There has got to be a safe mode enabled for sloops at this point, its getting out of hand.

dude, dont even start. you just experienced how the game was deigned. people will find you, kill you, steal your supplies until you quit or take control. Its not griefing, dont need your safe space, just practice, simple as that.

@monger-of-war How exactly is a Galleon/Brigantine getting anywhere near your sloop if you want to avoid them and you know what you are doing? Sloop is quite literally the most OP ship in the game, even while solo. Scuttle exists when they spawn camp you, but I am quite surprised you are finding people good enough to spawn camp you. Basically this post sounds like its from someone who has literally no idea what they are doing and is like 90% of the playerbase. I singlehandedly take down Galleons and brigantines all the time so really if you have 2 people you should be able to run away from those 2 ships ridiculously easily. So please dont tell me that it is impossible for a sloop to take down a brig or galleon since that is literally 50% of my combat experiences (since sloops are quite common, lucky you is actually running into galleons and brigs). To summarize, git gud, I would explain but basically just run into the wind with sloop and go watch videos and you will be able to annihilate ships solo in no time if you are good at learning.

@enticed-malice First off I understand how the game was designed. I am PL and have been since long ago and I have played this game since launch. Just because something was designed a certain way doesnt mean its the best way thats why we have design, testing, and fixes. Yes part of the game is the danger aspect but when a game is being ruined by a blatantly bad aspect its prudent to realize it and work on solutions for it. The fact is this games population is going down and fast. This expansion was supposed to bring old players back and new players in but all the new players are simply being griefed and that further escalates the problem.

Great you enjoy griefing others we get it but that doesnt mean we have to agree with you.

@jofjjay False, both the Galleon/Brigantine are faster than a sloop at full speeed (the Brigantine extremely so) yeah you've got better turning options with a sloop. But after spending 3+ hrs trying to get a good haul being a single player trying to fend off 3+ enemy players is quite hard to do especially if you are a beginner, and having nothing to show after 3+ hrs of game play (unless you are spending 90% of your time continually going to and from a outpost after gathering one or two pieces of treasure) can be quite frustrating, not to mention if you get stopped by the Kraken and you're a new player with no idea how to defeat it.

@mewtwoki Have you actually tried running straight upwind? Since every time I do it in sloop I outrun everything. And fending off 3 players really isn't that hard if you get good at it.

@jofjjay Actually I have and I've watched a video that even shows (with math and in game footage) that in a straight line following the wind the Brigantine is the fastest ship. So as a single player being wrecked by 3+ people at the same time, I generally just scuttle my ship and say to myself "well there goes a few hrs I've just wasted trying to gather treasure" XD

@mewtwoki Following the wind, mate you didn't understand what I just said then. I never said sloop could outrun brig following the wind, why? because it cant. And technically galleon is fastest when going straight downwind and brig the fastest when crosswind. I think I have seen that video too and it proves my point. Into the wind or upwind are going the exact opposite of the way the wind is blowing. (If the wind is going east you go directly west and put your sails into dummy position)

@jofjjay I understand all of that but what your not getting is sure if you have 2 seasoned pirates on a sloop yeah you can wreck other ships and you can be very safe on a sloop.

The issue I am describing is with newer players. When im playing with my friends, aka new players, they have no idea how to play the game so when they go and start doing a riddle, fighting skeletons, etc i have to go with them or else they just die or wander aimlessly which is no fun at all and if i just say "hey sit in the crows next for the next 2 hours while i go get us treasure well thats not fun either" and in that time we are getting rolled up on. We have escaped several ships when we can see them coming but thats another issue as well. We have had ships chase us across the server for up to an hour before and all we had was maybe a few pieces of treasure but because of that chase we dont get anytime to actually play the game. Simply put this game is extremely unfriendly to newer and more casual gamers and thats killing its sales and playability.

Git gud is a lazy way of saying "i think your issue is just because your bad" but being bad isnt the issue here the issue is with new players and griefing. No matter how good you are or bad griefing shouldnt be tolerated. SoT is unique in the fact that griefing is freely allowed and thats been a huge killer of this games popularity if were being honest.

@monger-of-war But your an experienced player, you can direct them in how to run into the wind. (or downwind on brig/galley) Also sinking you, spawncamping you, stealing supplies et cetera is not griefing.

