Is server hopping a problem?
If a 10-15 minute upon login existed where you were unable to see any world event clouds (ships, skull forts, reapers chest) be a good or bad thing?
My personnel view is that it is.
I propose when logging into server you are unable to see any world event clouds (ships, skull forts, reapers chest) for 10 minutes. This wouldn't fix it 100% but it would detract from the act.
An interesting solution to slow down server hopping... 🤔
This would force them to at least sail to the fort to check, and depending on where they spawned, that could eat up a lot of their time while buying you time at the fort.
Even better, it won't necessarily affect legit pirates either, because they're likely to use that 1st 10 minutes to supply the ship anyways.
I like this idea. 👍
@picklebeard22 I server hop to find interesting things, usually in the form of robbing other people. Lately, my friends and I will all start up individual games and look for the FotD cloud, so we can steal it. I imagine this is exactly the kind of thing you're talking about.
The reason we do this is because we really only enjoy stealing. Sadly, server hopping for FotD is more or less the only way to consistently find people who actually have something worth taking. If it wasn't for server hopping to find people to rob, we would have stopped playing the game a while ago. If there was another way to play the part of the game we enjoy, the thievery, we would do that, but we are more or less forced to server hop just to have fun.
Let's do a hypothetical, you are doing the FOTD. A ship rolls up to attack you, how do you determine if they are a hopper vs an aboriginal of the server? I mean you could have sailed for a while on the server, but can you truly know all ships at all times. That ship you saw an hour and a half ago, could have left not even 5 minutes after you saw them. Only to be replaced with another one. That same one that is attacking you right now.
The aboriginals have everything going for them, a well equipped ship, maybe even an Alliance or two. A surplus of Cursed Cannonballs that can only be amassed with time and chance. Meanwhile, the supposed hopper, assuming that he hopped. Has fresh spawn amounts, or the amount they could gather whilst in transit. They don't have the Cursed Cannonballs that the one ship will have. I get that people don't like hoppers, but your essentially fighting a fresh spawn.
@wilbymagicbear
I get annoyed that the people who are so quick to condemn hoppers are usually perfectly fine with hijacked servers in the name of PvE. Someone privatizing a server that doesn't belong to them, hijacking servers that don't belong to them, and holding them til they expire? That's ok, but someone rejoining a server til they find something that peaks their interest is worse?
@wilbymagicbear You're not forced to server hop. You just prefer to because you're all impatient lazybeards.
@nabberwar It's not about determining who is or isn't a server-hopper; it's about how server-hopping greatly increases the chances for not just 1, but multiple encounters. The rate of encounters goes up considerably. I don't care how good you are - at some point that high rate will wither down even the best of crews as their supplies dwindle.
@wilbymagicbear I myself have been FOTD server hopping so I know exactly where you are coming from.
Put yourself on the other side. If you collected the flames and the skulls fought the 6 or whatever waves of skellies only to turn around and see a unpainted ship from Ancient Spire rolling in what are your thoughts?
I believe if you were on the server and saw it go active than you have every right to contest it.
Without hard numbers from Rare its hard to determine how many people are server hoping and if it is truly a problem or just a small subset of the population.
@galactic-geek
How do you determine that though? Their is quite a few assumptions happening here. How do you determine who is an aboriginal vs a hopper.
Really can't base it off supplies, I've sunk way too many people with fresh spawn enough to know people don't know how to restock or supply a ship.
Someone at the FOTD is their for a long time, they have no clue who is on the server only to be replaced by a person who just wants to sail, but sees the skull and becomes an opportunist.
This assumes every person you sank immediately leaves after sinking only to immediately be replaced by another hopper and not a regular crew. Add onto the fact that the fort takes time, so their is plenty of time for a ship to simple try again without even leaving.
I would even add, considering how big the reward is, requiring more effort in defending the fort seems right. Isn't that the case for SoT, bigger reward means bigger challenge?
