Revert proximity block for Burning Blade selling and stuff.

Shoulda kept a cof in there, locked it until it was defeated or captained, require 1 skeleton camp for a sword drop. Then bring the 8 rituals down to 6.

Would have maintained as much activity as it was gonna realistically get.

Instead they went against the sandbox and catered to feedback from players that were never gonna consistently pve grind the bb.

I've been watching these things despawn (after sailing around a long time as pve) over and over since the change and it was entirely predictable.

Commodities had the record for a long time for worst change for organic play but BB definitely holds that now.

@ghutar said in Revert proximity block for Burning Blade selling and stuff.:

Participation droped sharply after proximity block it added lot of additional preasure and risk on casuals crew without eny reward.

Rare knew it wasn't a good idea which is why they didn't release it that way. If they had released it that way it wouldn't have done well (outside of the thousands of people exploiting) and the feedback would have been to remove it, and they likely would have removed that restriction in a patch.

There has also never been a risk/reward discussion where so many people were on the same page about something not being a good idea. Even some of the content creators and feedback regs that I rarely agree with on topics like this were like "that's a very counterproductive idea". I even pointed that out in posts at the time because it was refreshing to see.

It was a change in a long history of changes that were made to assist crews that did not complete their pvp objective in the sandbox.

The BB's design is to sail around like a marked water slug doing the pve objectives and then cashing it in. Giving crews ample time to attack and sink them (if they are skilled enough or large enough in crew size to do so). This change was about giving server hoppers extra time and extra chances to win.

@gosva5434 said in Revert proximity block for Burning Blade selling and stuff.:

@ghutar
This ship can auto repair, auto shoot, you can't go infront of it without taking serious damage, require 6 chainshots to be demasted, the anchor lift is similiar to a brig, has a cannon next to the wheel on both sides, and the skeletons also help with boarders. Also the only effective stack regarding the BB is completing a puzzle that takes 3 minutes and you can cash out with the press of the button. I get that the ship is slow but any semi competent crew would be able to just sail to reaper's hideout and press f even when being outsailed. The griefing part was also targeted at that selling design and not players in case i didn't make it clear. Taking up the event spot on a server only to be able to just press f when contested was lame. For what is worth what you proposed is an interesting solution and imo worth a shot to see if it would revive the event again.

The issue is that many solid pvp crews avoid challenge and they dodge pve.

If experienced players in sot regularly took on the defense side of pvp the game would have many less issues than it has had over the years.

Experienced players want quick action, quick rewards, and then they want more chances if they don't get those rewards. That means people with less experience and less stacked crews are left carrying the activity in the game. Which has been a major issue in SoT for years.

@gosva5434 said in Revert proximity block for Burning Blade selling and stuff.:

@wolfmanbush
This is sadly very true. As someone who has a stacking PvP playstyle, i always feel a little annoyed when after a good fight my opponent had no loot or even supplies. This makes the entire interaction really lackluster, and don't get me wrong while i appreciate a good fight, i don't like it when it results in me just losing supplies. A good way to balance this could be to make the logbook of captained ships highly valuable, but then interactions become significantly more hostile negatively impacting newer crews.

I often focus on the plight of the underdog in SoT and the organic experience but there is also something else I've been thinking about for the last year. The social experience dwindling for experienced players that are not ok with easy wins.

Adventure has become so easy at a pvp level for larger crews that it puts people in a situation of pvping with friends where the wins feel gross or going solo/smaller crew where the wins don't feel as bad but people break up their social group.

I think that is a real issue right now for people that are not ok with wrecking crews that aren't in a situation to compete in pvp. As the groups split up for more challenge more players move on from SoT because of the in game separation.

Lifers on a brig or galleon taking out a smaller or casual crew because they can't lower at reapers just doesn't feel good to people with a competitive spirit. That wears on that group over time, lots of examples of that in SoT as the game has become less competitive in adventure with ship/crew size differences and game changes/dev decisions.

Big boat/crew play should not inherently be non-challenging mode and that is what adventure has become. People shouldn't have to choose between feels bad or feels bad gameplay.

@tesiccl said in Revert proximity block for Burning Blade selling and stuff.:

Nah sorry, you want to take the risk captaining the biggest and meanest ship in game? Gotta deal with the consequences if you get into a fight before you sell. No change needed.

I agree, with a good crew the ship is a beast and also has skeletons to help with repairs.

@ixomnia9 said in Revert proximity block for Burning Blade selling and stuff.:

Nah they need to up the range from half a square to a full square and half of range to activate battle music and stop the BB from being able to lower. The amount of BB runners is the lamest part of fighting the BB.

There really is no such thing as a BB runner. It's slow and people are trying to complete the objective or getting caught anywhere else. People are failing to sink it, BBs aren't succeeding at running. Especially now with the harpoon gun against a giant ship that is easy to board.

