I think that the Brig needs to be reworked

I haven't been trolled with it so far, but even the brig alone isn't enough to stop people trolling. it can be used for trolling in itself aswell you're right. I've had people join the group just to dump everything off sea and sail the boat off to sink it. when that's happening you can't always tell who is doing it when you have a 4 group all off in different directions trying to bank loot.

I feel it does need a rework aswell, just don't exactly know what they could do for it, alot of people only brig others, cause they're scared of trolls.joining, or just randoms they don't know

I was going to post myself, but I will talk about it here instead!

I am a solo player. I enjoy playing and meeting people on game chat and cooperating on voyages in matchmaking galleons.

Yesterday, for the first times in all of my play, I was brigged twice for no reason by two groups of three players.

One time I was even the first player on the ship before the rest loaded in on an island looking for treasure. The trolling and griefing potential the brig has is horrible. I was hoping the first group would let me out because there was no basis for it, so I stayed in the brig and had character sleep while I did other thing. I was there for an hour and a half before I had no choice to change server.

The second time I just loaded in and the crew was picking up treasure. I ran to an island to help load up and they brigged me.
They turned in almost everything to an outpost and they let me out and I turned in one chest to just help, and when I climbed back up they were all pointing to the remaining chests like they wanted me to turn them in like some servant, so I just went back by the brig and slept until the brigged me again and left.

I don’t know what intent Rare had with the brig, but it is absolutely abused and abhorrent to deal with. Really just saps the fun out of the experience completely when it happens.

I have had some great experiences in pugs and had a great night after these two groups. However, I hope Rare really takes these things seriously, they will absolutely lose players and no one would want that as part of their SoT experience.

By the way buddy, thanks for giving me the opportunity to talk about this! Cheers.

Our random solo queuer experience.

We're on a level 20+ gold mission part 6 heading to an island. Guy joins and refuseses to join our party chat.

We're already setting sail and mid voyage. He joins and just starts stearing the ship and doing whatever he wants. We throw him on the brig since he isn't responding to our "no"s or invites. and he's messing everything up.

we land on the island, i stay onboard to keep an eye on him and point to the island where our other 2 are fighting. we release him to give him another chance.

he just runs around on the boat and fires cannon balls, ignoring the task he clearly joined into. We lock him up again and continue. Luckily he left the game and we let him know it was his fault for all the actions taken we gave him plenty of time to respond and or listen to what we were all already doing.

Of course he just begins to trash talk in messages now...

Luckily he left the game but without a vote to kick system. He would have just stayed in our brig and gotten credit for all our loot we were going to get.

Not only does the brig do it's job... but there also needs to be a vote to kick option for moochers.

@maxthemaniacal yes really bad need buff and timer

@rita1ynn

I have run into moochers on matchmaking galleys as well, however we both know the vote to kick option would be abused (even moreso) than the brig already is. I know groups want to be secretive in party chat or discord, but some players want to stay in game chat because that is a selling point for this game to some. It alienates the people who want to be in game chat or don’t even have a mic (I’ve seen people who use the chat wheels really well). I agree the guy was being a troll, but I don’t think the exception will ever justify the unfair kicks or brigs that come with it.

@blackbeard-lufy

Well the point is if someone joins your game and starts throwing your chest overboard... you have a quick stop to that. the brig. Without it, they could ruin your night, then just troll you until you leave the game.

100% this is the most toxic behavioral possible in the game. Not just putting someone in the brig, and making them look for a new game... ruining the hard work of multiple people just because you want too in a team game.

i understand pvp/ganking and taking treasure. but for your own team to do this is the ultimate annoyance and the brig is great. We just need a vote kick aswell.

@blackbeard-lufy

Doesn’t the ‘small galleon crew’ option just lock it to three? I haven’t used it as I’m solo, but that was my impression.

Honestly, in terms of all this, I’d rather be wrongfully brigged than kicked entirely. The only reason brigging is at all tolerable right now is the loot acquisition still. If that was taken away, the wrongful briggings would be absolutely intolerable.

Really not sure how Rare should address it. Every system is something that can absolutely be abused.

