Player Interactions & The Future of Sea of Thieves

Even if it could be increased, a forum moderator said that the ratio they have it set to now, is where players who enjoy pve won't have so many ships around to prevent thise players from doing it, and so the balance is about right.

@europa4033 This reasoning would have made sense before Safer Seas was added, however players who don't wish to encounter other players currently have that option, and it is in fact the purpose of Safer Seas. No veteran player plays Sea of Thieves for its pve content alone, and the smaller point I made in the post was that players should expect player interactions ("Sea of Thieves is being misrepresented as a PVE sandbox with optional PVP") , not all of which are battles. Adding on to this, my much larger point was that the current balance is not correct at all. In fact, it is unreasonably rare to cross paths within render distance of another ship, which may happen once in a 4 hour play session.

@telefocus said in Player Interactions & The Future of Sea of Thieves:

@europa4033 This reasoning would have made sense before Safer Seas was added, however players who don't wish to encounter other players currently have that option, and it is in fact the purpose of Safer Seas. No veteran player plays Sea of Thieves for its pve content alone, and the smaller point I made in the post was that players should expect player interactions ("Sea of Thieves is being misrepresented as a PVE sandbox with optional PVP") , not all of which are battles. Adding on to this, my much larger point was that the current balance is not correct at all. In fact, it is unreasonably rare to cross paths within render distance of another ship, which may happen once in a 4 hour play session.

The purpose of Safer Seas is for new players to get accostomed to the main game before jumping in. Or, if families have young children they wish to play with. It's also handy for fishing, or doing tall tales as well. It's not meant as a pve server for those who don't want PvP, as there are limitations you don't find on High Seas that prevents players from achieving anything higher than lvl 25 iirc. A while ago, gold earned used to be reduced by 70% but that's since been reversed.

I've played this game for several years now, and I've had many experiences where it's gone from absolutely nothing around us, to having a ship heading towards us and we end up having an epic battle. Situations and environments constantly change. The rarity of seeing or having another ship near you has to be balanced. If they had 24 ships on the server, I doubt players trying to level their Athena would have any success.

No veteran player plays for it's pve content alone? I mean, I have 480 days played so far and over 400 million gold, not sure I qualify as a veteran or not, but I've definitely played for the pve content to earn achievements or to help my friends and other crews to get levels, all the while loving PvP as well. I'm not bloodthirsty. If I see another ship that I think are newer players and they're lvl 1 gold hoarder, I'm more inclined to leave them alone....unless they come for me.

If you feel that your server is too empty, you're free to dive to another server to see if something spicy is happening. But 6 ships per server is currently the max. It's happened in the past where they had to reduce that number to 5 due to server strain, but currently it's 6. I'm sorry you don't agree with what the moderator says is a good balance between ships wanting to do pve and PvP, but just know Rare is hiring. Perhaps you could apply, get hired, and inform them how mistaken they are?

@europa4033 said in Player Interactions & The Future of Sea of Thieves:

Even if it could be increased, a forum moderator said that the ratio they have it set to now, is where players who enjoy pve won't have so many ships around to prevent thise players from doing it, and so the balance is about right.

Rn the only issue i know of in regards to that is the player count limiting the number of ships of larger sizes per server, but thats a technical issue, the ship count does feel pretty decent usually, they could probably expand the map a little more and it would probably be ok to fit one more ship, but its not needed rn at all.

@Nohr-Tenko

The amount of people who quit SoT specifically because of "player interactions" is far greater than anything else in this game. Most interactions are just violence, sinking, and killing other players. Players who lost 2 hours worth of loot, players who were chased around for half an hour despite not having loot, the sheer toxicity that can occur when someone gets frustrated at another for bothering them, has been the most consistent damaging aspect of this game.

