@cotu42 said in [Mega Thread] PvP and PvE Playstyle Discussion:
If you want that PvP is always rewarding regardless of whether you have treasure or not? A bounty system that if you defend well, entices others to hunt you down even more? Do you truly believe this will not make the seas even more kill on sight, as now everyone is worth it at all times? Wouldn't this increase the hostility upon the waves and be an even bigger outcry of those that complain about being sunk, while they carried no treasure? Keep in mind many complaints are of people that also have nothing to risk other than their supplies.
The point of the system is not to punish. And people who defend are not the target there. Odds that you're constantly attacked are less than being the aggressor. People doing pve aren't looking for pvp, they might be later on after they are done with pve, but that's another choice for them to make. They are not attacking to defend against other pirates as frequently as those who seek to attack. So the natural curve of the bounty system already solves this thing. The higher bounties will always be on the pvp players heads, not vice versa. No matter how successful you're at defending your ship. Only exception is the FoTD, but that's a pvp hotspot, already known to the entire server by the one very distinquished skull on the sky. You go there odds are you'll be getting some bounty levels regardless if you start the fort or attack the ones doing it. Anyone successfully defending off an attacker, their bounty increases but not at the rate of the aggressor, who does nothing than hunt pvp. You sink that one ship when attacked and the attacker goes to the next target and the next target after that whilst you'll continue your voyage doing pve. This was the point of the bounty system. The guy digging up chests isn't running around gathering bounty levels, they defend when needed once or twice a session, i don't know.. If you do your PVE correctly and keep your eye on the horizon etc evasive tactics, your bounty level will never increase, if they still don't want to the bounty to increase they can just run and avoid as they've done before. If the bounty on you is something that scares you, it's pretty easy to avoid, don't sink other ships. The point of the system was to make the people who actively search pvp to have a gold or value on them to other players on the server. Let's say you're Pace, you don't do voyages like ever, you don't do tall tales, like ever, you don't do forts like ever, you count on other people doing them for you and then you pirate the loot of them. This is pretty much the guy who would probably have the highest bounty on their head in the leaderboards and has entire servers hunting their head. Not the guy who randomly gets attacked and manages to fight off the attacker. If they even manage to defend, their bounty value growth would be slow, real slow. The pvpve'r who does their voyage and then goes hunting pvp, well their bounty depends on how successful their hunt is. Did they sink anyone, are they good at pvp. If they are then they will get recognized as such. They are actively searching pvp so now the pvp will search them, cause of the bounty. If there's a grade 5 bounty (for example Pace on the server) worth a million gold and visible like a xmas tree on the map and a grade 1 bounty (guy who defended himself once) worth like 50k and not yet visible on the map, let's say grade 2 makes you visible on the map and grade 3 revels your boat type on the map and grade 4 reveals your leaderboard rank. And then there's 3 other ships on the server. Are they all going to attack and hunt the random 50k bounty or the 1 million gold bounty? You do the math. If you're aiming to do a bunch of Athena speed runs next week. Maybe just maybe you lay low on pvp on the week before if you don't want to be light up like a xmas tree on the map the entire next week you're doing Athena runs. It controls the flow naturally. If you're fine being the target and constantly being attacked by other players in the hopes of claiming the bounty off you. Well more power to you. Keep it up and hope you survive. But if you're the random pve noob who does tall tales, this will never be you, unless you accidentally go and sink a bunch of enemy player ships, purely on accident.
Does it remove killing on sight entirely, no. Me as a player who never attacks, am i going to get sunk and killed still, for no reason. Sure, absolutely. BUT at least i know that the person who sunk me, if they keep doing that to everyone they come across. Soon enough they will be hunted down and someone will claim some money from their head. Even the best galleon crew in the game is no match to 4 other galleons in an alliance working together all simultaneously trying to kill you for your bounty. No matter who you are, you're going to sink. You can only 1vX so many players at the same time.