@nabberwar said in Server hopping a problem?:
@wilbymagicbear
I get annoyed that the people who are so quick to condemn hoppers are usually perfectly fine with hijacked servers in the name of PvE. Someone privatizing a server that doesn't belong to them, hijacking servers that don't belong to them, and holding them til they expire? That's ok, but someone rejoining a server til they find something that peaks their interest is worse?
Not worse but more in the spirit of the game(as the pvp and theives like to tout). The dev's give players a choice to team up. If a group can take over a whole server good on them.
Feels like a waste of time to me, but I like the sailing and treasure hunting. And without me, who would the theives steal from?
@pithyrumble
The reality of it for me, is that I condemn neither. If people want to set the server up, more power too you. However, I apply that same logic to the hoppers. We are playing a sandbox game, their is no wrong way to play this game.
I just get irritated by the people who morally grandstand when they themselves are doing things not within the spirit of the game either.
The vast majority of my steals I never even had a ship near the island. People hide/tuck on the island and wait until kegs are loaded. Ship to ship combat rarely takes place unless we need to chase if things went bad or they blew the megas. We/I may be an outlier with this approach.
Granted this becomes a skill question but the vast majority of people are so so at pvp.
What happens if you put a 10-15 minutes times where you cannot see event clouds in the sky when you spawn in? Good or bad?
I personally would start collecting the flames and skulls and doing it as rare intended. While doing so If I saw it go active then my pvp begins.
Not sure if this would also alleviate server spin up and down for RARE.
What is the difference between a server hopper and a crew that has just started up for the night?
Answer: nothing
I don't server hop but if I log on and see a fort cloud nearby I'm going to be tempted to go to it and check it out. If you're at a fort, you should know that you are potentially open to being attacked and should be on the lookout. If you run low on supplies, you'll need to stock up to defend yourself or risk getting sunk.
@nabberwar Again, it's not about who is or isn't. A native crew will likely give up after a few tries, and decide to do something else, but a server-hopping crew will simply swap servers and try again - when that happens, a spot is left open that will likely be taken by another server-hopping crew due to the high frequency of pirates currently doing it. In the latter case, your constantly under attack by many ships due to rotating crews, but in the former, if the attacking crew doesn't leave the server, others can't take their spot.
@picklebeard22 There is no difference - both have the same intention. The forts are going to attract attention (intended), it doesn't matter if it's a new ship on the server or someone who has been sailing for 3 hours. If they want to attack a FOTD, and it is available, they are going to do it. It doesn't matter where they came from in the end.
The vast majority of my steals I never even had a ship near the island. People hide/tuck on the island and wait until kegs are loaded. Ship to ship combat rarely takes place unless we need to chase if things went bad or they blew the megas. We/I may be an outlier with this approach.
You are not. However, ambushes are perfectly acceptable for playing this game. However, anyone can do that, either the aboriginals or hoppers. Hardly any setup.
What happens if you put a 10-15 minutes times where you cannot see event clouds in the sky when you spawn in? Good or bad?
For me, this game is a sandbox, as long as you keep it language appropriate, their is no wrong way to play this game. So I see no need to patch something like this.
I personally would start collecting the flames and skulls and doing it as rare intended.
Is that how its intended though? Remember sandbox game, the only thing needed for this is to light the torches and get the skull. How I go about doing that is up to me. I could steal someone elses skull rather than do the voyage, work together with another crew and collect only half the amount of lights. I could collect all the lights but have multiple skulls to just farm it over and over. I could steal all the lights from a random ship. They could even give me them as well. I could stake out the fort and wait for the ship to bring me all the stuff as well.
I see no intended method to do this. That is the beauty of a sandbox game.
@nabberwar For me, it's simply a matter of balance - in a server with no server-hoppers, you may be attacked 2 or 3x during the active fort. However, with server-hopping, it's likely to be 5x or more. Even the best will struggle with that kind of constant barrage.
