch the game mode after they get them anyway. HG was a FOEX hot-swap of arena. I don't think anyone expects the casuals/PVEVP'ers to touch the tunnels again after they get the curses they want. The difference is a few months. Again, 🤷‍♂️.

As well as this, the faction’s UI would need to be changed to incorporate the new methods, as well as more commendations added.

No one is asking for commendations, and adding text to a UI is just chancing a hard-coded or configured text value. The card sizes should be dynamic and not need to be changed.

I agree with somebody’s point that these curses were probably the wrong choice for PvP rewards, they’re probably the most asked for cosmetics in the game however Rare chose to do this.

They did. To err is human, to forgive divine. Rare can make mistakes, and I consider this a big one.

The fact is, what some people expect to be simply adding a new method to gain the rewards actually involves overhauling months of their work and making other parts of it almost meaningless. The time to rant and argue over this was during development, which everybody had/has an opportunity to be involved in by joining the Insider Programme.

One of my favorite things to say to people I meet on discord when they complain about development time is "I've been a professional software developer longer than you've been alive." I don't think that is the case with you, but still, I can speak in general. I don't claim to have expansive knowledge of Rare's codebase, but if they designed the code properly everything we're asking for should be a pretty trivial change.

Yes there are changes that can be made particularly with defending and the upcoming matchmaking changes, but asking them to completely change a system that the team worked on tirelessly is unfair and I don’t think many people have considered how proud they are of what they’ve created, no matter what side of the argument you’re on.

Fair.

This community is very difficult to please, PvP players don’t want to slug through tall tales they don’t enjoy for one cosmetic, and PvE players don’t want to farm losses or get constantly out played by better players. They’re doing their best to please both sides of their community, as well as the ones in the middle like myself. I think this is gonna be a simple case of suck it up and play, or don’t get the reward. They’ve worked hard to give us this update wether you enjoy the content or not.

I think that isn't the answer because the sad truth is the PVE'ers and PVEVP'ers vastly outnumber the hardcore PVP grognards that hourglass brought back. You don't need to please everyone, but you should sure as heck try and please as many as possible. And more people want PVE access to these curses than exclusive PVP access. That's simple business. 🤷‍♂️

@lordqulex

I think you’re completely missing the point here. Don’t change the soundtrack? The point made is that nobody is going to hear the soundtrack or see the environment work if they’re given an easier alternative.

Don’t change the cutscenes? So you think it would make sense for a player who got the same curse via PvE to be praised in a cutscene for PvP efforts? That’s a pretty lazy way to do things. Those cutscenes are some of the best work in this update and are a really magical moment.

What you’re asking for is a sloppy change without it blending in to the current system in order to please you. They will never do that, and spending hours writing paragraphs arguing with people trying to prove a point isn’t going to change it. As I said, you had a chance to give your input and have changes made while it was being developed, but you chose to wait and complain about the system they gave us.

My post was simply acknowledging the efforts the developers have made, they won’t introduce a system that leads to cutscenes that don’t make sense and removes any desire to play, see or hear their recent hard work. If they decided to completely rework the system and incorporate a PvE method then that’s fair enough and I don’t care, my point is not making it a sloppy system to please the people who won’t PvP.

I suggest ranting to the developers instead of trying to prove and disprove people’s points, I’ve seen you endlessly repeating yourself for no real reason other than trying to be right. Making a point or a suggestion is fair, but ranting for hours and days about the same thing to people who can’t make a difference isn’t going to help you.

I’m not continuing this debate, my point wasn’t for or against either side, just suggesting that it shouldn’t be a lazy implementation of a new method and would need to work around the current design.

Have a great day pal.

@nam-ssob1 said in I hate pvp but really want the curses:

I think you’re completely missing the point here.

Wouldn't be the first time, good luck! 🤣

Don’t change the soundtrack? The point made is that nobody is going to hear the soundtrack or see the environment work if they’re given an easier alternative.

Most of the player base isn't pirate legend or repear 75. The rest of us are being shunned away from playing HG by "git gud" troglodytes and (@dragotech123 said in Allegiance Balance?) watching my ship at the bottom of the ocean with sad music and a feeling of "you lost, you don't get anything, come back when you can win". Let's be honest, 99% of the players aren't going to hear the soundtrack or see the environment anyway. We're asking to open up their hard work to those of us that do want to see it.

Don’t change the cutscenes? So you think it would make sense for a player who got the same curse via PvE to be praised in a cutscene for PvP efforts? That’s a pretty lazy way to do things. Those cutscenes are some of the best work in this update and are a really magical moment.

