[Mega Thread] - PvE versus PvP Discussion

  • Mr Barbecque
    Rogue

    As far as PvE and PvP goes, it's an exploration and loot filled game. There is risk and reward of going to shore and digging up treasure while another ship is off in the distance sizing your parked ship up as a large target. It's pretty much all about adapting to the situation at hand and leaving a lookout on board to keep the sails at the ready, while the rest of the crew helps find loot or what ever other questions is going on.

    There will always be that element of the hostile gungho ship, it is a pirate game after all, looking to sink your ship and aquire your loot. The risk and reward again comes in if you decided to load up on chests and deposit them all at once.

    When it comes to this game, All other ships are hostile ships.

  • HardCreator7595

    @knightx13

    I would like to see some sort of maneuver that the player can do instead of just running, maybe like a roll or dodge

  • TreblucFayle
    Master

    It may come down to the community policing itself on this. So here's a proposal.

    Players who prefer the PvE aspect of the game and would like to be left alone need a "signal" of sorts that other players can see from a distance. Something that the non-scummy players can recognize and say, "OK, I'll leave this one alone."

    My proposal is that you point ALL your cannons straight up. It shows you have no intention of attacking others. It's also something that can be seen from a ways off, even without a spyglass.

    Will everyone acknowledge/ accept such a signal. No. But it's a start. Something that will separate the toxic, "this is a pirate game, git gud" crowd from the players who want this game to succeed.

  • KorriganFR

    @treblucfayle said in [Mega Thread] - PvE versus PvP Discussion:

    It may come down to the community policing itself on this. So here's a proposal.

    Players who prefer the PvE aspect of the game and would like to be left alone need a "signal" of sorts that other players can see from a distance. Something that the non-scummy players can recognize and say, "OK, I'll leave this one alone."

    My proposal is that you point ALL your cannons straight up. It shows you have no intention of attacking others. It's also something that can be seen from a ways off, even without a spyglass.

    Will everyone acknowledge/ accept such a signal. No. But it's a start. Something that will separate the toxic, "this is a pirate game, git gud" crowd from the players who want this game to succeed.

    No offense, but you are a bit naive... such a system would be a magnet for all the trolls and griefers of the server.

  • master of unive

    What if there was a counterpart like the british navy for instance which can be played by the community itself. If a bad or toxic crew would start attacking other ships they would gain negative karma or a bad reputation, which leads to a higher bountys and therefor atracting players to hunt them down, this bounty could be even paid to other pirates. A bad reputation could also lead to higher item prices etc. Also there could be events for the robbing once which rewards players for hunting down a traiding ship etc.
    Elsewise there is one way where the robbing part would only gain 1/8 of the reward you would get for looting yourself.

    Sure the system could be hardly abused by players which is a bad thing, however there is propably a way to detect that.

    However on big concern i currently have is that it will end like in the devision and in particular in the dark zone. You will be hunted down as soon as you cross the sea, which is especially bad for players who would try to play on their own.

  • Exo Waltz
    Marauder
    Founder

    @master-of-unive
    I don't think this game will get a 'dark zone' -which I detested in The Division for it's poor balancing of twink builds- but rather everywhere is PvP enabled,... which is fair enough to be honest.

    What I would like would be that a PvP'er gets 'flagged' ie. after x time their flag is somehow made more prominent to other players but not themselves - so PvE'ers spying through a looking glass can pick out potential threat more easily.

    It won't change anything for me as my crew always bolted as soon as the lookout spied someone turning sail our direction, we were really bad at naval combat - it always ended in a loss or draw.

  • BoorishLeech570
    Master
    Insider
    Founder

    @master-of-unive said in [Mega Thread] - PvE versus PvP Discussion:

    What if there was a counterpart like the british navy for instance which can be played by the community itself. If a bad or toxic crew would start attacking other ships they would gain negative karma or a bad reputation, which leads to a higher bountys and therefor atracting players to hunt them down, this bounty could be even paid to other pirates. A bad reputation could also lead to higher item prices etc. Also there could be events for the robbing once which rewards players for hunting down a traiding ship etc.
    Elsewise there is one way where the robbing part would only gain 1/8 of the reward you would get for looting yourself.

    Sure the system could be hardly abused by players which is a bad thing, however there is propably a way to detect that.

    However on big concern i currently have is that it will end like in the devision and in particular in the dark zone. You will be hunted down as soon as you cross the sea, which is especially bad for players who would try to play on their own.

