Reputation - loss, risk and negativity.

@touchdown1504 said in [Reputati

But...what is awesome about this game..and the folks developing it, is it is NOT written in stone. So they can make it for everyone, or a greater majority. It CAN be changed. As player feedback has on a few fronts in just the month since release! Death of the death tax, nerfing skeleton gunners, moving the bell on sloops, increasing spawn distance, among other things. All changes based on player feedback from the so-called "vocal minority". Nobody in here dislikes the game. We all like it, we just dislike parts of it. So, maybe if the game changes, it will no longer be a game for you!

It may not be written in stone but this game needs a complete redesign if you want it to be something else. I'm for changes, just not changes to foundational elements.

The game's objectives are not to complete voyages, but gather loot and bring it back to the outpost, by either doing voyages or taken from other players. The PvE is purposefully built with this in mind. PL is the representation of loot gathered.

The game is designed around thievery, pvp, adventuring, and loss.

Not to mention the majority market is a significantly harder market... most games are mass appeal games these days where there are incumbent IP's. Rare is making a fairly non mass appeal game or something that is a less redundant experience to whats available. It might have mass appeal but it's trying to distinguish itself with a unique experience. You're asking to remove that unique experience to some extent with more conventional award structure.

To me this type of change is, make it more like WoW where the PvP is inconsequential except the PvE has no particular point like WoW.

Another clarification and this goes out to @graiis . The ideas on separating the two point systems is being misrepresented. As it has been explained before, it is a "timing" issue. The value of items does not change. So, look at it like this.

You are out voyaging, you grab a couple chests (or skulls). The Voyage complete screen pops up, you receive the the Reputation. Same scenario, this time you still have one chest to go...but a murder crew jumps you and steals your loot. They get the gold and reputation from what they took. You can still get what is left from the final chest before "VC". All it does is change the timing. Too many folks are under the assumption that the reputation is being taken from the PvP crews. No, it simply means that the Rep is awarded earlier.

Your missing our points

Either your rewarding 66% of the value of the chest to the attacker or your rewarding 150% to both and can effectively be increased to 200% easily.

Soooo... On your early level voyages, no sweat. Dig up a chest, voyage completes, rep awarded. Great for newer players to build up. You start hitting that promotion level 20 and above, suddenly you are on multiple map and riddle voyages. Now you are out voyaging for 30 minutes or more for just one voyage. Your chances of getting caught before the "VC" screen are greatly increased. But, a buffer exists, one that allows you to gain that rep early IF you make it to VC. That's is the premise of a timing change on awarding Rep on VC and Gold on turn in. Add to this later down the road, Rep for doing things, kill skeletons, kill Kraken, whatever. Now you have a natural progression buffer. You are still risking your Rep and Gold, but have a slightly better chance of maintaining the Rep over all.

You can turn in whenver you feel like it, You do not need to finish the voyage before collecting the value.

@theblackbellamy said in Reputation - loss, risk and negativity.:

@savagetwinky said:

Proportionally the PvP is now less. You're now subtly diminishing rewards for PvP.

You might be diminishing the value of rewards altogether, but unless you're creating a decrease in point-value of rewards gained by PvP means, I can't grant you that.

Of course if you inflate SoT with rep/XP, it will diminish the value of rep/XP. Though without actually reducing the rep/XP on loot earned in PvP exchanges, I don't think it's fair to say that PvP exchanges are unfairly diminished in some way.

Unless he's giving a bonus for stealing loot.

Now here's an interesting idea. You steal some loot, you get the same low-value rep/XP that the person earned for finding it. I'd be 100% behind this. This is also not what the topic is about. The topic is about giving all players additional opportunities to earn more XP on voyages. If you're a player who exclusively PvPs then of course, by circumstances of your behavior, you'd miss out on these opportunities; but you really couldn't call it being "penalized".

It is safe to say that nobody exclusively PvPs... rather, and this is just as important as if they did exclusively PvP, the entire premise of this argument is that OP & friends want to be rewarded for their time. Every player regardless of playstyle logs in, plays for a certain amount of time, and must make decisions along the way about how to best spend their time so that by the time they log out, they have made sure to have received some reasonable reward for what they've accomplished in-game during that time.

