[Mega Thread] - Cross Play (Part 1)
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@theobsidianpic I disagree. With the simplistic design of the game, it will be easy to maintain balance with the ranges of PCs and supported consoles. If you're worried about high-end PCs having an advantage, upgrade yourself to a One X.
I played on PC and Xbox One X during the closed beta and neither side had an advantage.
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@mysterymanlw Not true. I've used both pc and xbox during the beta and played with a mix of both pc and xbox. It's nothing to do with the system but the players themselves. But the cross play certainly does work and very well.
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@sloshed-smurf said in [Mega Thread] - Cross Play:
Based on what I've seen, you can do better on an xBox than on a PC if you know how to use an xBox controller. My friends aim is a lot better on xBox than it is on a PC.
That's literally the first time I've ever heard someone say something like that. Usually it's the other way around. I played both. Both felt balanced. I don't understand the need for this thread when crossplay will indeed be a part of the game.
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@sloshed-smurf Ok... but what is the difference in general play time of games on Xbox and pc for your friend? If your friend plays Xbox significantly more than of course, he will be better with a controller than with mouse and keyboard. Honestly, it all comes down to experience and play time with either or. In all reality, in any normal situation, an experienced mouse and keyboard user will statistically have the edge over a controller user (when it comes to shooter style games). This doesn't mean that a person using a controller cant beat someone using mouse and keyboard (I'm sure it happens all the time). As I stated above though it all comes down to experience and play time.
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@plague-doctor0 said in [Mega Thread] - Cross Play:
@sloshed-smurf Ok... but what is the difference in general play time of games on Xbox and pc for your friend? If your friend plays Xbox significantly more than of course, he will be better with a controller than with mouse and keyboard. Honestly, it all comes down to experience and play time with either or. In all reality, in any normal situation, an experienced mouse and keyboard user will statistically have the edge over a controller user (when it comes to shooter style games). This doesn't mean that a person using a controller cant beat someone using mouse and keyboard (I'm sure it happens all the time). As I stated above though it all comes down to experience and play time.
Could you provide me the article to these stats that you are referring to? When was this statistical analysis performed? Is this article a randomized controlled trial or a systematic review?
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@knightx13 Interesting situation. I believe that cross play is a good idea for fostering cross platform community around this game. More community, better community, better for the game, win win win.
In that spirit, I think it is important to not create situations within the game which will make establishing and or maintaining this community more difficult. We are six weeks out from launch. There is still plenty of time to make good decisions before going gold.
The specific decision I am concerned about is inclusion of the eye of reach. I am a PC player and I use an Xbox controller. I used the eye a lot during beta, and though it was fun to blow up barrels of gun powder from a greater distance, I don’t think the eye is good for our cross play gaming community. And the good news is I don’t think we need it in the game anyway.
I don’t think the eye is good for us because, even if it DOESN’T give keyboard and mouse users any kind of advantage at all, there WILL a perception that it does. I’m not debating whether that perception is right, wrong or otherwise. I am just saying that the perception will exist and by nature of its existence exacerbate old divisions and prejudices which I’m sure we are all familiar with. Good news, I don’t think we have to go there.
In discussing characteristics of the game with friends, we couldn’t come up with any other potential advantages PC players might be perceived to have other than use of the eye for more accurate sniping. The possible exception to this being hacking, but that’s kinda out of the scope (get it?) of this conversation. Point being, eliminating the eye may put a stop to this particular problem before it takes irreversible root, which I believe is likely to happen after March 20th when we are all playing this game for keeps.
Not everyone agrees with me. Some folks believe we need the eye, I don’t –
Generally I believe that it isn’t solving or isn’t a needed solution for any problem currently in the game other than problems which the eye itself created. I’ve heard it said that without the eye it would be much harder to snipe skellies from fortress islands to be able to get past their cannons. I say take the eye away from NPCs too. If you want to assault a fortress, go toe to toe to their cannons with your cannons. Ammo is free. Get creative. Out of balls, launch crew. Skill is all you really need. Same goes for other players in ships. If no one has the eye, then that field is level and teamwork sailing and managing canons will win the day.
I’ve also heard it said that without the eye the rifle becomes no more accurate than the pistol, so why even have one? I disagree, or at least I think I do. In the beta I didn’t have opportunity to use a rifle sans eye. But I don’t see a reason why the rifle with iron sites shouldn’t have appropriately better range and somewhat better accuracy than the pistol. For example, you can ‘easily’ hit a barrel of powder to make it go splody boom from up 20 or 30 meters away with the pistol. With the eye I’ve seen people do it regularly from 150 to 250 meters away. If with the rifle and iron sights you can do so up to 75 or even 100 meters away, isn’t that good enough?
This brings up another important reason for removing the eye, relative accuracy across weapons. The cutlass, the pistol, the iron site rifle (I assume), and the cannon; these are not particularly accurate weapons. They force you to get up close and mix things up. It’s a pirate game! It’s not supposed to be PUBG! Sure you can develop skill with a cannon to make more and better hits, but the eye is the only weapon in game that allows the combatant to fight without getting really involved. And it has a reticle. That alone makes it markedly different than any other weapon in the game and in my opinion therefore, overpowered.
And finally, I don’t think we need the eye because it doesn’t fit the lore. I know some folks have found ‘evidence’ that scopes were used on rifles a very long time ago. And that may be true, but it is also true that sniper scopes were not in common usage (i.e. everybody had one) until many years after the first remotely functional prototype was invented. Think of today. Flying cars exist and there are people who use them. A flying car as an everyday thing in a game about 2018 would not feel legit. Rare has said, Sea of Thieves begins in a time leading up to the Golden Age of Piracy. That’s before 1650. Relative to that time everyone toting an eye around is way out of context and way OP.
