[Mega Thread] - Balancing PvE and PvP to ensure a great experience for everyone - Discussion

Party-galleon! Hahaha brilliant. We didn’t get anywhere near that, but will try that release day!

I’m still chuckling at some of my experiences now. We decided to see if we could sail our galleon as drunk as possible. After a few minutes necking the grog we climbed to top deck- one dude went towards the heel, one dude managed to make it to the anchor and I went to get the sails. In my drunken state however, I staggered straight over board haha the crew managed to drop the anchor and wait for me to drunkenly swim and climb the ladder back up. They were all waiting for me atop the ladder cheering and as I got to the top, I thanked them by chundering straight in their faces. Then my pirate just could not stop it - I literally covered the whole top deck in vomit as I staggered around hahahaha My only request for the final release is the ability to source more grog without having to buy new tankards. Turns out I have quite the grog problem whilst on the seas.

In this post, rather than discussing whats "wrong" with the game or proposing ideas on how to "fix" it, I thought I'd simply share my thoughts on how I, as a solo PvE focused player, am planning to attempt to enjoy myself in the upcoming test period. The announcement for the most recent scale test mentioned another test "where players will get a taste of the wider Sea of Thieves experience," and I'm guessing this may mean access to more factions to get quests from. If so, it's likely that animals and other goodies will be randomly spawned on islands, in addition to the chests, gunpowder kegs and so forth we have already been finding. If so, my plan is to start each play session by hopping on my boat without doing anything else first, and immediately sail to the nearest mid- to large-sized island. There I will spend just a few minutes collecting whatever goodies I can set eyes on and sail directly back to sell them. I'm not certain, but it feels like the game tries to spawn you in to a new instance some distance away from other players, so you have a little time to yourself to do a couple quick preparatory tasks. It's this time I intend to use to try to get in one quick, mostly safe voyage, though I will still be keeping a wary eye out, especially when I get back to sell. After the first voyage, I may try some purchased quests, if only to get a little practice, or I may just continue running super short voyages to grab random loot and sell just a few pieces at a time... it will depend on the individual play session.

I hope this helps at least a few other PvE style players find at least one way to have some fun in the next test, and perhaps the full game beyond. Thanks for taking the time to read!

@saladbrains yeah, that's true, I have already spawned in with a ship nearby once or twice. Still, if the game at least tries, I should be able to get an occasional hassle-free voyage, if nothing else. Also, depending on how much new content is available this time, there may not be a lot of other options yet. Still, though, you make a good point.

This time I'm going for the Longest Post Ever trophy. Please bear with me, I would very much appreciate it if you (whoever you are, whichever "side" of this discussion you're on) would take the time to read (or at least skim) all of this and tell me what you think. It is a good idea? A bad one? All opinions [at least any that won't get your post deleted ;)] are welcome. In an earlier post I talked about an idea for adding exploration quests with no stealable rewards so that PvE players could have something to do without always risking PvP losses, since PvP player are never required to engage in PvE content in order to start or continue PvPing. I've given the idea some more thought, and a few problems occurred to me. First, adding a whole new faction, and probably having to expand the map significantly in order to include uncharted islands, all sounds like a lot of extra work for the developers. Second, the idea of some kind of "Explorer's Guild" that for some odd reason hires pirates instead of actual explorers doesn't fit especially well into the established lore of the game. So I set about trying to refine the idea. Here's what I've come up with.

Instead of a new faction giving out pure PvE quests, each existing faction will have their own type of "Side Quest" that players can buy. Side quests are not the factions' main interests, they want you doing "Main Quests", so they should probably provide limited Reputation progression, cost more to buy than Main Quests, provide smaller gold payoffs, and maybe even be designed to take longer to complete. A couple ideas for progression limitation could be: players can only ever get to rank 2 via side quests, after that only main quests provide Reputation, or; players can only ever earn a certain percentage of the reputation required for their next rank up (say, 20%?) and the remaining (80%?) must be acquired through Main Quests, but after ranking up they get a new 20% to play with. As for limiting money rewards, perhaps Main Quest rewards could be though of in terms of how much of your profit is required to purchase a new quest from the same tier, and make sure that Side Quests always require a significantly larger percentage of your profit to buy a new one. These limitations should, hopefully, serve to encourage PvE players to take bigger risks by purchasing Main Quests and collecting extra loot on their Side Quest voyages, rather than always sticking to the safest option.

