Open Crews Laughable...

Im loving this Game, but the Open Crew mechanic is the reason why I’m solo slooping the most time! It’s a bad game design, and it’s luck based which ppl joining! Everything is possible from new players who wanting to learn the Game to trolling and bored Pirate Legends! And I don’t have an Solution how Rare can work on this Issue!

I had pretty good luck with open galleon crews over the weekend, though at one point I had to repeatedly re-try because I kept landing on crews docked at an outpost where I was the only one in the crew, or there was one other guy running around and not communicating.

I sometimes open crew, mostly when I'm looking to just meet some new peoples and mix up the regular flow. Often I choose it over Discord because I can't speak over my mic at the time and there's less of an expectation for it on Open.

But yeah I agree it can often be grim times there, it takes me 5 or 6 attempts at matchmaking a crew before I find one I'm willing to bet on. Then whenever a free slot opens the gamble begins anew.

While I'm happy that there are many alternative channels for finding groups, I don't feel we should let the game get off the hook for this.

There are two groups of people that contribute to a poor match making experience. New players and players who intentionally desire to ruin the experience of others through sabotage or refusal to take part.

Now, new players are not at fault. They just haven't had the opportunity to learn yet. And I think being able to be matched with more experienced players is a great thing and to be encouraged. However the developers need to place more effort in teaching new players how to play and what they need to be doing to be a contributing member of a crew before they drop them randomly into peoples crews. Its just not fair to throw the onus of this onto a crew who may, like the OP said, be in the middle of an advanced activity such as a skull fort.

I'm just talking about a base level of skill, through a better on boarding tutorial or something to that end.

Now the other group, the trolls as many call them. They currently have free reign to cause havoc. The brig is not a great solution, because it just robs the crew of a pair of hands. And the reporting system is a long and slow solution that is enveloped in the greyness of what is toxic behaviour. If someone stands on the ship and doesn't contribute, is that harassment or is that just how they want to play?

I would like to see some sort of endorsement system that rewards and encourages good behaviour, similar to what we see in other games such as Overwatch. Switch the view from punishing toxic behaviour to rewarding good behaviour. Whether that be tangible rewards or improved match making.

It's just a shame that some humans need incentive in order to be decent, but the game has nothing but proved this thus far.

@boxcar-squidy

Thanks matey

Yeah there are definitely a number of holes to patch in it, it requires some thought.

At first I was thinking, the higher your reputation, the better chance you are matched with other players with higher reputation. Leaving the toxic players to more often join ships with other toxic players so they can keg and and anchor drop amongst themselves to their hearts content.

However I feel that unfairly punishes the new player who has yet to build a reputation amongst their peers. And I want to be matched with them sometimes so I can help get them started on their pirate journey.

I would actually hope that a new player would get matched with the highest endorsed players to begin with to maximise their chance of getting a tolerant and respectful crew. This would colour a positive light on their first experiences. So there would need to be some grace period factored in too.

I am on the fence with tangible rewards, but I like the idea of titles specifically earned through playing nicely with others. My worry with it is that as soon as you slap a goal on it people look to grind it. And once the reward has been gained will go back to ignoring it. It sort of has to be a reoccurring benefit, that you can lose if you start acting undesirably.

You are right, this is open to just being faked.

In Overwatch you can't endorse your friends, perhaps a similar system that you can't endorse people you are friends with already through the xbox app, or a diminishing return from endorsements from a single person. So I can only endorse you once and to get more endorsements you are encouraged to play with new people.

@boxcar-squidy Totally agree. I'm a massive supporter of the mentoring idea.

In other endorsement systems there is no such thing as a negative rating. You either get an endorsement for doing something well: A good leader, good sportsman etc. Or no endorsement at all. The ceiling on endorsements is just very high so in order to climb it you need to be getting a good number of endorsements.

The type of player who doesn't care about others would have to fake being nice for a very long time, and in a strange way would end up causing more good than harm if they wanted to get a high endorsement level.