((Side note: What is critical to the aesthetic of the game as it currently exists and is intentionally crafted by the developers is that all of the rewards (ostensibly gold and reputation) are physically manifest in the loot itself, and that all of this loot for as long as it is not turned in is in jeopardy of being stolen. Hence, Sea of Thieves. OP's suggestion threatens that aesthetic by making some of that reward unthievable.))

Back to the idea of time, a crew is practically always on a voyage. If they have decided they want to engage other ships along they way, they are constantly measuring whether or not it is worth their time to turn aside and engage. Do they have wind? Is it far out of their way? Are they likely to have loot (near an island or heading towards an outpost as opposed to just leaving one)? Do you have loot of your own, how much is it worth, and are you likely to lose it?

All this together forms some sort of probability in a crew's mind that it is or isn't worth their time to engage. By implementing a higher reward for continuing to stay on a voyage, without increasing the value of the loot that is on an enemy's ship, you have effectively shifted this relationship even further towards PvE being the more valuable way to spend your time. Players who are currently inclined towards engaging from time to time would be less inclined to do so and at a lesser frequency, resulting in overall just far less PvP.

@savagetwinky said in Reputation - loss, risk and negativity.:

@lotrmith be more specific, what discrepancy?

edit: you probably mean the typo

Games aren't made for everyone. It's just not possible. Different games for different preferences.

Sorry, I think in your earlier response to me you meant to address graiss or iamlost. Lost had dodged the question yet again about the discrepancy between a bonus for PvE on item discovery vs a bonus for PvP on stole iem delivery.

@angrycoconut16 Given my responses to you in this and another thread, I don’t believe this can be a serious question.

@graiis said in Reputation - loss, risk and negativity.:

@lotrmith Good point that in the mind of the player, when they weigh their options that they may be more incentivized then to do the voyage rather than veer off to PvP. But what you forget in that equation, then, is that

1. If they do decide, "hey we should just continue the voyage, we'll get that VC faster" then they are staying out, away from outposts, and are doing a voyage, generating loot. Meaning...
2. The other player they spotted can probably see them and can make the same equation in their head, and at some point, if they keep picking pve, that break point will be reached where one of them deems it worthy of their time to attack.

The amount it takes to break would be variable based on what the VC reward is, this would be on Rare to follow player patterns to see if there is not enough PvP happening. This is why I say it should start low, get the reward implemented at all, and then they can adjust up slowly and see how players interact. I think there's a sweet spot where the whole system would be better. Too high and PvP is worthless obviously.

I think the change will simply make it so there are more, and more lucrative, opportunities for PvPers. Rather than basically the only smart option to advance safely, which everyone keeps saying, "just play safe, it's easy" be, get 6x map, go to that island, return to outpost. Vulnerable with treasure: 5 min. It may actually be viable to get 4 map voyage, 3 islands are clustered, do 2 riddles, dig 2 chests, outpost, dig 2 chests, return to outpost. Vulnerable with treasure: 25 min and then 5 min 2nd trip. Because, if after 2 riddles you get sunk, you can do the other 2 islands and still get that VC bonus, a player won't want to rage quit, but they remain engaged in riskier play.

I disagree, but at least we can probably leave it at that. I think we both agree that the bonus being high is worst, but if it's low then the great majority of the reward is still attached to the loot and so in a player's eyes the need to drop it off frequently and to protect it by not engaging in PvP will remain much the same as it is now. Particularly since you do not lose voyage progress by stopping off at an outpost to drop loot, there is no disincentive to do so as often as you see fit.

@graiis I disagree. If you give someone more, that is just more that they want to keep - the perception will shift. I don’t see this changing anyone’s behavior - “more” will just become the norm and the perception in losing a fight will still be one of 100% loss, because they lost all of their loot. What was “I didn’t gain anything” becomes “I didn’t gain enough”. People will still feel that a thief doesn’t deserve the stuff they worked hard for and complain that they “lost everything.”

Clearly, with all the photos and videos of crews with tons of loot on their ship, there isn’t a dearth of loot filled ships. Others here do the same thing, they don’t turn in loot often, so they have a ton of loot on their ship. Having this idea won’t increase the number of loot filled ships on the sea... it will only diminish the sense of loss should they lose it. That’s the aim of this idea... to allow people to be more reckless with their choices because more reckless is less boring to them.

