Community is awful

Community vs hourglass are two different groups.
Some of us mute everything and listen to music so we don’t bother saying or typing anything.

@ren9982 said in Community is awful:

I believe this game needs to start rewarding good sportsmanship. Let people rate the Pirates you interacted with. A nice interaction and you get some bonus on sales for example. That would be an immediate way to encourage good behavior.

So Alliance exploiters and other slime (especially with big following, a.k.a. streamers, influencers and their buddies), can abuse it to keep getting a bonus all the time? It's enough they're already exploiting tons of stuff to death.

Omega nope from me.

To discourage constant bad rating by an bad actor you could easily make it that repeated downvoting causes the rating value to deminish.

Feel free to use mute. Otherwise, record and report. Some clown getting banned is enough encouraging.

Acting normal is not something that should be rewarded. It should be a default behaviour.

@ren9982

Don't blame the entire community based on how certain players choose to act. Behavior is the player's responsibility, and Sea of Thieves isn't alone when it comes to salty players breaking community conduct. No matter what game you play, you know you're going to meet a few bad apples. Also, without you recording/reporting what was said, how do you expect those toxic players from learning that they can't talk like that here? You're complaining about behavior you can do something about, but don't. Ok then.

How do you judge "good sportsmanship"? You have an emissary flag I still need. I see you parked at that island. I sail over and sink you while saying, "GG sir," I promise, there's absolutely ZERO chance of that crew saying to themselves, "You know, they didn't say anything toxic, they didn't spawn-camp us, they didn't name-call us, they came over when we weren't looking and sank us. Let's give them good sportsmanship points."

Oh wait....

Maybe I shouldn't sink them, but instead sail over and be as friendly as possible, calling out and help them find the X, as a Reaper, and they have a flag I want? Just to save a dollar or two on cosmetics?? In what world....I'll just leave it there.

The way it currently is, not recording/reporting players will lower certain behaviors even more. Be the change you want to see @Ren9982 and help clean up the seas.

Way it sounds. This would just make people fake nice for sake of it. Or abuse it and vote bad for sake of it.

“Be nice to me or I’ll vote you down”
Man that horrible way to look at it.

@ren9982

The value of treasure is set by the game developers, not other players, and for obvious reasons. You have a few flaws with this idea.

1- I've met plenty of crews who took their anger out on me because they didn't see me coming, and for that, the value of the treasure I get to collect, is now diminished all because they're salty?

2- There comes a point where gold becomes meaningless to players. I'm hardly alone when I say I'm well beyond that point. If you're salty that I stole your chest of fortune and you vote to punish me where it sells for one gold (which isn't fair in the first place mind you), for those who have tons of gold, it's not going to matter in the slightest (record and report instead).

3- This system is going to be abused like there's no tomorrow, creating even more toxic players. Especially since it doesn't deter toxic "bad" players who don't care about gold, who still get to play (record and report instead).

4- Who chooses the number at which a player's "bad" vote means less? Is it 3? Is it 5? If they keep meeting toxic people, and they reach that magic number, isn't it pointless and redundant to blame the victim by saying their vote isn't worth it now? Doesn't that defeat the whole system?? "Hey, you can vote if that crew who just sunk you is "bad" or "good", but just know if you keep voting"bad", your vote won't mean as much anymore." 😂 (Record and report instead).

5- "Talked nice in chat," 😂 So, while another crew is trying to kill me, I have to make sure to talk nice to them? PLUS I have to hope they'll make sure to vote me as "good", if they were unsuccessful and I complimented their ship cosmetics as I watched them sink? (Record and report instead).

6- You still haven't said what enough "good" votes will award?

What you fail to grasp here, is that Rare rewards players who don't break the Code of Conduct (who are "good") by allowing them to play. Rare isn't going to give players money for following the rules, so your idea of giving discounts on the Emporium isn't going to fly. And, you're 100% correct when you say it should be easy for them to build something like that. It's called record and report. That's how you cast your "bad" vote. It's also MUCH easier than what you're proposing here 😆

P.S. The reason why they require you to record other players instead of taking your word for it, is to protect the other player you're accusing, or just salty about. This system you've created, doesn't protect actual innocent players, makes votes against toxic "bad" players worthless for the victims, is easy to abuse, and isn't fair to players who've earned treasure by defeating another ship, said nothing toxic at all, but are punished anyways at losing the value of their loot. You seriously think your system is fair, and easier than simply recording/reporting toxic players?

@ren9982 said in Community is awful:

@europa4033
you are getting it cometely wrong. Its not about punishing bad but rewarding good behaviour. Just like.youe get a bonus at sales for one hour.a day you get a small multiplyer for good behavior.

Yes it wont matter for everyone but for some it does and everyone (especialy new players) that acts well will making the game a little better for everyone.

