What is with this toxic community (New players)

@gamegasmus I'm sorry to hear of your bad experience. There are some terrible people out there, but remember there not all bad. I won't get into what defines toxic in this game as there are significant differences in opinion on that.

Also from reading your post its unclear if you know about the scuttle button. Essenally you can force sink your own ship. You can do that on the ferry next to the door or from your menu. It will spawn you a new ship across the map. If the server is too spicy, then your right, best is to change servers and hope for a less aggressive one.

@gamegasmus if you find your self being spawn camped there is an option under my crew in the settings menu called "Scuttle". This will sink your ship when the whole crew votes on it and allow you to spawn somewhere else.

As far as raids go, I'm assuming it was a skeleton fort or a fort of the damned. These like the other major world events all have a giant cloud in the sky indicating they are up. When the cloud dissappears everyone knows it either despawned or was completed, the latter being the case if you know a boat is there so its time to go sink them.

Nothing in the OP post was toxic except the insults. So just report the ones doing the insults as that is not needed in any online game. The rest was totally normal pirate behaviour.

Some things to consider:
Keep your eyes on the horizon, and look out for other ships. When we play, one player ALWAYS stays on the ship as a lookout. He will make sure no one sneaks up on the ship and he will keep the ship ready for combat. Ready for combat means that that the ship is NOT anchored and that is has its broadside turned against the attacking ship. The "watch" can also repair the ship and sometimes park the ship while the others cannon themselves to the raid event. Parking the ship correctly is also important, depending on the ship, you want to have an escape route clear, or have space to turn the ship to face danger... you can also use the larger islands to hide the ship if needed.

Sometime there will be better crews attacking, it happens to veterans too, and you get sunk or you scuttle your ship to end the hopeless situation. You can be spawn killed for lots of reasons, one of the main reasons is to keep you away while they plunder your cannonballs, planks and food. So if you have a lot of resources just scuttle fast so that they can not resupply themselves. Also in the ARENA mode of the game, its often better to scuttle fast and not let the others farm you for kills... that will just earn them more points (silver) and block your own progress.

Also remember that no one has any better weapons than you, they are just better at using the provided tools. So just practice and in time you will get better.

Also no loot is yours before you sell it, and half of the value of the loot is the danger of loosing it.

And lastly, if you raise an emissary flag to earn more gold, you are practically raising a PvP beacon to invite everyone in to sink you. There is also a faction in the game that is designed for PvP and sinking others, they are called the Reapers and you can see them on the map at all times so that you can avoid them. They will however come after your loot and your flag as that is their sole purpose in the game, and there is nothing toxic about it.

There! Some things to think about, and welcome to the game.

Ghostfire

@gamegasmus I could be my wholeeeeeeeeeeee life that you were playing on a crossplay server.

I can only echo what others have said about scuttling. if i get killed and come back to see im being camped ill try fight my way out if i die i then make the decision "1 more try or scuttle?" if the person spawn camping me missed the first shot giving me the chance to try to fight back ill go back if i die again the GG its scuttle time.

if you have no loot on board and try to sail off and run away that will only give the chasers more of a blood thirst. use the opportunity to fight back only way to get better is by doing.

Last night i was with a crew and im learning PvP we sailed up on an outpost to sell up and there was a ship there already so i took the opportunity to fight we won and killed the opposition crew and put there ship in a state. whilst they was on the ferry me and my crew patched them up and fixed their ship we then gave them a storage crate stacked full of supplies and let them sail off on their next mission whilst we sold up.

@gamegasmus

1. You can scuttle the ship from the poster next to the door on the ferry of the damned or by going to the crew menu. This will sink your ship and spawn you a new one in a different location of the map. There is no need to be stuck in a loop of death if you are willing to admit defeat.

2. World events, the ones with big clouds and tornado's are broadcasted to the server population to make it known that it is there and you should expect others to show up and fight you for the loot.

3. Insults can be reported and is taken seriously by Rare, feel free to head to the support page and submit your ticket.

Being a new player can be tough, the seas are a turmoil and dangerous place to be.
Once you learn to navigate it, it becomes less frustrating. Sell often during your learning process, do not sail with more than you are willing to lose and happy sailing.

@gamegasmus said in What is with this toxic community (New players):

We are new players and started this week to get into the Game. The experience we had so far was very toxic.
We dont mind to loose a battle to other players, because we know we are not good yet. But what is that about spawn kills and not sinking our ship, that we are locked to spawn on the ship to get camped, for amusement and insults. You cant do anything against that except to ragequit and change server. Funny!
If one of you read this: You are the worst kind of gamers and you are not "pros" if you hunt players who cant fight back, because they are new. That is sad, because you are also responsible if the game dies from lack of new players.

The first Time we cleared a Raid alone, and as we looted, the whole server came with an alliance, killed us and camped us on our ship, while other looted our work of 2-4 hours on the island. This is frustrating and game-killing for me. I wont do raids again!

The second Time we were on the outpost and had NOTHING valuable. Some crew came, destroyed our sails, and spawn-camped our ship. Insults every time i got killed. After 30 min we switched server. That was the only way out of that.

I streamed and have player names. Can I report them for the insults or will Rare do nothing about that kind of problem?

Highlighted, Scuttle.
Its even written in the Ferry, you cant miss it unless you dont take the time to explore.

@burnbacon lol so you mean you can very easily miss it?

If a new player is trying to save their loot/ship, I doubt exploring is #1 on their mind.

I'm really sorry to hear that! This is definitely a rare occurrence. But like it was said above, there are some bad eggs in the waters. But there are also very genuine people that are willing to help. Don't let this one bad experience ruin the game for you.

