I have no problem with server hoppers, whether or not a streamer has an army of server hoppers, the streamer can only occupy one of the servers at a time so chances are very slim that they end up in your server even if they have the army of hoppers behind them.
I only take issue with Alliance servers, which a lot of streamers partake in. The issue I have with Alliance servers are the massive amounts of gold these players accumulate compared to what someone makes playing the game how it was meant to be played. I wouldn't care about someone having more gold but I believe that experienced players with excess gold who are looking for a gold sink to be implemented into the game will encounter ridiculously priced gold sinks because of alliance server players. A regular player who has played for a few years probably has 10-20 mil gold to spare, a server alliance player probably has 50-100+ mil gold. This will most likely cause a bias in the average gold of veteran players when it comes to determining prices of gold sinks. (For example: If they add a buyable storage crate, the cost should be around 10000g, but given the bias from alliance server players it could cost 50000g.)

So I can confirm that there is some kind of organized FOTD search party going on. 10-15 minutes after starting FOTD on almost empty server, waves of well organized crews will show up trying to do YouTube style tucking and attacks. New/newish people have no chance to do FOTD. Maybe limit server joins when FOTD is active ?

@dlchief58
I reiterate that your experience, nor anyone elses, dictates anyone elses experience.
It doesn't matter how far apart the general rarity of each type of ship is, sooner or later there will still be players who disproportionately encounter the rarest.
If only 1% of the playerbase ever uses brigs, the playerbase will still eventually contain a player who sees far more brigs than sloops or galleons.
The probability of it being low is irrelevent, to say it won't happen the probability has to be zero.
I don't know what percentage of the playerbase tends to use galleons, but it doesn't matter, apparently I'm a player who sees them disproportionately. It was bound to happen. Frankly I'd prefer it if I saw more sloops and less galleons, it would be nice to be outnumbered less often. I actually saw a two brigs, finally, in between the galleons a couple days ago. I'll take that as a step in the right direction.

@the-song42 said in Rare's Intention?:

@dlchief58
Your experience does not dictate mine.
If what you witness is different than what I witness, that's perfectly reasonable.
So long as all 3 ships exist as options, random chance dictates that sooner or later each will have players who see them at a disproportionate rate, and you shouldn't be surprised by it happening.
Your claim to mainly see sloops is contradictory to my experience, and were I to think the way you implied you do I'd say I can't take you seriously because of the difference, but instead I just accept that you are coincidentally being put in servers full of sloops while I'm not.

Except I've got a lot more time on my sea legs than you and the bulk of the community backing me up on the rarity of galleons these days. Whether you believe it or not, the galleon is the least used ship these days...PERIOD. It didn't use to be that way, the first year it was primarily galleons and a few sloops (Brigantine was not introduced yet). But over time it has shifted so now the sloop and brig are the most common. So if you want to stick to that fantasy, go ahead just don't expect those of us who know better to participate.

@the-song42 That doesn't actually make sense when you think it through though. The tables don't show you where they are, only that they exist on the server. So if you're not supposed to be hopping to look for servers with emissaries then there's no reason to put the little boats on the tables because you'll already see the actual boats when you're sailing around the server. Not to mention not being able to hop to look for emissaries would severely limit peoples ability to work on the reapers faction. As someone who does hop I can tell you the majority of servers I hop to have no emissaries on them at all. I mean yes you can up your emissary grade by doing PvE, but it's painfully slow as that is not how Rare designed it to be leveled.

Speaking of which I find it incredibly hard to believe that when Rare created tables at the outposts showing you exactly how many emissaries are on the server that they didn't know that this is exactly what it would lead to. People hopping to find favorable ones. It would take a complete ignorance of their playerbase to not see that coming. Particularly when they've been observing how people had been playing the game for the previous 2 years. Seems to me they would have fully anticipated that.

@dlchief58
Your experience does not dictate mine.
If what you witness is different than what I witness, that's perfectly reasonable.
So long as all 3 ships exist as options, random chance dictates that sooner or later each will have players who see them at a disproportionate rate, and you shouldn't be surprised by it happening.
Your claim to mainly see sloops is contradictory to my experience, and were I to think the way you implied you do I'd say I can't take you seriously because of the difference, but instead I just accept that you are coincidentally being put in servers full of sloops while I'm not.

