@nwo-azcrack I made the comment earlier that the game does seem like the PVP is dying down, but only because no one ever seems to have treasure anymore outside of skull forts. I'm not sure I would call that healthy.
A drop in player count is to be expected. If I thought that even 10% of the players who started the game were still playing I would feel much better. If there was anything positive about the current player count, Rare and Microsoft would be touting it.
@chitown-bear
Mate alot off ppl have treasure. Someone lost 50 chests from a DC today. Last few days i see ppl breaking haul records. Its only the doomsayers in the forums that make you feel the game is dying.
Every interview they give seems positive and beyond what they have been expecting. I dont see all this doom and gloom having much truth to it
@khaleesibot I just started playing the game a week ago and i think its great! im actually in the opposite side. I do enjoy PVP and loot its kinda an expectation of the game to have that element ...its more realistic to have another ship attack you on a voyage. without that aspect i think the game lack a lot for people who enjoy the excitement of another boat jumping in out of nowhere. Yes, it does suck when you sick with loot but thats what happen if a boat attacked you in the waters like that in real life it adds a amazing element to sea exploration. My experience so far is its awhile between seeing other boats or attacking others( 1 hour +) . I don't know if thats cause of lack of people playing but that's what my experience has been. Overall my issue has been lack of other boats. I think an safe islands a great idea because than people could come together and even form groups of boats to do pve and also take away risk of PVP because they be stronger in a group. my other issues with the game is just sword play is dull and lack of pve besides skellies but you guys are already covering that in your new updates! so my opinion is DO NOT CHANGE from the orginal platform but keep on working on balancing they game maybe adding like a kill ratio on boats and making those groups (that enjoy pvp)clusters closer together.
Couple questions/observations of some challenges related to the "socialization" aspect of the game.
Clearly, it is a pirate game and you want people to be their own type of pirate. So thieving is obviously part of it.
You also want people to socialize and band together to fight foes larger than a single ship can handle. Great goal, but the socialization aspect is having a rough time getting off the ground. And a lot of that has to do with the inherent conflict with the main premise. So I am confused as to Rare's original expectation of how the social part of the game was to originate. And there are several possibilities:
So #2 does not seem possible from my experiences. When sailing around it is very important to keep an eye on the horizon at all times and watch for other ships. But in order to truly socialize you need to risk approaching any ship in the distance and hope they simply do not attack you for the fun of it, attack you for your loot, or attack you because they are afraid of being attacked first.
So the only way to try and avoid that is to utilize some type of signaling, either through a system of flags or possibly lantern colors or a combination of both. I have floated a few ideas out in the forums and people seem fairly certain they do NOT want any flag system that is automatically set as a result of the kill metrics by the individuals that make up the crew. I fully understand the issues with such a concept and also understand that it could be pretty complex to implement. However, if you can only depend upon the truthfulness of other plays to set their lanterns or flags appropriately then I cannot see how this could possibly work since the PvP focused players would simply set their flags to attract other ships so they can attack them. So you are back to being unable to trust any type of communication system.
At this stage, the only way to be fairly confident that someone else is friendly is to witness mutual avoidance. If you see other ships and you know they see you and you both avoid running into each others paths, then you can assume they are friendly. Unfortunately, the minute you go to approach them, they must make the assumption that you are coming to attack them so they either attack you or scuttle immediately, so no socialization happening there. It is a bizarre dilemma.
So my question to any Rare person, is what was the original expectation of how pirates would socialize and meet each other. Is the current level of "socialization" what you expected it to be? If not, what are you planning to do to address it.
And for the record. I like the game and I have fun playing it with friends and family. But I honestly have no concept of how I can create connections inside or outside of the game and then meet up with the folks in-game on other ships within a single server.
I would be interested to know what other players have found has worked for them to address these issues, or not.
I like the PvE portion of the game but I also like the tension of the PvP portion even though me and my friends and family are terrible at it. But we are slowly getting better.
I am just completely clueless on how best to try and socialize with other crews. So at this stage we no longer try.
My two complaints about this game.