@entspeak said in Reputation - loss, risk and negativity.:

@graiis I disagree. If you give someone more, that is just more that they want to keep - the perception will shift. I don’t see this changing anyone’s behavior - “more” will just become the norm and the perception in losing a fight will still be one of 100% loss, because they lost all of their loot. What was “I didn’t gain anything” becomes “I didn’t gain enough”. People will still feel that a thief doesn’t deserve the stuff they worked hard for and complain that they “lost everything.”

Clearly, with all the photos and videos of crews with tons of loot on their ship, there isn’t a dearth of loot filled ships. Others here do the same thing, they don’t turn in loot often, so they have a ton of loot on their ship. Having this idea won’t increase the number of loot filled ships on the sea... it will only diminish the sense of loss should they lose it. That’s the aim of this idea... to allow people to be more reckless with their choices because more reckless is less boring to them.

This has been said before, and I also agree. Ultimately I feel that the kind of player who complains about losing all their loot but simultaneously recognizes its value as just a tiny bit of rep towards Pirate Legend, which may or may not even be a meaningful, reasonable goal for them, is the kind of player who hates PvP entirely and wants this PvPvE game to strictly be PvE. They call for things like neutral zones, PvE servers, etc and miss the point of the game entirely, and most importantly won't care about any rep bonus so long as other players can physically kill them, sink their ships, and sail away with "their" loot.

To them, losing loot to another player is some catastrophe that can only be averted by eliminating it as a possibility in the first place. In short, the OPs suggestion purports to solve an unsolvable issue (or non-issue, depending on your point of view).

@lotrmith said in Reputation - loss, risk and negativity.:

Sorry, I think in your earlier response to me you meant to address graiss or iamlost. Lost had dodged the question yet again about the discrepancy between a bonus for PvE on item discovery vs a bonus for PvP on stole iem delivery.

Yah I was arguring with a few people. There was a few ideas of bonus for only pve, then bonus for pve and it was never clear if it was at the time of stealing or turn in.

@savagetwinky said in Reputation - loss, risk and negativity.:

@lotrmith said in Reputation - loss, risk and negativity.:

Sorry, I think in your earlier response to me you meant to address graiss or iamlost. Lost had dodged the question yet again about the discrepancy between a bonus for PvE on item discovery vs a bonus for PvP on stole iem delivery.

Yah I was arguring with a few people. There was a few ideas of bonus for only pve, then bonus for pvp and it was never clear if it was at the time of stealing or turn in.

I think fundamentally there are two issues OP has. The first is the unsolvable issue (non-issue, to me) of some players just plain not liking their loot getting stolen. The other, related but still an issue all by itself (and one that I agree with) is that the voyage system stinks and needs a bit of a rework, particularly in the area of incrntivizing completing whole voyages rather than cycling through high value voyage components then dropping and rerolling voyages.

I think this second issue would be best handled by turning all regular voyages into a similar format at the Pirate Legend Athena voyages. That is, upon voyage completion, a Final Chapter pops that sends you somewhere to find a large piece of bonus treasure. This treasure, like all others, can still be stolen (just like an Athena chest could theoretically be stolen, though I've never seen a crew actually lose one). I think that particular treasure should glow with the brightness of 1000 suns, but that's just me.

To summarize: I don't think you need an added PvP incentive so much as long as the PvE bonus is still thievable.

@angrycoconut16 Fair to say that everything that can be said on the topic has already been said regardless of newcomers or not (I'd say it was all covered in the previous thread, too, and this one need not have been created). What do you hope to accomplish by shutting out the opponents? The discourse continues to keep your thread bumped naturally and receiving exposure.

@lotrmith

Yah but there is a much more elegant solution and just make the rewards at the end of a voyage better. And that means the end result is still thievable.

And there is another issue that I'm not sure has been directly explained but hinted at. Those without time to play, a night where you lose all the loot has a fairly large impact on motivation to continue playing.

@angrycoconut16 said in Reputation - loss, risk and negativity.:

@lotrmith That isn't what I'm after. It isn't just a case of getting opinions, it's also a case of getting the opinions of as wide an audience as possible, and getting an idea of how many people share each opinion. Yes at this point opinions will probably be similar to what has been said, but it will help to get a better idea of how many agree, how many disagree, what reasons are the most popular for agreeing or disagreeing (thus, would it be possible to find a different solution to what people are feeling, whether that is to implement this idea, or a different solution to this problem altogether)..

