The toxicity has to stop.

I don't play other online games so I don't know this for sure but isn't the fact that they respond to pretty much every report with the action taken a rare thing in the gaming world?

That's a pretty significant amount of effort and resources being put into handling reports on an individual basis

@zig-zag-ltu said in The toxicity has to stop.:

I really hate myself sometimes for being too nice in a video game :/

I honestly have a hard time attacking other ships where I know I would win easily and their loot would be mine.

the entire point of the experience is that you have the opportunity to immerse and express without shame

the preferences of others are irrelevant to your freedom to be yourself

it's your story and your pirate life, your conscience is a part of your experience, that isn't anything that needs to be fought or felt bad about

it's you and following it is what allows you to reach your full potential as a pirate

@imperatormorsus said in The toxicity has to stop.:

Reddit. Look at Reddit. Too many complaints.

This is like saying go look at this twitch chat or this discord server for more info about cheating/toxicity

a group of people engaging in like-minded exaggerations and a shared narrative isn't an indicator of accuracy

@cptnpotbeard said in The toxicity has to stop.:

@zig-zag-ltu It was marketed as a PvPvE shared world game. I bought the game to PvP and have naval battles. Every ship I see is fair game. Even if the crew is terrible they can still learn something from the experience. Granted Sinking a crew that can't fight or won't fight isn't fun but if you have a flag I'm taking it. I don't care if it's your first day on the seas or not. Need to learn sooner or later how to fight in Sea of Thieves.

This is a sentiment that was far more accurate 3 years ago than it has been for the last year and a half

the reality of the combat environment is they have been running off the middle and enabling the skill gap while widening it

It's telling rabbits they need to learn how to fight wolves

not really, because of that dwindling middle activity it makes far more sense for them to do what they have been doing, avoiding the high level activity, running, avoiding fights with hoppers.

Pvpers in this game largely want a scenario where they aren't taking risks and more often than not have overkill scenarios on their vessel and the opponent taking all the risks and being to underdog to fight them, that's what the majority of the activity and narratives pushed around have long shown.

The above doesn't even take into the account all the server performance issues that harm the middle far more than they do anyone else.

@imperatormorsus said in The toxicity has to stop.:

@wolfmanbush And yet, this is the excuse that keeps it from being talked about, as well as being taken seriously as a problem. We need to stop this BS about that it's a minority. Have you ever thought that a minority complains because they care, but in reality, most people are affected and don't say anything because they know nothing will happen?

People can exaggerate and still be decent people
they can be part of a social bubble and still be decent people

there is no accountability for accusation in those circles, people literally just say whatever they feel, anecdotes they have

It's a random environment where a majority of the players aren't even engaging in hostile gameplay or regularly interacting.

Literally by the environment of the game and how it is designed it prevents a significant amount of toxicity/cheating because of how rare interactions/combat are a part of the environment.

This game also has built in diversity to it. Adventure brings in all different types of people and interests, and personalities. Some games are going to be heavy on the aggressive approach to communication and gameplay. This game has all sorts of different people, spacing out the objective toxicity and the motivation for cheating.

@imperatormorsus said in The toxicity has to stop.:

@wolfmanbush Investigate and then find out if the person was exaggerating or not. It doesn't take too long.

I take it you have never been part of a group that investigated cheaters in a game, have you? I have... it takes on average 20 minutes if it's not blatant. It takes a few minutes to determine whether they are cheating or good. Skill improvement scales don't go upwards drastically without hours put into a system or cheating... It is rather easy to tell which is which.

"they are cheating because I say they are cheating" is not any different when you do it than when anyone else does it.

I had a conversation with a guy in the game a few nights ago while he was teleporting on my ship ladders non-stop and finally teleported a keg on the boat about how he had his main account banned already so he just uses alt accounts I told him I would not report him because its an obvious waste of time since he can keep getting alt accounts. I feel lucky I've only seen 2 obvious cheaters in my time playing the game.

@imperatormorsus said in The toxicity has to stop.:

You don't get better overnight if you are a casual player, and you don't get better overnight without putting hundreds of hours over days consecutively... how is this hard to understand?

You don't have access to the data, you are speculating like everyone else.

