A Response from a PVP player to why we do not PVE

@galactic-geek made a quick edit to post forgot 2 cosmetics on list Jacket of Dammed and Glitterbeard :)

@d3adst1ck well I disagree on your initial point on there being a limit on how many cosmetic slots are available there are a near infinite amount of cosmetic possibilities and Rare definitely have yet to scratch the surface.

I agree however in what you are saying not everyone will enjoy all cosmetics however as of late we are not really getting many of the more simple sleek designed cosmetics as rare and hard to get items. So my solution is to diversify! They could have linked the new mask (a cool sleek simple cosmetic) to a much much harder commendation to make us actually have to work for it. However, most of the new cosmetics either are way too easy to get or don't fit remotely the description I made in the first point.

IMO, the solution is not cosmetics. Commendations would be completed and then you'd be exactly where you are today.

The solution is to tie premium supplies to PvE...

-Chainshots
-Cursed Cannonballs
-Pineapples

Tie all 3 of those to rewards for completing various PvE.

Now to the part that will upset PvP exclusive players...

-Kraken Meat
-Meg Meat
-Trophy Fish
-Pineapples
-Chainshots
-Cursed Cannonballs

Completely remove those from the RNG around the world (especially the last 2). In order to get any of those things, you'd need to engage in PvE (or steal them from players that did engage in PvE).

@d3adst1ck If they made new cosmetics of the same style then yeah chances are most of us are very likely to diversify. I personally just care for my jacket I made the rest of my pirate around it however else than that I am constantly changing up other parts.

I completely disagree with you statement that if there were an infinite number of cosmetics the more likely people would stick to one thing. This is the opposite if there were more cosmetics than players are MORE likely to change up what they have more often.

If there were more incentives to PVE and get these more cosmetics we are more likely to do this.

This is fully my opinion which is similar to that of many in my crew. This is why we do NOT PVE. Stating that people would not do this when I am telling you I am and have in the past (ex: gold curse) is absurd.

@sweetsandman that's funny if you think this would make us do PVE this would just make us make sure to fully crate every ship we sink. We still would not PVE.

We spend enough time in Gally arena practicing that we can take down masts with cannons alone in seconds. This change would do nothing but be annoying and if impactful enough just lead players to quit.

Oh and if this change stuck no ship is safe anymore. Still would be faster for us to crate ships than do PVE content ourselves. Now vanilla new player ships, well sorry were gonna sink you now, and due to how rare curses and chains are, expect two of us to go board and spawn camp till we set the gally up for cannon broads.

Commendations take time to complete and Rare can keep adding them every season. Example Breath of the Sea commendation takes a lot of time to do and if Rare linked a cosmetic behind it I would be far more incentivized to do it.

Other example: Barnacle Chests most of my crew loved these cosmetics and took a lot of time to finish these!

What constitutes as "good" cosmetics is entirely subjective, and your suggestion to make PvE worth doing with an incentive is already what Rare has been doing for the past couple of updates.

Contrary to popular belief, people actually DO like what Rare is putting out in cosmetics for commendations, even if half of what we've been getting for the past year were recolors of previous sets.

You Year Ones can flex your golden sailor hats and cannons, You Year Twos can flex your Bone Crushers and Forsaken Ashes, but us Year Threes and Fours are going to flex the cool titles we get, the sweet login rewards we've been getting, the Twitch Drops that are still going on to this day, the commonly winnable cosmetics like the Obsidian Six-Pack and Capstan, as well as the still exclusive season cosmetics from previous seasons. Most of that has been related to participating in in-game events, playing the game, participating in different aspects of this game's community, and much more.

To put it short, your suggestion for incentives don't make much sense in the long run, even if the only way it's valuable is through FOMO.

As much as I don't like the PvE, I realized I had more fun doing PvE with different goals while with others. From betraying alliances, to introducing new-ish players to special experiences unlike any other, or just for the bloody thrill of the risk.

