Stop Server Hoppers

The main problem for PvPers (like myself) is the amount of ships per server.

After some PvP, a server usualy dies off pretty fast, as there is only 6 ships per server & the people you fought usualy leave the server to go to the next one, or quit for the day.
And also servers arent always fully filled to the max.

Rare already tried to prevent server hopping by decreasing the skull fort time from 3 hours to 30 mins or so, if not less.
But reducing the time made it not worth it anymore to contest a skull fort, as you only had to wait for the next one to spawn in at any moment, and stealing the key did nothing much anymore either.
It was still worth PvPing over it, but noth as it used to be.

Punishing server hoppers who just seek action is not guna do anything, but make a lot of people quit this game out of boredom because they get punished for playing the game the way they want.

As long as Rare does not find a solution to keep servers active for hours to come, so that PvPers can just hop into 1 or 2 servers (like a PvE session), instead of 10+ servers a day...

Server hopping will not be going anywere untill then.

@lou-enderdragon
Server hoppers are not voyagers or normal server pirates which you watch and come to learn their intentions from a distance. They don't have loot for you if you sink them. So there is no reward other than a fight which may or may not have been fun, and certainly not worthwhile. Or worse, they're trying to "tuck". So, now there's a crew that has no intentions of growing a server's wealth. Additionally, they have nothing to lose but everything to gain, making their actions have less Risk/Reward than anyone else who plays normally or is trying to get a certain commendation.

Just this past week, over three play sessions, I've been engaged by at least ten hopper crews of various ship types. And yes, they were hoppers. Their sails and ships were default skins. They continually charged me without an emissary flag or reaper's mark. They often were toxic bigots in chat and held only contempt. Sometimes I sank them, sometimes they sank me. But, every time the engagement was made, it was never a good fight.

Conversely, just this past night, I was being hunted by someone I'd seen earlier in my play session. A sloop who passed me by. I recognized the sails. I'd sold my loot previously for another emissary and had started to play as a reaper, slowly leveling to spot my foes on the map. -- Long story short, I was just about level five when they started their attack. We had a glorious fight (2v1) in which I had almost pulled myself back from the brink of doom and I congratulated them with a proud GG for the fun we had shared. An experience we had shared since we'd both started on the server...

@glannigan
Make that a bonus to Pirate Legends Athena's Reputation and a commendation attached, then suddenly everyone is trying to survive on a server. That's a good idea. Maybe we'll actually see pirates steal instead of sink and swim everyone they touch!

@schwammlgott
I'm okay with less extreme measures, sure. That's a valid concern, or when you're checking the tables and realize you've been put on an alliance server of reapers and you're just a poor solo tonight.

"Yeah, no, please let me go."

And it prevents "farming through searching." Which is a good thing, more organic and fair.

maybe go to the root of the problem? servers aren't very populated, and they never have been. we need more activity in a server to make it worthwhile.

when thinking about an issue like server hopping think about it from the other perspective (not the I did an event that draws attention and so I got killed because a server hopper found the server) but why are people hopping? What's the cause and how do we make it better?

When thinking about this some things come to mind.
Increase server capacity
reasons to have a longer session in one server rather than small sessions in multiple.
And things to unlock through longer tasks on a singular server.

emissaries did a good job for a little bit with the emissary grade, but a lot of people are already maxed out again and there wasn't really anything that was worth the grind. So people who didn't care about the lvls weren't being catered to.

Just think about things that could be implemented to encourage longer play sessions rather than saying that server hopping s bad (most of the people responding to this thread always say that you should be able to play how you want so rather than saying you should be playing a certain way find ways to encourage players to stay n servers?)

ps: look at what the cooldown on arena did it wasn't healthy for the gamemode and a lot of players are turned off of t because of it.

@stundorn said in Stop Server Hoppers:

The problem is the playstyle and it doesnt need to get catered to or cared about pure PvP Players.
Neither pure PvE Players.
These both extremes is all what harm s the game and community.

The whole point of the game is to start a session and hop into a server and do what ever, instead of hopping 20 servers a day because a server dies after the PvP happens, or there is simply nobody to be found, or even nothing happening on a server.

It is pretty frustrating to hop every single game session just to find one good encounter.
It is so much easier PvE wise to just hop in and do you're quests or whatever and stick to a server, unless otherwise happens.

Rare has already catered quite a bit for some PvE players, Like nerfing the kraken & the combat system.

I'd rather have to hop 1-2 times a session for 2 servers, instead of 10.

But this issue cannot be solved right now, because of server issues.

@stundorn like you always do you mock the players and playstyles you don't agree with "poor players". Stop, have valid ideas and arguments that could help the game, all you said here was that players are playing the wrong game and talking about them as if you know their exact intent, you don't (I actually have seen countless posts of yours that suggest a totally different direction for the game going against even what Rare's intention of the game is, some might say that you are playing the wrong game).

performance should be able to be improved with optimization (this is an assumption based on what we have seen from rare and their updates and improvements), as an example warzone holds 150 players on a map smaller then SoT with moving vehicles and players constantly interacting with one another. other big mmos like elder scrolls have 600 players in one server. now I understand that SoT works a whole lot different and has a lot of calculations it has to do because of physics and what not, but better optimization could help a lot (neither you or me know what is possible and we can only assume but to say that something isn't possible is not up to you). Your outpost argument is also just trying to cater to you being right (I would be shocked if you didn't know that there is another outpost in the devils roar). As of right now it is thought that only 5 ships can be on a server at one time even though there are 2 outposts per region and one in the roar totaling 7 outposts (rare doesn't seem to want to post the actual amount, but from multiple forums and threads it seems to be at 5) . There are 7 outposts in total, so there is the possibility of adding max another 4-8 players or 2 ships before adding another outpost or have players spawn on islands just like when you sink you spawn on islands this isn't the most convenient but is an option.

I still believe that listening to those players and figuring out how to encourage longer play sessions would be a good practice that would benefit the entire player base of the game.

@stundorn I haven't said I am fine with it, the opposite actually I am encouraging the people in this forum to find a solution that helps rather than a solution that will break the game for a lot of people. I also don't see a reason why rare wouldn't be able to implement a mechanic that would prevent eruption from happening when a boat spawns on the island.