[Mega Thread] Balancing Exploration and Player Combat - Part 5

Another option to consider changing: if you're in the middle of a voyage and get dropped out of the server (which has happened to me several times) or, like in the case above, you get grievers that won't leave you alone no matter what and force you to either leave or server hop, let the player retain the voyage up to that point so that they can go back to it.

Especially when you get to the higher ranked voyages that take a long time, especially if you're alone. For example, every time you complete one of the maps for the voyage, it "saves", so that if you have to leave the server (either voluntarily or dropped), when you rejoin you still retain the remaining maps, but still lose any treasure on your ship and you still start off at an outpost. This way you don't waste the few gold to buy a voyage that you won't be able to complete in one sitting or waste the time invested up to that point. A simple checkpoint system.

@laughsmaniacaly said in [Mega Thread] Balancing Exploration and Player Combat - Part 5:

5 mega threads and what has actually changed due to them?

Seriously, do we have a list or is this just pointless.

Not sure if you know how a development works... or time... but you should take a moment to figure it out.

@angrycoconut16 said in [Mega Thread] Balancing Exploration and Player Combat - Part 5:

@captancola I didn't suggest PvP being rewarded.

I agree with your second suggestion. I think there needs to be some sort of ranking system, or PvP faction, in other words pirates can somehow tell your PvP experience/PvP rep just by looking at your ship. Perhaps each player has PvP rep/ranking or something and it's added to each member of your ship to give you a ranking. It would be easier to see how good or bad enemies are. I don't agree with splitting servers apart at all... but how about a system of positive reinforcement - people who enjoy PvP are encouraged some how to fight people who are more experienced in PvP, thus making noobs look like less attractive targets. You will never stop noobs from being attacked and that's a part of the game but if there was some way of making stronger pirates more attractive targets it would work better. I suggested a PvP faction/bounty idea on one of my threads but I'm sure there would be other ways to achieve this.

This is a bit of a contradiction

PvP shouldn't be rewarded, but it should be with a ranking/cosmetics like everything else..

His suggestion was to match make based on skill, which Microsoft has that TruSkill thing going for it still probably that can abstract behind the scenes statistics and figure out who should be matched.

By grouping by skill it means players can cut there teeth on easier targets first while each side learns the game. By making it obvious you've destroyed part of the uncertainty that makes player engagements fun. The incentive structure your proposing likely won't work because of the amount of people that generally are on a server or around each other.

@laughsmaniacaly

You missed the... time aspect again. It takes lots of time to digest thousands of posts of suggestions and formulate it into a plan they are even able to communicate. Step 1 to development. A lot of the stuff they have changed is low hanging fruit. The fact that there specific mega threads there is a level of acknowledgment of issues with the game.

There is no lack of communication. They gave us a teaser of content updates and speak to us every week about what bugs/fixes they are trying to tackle now.

@angrycoconut16

Tom Minka

TrueSkill™ Ranking System - Microsoft Research

The TrueSkill ranking system is a skill based ranking system for Xbox Live developed at Microsoft Research. The purpose of a ranking system is to both identify and track the skills of gamers in a game (mode) in order to be able to match them into competitive matches. TrueSkill has been used to rank...

And do what halo does now, hide that rank from players. So it's unknown and completely transparent. The key is matching players.

I love, love, LOVE exploration, and I really wish there was more reward for doing it. At the moment, the random spawns have been almost eliminated, and the wrecks seem to be mostly empty (though maybe that last one is just my s****y luck - out of 5-6 wrecks last night, I got a single skull and a seafarer's chest). And there's no reward for simpy discovering new things, at all. Thus, there's no real reason to explore, especially once you've seen most of the easter eggs, and I would really like there to be!

On the PvP vs PvE question, my position is "meh". I don't really engage in PvP, but I think sailing around without the threat of other players stealing my stuff would get old REAL quick.

@angrycoconut16 said in [Mega Thread] Balancing Exploration and Player Combat - Part 5:

@pikavenger But it doesn't work like that, people are instanced onto different servers, there aren't a set number of players per server.

Joe Skrebels  /  Feb 13, 2018  /  News

Sea of Thieves Has a Very Smart Approach to Server Size - IGN

Rare's been clever with how it handles player encounters in its shared world.

PvE server is a terrible idea in my mind. If people decided to do any research before buying the game, as you should before buying any game but particularly one in the reason of this price tag, then you would have seen that player vs player combat is a large part of the game too. By all means make PvP healthier but if you want to remove it completely or run away to a server where it doesn't exist, this simply is not the game for you. Particularly when Rares resources should be focused on new content at the moment and not servers..

PvP will cause people to lose time/progress. That's how it works. It will always work this way. Even the World of Warcraft suffers from this problem on PvP servers. If you engaged fighting players over nothing your not doing anything to progress. The only concept of "healthier" PvP is remove it from PvE.

@laughsmaniacaly said in [Mega Thread] Balancing Exploration and Player Combat - Part 5:

@savagetwinky
To that i say most of these topics have beed iterated from before launch. Through the pioneer and founder sessions we were able to test features long before release dates were given. We gave feedback on them then and still had the same none existent responses. Many of the issues and complaints being discussed were also being discussed over a year ago.

And having the post here counts nothing towards acknowledgement of the community ideas. The team occasionally reply with "we are watching" but that says nothing substantial in regards to if an idea is to be considered or not.

