Too Long, Didn't Read section can be found at the end of this post. Most challenging thing known to me is to write one so please read it too. Would actually mean a lot to me. Not kiddin'.
This is a long feedback post so beware. Hopefully everything fits here so I don't have to cut this in half too... so here we go. Oh! And shoot those arguments like you've never shot before down the comment section below. Yarr!! Oh! And another thing! Please use my profile to navigate any comment I've posted here so that you have a better grasp on what this is about. I don't mention every detail here because I've most likely mentioned it already somewhere else on someone else's topic somewhere here. I'd like to not repeat myself too much so if you don't mind. Sniff those comments out!
Now to the topic... Feedback
Most likely the majority of us here already know at this point or at least are about to get acquainted with the Reputation system currently in place sooner or later. It serves us a simple reward mechanism based on tiers that can be unlocked thorough activities and namely by completing them. Sounds good, right? It does and it is. Unless we go a bit deeper, it really seems an okay system. However, it has a negative side that not only can harm the community, but also the entertainment value of the game itself. Tier based reward system is a feature which can be a great asset or a dire flaw depending from the environment it is meant to serve. In Sea of Thieves by design, it sadly provides the flaw. It provides this flaw in a variety of ways.
Stealth Handicap: Any intentional feature or fantasy delivered that relies on stealth is affected by it coz the system can be used to reveal your level thorough educated enough reasoning. It's not a vulnerability per se, but the players who wish to act these fantasies out cannot fully do so because half the tool is missing. Players are forced to only disguise their honed seafaring skill to the level of a simple seadog at best and even that is not going to do them good due the way the system works. The only way to hide our skill is to act foolish and look like a rat. For that reason I have no choice, but to go straight at everyone at full force every single time I see a pirate. This basic PvP tactic can lead me being misunderstood as a griefer coz no one knows the difference at cannon point. You would have to get near enough to yell parley, but by that time it is often too late.
For example we can mask our competence with incompetence or show our true ranks thorough item audiovisual side and silly seafaring decisions, which are all cool, but we can never fool anyone by disguising our inferior skill level within cosmetical level superiority. This is simply not there due the flaw in the design. Reputation in essence is a good feature. Only the tier structure of it has to go to allow true freedom to disguise ourselves against our seafaring foes.
Griefing Tool: Since we cannot mask our green nose and yellow ears, this effectively draws a specific target behind our backs which will be taken advantage by all kinds of griefers; deliberate and accidentally acted. This also affects the number of innocent PvP player casualties misunderstood as griefers. No player is safe from griefing because the measurable system practically attracts them like a piece of t**d tracts a scarab. Sounds harmless, but that nice t**d is away from others to utilise the more griefers it attracts. Try fishing in any place filled with mosquitos without proper countermeasures and you'll understand how it affects your performance. Ship limit efficiently mitigates harm, but doesn't arm us against griefers.
Mitigation and arming serve a proper purpose, but utter prevention would affect PvP at its core. By design griefing prevention methods into this game would effectively prevent pure PvP piracy from happening. Hence prevention is out of the question. Besides, arming against a common foe brings delicious tactics into play. Gratefully true griefing seems to be rarely encountered, but without procedures built in place in advance will be seen in the playerbase when griefing grows.
Server ban is out of the question, but personal bubble based ban is a different type of cereals when paired with removing gamertags and showing them thorough certain means I discussed earlier in several topics. These alongside the intelligent resistance feature would effectively cut the joy from griefing by giving it a deadline while serving all PvE and PvP players the mother of all challenges at the same time. Keywords here: death note, notebook, title, nickname, accumulated reputation, gradually accumulative, bubble-specific, crew-based, developing resistance, over time.
Showcasing Trap: This does not essentially go hand in hand with a tier based system, but since this is presented thorough it, the harm done is emphasised even greater than the tier system could provide alone in a game that is based on tactical responses in relation to changing (environmental and player-driven) resistance and cosmetic item rewards that govern visual (dis)advantage to every aware enough player in an individual level. Issue here is that this seemingly little design choice 'super effectively' eats away immersion from all fantasies delivered also affecting PvP in practise with the same swipe of eraser. Harm provided is further emphasised by the absence of a player-led economy approach which is explained later below.