    Almost feels like GTA Online when you propose this option. Not saying that this is a bad idea, I would actually enjoy something like this, but I think Rare has something like this in mind already from the looks of the trailer; then again, maybe they don't. The only way to know for sure about this is to play the game when it launches. (I have started taking developer's words and promises with a grain of salt, been burned too many times on games.)

  • Knutowskie
    Ship Mate

    Well, what about taking a look to other PVP games with some PVE elements? Like in GTA online... There is a passive mode. You can drive around with no problem, you can't hurt other players and so they can't hurt you. We could transform it to SoT: Going into passive mode, get the half of the reward and then you have endless time to explore. Once you're fed up with this, just disable passive mode, wait 5 minutes and there you go.

  • Joe Krakatoa
    Commander
    Insider

    Why even bother having the distinction?
    PvE, PvP, W*F. You either cool, or not cool.
    All players are pirates and the name of the game is Sea of Thieves.

    If I see another player, on land or on the water, I'm going to assume he's gonna gank me if he can.

    Unless he is a real cool player. Cool players interact.

    Shared World Adventure Game. Suck it up people.

  • Arbab Kabeer482
    Marauder
    Insider

    @ant-heuser-kush I thought that there will be no better weapons, just that your skill matter.

  • Arbab Kabeer482
    Marauder
    Insider

    @ant-heuser-kush idk what the weapons are or what they are called, but I though that they give you everything from the start ,that's what I understood from watching streams

  • Arbab Kabeer482
    Marauder
    Insider

    @ant-heuser-kush oh now i get it, btw I didn't play the beta, just watched couple videos, thanks for clearing things up for me.

  • DECIMATOR PRIME
    Founder

    @boorishleech570 Great idea but ya its GTA/The Division kind of feel. I do think some repercutions are needed in regards to toxic crews witch I did run into during the beta. But it needs to be done right and I don't know if a bounty system works as was the case in the division players just figured out how to abuse the bounty system.

  • aussiecossie
    Founder

    People who want safe zones are like people who insist on some spot being BAR in a game of tag. What people don’t realise is that BAR breaks the game of tag. Give some people a place to hide and they won’t come out. Others will camp it waiting for people to come out. The fact that there are dozens of outposts on the open sea mitigates the effectiveness of camping any one outpost. You could be waiting for hours before finding anyone and no trolling gamer is that patient.
    Plus if you’re a good enough crew, ain’t no camper gonna stop you! I was a part of a two man sloop that completed an entire multi-stage voyage whilst being pursued by a galleon. We circled islands while one of us dropped off, found the chest and swam out on an intercept course to be picked up, same tactic on drop off. They couldn’t catch us and they gave up in the end.

  • Pocket Fox AU

    @aussiecossie said in [Mega Thread] - PvE versus PvP Discussion:

    People who want safe zones are like people who insist on some spot being BAR in a game of tag. What people don’t realise is that BAR breaks the game of tag. Give some people a place to hide and they won’t come out. Others will camp it waiting for people to come out. The fact that there are dozens of outposts on the open sea mitigates the effectiveness of camping any one outpost. You could be waiting for hours before finding anyone and no trolling gamer is that patient.
    Plus if you’re a good enough crew, ain’t no camper gonna stop you! I was a part of a two man sloop that completed an entire multi-stage voyage whilst being pursued by a galleon. We circled islands while one of us dropped off, found the chest and swam out on an intercept course to be picked up, same tactic on drop off. They couldn’t catch us and they gave up in the end.

    This thread is about PvE and PvP not safe zones, that is another thread https://www.seaofthieves.com/forum/topic/29122/mega-thread-safe-zones/155

    Believe it or not, Safe Zones and PvE are completely different.

  • SkyJTSMC

    @knightx13 In my opinion, PVE in a game like this makes little to no sense. The definition of Pirate is (a person who attacks and robs ships at sea.), this being said the only ships that are on the sea at the current moment are only player ships, since a pirate attacks and robs ships, PVP is obviously the only mode of gameplay this game should have.

    PVE would be extremely boring and unfun as there would be no constant threat that other players are coming to steal your booty, on top of this doing missions for the respective companies are mostly easy so there would be absolutely no challenge in playing in PVE unless you make all missions much more difficult.

  • Shragh
    Master
    Insider

    @skyjtsmc When they are no people doing PVE what do you want to rob? Without PVE there is no gold creation in this game, only plunder PVP player gives you nothing in return.

    This is not a PVP/FPS game, it is an adventure game with PVP elements. What you finde boring plenty of other players do like it.