Think about it, if you're so bored of the game's most insanely fleshed out aspect, maybe you need to change your approach. You don't have to do PvE just to get some cosmetic out of it, because what you can get are unique encounters unlike any other. Maybe you didn't get server hopped/portal hopped on, you can sail around and find a random sailor to give that loot haul to in order to make their day, maybe you want to pull off a special possibly scuffed scheme to steal valuable treasure through a method that isn't the cookie cutter alliance betrayal or tucking. A sandbox game shouldn't just mean do the same thing every time expecting a different result.

@mdogmano I understand there's probably no convincing you otherwise and that we'll just have to agree to disagree, but IMO, PvP has been made too easy by comparison to PvE.

When my buddy and I want to strictly PvP, we loot the outpost, grab a storage crate, loot some floating barrels, a shipwreck, and have enough premium supplies to take on any crew we want..all for what? Maybe 15 minutes of effort tops?

Meanwhile the poor crew over doing the Fort of Fortune are racking up 20, 30, 40, 50+ minutes, using all their premium heals and throwables, and are under-prepared when we come rolling up. Same goes for almost any PvE, especially for newer players.

PvP needs to be made harder for those that have no interest in PvE...and this is coming from someone that absolutely loves PvP in this game, but also embraces and enjoys PvE.

Now, those changes wouldn't prevent you from setting off and doing exclusively PvP, it would just make it harder, and more in line with the effort of those that are producing the loot you're after.

@nex-stargaze said in A Response from a PVP player to why we do not PVE:

What constitutes as "good" cosmetics is entirely subjective, and your suggestion to make PvE worth doing with an incentive is already what Rare has been doing for the past couple of updates.

I repeat the previous point this is just the opinion of my group and I members of the PVP focused community that a lot of people have been complaining about as of late. We do NOT think the new updates have added any incentive for us to PVE. I described what WE think are as I said "good" cosmetics where I stated numerous times that this is not the opinion shared by everyone however this is what WE are looking for.

You can't give the argument that the opinion of my group and I is wrong I am simply explaining what we feel to be the case. We do NOT think the new rewards are worth pursuing and do not think that titles and makeup are worthwhile rewards for us to pursue.

Just as you realized what you enjoy to do we realized we enjoy to PVP. We make good stories meeting people and fighting them, betraying them, hunting them, and so forth. This is what WE enjoy doing. Posts have been asking why we do not engage in PVE activities and the reason is we do not care to since we have more fun doing PVP. If people want us to engage more in PVE I am simply saying what would make us (people that share the opinions of my group and I shared by a lot of more intense PVP players) would need to want to PVE more.

@nex-stargaze Also I gave two ways to make cosmetics being valuable.

The first is FOMO tactics which I fundamentally don't like but the fact it is in the game already is enough an argument for it to continue and not just stop as it seems to have since that just feels bad for new players who are going to feel that they are not deserving apparently of time limited cosmetics.

Second is linking it to hard commendations: LSD, TSD, Iron Sea Dog, 50 FOTD, 30 Breath of the Sea, 50 Generous, 30 Generous gifted... There are so many examples!

@nitroxien I'm not suggesting that all PvE should just generate insane amounts of chainshots and cursed cannonballs. They should be rare and limited like Wraithballs. They should be tied to World Events. I can appreciate that you'll want to loot ships longer, but it's not like there would be an insane amount of these premium supplies to loot unless they were stacking world event after world event...and were also foolish enough to leave those items in their barrels.

Commendations like Silent Barnacle can be completed without ever doing PvE...as can any commendation related to simply turning in loot.

I completely agree with you that there needs to be more time limited challenging cosmetics similar to the Wandering Reaper, Inevitable Reaper, Mercenary, etc...stuff that looks timeless, sweaty, and tells the other ships on the sea that you mean business. But, those things merely provide a spark of PvE interest...if you're a sweaty completionist like myself, you'd get it done quick and be back to your current disinterest in PvE.

My suggestion would make PvE worthwhile, or intriguing at the very least. If all you had to do was take down that Skelly ship you see roaming around in order to get some chainshots and cursed cannonballs, you'd probably do it.