Nemesis Enforcer: By design, the tier based system with showcasing cosmetic rewards thorough NPCs alone greatly mitigates teamwork when compared to a simple player-led reputation economy model. This feature trio fathomed thorough design choices may not be fast enough to carry us from minor update to another when it comes to the 'game as service' approach which in nature is designed to be a very slow paced development plan instead.
Each failed game provided thorough this approach has this trio implemented; to my knowledge, every single one. This also involves basic menu shops in case a game doesn't have actual NPCs in place to provide rewards thorough. An NPC model in place or a basic menu shop or both will effectively deviate players toward PvP coz this feature limits available reasons to interact with other players. Since there is no reason to engage commerce with other players, players are destined to fight each other more often.
Probability of an ensuing battle from my in-game experience is close to 100 percent. Just remember that this experience only came from the Final Beta and didn't last more than couple hours, but this is data as well and must not be overlooked. Based on the videos online, people seem to have fun overall. I also didn't use any specific keywords when I searched content. I'd say this is nothing, but a scratch made, but my overall experience in general suggests that this is an educated guess. Scratch, but an educated one at that.
Practical Solution: Utilise all players sailing around in the competitive environment to nudge into three directions instead. Fight, flee or bargain, but not too much toward the latter. At least one mate in a crew would bring balance thorough individual importance to all fantasies and features when it comes to rewards. Then again, if you prefer, fetch another player to bargain with. There's no shame to test your luck. Want to play the fantasy of a merchant on a job delivering wares to outposts or escort one as their protection? Below are some details from the interaction cycles.
Coin Side: PvE
- Each player turns into a possible client and voyages become activity affiliated instead.
- One type accumulates reputation to that direction while the others accumulate reputation to those directions.
- The higher your rank of reputation is in an activity the more dedicated you most likely appear to be at it.
- First time performed activity unlocks a title which records the reputation involved toward that activity and so on.
- Each client can dispose one reward at a time and offer two to pick from.
- Players may prompt them to show the goods which then highlights a nearby crate for the client.
- No one else sees the highlighted crate or can interact with it than the client.
- Each player may do this to each other in case they so desire, but only the completition of a voyage, supplied by the client, allows them to depart from their offered rewards.
- Voyages from other clients affect only the rewards those clients offer.
- Each client gets a randomly rolled voyage that fits into each activity.
- Their choice of voyage affects only themselves, not the rest of the crew unless they have unlocked the titles required as well.
- To unlock a title thorough a voyage, the voyage that wins the vote has to come from the player who wants to unlock a title and also correspond the activity this player wants the title from.
- To unlock some other type of a title, e.g. a fisher, go fishing and get some fish.
- Then go vote as usual and prepare for departure the ways you deem to fit you the most.
- Before you go, you may want to let the client carry the crate on board and then set sail unless you want to return to the outpost later on to get the item.
- Completing a voyage allows the client who supplied the activity to perform an inventory check at the scene of completition, wherever it is, and then proceed to offer the rewards for the crew in case the crate really is there too.
- Either the one who suggested the voyage gets to 'greed' it over or one of the other members get to 'need' it for themselves.
- Item picked can be traded with others in exchange for another within the crew by the members who attended the voyage the item was rewarded for.
- Rinse and repeat.
- Items have material costs that have to be met to order them, i.e. you won't get them right there on the spot, and compensating material quota with gold will work, but it extends the delay instead.
- If you are short on both the materials and gold, go fetch them right away. They can be found everywhere in the world.
- The offering stands as long as the client in question isn't asked any further voyages to serve.
Coin Side: PvP
- In case you only want to engage in PvP and nothing more, you are free to do so the second you get to control your mate.
- If you want to PvP and also loot some, go look at the bulletin board at any outpost to see in case any bounties are offered by the other players.
- Bounties offer a unique voyage that you can undertake to either retrieve something from targets or simply dispatch targets altogether.