It isn’t even the first weekend yet, so the trolling and griefing is absolutely going to intensify then.

@blackbeard-lufy

Ah, I see!

The easiest QOL solution they can have for parties or groups is simply setting ships to ‘invite only’. It could keep that status locked if a player leaves instead of matchmaking a replacement. It’s betrer than not having the option and the players afraid of randos or trolls can strictly invite who they would like instead.

@blackbeard-lufy Having invite-only is something that I think would be welcome to prevent randoms griefing your party. The problem of parties griefing randoms is not so easily solved. Removing the brig I think would be a mistake as it's an important function to protect the crew from toxic randoms. Here's my proposal:

1. Timed brig. The first time you're brigged, it's for a small amount of time. The more you get brigged, the longer the time in the brig up to maximum.

2. Brig cooldown. Once you've been brigged, you can't be brigged immediately upon release.

3. Walk the plank. If you've been brigged one too many times, you can get voted to walk the plank. If you die after walking the plank you have a longer death cooldown, a mermaid won't help you, and maybe a more steep gold charge.

I think something like this would help prevent randoms from griefing your party since actually losing cash being a penalty isn't fun. I also think it would help parties not grief randoms because the party has a bit less power over a single person by making it harder to continuously harass someone.

You can't really stop people from harassing others. It's going to happen. The best you can do is make it a pain to do so.

Another thing that really irritates me is that I was in a 4 man crew, and the other 3 ended up leaving, and I had the ship to myself, 2 other players joined and just locked me in the brig for no reason whatsoever. I cannot express how angry this made me.

@samoclarkey I was preparing the ship for a voyage, and they just joined, I started to steer at the helm, and I just got locked in the brig.

I’ve said this before about people continuously sinking other people, but I think it would work here as well.

I feel there should be a bounty system. If people abuse the game then they should have a bounty put on them. If someone brigs other players often then there should be a bounty on that person for false imprisonment. Same thing for constantly sink other ships.

A person gets a high enough bounty on them then others will start to hunt them down. It would be a system of consequences. You either behave honorably or you get a target on your head.

@thevoodoobones I think that would be a bit difficult to do for a few reasons.

First, the devs have stated that the crew is supposed to be "sacred." That's why they don't have friendly fire. Obviously, as far as the game goes, you can still abuse that rule-of-thumb. But, putting a bounty on your own crew-mates is contradictory to that rule. Besides, every time you get wrongly brigged you'll have to put a bounty on not one, but two or three different people.

Second, I can see everyone getting a bounty for minor infractions or even no reason but they felt like it. You can't regulate how bounties are given to prevent abuse since there are so many perspectives on what is acceptable and unacceptable to individuals in a game that is completely open like this. Plus, what way can you tell if a person has been wrongfully brigged? In the real world, people go to court and present evidence to prove someone is guilty of an unlawful action. That kind of thing would slow down a game, so "unlawful" actions are dictated by the programming of the game. There is no way that brigging can be unlawful in SoT unless they change the rules of the entirely. It's an open game and the only way to "solve" the brig problem is to remove it. But, that creates more problems than it solves since it makes individual griefers free to do their thing with groups they jump into. So, the brig system is better in than out.

Finally, bounties just don't seem to fit in the game in my perspective. Everyone is a pirate, thus no one is on the side of the law. Yes, even crime syndicates can put bounties out on their selves, but there aren't even those in the game. You don't have guilds or any kind of large, organized player groups in-game. Thus bounties would just be a free-for-all system which is terrible and goes back the second reason I mentioned.

Bounties just wouldn't work. A better idea would be to improve the brig system in some way. Or, just leave it alone. For all intents and purposes, the system does actually work. Now, I've never jumped into a game with random people before since I have people to play with, so I don't know what it's like to get auto-brigged nor do I know how often it would happen. I imagine that if one gets brigged immediately then that person can leave the game and just join another. That can be a pain in the but if you have to do it frequently, but unless Rare implements a better system, that's the best a person can do.

Also, has anyone tried using the LFG or clubs function the Xbox has? I imagine that would be better than just randomly spawning into a group.