And then there's the bail out system tied to it. Is it worth killing in sight and sinking a ship that's carrying one Captains chest and nothing else worth 1000g. When sinking them your ship becomes worth 50k for others to sink. And if you want to remove the bounty by paying the npc to do so, it'll cost you 25k gold. Are you going to think about killing on sight without making sure the enemy players ship is worth sinking or are you going to sink it regardless? Is it worth it.. If you want to have the bounty, you'll still sink everyone, but your average random Joe might think twice to KoS.
If you have a grade 5 bounty on your head odds are you've been a naughty person and sunk way too many ships. Now others can come and claim the bounty off your head. You're notorious, you're known, you've got your moment in the spotlight showing that hey you're a bad *** pirate, but you're now also worth something to other players in the game. It can be a tool to gloat to others of your pvp skill, whilst also being a target for others to try and take your glory and earn a coin when they kill you. How does this promote killing on sight? Unless you absolutely desire to be hunted on. Then you kill everyone and all you see, but here's the catch. I'd argue most of the so called pvp'rs here don't want to be the prey, they want to be the hunter.. Am i right? So there's now a choice to be made before you randomly kill on sight? Do i kill everything on sight until everyone comes together and kills me or do i actually think about who to kill and when and control my trigger finger when it's worth the cost it brings. Unless you know you can carry the grade 5 bounty, why would you go killing everyone insight, cause it makes the bounty on your head even bigger to the point that entire servers just want to kill you, they don't want to kill the others cause they are not worth their time, they want to kill the guy with the biggest bounty.
The emissary system has tried to create these type of situations where both sides always bring something of value. By having people opt into a situation where you indicate I am always worth coin and open for battle. Empty or not, most likely people will try and sink you. You want to forcefully have people take part in it?
The emissary flags value is closer to zero than worth it, unless you actually are flying reaper colors. The mentioned system above isn't forcing you to anything. PVP is always a choice, you can always choose not to pvp as many have said. Running away doesn't grant any bounties to anyone. It would now be the risk, you or anyone as a pvp'r takes. Just like the PVE guy takes a risk digging up that chest of theirs, they choose to take it when they dig it up, that any moment some other guy comes and steals it. This is the exact same for the opposition. You make a choice when you turn your boat towards the island with idle boat and go and sink them. That you gain a rep as a pirate. Who's ship and life are now worth taking out. It might be the guy who you just sunk that 2 hours later after you've sunk 13 other boats that comes to claim the gold on your head. And that guy gains 1 bounty level from killing you, when you've gained 13 in levels in the last 2 hours. That's the point in the system. Active pvp players are worth something to fight against.
You state a majority of PvEvP players don't do both at once, which I agree with, they unload their ships before heading into battle. However to state it doesn't matter that 10 mins prior they had tons of loot on board, that this is irrelevant to the discussion is false. People want to create the picture that those that attack others never are at risk, while the reality is they take those same risks. They might manage their risks better, know how to avoid PvP better, sell more frequently and engage in PvP only on their terms. There is no real way to ensure in a sandbox game that both sides bring equal amounts of rewards for the others.
Sure the bounty might not be as big as fotd full haul, but that would be something instead of nothing or a ship full of supplies. Which is something i still don't understand. Why are supplies something of a value here? People defend it like supplies are the end all be all thing in the game. They are free to gather from any box and barrel and the ship spawns with enough supplies to sink 1-3 other ships as standard. You spawn in outpost, spend 2 minutes to gather supplies and you have enough to last 6 hours. How does that compare in value of a 100k gold from a fort or 2-3 hours time spent on athena voyage? It doesn't, it doesn't even a fraction. So the 2 minutes of gathered supplies should be worth enough for the defender to fight against the attacker? What's the value? one full crate of bananas sold to merchant? Whoopsie doo. That's some serious coin. Gonna buy a sailor hat with all that money. Had to fight for my life and my athena and all i got was this lousy box of bananas and can't forget the attacker who lost the battle and the selfrespect they lost in the process, won that too. Whiiii! It almost killed me when i didn't choose to attack myself and almost lost 4 hours of my life for nothing, but at least i got those 2 things to show for it.