- Only those crews who engage at PvP can be targeted in bounties after their kill limit is exceeded and only one bounty can be active at any given moment per target crew.
- Bounty targeting is an automated function and cannot be influenced directly.
- Bounty type is generated randomly on the spot when picked from the bulletin board.
- Bounty types involve retrieving crates to outposts, killing pirates, sinking their ships, dueling with them and the like.
Non-Player-Characters: Now what about the NPCs around at the outposts? Should they be removed or utilised in a different way? I'd hate to waste the effort and material so I'd wager for new tasks. Some reasonable ones that may aid the players in many comical ways, but totally optional ones.
Did you get a piece of cloth while fishing from the sea and you don't want to sanitise it yourself? Bring it to a washer at an outpost and they'll do the task for ya for a small fee. Otherwise use the proper tool on the ship, unless you didn't bring any with you, or just throw it back to the sea. Whatever the sea gives, so can she take back. Unless you are too slow and the return-to-sea warranty expires before that happens in which case you can still ditch it back, but only so that the sea spits it at your face. Tough luck.
They could work as a source of gossips and clues like in the old games they did as well. Each has their side of things to tell and sometimes question the sanity of another NPC in case you've asked someone else about the case already and you want to test if it's true or not at another NPC. Lorebooks and other stuff they could deliver to us when ready and in case they have nothing new to tell us, they would just say to wait until next week and then maybe they have something new to gossip. Of course this wouldn't have to end here. Link gossips to shape the ongoing voyage in some mysterious ways and see what happens. Not everything has to be what the eyes can plainly recognise nor ears hear.
Optional Activity Examples: If you don't want to fish, don't use the rod. If you don't want to sharpen the swords, don't bring a sharpening tool on board the next voyage you undertake. If you want to cook a feast for the crew before departure, fish some ingredients for the dishes and take them to the kitchen in the tavern. Whatever shoes and outfits you might find from the belly of the sea, they won't mix well in the pot so toss them back or find some other use for them. Gambling your pet parrot or any other seafaring creature below the deck makes the winning receiver a captain and gain half the gold earned while a soap on the gambling table forces someone lucky to wash the deck slippery clean. Changing each voyage thorough your own whim on board makes it all so much better, fun and challenging. There's nothing more fun than laughing to yourself after you overbooked the whole crew with an impossible to beat foe for example.
Fancy a hidden treasure? Then talk to your fellow pirate. They may have something to offer you for starters. Not one good with guns? Then parkour all the way thorough environment if your slim enough or grapple foes immobilising them where they are with your thewy self in case you are thewy instead that is. Drag those chests behind you, carry one on your hide or take a good grip with two hands and raise the whole package over your head. Wanna be slimmer? More plundering and less feasting for you. Wanna be thewier? Get more of them both in an equal manner. Wanna get beefier? Then focus on feasting and plunder a little bit less. Stay at the boat for example and eat those bananas whenever you can just for fun and you'll get beefier fast. Works very well I'd say.
TL;DR: Player-driven choice-economy activity-rewarding system with mostly gossiping NPCs that offer some sort of optional services instead would effectively solve the issues currently presented in the game and would also emphasise activity optionality to the fullest extent; to serve as a simple foundation for delivered fantasies to be acted out with no fear of overlapping or siderailing too much.
Current issues: Tier based reward systems always work as efficient griefing tools due reasoning and showcasing every single item at every shop suffocates the element of surprise from these shops just like every named set item in this game does for the rest of the sets. Set items won't promote customisation by design. In very rare occasions they may offer some leeway though. No imagination involved, but merely basic deduction that pleases the very young ones alone at best. No player commerce involved to spice things up and keep up the balance; or keep things interesting enough until next update arrives. If a player drops from a game in between updates, they have a hard time to return especially when one only encompasses minor additions like a seasonal event that offers loot boxes or a new area that differs from the rest only in a graphical level having no narrative or a campaign in place. End of TL;DR
PS: I am now going to watch the twitch record so no haste.