Combat. Bunny hopping shenanigans should not be a reason to lose a fight to someone. It doesn't take any great skill, but due to the terrible netcode it makes anyone who repeatedly smashes the jump button nearly invincible.
Netcode. I may not be the best aim, but if I hit someone stuck on a ladder, then 2 seconds latter they are behind me on the deck, something happened to cause my attack not to register. It isn't due to lack of skill or ability at that point, it is purely coding.
It is simply frustrating to be beaten by the game and not by the player.
PvP and PvE. How we see it...
This is a PvP game, with exploration and PvE.
Its not Sea of friends, or Sea of no challenges.
My opinion, and that of my friends and crew is very different than a lot of people on here.
Please dont make any major changes. It would be like removing PvP in Battlefield or Call of Duty.
The balance is great.
There is not enough ship/player encounters these days. Some of the best times in this game, is when a Fort is contested.
This is our opinion anyway.
For the people who struggle, with the game as it is:
Be patient, and get better at it. Outsail or outsmart your attackers. And always look at horizon with a vigilant eye.
There are not that many other ships out there. You can do this. We believe in you.
Not really sure what else needs to be said at this point because nothing new has really been done to the game yet to change the state of things.
Right now player combat/PvP has too much agency over exploration/PvE, simple as that. There is no compelling reason for someone to participate in PvE if they only enjoy PvP, but the opposite is not true for those who primarily focus on PvE. Folks who participate in PvE are essentially just sheep fattening themselves up for the wolves that focus on PvP.
There is no risk nor consequence associated with PvP for attacking players if they do not care about treasure, and there are no reasons nor systems in place to encourage positive social interactions. Skeleton Fortresses are not adequately challenging enough to arrange fragile alliances with others, and the Shoot on Sight mentality has pervaded heavily into the game.
So if this game is meant to be just another PvP game, it's currently doing that wonderfully. If the intent is to have a mixture without PvP overrunning the rest of the game, then it badly needs to have some constraints placed on it. Whether through behavioral/preferential matchmaking, some sort of infamy system, or simply adding consequences to aggressors who fail, PvP cannot continue to be so openly free of risk/consequences if this game is intended to reach a wider audience of players.
Online anonymous behavior almost always devolves into cannibalistic chaos in the absence of structure/compelling PvE content, and there currently isn't enough to do in the game to warrant doing anything other than attacking other players, esp. for those who reach Pirate Legend and have nothing else to do.
So as has been said for over a month now by many folks making suggestions and raising complaints, Player combat has too much power over the rest of the game because the Exploration side is woefully lacking and can be completely ignored by those who just want to chase down other players. This isn't going to change unless PvPers gain a compelling reason to not just chase after whoever they see.
Rare has to decide if this is meant to be a PvP game with PvE as a sheep lure, or if it's meant to be a shared adventure game where ship to ship interactions aren't meant to be 95% hostile. Right now it's the former, so better get to changing/adding things in if that's not the desired outcome. 'cause plenty of folks have already been shooed away/turned off from this game, and it's just going to continue to be that way if nothing is done about the gameplay experiences being heavily PvP favored.
For a game that is advertised as being a 'shared world adventure game' it currently lacks a feeling of going on piratey adventures and instead is maybe 20% adventure, 80% player battles. This makes it feel more like a PvP game and as you can see through the forums/Reddit/elsewhere people consider this game to be a PvP game rather than what it was advertised as. This is great and all for those who enjoy that, but it's not going to bring high numbers of players into the game nor is it going to give the game much longevity for anyone other than the hardcore PvP crowd that sticks around after shooing everyone else off for suggesting how the game could be better. In this case might as well just turn the game into Battle Royale and drop the PvE premise.
The PvP combat doesn't even feel very good; it's heavily favored by those who strike first and bunny hop like crazy. Sword dashing is woefully inconsistent and far too punishing if you miss. Blunderbusses also feel inconsistent in their damage output, possibly due to netcode issues or what-have-you. Ship combat is pretty basic and most of the thrill comes from boarding tactics rather than actually firing cannons at one another. It's very simple, and very casual. Not really the best format if PvP is supposed to be what gives this game its longevity.