Regarding the quests themselves, each faction could have it's own unique kind of "extra" work for players to do. For example, the Order of Souls wishes to expand their magical influence, and so will pay small amounts of money for players to sail to specific islands and use their sword to carve magical Order symbols into rocks and trees. What do these symbols do? The Order is not saying... Meanwhile, the Merchants could send players on quick messenger quests, giving them one or more short messages (which the player might be required to write down and type back in, or just select from a list of similar messages) along with one or more destinations for delivery. The messages could be in the Merchants' own cryptic code, something like "The King of England has lost all his truffles," the true meaning of which players can only guess at. Finally, it seems like shipwrecks are randomly spawned. If so, they could be the target for Golden Hoarder Side Quests, as they send players out looking for ship salvage to bolster the fleet of Hoarder ships that carry gold and goods back to the banks and wealthy customers of Europe. Players could sail around until they spot a wreck, then sail right up close and mark it on their ship's map table. When they have found the requested number of wrecks, they sail back and deliver their findings.

Of course, these are all very preliminary ideas, but the key features they share are pretty simple. They offer a poorer balance of investment to reward than Main Quests, they don't tie too directly in to, or provide much progress for, the faction or Pirate Legend progressions, and they don't require the player to carry a stealable item. They do, however, still leave the player vulnerable to attack, as well as any incidental goodies the player may have picked up in the course of the quest.

Again, I would very much like to hear what PvE and PvP and PvPvE players alike think about this. Thanks very much for taking all the time to read my postzilla here.

@urbantumbleweed said in [Mega Thread] - Balancing PvE and PvP to ensure a great experience for everyone - Discussion:

LEAVE THE GAME ALONE!!!!!! Being a pirate ain't easy. Suck it up and strap on yer boots.

Was this directed at me? It seems like it was, since it came right after my post and had no tag or quotes to direct it elsewhere. If it's not at me, please ignore the rest of this.

First, thanks for your reply, and for taking the time to read any of that giant thing. Although, the be honest, it sounds like all you're really saying is that this discussion should not even be taking place. That is of course a perfectly valid opinion, it just doesn't add much to the conversation.

For reference, I would like to direct your attention (and that of others) to this YouTube video posted by the developers. Pay particular attention to the first 40 or so seconds, where they say in no uncertain terms that one of their most basic design concepts for this game was to create an open, friendly, shared world free of some of the barriers to entry many other shared world games have. There have been a fair number of posts here which voice the opinion "suck it up" or "it's a pirate game, deal with it" or some variation thereof, but that seems to fly directly in the face of what is, after all, a core design principle for this game.

Still, though, these are just my opinions. I'm am not saying that you are wrong, or that I am right. Just to be clear. Thanks again for reading.

@lagunavii great words

@urbantumbleweed Cool, thanks for setting me straight. For the record, I too have enjoyed most of my time in the Sea of Thieves, I just think there might be some simple, unobtrusive ways to allow me (and others) even more enjoyment, without having to detract in any meaningful way from anyone else's enjoyment. Thanks again!

@mri1ama said in [Mega Thread] - Balancing PvE and PvP to ensure a great experience for everyone - Discussion:

@sillycolt302271 Clearly you haven't been reading the posts in this thread. Or you are just ignorant to them.
RARE HAS STATED MULTIPLE TIMES THERE WILL BE NO SAFE ZONES AND NO PVE SERVERS
This is a thread for the balance of PvE and PvP TOGETHER.

