@urihamrayne I wouldn't call this a mechanic but the lighting does in fact work in such a way that you can be in a corner that is harder to see. I've seen it on crooks hollow when trying to hide some treasure.

The corner looks very dark until you get closer to it. Might only work on higher graphical settings though. Like I said, I don't think it's as much a mechanic as a side effect of the lighting.

A true legend! And thank you for sharing your experiences and perspective.
Cheers to you, captain!

If I can ever help by crewing up or getting another crew to assist in a commendation of some sort, I'd be honoured to.

@urihamrayne dijo en Feedback From a Deaf Player:

@bloodybil Name one stealth mechanic in Sea of Thieves that would be ruined if there were subtitles of the things people can hear normally like water splashing from swimming, water splashing from climbing a ladder from the water and pirate footsteps. There is no stealth in SoT, what most people manage to do by climbing aboard a ship and staying hidden mostly hangs on the crew paying absolutely no attention to their treasure or for stowaways.

Sure I'm not saying to put subtitles that especifically say from which player the footsteps/swimming/ladder climbing are coming from, but there are no systems being lost if these things get subtitled.

"Like water splashing"

Water is always splashing. What's exactly the purpose of having "water splashing" fixed in your screen?

@pir8life4meva it brings tears to me eyes how wonderful you said that. And many a pirate can take a lesson from you. A few accomendations to the deaf should not be too bad as long as they find a fair way to implement it.

@x-crowheart-x said in Feedback From a Deaf Player:

@pir8life4meva

Congratulations on your first post and achievement mate! You definitely have earned being a legend. I am all for making the Sea of Thieves more accessible to everyone, how they want to play and how they are able to play. There is a lot to love and should be open to be loved by all.

Thank you for sharing your experience and story. You have definitely played the game in a lot harder way and still have prevailed. Bravo! Cheers to your courage, commitment, and passion!

Thank you, everyone, for your support, comments, and suggestions! I especially appreciate the invitations to join your crew, I may very well take you up on that. I'm not looking for a complete revamp of the game to support the deaf, just mentioning what makes my gameplay experience extremely difficult and if something can be done about it that doesn't upset the balance of the sea, then I'm all for it. I'm a firm believer that you can't teach experience. Every PvP, PvE, Kraken, skeleton, keg, meg, storm, volcano, snake, shark and curse has been an experience. That's how you get to Pirate Legend!

Cheers Shipmates!

@urihamrayne said in Feedback From a Deaf Player:

The fact of the matter is that no matter how you spin it, arguing that stealth is important in SoT is an uphill battle

Yeah that's pretty obvious. Your are certainly entitled to your opinion though :)

Best of luck to OP!

@bloodybil

Not having active abilities does not mean you can't plan your actions and movements to try to be seen or heard as little as possible.

Which in turn implies that the lack of stealth mechanics are being compensated by player behaviour (or "gameplay" and "tactics", a fancier way of pretending something is a bigger deal than it is), not that the game is intrinsically designed with stealth in mind. The fact of the matter is that no matter how you spin it, arguing that stealth is important in SoT is an uphill battle, the game has no such design in mind and it shows through the utter lack of mechanics that facilitate that sort of playstyle.

I'm not against stealth, and if in the future we are introduced to mechanics that favour that kind of playstyle, then I'd be more than happy to comply with being completely against subtitle acessibility to overwrite stealth, but as the game stands, it's player behaviour dictating wether or not attempts at a deceptive strategy are succesful; sound is important for these behaviours, therefore players like OP lose an edge, while those that already can hear, gain nothing with the addition, because their behaviour of being ignorant to sound won't be remedied by being given a vague, non-especific subtitle to a water splash.

Anyways, straying far from the subject of the thread now. Some PVE alerts in caption form would help out I'm sure :)

@urihamrayne you are the one hammering the word mechanic buddy, I am talking about gameplay and tactics. One can play in a sneaky fashion, without having to rely on invisibility or camouflage abilities. That seems to be quite the ordeal to understand :) You can play in a certain way, without having a big "Stealth" button to press. Note that by stealth I never talked about invisibility, to me it's simply a synonym to sneakiness, furtiveness.

Pirates don't have any mechanic that silences the sounds they make at the cost of mobility.

They don't indeed, but you can time your footsteps and stop moving/swimming, thus stop making noise, when you think you have been heard for example. Use your imagination my friend.

Majority of things in this game produces a sound that is deliberately meant to be heard.

Yeah that does not mean you do not try to not be heard.
Our characters are meant to be visible, doesn't mean I won't try to hide behind cover.

This is what I mean by SoT having no stealth mechanics, it was not designed as such.

Again, not having active abilities does not mean you can't plan your actions and movements to try to be seen or heard as little as possible.

You can try to use deceptive strategies, but they hinge on players not paying attention or being distracted

... Thats pretty much what I have been saying the whole time.