@jofjjay Again your not actually reading my replies I even said running away from them is not the issue the issue is in order to play the game and especially with a new player is that you have to leave your ship entirely and in that time is when you get jumped for the most part, YES if you see them coming it gets easier to escape but another major issue there is with newer players you cant just expect them to magically know the game in and out so while I can direct him to an extent we still have the problem of

1. new players arnt actually learning anything
2. they are not having fun
3. the games toxic playerbase is driving away any possible new playerbase

The TLDR of this entire topic can be summarized as this

"SoT is currently just a giant cesspool of trolls who enjoy screwing with each other, this circle is continuously getting smaller, so do we just let it keep going until the game dies or try to fix some of the games griefiness to bring in new playerbase for a richer game filled with more pirates and fun for all"

@monger-of-war I wish I could experience these servers where you can barely do a voyage without getting attacked. And if the new players aren't learning then they aren't analyzing their fails and mistakes enough. If they are not having fun in the chase or the pvp part of the game and are here for just the PVE then they shouldn't of bought a 1) PVPVE game, and 2) especially one with thieves in the title.

@jofjjay The thing is your looking at this as an all or nothing type of game. Many huge online games offer 2 seperate aspects of the game to be played and it works out great for them. WoW, RS, and GW just to name a few but the point is a game thats entirely pve that comes down to simple griefing wont last long and this game is steadily going downhill so we either need to address this now or accept the fact that within a few years this game will be gone. I greatly enjoy this game and dont want to see the latter happen so i am voicing my opinion on it now.

@jofjjay My apologies I had not realized upwind meant to travel the opposite way it was blowing, I will try this next time thank you

@monger-of-war I don't feel like explain why a PVE flag or other PVE servers are a bad idea right now so for a basic idea of why they are bad I would suggest looking at the other 100's of posts out there. I have no idea what any of those games are that you are talking about but I am guessing those are much more populous and different than Sea of Thieves. This game isn't for the PVE, its for the voyage and the fun that comes out of it. This game isn't PVE, it is PVPVE. This game isn't really going downhill except in player skill from what I have seen, if anything it seems to be doing better than ever for me.

@aglasgowthing I tried to but hes 3 days in and when you have guys who can literally hit him every time with the sniper hes just getting snipe killed constantly in pvp. I do my best to help him but it really is a very different atmosphere than when I started playing. I just realized how unfriendly this game is to new player. I normally dont notice it because I roll around on a Gally with others who are good at the game and we usually win most our ship fights.

@jofjjay Ive read a lot of posts and most the replies are very ignorant and self centered things like "well just cus your bad doesnt mean we should care or change the game"and thats just a strawman to avoid the real issue. The issue is whether you like it or not a fully forced PvP game doesnt do well in the market these days. If we want this game to thrive and grow we need to address this.

@surveyorpete

Let me try and address your points here

1. 4 hours of peaceful gameplay shouldnt be something you have to pray for and if you ask most players they will tell you your lucky to get 1 hour of peaceful gameplay let alone 4. Now again PvP is fine and its fine to have it but we need to utilize it in a constructive manner.

2. Seas are empty - This doesnt take away from my point in the slightest though. If this is the case than rare could make servers go upto 9 ships rather than 6 but tbh if they did that it would make this even worse IMO.

3. The truth is - NO game can exist on purely griefing and toxic players. The gaming industry has proven that time and time again and with less and less people playing this game nowadays we need to face facts and admit the forumula thus far hasnt been working out that great. This game at launch had some decent success but its seen a huge spike down in player base since then and it needs a course correction if it is to survive.

4. you do not have to "literally quit"- I never said you have to I am saying that what is happening with new players. To start with everytime you spawn you have to spend time stocking your ship, then you spend time sailing around to try and play the game, in the process of that you are chased/killed endlessly without rhyme or reason. NONE of this is enticing to new players and gives them absolutely no reason to want to play and commit to the game. Like I said I am fine because I was here in the early days when alliances were a thing and you could actually learn the game without being griefed constantly but those days are gone and for new players the reality is "you should spend 50$ on this game to let others spam kill you or chase you for hours in an attempt to spam kill you". Shocker shocker a lot of them are not up for that and end up leaving rather than "git gud". This is called reality and we need to face up to it.