So again, Rare needs to decide what this game is supposed to be, because right now it doesn't feel like it is a proper mix of exploration and player combat. PvP rules over everything, and this game might as well be a PvP game until this changes, if Rare even wants to change it at this point. You can't just throw open no-consequence/risk PvP into a game and expect people to play nice or make friendly social interactions on the regular, and it's clearly been cannibalizing the community and potential playerbase. So unless this changes, SoT is just another PvP game and most people won't want to bother with a game where they can spend 30 minutes looking for treasure, and then 30 minutes being chased before getting sunk and effectively wasting 60 minutes of their time.
@zeffin said in [Mega Thread] Balancing Exploration and Player Combat - Part 5:
@khaleesibot
It would help if Rare would say how they feel about the balance. Too much Player Combat or too much Exploration? I also don't know what action Rare has taken based on the previous threads. So hard to give any feedback without some context on how Rare thinks things are going or knowing what actions based on the previous threads have been taken.Thanks,
Zeffin
Yeah it's basically been 5 megathreads now where... nothing has changed, so what's the point in repeatedly dumping our thoughts into it?
Right now this game is a PvP game, nothing else to really be said about it. Rare will not speak up about what this game is supposed to be; they aren't saying whether or not this is a problem, or if they expected it, or if they are okay with this.
It feels like empty discussion that's already been discussed to death, and the only reason to keep saying things is due to the fear that if there aren't folks constantly speaking up about it then Rare will simply listen to the louder crowd (those who think this game is a PvP game) and SoT will simply become just another PvP game.
So it would be nice to hear from Rare in their next developer video as to what the intention for this game is. I get that PvP is supposed to be a threat, it's supposed to be a possibility, but right now it's all that happens a vast majority of the time. It's coming up on two months and Rare hasn't said whether this is ideal, problematic, or what. So what's the point of these discussions when we don't know what the intention is?
Like the second Megathread said that the goal of SoT is to be inclusive of all playstyles and types... but then that stopped being a bit at the top of the future megathreads. So does Rare still want to be inclusive? Are they okay with the way things have turned out? There's just this huge fog over what the goal is supposed to be now, so we don't even know what the goal ultimately is of these discussions.
If you watch the dev videos clearly, you can see hints of their mind set.
To split the player base is unacceptable, so to suggest anything that does not take into account the balance between the two opposing player bases, is doing us all a disservice.
Optimal solution would seem to be: Finding a way to increase both types of play styles, i.e. enriching the world but favoring neither pvp nor pve.
So... what would force more interaction with both environment and players?
My guess... Exactly what is coming.
@nfected-spartan said in [Mega Thread] Balancing Exploration and Player Combat - Part 5:
Sorry I don't drink the "separating the player base" kool-aid it's nonsense the game would have a larger player base with more player style options. It's barely a top twenty played game on the microsoft store right now thats sad.
Yeah, the whole "separating the player base" excuse doesn't make sense when:
There are only 24 players per server at best (unless the '6 ships per server' thing is untrue). Even if SoT's population dropped to 1,000 players, that's still nearly 42 different sessions/servers that are simultaneously running.
Folks enjoy both, but players who enjoy PvP can PvP without consequence while those who enjoy PvE can... die to those who enjoy PvP, relog, and hope they get better luck next time? It's simply unfair when one 'side' gets to ignore the other side which has to put up with that side on a regular basis. PvP vs PvE balance is currently horribly thrown off towards PvP and I don't think anyone can argue differently.
A lot of players have already been turned off/shooed away by the game and the attitude of folks towards them for voicing their opinions.
In general I find it silly that there's so much fearmongering over the idea of reducing the chokehold PvP currently has over the rest of the game. Adding in a new AI threat won't be enough unless it's something that actually attacks ships at sea and attacks indiscriminately + goes after multiple ships simultaneously. Otherwise you've got things like the Kraken where if someone sees a ship being attacked by it they'll just attack that ship while they're vulnerable.
Also we need more things in the game in general that adds to the pirate fantasy, which includes NPCs we should be able to steal from or assist at sea for a new source of gold/reputation points.
@personalc0ffee
There is no proper intended way of playing the game.
That was one of the selling points, 'Be the pirate you want to be!'
