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

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

    @savagetwinky
    They are created by deckhands, these are community members with moderator status acting on behalf of and with some connection to RARE, they aren't actually employees.
    They have no real ability to directly impact the games development beside communicating ideas to the dev team.

    ughh no. All of the mega threads are made by the same rare employee.

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

    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?

    I only have experience with other mmo’s that have tried. In Ultima Online a murder reporting system was installed that allowed you to report a player that killed you. Over time that player turned blood red and was attackable without ramifications, and the city guards would attack on sight. There was also a bounty board that listed the murderers and if you killed one, you received their skull. That system was flawed in that you could report even if you instigated said event. Eventually they added pardons to removemurder counts. This was way back last century! I’m sure rare could figure out an algorithm that tracked first aggressive act, and weigh in who sailed towards whom. They could then allow only the party that was the recipient of said agression to file a grievance, and then on,y if they wished to do so.

    I’m also in favor of making skull forts into zones that are exempt from this algorithm, as they are purely in game to foster competition!

    Again I’m not anti PvP. I will fight but only if fired upon first. I’m not promoting safe spaces or safe servers. I would like an outpost without merchants that players could sail to without loot and meet other players without fear of being shot on sight. Not even sure how that could be coded or not exploited.

    And everything can be exploited, it just takes a creative mind to figure out how!

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

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

    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?

    That system was flawed in that you could report even if you instigated said event. Eventually they added pardons to removemurder counts. This was way back last century! I’m sure rare could figure out an algorithm that tracked first aggressive act, and weigh in who sailed towards whom.

    So no distinction between the actual aggressor or the defender who decided it was better to fire first than wait until they got fired on?

    I can tell you if this system goes through players will be pulling up to ships and boarding with a powder keg, forcing the defender to fire first and take the penalty lest they get kegged. Or just boarding and taking loot, or dropping sails, or taking over the helm, forcing defenders to fire first.

    Plus not every act of sailing towards another ship is aggressive, or even intentional! Large islands block sight. Ships sail in eachothers' general directions on their ways to and fro.

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

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

    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?

    I only have experience with other mmo’s that have tried. In Ultima Online a murder reporting system was installed that allowed you to report a player that killed you. Over time that player turned blood red and was attackable without ramifications, and the city guards would attack on sight. There was also a bounty board that listed the murderers and if you killed one, you received their skull. That system was flawed in that you could report even if you instigated said event. Eventually they added pardons to removemurder counts. This was way back last century! I’m sure rare could figure out an algorithm that tracked first aggressive act, and weigh in who sailed towards whom. They could then allow only the party that was the recipient of said agression to file a grievance, and then on,y if they wished to do so.

    I’m also in favor of making skull forts into zones that are exempt from this algorithm, as they are purely in game to foster competition!

    Again I’m not anti PvP. I will fight but only if fired upon first. I’m not promoting safe spaces or safe servers. I would like an outpost without merchants that players could sail to without loot and meet other players without fear of being shot on sight. Not even sure how that could be coded or not exploited.

    And everything can be exploited, it just takes a creative mind to figure out how!

    I think this is trying to fix a problem that doesn't exist. Like trying to stop players from being aggressive in CoD. A lot of the reason the game is designed the way it is, is so players can be aggressive towards one another.

    There is very little intrinsic value in the little progression there is and there is literally no states tracked cross game, you basically start from scratch each time you enter the game except for the fact that you may have some cosmetics and you may get voyages that give better / more targets.

    A social hub would be fine, in fact I think could be fun as an alternative game. Even more fun if it was a small city map built next to a lake for sailing lessons, but it's an entirely different map that isn't connected to the 'active' game map.

  • I would love to know how some of yall are not seeing PVP constantly. Every Ship I see attacks. We sailed for an hour and a half today, saw one sloop the whole time, landed empty on island, hunting treasure and low and behold that one sloop came & attacked, after a fight there went our ship.
    The guy i was with quit the game immediately. thats 4 friends now that have said they wont be back.
    Rare needs to make a profit or this game will go away. if you are hemorrhaging players you arent going to make any cash. Everything I saw before buying was how funny and much fun it was. It just isnt. Playing with the guy earlier felt like it was work, get the job done find a port. No laughing no fun. Turn in b4 we die. Rare is fixing to find a lot of gamers "bought the wrong game".
    It doesnt help community at all to be told get gud or you bought the wrong game. For a healthy game both sides should be looking for ways to build community.

