[Mega Thread] Player Griefing - Part 3

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    This topic is focused around Player Griefing in Sea of Thieves. This is a topic really close to our hearts because we are committed to our mission of creating a new type of multiplayer game, where foes can become friends and player alliances become the stories of legends.

    Please report all players who are behaving in ways that go against our Pirate Code.

    We've heard your feedback on this issue and from our Top Feedback Points Article and as a result:

    Spawn-killing

    Work in progress: A short-term mitigation for this is to make more players aware of the Scuttle option as a way of getting out of this scenario. We are adding information on this to the loading screen on the way back from the Ferry of the Damned, and also adding a reminder on the Ferry of the Damned itself that this option is available.
    Investigating: We are also considering options around moving ships to other world instances if they are caught in a griefing situation. This is a slightly more complex change, so we are currently investigating this to understand exactly what it would take, and the value.

    Brig abuse

    Work in progress: A key change we are working on is to allow players to select whether they want their ship to be open to others being matchmade with them, or closed so that it's invite-only. This will allow players to manage how many people they want on their ship, invite friends and decide whether or not to allow other players to join them. We hope this mitigates one of the key reasons for people misusing the brig. It also has the added benefit of allowing players to sail the galleon with a smaller crew if they desire, or the sloop with a larger crew. We've had a lot of feedback and requests for this so we'll be very happy to deliver this functionality.


    Here's previous discussions on this topic:


    As you participate in this thread -

    Keep to the Pirate Code
    As a reminder, the Pirate Code is more than just guidelines (though the reference really never gets old), but the rules of the community and game that we expect all members to abide by when participating on the forums. Any member who fails to abide by the code may find themselves put in the brig, or removed from the community.

    We also have Forum Rules, which we moderate too.

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  • Awesome! You guys are great,thanks for taking the time to read players feedback and whatnot on issues with the game. You guys are doing a wonderful job! Keep it up! 😊💣

  • On spawn killing: While an odd thing in gaming, it's a necessity to stay on someones ship and "guard" their sinking ship to ensure they actually sink. If they respawn, they threaten all the work you've done to secure the ship and actually sink them, winning the fight.

    Whatever you do with this, please ensure nothing is done to punish the victors of a fight. And yes, I have been spawn killed, it is annoying sure, but the thing you have to realize is: I was bested in that fight. I failed to protect my ship and that's alright, they won. I'll try respawn and get them but if they kill me again and again that's not them being bad people, It's them securing my ship. Scuttle is there if my ship isn't sinking.

  • I'm sure other people must have suggested it, but with regards to ship 'griefing', (attacking, being sunk, and attacking again with a newly re-supplied ship while your supplies dwindle) surely the best option is going to be to have a sunk ship re-spawn with no supplies onboard?

    They could still go straight back into the fight if they wanted a disadvantage due to the minimal supplies they would have, but 'passive' players that weren't focusing on PvP could get by with whatever supplies they could scavenge.

    Increasing the amount of supplies available in Outpost barrels would be a good way of ensuring that if they do want to have a proper go at getting revenge they can reliably do so, while giving their opponents plenty of time to recover and re-group themselves.

  • @pandy020
    ditto on ship respawn with no supplies.

    First ship of the session comes with items, subsequent should not.

  • Love the idea of putting offenders on another server. There needs to be tougher punishments in addition, such as losing any loot they have on board, a temporary ban where they won't be able to do any voyages or come in contact of other players, losing a few levels for each offense and more levels for subsequent offenses, etc. There really needs to be real punishments they can feel.

  • I got a perfect video of being spawned killed.

    Was killed by skeletons, while a crew sunk our ship. As soon as I left the ferry and waited on the black screen I could hear someone slicing and dicing me while I respawned in the sea.

  • @greaseman85 said in [Mega Thread] Player Griefing - Part 3:

    Love the idea of putting offenders on another server. There needs to be tougher punishments in addition, such as losing any loot they have on board, a temporary ban where they won't be able to do any voyages or come in contact of other players, losing a few levels for each offense and more levels for subsequent offenses, etc. There really needs to be real punishments they can feel.

    I believe it's more about moving you to another server if you lose the engagement. The victor would see your ship get scuttled while you respawn in another session with the possibility to fix your ship if it's not damaged too much.

    The question is whether this is even necessary because it would probably introduce another loading screen.

  • Also keep in mind that driving up to another ship, killing the crew, taking the treasure and sinking it is not griefing. Intentionally bailing water to keep it from sinking just to spawn-camp is.