@ginger-one-eye People watching streamers are not playing the game. Outside of PhuzzyBond who provides helpful info to all, most others are well boring.

I spent an hour a short time ago watching a streamer and nearly fell asleep. I don’t get Twitch tbh. Seems like a money grab for streamers because it is. Apparently they have the ability to gift at the game producers discretion.

I’m an old school online gamer. People just played and didn’t get paid. When you logged out the game ended.

@captain-coel said in Rare's Intention?:

@kush-n-bacon420 said in Rare's Intention?:

Didn't read through the thread, but I have to say I agree completely. It's kind of pathetic that a normal player can get banned for "stream sniping", yet streamers are essentially allowed to snipe your average player without any penalty at all. When you think about it, it's the exact same thing- except the streamer is putting themselves out there to be sniped (and is literally getting paid to do so in most cases), while the average player is just trying to enjoy the game.

they arent sniping an average player, they can not see what they are doing. stream sniping is the old school equivalent to screen watching when playing a couch game.

Let me put it this way: let's say a big streamer gets stream sniped one time in a given week (unlikely in my opinion, since it's completely RNG to get into someone elses server and they server hop so much... but I digress) are they going to quit the game? No, they're getting benefit from the game outside of the actual enjoyment they get out of playing it. Not to mention the fact that it's literally part of being a streamer... you put yourself out there, what do you expect?

On the contrary, what happens when a big streamer uses their viewers to find "content"? Essentially, we're currently in a situation where you have tons of viewers holding the place of streamers- players who would otherwise be playing the game and engaging, but they aren't because they're too busy trying to give their streamer "content". Now not only are they wasting a slot on my server, they're also basically a sleeper agent who can awaken at any moment to unleash hell on my server. Most of the people on this game are harmless, but not when they give up their spot to a streamer who spends 60 hours a week playing the game and does nothing but server hop and PvP. Now consider how many people these streamers hit in a single day (let's say 5 people, even though I think that's a bit low since it can take mere minutes for a streamer to join a server, sink their target, and leave), that's 35 people a week the streamer has targeted and, in many cases, soured their experience with the game.

But yeah, stream sniping is way worse and impacts way more people. Using your viewers to have eyes and ears on tons of servers at once grants absolutely no advantage, and no one has ever been negatively impacted by it, ever. \s

@captain-coel said in Rare's Intention?:

@ginger-one-eye i don't see it as a problem whats so ever. I think the bigger problem is people get mad when they lose loot and this is just one more place to put the blame.

I don't disagree with this statement, yes people get mad about losing loot- but it's kind of understandable to be upset when you get thrown in an unwinnable battle (i.e. sloop against a decent galleon crew, it doesn't even matter how good the sloop is). This problem is accentuated by the fact that streamers have their eyes and ears in tons of servers at once, and it's one of the main reasons why this is an issue that should be addressed. Realistically speaking, there are a lot of really bad players on this game and it's fairly unlikely that you're going to come up against anyone remotely good on a normal server. Throw streamers and their fanbase into the situation, and it becomes much more likely that you're going against someone who's going to absolutely wreck you.

Streamers have undoubtedly changed the way this game is played by everyone, and not in a positive way. Rare allows this situation to continue because it benefits their business, they take action against stream snipers because it does not. It's that simple.

@the-song42 said in Rare's Intention?:

@wolfmanbush said in Rare's Intention?:

The poor galleon
rarely ever used on the sea but always used in exaggerations on forums

For my part, the vast majority of what I encounter is galleons.
Sloops are out there but rare, galleons are everywhere, and I have no memory of ever seeing, let alone interacting with, a crew using a brigantine. Used one myself, once, but that's the only sighting I've had.

If you are sticking to that story I'm afraid we can't take you seriously. It is well known that the most common ships on any given server are sloops and brigantines and galleons are on the rare side these days. I saw my first player galleon Sunday in many weeks, had to do a double take to see if it was a skeleton one or that of a player.