  • @moon-trooper
    You have no proof the game is losing players. Just because your friends left means nothing. And you can avoid being attacked very easy. Sounds like you guys didnt keep a lookout.

  • @savagetwinky
    My apologies, didn't notice that R logo on her tags.
    Well that changes... Very little actually, it means that they are created by an employee, I'll grant you that but there still isn't the engagement upon community ideas to suggest direction.

    I feel that the problem lays with a sense of direction. Too many people with conflicting intrests and not enough input to direct that flow. You end up with many threads that discuss the same topics and most of those still being overlooked by comparison to the big topics ie own servers, safe zones or pve only modes. These topics have often overflowed into these megathreads and again hide some of the great ideas.

    I suppose i fall back to my first post,
    If I've given my commitment in 4 consecutive megathreads and countless other threads, recieved overwhelming amounts of feedback and had multiple conversations with others both in game or on forum. If I've done that and posted my findings in these megathreads, I've done my part.
    RARE can scour through the info and make of it what they wish, it is after all their game to make.

    HOWEVER

    It is still worthy of note that the rate of people posting in these threads compaired to previous iterations is an indication of the communities commitment to continue without guidance.

    I will say, i do enjoy this game, i am eager to see where it goes dispite all my ranting, i just feel that for a game as service model, this lack of integeral communication will not do RARE any favours.

  • @laughsmaniacaly That clearly changes a lot. A rare employ is curating specific types of feed back. This isn't even remotely the same as what you were saying before. If they are considering any changes its clearly going to be based on these threads. Again they may not be able to respond to everyone in here but they do know there are concerns with the game, they clearly took some major issues and pushed those up to be focuses on by the community. Which.. now will take time to gather feedback and create a plan... which has to be done before any plans are relayed to the community.

    If anything a guide of, what this game is, what are core tenants, what they don't want to change and how can we move that forward to help keep feedback useful. Although not everyone is going to care that they already stated no safe zones... people will still ask for them.

  • @savagetwinky
    I hope so mate, i really do but i spend most of my days looking at numbers and patterns and the community commitment (especially in these forums) are not a hopeful picture. Take that with the shy release that was just the test build from a few months earlier with some content removed (bet we see it out next week) i have to say I've become somewhat salty and definitely take all content intentions with a pinch.

    It's good to see you are so positive.
    I shall wait and see what next week brings, but will continue to expect a fluffy CV in hopes of being surprised.

    Fair winds to you mate, it's good to have a chat with someone outside of the "git gud" mentality.

  • @laughsmaniacaly
    It's a video game, forums are generally where people will go to complain and if there is one real big issue with this game is it might pull in a sizable crowd that wouldn't enjoy this type of experience.

  • @nwo-azcrack We have a look out constantly. 4 friends quitting tells me that there are others quitting, I dont need any other proof. Its a sampling, when one person writes a letter of protest, many others feel that way and never type a word. you can say it means nothing and it obviously doesnt to you, which shows a disconnect between the 2 bases in the community, both sides need the other to have a healthy game. All Im saying is sink on sight doesnt foster community and it will lead to lower play numbers. Proof may be months away unfortunantly.

  • @moon-trooper
    Well i got 2 new ppl to start playing these last few days. And they dont mind the kill on sight ppl. Its part of the game. The tension of not knowing who will attack or who wont is what made them like the game too.

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

    @moon-trooper
    You have no proof the game is losing players. Just because your friends left means nothing. And you can avoid being attacked very easy. Sounds like you guys didnt keep a lookout.

    Sadly the game is barely a top thirty played its dropping fast.

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

    @nwo-azcrack We have a look out constantly. 4 friends quitting tells me that there are others quitting, I dont need any other proof. Its a sampling, when one person writes a letter of protest, many others feel that way and never type a word. you can say it means nothing and it obviously doesnt to you, which shows a disconnect between the 2 bases in the community, both sides need the other to have a healthy game. All Im saying is sink on sight doesnt foster community and it will lead to lower play numbers. Proof may be months away unfortunantly.