First of all, I already presented a solution to this issue of players misunderstanding what Sea of Thieves is:

It isn't unknown that a large portion of first time players quit after being sunk their first time in Sea of Thieves. This isn't their fault, they simply misunderstood what Sea of Thieves is really about. I think that slowly transitioning the overall tone within Sea of Thieves' content to be much more focused on player interactions (perhaps even how new PVE content could relate to player interactions). This way, players understand that the game isn't PVE, it is PVEVP. However, this point is far outshined by my next one.

While I agree that the majority of player interactions are battles, labelling what is the end game content in Sea of Thieves as "the most consistent damaging aspect of this game" is misleading. You cannot attribute a player's toxicity to SoT's core design, but only to that specific player. I also believe you are misinterpreting being sunk as toxicity.

When you say "The problem is that this is a PvEvP game, and a large majority of those PvE players want nothing to do with the PvP players, and because they can't have that, will just move on to a different game." you divide players into two categories, PVE and PVP. This is not the design of Sea of Thieves, players can and will do both.

Now your second to last and final paragraph contradict each other. You say

I have had some of my most memorable experiences, boarding another crew and befriending them despite not speaking the same language, nearly sinking a player just to turn around and help them once they thought they were done, getting kidnapped by a sloop duo to go hunt other players, just to name a few, are things that could only have happened because of SoT being the type of game it is and are a handful of my best gaming memories.

These, along with battles, are player interactions. My proposition for the long-term health of the game is to increase the frequency of these. You mention how these are your most memorable experiences, because that's how the game was brilliantly designed. Players interact with the world & with each other to create an infinitely replayable experience.

In your last paragraph you mention how you don't like getting sunk, and how it sucks to lose. It sucks to lose in any game. Does this mean that we should ignore this part of the game? No, we should embrace it. This is why I call for a transition in the tone of the game. Players get upset when they are sunk, because they have been sold a false bill of good, as the game is being advertised as a PVE or PVP game, split into two; a gap that Safer Seas has expanded greatly.

If the tone of SoT's marketing changes to greater incorporate player interactions, and the frequency of these interactions is increased, players will quickly understand what the game is supposed to be: A PVEVP experience.

@europa4033 Safer Seas was created for players to not encounter others in game, whether it be for playing with children, fishing, or testing how far pets go in cannons, it still serves the purpose and I believe you are misusing the purpose of the gamemode & the applicability of the gamemode (I.E. what you can do with the gamemode itself).

It's not meant as a pve server for those who don't want PvP,

This is legitimately the primary use of Safer Seas, whether the PVE is tall tales or quests. Newer players play Safer Seas because they want to play the PVE without the PVP or general player interactions. Same is for parents, same is for fishermen.

If they had 24 ships on the server, I doubt players trying to level their Athena would have any success

Straw-manning my argument to say that 24 ships in a server would make PvE difficult would be a generally agreed upon statement, and is not what I am suggesting.

You say "I've definitely played for the pve content to earn achievements or to help my friends and other crews to get levels, all the while loving PvP as well", but this affirms my statement that "no veteran player plays for it's pve content alone", as you say you love the PvP, meaning you do not play the game just for its PvE content.

Whoever is reading this, make no mistake. I am not saying that PvE is bad, nor do I play the game solely for its PvP, I play the game as designed, with a mix of both.

Appealing to the authority of a Forum Moderator's opinion and then suggesting 'if you have such good ideas, why don't you just work at Rare' while we discuss suggestions in the "Feedback + Suggestions" section of the forums is incredibly reductive.

No, it definitely should not be increased. Yes, I agree that you often don't see another player for an entire hour. But you do often see another player after about an hour. I don't want to have the server so full of people that I always have to fight them off to get the loot or comms for my events. I do agree that player interactions are one of the better parts of the game, but I think there needs to be a balance, especially with how aggressive this games playerbase is. More often than not, any players I come across will shoot at me immediately, no matter what. Half the time they don't even take loot or supps. If it got to the point where even 25% of my PvE event completions were contested by a player, I don't know that I would continue wanting to play, and I say this as someone who has over 1000 hours and has both PvP curses.