@imperatormorsus said in The toxicity has to stop.:

@wolfmanbush The data exists, if it didn't the game could not be tweaked.

I don't assume, I know... I've worked on RTS/FPS games... I've seen the data collected, it's more than you'll ever know. They can tell where you are, what you are doing, and how you are doing it, and if they wanted to, they could say if you are using a computer with a mouse and keyboard or a controller, or a console.

It is not difficult to get that information, I am sorry to say. They just don't let people know what they have, because if they did, it would make you think twice about playing online games.

this is the type of stuff that is a real disservice for accuracy and objectivity

you tell people you have experience in the field to help along a narrative in places that push narratives about cheating and if you were transparent and objective about it you would say it's pretty irrelevant because you don't have the data for the individual incident in this specific game.

It's like someone saying they are an investigator so they know what happened in a case even though they haven't seen the facts of the case. People take that and run with it even though it's not fact based.

My two cents of hard-won wisdom on this topic: Don't look to Rare - or anyone - to fix how some people behave online. There are jerks and cowards out there, always have been, always will be. The only thing I can control is how I choose to respond.
And these days, I rarely waste the energy it takes to respond at all. I don't feed trolls, and I don't argue with stupid. There's too much fishing to be done to waste time on such malarkey :)

@ntraills said in The toxicity has to stop.:

My two cents of hard-won wisdom on this topic: Don't look to Rare - or anyone - to fix how some people behave online. There are jerks and cowards out there, always have been, always will be. The only thing I can control is how I choose to respond.
And these days, I rarely waste the energy it takes to respond at all. I don't feed trolls, and I don't argue with stupid. There's too much fishing to be done to waste time on such malarkey :)

Very well stated. I am all for a good fight, not the sinking of parked ships. I’m talking obviously fishing or unmanned, island exploring, no loot to speak of ships. THEN they proceed to talk smack, apparently believing themselves to be awesome PvP’ers. This is the equivalent of declaring yourself a bad*** because you hunted and killed all the animals in a petting zoo. Thanks for the laughs!

@ntraills said in The toxicity has to stop.:

My two cents of hard-won wisdom on this topic: Don't look to Rare - or anyone - to fix how some people behave online. There are jerks and cowards out there, always have been, always will be. The only thing I can control is how I choose to respond.
And these days, I rarely waste the energy it takes to respond at all. I don't feed trolls, and I don't argue with stupid. There's too much fishing to be done to waste time on such malarkey :)

Outside of the random extremes like people just screaming slurs right out of the gate a very significant amount of toxicity/clashing/unpleasantness can be avoided with deescalation

This community struggles when it comes to deescalation during these clashes. People want to give their lectures, engage in baiting, participate in the social game of "cleaning up the seas"

People that don't escalate and practice deescalation have very few problems with toxicity in this game. Reporting is a tool that exists for a reason, people can use it to productively approach it if they want. The whole ego song and dance of making a big production out of it leads to a whole lot more of the nonsense that would not had been produced if people handled it productively and without a show/lecture.

Speaking to people in a condescending way also leads to a path of escalation. Condescending communication is extremely common on the seas as well.

@personalc0ffee said in The toxicity has to stop.:

There's a toxicity and cheating problem and it is on the rise, especially within certain communities that we can't name here.

Let's not try to scapegoat and hide it.

There needs to be a heavy, heavy crackdown and unfortunately there needs to be client side anti-cheat.

I dunno what community is Voldemort and cannot be discussed in a general way but just repeatedly saying "it is on the rise" literally means nothing.

Even the tdm people that I've seen you criticize before with the alt accounts that I run into don't do or say anything that is a violation of the rules.

get the board, secure the camp (which is just standard sot sink procedure), they might get a little cringe and might not but it's nothing a simple hop doesn't solve.

This is a big part of where the don't escalate and don't get preachy comes in, people are generally either chill or at least don't escalate when it's not getting a big reaction.

If people wanna get preachy about it they are just flat out gonna get trolled because people know they can mess with someone. I just avoid letting it get to a negative point and bounce.

@imperatormorsus these problems have only gotten worse- rare doesn't care that players are miserable