  • @danidipp I'm talking about repeat offenders who keep coming back for you again and again who have nothing better to do. I am not talking about one encounter as that is part of the game. You see, if I lose a battle, whether I am the aggressor or the defender, I go away. I don't try to track down the other ship only to fight them again, and again, and again. This is what many people do, and those people need to be punished.

  • @greaseman85 luckly, I have not yet encountered a crew that managed to annoy me to that level but when I do, I'll make sure to report them so Microsoft and Rare can take action.

  • @mubhcaeb78 @Pandy020 The Shipright at the outpost should give the option to buy supplies crates so you can resupply your ship if you have the cash and are willing to spend it

  • @capn-tonis said in [Mega Thread] Player Griefing - Part 3:

    On spawn killing: While an odd thing in gaming, it's a necessity to stay on someones ship and "guard" their sinking ship to ensure they actually sink. If they respawn, they threaten all the work you've done to secure the ship and actually sink them, winning the fight.

    Whatever you do with this, please ensure nothing is done to punish the victors of a fight. And yes, I have been spawn killed, it is annoying sure, but the thing you have to realize is: I was bested in that fight. I failed to protect my ship and that's alright, they won. I'll try respawn and get them but if they kill me again and again that's not them being bad people, It's them securing my ship. Scuttle is there if my ship isn't sinking.

    This is correct

  • @greaseman85 their adding more ship resplendent distance this should fix this problem

  • @conconcotter said in [Mega Thread] Player Griefing - Part 3:

    @mubhcaeb78 @Pandy020 The Shipright at the outpost should give the option to buy supplies crates so you can resupply your ship if you have the cash and are willing to spend it

    Adding a fee provides absolutely no benefit whatsoever. People keep suggesting this as a way to solve different problems and it provides no benefit whatsoever, and only adds a further impediment to players who are new to the game, while being irrelevant to players who have been playing for a while.

    They've already had to re-spawn and sail to the outpost, at that point it's totally fine that they would find a good supply of items in the barrels to load up with and then head on their way. We're trying to balance out time and resources within the context of an ongoing PvP battle, allowing one side to pay to re-load faster than someone who gathers supplies isn't helping any, and opens the door to having 'running costs' all over the game.

    The last thing this game needs to do is turn into GTA:Online, where the person with the most money is at an advantage in any given situation.

  • @pandy020 said in [Mega Thread] Player Griefing - Part 3:

    @conconcotter said in [Mega Thread] Player Griefing - Part 3:

    @mubhcaeb78 @Pandy020 The Shipright at the outpost should give the option to buy supplies crates so you can resupply your ship if you have the cash and are willing to spend it

    Adding a fee provides absolutely no benefit whatsoever. People keep suggesting this as a way to solve different problems and it provides no benefit whatsoever, and only adds a further impediment to players who are new to the game, while being irrelevant to players who have been playing for a while.

    They've already had to re-spawn and sail to the outpost, at that point it's totally fine that they would find a good supply of items in the barrels to load up with and then head on their way. We're trying to balance out time and resources within the context of an ongoing PvP battle, allowing one side to pay to re-load faster than someone who gathers supplies isn't helping any, and opens the door to having 'running costs' all over the game.

    The last thing this game needs to do is turn into GTA:Online, where the person with the most money is at an advantage in any given situation.

    I agree in a sense no there should not be an option to hit one button and restock your ship but you should be able to buy the banana cannonball and plank crates from the merchant that way it is not constant back and forth for the first 15 min or so of the game and at the end of your session you can sell back the supplies you didn’t use if you would like.

  • on the new world instance Rossi my being only 6 ships curious is the system can detect whose griefing who theres been times my crew sunk a ship repeatedly because they themselves kept coming back or other ships coming at us for a ram so we shoot first. and unless the ships are customized then you kinda cant tell until you are up close who is battling who unless close enough to see a gamertag then its like oh ding! same crew

    thing is if a crew wants a gally or another crew out of the server they could bait said crew into battles or shooting first to be deemed as griefing. thats the only major concern.

  • I think moving a player that is affected by griefing to another server could result in that player losing even more. I sometimes hide my treasure on islands and getting forced to another server would cause me to lose these. I would be okay with it if it were an option, where you get a prompt asking you if you would like to change servers. This would give me the choice if I want to try to retrieve my treasure or continue my adventure in a more forgiving environment.

  • @niennaneryam Exactly, they're punishing the victim instead of the troll....

  • @mubhcaeb78 said in [Mega Thread] Player Griefing - Part 3:

    @pandy020
    ditto on ship respawn with no supplies.

    First ship of the session comes with items, subsequent should not.