In ultimate frisbee for example this exists for a while. A sport that doesnt even have a ref but rather there is a seperate ratng for good sportsmanship. And there is basically rarely a debate about rule breaks.

It is about punishing bad behaviour.

Since per Rare's Pirate Code, not your projected imaginary one - everything that's not exploiting or constituted as toxic is good behaviour. 😁 This includes sinking you. Whether you have loot or not.

For everything else, feel free to record and report. The only person getting something wrong in this entire convo is you.

You have still not addressed most of the valid points people gave you, nor provided any sensible counterarguments, except for just emotionally parroting what you want in a loop.

If you can't cope with getting sunk by people, switch to another game, or camp SS with the rest of PvE lords lol. This thread is just a waste of space and everyone's time.

Back when Pirates really where a thing the "Pirate Code

Bringing historical events into a video game just for sake of argument.
Reality vs fantasy. Game vs life.

Since neither of us were born by that time, the documents that say all this more of “maybe” could have been the cause. It just an agreement for sake of history.

But we can’t make a fantasy game based of real life. That isn’t fun

@ren9982 said in Community is awful:

@europa4033
you are getting it cometely wrong. Its not about punishing bad but rewarding good behaviour. Just like.youe get a bonus at sales for one hour.a day you get a small multiplyer for good behavior.

Yes it wont matter for everyone but for some it does and everyone (especialy new players) that acts well will making the game a little better for everyone.

In ultimate frisbee for example this exists for a while. A sport that doesnt even have a ref but rather there is a seperate ratng for good sportsmanship. And there is basically rarely a debate about rule breaks.

We already have that here. You are rewarded for good behavior by simply having the ability to log on.

@ren9982 said in Community is awful:

@europa4033 said in Community is awful:

3- This system is going to be abused like there's no tomorrow, creating even more toxic players. Especially since it doesn't deter toxic "bad" players who don't care about gold, who still get to play (record and report instead).

In what way? Its easy to invalidate people that constantly downvote others without upvoting anyone. Just make their vote take less effect. Like someone that over a longer time has votes that go far from the games average or are mostly one sided, has less of an effect on the value of the voted than someone that has both postivie and negative votes.

It is NOT about punishment but about RARE actually taking a stance and making an effort to make their community better. Its an EASY way to take a stance and convey the message.
"This is a pirate game and you will be sunk for loot and gains. But some behavior is discouraged, like not spaming someone even they have 0 loot or even no emissairy flag, just to annoy them, or insult them when you got sunk."

Even if you don't engage you still gain loot and the gold balancing should work even without the rating. But you might get an extra if you showed good behaviour. Maybe a 0.5 Multiplier of top if you acted execptionaly nice over a period of time.

Not a negative one but just a bonus.

Again, Rare has already made that stance by posting their terms of service and the code of conduct, which they expect the playerbase to follow. By being "good", you get to enjoy the game. For those who choose not to follow the rules/code of conduct, there are repercussions.....that Rare can only know about if you record and report (I'm starting to pick up a common phrase here, you know what I mean?).

@ren9982 said in Community is awful:

@europa4033 said in Community is awful:

What you fail to grasp here, is that Rare rewards players who don't break the Code of Conduct (who are "good") by allowing them to play. Rare isn't going to give players money for following the rules, so your idea of giving discounts on the Emporium isn't going to fly. And, you're 100% correct when you say it should be easy for them to build something like that. It's called record and report. That's how you cast your "bad" vote. It's also MUCH easier than what you're proposing here 😆

Who says anything about the Emproim? And allowing to play does mean nothing. Someone can easily make a new account and is back in the game. Especially if someone wants to annoy others. Those players will not be prevented by this but it can and WILL send a message and that's what is important. Especially to the players that are not toxic.

You did, when you said players could get a bonus on sales.

Yes, players can make a new account and come back, repeating their toxic behavior. This has always been the case. But by recording and reporting them (there's that phrase again), they're unable to log on that account with either a temporary ban, points on the account, and if severe enough, a perma-ban where they lose cosmetics, gold, and any achievements/curses they worked to get.

Voting a player "bad" doesn't address the toxicity, it doesn't ban the player, salty players will vote anyone who sinks them as "bad" no matter what, punishing players simply playing the game's core concept and making their vote about the next "bad" player worthless and pointless.

@ren9982 said in Community is awful:

@burnbacon said in Community is awful:

Way it sounds. This would just make people fake nice for sake of it. Or abuse it and vote bad for sake of it.

“Be nice to me or I’ll vote you down”
Man that horrible way to look at it.

So what its a numbers game. If you earn loot by sinking them then a downvote should not be to big of a deal but if you sink them just to ruin their fun without any gain then whats the point? This is a pirate game. Stealing and robbing is fine. Even for a sink. But when there is no gain then thats just toxic. What is discouraged by this is the latter, not the further. Its just another way to make decisions. Just like you risk your own loot when you engage in a see battle you might risk a small bonus. But that might also be fully worth it depending on what you can gain from it.