    I don't think the game was made to have mass appeal. It is a rather niche genre for a rather small, targeted audience. Plus, as long as there are enough players to populate a couple different servers, then players will continue to find and interact with eachother and it won't feel like a ghost town. The game isn't raking in additional money via subscriptions or an in-game store or anything so there's no expectation for a sustained playerbase because there isn't (or rather, aught not to be) any expectation for additional content.

  • Since the most recent patch fix has anyone else noticed that ships you have recently sunk are re-spawning VERY close to you again? We were chased by an exceptional crew for well over an hour and a half, despite sinking them three times. Dont get me wrong, they were VERY good, but we were just enough more prepared. However, our victories over this challenge was not rewarded at all because they were back on our six in roughly 3 minutes. I enjoy a challenge, but this did not feel rewarding.

    I know at one point this was changed so we would definitively win an engagement, has this been changed back?

  • @personalc0ffee said in [Mega Thread] Balancing Exploration and Player Combat - Part 5:

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

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

    @moon-trooper
    You have no proof the game is losing players. Just because your friends left means nothing. And you can avoid being attacked very easy. Sounds like you guys didnt keep a lookout.

    Sadly the game is barely a top thirty played its dropping fast.

    No one honestly cares if streamers are playing the game or not.

    Top thirty on microsoft store I don't care about twitch this isn't a good streaming game imo.

  • watch the damage totally random of the blunderbuss because either it literally a shot a person tonight it inflicts nothing at all limit remove because the pvp where we shoot on the feet and it kills us directly it complements no one, I'm really disappointed to this weapon that everyone uses just because it kills in one go

  • @personalc0ffee That seems like a pretty good representation of the data. People AREN'T buying it.

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

    @personalc0ffee That seems like a pretty good representation of the data. People AREN'T buying it.

    None of my friends decided to buy the game after the gamepass. Some of them stopped playing even before the
    gamepass trial ended because of the ridiculous limitless PvP that forces PvE players to just have the worst time because they're the mice in a cat vs mouse game.

    I can't even imagine how many purchases they lost because of their stubbornness in keeping PvP and PvE together. Because of their total repulsion to give players the CHOICE to play the way they want, the CHOICE to opt out of PvP in a game in which PvP means having an awful experience for most people. I know the forum is filled with masochists and sadists, but my point is WHY LIMITING POTENTIAL PLAYERS OUT OF YOUR SERVICE (not game) FOR ABSOLUTELY NO REASON.

    Do you know a very easy way to balance exploration and player combat and have an even bigger playerbase, all together with a single change? Letting people CHOOSE if they want exploration, player combat, or both together.

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

    @personalc0ffee said in [Mega Thread] Balancing Exploration and Player Combat - Part 5:

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

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

    @moon-trooper
    You have no proof the game is losing players. Just because your friends left means nothing. And you can avoid being attacked very easy. Sounds like you guys didnt keep a lookout.

    Sadly the game is barely a top thirty played its dropping fast.

    No one honestly cares if streamers are playing the game or not.

    Top thirty on microsoft store I don't care about twitch this isn't a good streaming game imo.

    The fact that Halo 5 has a larger active player base than SoT on the Xbox is pretty good evidence the game isn't doing well.

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

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

    @personalc0ffee said in [Mega Thread] Balancing Exploration and Player Combat - Part 5:

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

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

    @moon-trooper
    You have no proof the game is losing players. Just because your friends left means nothing. And you can avoid being attacked very easy. Sounds like you guys didnt keep a lookout.

    Sadly the game is barely a top thirty played its dropping fast.

    No one honestly cares if streamers are playing the game or not.

    Top thirty on microsoft store I don't care about twitch this isn't a good streaming game imo.

    The fact that Halo 5 has a larger active player base than SoT on the Xbox is pretty good evidence the game isn't doing well.

    Couldn't have anything to do with one being a massively popular and long-standing franchise installment in a completely different, massively popular genre.