@nabberwar For me, it's simply a matter of balance - in a server with no server-hoppers, you may be attacked 2 or 3x during the active fort. However, with server-hopping, it's likely to be 5x or more. Even the best will struggle with that kind of constant barrage.
...and I love every minute of it. Considering how valuable this voyage is, 5x encounters seem appropriate. No voyage gives remotely the amount this does, especially the reputation gain from the Chest of Legend without the need for Athena. Which, side note, makes PL title once again worthless.
@d3adst1ck If it doesn't matter than why not put a 10-15 minute no cloud visual on fresh player logins?
The main reason players are hopping is because they do not want to do the work of boring sailing for flames and for easy steals. If you take away the method to hop then more people will play and experience the content?
@picklebeard22 But they are experiencing the content. Taking the clouds away is actually removing their ability to do so.
Also, why do you think that removing the clouds is going to stop server hoppers? They will just hop more often so they get a close spawn to the FOTD and check it out anyways.
This is just a feel good solution that accomplishes nothing.
I'm with @Nabberwar here. People condemn server hopping when it comes to looking for forts, skeleton ships, Reaper Chests, etc... but I hardly see people complaining about people who server hop to queue up with a specific other crew, then pester other players to takeover their ships, and occupy the server until its End of Life to grind PvE for 18+ hours.
The server takeover thing is a way more intrusive and annoying use of server hopping than simply looking for forts or something.
Even if they were to do something about server hopping, (which I dont think they should spend their energy doing) it should be something that destroys the practice for everyone from fort hoppers to server takeovers - like a beard error that would appear after so many times of spamming the leave game/set sail cycle. But again, not something I think they should waste their time on.
@nabberwar For that much trouble, I think it would be easier just to do a normal fort or even an Athena run...
@d3adst1ck The cloud doesn't actually go away; they just won't see it for the 1st 10 minutes. Hopping to a new server in this regard won't help, because they would never see a FotD skull cloud... Even if they do find 1 and check it out, that still takes time to do, slowing down the server-hopping. It's not about stopping the crime, only reducing it.
@galactic-geek It doesn't matter if they can't see it - if they know they can't see them for 10 minutes, you don't think they will just go to the island to see if people are there anyways?
All this will do is get crews to split into different servers, sail to the island and then all join on the person who finds someone doing the fort.
Nothing is changed by making the clouds invisible.
@d3adst1ck said in Server hopping a problem?:
@galactic-geek It doesn't matter if they can't see it - if they know they can't see them for 10 minutes, you don't think they will just go to the island to see if people are there anyways?
All this will do is get crews to split into different servers, sail to the island and then all join on the person who finds someone doing the fort.
Nothing is changed by making the clouds invisible.
I edited my previous post. Please re-read it.
What about the players who were already on the server setting up the content? Do they not matter so long as the hoppers get theirs? (I dont want to get into what fair Pirate)
Best case scenario you are spawning at plunder or ancients. Whats the sail time? If you cannot see a cloud in the sky then you at least need to make to to crooks for visual of a ship.
The idea is to make it unattractive to do so more players wont do it. Its not a 100% fix.
Would this change impact the way you play? Because it would for me as a FOTD hopper but I feel its what the game needs.
@galactic-geek I did - it still doesn't make a difference. If a server hopper is intent on doing the fort, they are still going to do it and will hop and split the crew as necessary.
@PickleBeard22 - you can see ships at the fort from farther away than Crooks Hollow depending on where they are parked and what angle you are coming in from.
This solution doesn't make it unattractive in the least to players who are actively hopping around servers trying to find active forts. All this does it penalize people who are just playing normally if they happen to log in when the fort is under 10 minutes from being completed.
If you don't want people to attack the fort, which is basically the entire reason it was designed with a special cloud that is player activated and not timed, then you are treading into asking for PvE safe zone type material.