Open Crews are a reflection of society...No more no less...Just like in real life , you will walk into blunt people or unaware people or uncaring people. You can't expect from a 10 or 12 year old that he is an Admiral Nelson at the Sea ...Sure ; kids aren't stupid and some will already play with a mindset that makes them accepted by the older Pirates but most kids just want to have fun...Maybe the bananakid loved the sound those shewing of banana's make in his /her ears. Who knows? i'm an old Pirate , playing this game since First Alpha , i've grown through time with this game and i'm sometimes amazed how little knowledge there is amongst the New Pirates about this game...Most of them are only fixated on Levels , Missions for money, Forts , or purely attacking other ships while they don't even have enough cannonballs to play a bowling game...

The philosophy behind the game , goes in the mist for so many players that it is sometimes Heartbleeding to see , that in reality they don't understand the reason behind this game...A reason that has been explained by Rare and especially by Mr Chapman, who can bring this so cristalclear that even this dumbest foreigner , me ( * Oh, poor moron, they know you , be damn sure about that , nag) , perfectly understands the reason of this game and how to play to get the maximum of good feels purified out of the game and out of the people who play...

Crews , random crews , takes an effort from all sides to make it work and totally true , some random crews don't function at all because some don't want to talk nor listen ,but i have played enormous amounts of random crews , and the first thing i always need to beat is myself, i need to start to talk immediatly to overcome my own fear first , if that works ,i can try to probe wich kind of persons are on the boat....Sometimes i get the verbal punch on the nose , sometimes the other side is quiet or sometimes they drop an armed boom boom barrel and leave...This can happen , will happen and will never stop...But mostly i can connect with people and our ship starts to function , and believe me , not every random is Legend or almost Legend , some are new and eager to learn and when we all put our personailties together then many of those Pirates are amazed on what this game really has brought to them...

Rare has pulled everything they had out of their closet to build this game in a way that all enviromental sounds, ingame music , Heavenly Graphics like that living water and so on, can create an atmosphere in a mind that stands open to all this , wich triggers something special in one's mind that makes that even shy people, like me , throw themselves in the game , reach out to the other one and when that hand get's shaken by the other Crewmembers , then by All the Sealoving Gods, something Divine comes in motion: The Beginning of an Epic Adventure filled with Joy , Fun, Swashbuckling and misshaps ,meeted with a lot of laughs ,fills our minds...

Open crews are a risk but if you reach out to eachother ,with a mindset to help where needed added with some patience and understanding , then i'm certain that in most cases yer hand becomes accepted and you are at the start of another Unique happening at the Sea....

And now another thing....If someone would spend some time to see how many times the frase " Rare needs to fix this " falls, then i fear that Rare with their humble numbers of around 200 people would become nothing more than our personal lackey's...We do need to remember that these people are working on this game in order to bring more content and more ways to play and enjoy it ... But many times they are halted to fix things...Take the Devil's Roar , a hard ,demanding place like announced . True , the first days we lost a number of ships compared with the whole British Fleet from back in the days of the Golden Age of Piracy , but we adapted , we found ways to evade the Lava , used the geysers in our advantage ...But many kept complaining and think Rare has made a game where a loss seems "the end of the world " ...What happened ? Rare took time and drew people away from other work to tumble down the difficulty of the Devil's Roar ...And what do we see today? Newer Pirates still complain that it is too hard and that "Rare should do something about this ...or ...they stop playing"...Please ...learn to adapt...Give yourself time to get used to this game and for the last time...There is nothing wrong with a loss... A game is just like Life , sometimes you win and sometimes you lose...If i get a loss in real life , i stopped blaming others , Gods and other things simply because it won't change ...i take the punch , how painfull it may have been , get up and move forward ...That's life , it doesn't matter how much you can take ,it's about how many times you can get up and move forward to another and hopefully better day...

Now coming back to Rare , you can't blame a gamedeveloper for the kind of persons they attract...Everybody is welcome in this game and if they decide that their inability to live and work together on a ship takes the first place , then it won't take long before they abandon this game , call it bad , and move to something else...Remember that not Every Pirate may have a Heart for the Sea or their crew...But Rare isn't responsible for the people they attract...And if they would do something about it ,what could they do ? Kidnap you from home , lock you up in a basement and let Mr Chapman talk 24 hours to you about the way to play this game?

