[Mega Thread] PvP and PvE Playstyle Discussion

  • Ahoy there!

    As we continue to see an overwhelming number of posts regarding the PvE versus PvP play styles, we have decided that the best way to house those discussions is within a mega thread. In this way, we can keep feedback and suggestions on this topic centralized, and allow the community as a whole to have an easier time locating threads on other topics players would like to raise. This is also much more manageable for our community staff, and helps us direct feedback to the team.

    This discussion has been a passionate and frequently heated topic, and as such, this thread will be subject to the same moderation rules as elsewhere in the community. Posts intended to call out the development team, demand actions be taken, containing derogatory language, or otherwise in violation of the forum rules will be removed. Constructive debate is welcome, so long as it remains within these guidelines.

    We would also ask that this thread be kept on topic, and related to discussion of PvE and PvP preferences in play style, including posts regarding whether or not the team should consider PvE only or PvP only servers. Off topic posts will be removed by our community team.

    Our moderation team will be locking and redirecting threads around the community to this thread. If your thread is locked, please feel free to share your thoughts and ideas here. We appreciate your cooperation in helping to keep our community better organized.

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  • Create a new trading company with it's own progression and commendations. In order to rank up in this trading company, you need to play Challenge mode. This would be a new game mode based on a series of challenges your crew could undertake where you battle megalodons, skeleton ships, boss enemies, and regular skeletons. You could have commendations based on number of enemies killed, how fast you complete the challenge, and for different challenge types. Challenge mode would have no encounters with other crews, and you would not be able to rank up in any of the Adventure mode trading companies. Each challenge could grant between 5-8K worth of gold for completing it in a specific time.

    This would balance out the PvP offering provided by the Arena while not stealing players from or altering the mix of player types in Adventure mode.

  • I just play the game as intended. I mainly PvP, if new commendations are added we do that while hunting flags as a reaper.

    While I get some newer players probably don't like to learn to fight back. In general imo the pvp is the best part of the game.

    The thrill of hunting down ships whether it be on a rowboat coming up with a plan on how we will take out the other ships is beyond the best part.

    Pve is fun it creates pvp...at least for the event aspect..Which again is what the game is.

    I never have a goal when I play. Yes I plan on pvp. But that is part of the game. Without pvp it would be boring tbh as much as I wouldn't wanna admit that.

    I personally believe most people who complain about pvp are new players or server alliance players. They don't know how to fight back against players like myself and many others who have been playing for almost 3 years at this point.

    Be More Pirate

  • @lady-aijou What about the PvPvE players? The ones who partake in both?

    @D3ADST1CK Sounds fun to me.

  • So far from my understanding. Most if not all of the pve related topics are just new players who just don’t understand open world. (And that they play solo sloop)

    Some vet players have recently started to come forth but it mainly some go solo sloop or the events are so troublesome to complete unless you have a crew.

    Frankly, I’m here on Xbox lobbies and majority of the crews I meet are fellow solo sloops and we get along just fine. That is of course unless your doing the FotD but that in itself is a given. It’s pvp area. (Along with any world events)

    Finally, alliances seems to be another issue I’ve counted from people. They “believe” you should be safe when joined up with fellow crews who want the same thing, when In fact it’s “they want the loot” and betrayal happens.
    (Oddly. When I join a alliance, I strictly tel them. Keep the loot I just want the commendations completion)

    If some how you could add some degree of, Hey if you do stuff together and ally up once and awhile you can earn this and that. Like in when the skeleton ships and hungry one events done.

    But anything else. This be a sandbox game much like Minecraft (I’m sure we all played) and stuff happens in it. Good and bad. One bad time, the new player auto believes this gonna be a recurring thing.
    Losing “hours” of loot is end of the world...
    Sadly players today are to soft in the whole, I’m gonna play this game and get everything then get bored once I do. Quit. Instead of just going with the flow and playing as a gamer should you be much happier.

    Game atm, is fine but maybe improve on the idea of the alliance system or helping other players. Maybe expand the maidan voyage section to explore all things you will encounter.

  • The PVE side seems to be mainly Solo Sloopers.

    It’s a Multiplayer game.