The only thing in SoT where "running" is an issue is in HG because that is content where 2 parties are opting into a specific combat design. Running is perfectly acceptable in any condition in the sandbox design.

There are zero people that were going to operate the BB as it was designed that wanted or benefited from the change. There are many that are less likely to do it after the change because it's a one sided change against them.

It's counterproductive design and it's not compatible with a sandbox adventure environment, one where server hoppers should not be carried through dev decisions against those that are playing the game organically.

There are countless examples of content being significantly worse because of the catering to server hopping, there are entire seasons built around trying to get people to take risks again because of it.

Season 8, the big pvp season was marketed in part as something designed to take pressure off of this very issue, server hoppers rushing over at the end of someone's journey, with nothing to lose and everything to gain. That's how big of an issue it has been in SoT.

@valor-omega said in Revert proximity block for Burning Blade selling and stuff.:

I don't know what an appropriate balancing measure would be, but fact of the matter is that the event is basically dead now - next to no-one bothers with it (either because they abused it when it first released, or just gradually completed the comms).

The most impactful thing they can do going forward is commit to not doing it again.

This counterproductive approach to patching content has gone on for 5 years. This is just one of the more blatant cases of catering to hoppers that led to worsened participation.

Content loses its momentum early on, worsening the experience for many players in the organic play style loses them long term. A few unfortunate sessions with the BB (due to the design) and it's written off for good by many players.

The best thing they can do for content going forward is to say "no" to people on two sides of the same coin. People that think casual play should get all rewards, and people outside of organic play that think they are owed wins just because they found a juicy server.

In the case of the BB they had many options and they chose the worst to implement feedback from one of the above groups.

Adding a ritual requirement of 1 or 2 would have been fine, locking the cof up till a certain point would have been fine after season 13. At most, all the BB "needed" was very small changes.

@realstyli said in Revert proximity block for Burning Blade selling and stuff.:

@wolfmanbush said in Revert proximity block for Burning Blade selling and stuff.:

This is just one of the more blatant cases of catering to hoppers that led to worsened participation.

I think server hopping deserves a whole topic of its own. The Burning Blade just highlighted how willing Rare are to facilitate and make it a very valid and even endorsed gameplay style.

Season 11's changes and diving specifically have only made it all the more easy to do very quickly and with little, if any, downside. Just plop down the easiest Gold Hoarder voyage and dive... a couple of easy digs later, you're free to dive again. It's something that needs to be looked at, as that wasn't supposed to be the intended design.

I also think they need to look at how the SoSS can be utilised to gain closer spawns outside of activity, and other "cheese" tactics.

These are things that, on their own, aren't a massive deal but, looking at the overall picture of how organic play should be fostered, they are bad for the ecosystem and life of the game. The balance between hunter and prey needs to be rebalanced if Sea of Thieves is to stop hemorrhaging players, IMHO.

In the short term, I am 100% behind the OP's request, with the caveat that other solutions are explored (the aformentioned miminum Rituals, for example).

Sot has never been good at conservation in the organic experience.

Game dev is tough, it's understandable that they have a lot going on in a space where people are regularly struggling to keep things afloat. A lot of different voices and influences and they are regularly trying to be seen as "the game that listens to players" while offering a somewhat balanced experience.

Live service adventure sandbox is tough for them because they work side by side with all the content that is created by players. It's not a huge audience like some games but they still gotta keep an eye on what goes on with feedback. That feedback is often just reactions to frustrations in the moment that catch fire as feedback, when most of it really shouldn't.

I understand why they are in the situation they are in, I think they just gotta always prioritize the organic experience for participation longevity.

This game is so awesome at its core and really has improved in multiple ways, just gotta focus on the feedback that is about offering more organic QoL to the day to day experience, rather than just picking which groups are gonna get the win in the patches. Imo.

Building up new content creators (to sot) and encouraging their passion for organic adventure would be helpful long term. They often go from organic play to "we gotta pvp everything, we don't pve, we gotta make content by hopping" by getting involved in the SoT network. SoT needs a new content culture built around embracing the organic experience and appreciation for it. It's not like that can't succeed here.

So many awesome adventurers have burnt out by getting caught up in it, because they traded their organic interests for metas and contrived activity. We all lose out when adventurers in SoT burn out early.

@sweetsandman said in Revert proximity block for Burning Blade selling and stuff.:

The initial design was terrible.

The current design is terrible.

Is it balanced poorly for solos both as the captain and as an attacker when the other side has a full crew? Yeah. Absolutely. Welcome to SOT.
_

What they SHOULD do is make the sword be a loot item after voting down with Flameheart. Then you and your crew have to run back to the ship, grab the sword (maybe add a delay before the sword is unlocked), and then turn it in to flameheart.

That would add a huge element of excitement, intensity, and pressure at the turn in. And, it would be balanced for both sides.

This is an example of less is more, something SoT needs more of.

Simple change that doesn't create experiences that are going to run significant amounts of people out of the content organically.