I don’t believe the eye is good for fostering a good cross play community, which is a thing I think we want, and I don’t think it fits into this game from a weapon balance nor a historical thematics perspective. All MHO of course.
Thanks.
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Here's my take on it.
MnK compared to a controller is far superior and here's why:
You have no delay with the mouse. You can go left, right and all that immediately but the controller has a slight delay because of the stick.
If you push the stick to the left and then to the right, it has to go over the center first which creates the very disadvantage we're talking about here, unlike the mouse that can just go from left to right without boundaries.A mouse is more precise and responsive to the actions you want to do.
And I don't want to trash crossplay here. I like this feature and it should stay but it will get frustrating for some when they realize that they're forced to play with an handicap (controller).
And its not just MnK vs Controller, it is also the total of frames per second (fps) which can be very high on a good PC (90+ fps) as far as I know.
Compared to the laughable 30 fps for the original Xbox One and the controller and to say that PC has no advantage what so ever, that is disingenous in my eyes.
An average skilled PC player usually mops the floor with an average Xbox player because of these differences.
So, what options do we have? I would say that the option to opt out of crossplay should definitely be implented. The other option would be to keep it how it is and to prepare for a giant storm that will hit and stay on this forum for a long time + players that quit the game because they don't have an option to play on equal footing.
There's a reason why there aren't many first person shooter titles that allow crossplay between Console and PC. In fact, I can't even name one besides Sea of Thieves and that should give everybody something to think about. Its usually card games (for example: Gwent) or Beat 'em ups like Street Fighter V where it doesn't make a huge impact.
This game might look casual and not competitive but just imagine that you were digging up chests for 2 hours and a galleon with high end PC players are coming for your chests while you're trying to survive with your 30 fps and your controller. I don't care about the disadvantage number wise (4v1), I care about the fact that I have to fight off buffed up super space surgeons with a rusty pocket knife.
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Only reason I bought the game is because there is cross play.
I can’t fathom how anyone could be against it it’s not a competitive pvp game.
For the record I play overwatch with mouse and keyboard and I play destiny 2 PVP with the Xbox Elite controller.
In destiny 2 you have aim assist, I played a lot of destiny 1 so I have no problem at all against mouse and keyboard players in pvp .Overwatch is a different story, there you have to play with mouse and keyboard to have a chance.
But I will definitely play sea of thieves with controller.
Much more important to be able to build a great community so we don’t get the get the Gears of war scenario again when no one plays on PC. -
@cnt-thelrox to be honest it's all on latency and a good internet connection. Doesn't really matter if it's MnK over Controller there are ways to adjust sensitivity on the controller side MnK users have to deal with the same thing.
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@mr-barbecque Alright, so you want to tell me that there are no advantageous differences between MnK and Controller?
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@CNT-Thelrox Not really, wether you're sitting on a couch or 3 feet away from the screen you still have to deal with server lag. That can be experienced on both sides (seen it myself while playing on a crossplay server on Ark Survival Evolved)
I really don't see ship to ship combat being affected by MnK or Controller. Response is mainly based off the crew cooperation not device response.
Now for the fun part, MnK vs Controller when it comes to the swashbucklery on land or onboard. It all comes down to sensitivity, everyone has to mess with it to get a better response from their devices. A joystick can just as easily dominate over a mouse and vice versa if the sensitivity fits the players response.
Pretty much what I learned from Levelcap when he demonstrated that on battlefield 4.
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@sprungnickel427 I think your right.
I'm all for cross play simply because I've friend on PC I'd like to be part of my crew. But it will have to be optional. Something not enough people mention is cheating. Some in the gaming community seem to turn a blind eye to the amount of cheating/griefing that goes on on PC.
Taking GTA as an example just watch the difference between funhaus and achievement hunter streams. The difference in the abuse of the game and the amount of cheating is incredible.
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@mikey-seagull Hopefully Rare has something in place to combat cheating.
Crossplay is going to be great and at some point or another hope to see more games releasing with crossplay functionality.
@knightx13 said in [Mega Thread] - Cross Play:
cross play is part of the game, and a core feature.
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@apocacide woudlnt have been one of the fat characters would it? had a pirate hat on and a the admiral jacket? if it was i had the same last night and im a pc player, one guy i couldnt damage at all no matter what i threw at him and he would just one hit me with the sword while moving at super speed lol
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@williamherschel don’t think pc has any advantage we hawked down a boat full of pc players and they got super salty calling us casuals and to go meet them on cs lol we just laughed and said way to lose to the sticks where was your pc advantage lol
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I love cross-play for the first time I get to play with one of my best buddy who is Xbox only, as far as cheaters go I don't want them in my game too and for sure hope Rare has some strong anti-cheat going, 99% of PC players hates cheaters as much as our console brothers, they ruin the fun for everyone.
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Cross play is a deal breaker for me. I stopped playing any multiplayer PVP games on PC simply because of the amount of hacking and cheating that is inevitably done. China is not numba won!
PC gamers would have far too many advantages, not just due to cheaters/hackers, but by use of mouse and keyboard compared to a controller.
And a PVE option for this game just would not be as fun.
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@xf-rose-goddess This will almost certainly be an option. MS at E3 had a huge announcement about having mouse and keyboard support on xbox. This is an MS studio with cross platform. I would bet my kids savings on it being supported.