    It’s a Game with World PVP.

    So yes, if you insist on solo’n and not PVP’n in a Multiplayer PVP Game then your going to be very frustrated.

    Instead of trying to change the game, why don’t you try to change and play it the way it was designed to be played.

  • In b4 lock...

    Cause yeah. This is gonna get spicy.

    I don't pvp. Anxieties. For some reason this game's pvp triggers mine even if there's a hint. I avoid everyone and world events. Some people just really don't like the pvp aspect. I think there would be less complaints if you sold the game as a pvp experience and let people discover there is a whole 'nother side of the game instead of this "OpEnWuRlDAdVaNtoOrEWiThFrEndS" malarkey.

  • Well to be fair, the first tag listed on Steam for SoT is 'online PvP' (though Rare themselves may gloss over this aspect in their marketing...)

    But I hear what you are saying. I very rarely initiate pvp myself, I'm just not that sort of pirate. But the constant threat of pvp is what keeps the game exciting, for me anyway.

    Remember the early days, when game content was restricted to fetch quests for the three factions? When skele forts and meg spawns were Events? In those days, I was under no illusion that pvp was an integral and necessary part of the game - heck, without pvp the game would have been beyond tedious. Even the most commonplace of merchant runs was rendered exciting by a sinister sail on the horizon.

    But now, Rare has added so much excellent content that the game can stand on it's own without pvp. And I think that is why some pirates question the need for pvp at all.

    Personally, the potential for pvp is still essential to my enjoyment of SoT. I've played on alliance servers, and while a fun way to meet new pirates, they quickly became grindy and bland. Without the threat of some black-hearted villain swooping in to steal my hard-won shinies, the game lost some of its appeal. It is that threat which adds spice to my adventures.

    I understand some don't want that threat; fair enough. I submit that there are ways to avoid pvp altogether if that is desired, such as the aforementioned alliance servers. Even without going to that extent, the Sea is not a Battle Royale sandbox. Any pirate that has spent time aboard a sloop knows how easy it is to avoid pvp, should they choose. The solo-slooper's mantra of 'keep your head on a swivel and sell often' renders unwanted pvp little more than a nuisance.

    I think of pvp as being like a football game. Maybe you win, maybe you lose, but the game should always be played with good sportsmanship, and everyone should meet in the pub afterwards for a drink!

  • Your problem is Arena and Streamers.
    You attracted a playstyle that is not interested in pirate adventures and you support streamers who's fun is to stomp on others.
    And when Botswains said it's enough with toxicity, there was done nothing to really change it.
    You can read that the pirate code is treated as a funny guideline in these threads.
    Did you read this thread carefully?
    It's only new players who have problems.
    But especially new players should be included.
    Dont come up with artificially rules. Dont split the players further, dont Try to please everybody, but stick to your initial vision.
    A social experience and uncertainty about other players.
    As long as you for example allow people to abuse glitches and exploit, as long as you allow for fps players to play fps TDM in Arena as long as you allow serverhopping to please alliance server creators and pvp hoppers seeking out for prey only and some of them not even interested in loot, but only sink and trashtalk you as long as all this is treated as viable playstyles nothing changes. In the long run, this will kill the game more quick than Rare has maybe planned to.
    Because like allways, when they have nothing to stomp on anymore they leave too, but nobody will come back.
    We are not PvE versus PvP, we are not sheeps to wolfs, we are pvevpirates wanting a pirate adventure, but this thread alone shows it you open a debate between pve and pvp. Good luck on that.
    All who are not out for that, but tweak the game to their favors and play an unintended playstyle, not interested in social experience not interested in keeping the pirate code alive but tell you ist a funny guidline is the base problem of the community.
    The only way to solve it is to make these playstyles not fun and remove all their ways to tweak the experience of a pirate adventure into something else. No matter if it is grinding without uncertainty about player interaction aka alliance servers or hopping for PvP and find emissarys or active FotD etc...

  • maybe then it is better to create a single player game without servers, with paid content, without toxic players, problems with the balance of weapons and other things?

  • Long time player here,

    I understand the balance that PvP brings to this world, without it the game might become really boring really fast. I have had a great share of PvP myself, and especially in the first year my crews attacked anything on sight for the thrill.