  • TheObsidianPic

    Although PvP can be really fun i do think maybe if Rare made a choice of a solo world where only you or your friends could play just your crew sailing the sea their players would have a better time instead of getting attacked every ten minutes.

    But because of how big of an advantage this would be they should only receive a fraction of the gold they would receive on a regular PvP server.

  • SkyJTSMC

    @ant-heuser-kush I never said it was supposed to be competitive, and yes this is in my own opinion.

  • SkyJTSMC

    @falk-van-cleef While this is true, it shouldn't be entirely PVE based, as like I said it is a pirate game and why would it be considered this if players cannot plunder eachothers booty?

  • SkyJTSMC

    @ant-heuser-kush That's simply the definition I obtained from Google and just because pirates tend to rob people and attack people does not mean it is competitive. However one could say that it will always be slightly competitive as long as there is a PVP aspect in the game because you are fighting eachother for there booty, therefore you are competing with eachother.

    And while pirates were not 100% hostile, a great many of them were and tended to rob trade ships for loot. That being said PVP does play a vital part in a pirates life.

  • Shragh
    Master
    Insider

    @skyjtsmc I never said something about PVE only, but without PVE players there is no sense in doing PVP because there won‘t be loot. Pirates did not attack because of nothing worth there lives...

  • SkyJTSMC

    @ant-heuser-kush I have already watched this, and as this topic states, the discussions are about PvE versus PvP preferences, I prefer to PvP a bit more then PvE because I find it more exciting. That is my preference, I simply stated a couple of reasons why I think PvE only in a game like this would not exactly work too well.

  • Sir Fortesque
    Master
    Insider
    Founder

    @coffeeart687098 I agree let people play how they will it is hard for me to understand that people are complaining about being pirated in a pirate game and basically telling people how they should be playing in a game that grants you total freedom. I think the game will have a long life span that being said I think you have nailed what I have tried to point out to players complaining about there loot being stolen by pirates once or twice than coming here saying they were trolled.

  • Sir Fortesque
    Master
    Insider
    Founder

    @xxalfonzxx what would be considered griefing in this game, would stealing loot be considered that?

  • Rob Davoust

    I do know that we (my wife, our friends, and I) are greatly excited for this game. We will however only be purchasing it if there is some sort of PvE only option. Private servers or some sort of "Disable friendly fire" server.

    We've seen huge open worlds where player can interact before and 9 times out of 10, it turns into a grief-ing simulator. And as much as we'd love to be killed over and over by players who are better than we are (We're not great) that just doesn't sound fun.

    We're greatly hoping that Rare will provide an experience option for people who would just rather play in a private world with only their friends.

  • DrdPrtBobert
    Captain
    Insider
    Founder

    @wype0ut-ger said in [Mega Thread] - PvE versus PvP Discussion:

    @ant-heuser-kush said in [Mega Thread] - PvE versus PvP Discussion:

    Farming what? PvE content? Lol. There's nothing wrong with going after someone else's treasure... but if you sink them and they have no treasure, what was the reward?

    Yea i was talking about farming PvE content for gold, it is the fastest income, and the faster you got your blunderbuss (or whatever future weapons) the better.

    And the reward for sinking others who got no chests? You don't know if they got chests unless you search their ship or sink em. I simply prefer the latter. If they got none, you obviously get nothing but the joy of seeing the other ship sink, but that is still quiet satisfying ;)

    THIS!

    You jump into your game, your extremely tired of killing skeletons and shoveling dirt so you want PVP and bad! you get on your game with a fresh 4 man crew at outpost and like a silver tongued devil pirate you manage to talk your whole crew into virtual bloodlust. Off you all go in search of sails on the horizon, bootyless, but ready for action. you spot another crew on the horizon and zero in. you catch up to them as they're raising their sails on an approach to crescent island, the cannon fires twice but you're still too far away to get hit, and looking at the boat you can see they likely fired a couple crewmates at the island, their sails once again dropped and they are boldly turning towards you, like they can sense your experience level from the way your sails never tend to quite catch the wind you didn't know you were going to need. Your helmsman decides that his favorite part of the PVP mechanic is the video the devs have been showing people for ages, where you ram a ship and leap off the bowsprit to the enemy deck. he abandons your ship for theirs, gets quickly executed, and a little less than a minute later you and your remaining crewmates are shipless, swimming towards a mermaid not quite sure what could have just happened. (Gameplay up to now... GREAT! for everyone i think)