@projectexodus64 Sorry if that read as getting at you – that was absolutely not the intention and I should have been more careful with my wording. I was aiming that at content creators who use their platform make out that PvP is the only interesting aspect of the game. Apologies for seeming to have a go.

@theseventeas my intent wasn’t to say that it’s a pure 100% pvp game. There would be no point if that were the case, since the only thing you’d be fighting for is supplies without the pve aspect. My point was that at its core, since gold has no real purpose and neither does rep except cosmetics, it’s a pvp game. Sorry for the misunderstanding

@wolfmanbush said in Rare's Intention?:

The poor galleon
rarely ever used on the sea but always used in exaggerations on forums

For my part, the vast majority of what I encounter is galleons.
Sloops are out there but rare, galleons are everywhere, and I have no memory of ever seeing, let alone interacting with, a crew using a brigantine. Used one myself, once, but that's the only sighting I've had.

@the-song42 said in Rare's Intention?:

I think my main issue with the server hopping streamers and whatnot is the elimination of a degree of "tactical decision making".

A given player should be able to evaluate the server they are on and make the judgement that "this is the time to do fotd (or whatever event it is they want)" in effort to have it work they way they like [wether they want to be alone or start a server wide brawl, whatever it is they're after] with the potential for that judgement of the server and its other ships active to be right or wrong.

But that's not a thing. You can't judge a server because as soon as you start something suddenly 100 server hopping galleons approach. The tactical element of deciding when to do and not to do a given thing is removed by the game because it will always have the same result regardless. It feels like a gameplay element is missing.

The poor galleon
rarely ever used on the sea but always used in exaggerations on forums

@snowboarderx115 said in Rare's Intention?:

@stundorn said in Rare's Intention?:

@lukadra

Hopping for alliances, hopping to find emmisary ,active Ford, Event... is cheesing, it and its influencing others players by unintended ways.
Simple as that, you are cheesing not playing the regular intended way.
end of story.

It affects other players, so sorry no freedom imho.

I have to disagree with saying by hopping to find emissaries you're not playing the intended way. It would seem to me that is explicitly the point of the little ships on the emissary tables. So that people who wanted to find and sink them could server hop and find them easier. This plays in to the whole risk/reward of flying an emissary flag. If that wasn't the case then why have the tables show how many people are representing each faction on the server at all? What would be the point?

The point of those is not to let you server hop until you find a server with emisarries active. The point is to make so that if there happens to be emissaries active on the server you were already on without hopping, you can see where they are and hunt them down. On the one server.

@wolfmanbush said in Rare's Intention?:

Is it fair that I sail 3 hours without anyone bothering me while I sell ridiculous amounts of loot?

Yes. That is entirely fair. You put in the work to get the loot, you sold it. There's nothing unfair about it.

I think my main issue with the server hopping streamers and whatnot is the elimination of a degree of "tactical decision making".

A given player should be able to evaluate the server they are on and make the judgement that "this is the time to do fotd (or whatever event it is they want)" in effort to have it work they way they like [wether they want to be alone or start a server wide brawl, whatever it is they're after] with the potential for that judgement of the server and its other ships active to be right or wrong.

But that's not a thing. You can't judge a server because as soon as you start something suddenly 100 server hopping galleons approach. The tactical element of deciding when to do and not to do a given thing is removed by the game because it will always have the same result regardless. It feels like a gameplay element is missing.

@captain-coel said in Rare's Intention?:

@ginger-one-eye i don't see it as a problem whats so ever. I think the bigger problem is people get mad when they lose loot and this is just one more place to put the blame.

I'm with you. Besides, I like running high level reaper or athena to bring in streamers. I get good fights that way. I also like watching it happen when watching for drops or just to have background noise at work. It shows what the game CAN be like and if someone randomly watches a stream to check out the game I think it's better they see the cool stuff more often than sailing around trying to find an x in the dirt.

Personally I wouldn't give a streamer a server unless I got to play with them. That would be my price for not bringing my own crew to the fun. However it is just as much of a community thing as people who organize alliance servers and I find the latter a lot more toxic and against the spirit of the game. I have run into more people trying to bully me off my ship so they can set up their "alliance server" who are toxic, hate spewing d***waffles than I have had bad experiences with streamers hopping into my FotD or Athena Emissary server. I don't really see this as a big enough problem to implement a fix on.

