No more ships on the map

@elevatedlawyer7 said in No more ships on the map:

@huhxyz I’m a newer player to the game and I do agree that pvp combat is lacking and from the looks of things it always has.

There are lots of ways to make pvp more engaging and balanced at the same time. You just have to look at any of the top Moba, FPS, battle royal to see what they do to try and balance games.

SoT seems to be on par in popularity with some of the other top pvp games so I’m sure it would make sense for them to spice things up for all skill levels.

Recently I suggested adding summons such as sharks, megalodons, krakens in a similar way call of duty perks work. Brief assistance to help influence the course of the battle.

Mobas use items to help alter champs effectiveness such as building more attack damage, resistances to different types of attacks, attack speed etc etc

There’s lots they could do that fits the SoT style so they don’t destroy the current feel and at this point it seems like they won’t lose anything by trying. In fact it seems it’s exactly what the game needs to bring people back.

The developers and mods love to remind us that Sea of Thieves is an open world, sandbox, pirate themed adventure game. You know what it isnt? A MOBA. You know what it isn't? An FPS.

The PVP is engaging and balanced. Admittedly sometimes PVP engages you but that's the point—without PVP the PVE is a riskless, purposeless grind. The PVP is balanced; my sword, my blunderbuss, my firebomb does the exact same thing as your sword, your blunderbuss, and your firebomb. Do you really think that giving pirates the ability to summon a kraken will tilt the PVP in your favor? Or do you think that summoning a kraken is going to be such a high level perk that trolls will summon one on unsuspecting pirates like you more often than not? Remember, outside of hourglass there is no SBMM is Sea of Thieves.

@tybald said in No more ships on the map:

You miss the point of Emissary. Emissary is a risk/reward calculation for the players, designed to facilitate PVP.

You are getting rewarded by having a loot multiplier, and an xp multiplier. In exchange you are OPTING IN to the higher risk of being found and attacked by reapers. The reapers themselves have labeled themselves as hunters, and as such, people see and try to avoid them.

It really doesn't play out that way.
The added risk doesn't come into play until the reaper hits level V, at which point everyone leaves the server.

The current system doesn't work as intended.

@tybald
I should add that half of the time now the players actually looking for ships to sink don't fly any emissary, as they aren't after loot and the reaper emissary would give them away.

Plus not raising emissary at all won't save you from getting targeted, not that it matters since only reaper Vs can track you.

@nex-stargaze Again, the only thing they are risking is a minimal amount of time. You can pop the reaper flag and complete a fort in under 10 minutes and be at reaper 5. At that point they just dump the loot at the hideout and go hunting other players who want nothing to do with them. For your concept to work the entire server upon seeing a reaper 1 show up should be to go and immediately crush them. Just a unified slaughter of that player till they left the server. Except that doesn't happen. A vast amount of players just want to get some quests done and work towards pirate legend or an accommodation. Reapers can easily server hop or do HG dive to find another server that way too. They have plenty of options. So no, they are not risking any meaningful amount of time. Not like the 1 - 2 hour long journey that some factions will send you on. Not talking about legends of the veil either.

@soulstinger2k20 I point out flaws. PVP is important to this game but the way it has been handled is the equivalent of giving a shotgun to one group and airsoft guns to another. There is no balance and there is nothing to gain from crews that just try to play the game they spent $40 on. I have heard the responses of "Watch tutorial videos." "Stop avoiding pvp" "Git gud". If this game tried in any way to give new players a fight they could win then I would be fine with it. Fact is that there is no attempt to threaten established players. They have put in the time and now get to reap the reward of never being challenged on the seas again.

Where are new players supposed to learn? At the bottom of the seas after they got killed instantly and couldn't get off the ferry before their ship was sunk? In HG pvp where the match making is so messed up rank 1 on their first match are put up against players at rank 100+ farming rep since the mode made for "balanced" pvp is widely unused after they got their reward and is now just a server hopping tool?

I have no intention of going anywhere unless made to.

@smuntface LFG groups are 3rd party. Videos only give you tips they are worthless till you can put them to practice and get the experience which you do not in most cases as those with the experience sink you in under a minute. Open crew is 9 times out of 10 a troll and the other 1 out of 10 is a child who just wants friends to play with who is less skilled then yourself. No fault to them though. Game does favor larger crews and new/young players look for any protection they can get.

