You want to know why your game is dwindling? Because you don't listen to the 99%

Doesn't like PC players

Rare's fault

They definitely do listen. You just have to look at literally every part of the game.

I haven't even seen server-hopping reapers in a long time.

Letting them continue to do it was an atrocious call, yeah, but not really a present issue.

I have been saying since November that putting these curses behind a mandatory PVP play mode was one of the biggest mistakes the game designers ever made. The seriously irked many long time players who are not in love with the PVP in this game.

I think that a bulk of the player base are PVEVP'ers and are only in hourglass at the moment to get the curses. Once they obtain them, hourglass numbers will begin to fall as participation becomes null because we PVEVP'ers don't like playing submarine (dive, dive, dive!). I'd guess starting around season 10 they're going to change the way you gain allegiance to attract people back into the game mode for cosmetics (though honestly I can't think of a cosmetic they can create that would get me back in), or open it up so that you can earn allegiance from PVE for the part of the community they irked.

@lordqulex
And as was said many times before, no amount of PVP QoL will change that boarding gameplay is incredibly unpleasant in its current execution and drives a lot of players away from PVP to begin with.

The buildup to a fight is fun.
To me, naval gunnery is fun.
Spawn camping and bunny hopping isn't fun.

@scheneighnay said in You want to know why your game is dwindling? Because you don't listen to the 99%:

@lordqulex
And as was said many times before, no amount of PVP QoL will change that boarding gameplay is incredibly unpleasant in its current execution and drives a lot of players away from PVP to begin with.

The buildup to a fight is fun.
To me, naval gunnery is fun.
Spawn camping and bunny hopping isn't fun.

Actually that I disagree with. In my experience the problem with boarding is that good TDM can compensate for bad naval, but top notch naval can't really compensate for good TDM. You need to board to secure sinks against top notch crews unless you're prepared to use an extra 30 cannonballs to knock pirates off the holes they're repairing.

I honestly believe activating friendly fire from cannonballs will go a long way to ensuring boarding is the final step, and not the first step.

@vakrisone said in You want to know why your game is dwindling? Because you don't listen to the 99%:

@lordqulex said in You want to know why your game is dwindling? Because you don't listen to the 99%:

I have been saying since November that putting these curses behind a mandatory PVP play mode was one of the biggest mistakes the game designers ever made. The seriously irked many long time players who are not in love with the PVP in this game.

I think that a bulk of the player base are PVEVP'ers and are only in hourglass at the moment to get the curses. Once they obtain them, hourglass numbers will begin to fall as participation becomes null because we PVEVP'ers don't like playing submarine (dive, dive, dive!). I'd guess starting around season 10 they're going to change the way you gain allegiance to attract people back into the game mode for cosmetics (though honestly I can't think of a cosmetic they can create that would get me back in), or open it up so that you can earn allegiance from PVE for the part of the community they irked.

It's always curious to me the amount of whinging a single PvP focused update created from the PvE centric folks. They conveniently forgot 7 straight seasons of nothing but exclusive PvE focused updates and QoL features. But PvP gets one update to itself and BAM! Rare insulted the playerbase and everything they stand for. Game is now"dead/dying"! 🤣

The game mode is dead/dying, not the game. Hourglass matey. And I'm super happy that PVP got a season all to their own. It validated the playstyle which the PVE'ers sorely needed to see.

The challenge is that the prize they put at the end was the single most requested cosmetic since the inception of the game, and PVP in this game is a massive dumpster fire, even more than before S8. Cheaters and hackers in the top tier because there is no anti-cheat, hitreg galore, lethal toxicity levels. This season brought out the worst of the worst so it's no wonder many pirates are dropping hourglass before they get the curses they clamor for.

I think you're right, I think Rare should have focused on PVP QOL updates for a season or two before releasing HG, but here we are.

@lordqulex
Point I'm trying to make is that the boarding process isn't fun to begin with.

Dancing around and spawnkilling are inherently bad gameplay.
While boarding should secure a sink, you shouldn't be forced to be toxic when you board.

@scheneighnay said in You want to know why your game is dwindling? Because you don't listen to the 99%:

@lordqulex
Point I'm trying to make is that the boarding process isn't fun to begin with.

Dancing around and spawnkilling are inherently bad gameplay.
While boarding should secure a sink, you shouldn't be forced to be toxic when you board.

Fun is subjective, I like my pirate fantasy to be Errol Flynn and Guybrush Threepwood. I like the idea of swinging over to an enemy ship on a rope and swashbuckling the crew to submission. It's equal parts cinematic, adventurous, and silly. But I agree—the way you secure the sink is by spawn camping, which is toxic. Rare should not be encouraging toxic behavior by making it the meta.

@lordqulex
Right, I think the main points to improve PVP would be:

-Retain the boarding process
-Make spawn killing unnecessary
-Make CQC less game-y

@zig-zag-ltu
I think not being able to patch t3 holes would make gunnery too powerful.

Maybe along the same lines of spending more wood, each piece of wood should reduce the tier by 1. Would be faster to mitigate a T3 than it is now, but a T3 would need 3 planks to fully seal it.
I'm not sure if that would make gunnery overpowered or not.