It's not hard to PVP in this game at all. All it takes is a bit of common sense and you can always outsmart your opponents. In a sense spawn killing is not being toxic. If I manage to get on your ship regardless if you have loot or not then 9 times out of ten I will kill you repeatedly until I have either stolen all of your loot/supplies or you scuttle/leave.

The game has been out for over 3 years now and us day 1 vets have little else to do other than PVP.
Suck it up and watch your horizons and be more pirate.

@jadescissors32 said in What is with this toxic community (New players):

@pure-rare said in What is with this toxic community (New players):

If I manage to get on your ship regardless if you have loot or not then 9 times out of ten I will kill you repeatedly until I have either stolen all of your loot/supplies or you scuttle/leave.

But why do that to new players, those Seafarers and Maruders chests are not worth it. i can imagine you get on them and realized they have nothing, why not just let them be.

That's why I said 9 times out of 10. Even new players try and fight.

what you described is the game. funny he?

If in Anno 1800 a AI Player sink my ship with tons of clothes, this is the game. Do i go to the Ubisoft Forum and troll there? No.

@gamegasmus said in What is with this toxic community (New players):

We are new players and started this week to get into the Game. The experience we had so far was very toxic.
We dont mind to loose a battle to other players, because we know we are not good yet. But what is that about spawn kills and not sinking our ship, that we are locked to spawn on the ship to get camped, for amusement and insults. You cant do anything against that except to ragequit and change server. Funny!
If one of you read this: You are the worst kind of gamers and you are not "pros" if you hunt players who cant fight back, because they are new. That is sad, because you are also responsible if the game dies from lack of new players.

The first Time we cleared a Raid alone, and as we looted, the whole server came with an alliance, killed us and camped us on our ship, while other looted our work of 2-4 hours on the island. This is frustrating and game-killing for me. I wont do raids again!

The second Time we were on the outpost and had NOTHING valuable. Some crew came, destroyed our sails, and spawn-camped our ship. Insults every time i got killed. After 30 min we switched server. That was the only way out of that.

I streamed and have player names. Can I report them for the insults or will Rare do nothing about that kind of problem?

there is a thing to self sink your ship and the point of raids are to be attacked it's a pirate game stuff gets stolen and people just like to sink parked ships for a few reasons one to turn in loot and two to practice

@jadescissors32 said in What is with this toxic community (New players):

@pure-rare said in What is with this toxic community (New players):

If I manage to get on your ship regardless if you have loot or not then 9 times out of ten I will kill you repeatedly until I have either stolen all of your loot/supplies or you scuttle/leave.

But why do that to new players, those Seafarers and Maruders chests are not worth it. i can imagine you get on them and realized they have nothing, why not just let them be.

loot it's fun to take but it's not worth it i agree a chest of rage is worth it but nothing else is

I love these kind of posts, he have gotten good answers.

To bad that we wont be seeing this guy again as he just came to write out his frustratement on the forums.
He will probably do raids again and come to his senses that it was a simple bad experiance he had which have happend to all of us once in a while. :P

It is pretty unfortunate and this seems to happen regularly now. Beyond camping the spawns, it really is childish for players to spam chat and insults. Just this evening I was playing with a few newer players and after one player from another ship realized this, they continuously cornered, camped, spammed, and all but forced the new player to leave; some of the new players even saying that the game isn't worth their time if that is how the community acts. The salt in the wound was when the player sent a message through xbox laughing and claiming it was a fun team death match. Nothing fun about harrassing players.

And yes, Sea of Thieves is a PvPvE game. There will be instances where you attack or are attacked and your loot is stolen, but when the person spawn killing is doing it simply to spawn kill, it's not acceptable. When the only way to get away from harrassment is to quit the game, relaunch, and hope you are in a different server... that's not a gameplay loop to be proud of.

We really need a way to report players in-game and have some form of follow-up from Rare's moderation team. Toxicity kills so many games and I'm tired of seeing new players turned away from the game because of it.

(end rant)

@cptrunewulf said in What is with this toxic community (New players):

...but when the person spawn killing is doing it simply to spawn kill, it's not acceptable.

It's a jerk move for sure, but... unfortunately, I think it IS acceptable. It's when the racist, homophobic, etc talk breaks the ToS that it's a reportable offense.

And then, yes, I agree, it sucks that you have to screencap the persons name or look through your recently met players list to find them to report them.

Rare does act though. I have seen people get banned for breaking the ToS

@grilledcheese10 said in What is with this toxic community (New players):

Honestly I’ll be honest, this community really has gotten worse over time. In game texts are almost always rude in my experience.

Being spawn trapped doesn’t happen nearly as often because it can be countered if you’re good at PvP. As a newer player, though, I can see why it’s frustrating

I’ve always liked the idea of newer players being matched together until they reach specific reps. You’d be on fair ground and not against some nerds who have nothing better to do than be rude on a video game. Honestly, that’s my biggest gripe with this game, not letting new players learn. It’s up there with the fact that the reapers even exist.

IMHO, it would be worse with a rep system like that as the trolls would just make alts to play at low levels and then the new player area would be littered with newbs fighting sweatlords and new people would have it WORSE.

As hard as it is (and, honestly, it's not that hard) getting sunk is a learning experience. It will happen. Even when you're A10+.

But as you play it happens less and less. The learning curve is tough, but not nearly impossible as some would believe.

@chenzo01 Well, at least something is being done. Still doesn't seem to be helping in the grand scheme of things.

It almost seems like it would be better to have a "report my killer" option if the kill velocity is too high or it happens repeatedly. Especially if the server can log player actions and see Player A has killed Player B five times. During that time, Player B has respawned and maybe switched to a shovel.

@chenzo01 Getting sunk is definitely part of the game and is a learning experience for sure.

Getting mercilessly hunted and killed over and over though doesn't teach new players anything other than where the quit button is.

Welcome to Sea of Thieves kid.