    The problem I see with this is: do all possible respawn islands have barrels of planks on them?

    If not, you could have a situation (which I ran into last night) where you respawn on an island in a storm and start taking damage almost as soonas you get under way. Without planks you’d have to wait the sto.rm out which seems like it would get dull fast

  • Until you implement a pve only option the griefing will not stop, it’s human nature and your game design condones it, not saying I do it, but it happens to me all the time.

    A pve only server would fix 90% of this communities complaints, best part is you can call it an expansion and charge us $20-30 for it.

    Win win!

  • Me and friend said about rolling the ladders up on both sides to stop people spawn camping you on your own ship so this would be a great idea and would solve a lot of hassle from kids greifing do the only way people can camp on the boat is af they are skilled enough to cannon them self on the ship or if we leave the ladder down by mistake

  • Scuttle ship? Insider tips? Seems more of a troll to me. Consider this sailors tip: join a new server. If rare actually wanted to save people from being griefed, they would be crunching down on the issue before server hoping becomes an even bigger issue. They are not. They are telling people to respawn the ship as a fix-all solution. This fixes nothing. The problem isn't griefing, it's pirating. No pirating DID NOT take place mostly on land. Do some research before building a game around a concept. Besides the salty hate, I do have to say that this is a disaster. Pirates operated on(and against) ships who had little or no armorment. And pirates RARELY ever even engaged other pirates. Why attack people who can help you take down a tougher enemy: the royal navy. There is no merchant, there is no navy, there is no trade. So why would a pirate exist in this time? There's nothing to pirate. Your just hunting your own allies who have acquired fictitious loot from a tiny island. I advise watching some serious documentaries about colonial naval war, pirates, and early ages of sailing. Also, read up on the anatomy and engineering of the ships. The sloop you put into the game is not a sloop. A sloop has at least 2 sails. One square, one triangle. I promise, you don't need feedback on content from community members, you just need to learn a little about the world you've mimicked and you'll have a lot of amazing ideas for this game and future content. As well as just logic for how the game should function or how events should come together. At this point, it's call of duty for pirates. Sure there's a few things from pirate warfare, but the rest is just cheesy laziness which doesn't actually reflect what they were trying to do. I get it. I love pirates of the Caribbean, I love sid Meyers pirates. I get the romance that your trying to uphold, but it's soiled by the little flaws in logic within the game. Not to mention the tremendous amounts of lag when approaching other ships, or in a naval battle. This doesn't sound like griefing, but I believe this is the cause for the bullying and the griefing in the game. The game is just set up to help people troll. Sometimes late at night, my friend and I hop in a sloop and go hunt galleons. Because of the instant kill the blunderbuss delivers at close range, us two can easily kill all 4 of their crew and blow up gunpowder barrels under water...which should damage players. Let's not pretend that explosives don't do anything under water. If it can blow holes in a ship, it can blow holes in a human head. That aside, we still shouldn't be able to cheese them, spawn camp them, and take all their loot when they outnumber us. We only win every time because the blunderbuss is child's play. And also you can quickly switch to the pistol to pull off a double shot. And we also banana camp so nobody really comes close to killing us. It's not hard. It's frustratingly easy. I think that this game is too heavy on PvP. PvP is alright, but at least gives the poor devils the option to play alone in a server. You can do nothing to fix the PvP exploits and just create solo or invite only servers and nobody would ever complain about a griefer. You just forced people to get wrecked, just like dark souls, you corner people up against highly skilled players who just want to bully. Except in dark souls, you can go offline and not have to deal with it. This game is just not going to pick up gamers like you think, if it depends on a server to run the game. That's the source of all these issues, is the fact that it is streamed from a computer somewhere across the country or even world. What's the longevity of this game? Is there going to be a sea of thieves disk dump site in 20 years? This has no longevity, and people are not paying for digital content, they are paying for a short-handed service which will probably end in 10 years. Had to get my complaint in somewhere though, keep up the good work and thank you for delivering these updates so fast.

  • @yagerweisster thank you! This game seriously encourages bullying and griefing.

  • i mentioned these in my post about player combat. I think these things would cut down on a chunk of griefing. So everyone knows. Most of my time on SoT is spent hunting for pvp.

    Hotfix type: A lot of the time im "guarding an enemy ship" (aka, camping) Im searching for the hidden loot, or trying to sink the enemy ship. Fix: Auto skuttle the enemy ship if the player has been killed by the same crew 3 times in a row in (x amount of time))

    Not so Hotfix:

    The other times im killing the same groups over and over are three fold:
    1: Not making anything for my efforts, so i get the troll bug, and have some fun (this is what rare needs to address): THe fix: Reward the PVP players, have it tied to sinking an enemy ship. Give me cosmetics based on stats. Give me a title and some sails, so others know I'm a true scourge of the seas.