@smuntface said in No more ships on the map:

@huhxyz said in No more ships on the map:

@soulstinger2k20 I point out flaws. PVP is important to this game but the way it has been handled is the equivalent of giving a shotgun to one group and airsoft guns to another. There is no balance ...

So many games aren't fair. Items locked behind grinding or pay-to-win, that gives a veteran player a clear advantage over new players.
SoT does not.
It's a level playing field for all players with each log in. The time requirement, to learn & accomplish sound strategy, is unlike any game I've ever played, so give it time. Everyone here got destroyed when we first started.

Btw - Reapers aren't always aggressive, quite a few are just doing PvE. Run if you chase them.
And should they chase you, you can always server hop to conserve your flag & supplies too. Same tools for everyone.

@huhxyz said in No more ships on the map:

Where are new players supposed to learn?

Well HG may not be the best place, unless that's what you want to learn.
There's LFG groups out there. Loads of video's on youtube. Open crew is gonna be roll of the dice to get helpful people.

The thing about PVPVE is that the aggressors almost always wield experience and more preparation.

Other games with PVPVE counterbalance this with systems that put the initiator of a fight at a disadvantage.
For example Dark Souls multiplayer, which is host-based, gives more slots for friendly players than hostile ones, and gives resources to fill your friendly slots up when a hostile player appears. This is because it's assumed the host is doing PVE, is partly through their consumables, and isn't prepared for a PVP fight.

Of course SoT has the added complexity of not being able to distinguish who's the aggressor, but my point is that in SoT the attacker tends to have the upper hand, which isn't good for PVPVE.

@huhxyz said in No more ships on the map:

@soulstinger2k20 I point out flaws. PVP is important to this game but the way it has been handled is the equivalent of giving a shotgun to one group and airsoft guns to another. There is no balance and there is nothing to gain from crews that just try to play the game they spent $40 on. I have heard the responses of "Watch tutorial videos." "Stop avoiding pvp" "Git gud". If this game tried in any way to give new players a fight they could win then I would be fine with it. Fact is that there is no attempt to threaten established players. They have put in the time and now get to reap the reward of never being challenged on the seas again.

Where are new players supposed to learn? At the bottom of the seas after they got killed instantly and couldn't get off the ferry before their ship was sunk? In HG pvp where the match making is so messed up rank 1 on their first match are put up against players at rank 100+ farming rep since the mode made for "balanced" pvp is widely unused after they got their reward and is now just a server hopping tool?

To summarize, "pirates who have played the game longer are better than new pirates." Yes, that's virtually every game. The only thing SoT doesn't have is SBMM outside of hourglass because it's open world.

Fights new players can win in order of increased difficulty: skeletons on voyages, ocean crawlers, emergent captains, sunken kingdom content, sea forts, kraken, megalodon, emergent skeleton ships, [world events, FotD/FoF]. There is TONS of training for new pirates in the world, I just think the issue is they don't know it because they're dumped into an open world virtually unguided.

New pirates can't even raise emissary to get on a reaper's radar because they aren't high enough in the trading company. Yes, it stinks the first time you get sunk and don't know why, but they just need to be told "that was a player pirate, keep an eye on the horizon" afterward and boom, they've learned lesson one of Sea of Thieves.

The issue isn't that the tools aren't there, the issue is they aren't labelled. Some players need a clue, and others need a clue-by-four.

@lordqulex Where is the in game tutorial to watch your masts and aim for theirs first? Where is the in game tutorial to know about double gunning? Where is the in game tutorial to watch for ladder boarders? Where is the in game tutorial to to learn about deck shot boarders? Where is the in game tutorial about one ballings? Where is the in game tutorial about keg swimmers? Where is the in game tutorial about sword block jumping when you leave the ferry due to campers on your ship? Where are all these CRITICAL pieces of information for a new player to learn and put into practice? Is it all supposed to come from tutorial videos? We all know you can show someone a video of how to ride a bike it may give them an idea but they still need to experience before they can get into a race. They don't get the experience in the 10 seconds they are alive in an encounter with another player. The AI does not prepare them for actual combat.