@jofjjay said in There has got to be a safe mode enabled for sloops at this point, its getting out of hand.:

@monger-of-war This game isn't really going downhill except in player skill from what I have seen, if anything it seems to be doing better than ever for me.

I don't think it's going downhill in skill, at least not for those who have been playing for a long time learned the ins and outs of the game and it's changing meta.

I think it's more a temporary upswing in new players who haven't learned and don't understand what they're getting into. I don't see why they should be treated differently though. I had to learn how to be mindful to my surroundings, and also how out-sail ships or out fight them. They should have to as well. And there's no better way to learn that to be tested by other players, just as I was after I followed my favorite Streamer to this game.

Some will get frustrated and quit but others will show that they have backbone and will push themselves to get better, maybe watch some streamers so that they can see what good play looks like and that combat is deeper and full of secrets and maybe someday fend for themselves or even get payback.

Who cares if soft players who throw in the towel at the first sign of adversity quit playing? This is advertised as a Pirate game, so they knew what they were getting into and it turns out they don't like it they can always play something else.

So long as Rare doesn't cave to people who haven't put in the time or effort to get good enough to enjoy the game for what it is, there's always going to be us original core players to support it.

@bloodybil I dont know if youve noticed or not but the player base for this game can be rather ... well elitist especially on PC.

Play on xbox - get out of our crew
Play on PC with a controller - what are you dumb?
Newer player - What do you mean they killed you, you were supposed to be doing "X".

We did have a few sessions with me and my friends with him and those went great but when you start playing with randoms on discord that all goes out the window.

Its interesting how you characterize this as "lowering the bar" see I would see it as "raising the standards for the game". This game has had historically low standards when it comes to its players behavior and sure we did learn to cope with it the hard way but does that mean it should always have to be that way? You may want to try thinking about this in the aspect of another new player hell assume they are not as good as you are and couple that with the games limited but highly toxic play environment then ask "do I think people would want to play this game a lot?"

@seaofpc9214 The thing is its all good and fun that you say "who cares if the game pushes away new players" but the truth is if the game is pushing out new players while losing old players to slow and irrelevant content creep there is only one outcome honestly. You might want to consider that.

No sympathy for self inflicted wounds...

You wanna solo in a multiplayer game then deal with it!

Switch to a bigger ship with a bigger crew!

Quite honestly though a 2 player Sloop is the toughest and deadliest thing in the game I don’t understand how your having a hard time. They are nigh unsinkable!

@monger-of-war said in There has got to be a safe mode enabled for sloops at this point, its getting out of hand.:

@enticed-malice First off I understand how the game was designed. I am PL and have been since long ago and I have played this game since launch. Just because something was designed a certain way doesnt mean its the best way thats why we have design, testing, and fixes. Yes part of the game is the danger aspect but when a game is being ruined by a blatantly bad aspect its prudent to realize it and work on solutions for it. The fact is this games population is going down and fast. This expansion was supposed to bring old players back and new players in but all the new players are simply being griefed and that further escalates the problem.

Great you enjoy griefing others we get it but that doesnt mean we have to agree with you.

I would argue that any increase hostile activity is a sign that the game is gaining players, not losing them. :P

It's a fantasy pirate game, Piracy is the whole point, that includes PvE as much as PvP... If you're getting attacked a lot, then deal with it, like a pirate, that's the entire point of the game... To be a pirate, to have and create pirate adventures for yourself and others by simply doing pirate things in a shared sandbox world. xD

If you, or any newbs for that matter, can't handle piracy in a pirate game, then perhaps this game isn't for you... I've paid for, and tried out Black Desert Online and found that it's definitely not a game for me, i don't go making suggestions that would transform the very genre of the game, i simply go play other games that suit me... It's my own fault i didn't do more research before spending money to play that game. :P

Also, what expansion are you talking about? A mere monthly update isn't exactly what i would call an expansion. It's way too small an update for that. ._.

Just because you are angry or inconvenienced by other players simply being pirates in a pirate game, doesn't mean they are griefing you, it means they are playing the game as intended. Get your ego under control, dude.