  • @chitown-bear
    It was actually ranked 27 when i wrote that it's gone up some lol. But yeah I think like 20000 Play H5.

  • Can't wait for this topic to be absolutely ignored in the weekly update. Just half a day to be disappointed again!

  • @navarita More than that considering they didn't even patch today. They did maintenance and will do another patch later on in the week "like they planned"

  • @pikavenger It's crazy that they really do wait until the very last possible second to see if they can actually deliver or not.

    Because, you know, if delaying the patch was actually planned, they could communicate it. If they knew what features would they have working and ready to be released in the patch, they could communicate it beforehand. If they knew anything at all, they could tell us in advance.

    Wait and see, wait and see, because we literally don't know what's there to see either so we can't really tell you.

  • I wish there was something that Rare could do about the length of time it takes to respawn and allowing enemy players to spawn trap you on your own ship.

    In the amount of time it takes to respawn, an enemy player can hijack your ship, run aground, sink it, etc and you won't be able to do anything about it once you return. I've seen games that are more complicated and populated than SoT with a faster respawn rate.

    The other night I was in my sloop and I tried to ambush a Galleon that was checking out an island. I did some damage, not sure if I sunk them or not, because someone from the enemy crew got on board and killed me. That didn't bother me, it was a fair "eye for an eye". I respawned in my ship's hull and I didn't get two feet before I killed me again (apparently, he was already down there). I respawned again and in trying to get to the ship's wheel, the guy came out of nowhere and killed me yet again. Finally I just scuttled the ship so it would respawn somewhere else.

    What sort of options could Rare explore to help eliminate or limit this spawn trap technique? If I had treasure on my ship, I'd at least want to have the opportunity to retake my ship. Perhaps a player could have about 5 to 10 seconds of not being able to take damage upon respawning?

  • @chitown-bear Wish I could upvote this to infinity.

  • @kiethblacklion
    Ita very frustrating because it varys so much. Sometimes i can spawn instantly, and sometimes i have to close the game because it wont load me back in at all.

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

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

    @personalc0ffee That seems like a pretty good representation of the data. People AREN'T buying it.

    None of my friends decided to buy the game after the gamepass. Some of them stopped playing even before the
    gamepass trial ended because of the ridiculous limitless PvP that forces PvE players to just have the worst time because they're the mice in a cat vs mouse game.

    I can't even imagine how many purchases they lost because of their stubbornness in keeping PvP and PvE together. Because of their total repulsion to give players the CHOICE to play the way they want, the CHOICE to opt out of PvP in a game in which PvP means having an awful experience for most people. I know the forum is filled with masochists and sadists, but my point is WHY LIMITING POTENTIAL PLAYERS OUT OF YOUR SERVICE (not game) FOR ABSOLUTELY NO REASON.

    Do you know a very easy way to balance exploration and player combat and have an even bigger playerbase, all together with a single change? Letting people CHOOSE if they want exploration, player combat, or both together.

    Yeah, it's quite humorous that they created PvP in a way that it can basically ignore the rest of the game and players have the option to just focus on PvP if they don't care about the rest of the game's minimal content. Meanwhile though, those who enjoy the content can't just focus on voyages and cooperation. They're stuck dealing with others who decide to force their gameplay preferences down their throats and there's nothing they can do to avoid it unless they want to waste time and basically give the PvPers exactly what they want.

    It's basically lose-lose for anyone that doesn't want to deal with the constant threat of PvP.

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

    Can't wait for this topic to be absolutely ignored in the weekly update. Just half a day to be disappointed again!

    I mean that's pretty much the point of these megathreads is to move all discussion to a secluded place that's disconnected from the general discussion forum and whatnot.

  • Yet another player throwing their hat into the PVE pile.

    I've read your arguments PVP fans, I get your concerns. I for one have never enjoyed PvP.

    I've been gaming coming on 20 years now and love to play games with friends. Yes you think it's boring to do exclusively PVE, yes that is valid for you. But for me I'm hitting the point of done, on a game I otherwise love. The stress of constantly worrying some player is going to roll up on me doesn't improve my experience. The fact that your fun has to come at my expense does not improve my experience.