@ginger-one-eye i don't see it as a problem whats so ever. I think the bigger problem is people get mad when they lose loot and this is just one more place to put the blame.

@captain-coel They might not be stream sniping in the classical sense but these big partnered streamers are using their community to find and hop servers for them which the average/normal player does not have access to. Thus giving them a statistical advantage in finding "spice" like FOTD, guilded runs etc...semi rare things.

It would be different if say one of their viewers invited them to play with them and they actually made a game out of it....but these streamers that have their own crew, take servers from viewers, then the viewer leaves so the streamers crew can join. Rinse, repeat. Server hop like every other normal player if that's how they choose to play to look for "spice". They shouldn't be allowed to stack the numbers in their favor by using their chat in the way described above. More people looking for you and holding servers, means better chances for the streamer.

Bottom line and the question everyone should be asking themselves weather you disagree with this post or agree. Does every player in SOT have access to do the same thing that these big partnered streamers are doing? No, of course not. Therefore something needs to be done about using their Twitch chat in this fashion.

@cptphteven said in Rare's Intention?:

@projectexodus64 said in Rare's Intention?:

It’s a pvp game, I get that. The whole goal is to have fun by fighting other people, whether you lose or win isn’t really important.

The thing is... that's not true. It's not a PvP game. It's a PvEvP sandbox game. The idea that the goal is to have fun by fighting other people drastically reduces the scope of the game and doesn't represent how the majority of people play the game.

This, 1000%. It grinds my gears when people describe a server with no FOTD or high-grade (Athena or Reaper) emissaries as 'dead'. There can be so plenty of scope for interesting interactions on a server with people doing normal voyages or hunting emergent skeleton ships or w/e.

@projectexodus64 said in Rare's Intention?:

It’s a pvp game, I get that. The whole goal is to have fun by fighting other people, whether you lose or win isn’t really important.

The thing is... that's not true. It's not a PvP game. It's a PvEvP sandbox game. The idea that the goal is to have fun by fighting other people drastically reduces the scope of the game and doesn't represent how the majority of people play the game.

It’s a pvp game, I get that. The whole goal is to have fun by fighting other people, whether you lose or win isn’t really important. What gets me is when streamers spend all day getting servers from their hive mind community, sink some ships, get a new server, repeat. I understand the point is pvp, but it’s different when you’re doing that whole process for views. Not to mention there isn’t much of a point. You could argue that the whole game is pointless and you wouldn’t be wrong, but when you have every cosmetic and every guild is at 75, pl 20, etc, I just can’t justify doing that. Find a different game or something. It’s different when you’re doing something like pace and try and get to Athena 20 with all steals, but after that last chest, if you still keep doing it I think that’s borderline toxic

@theseventeas said in Rare's Intention?:

Thing the second: Placing limits on server-hopping is impossible to implement in a way that doesn't have unintended consequences way out of proportion to the problem it intends to address, affecting more players more intrusively than the original problem. It might not even be realistically possible at all to address the original 'thing' in any meaningful sense.

I agree with one caveat: It's not impossible to limit Sea of Thieves Partners from streaming server hopping. That would be very easy to do, and has a simple cudgel that can be held over them: If you server hop for content, you lose your partnership.

Now, I don't expect Rare to do that because they've shown time and time again that they favor the streamer server hop "non-stop action" style of gameplay even though it's a very inaccurate representation of the actual game. But they COULD do it.

@kush-n-bacon420 said in Rare's Intention?:

Didn't read through the thread, but I have to say I agree completely. It's kind of pathetic that a normal player can get banned for "stream sniping", yet streamers are essentially allowed to snipe your average player without any penalty at all. When you think about it, it's the exact same thing- except the streamer is putting themselves out there to be sniped (and is literally getting paid to do so in most cases), while the average player is just trying to enjoy the game.

they arent sniping an average player, they can not see what they are doing. stream sniping is the old school equivalent to screen watching when playing a couch game.