    2: I literally can't find any other targets on my server, and I keep hitting the same group over and over: This one isn't my fault. Half the times, if I know it's the same ship, i will try and avoid them, and come back later, because i know my prey wont have anyhting, and i'll be wasting my supplies.

    3: I'm stealing all your resources: PVP takes a lot of planks and cannon balls. And it takes several trips to get them all, so simetimes i gotta kill the ships owner five times to resupply. Fix: Make player shipwrecks spawn 3 barrels of materials that float for (x amount of time) this way i can get the supplies i need, after I sink the ship.

    edit: Another idea is to spread the players out more. MOST of the voyages spawn in the same handful of islands. MOST of us privateers know what islands tend to have prey. The idea of hidden treasure, i thought, is that it isn't predictable to find.

  • @a-smokin-ace-xx Haha. Interesting idea, but what if your ladders are rolled up and then everyone on your boat jumps off? Or if you all go ashore and an enemy gets on your boat and rolls up the ladder?

  • SkullFort Campers... I have mixed emotions. The last few forts I completed, there were ships that we could see from the fort, who didn’t engage until we had completed all the waves. By that point, we had no supplies and couldn’t really fight another fully supplied ship.

    While I understand pirating IS the point of the game, could there be ship supplies loaded into the SkullFort treasury, so, if there is a camping ship, it’s at least a fair fight?

    There is no worse feeling than spending 20 minutes clearing a fort and then getting raided by a sloop because you have no cannonballs or planks.

    Potential Solutions:

    1. Award instant money (maybe 1/2 of treasury total) to the crew that opens the door. Make them protect the rest.
    2. Allow the conquering pirates the protection of a ghost ship or kraken on their way back to a port.
    3. Have a secret exit inside the treasury room that leads to a surrounding island. Possibly allowing players so shut door behind them.
    4. Allow ships coming from a SkullFort to do double same to other ships or take double damage?
    5. Provide traps that help fight other ships like harpoons that can tie enemy ships to islands/rocks or oil that can be lit on fire to build a barrier.
  • So I have a slightly different grieving problem that I think also needs to get addressed. Just a few minutes ago I had to top playing because I had a sloop who was following our galleon and would keep boarding us and, instead of looting, would kill our chickens, take our chests, and throw them overboard. There were not selling them. They wouldn't go after them. They just wanted to ruin the game. I couldn't report them because they wouldn't show up in recent players, when we would kill them they would be right back on us in less then 2 minutes. Clearly the "increased respawn range" is still way too short. Also, when we switched servers, 10 minutes the exact same players had some how collided us to that server and did the same thing to us. It's ridiculous. You need to be able to block other players in game, and once you block them, you can not get placed on the same server with them. This would be a simple way to keep bullies and griefers away from you. Also, make it so that if someone attacks a ship and interacts with treasure that is not theirs, if they don't take it onto their ship they get kicked from the game for 10 minutes. This, or any other feature wich keeps people from just trashing your treasure for no gain must be implemented immediately. I don't mind piracy, but this was not that. It was griefing. It HAS to stop or the game will die.

  • @famousmarrow239 said in [Mega Thread] Player Griefing - Part 3:

    SkullFort Campers... I have mixed emotions. The last few forts I completed, there were ships that we could see from the fort, who didn’t engage until we had completed all the waves. By that point, we had no supplies and couldn’t really fight another fully supplied ship.

    While I understand pirating IS the point of the game, could there be ship supplies loaded into the SkullFort treasury, so, if there is a camping ship, it’s at least a fair fight?

    There is no worse feeling than spending 20 minutes clearing a fort and then getting raided by a sloop because you have no cannonballs or planks.

    Potential Solutions:

    1. Award instant money (maybe 1/2 of treasury total) to the crew that opens the door. Make them protect the rest.
    2. Allow the conquering pirates the protection of a ghost ship or kraken on their way back to a port.
    3. Have a secret exit inside the treasury room that leads to a surrounding island. Possibly allowing players so shut door behind them.
    4. Allow ships coming from a SkullFort to do double same to other ships or take double damage?
    5. Provide traps that help fight other ships like harpoons that can tie enemy ships to islands/rocks or oil that can be lit on fire to build a barrier.

    I like this idea up until #3 but I don't really understand or agree with the rest.
    Would it just be at skull forts? Some might say that doing 4 captains' soul quest on the one island is just as intense and not only deserves almost the same reward but also (almost) the same protection.