This discourse discourages people from replying... and also it makes it hard to see new posts because by the time some of us visit the forums again, another 10 posts have been made since the previous newcomer, as I said, drowning them out. I'm confident my thread will keep itself bumped up even without this particular discussion but thank you for the concern.

Just because a lot of people want something doesn't make it a good idea. Like the retrospective on flying in WoW. The developers have said that was ultimately a bad idea...

@angrycoconut16 said in Reputation - loss, risk and negativity.:

To the people who are for this suggestion: There is no point trying to make people agree with us, respect the fact they disagree.

To the people who are against this suggestion: Likewise you won't persuade us not to believe in this idea but please at least respect the fact that in our eyes, this would be good for the game. In addition, Rare won't implement this if it doesn't fit their vision for the game. So don't worry so much.

I know it's going to seem like I'm arguing against everything but part of a constructive dialog is laying out all the details and points and developing those ideas holding them up against scrutiny.

I honestly think they didn't hold up well, especially for when taken balance, motivations, and how easy they would be to exploit ( depending on the implementation that was port forth). The counter-argument to those issues was, but it's better...

@graiis said in Reputation - loss, risk and negativity.:

@entspeak I didn't follow at first, but I think I'm getting what you're saying. It's entirely possible that would be someones mindset one the change has set in. Except now, if you get sunk, there is no incentive to continue playing if you get even sightly annoyed at being robbed. All my stuff is gone and you have to muster up the will to start again. Sometimes that's easy, sometimes it's easier not to bother. With the change, you might have 1-2 maps left to finish and you'll know you're going to get rep that cannot be stolen, which can nudge you to continue playing.

If your afraid of losing loot then why bother getting it in the first place? Why even play the game? The people that enjoy this game are playing to defend and steal loot.

Also that still doesn't change the fact that to play safe, there is currently only one option, and this would open a few new avenues to explore. 'Just turn in more' is a boring solution for everyone. Also, to say "with all the photos of ships" is confirmation bias, those float to the top because they are interesting. If we are the minority talking on the forums, then the people posting those photos are the minority of the minority.

Your points here make it seem like someone just wasted hours of time and constantly loose a significant amount of loot... when the vast majority of players probably lose small amounts of loot over the course of many voyages. Unless we are talking about pinata boats where people are playing risky and hording loot. And no one is losing all their loot all the time.

I'm stail failing to understand the significance your putting on some loot given that, the game doesn't set up the significance of that loot, or the progression, and consistently supplies players with said loot with trivial time investments... and when the game is set up to make some voyage loot fearly insignificant and the grand scheme of things... why is try again not a solution to... attempting to win after losing?

@touchdown1504 said in Reputation - loss, risk and negativity.:

@savagetwinky said in Reputation - loss, risk and negativity.:

@lotrmith

And there is another issue that I'm not sure has been directly explained but hinted at. Those without time to play, a night where you lose all the loot has a fairly large impact on motivation to continue playing.

This is exactly my issue! Limited time makes every loss that much more impactful. Consequently I have sworn off playing until the next update.

Ok and again I don't see how double xp wouldn't solve that issue, it means your time because you didn't play as much as everyone else is worth twice as much?

@touchdown1504 said in Reputation - loss, risk and negativity.:

@savagetwinky This is in reply to a post a ways back. i couldn't see doing the whole quote box let me pick apart every sentence thing. Anyhow....

How does changing the timing on reputation being rewarded from turn in to on the Voyage Complete screen equal a full redesign? It is moving the timing of the award, that is it. Nothing else changes. Bet you a good coder can do it in the space of a week.

The game is about thievery, putting in PvE elements that cannot be stolen is
-beginning to seperate the PvE vs PvP rewards

• Making PvE easier
• PvE isn't really that important in the current scheme, its really just to fuel PvP, its easy to do and most players have loot thanks to that.

You are 100% correct, the Pirate Legend is the representation of the loot gathered. It is also the current finish line, the current end goal. Regardless of how you "see" it, it is the current end game!

This has nothing to do with anything. There is no "end game" this is just a status and you get to play the same game you have now.