Come on, we are smarter than that...Let Rare work on their game and don't go demanding for changes of all kinds if things aren't running as they suppose to be with the nature of people...Rare can only tweek their game but not the persons we play with...Let the option of Open Crew live it's life...i have met many Gems this way , who i would feel like a miss if i never had met them...Have you ever thought to a person who hasn't friends , or hasn't Friends that play this game ...Is he or she condemned to play Solo all the time then? Waw , that would be very difficult for New Pirates and a very sad and lonely feel...

Put some water in yer wine , reach out , educate and use the Brig if neeeded but let the choices we have today excists ...What may feel like Hell for one person may be Heaven for the other one...

@clumsy-george While I agree with your sentiments, I believe to settle with the status quo is a disservice to the game and the community. Even the most shortsighted childish demand comes from a place of passion for the game. Everyone shares in their love for the seas and civil discussion on how it could be made better is part of the reason these forums exist.

I'm a huge fan of Rare and have a deep respect for the employees who work under that banner. I also have great empathy towards building a product and the gap that often develops between the dream goal and the reality of getting something done. I have faith in them that they can listen to the ever flowing feedback from their players and cherry pick what they think fits well within their vision for the game. The fact that they even listen is a very positive thing.

That said, I believe they are accountable to the design decisions they have made, and if they aren't working well we need to let them know. They may not have control over the types of people they attract to their game. But they have full control over the games rules and systems.

As much as I would love to believe that people could just work it out themselves, in reality it is often proven to be the opposite. So either we accept it for what it is and continue to allow a system that harbours poor experiences, that potentially acts as a barrier to people enjoying the game. Or we put our heads together as a community and developer and find a way the game can be protective and supportive of its players who want to play the game in a positive manner.

@macdoland
True , and agree with you Sir , But how many times does the devil's Roar needs to be tuned down before " everybody" likes it ? i liked it from the start , i loved the challenge and overcame it by falling and getting up again, over and over ...But i knew it was suppossed to be hard and i'm going to be very honest to you about myself ...i'm one of the worst gameplayers God has ever spitted out upon this Soil...Some people try first ,numerous times , ask for help to others before they ask or in this case demand an alteration and others start complaining after one bad session...i hope you are not going to ask for links to prove this because i will have to put two pages of links from people who gave up after one try...And today , slowly but certainly a new wave is coming to complain that the Devil's roar is too hard ….
What people don't understand is that Rare really listens and try to be Friendly and accepting to everybody and may will once again spend time and man and woman hours to once again tune it down...But then a new post is placed on the Forum in wich the question is asked " Where are my pets ? , Where is my new Content ?..." Mr Duncan isn't Jezus , he can't rip 200 people appart and let them do the work that a 1000 developers could do...Everytime a demand is granted , Devil's roar , Crossplay seperation and so on , an other department of the game get's delayed … And new complaints and demands become uttered ….You simply can't give every person his / her view or idea on this game.

@clumsy-george Completely agree with you. And it's tiring to read the same thing over and over. I understand, especially if you frequent these forums daily and even the subreddit.

I am in the same boat as you and enjoy difficulty. At least fair difficulty.

I just have faith that Rare will stick to their vision and to evaluate a change objectively and fairly before making it. I hope they can see past the reasons so many posts occur on the topic and get to the root issue. Maybe it is too unfair, or people need time to learn the skills through some other activities or maybe they are just lazy people who do not enjoy putting in thought or effort.

At the end of the day it is their game. They have made choices that I don't agree with, and a lot that I do. And if they cave to the demands of many posts over something that maybe shouldn't be changed then we can only voice our opinions that they should stick to their guns.

May be drifting off topic a little, I have such a bad habit of doing this lately haha!

@friedwilly
Hello Mr Friedwilly, i fear i may have written a few things that may have striked you against the hairs...i didn't say you were wrong in brigging or reporting this profane kid...i only tried to say that internet, played in a room far far away from the other players and far far away from possible physical punishment, can turn children and adults in " cowboys". i mean they have not much to fear and think they are cool if they speak up against a mature or older person...

i 'm more than sure you have spend patience before you told him off or reported him , i didn't mean to offend you or paint you off like the bad guy , i just tried to say that sometimes you can turn these children or adults ...Because snapping and taunting people comes sometimes forward from fear , some kind of selfdefence , "strike and ridiculize first ,before they strike you"...