As for their development updates, i already covered that, i even listed the community driven changes acknowledged so far.

I understand that development needs time to build and implement in as much the same way as those who devlop the ideas may need guidance as to whether or not ideas are in keeping with the development plans.

Kind of a 2 way street is what I'm saying.

The fact that they pulled thesed out means they are considering them and getting more player feed back. The thing about a year ago and before the final game was release? It was a year ago which would mean they probably had a bunch of work to get to a finished state (ie feature freeze to some extent)

@angrycoconut16 said in [Mega Thread] Balancing Exploration and Player Combat - Part 5:

@savagetwinky Rubbish. There are plenty of ways to improve PvP.

Not along the lines of what is being discussed with PvE apart of it. The one thing you'll never fix without completely disabling it is players being killed by other players and impeding progress.

@angrycoconut16 said in [Mega Thread] Balancing Exploration and Player Combat - Part 5:

@savagetwinky Yes I completely agree, and I am against removing that completely anyway. It shouldn't be removed. PvP is a core part of the game. If players want to escape PvP completely they have bought the wrong game.

Right... not sure you seem more sensible then this other guy in a thread called Reputation - loss, risk and negativity, adamant that making changes will fix that issue without realizing it will just be a problem that pops up in slightly different ways. When you built a game around progression being tied to loot then it will pop up when you lose loot, if you tie it to collecting / finding loot it will prop up when you can't complete those tasks...

@navarita said in [Mega Thread] Balancing Exploration and Player Combat - Part 5:

@mrbrocksego said in [Mega Thread] Balancing Exploration and Player Combat - Part 5:

@navarita I think your overestimating the effect on player numbers. There seems like a rather large base of people that understood what they bought and are relatively happy with it.

On a side note I feel like there are better ways to solve that problem than by cutting up the game. Once again creative game design would be key to solving the issues. Not segregating players into different servers.

Ways to fix SoT for people that only want to PvE:

• A certain song that plays when a ship gets within a certain range of yours
• Some shorter mid length voyages between shipwrecks and full on voyages. This would give PvE desiring people some more bite sized stuff to do solo, as well as smaller quests that can be turned in sooner.
• A skeleton crewmate that can be hired (from the OOS) they won't help out on the boat much but they'll follow you around and shoot things. Maybe have them able to do one single task on the boat if you tell them to steering cannoning, sails, etc, but they won't do it very well.
• A hireable NPC for solo players that would hang in the crows nest and scan for ships, notifying you via text chat with a "Ship spotted to the []". For in game flavour the NPC should be a half sized character, a child thats hired on to swab the deck and mind the crows nest.
• A bounty system, as has been implemented many times
• Some type of NPC skeleton ships (would provide some alternative action for PvPers)
• A way for PvE people to connect up with each other and create little PvE fleets. Safety in numbers
• An incentive of some sort to encourage attacks on galleons over sloops. Maybe a golden nameplate or something that could be salvaged and sold.
• A server shared instanced safe zone that has multiple access points on the map. Basically have a bunch of caves scattered around various locations that all lead to tortuga or whatever. A semi safe zone (friendly fire enabled for all), with some big guards to keep people more or less friendly
• Just in general more activities for people that want more action in the game. I don't think its necessarily a problem with people wanting to PvP, they just want to have boat fights and get the adrenaline pumping.

Even the slightest chance of me losing my loot to another player is enough for me to not play this game AT ALL.

Sounds like you definitely bought the wrong game.

@laughsmaniacaly said in [Mega Thread] Balancing Exploration and Player Combat - Part 5:

@savagetwinky
I'd agree if they'd managed to make it to a better state, again many errors and bugs being squashed are those we reported many months before.

In regards to your post however, could you clarify fot me what you were referring to with "they pulled these out" comment, sorry but it confused me a little.

mega threads are curated by rare employees.

@boca-g said in [Mega Thread] Balancing Exploration and Player Combat - Part 5:

In order to balance exploration and PvP you need to implement some type of aggressor flagging.

One of the hardest parts of the game is not knowing your enemy. In PvE I know the skeletons will attack me, and sharks as well. But when I encounter a player, or ship, I have zero clue. And even the small gestures and clues used by players are suspect. A wave or cannons facing the sky mean nothing in game. It’s usually just a trick to lure players close for an easy kill.

I’m not opposed to PvP, it adds an element of risk that I enjoy. What I’m saying is that risk vs reward needs to work both ways. I risk you attacking me on my way to turn in my loot. The aggressor risks nothing but death which has zero consequence!

A system needs to be implemented that tracks the aggressor and allows for this risk. It could be a bounty system, it could be a murder count, it could be worked into a quest system where a new guild offers rewards for turning in the skulls of the most aggressive,

I’m proposing that if you want to balance the game, make it risky to be a murderous pirate. And create some way for us to know if someone consistently attacks on sight every single time they encounter another player!

Do you have an intuitive, non-exploitable, simple-to-program idea in mind that would be able to differentiate between bloodthirsty aggression and self-defense? Opportunistic PvP for loot vs aggressive PvP for the sake of sinking a ship, when players themselves have no idea what's on the other ship? What about players who use a best-defense-is-good-offense strategy, or simply fire first at what they perceive to be an aggressive ship that has approached them?