If you don't pay attention, it's your fault if someone sneaks on you, it never meant that you couldn't catch someone sneaking up on you.

If there are clues that are meant to be heard/seen to prevent an attack, you should hear/see them yourself, not have to rely on an indicator that alerts you that there is a clue around, making things too easy.

Of course that's in the context where anyone would turn the caption to get an edge over others, not in the case were someone would legitimately need/benefit from that function. But such things are hard to balance to prevent exploit at the same time as helping people.

If someone has real bad sight, should they get an option to highlight and outline enemies, pirates, ships, loot? What would prevent everyone from using it to scan the horizon and water, terminator-style? There is no stealth in the game, you are meant to be seen anyways right?

Hey boss anytime you wanna run with me you are more than welcome. Me and my crew dont talk to much cause we like the experience of proximity chat in the world we mostly use the fast text, especially when we see a threat (NPCs, other players, mega, and kraken). We wouldnt mind setting a quick text just for those pesky barrel skeleys so we can some what warn ya ;p.

@bloodybil Good you actually did name a stealth mechanic: hide nameplates when you are underwater. I'm impressed.

As for everything else, the strategy of surprise and ambush don't imediately correlate with stealth, regardless of how you approach the matter, SoT's combat systems are often at odds with stealth.

The night will not be pitch black, dissalowing players from hiding in dark corners due to a lack of a mechanic that reads into where players position themselves and the lighting values. Even in caves where is the closest to pitch black you can get, nametags give players away.

Players are not given any mechanic that turns them invisible or partialy blended with the environment. The best we got is an emote and hiding behind a static object.

Pirates don't have any mechanic that silences the sounds they make at the cost of mobility. Majority of things in this game produces a sound that is deliberately meant to be heard.

This is what I mean by SoT having no stealth mechanics, it was not designed as such. You can try to use deceptive strategies, but they hinge on players not paying attention or being distracted, not on the game's built in mechanics that allow for a player to do a stealthy approach. The only exception, that you kindly brought up, is nametags underwater, which indeed provides less readibility from incoming players since they are not given away early... except for the fact that the mermaid is at odds with that, and will a lot of the times ruin such an approach.

@urihamrayne said in Feedback From a Deaf Player:

@bloodybil Name one stealth mechanic in Sea of Thieves that would be ruined if there were subtitles of the things people can hear normally like water splashing from swimming, water splashing from climbing a ladder from the water and pirate footsteps. There is no stealth in SoT, what most people manage to do by climbing aboard a ship and staying hidden mostly hangs on the crew paying absolutely no attention to their treasure or for stowaways.

Sure I'm not saying to put subtitles that especifically say from which player the footsteps/swimming/ladder climbing are coming from, but there are no systems being lost if these things get subtitled.

I don't know, either you don't PVP much, or you go guns blazing all the time without discretion, everyone has their play style. But to deny stealth being a tactic in the game is silly.

If I swim up under a ship, then move quietly around, then climb up on a ship, without being seen or heard, isn't that stealth?

If I ambush my enemy and surprise them because they did not notice me, whether it be on their ship, or on an island, or even an outpost, isn't that stealth?

If I manage to bomb a ship (whether they are pursuing me, or stationary) without them expecting me, isn't that stealth?

Devs intended to allow sneaky strategies, as shown in their change to hide player's name tag underwater.

Joe: "Something that has been requested by quite a lot of people, from a kind of sneakiness perspective, we want to hide nameplates when you are underwater, so if you are swimming towards an other ship, you won't be able to see their gamer tag through the water itself. Enabling a bit more of that kind of stealthy gameplay when you are swimming up maybe with an explosive barrel and stuff."

So there, Joe Neate himself said that they wanted to encourage that kind of gameplay.
To have subtitles betraying your actions is totally going against that concept.

If no matter how careful I have been to not get spotted while sneaking, and then an enemy players simply reads:

"Gasp of air" or "sword unsheating" or "gun cocking" or "banana burp" or "water paddling" or "gunpowder hissing"

well there goes my move. People would totally use it as a crutch and advantage, just in case they might miss a sound. Why rely on your ears and eyes when you can look at your chat window or whatever and wait for a suspicious caption.

Sound in this game is amazing (I'm very sorry for those who unfortunately can't enjoy it) and different sounds have intricate subtleties, which is part of the sneakiness you try to blend in the ambient sound. Unless every single sound in the game, every splish, every splash, every bird, monkey, far away kraken sound would be captioned to help cover and blend enemy captions as well, I don't think it would work out.

Or, as I think we agree, PVE only, that I could accept as well as compromise.

@xcalypt0x I'll give you at least that one that the flurry of sounds can be hard to distinguish in the heat of battle and subtitles could be an edge or a crutch players use, but does that really justify not giving that kind of acessibility?