I don't deny what the game is designed around. How does moving the timing of the reputation make it more like WoW? How does changing the timing make PvP inconsequential?

PvP is inconsequential in wow because other than a minor inconvenience it has no impact on the players. By moving some PvE experience to be guaranteed you move the system to be like that. Where the PL is pretty inconsequential to the game, the progression shouldn't be about just chugging through voyages, the importance is, gathering and protecting loot.

No. You missed my point. I don't care about percentages, or bonuses or any of that. All I have ever advocated was a change in timing. That is it! Move when the reputation is awarded. Read the example I used. All it does it help people out in the beginning, and possibly speed up the grind toward legend by a small percentage. You are changing what I am saying. I don't agree with the OPs plan, or many of the others in here. Where I do agree with them ALL is the current system is c**p.

You are changing the timing? So now someone gets 1/3 up front? Then you've made it easier and more reliable to skip out on PvPing and just PvE... and then its easy to cheese because you can trade chests with people and get 150%.

Change the timing, everything else stays the same. Simple change, small impact.

No, you've undermined theivery. I like playing the game because its fund DEFENDING my loot. Which is a huge part of Sea of Thieves. You're advocating making the thieving system less satisfactory. That includes what I stand to lose because if I can't lose something it feels a bit more like wow, there is less on the line if another player is approaching.

@graiis said in Reputation - loss, risk and negativity.:

@entspeak I didn't follow at first, but I think I'm getting what you're saying. It's entirely possible that would be someones mindset one the change has set in. Except now, if you get sunk, there is no incentive to continue playing if you get even sightly annoyed at being robbed. All my stuff is gone and you have to muster up the will to start again. Sometimes that's easy, sometimes it's easier not to bother. With the change, you might have 1-2 maps left to finish and you'll know you're going to get rep that cannot be stolen, which can nudge you to continue playing.
Also that still doesn't change the fact that to play safe, there is currently only one option, and this would open a few new avenues to explore. 'Just turn in more' is a boring solution for everyone. Also, to say "with all the photos of ships" is confirmation bias, those float to the top because they are interesting. If we are the minority talking on the forums, then the people posting those photos are the minority of the minority.

It is human nature. Give people a large plate of food and they will eat all of it, even if they were full eating less food on a smaller plate. Perception. So long as there is a perceived 100% loss, there will be complaints about 100% loss.

And, if a person gets “even sightly annoyed at being robbed” in a game called Sea of Thieves, that isn’t something a reasonable change can fix.

Boring? It’s strategy. I plan my drop offs at the start of a voyage based on a risk assessment of the islands and loot in the voyage... that plan inevitably goes to hell, and I have to come up with another route plan on the fly - usually based on the fact that there are players around. That’s the game: risk assessment, choice, and strategy. That’s fun. If people find that boring, I don’t know what to say to that beyond... that’s the game. And, it doesn’t need to be the 1 island, outpost, 1 island, outpost, reductio ad absurdum fallacy that has been used to mischaracterize what I’m talking about here.

@touchdown1504 said in Reputation - loss, risk and negativity.:

@savagetwinky Reputation is not tangible. Gold is. Which is why I said reputation should never have been part of the game to begin with, without it this conversation would never have existed....but, here we are.

what do you mean reputation is not tangible. It's the only thing of value since gold is quickly gathered and most people end up with the skins they want apart from rep grinded ones.

On a spectrum of WoW to eve online
WoW pvp = meaningless, you lose nothing
SoT pvp = meaningful but not painful, you can lose what you've recent gathered,
Eve pvp = Lose years worth of effort in 10 mins.

I understand waht your saying. What you don't get is that BOTH rep/gold are important to make PVP have meaning. I don't want to get the rep at VC... it makes PvP less meaninful.

@graiis No. I mean that if it is problem enough for them to stop playing, that isn’t a problem with the game.

Cushioning the loss does detract from the rollercoaster of emotion... by definition. It diminishes it.

Needs more content, yes... needs an adjustment to rewards, yes (less RNG). Various types of quest rewards, yes. More variety to the grind, absolutely. Should it have quest rewards that can’t be stolen? No. Shift the timing so that it’s easier to progress in a short session without having to really strategize? No. It’s a game about theft - engaging in and defending against theft. This game doesn’t need to be easier, it just needs variety.