    After the first year things changed, I was legend for a while already and most of my friends had moved on to different games. I left the large clan which my friends and I created and I was looking for a more casual experience. I tried this for a couple months but it just wasn't working out. If you are limited in time because of work then you want to spend those hours as optimal as possible and knowing that you could loose all your progress if you made one wrong move or just happened to be on the wrong server did bum me out. I would love to do a simple quest once in a while but that didn't happen a lot in the past year.

    This is still one of my favourite games in memory and I would love to visit the Sea of Thieves world again but I can't get myself to choose this game over the many others that do give me an option to enjoy the world after work.

  • I enjoy both.

    But latley PVP is getting worse and worse with every update. The sword is a joke, totally unreliable, the hit-reg... The skill gap being reduced with every nerf/buff, players lagging and teleporting, mermaids that sometimes last ages to appear, and so on...

    Fighting is getting boring because you can't trust on your skills more than luck. Which is very frustrating.

  • NO RISK....

    NO REWARD

    Simple

    PvE advocates can happily go play in the custom servers when they become available to the public.

    Otherwise it's just undermining and subverting the games risk reward premise.

  • The big issue is solo sloopers or new players who just don’t understand the premise of the game they’ve purchased even though a game named
    “Sea of Thieves”should be self explanatory. I’ve seen people say the come back periodically but keep leaving because they get killed. Funny enough, they mention that they have an emissary flag up and call the people that attacked them “toxic” and go to report them. If you raise those flags, you’ve literally engaged willingly in combat and are guaranteeing the attacker a reward. Even if you do not have a emissary up, anyone still has the right to go and sink you if they want. This is just the game. Some people produce loot through pve and others steal it like pirates through pvp. This can also be done the other way around. If they have their own servers with only pve, there will be no loot generated to steal on the normal servers. Rare, you should introduce new players to combat and make them aware that all their loot is not theirs until it is sold by them. Some new guys just don’t get that that’s how a online pirate game works. High risk, high reward.

  • @Lady-Aijou i dont know, but i already recognize derogative attempts.

    Is SoT mainly a PvP game or is it a pirate adventure game with the possibility of PvP, but more like an option of player interaction and when pvp nit that serious hardcore e-sportish, but just casual fun PvP?

    Since Anni Update, since Arena and since some popular Streamers introduced and made DG and other exploits and tuccing popular your game is regarding a "social experience" and having a fun pirate adventure going down.
    I for myself think the Rocco debate and lot of other discussion and content that is created by really toxic gamers revealed the problem very clearly.
    Rare opened that Box of Pandora and attracted these gamers and supported them.
    Is content where pro players mock about kids or new players, less skilled players who get upset, because they get spawnkilled and be shown off good content?
    Isn't it more toxic to show people off than someone getting upset when he got spawnkilled and maybe dont know he can scuttle, even if you can do it on the ferry meanwhile?
    So lets say i know i'm above average and we go kill others, spawnkill until they get frustrated and say bad things. Who is more bad, the one with an authentic reaction or the one whos provoking it and then share it on YT or Twitch and show the other off and say look how toxic he or she is when he used bad words!? This PvE Lord Noob etc. Who is toxic then????
    Rare allways tries to not make these gamers upset.
    DG (without E) is the best evidence.
    But what is it? Freedom?
    No it only pleases a specific playstyle. There is nothing funny or piratish about DGing, but without it the fps gamers wont play and use it to reduce the ttk to 1.5s when a good and fun pirate fight should cconsistently of some shots and slashes etc...
    Ok this is all subjective of course.
    But if Rare cannot see where the problems come from, and the main problem comes from separating these groups and make us not all feel like PvEvPirates, but two opposing groups like in the title pve versus pvp. Bad !!!
    I allways argued this way: it's PvEvP, the game want you to get loot and do PvE, but PvP is allways possible - remember uncertainty about other players.
    All fine as long as people branch out into it in a balanced way.
    Then extremes showed up, people started serverhopping to create premade alliances to avoid PvP.
    PvPers start serverhopping for Forts to get into the action asap.
    None of them was out for an unpredictable pirate adventure and Rare tried this and that, but never was clear or consequent about it.
    And then they made Arena and then they did nothing about exploits for a long time and they partnered with streamers who are questionable at best and they allowed them to be really elitist and all that, not caring about or even not understanding the pirate code.
    And the pirate code is important for all players having fun, for the inclusive character of the game, for the fun in general.
    But if you attract E-Sport PvPers who have fun stomping others and want to win at any cost not caring for the other players experience you get exactly what you have today.
    A megathread about it :-)