    You can insult, berate, bash and complain about all the wimp PvE players until we all quit. You'll be in the exact same position that a PVE server will cause. Only other players out for more PvP.

    So why not allow people to enjoy the game they want? Are you so scared you'll have to work for your loot?

    My interest in SoT dies a little more with each encounter. Soon it'll be gone and no amount of new contact will revive that.

    I can't wait to completely avoid the hungering deep. As soon as I saw it requires another team I closed the trailer and stopped caring.

    Lastly a pve server builds community. You spent all this time making your pirate outfit. I want to see you, I want to inspect your style and take inspiration from it. I want to share a beer and swap stories. Yet it's impossible, the PvP players have built such a distrust I don't care if you flag as friendly. I'm leaving as quickly as possible. If you follow I'll go to the edge of the map and lose everything I have, where you can't get it. I've wasted countless hours out running some clown chasing me down. I don't play the game to sail the whole time. I play it fight skellies, dig up treasure and poach a whole lot of chickens. That and spend far too much gold on outfits. Over 250k in clothing, I want to show it off.

  • @sorenthaz sagte in [Mega Thread] Balancing Exploration and Player Combat - Part 5:

    Meanwhile though, those who enjoy the content can't just focus on voyages and cooperation. They're stuck dealing with others who decide to force their gameplay preferences down their throats and there's nothing they can do to avoid it unless they want to waste time and basically give the PvPers exactly what they want.

    It's basically lose-lose for anyone that doesn't want to deal with the constant threat of PvP.

    No. They can just flee. Seriously, you're making it up as if players who only do voyages (I'm one of those 95 percent of the time btw.) have no choice but to face the other players.
    I had some nice fights before but when I saw that my buddy and I had no choice we just turned our ship around and fled.
    Other times when we have no bounty on the ship because we hadn't reached our destination yet, we hunt them down even if they're in a galleon and we're in a slope.
    It's fun. We still got shot to hell though.

    There is still enough room on the map to actively avoid other players.

  • Yes Rare, don't implement such much requested feature by a large percentage of the players interested in the game because @wesk89 himself doesn't need it and his experience is universal and the Truth there is.

    Running away from players IS having to deal with forced PvP. I just want to be left the f in peace, not have to be constantly paranoid and stressed.

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

    Running away from players IS having to deal with forced PvP. I just want to be left the f in peace, not have to be constantly paranoid and stressed.

    That's literally exactly it for me. Stress. I play games to relax and enjoy my time. To go on wild and crazy adventures with friends through a myriad of games. We exclusively play GTA on NAT made private servers, we hunt monsters or build massive fortresses in Minecraft. We slaughter hordes of monsters in Diablo or build a huge zoo with tons of animals and crazy paths. We spend countless hours buying clothes and changing styles. All immense amounts of therapeutic fun.

    Yesterday we hopped on Sea of Thieves after setting up some thriving communities to survive against zombies. We set off an cleared out most of a very generous (in quantity) gold hoarders mission. Some legendary rolled up on us and took us down. It literally took the wind right out of our sails. He watched Netflix the rest of the night while I played state of decay. It effectively ruined our desire to play. I won't be signing on for a few days as these kinds of experiences are not enjoyable. My first thought wasn't let's go get our stuff back.

    Personally I don't care if PvPers think I'm wrong, this is one of those we are both right situations. If you like PvP awesome! I hope you get into some legendary battles and have some amazing stories to tell. But that's not my story. I avoid literally every ship I see period. There are no welcoming sails on the horizon. No reason for me to interact with the community.

    One of my best experiences was another galleon we met. We cleared a skull island together, our ship got caught between two towers and we had to scuttle it. We loaded our share of the loot on their ship. Sailed to the nearest outpost where a respawned teammate had brought our galleon. We chatted for an hour while shooting each other at each other's ships. This escalated to s***t shooting where we would try to snipe players launched from a cannon.

    I want those kinds of experiences. Yes I understand s***t shooting wouldn't work. But the few times where the other ship was trustworthy and nice were some of the best times I've had.

  • @navarita
    Rare is not ignoring anyone about this issue. They have already said no to pve servers. You just cant accept that answer. Again this thread is about balance. Not segregation

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