Yes, this game is an open world game but that is not an excuse for imbalanced experiences. It is an open world PVP game. There is nothing for them to do but sink get frustrated and either add artificial engagement numbers as they make next to no progression in the game but stubbornly pursue due to the money they have already spent or to quit and leave the seas a little more empty.

@huhxyz Most of these are not critical pieces of information. I've sunk ships with masts down because they followed a formulaic approach to PVP and couldn't adapt to a ship with their masts down shooting cannons at them. Deck shots are so rare they're hardly worth talking about. Skeletons can one ball you. Double gunning sweats are about one step away from exploiters and I wouldn't be surprised if we see the fast-swap glitch disappear soon. You're really scraping at the bottom of the barrel with a few of these.

They learn the way we all learned: getting sunk, learning, talking in the forums, chatting with other crews... Lesson one will always be keep a weathered eye on the horizon and avoid PVP. Sell if you see a reaper 3/4 on the map. Risk/reward. The basics. Emergent sloops used to really grind my gears but I learned, I improved. You make it sound like new players need their hand held, and they don't. We didn't. That's not to say "I lived through misery so others should too!" That's not the case, there's lots to be improved upon here. But pirates who like what they see are gonna stick around a learn. Some won't, some will, that's life. Nothing will be perfect.

But changing a core mechanic of the game because you got sunk by a reaper and are salty about it just isn't going to happen.

@lordqulex Didn't say it was impossible to not sink or be sunk without these tools did say that they were critical and you can't deny that a boarder on your ship keeping your anchor down and your crew dead does not make it easier for an opposing ship to sink you.

New players and unskilled players do not get the experience they need. Yes in an FPS you learn what corners not to sprint around because they are heavily camped but in this game where encounters have an almost infinite level of variations you cannot learn nearly as much from a loss. Actually being able to fight someone on your skill level learning when to defend and when to flee to reset is something that the lower rung of players do not get. In all honesty feels like every time I have this discussion it always sounds like the more veteran/skilled players just don't want to be challenged. They don't want to be put in the same world with someone who might be able to fight back in a meaningful way.

@huhxyz said in No more ships on the map:

@lordqulex Didn't say it was impossible to not sink or be sunk without these tools did say that they were critical and you can't deny that a boarder on your ship keeping your anchor down and your crew dead does not make it easier for an opposing ship to sink you.

New players and unskilled players do not get the experience they need. Yes in an FPS you learn what corners not to sprint around because they are heavily camped but in this game where encounters have an almost infinite level of variations you cannot learn nearly as much from a loss. Actually being able to fight someone on your skill level learning when to defend and when to flee to reset is something that the lower rung of players do not get. In all honesty feels like every time I have this discussion it always sounds like the more veteran/skilled players just don't want to be challenged. They don't want to be put in the same world with someone who might be able to fight back in a meaningful way.

I mean, that's blatantly false. Why can players learn not to run around that corner in an FPS and not learn similar lessons in Sea of Thieves? Watch for ships, watch for rowboats, learn how to sail, learn how to fight. Yes there's a lot to learn but there is as much or more to learn in Rust, Fortnight, Destiny 2, DotA 2, LoL, et cetera. We're not playing Candy Crush, that's the lesson that needs to be learned! This is not a casual game! You have to learn how to play it, I'm sorry, but to suggest that SoT players face a steeper learning curve than any other competitive game out there is ludicrous. I have a Steam library filled with FPSes, RPGs, city builders, base builders, casual games, puzzle games, you name it. Sea of Thieves is complex, yes, but they all have nuance.

It's not that we don't want to be challenged, it's that we understand that PVP is the challenge, not PVE. Without the constant threat of PVP, the PVE is easy mode. Other pirates are the game, not some obstacle preventing you from playing the game. I understand the desire for an ante system, I'd really like it if server hopping without loot dropped you back down to reaper 1. I understand the argument that a reaper 5 without loot has nothing to lose and I kind of agree. I want every PVP battle to be winner-take-all in regards to loot but some pirates in this game just love the PVP for the sake of PVP. That adds drama and tension to the game, it does not take them away.

Other players are the unnecessary obstacle PVE'ers are trying to overcome, and that's what makes this a game. Without PVP, Sea of Thieves is an interactive movie and that's not what I paid for.