    The enemy crew sunk you, their only reward? They get to continue their peaceful voyage uninterrupted for a moment (AKA nothing, lack of peace of mind if anything). But what of your consequences? you talked to a mermaid, found yourself at the exact same outpost and now the pirate ship in front of you is your favorite color, with a neat little stamp on the sails that you like a lot better, and a shark sculpture carved right below the bowsprit. Feels more like winning at this point. So what are you going to do now? The crew checks the map, and says the island just a little south west is the same island you were just at. So you're back on the boat, sails at full billow now, heading straight back to crescent island. less than 5 minutes have passed since you fed the fish next to these shores and you find the same enemy having nursed his wounds, ship now anchored and resting just a few swimming strokes from the shore. CRASH, you carve your initials into the side of their ship, with your ship, this time. The past helmsman now out for vengeance jumps back onto their deck and starts slashing around a little more successfully this time, until he finds a captains chest on the second deck level. then it's grab and go. SUCCESS it only took you two tries, but now you have treasure. their boat starts quickly taking on water as you drop anchor next to them and wait for your crew mate to swim back with SWAG (tee-hee). You spot the enemy mermaid as their boat reaches Davey Jones, and low and behold 5 more chests make their way to the surface next to him, and little white nametags hopelessly paddling out to try to hide their boons or give up (you can't tell which you are just trying out the sniper rifle), fish in a large barrel. VICTORY (right? it only took two fresh boats...), 10 minutes later you've unloaded all of your treasure at outpost your crewmates have gained a little rank and you are once again free of potential consequence if you see another set of sails on the horizon. Sails like that other crew still trapped with you in their world, trying to voyage on while you hunt them down quite literally fearlessly, and with a little skill, almost endlessly, until you or them leave the game (WAH! so much for community; Xbox Live Party Chat, and this situation.)

    Satisfying? you bet! Balanced? not even a little bit. the enemy crew had one choice after they beat you initially, try to move fast but rarely fast enough, or abandon everything they were doing and hope their next voyage spawns (LOL) in the opposite direction (and voyages DO COST gold, which is why i think it's silly that players complain about ships potentially costing money), you each sank one ship and lost one ship, but your crew got everything, and as the initial loser (of nothing) no less.

    -What if "ship-storable player lives" existed like other resources? Maybe even offered as a reward for say, missions, or from PVE skeletons (held 1, to 1/4 at a time?)
    (Balance, benefits over all game play)

    -What if there was a dodge-ball style matchmaking system, captains picking crews from cities or outposts or lobbies even. spending as much gold on a Galleon as you would on a voyage or maybe a little/lot more, depending on balance. solo-duo play since the operate the same ship could then obviously be cost-less or cost less, to encourage new players to jump on with experienced players in larger crews. (Balance, benefits community)

    -Match Making Rating also would help.
    (Balance, benefits streamers & over all PVP)

    -What if crews could only spawn one ship per server?
    (balance, anonymity after battle)

    I really like the game play i've seen/experienced so far, all of it, from conquest to catastrophe. I at least think I understand the way Rare feels about the "Legendary" nature of this kind of Pirate game. and if it released with the alpha/beta content we've seen and no other embelishments i would still be very excited about it, just due to it's genuine appeal and simplicity (the controls take seconds to understand and I'm guessing thousands of hours to master). Every single person I've played this game with has been excited about it, even if they were worried about being excited about it. But they continue to tell us the Golden Age of Piracy is yet to come, and so long as the community can all be excited to play together the sky is the limit for what Rare and the players will accomplish in game.

  • khaleesibot
    Master
    Founder

    A lot of the discussions in this thread has been centred around dedicated servers and our PC design lead Ted Timmins discussed this in this PC Gamer Article:

    "Regarding servers and services, we actually had a really long conversation this morning, just about, how do we want to support players who like private, public, custom, closed, whatever it might be, over time? There's a much wider discussion to be had around that kind of stuff, because the way that our services work, they're all quite expensive, dedicated servers, because when we had initial discussions, [we decided] players prefer dedicated servers, let's totally focus on that. But then if you were to have a private server you could effectively be the only person in that server at a huge cost.

    "So, yes, we're talking about it, and is there more to talk about? Yes. For now it's about matchmaking with your crew and friends. That's our initial goal. And beyond that, we'll look to alliances and potentially guilds or factions or whatever we term it in Sea of Thieves. That's how we're looking to the future.

    As always, we're monitoring and always looking at ways to deliver the best possible experience we can for our community. Thank you all for your discussion, comments and feedback on the topic of PvE vs PvP, this mega thread will now be locked.

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