See above. 99% of the players aren't going to hear the soundtrack or see the environment anyway. We're asking to open up their hard work to those of us that do want to see it.

What you’re asking for is a sloppy change without it blending in to the current system in order to please you. They will never do that, and spending hours writing paragraphs arguing with people trying to prove a point isn’t going to change it. As I said, you had a chance to give your input and have changes made while it was being developed, but you chose to wait and complain about the system they gave us.

I'm sorry if everyone doesn't want to join insiders? Is that really your argument, "you had your chance for early input but because you're not an insider you've got to sit here and drink bilge water?" WOW.

My post was simply acknowledging the efforts the developers have made, they won’t introduce a system that leads to cutscenes that don’t make sense and removes any desire to play, see or hear their recent hard work. If they decided to completely rework the system and incorporate a PvE method then that’s fair enough and I don’t care, my point is not making it a sloppy system to please the people who won’t PvP.

The desire to play is already disappearing from the bulk of players. Open your eyes man. 99% will not see their hard work and that's heartbreaking. We're just suggesting opening up more means for us to enjoy the content they created. That's what this thread is about: they created curses, pirates want curses, but pirates terrible at PVP and Rare's faction system is broken.

I suggest ranting to the developers instead of trying to prove and disprove people’s points, I’ve seen you endlessly repeating yourself for no real reason other than trying to be right. Making a point or a suggestion is fair, but ranting for hours and days about the same thing to people who can’t make a difference isn’t going to help you.

I mean, do you have the developer's email? I'd happy rant at them. 🤣 But seriously, the forums are how we voice our opinions to the developers and user experience designers. So yes, I'm doing exactly what you're suggesting.

I think the main reason, people are throwing, is because the grind is too much and not the pvp itself. I dislike pvp as well but i slog through it, and i dont want the curses to be changed from pvp to pve. The grind itself is too long especially with the cheese strategies already set in place, and the 3 to 4 hour long matches that end with you getting sailed out of bounds so you dont even get the tiny bit of xp. As ive said in another post, the pvp is just demoralizing, and not fun most of the time. And it can be fun, i as someone that doesnt like pvp has had fun in this. But the cheese methods to win and just giving up are there because of the same thing. The grind is too much.And thats not counting the cheaters, ive had people prevent me from sinking even though the water reached the deck(they wanted to sail us out of bounds so we dont get any xp), ive had people with faster reload animations and the worst of all , one shot pistols that hit though walls. But i digress, my main point is grind is too much and makes people be on one of two sides, sweaty cheese win at all costs or throwing matches. Id rather have fun in this as well but, as we see not happening soon.

@flanders3512

I feel the reason hourglass is a grind is because this PVP is meaningless. This is a risk versus reward game, but hourglass has no risk (for players that don't spend money on supplies), and the rewards are so far out of reach for even above-average players they feel non-existent. The fact that pirates can troll you by sailing around for 3-4 hours is a ridiculous oversight. I am conflicted about it because on the one hand, they could award allegiance for time spent in hourglass, but then players would just fish and chit-chat with each other in the arena just to get allegiance in easy mode. The easy fix is to award allegiance for ring-outs (people are being trolled this way and it's not the fastest way to lose) so that if a match is going on too long or you run out of supplies you can simply sail away, or after like 15 minutes just make holes non-repairable.

I don't like the idea of loss farming, I think that players willing to wait in 20 minute queues to throw a match intentionally and get 3 pixels of allegiance is a symptom. It means players want the curse so bad they're willing to mindlessly grind hourglass while second-screening (thus diluting the experience for the players that do was knock down, drag out, epic PVP encounters), and that the game mode is so mindbogglingly boring for one of many reasons (skill gaps, griefers, cheaters, etc...).

And frankly the best (if not fastest or easiest fix) is to just put the dang curses elsewhere as well. Get the players that don't want to PVP out of the game mode so the ones that do have their sandbox, and don't have to waste their time and gold and supplies matching with players that don't give them the experience they're looking for. It's win/win. The only people who I've encountered that don't like that idea are the "git gud" troglodytes that are trying to gatekeep the bulk of players from getting something for schadenfreude.

@a10dr4651

Yes and no. I think that the exploits are absolutely used by the hyper competitive PVP'ers, but it wouldn't matter to the average pirate if there really was standard distribution of skill involved in hourglass. If they engaged more players, we'd match with people our skill level. But since hourglass doesn't appeal to the broad spectrum of players, it's mostly the hyper competitive pirates are playing it. Couple that with the fatigue of getting rofl-stomped by said hyper competitive players, the meaningless repetitive PVP, lack of any real rewards before 100, and the absurdly small amount of allegiance you get from losing, hourglass is a huge turn-off for the bulk of players.