I would accept a compromise of just PvE subtitles, fyi, just wanted to pose the question that stealth isn't really that good of an argument if PvP is considered as well.

@urihamrayne Ehhh. A moving ship has splashing sounds naturally. The splashing sound from players is different, but sometimes can be hard to distinguish. You can also mask your sound by using other sounds (cannons, explosions). It's a little different from nothing being on screen versus text being on the screen, which is easily distinguishable.

@bloodybil Name one stealth mechanic in Sea of Thieves that would be ruined if there were subtitles of the things people can hear normally like water splashing from swimming, water splashing from climbing a ladder from the water and pirate footsteps. There is no stealth in SoT, what most people manage to do by climbing aboard a ship and staying hidden mostly hangs on the crew paying absolutely no attention to their treasure or for stowaways.

Sure I'm not saying to put subtitles that especifically say from which player the footsteps/swimming/ladder climbing are coming from, but there are no systems being lost if these things get subtitled.

@ruigtand-nl said in Feedback From a Deaf Player:

Using the chatwheel works ok i sometimes play using only the chatwheel its funny to communicate :")

Yes he does. He has gotten the rest of us doing it.

Hopefully keyboard and mouse support on the XBOX will bring the free text chat like on the PC.

@pir8life4meva

Congratulations on your first post and achievement mate! You definitely have earned being a legend. I am all for making the Sea of Thieves more accessible to everyone, how they want to play and how they are able to play. There is a lot to love and should be open to be loved by all.

Thank you for sharing your experience and story. You have definitely played the game in a lot harder way and still have prevailed. Bravo! Cheers to your courage, commitment, and passion!

@urihamrayne said in Feedback From a Deaf Player:

Have you tried downloading a new pair of ears?

Joking aside, I think that it's possible to add Closed Captions to SoT, like other games that have ambient sounds written as subtitles. The biggest counter argument is that people would just use them to have an on screen confirmation of sound effects of pirates sneaking up aboard the ship, and that would ruin """"""""""""stealth"""""""""""". This game has no stealth mechanics, I don't think we are at a loss here.

I believe that acessibility is paramount, it's not something we should dismiss with impunity because it may break immersion a bit, but honestly that is just flavour trying to dictate whats better for the game, and as I always say, flavour comes second to gameplay. If subtitles would help players, like OP, play better, flavour shouldn't get in the way of that.

Having this as a toggle option would be an excellent solution. Maybe leave it to only environment sounds and not other pirates. Skeletons, snakes, pigs, chickens, megalodon, etc.

@dislex-fx Except the game is very easy by nature. They will only make completing tasks take longer, not be more difficult.
Athena Voyages should be difficult. Well, they're easy enough for a day 1 player to complete. It just might take 5-6 hours where it takes me 1 and half to 2 hours.

@boomtownboss said in Feedback From a Deaf Player:

@dislex-fx I personally like the gun powder skellies. I can breeze through OoS of Athena voyages 30sec a wave Solo. Think about it. I just suicide by gunpowder skelly with the whole hoard around me, respawn in 30 seconds, do it again for the next wave. It's faster than actually fighting them! LOL

I know. That's why I hate having so many of them. I like a challenge. I have posted about this before and I mentioned that they need to tone them down, so the game can get back to being harder.

It's almost like they keep making SoT easier and easier. I dislike that.

@dislex-fx I personally like the gun powder skellies. I can breeze through OoS of Athena voyages 30sec a wave Solo. Think about it. I just suicide by gunpowder skelly with the whole hoard around me, respawn in 30 seconds, do it again for the next wave. It's faster than actually fighting them! LOL

I agree about the gunpowder. There is no need for so many skeletons with gun powder barrels. During the event, sure, but now that the event is over, I wish they would tone it down. Tone it down A LOT. It used to be fun getting your crew to work together to get gunpowder. Not everyone did. You never knew if someone had 4 barrels. 1? 0? Now, everyone has 11tymillion. It changed fighting. Now, when fighting skeletons, you don't even have to work together much, as a crew, as all you have to do is shoot gunpowder barrels, to kill 10 skeletons at once.

Congratulations on Pirate Legend and keep up the hard work! If you ever want to play with a crew, hit me up.

Using the chatwheel works ok i sometimes play using only the chatwheel its funny to communicate :")

@pir8life4meva

Server merges are notoriously buggy, but they're quite difficult to deal with (they want to save memory and not spawn a ridiculous amount of things into the server, so they remove some things during it).

Gunpowder skeletons are actually welcome to me during a legendary voyage, as they are far easier to kill than anything else (the normal skeletons on legendary quests are incredibly strong [160 health I believe]). They are supposed to make it far more difficult, as it is one of the hardest things in the game. If you have anyone who can play with you, perhaps have one of you keep a lookout with a flintlock and an eye of reach and kill all of them while the other deals with the quest? If not, just kill all of them from the ship and keep a lookout for them.