How can you be the pirate you want to be??
I want to be a pve only pirate & encounter no pvp, can i be?? NO
I want to sail solo against other solo sloops, can i? NO
There are so many barriers already in place, adding a few more to aid players & give them more options may help in enabling those players to be the pirate they want to be, not the pirate you want them to be ;)
@personalc0ffee said in [Mega Thread] Balancing Exploration and Player Combat - Part 5:
You can not be the pirate you want to be when the game was literally not built around certain aspects that you are asking for and this crowd needs to start realizing it.
This game was built as a shared world. It doesn't matter if you don't want it. That isn't how the game was built, coded, founded. etc. it is all different ways to say no, it will not work because it would require very foundational changes that change the what the game is and how it feels.
This is basically asking Rare to scrap everything they built, change how the game works, and make a new game.
I'm 100% against this and any idea that leads to it.
SoT needs to remain an open world, where we all play together with absolutely zero segregation and player base splits and no one gets any advantages.
I'm done here, see you next thread.
Then the game will die. Going down with the ship I see. Meh. Have a nice trip.
a new identification system is needed with the other crews. Each crew should have a different color of nickname. When taking a skeleton fort, we allied with another crew to sink another, but during the boarding we never knew if it was an ally who helped us or an enemy, because all the nickname were written in white!
@personalc0ffee It is not a shared world.
It is tiny servers (not even full) of randos strewn about. Period.
There is nothing "shared" or persistant.
This magical core principal is flawed. Welcome to the monkey cage.
@chitown-bear said in [Mega Thread] Balancing Exploration and Player Combat - Part 5:
@nwo-azcrack I made the comment earlier that the game does seem like the PVP is dying down, but only because no one ever seems to have treasure anymore outside of skull forts. I'm not sure I would call that healthy.
A drop in player count is to be expected. If I thought that even 10% of the players who started the game were still playing I would feel much better. If there was anything positive about the current player count, Rare and Microsoft would be touting it.
Of over 40 people on my friends list, a grand total of one still plays.
The key aspect is that if there is very little consequences for killing other players, then that will be they type of people the game will attract and keep. The people that don't want to kill other players will eventually leave.
Many years back Ultima Online came out. Similarly they had PvP versus PvE all together. Similarly there was little to no consequences for killing randomly. Their lead designer said similar things we hear from Rare about the beauty of their game design. They had issues keeping their player base and eventually provided a PvE environment. They did try providing guards in cities, and other things before they provided the optional PvP flag. Those that don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Zeffin
@khaleesibot said in [Mega Thread] Balancing Exploration and Player Combat - Part 5:
"We refresh the threads every seven-ish days or when the thread has gone over ten pages so that the thread isn't overwhelming to participate in."
Only made it to page 3 so far... Thread has died off!
Again not sure if you guys (Rare) have made changes to the servers, but the PvP has died down to being non-existent in the past few days for me. Clear seas, no salty sea dogs looking for sloops in the horizon to terrorize? Was on a server with i believe 4 galleons, 2 duking it out at a skull fort and two others on the horizon... JUMPED to a different server. After the jump it was almost too quite!
Guess i am not sure what, if anything you're doing in the server room. Has everyone left? Have you found a new way of strategically balancing the servers? Is it just a matter of pure luck what server you get thrown into as to what your probability of completing a voyage without the death squads hunting you down are?
The seas seem to be a little to quite... And judging from this thread dying off as well, people are either happy that the servers are quite, people are no longer interested in contributing to Mega thread 100, or they are gone?
Looking forward to the DLC and the continuing grind to Legend (solo).
It would be nice to see Rare say sorry quit your b******g and just take solo play out. Instead we have part 5 of a thread that hasn't been responded to. This game is sitting at 21 on most played under H5 without a community to support the game I doubt we see three free dlc. In my opinion a Social playlist for easy sailing and a Ranked for the pvp Pirate Legend crowd would have worked better.
Don't know why that came out as a Rant lol just hoping the game makes it a year
@khaleesibot I have looked all around and have not found a report bugs/game trouble here point so I'm putting this here.