    Rare would have to delete Arena, they would need to bring Sea dogs into Adventure maybe as opposition to RB, but still PvEvP and not PvP only and they would need to fix all exploits and force people to have an unpredictable pirate adventure and not serverhop to do PvP only or PvE only and whatever!
    You would maybe lose 50% of the players, maybe even more, but tbh i would like to play it some more years but with likeminded pirates and i like also to fight them and have fun pvp, caring and beeing empathic pvp, not sweaty tryhards trashtalkers pvp. Means i dont spawnkill, i dont want them to ragequit, i dont harass people for the sake of it i dont stomp 4v1 on others if not neccessarily etc...
    Not showing off others or call them noobs and pvelords. Every pirate who watch the Horizon for other players and ask himself what kind of pirates they might be is already PvPing!!!

    But most pirates who focus on PvP are everything else but not that.
    There are tons of foul apples.
    YT and Twitch are full of them.

    Main content is content making fun on others costs.
    That's not playing together or against each other on a fun basis, that's just beeing an .... compensating something and pushing the ego and their ePeen.

    It remind me of some Statements about SBMM.
    Some say sbmm is bad, because they dont want to sweat all the time, they want to stomp noobs and casuals and relax while doing so.
    This is the mentality you have a lot here with pvpers.
    They want to stomp noobs. And this is the experience i make for over a year more and more. The numbers who aproach SoT like that have raised for sure.
    Mostly my crew can fight these jerkish pirates off, but recently they made me also pause the game and give up my old pirate name i extra created for SoT.
    I changed back to my original GT because SoT is not the game anymore i have that much fun with.
    And that is not the games fault, it is the gamers gaming the system, the way the community have splitten up, the way most pvpers aproach it and the way people talked about the pirate code in the Rocco debate.
    Since then, i say sorry i dont spent my time that much with a high chance to have player interactions of that "quality".
    And it's not even fun to win against these pirates and send them to Davy Jones locker when most PvP encounter is against toxic jerks who serverhopped for sure. If you have a lot of experience in this game, I have something about 9.5 Million meters sailed, then you know who you fight and what you fight.
    And the tuccers....
    OMG seriously mostly they make me laugh and i cannot remember one beeing succesfull with me or my crew, but honestly.
    It was funny but it got so old and ridiculous meanwhile.
    Really people who login to tuck and think this is a fun playstyle.... all power to them, but in the eyes of some veteran players, you make you look like a fool.

  • @stundorn well written, agree totally...just want to correct a little mistake...you didn't sail 9,5 million km, you sailed 9,5 million meters

  • @illbushido305 Maybe expand the maiden voyage to teach new players about that...

  • @schwammlgott said in [Mega Thread] PvP and PvE Playstyle Discussion:

    @illbushido305 Maybe expand the maiden voyage to teach new players about that...

    That would really help them. They just cry hacks when someone is better than them.

  • @schwammlgott true :-)

    Fair winds
    ~ Bill eh i mean Stun :-)

  • @illbushido305

    Agree with your longer post..
    Well a lot of pvp only players use exploits and therefore it feels like "hacks" to them.
    The old DGE was the best. How can you die instant? Hacks, when it was "only" the exploit to break animations and circumvent the supposed time between 2 shots.
    Or when people could cancel the stunlock after they lunge jumped.
    There are still some exploits in the game to let other players feel they got "hacked" and there is tons of pvpers who say that there lies the skill to play in to use exploits and stomp noobs who then feel betrayed and not having a fair fight.
    Just to say.
    But i fully agree with you in your first post.
    The game is a PvEvP game and pvp is an important part of it.
    Only the gamers who game it, exploit and aproach it in a extreme way harm the overall community.
    The bad thing is.
    If it would be no problem, we would not have tons of threads about it and now a mega thread and if it would be no problem Rare would not have tried to fix DGE for month or removed WB and is working on to fix another, less pvp influencing exploit, but still an exploit.
    When i see people say all these things should stay i dont get their intention other than to exploit and have an advantage over players playing regularily.