I was thinking something along the lines of giving a boarder the means to temporarily deny barrel access to the crew without spawn camping. ie temporarily lock a barrel.

@zig-zag-ltu said in You want to know why your game is dwindling? Because you don't listen to the 99%:

The only way I could imagine to sort out the boarding ''problem'' is to change repair system in the game. Instead of level 1,2,3 hole system atm.

The first cannonball shot would leave a patchable crack, the 2nd tier (2 consecutive hits) would leave a big crack that would seep water slowly. 3d Tier could not be patched up anymore. The wood becomes limited, also ships should take less environmental damage.

That would only make boarding even more powerfull, because the crew that is being boarded upon has to deal with the boarder, wich gives the other crew the time to create some tier-3 holes. And at a certain point, that enemy crew doesn't even need naval anymore, because of the tier-3 holes you would need most of your crew to keep bucketing to stay afloat. They only need to board to 'waist' some of your crews time away from bucketing to secure the sink. More holes are no longer needed, since the couple of tier-3's will do the job then.

@peridot-gem "hours of play can be erased by 1 galleon"

I found the problem :)

@vakrisone said in You want to know why your game is dwindling? Because you don't listen to the 99%:

@lordqulex said in You want to know why your game is dwindling? Because you don't listen to the 99%:

@vakrisone said in You want to know why your game is dwindling? Because you don't listen to the 99%:

@lordqulex said in You want to know why your game is dwindling? Because you don't listen to the 99%:

I have been saying since November that putting these curses behind a mandatory PVP play mode was one of the biggest mistakes the game designers ever made. The seriously irked many long time players who are not in love with the PVP in this game.

I think that a bulk of the player base are PVEVP'ers and are only in hourglass at the moment to get the curses. Once they obtain them, hourglass numbers will begin to fall as participation becomes null because we PVEVP'ers don't like playing submarine (dive, dive, dive!). I'd guess starting around season 10 they're going to change the way you gain allegiance to attract people back into the game mode for cosmetics (though honestly I can't think of a cosmetic they can create that would get me back in), or open it up so that you can earn allegiance from PVE for the part of the community they irked.

It's always curious to me the amount of whinging a single PvP focused update created from the PvE centric folks. They conveniently forgot 7 straight seasons of nothing but exclusive PvE focused updates and QoL features. But PvP gets one update to itself and BAM! Rare insulted the playerbase and everything they stand for. Game is now"dead/dying"! 🤣

The game mode is dead/dying, not the game. Hourglass matey. And I'm super happy that PVP got a season all to their own. It validated the playstyle which the PVE'ers sorely needed to see.

The challenge is that the prize they put at the end was the single most requested cosmetic since the inception of the game, and PVP in this game is a massive dumpster fire, even more than before S8. Cheaters and hackers in the top tier because there is no anti-cheat, hitreg galore, lethal toxicity levels. This season brought out the worst of the worst so it's no wonder many pirates are dropping hourglass before they get the curses they clamor for.

I think you're right, I think Rare should have focused on PVP QOL updates for a season or two before releasing HG, but here we are.

Yeah, PvP is in an abysmal state in this game. No argument there.

Let's be fair though, this isn't the first time Rare has put a desirable cosmetic behind some kind of grind that annoys a certain portion of the playerbase. They're not very good at recognising the relationship between cosmetics and game progression. Like completely missing the ball with the legendary curse not once but twice. They first offer it as a participation trophy and then add it back in as the 2nd longest grind of a PvP mode 😂 When all they really had to do was use it to give meaning to the otherwise meaningless Pirate Legend milestone.

But Rare are Rare. In my opinion unless they make PvP pathways to unlock every other cosmetic in the game I personally don't see it as being very fair to make PvE pathways to unlock the new curses and just leave PvP with zero ability to unlock cosmetics in the game.

I don't think "certain portion of the player base" is a fair statement here. Rare has a big problem with its P.I.E.—Performance, Image, Exposure. Due to the exposed advertisement, Sea of Thieves has an image of whacky pirate hijinks in a cartoonish world. It is advertised as family friendly adventure in a jaunty pirate world. Its performance though is very tense and stressful PVEVP sandbox where you need to be looking over your shoulder at all times because at any moment PVP could show up.

What season 8 accomplished above the obvious is validate PVP. It told players sternly that PVP is a valid playstyle and is here to stay and stop asking for PVE servers. That was very much needed because they would not be anchoring requests for PVE servers daily if that were very clear from the advertisement. There was literally a thread that opened up recently by a new player that did no realize this wasn't a single player game! They got jumped by a pirate galleon and thought it was environmental! Many players do not fundamentally understand that this is a PVEVP game!

To that end, I think a strong majority of players dislike PVP and frankly would be happier if it weren't in the game at all. So to say Rare irked "certain portion of the player base" is diminutive. I think they irked a large portion of player base putting the most highly coveted cosmetics since the inception of the game behind PVP. I think they may pay the price for it in player activity, and that's why I think they'll change it in season 10 or 11.

@lordqulex

Yeah a big part of the problem is likely that it isn't marketed as this big competitive game, then the devs get offended whenever the inevitable PVE server thread appears when they're a given because of their marketing.