@telefocus I have 1000+ hours and both PvP curses and I do often just play the PvE content just for the enjoyment of it. I love the lore and design of this game. Everywhere you look is beauty untold, and the stories it tells can make me laugh, cry, and more. Both gives, and cures existential dread sometimes.

@telefocus

@telefocus said in Player Interactions & The Future of Sea of Thieves:

@europa4033 Safer Seas was created for players to not encounter others in game, whether it be for playing with children, fishing, or testing how far pets go in cannons, it still serves the purpose and I believe you are misusing the purpose of the gamemode & the applicability of the gamemode (I.E. what you can do with the gamemode itself).

It's not meant as a pve server for those who don't want PvP,

This is legitimately the primary use of Safer Seas, whether the PVE is tall tales or quests. Newer players play Safer Seas because they want to play the PVE without the PVP or general player interactions. Same is for parents, same is for fishermen.

If they had 24 ships on the server, I doubt players trying to level their Athena would have any success

Straw-manning my argument to say that 24 ships in a server would make PvE difficult would be a generally agreed upon statement, and is not what I am suggesting.

You say "I've definitely played for the pve content to earn achievements or to help my friends and other crews to get levels, all the while loving PvP as well", but this affirms my statement that "no veteran player plays for it's pve content alone", as you say you love the PvP, meaning you do not play the game just for its PvE content.

Whoever is reading this, make no mistake. I am not saying that PvE is bad, nor do I play the game solely for its PvP, I play the game as designed, with a mix of both.

Appealing to the authority of a Forum Moderator's opinion and then suggesting 'if you have such good ideas, why don't you just work at Rare' while we discuss suggestions in the "Feedback + Suggestions" section of the forums is incredibly reductive.

You misunderstand me. I understand you have 2,000hrs in the game (I have 10k), and when I say there's been many times we've played for it's PvE content alone, it means we've done exactly that, despite the fact I also love pvp. "No veteran player plays for it's pve content alone," is just false coming from my friends and I, as we've done strictly PvE content thousands of times. Helping my crew level their athena by doing LotV is PvE, no? Working on Hunter's Call rep is PvE, no? Earning commendations is PvE content, no? We've had countless times where we've stacked our ship and turned in, and despite seeing other ships, no one gave us any issues whatsoever. Then there's been times (like the last mega-stache event) where we fought other ships seemingly non-stop, and cashed in 60 ashen athena chests (I have video and screenshots). The game is a mix of both, and many times we log in strictly for PvE content, and anything goes after that. We have indeed played for the PvE content alone, and I'm pretty sure my time invested makes me a veteran.

The number of ships on a server has been balanced, to the point where players don't look out and see ships everywhere (hence my 24-ship example), but not so little as to where they'll never encounter another ship either. This balance lets players decide for themselves if they wish to play solely for PvE (as we've often done!) or to go and hunt other ships and see what they can find. If "greatly increasing the ship cap for servers is non-negotiable for the longevity of Sea of Thieves", I have some news for you lol. It's always been between 5-6 ships per server, and the game is almost 10yrs old. I'm pretty sure the game developers know what they're doing, and if the ship number is non-negotiable, perhaps you should apply and tell everyone how wrong they are?

Not a terrible argument, Sea of Thieves indeed thrives off of player to player interaction and interaction between crews. The frequency isn't the problem though. It's the fact that most players have little reason to converse with each other (except to form an alliance and chit chat). There are few-to-none in game mechanics that consider bartering, purveying goods, soliciting unique services from Emissaries (they are all the same in terms of combat and gameplay between crews etc). and the vast amount of communication is centered around what PvE to do next or how to attack / run away from a player ship.

The most interesting interaction between crews is combat and to me that's the biggest problem. Increasing ship count will only make those who are PvP averse less interested in the game.