  • I like the pvp aspect of the game (shocker I know).
    I mainly play by the "If you attack me I will attack you back". I like doing pvp when it happens, that's pretty much it.

    I would be bummed out if pvp and pve were two different experiences, I think we would lose some of the essence and spirit of the game.

    Still it is always good for both sides to express their opinions, I feel like sometimes we get lost in our camps/opinions (that goes for both pvp players and pve players)

  • Hi Rare. I'm enjoying both sides of the game. However. Every once in a while a CPU ship pops out of the ocean and will absolutely not leave me alone no matter what which is extremely difficult to deal with when playing alone. I ran out of wood very fast and I could not outdistance them nor could I anchor at an outpost for safety. I lost a lot of loot that had taken me a long time to accumulate and now I'm feeling very jaded as literal hours of my hard work are wasted by this what I would dub "toxic" event. I want to enjoy the game and I am extremely glad your company has begun creating again, however, this one aspect will inevitably make me quit the game if I keep running in to this ridiculous event that I cannot seem to escape.

  • @porcine-hero675

    Unfortunately you have to sink those to get them to go away. One of the very few (probably only) pve event you can't just sail away from.

  • @porcine-hero675 said in [Mega Thread] PvP and PvE Playstyle Discussion:

    Hi Rare. I'm enjoying both sides of the game. However. Every once in a while a CPU ship pops out of the ocean and will absolutely not leave me alone no matter what which is extremely difficult to deal with when playing alone. I ran out of wood very fast and I could not outdistance them nor could I anchor at an outpost for safety. I lost a lot of loot that had taken me a long time to accumulate and now I'm feeling very jaded as literal hours of my hard work are wasted by this what I would dub "toxic" event. I want to enjoy the game and I am extremely glad your company has begun creating again, however, this one aspect will inevitably make me quit the game if I keep running in to this ridiculous event that I cannot seem to escape.

    Are you? seems like you haven't played the game according to your profile. It's a nice demonstration of the slippery slope mentality but let's not troll any more than needed on an already delicate topic yeah? People will get triggered over real arguments soon enough anyways.

  • @stundorn so your saying all pvp is wrong and all pvpers are toxic
    I'm at 21 million meters. I can assure you it's the pve people who are toxic because they got sunk because they had a emissary flag. I've been called way worse by people who send us on a goose chase for a hour for no reason other then refusing to pvp.

    It is a game there is winners and losers. I get refusing to lose but don't send msgs threating people ext.

    I've said it once and i will say it 1000 times more..If I reported any of the screenshots I have from pve players and what they say when they sink in msgs in game or on Xbox they would be banned.
    I choose not to.

    Also I find it funny any time I get in a good battle and fight back id say 95% of the time it's just a GG. So I think the issue has more to do with people not knowing how to pvp or shoot a cannon.

    I 100% disagree with everything and I'm there least biased person when it comes to this

  • PVE SERVERS MEGA THREAD!

    It's happening then. 😂

  • @d3adst1ck you nailed it on the very first post. Absolutely the only way a PvE only mode should be implemented and the only way most of us long time players would accept it.

  • The opening post is framed as giving a choice. PvE playstyle or PvP Playstyle.

    Now, everyone knows if you mention PvE someone will barrel along and say "It's NOT a PvE game, it's PvPvE." > Insert youtube links to Dev's claiming they'll never do PvE and that is supposed to immediately shut down discussion.

    So already we're heading towards the rocks.

    The history of the PvP in this game has been checkered and unsavoury, with some terrible decision making on Rare's part about what kind of playstyle they endorse. Even if they don't outright endorse noobstomping and toxicity, the mediocre action taken by Rare to tackle problems within their community and to support streamers who are making a name for themselves by systematically demolishing new players has emboldened the worst parts of their community and tainted the PvP element of the game.