Those that do both PvE and PvP in the world have been on both sides of the coin. They should understand that at times they hold the treasure and other times it will be the other way around. There is no perfect system that won't promote the KoS mentality and award those for taking out empty low risk ships.
That was the whole point of the above system. By actively seeking to pvp and actually succeeding in it, you're painting a bigger target on your own "behind". To me it sounds like a reasonable reason not to keep sinking and killing everything on sight, unless you're prepared that entire servers and fleet of ships are soon coming after you like 3v10 situations. I mean if you want a challenge it will be coming for you, but if you're a random person seeing a random ship with no emissary, no paints , 1 solo slooper on deck and no visible treasure glowing, you might actually think twice if it's wise to straigh out attack. Maybe.. just maybe you'll get closer and talk a while, or sneak in and see if that ship is even worth sinking. If it is you sink them. But if it's an empty boat and nothing to gain, except you'll get a bounty of 50k on your own head when doing it.. Well the choice is yours, but at least it's another choice, instead of you just manhandling some noob who spawned first time in the game.
If we create a world where people do the PvE without the PvP, it becomes an easy menu choice. As you state PvEvP people don't engage in both at the same time for the majority, so they would choose at the menu screen.
My point of that was in the previous post. The solution to that is a Sea of Thieves single player game. Not this game, no pve mode for this game. An entire stand alone game, with no multiplayer. But that's a whole other subject. Then the choice becomes do you pay for the full title to solo sloop or continue SoT.
It is a balancing act, where everyone at some point has risks they take and when they don't. This is done by having everyone engage in the activities in a shared PvEvP world. It is what makes the game a PvEvP one, it isn't suited for everyone. Yet it is what also many actually enjoy and why they play specifically this game for.
Why the balancing act cannot be done in every fight not just the fights where you're the aggressor who is favored? The whole point of the bounty system is that both parties bring something to the battle, not just the pve guys. The PvPvE players might bring both. They might have a bounty on them and loot, but their bounty won't be as high as the players who are hardcore pvp, who will never dig up a single chest, unless it's stolen. They have their own glory and notorious name, but it comes with a price. A price on their head, if someone bests them, that person gains more than just a notch on the belt. And the PVE guys who never aggro on others, well their bounties will be as low as they want. If you've run up to this point you can keep running never ever getting a bounty on your head, ever. Or if in a tough spot and it's a 150k of your loot or sink and die. You might actually defend yourself in that situation. So what if you gain a level 1 bounty on you. If you've made 150k loot and killed a level 5 grade bounty in the process to protect your loot. Your own emissary ( NOT THE BOUNTY ONE) if you have an normal emissary flag is now filled max for killing the aggressor, (granted this was the other suggestion, different from the bounty system) who was trying to steal your loot as reward. Makes a hell of a reason to try and defend your own ship, if in the end 150k is worth like 300k and all you have to do is defend your ship. Think you can afford to pay off the level 1 bounty you received in the process for killing the guy trying to kill you.
So what determines who is the attacker? Two options either the one who shoots first or a reason to carry stuff on your ship. Which ship has more value on them. If the guy coming after you has one marauders chest on their ship or nothing and you have 16 athena chests well there you go.. Or both systems combined.. This might actually encourage pvp attackers to start carrying massive amounts of loot on their ships at all times. Granted that would play the system, but now there's some serious treasure at play. If both parties before the battle already are fighting on the stance of who is recognised as the aggressor and who the defender.
And this is not an unheard system. Actual real pirates where subjects to such bounties by the different military forces and trading companies. Why can't a game about pirates actually have something that's a reflection of the real life. There's authorities making bounties for criminals every day on this planet. Why is the game protecting the pirates who steal and get away with it? If i bring this point up here i'm sure some pvp'r will jump in to defend their side that hey it's a game, chill we just want to have fun and pillage. Well so does the pve side. But there it is.. It's not so convenient when your fun is subject to being ruined is it now? As said all people want to do is make others miserable, that's how they get their kicks. When you're on the receiving end the fun stops and suddenly the game systems are "punishing" only you.