I see this in the SoT Discord server. Two weeks ago you didn't see anything but hourglass ads in the LFC channel. Now during peak times (after school/work & weekends) it's back to the usual world events, and voyages. The truth is, even with the most requested cosmetics in the game being the prize, a bulk of players just view hourglass as suffering.

Honestly the recommendations I love the most are the daily win full level bonus, the 10 matches a day deed full level bonus, and the bones rush hour. I think those will get the casual/veteran players back into the game mode, making it better for everyone. We saw it in arena: when they announced it was closing, players flooded back to it and it was awesome! PVP mode thrives only when the population is huge, and Rare just didn't incentivize the overwhelming majority of players with the way it's set up now.

@lordqulex
For me it would also be adding more hourglass modes, such as quick battle(for fast paced battles, win or lose but quick), all v all(a server is filled with people and whoever is left standing after the epic battle wins massive amounts of xp and gold), and ofc some core rules to be made, like sailing out of bounds being forbidden and ofc something to be done about the cheaters, macros included.

@(banned word name) I really cant stand you people. We dont like the PvP and you think we should fo it More! May as well just forget about the game an play something else, if you're going to be like that.

Make a curse with different color that can be optained trough pve

@parrotlord6426 said in I hate pvp but really want the curses:

@lusbym This doesnt sound so bad.
Thats not more then you have to invest in any kind of progress.

Until you realize the average match making time is 20 minutes so 1000 losses (which again I don't endorse loss farming) is 20,000 mins, 333.3 hours. Nothing in the game takes that long, not even the gold curse.

@panda-fox13 to be frank: Noone says you need to do PvP. There are tons of things to do in SoT apart from the new mode.

None of them earn you the most requested curses in the game.

@jolly-ol-yep
I very much agree, most people arent streamers or kids that have the majority of the day free. I work 12 hours a night, and barely get enough sleep as it is, and spend maybe 2 or 3 hours playing. Considering the sweaty matches that go on and cheaters thats about one pvp battle a day which will probably result in a loss. Tall tales can be cheesed, aside from shores of gold but its still an absurd amount to do.

@parrotlord6426

You've awoken the statistician in me, so let's being.

• 170 wins or 1000 losses (I actually think it's closer to 200/2000 but let's just set your variables for the sake of clarity)
• Let's be generous and say you spend merely 10 minutes in queue each match, graciously splitting the difference between instant matches and 30-60 minute queue times before people leave the queue.
• 20 minute battles does sound reasonable for a hard fought win, espc. after collecting the sups/flag, lets go with that.
• If working perfectly the Elo rating will garner a W/L radio of 50%, so in reality it's 85 wins and 500 losses, assuming you never get the opportunity to turn in a streak because you are chasing the rare and elusive "streak" every seems to think is just so easy to get.
• Wins = 85 wins x 10 min. queue x 20 min. battle = 17,000 minutes == 283 hours.
• Losses = 500 losses x 10 min. queue x 5 min. battle = 25,000 minutes == 416 hours.
• Total time = 283+416 hours = 699 hours

699 hours for the first curse, 1398 for both.

Again, your estimate is based on wins, and streaks, which if you've bothered to read any of the criticisms about hourglass you'd know is not the average player's experience, it's not even the above average player's experience. Only super sweaty PVP'ers get streaks, the rest of us turn in single wins for the 5 pixels of allegiance we can juice out of them.

I've got 1500 hours in the game today. I'd have to grind out and nearly double my current cumulative play time to earn the curses. That's insane. Hourglass is absolutely top-weighted and only appeals to the ultra PVP sweats, and the bulk of the community is just not here for that and given up. This math is why hourglass was as dead on arrival as Arena was when it was retired.

As this is a feedback thread, here is my feedback. Those estimates have alienated the player base. Most of the active players want the curse, but look at the investment required and just see it as unreasonable. Rare needs to take a seriously look at allegiance rewards to make that number more reasonable to the average player so that hourglass player participation remains high, that's the only way to get the standard distribution of skill necessary for it to thrive. The best suggestions I've heard, in order, are:

• Daily deed, play 10 matches, gain a level.
• Twice daily Bones Rush hour, double allegiance. It works for Gold Rush, why not this?
• Daily first win bonus level. (Little too generous in my opinion, that's why I like the first one better.)
• Simply increase allegiance rewards for losses by, like, a lot. Like half-a-level a lot.
• Give more allegiance for PVE activities. (For the same mathematical reason, defending faction treasury is just a waste of time.)