At the uncharted island on L-14 there is a hole you can not get out of on the west island standing at the beach from the sunken mast go to the central rock formation. there is a cluster of rocks when you reach the formation.
I had to exit game and come back on to get out.
@suchlikekey568 said in [Mega Thread] Balancing Exploration and Player Combat - Part 5:
@khaleesibot said in [Mega Thread] Balancing Exploration and Player Combat - Part 5:
"We refresh the threads every seven-ish days or when the thread has gone over ten pages so that the thread isn't overwhelming to participate in."
Only made it to page 3 so far... Thread has died off!
Again not sure if you guys (Rare) have made changes to the servers, but the PvP has died down to being non-existent in the past few days for me. Clear seas, no salty sea dogs looking for sloops in the horizon to terrorize? Was on a server with i believe 4 galleons, 2 duking it out at a skull fort and two others on the horizon... JUMPED to a different server. After the jump it was almost too quite!
Guess i am not sure what, if anything you're doing in the server room. Has everyone left? Have you found a new way of strategically balancing the servers? Is it just a matter of pure luck what server you get thrown into as to what your probability of completing a voyage without the death squads hunting you down are?
The seas seem to be a little to quite... And judging from this thread dying off as well, people are either happy that the servers are quite, people are no longer interested in contributing to Mega thread 100, or they are gone?
Looking forward to the DLC and the continuing grind to Legend (solo).
Nobody posts because Rare doesn't care. This is our time out corner. A place for us to stay out of the way and hopefully not put up repeated and repeatedly ignored criticisms where any new kids might see them.
Only so many times you can be utterly ignored without just giving up.
@navarita they will never do this because PvP and the thrill of avoiding conflict is a much more rich product and idea than letting players who can’t handle PvP have their way. Lol
@risky-random said in [Mega Thread] Balancing Exploration and Player Combat - Part 5:
@navarita they will never do this because my idea of fun is more fun than your fun. Source: me. Lol
Fixed.
I just want to add a few thoughts of my own to the discussion. But before I do, I'd like to share something that happened to me the other day while playing.
I was running a Soul voyage and came across one island with very persistent skeletons. I parked my ship and sniped from the deck. As wave after wave of skeletons popped up from the ground, I noticed another sloop heading towards me. I had a choice to continue fighting the skeletons or prepare for a PvP encounter. Since I had nothing on my ship, I focused on the skeletons (if I was sunk, I had nothing to lose at the time). But the person pulled up near me and dropped anchor and then started assisting me against the skeletons. When it was all said and done, I put the first skull on my ship and offered the second to the other captain. They refused and allowed me to take the skull. They even followed me back to the outpost..and never once made an aggressive move. To be honest, I was shocked.
That encounter was a rarity for me...mostly because I do my best to avoid other ships once I have loot.
I have suggested a flag system as well on another thread (reminiscent of the flag system from Cutthroats: Terror on the High Seas). It wouldn't be too far from a "passive mode" system that other games have implemented. If you are flying a passive flag then switch to an aggressive flag (the classic jolly roger) there is a delay in going from passive to aggressive and a cool down before you can go passive again (to prevent players from going passive-aggressive-passive in a matter of minutes). From the PvE side, it would help distinguish between threats and non-threats, and from the PvP side, it would just be cool to fly the black flag and strike fear in other players.
I don't think a separate PvE server is needed. Neither would a bunch of safe zone outposts. Perhaps one or two safe ports, mostly in the calmer, north-western and west side of the map that players could go to. This way as voyages take players further to the east and south, they would have further to go to reach a safe port. Plus, the safe port would give a reduced value on the loot. The non-safe ports would give the full value but you risk other players attacking you.
Definitely need more random finds on islands. I spend a majority of my game time looking for sunken ships and random message bottles and chests. The map is strewn with permanent sunken wrecks but there is rarely anything to find. I found one chest the other night on the west side of the map on a ship carcass that was on a beach. Sunken wrecks that are a permanent part of the map, should have something worth finding, even if it is just a clue to buried treasure elsewhere.