    In regards to #3: Better yet, stronghold leads straight to an outpost. Just kidding. ;)

    Perhaps the skull forts could work on a "first there, first served" basis. Have the skull cloud (and your ship) invisible to other crews and the re-spawned tower skeletons, once you have started killing skeleton waves.
    The fort's tower skeletons would not only help defend your crew and stall any approaching ship(s) but also offer the cannon fire as a warning to the crew already at the fort.
    The stronghold treasure may only be seen or picked-up by the first crew and everything restores once their ship is at least a cannon shot away. Except the fort is inactive to the crew that just looted it.

  • @pandy020 said in [Mega Thread] Player Griefing - Part 3:

    @conconcotter said in [Mega Thread] Player Griefing - Part 3:

    @mubhcaeb78 @Pandy020 The Shipright at the outpost should give the option to buy supplies crates so you can resupply your ship if you have the cash and are willing to spend it

    Adding a fee provides absolutely no benefit whatsoever. People keep suggesting this as a way to solve different problems and it provides no benefit whatsoever, and only adds a further impediment to players who are new to the game, while being irrelevant to players who have been playing for a while.

    They've already had to re-spawn and sail to the outpost, at that point it's totally fine that they would find a good supply of items in the barrels to load up with and then head on their way. We're trying to balance out time and resources within the context of an ongoing PvP battle, allowing one side to pay to re-load faster than someone who gathers supplies isn't helping any, and opens the door to having 'running costs' all over the game.

    The last thing this game needs to do is turn into GTA:Online, where the person with the most money is at an advantage in any given situation.

    What? Its a convenience.... its not hard to stock your ship now any way and the best way we found how to do it on our galleon crew.. is spawn camp sloops, steal their supplies before they scuttle.

  • @helpfromabove It's a shame that some people get their jollies off on ruining games for others. It just proves that they can't find stuff for themselves or don't know how to buy (or even obtain the free) quests to get them started.
    Next time try to catch their names in game. Keep a pen and paper handy to jot it down.
    Hopefully they will get bored with their $10 game pass and get called to bed by their parents before they move on to ruin another game for someone else.

    Happy sailing to you. :)

  • @a-smokin-ace-xx said in [Mega Thread] Player Griefing - Part 3:

    Me and friend said about rolling the ladders up on both sides to stop people spawn camping you on your own ship so this would be a great idea and would solve a lot of hassle from kids greifing do the only way people can camp on the boat is af they are skilled enough to cannon them self on the ship or if we leave the ladder down by mistake

    They could still use the bow sprit of their ship to board yours so rolling up the rope ladders only stops those in the water.

  • @khaleesibot said in [Mega Thread] Player Griefing - Part 3:

    This topic is focused around Player Griefing in Sea of Thieves. This is a topic really close to our hearts because we are committed to our mission of creating a new type of multiplayer game, where foes can become friends and player alliances become the stories of legends.

    Please report all players who are behaving in ways that go against our Pirate Code.

    We've heard your feedback on this issue and from our Top Feedback Points Article and as a result:

    Spawn-killing

    Work in progress: A short-term mitigation for this is to make more players aware of the Scuttle option as a way of getting out of this scenario. We are adding information on this to the loading screen on the way back from the Ferry of the Damned, and also adding a reminder on the Ferry of the Damned itself that this option is available.
    Investigating: We are also considering options around moving ships to other world instances if they are caught in a griefing situation. This is a slightly more complex change, so we are currently investigating this to understand exactly what it would take, and the value.

    First and foremost, I'm glad that you guys are concerned about this issue.
    I think that to scuttle your own ship or to be sent to another server is like sending the victim to the naughty corner. Why kick the cat whenever the dog barks?
    Besides, I have been repeatedly spawn killed before fully spawning (red damage indicator immediately after the black screen) on a sloop while the attacker stood beside my ammo crate. With no chance to reach for a weapon let alone scuttle my own boat.

    Although it would be hard to determine who is instigating repeat kills, sometimes some folks just won't stop hounding you and keep coming back for more when you kill them. Other times it just some jerk on your ship who is out to ruin the game for others.

    A possible solution:
    A kill count could be applied server-side to distinguish spawn killings. In this case the person dying so frequent within a given time frame (too short to fully spawn) is obviously the victim. The assailant could easily be identified automatically by the stats counter and therefore dealt with accordingly.
    Place them on a dedicated server with other like-minded spawn killers and them go for it.
    It's a Win Win for all. :)

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