There's a few problems here you fail to understand.

1- Anyone can sink you at any time for any reason. I've sailed with new players (before Custom seas) who really wanted to practice their chain shot. Our "gain" was getting him experience, we didn't care about their loot. How is that toxic? Once again, you fail to put responsibility on those who failed being observant, blaming those who took the initiative. PvP isn't toxic in this game.

2- How am I to know if that ship has any loot? Are they parked there to swim over and tuck on my FotD? Are they waiting for me to finish this fort? Is it "toxic" if I want to sink other ships nearby who could be lying in wait or planning to make their move against me? How can "stealing and robbing be fine," if they vote me as "bad" and now I'm penalized for it (they will be too later on)--- all because they weren't watching?

@ren9982 said in Community is awful:

Back when Pirates really where a thing the "Pirate Code" and how you handled thinks mattered a lot too. If you slaughtered everyone of the ships you robbed there were multiple problems with it. For once you risked the death of your own people since every encounter brings those risks. Sencondly you told the other creaw by way of reputation that surrendering actually meant nothing and the only way to get out alive is by fighting. Which caused again higher risk.

What pirates did was give the other crew an option "We don't want your live. We want your stuff.".
If a Pirate Crew did horrible things then they would get a higher bounty and even be hunted down. If a crew was "honerable" and followed a Code, then they were way less likely to be hunted but rather tolerated due to how hard someone is tracked down.

So even Lore wise its easy. The Emissary can give you a better price based on you honoring the Pirate code.

I don't care if those I sink think I'm being mean or not. What I don't do, is say anything to them that could be toxic and get me banned from the game (you know, in case they RECORD AND REPORT me). If a player wants to go around sinking ships for practice against other random crews, it's not toxic, yet he'll be downvoted and punished for doing so??

I've met amazing players who became awesome friends in this game thanks to naval combat that either they started, or we did. Imagine if we suddenly couldn't PvP on the high seas for fear of being downvoted?

This system you've created, punishes everyone, from those who simply want to practice naval skills, to those who don't vote often enough, to those who vote "bad" too many times, to those who love pvping and are looking for emissary flags (as the Reaper faction encourages you to do in the first place), to those who aren't toxic but are now penalized for selling treasures they successfully stole. It's horrible all around for everyone man.

@ren9982

Keep in mind? The door swings both ways here.
You were just sunk by a toxic galleon crew shouting slurs and obsenities at you. They don't care about this game account (which means they don't care about their gold value being diminished by you voting them "bad"). Guess what? All 4 of those players now vote YOU as "bad", which means you have 4 strikes against you (versus the one strike you gave the few of them you managed to see their player names). On paper, you are a horrible toxic player compared to them.

To avoid this crew again, you dive to a new server and get more treasure. You go to sell, but with your penalties, the value of your loot is reduced. Because you put in 4 votes already, when you run into the next toxic crew, your vote counts less, and they make profit from selling your loot.

This is what I warned you about when I told you how easily this could be abused, and punish actual innocent players. It took me zero effort to make you the victim of this, which you created because you can't be bothered to simply record and report toxic players.

Reporting does often Not work of you are lacking proof.

Well yeah. That how reports work. Proof is required and it very easy to do. 2026

PC: you have a thing on your desktop that hit a key to record either all the time or last few seconds. Idk but pc have it better and recording/screenshots. Pc users have it easy.
Console say way. It literally has built in stuff to record and screenshot.

Nothing gets done because the players don’t wanna do a little work to do it. Which in on itself is rough yes but no game is perfect.

I was clearly just giving rare a lore reason to add this

Didn’t fit the games history/lore by mixing realism. Sorry that how it came off. What one person views as good or bad changes among people. You can’t do it.

No community is without its fault. That simple fact in gaming on itself.
You try to help improve it, or get along with it. We got minor tools to deal with audio toxic players.
As for spawn camping. “Scuttle” it saves you a lot of time if you can spawn, that on you as a player to know when to cut the rope and move on.

Once you add a system that can offer false rewards, you’re gonna meet even more hateful people or those who exploit it just for sake of it.
Then you will have those who wanna “improve it” by adding more restrictions, punishments and so on.

It’s a can of worms nobody wants to see added.

Well this topic is done. It become a back and forth.

Bottom line: Idea is an idea but one that do greater harm

@burnbacon said in Community is awful:

Well this topic is done. It become a back and forth.

Bottom line: Idea is an idea but one that do greater harm

Exactly where I'm at as well. He created this huge convoluted system that's easily abused and exploited, punishes everyone, does nothing to punish toxic behavior, and doesn't make sense whichever way you look at it, in order to save himself the painstaking agony of clipping proof of someone saying something bannable.