It would be nice if captains who are friendly towards each other could ensure that they ended up in the same server together. I occasionally meet some friendly captains and would love to sail the seas alongside them (even help them out) but the fact is, the odds are very slim that we would ever end up in the same server again. Would it be possible to, upon "making friends" through the game's mechanics, be able to spawn onto my own ship within the same server as those who I have befriended rather than just joining that captain's crew?
You dont have to worry about RARE seperating the player base, Trolls are doing it for them. I already dont play solo so if I have no friends playing I dont play.
Sat 3 of my friends that played this game
all the time, from the Alpha, walked away from it. Havent seen them play again, Ive played once since.
We were Sunk in port by teens screaming Curses and yelling how the Xbox sucked and the PC was so much better. These guys and the play style of attacking ships headed for ports, or sink on sight will destroy this game.
There is no room in this game right now for casual gamers, I know Im never going to be a very good PVPer, I struggle with some of the skellys.
Yet after sinking after sinking Im still getting cursed out and told to get gud. In the last 5 or 6 play sessions we have run across 1 friendly sloop. Everything else has been fight for your life, 30, 45 minute cannon battles until bye bye treasure. Heck the one time Ive played since the extremely bad experience Sat. my 2 man sloop was attacked before I was out of the tavern.
The Casual gamer who would spend cash on this game and manage to play 2-4 hours a week wont be around long if the time they do have is spent watching someone else steal their hours worth of work.
The game was marketed as a funny game, it just isnt fun(ny) getting your brains beat out over and over.
You know, I can go into COD and die over and over, I dont have anything invested, it doesnt bother me to get killed. Somehow I think this is the heart of the issues with this game.
@khaleesibot I've made a thread about potentially receiving some reputation when completing other tasks in the game. I think the loot obviously needs to remain the most valuable part of the voyage but some players find it extremely deflating collecting loot and then losing 100% of it if you lose a PvP fight. It would be nice to at least retain SOMETHING, for instance bonus reputation awarded when you complete a voyage, or a little bit of rep for successfully completing other tasks, e.g. solving riddles, killing skeleton captains.
At the moment I think the risk/reward is a bit more skewed to combat, people who like PvP have nothing to lose when they want to fight, but everything to gain.. whereas people who enjoy voyages stand to lose their loot.. this enforces a feeling of negativity towards people who enjoy PvP which isn't fair, and a feeling of fleeing from a fight being the only option for people who voyage. I think it would be better if this was made a bit healthier. Perhaps there is more of a penalty to failed PvP so that people who enjoy PvP will actually have something at stake themselves.. perhaps PvE receive some rep earlier in their voyage as I suggested earlier, to cushion the blow of defeat.. Whatever happens, something needs to change. A fair number of people are posting angry threads about loss, or leaving the game, people have even complained that their friends don't want to play anymore because the loss when you are defeated and someone steals your loot can be so extreme. I think the easier fix would be to provide some kind of guaranteed/baseline reward on completing a voyage, whilst leaving most of your reward still at stake in the form of loot. This way even if you make a bad choice, or if you lose a fight, etc etc, you can walk away thinking oh well, at least I gained X.. If the system was altered a bit so that it encouraged risk taking rather than making people feel 'well it's silly PvPing because fleeing is a far less risky way of securing my loot..' I think it would be a better experience for all.
The only combat-issue I have is that a single person can "jump and run" around like crazy and keep a whole crew busy hunting him down while the enemy crew can easily sink your ship. This strategy is nasty and feels not correct. Please implement a exhausting system somewhat, or a jump/strafe-stagger to slow down this nervous gameplay.
@angrycoconut16 I disagree with PvP being rewarding. A majority of ships I have sunk had nothing on them, even when I had a preemptive strike. When enemy ships are capable of sailing perfectly, it could take more than an hour to catch them even when you're sailing perfectly. In addition, it's very easy to sail by an outpost and drop off crew members with loot. The enemy ship either has to keep pursuing or stop for 1-3 items.
I've probably pvped more than most players and another thing I hate is killing noobs. If someone doesn't really know how to play the game yet, it feels pretty bad to kill them because they don't really fight back and you don't feel like you accomplished anything. I'd like to see them possibly put all the noobs in the same servers or something until they learn the game well enough
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