    So PvP has a bad name, and with many many youtube videos/twitch clips showing quite nasty playstyles coupled with outright sexist, homophobic, misogynistic slurs there is little wonder there is a massive outcrying for PvE.

    This is without mentioning the actual legitimate in-game tactics that make the learning curve sky high and the punishment severe for new players. Although losing your loot is obviously part of the game it is intensely frustrating and a huge block to new players progressing even past 10-30 hours.

    I have yet to see a reasoned argument against PvE that isn't framed around "The Dev's said they want it like this" and that is completely convincing as to why PvE shouldn't happen. Almost every argument against PvE only servers is often pitched as "I don't think YOU should get the rewards for doing PvE only."

    That's likely true. It might not be fair. If PvE servers were to go ahead with their own achievements and completely different commendations and entirely different progression then it might remove that argument. Without mentioning "It's how the dev's designed it!" would a PvE server with completely different progression and achievements be something so offensive? Getting stomped and losing loot isn't a rare occurrence and it happens quite a lot when you're new. Getting your tall tale interrupted is infuriating and makes people simply stop playing.

    And for those solo sloop new players, are we really so unwelcoming that they give up within hours? IS it really so bad to have a PvE place for them to tootle around, learn the game, build up to adventure mode?

    Any argument that it'll split the playerbase if there is a PvE only servers misses the point a little that lots of PvE players aren't here any more anyway - they've given up and gone to play something else as instructed (this seems to be the general response here). You can't split people from the playerbase who aren't even here any more although you might get people who like a bit of PvE and PvP go into the PvE server to get their tall tale done or something, but if the achievements are seperate then that might change too.

    Make turning in chests only give you 5% gold, or make the progression to Legend 100 times longer and grindier. Make it so some world events require four out of the six ships on the server to fight off the megaboss/huge fleet or whatever. There IS a place for PvE in Sea of Thieves. Whether those players who are playing adventure mode now can let it go and watch it happen is another thing entirely. When Rare announce PvE servers the Internet is going to go mental.

    REAL question is, will Rare care if they start making huge money from PvE sales, skins, microtransactions etc?

  • @theargonaut144 said in [Mega Thread] PvP and PvE Playstyle Discussion:

    And for those solo sloop new players, are we really so unwelcoming that they give up within hours? IS it really so bad to have a PvE place for them to tootle around, learn the game, build up to adventure mode?

    Not at all, private servers will actually kill many birds with a single stone by providing this balanced extended training ground amongst other things.

    So many "problems" concerning pve/pvp are being fixed in a very fair way shortly with these servers, they can't come soon enough :)

  • @bloodybil Agreed. Custom Servers could be the thing so many players are looking for and the sooner they're sorted the better.

    I only keep popping back to see when they're getting launched to be honest.

  • Pve servers can't exist... how would they ...if it wasn't a single player mode. If anyone can explain how please lmk.

    You would have to be solo because this game is pvp and pve game.
    Regardless of people trying to make it a stigma for even bringing up it is a pirate game.I

    To make a entire new game mode for players who openly refuse to fight back and learn how to play the game as intended is absurd

  • @theargonaut144 Going skip over everything else and just say I disagree with.. everything there.
    Only stuck my head in to ask about this "sky high learning curve" you speak on.
    Are we talking about the same game here? The SOT learning curve is is about as flat and low as it can get. SOT is nowhere near a difficult game to approach and already is far to easy and forgiving.

  • The punishment for your first/second/third interaction with other players is a blunt force instrument of a learning curve in that is usually ends in swift and immediate sinking. Maybe I've been unclear in that learning to SAIL is ok, and finding treasure. First Meg can be rally hard for new players too. It is not forgiving and other players - purely by being more experienced and knowledgeable -can punish mistakes very harshly.

  • @theargonaut144 Yeah, new players will lose to experienced players in a pvp game, that's true of every pvp game ever.
    But in SOT the combat is rather simple and straight forward, and there is no penalty for losing.
    SOT was designed in a way that there is no cost to failure.

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