What about the players who were already on the server setting up the content? Do they not matter so long as the hoppers get theirs? (I dont want to get into what fair Pirate)
No one is entitled to anything, sorry. The only thing that matters is who turns in that piece of loot. Vendors give the same regardless of who dug it up, fished it out, or fought through waves of the undead to get it. I'm sorry, but Sea of Thieves isn't a game designed around fair play. We are playing a game about Pirates, individuals infamous for villainy, thievery, and self serving tactics. To expect fair play is quite the high expectations.
If Rare wanted fair play, they wouldn't have designed the game in the way they did.
Are you trying to convince me or yourself?
I cannot help but think you are fighting not to have this because this is the way you play. Have you ever even collected all the flames and skulls?
Lets keep away from the server take over topic as its closely related but different.
The topic is whether or not hopping around servers looking for a particular event is active is acceptable.
This dramatically changes the way server hopping works.
Current:
vs.
Proposed
Step 3 is lucky and Step 4 I am already annoyed I have to raise anchor myself personally :)
The time difference makes it a deterrent but no deterrent works full proof. But your argument is people should play the game as they want. That this is legit and nothing is wrong with it. I dont disagree with you but does it feel just a little tiny piece wrong?
@picklebeard22 Why would 4 server hoppers all log into the same server? They will each log into an individual server and then all join on the one that finds something. It's 4 times faster.
The only way to prevent server hopping is to lock players to a server once they've logged in but that creates a whole new host of other problems. Trying to solve it by using things like hiding world events is not going to work. You are talking about "delaying" them, but delaying them by a few minutes on an event that can take 30 minutes or more to complete once activated seems kind of pointless and doesn't solve the problem of people ALREADY ON THE SERVER are going to attack if they want to as well.
It's a PvP world event. Its going to attract PVP.
@nabberwar Rare does want fair play, otherwise they wouldn't have designed it the way they did (horizontal progression, for example). They likely just couldn't find a good solution, so they went for the lesser of 2 evils.
@d3adst1ck said in Server hopping a problem?:
@picklebeard22 Why would 4 server hoppers all log into the same server? They will each log into an individual server and then all join on the one that finds something. It's 4 times faster.
Thats what I meant "different servers " was intended.
The only way to prevent server hopping is to lock players to a server once they've logged in but that creates a whole new host of other problems. Trying to solve it by using things like hiding world events is not going to work.
Yeah locking to a server is not the way.
Not every solution needs to be perfect. I agree it wont stop people from getting a lucky spawn but its something.
Do you have a solution or leave the system as is?
@nabberwar a dit dans Server hopping a problem? :
If Rare wanted fair play, they wouldn't have designed the game in the way they did.
They would because they're quite short sighted and still need to learn a lot about game design (and that's absolutely fine but let's not pretend they knew it was coming).
Rare never hop in their weekly steam, because that's how they envisionned the game, building stories, creating bonds with other crews, have a grog at the tavern and call it a night.
But professional streamers, hardcore players and tryharders tend to do it a lot because that's the only way to keep things interesting. It says something about how the game was supposed to be played and how players game the system to optimize their time (exactly like Prodigy the first pirate legend, the first of a continuous history of gaming the system).
I'm not a big fan of hopping even though I do it in the little time I give nowadays for SoT but I truely believe it wasn't Rare's intention. There's something to be learnt for Rare here. Players want interactions, the more, the best.
@nabberwar Rare does want fair play, otherwise they wouldn't have designed it the way they did (horizontal progression, for example).
What game design choice enforces that statement though? I can progress all factions without never engaging in a single voyage and only with theft. It is certainly slower, but nothing stops me from doing it. One could argue Alliances, but their is no stopping me from killing and backstabbing them either. Faction venders don't reward more for actually doing the voyage, but I get the same amount regardless if I dug it up myself.
While certainly everyone having that equal playing field works as fairness, but it doesn't stop players from engaging in "Unfair" tactics. Thieving from that new player? Go for it. Backstab that team that did half the work for you? Go for it.