First, a quick reply to this. 100% agree. The most common phrase I've heard RARE use to describe their intentions for this game is "shared world" and any kind of separate PvE environment is exactly not that. Also, as @Scheefinator recently pointed out, the discussion on safes zones is now officially closed, by RARE, and so that too is fully off the table.

@deusnecrotis Alright so i read through your post there and don't worry I've posted longer ones in here a few times lol. I honestly thought it was gonna be a post where you are invulnerable doing a voyage or something I've seen so much of that, good thing I read it and didn't skim.

Thanks again for taking the time.

But just in case let me clarify. You want side missions where it's just go to point A do something small and you get rewarded for it upfront without having to cash anything in correct?

Essentially yes. It's meant to be a simple little thing, deliberately light on both content and rewards, in direct recognition of the fact it's also deliberately light on risk.

Let me put some thoughts out there on this.

• I don't mind this idea per say. As long as it was executed correctly. Like rewards that are reasonable for the lack of risk. Ie the same amount you get from a castaway chest.
• I wouldn't even go as far to say it should be a separate side mission that you have to buy. Even if they added it to regular voyages like a bonus objective to the voyage itself. And lore wise it could be the vendor saying hey while your out there do you think you could do this for me.

All of this sound fine to me. The second point might even be an improvement, since it would sort of streamline the integration into existing game content.

But yeah then all those people who complain about not getting anything for doing the voyage might be appeased with little impact to the game itself. (I believe you get rep already for completing voyages and parts of voyages. Hard to tell during scale tests because the rep was a bit buggy)

Yeah, that's pretty much exactly what I was going for, a minor appeasement for people with similar complaints to mine, which hopefully does not impact other player's enjoyment in any really significant way. Also, I've come up with another idea that leans even more heavily towards not disrupting the current state of the game, while also not having to deliberately water itself down (any possible pun fully intended) to do so. I'll be posting it in a while. Thanks again for reading, and for being a genuine participant in this conversation.

I'd like once again to try and take another approach to helping resolve the imbalance myself and others perceive in PvP and PvE. First, a bit about why I seen an imbalance. If someone wants to be a pure PvP player, they can. It seems like, at the very least, all players will always have access to the most basic sword, pistol, and ships, so there is never a moment when you are flat out required to do quests, progress towards Pirate Legend, or even sell booty seized as spoils of victory, in order to enjoy your PvP game play. On the flip side, if someone wants to be a pure PvE player, they really can't, since they are perpetually required to engage to avoidance strategies if they wish to have any reliable chance of getting their potential reward (emphasis on "potential") all the way back to port to cash it in. Avoidance strategies they may be, but they are still PvP centered activities imposed upon all PvE game play. PvP players experience no such imposition.

That being said, personally I really don't need much to feel satisfied that my wants are being represented. With that in mind, I'd like to propose the following very simple (and hopefully not too difficult to program) addition. Each outpost could have a single new NPC added, who instead of giving quests or anything of the sort, has a list of Sailing Challenges for players to progress through. Instead of offering gold rewards, Pirate Legend progression, or faction reputation, completing challenges would simply unlock a set of special cosmetic items the player can wear and or display on their ship to show off their accomplishments. Challenges could be things like time trials, where the player sails straight to a particular island, circles it, and sails straight back as fast as possible, and there could be challenges where the player is required to sail a figure 8 around a certain set of big rocks out between islands. There could even be non sailing challenges, such as find and kill a certain number of skeletons, and even PvP challenges, like kill a gun wielding player with your sword while eating no bananas.

This seems to me like it's very little to ask, all things considered, especially since everyone could potentially enjoy this content, not just PvE players like me looking for a "safe" activity. And just to be clear, players engaged in a challenge should definitely still be vulnerable to attack... it is the Sea of Thieves, and for all the other crew knows you're sailing so fast back to port because you're loaded down with loot. The point to this idea is simply that such "voyages" would be too short to offer much opportunity for other players to interfere, and they don't oblige the player to carry anything that can be stolen. Thanks for taking the time to read!