I do agree with you, but I think it would be very short-lived interest before it turned into dumpstering up-and-comers trying to get that same commendation.

@d3adst1ck Once again my post is a response to why PVP players do not PVE and what would need to be changed for PVP players to start to PVP.

This post is a response to all of the posts that seem to have been appearing more and more ever since portal hopping has been added about the players portal hopping and PVPing with no loot so nothing to lose, which I understand why it could be annoying to fight against constantly.

I am simply explaining what would push us to do more PVE and as a result less PVP.

Though you are fully right we enjoy PVP more and chances are we will not ever fully stop doing it, however it will become more infrequent as we would want to also do PVE commendations (or at least turn in loot).

Yep we quite literally at this point sink players and leave all their loot behind. I have definitely sunk players and left a haul of at least 200k+ floating in the sea to sink to just portal hop faster. I mean we don't need gold, and either have max rep or don't care, and have reaper flags complete.

@d3adst1ck we 100%d every commendation with a linked cosmetic... There really are not that many. All we want are more.

@sweetsandman

I agree that you do not have to PVE to finish most commendations but it is far more effective too and personally how we did most of ours. However they can link commendations that force PVP like FOTD completions to cosmetics to make us PVE.

Else than the new balance problems with making cuse and chains rare giving small ships a huge disadvantage compared to larger ones, it still would not fix the problem fundamentally since chances are we prob would still not go for the skeleton ship. This will just make us feel forced to spawn camp people for supplies which significanly draws out fights. I tend to prefer not to spawn camp especially new players since I realize it can lead to un fun drawn out experiences. However a change like this would almost force us to spawn camp every fight and refrain from using chains on them making it so that our border (a super sweaty player who practices in TDMs constantly) is going to spawn camp the poor ship for a long time till we can get everything lined up without chains.

A change like this once again will lead to more spawn camping and make us engage on EVERY ship no longer are non emissaries, new players, solo sloopers, tall tale players safe. They will ALL be hunted and spawn camped just for materials. This really does not seem fun for anyone.

And in the end of the day, we still will not PVE lol so we will still have no loot on our ship ever.

@nitroxien It would increase the importance of naval combat, absolutely. However, I'm not understanding how this would increase spawn camping much, if at all. It's not like taking someone's mast down with a chainshot increases the rate at which they sink.

If your ultra sweaty boarder is getting onboard, he is probably anchoring your opponent, right? So, either the rest of your crew is hopeless at getting the ship into position and executing a rotation, or you're over-estimating how many chainshots/cursed balls the average crew would have to syphon under my idea.

You said it yourself, though. There's nothing sustainable that would make your crew do PvE. We get it, your crew is way too hardcore for that sort of entertainment. This would at least give the average crew a false sense of hope that they could take on the an ultra sweaty hopper crew like yours.

@sweetsandman I mean once again adding one difficult commendation per season linked to a cosmetic sounds sustainable to me and will get us all to do PVE…

Ex: Breath of the Sea commendation, Merchant animals/wood crate/kegs/fruit/cannonballs, DR cargo, regular cargo, legendary skeleton leg exploader, 250 voyage of each emissary type… if each season they add one cosmetic cool simple sleek looking cosmetic linked to one of these then that would push hardcore players to do more PVE.

In addition game is adding plenty of events just add good limited time cosmetics to them, even make it recolors of currently existing cosmetics. If they made for example a black recolor of like the TSD pants that would be enough! Just add something worth getting to these not just titles and makeup!

@nitroxien I completely agree that there are way too many very challenging commendations that have no cosmetic rewards whatsoever, not even a title. I also agree that it would make some crews (not all) go out and do some PvE, especially if they were time limited. Unfortunately, I think the days of good time limited cosmetics are time limited to pre-2020.

@sweetsandman exactly that it my problem! Why are the good time limited rewards pre 2020 only! Why do these hard commendations have no reward!

Not everyone but I genuinely think a good chunk of PVP players (my crew definitely would heads up also my crew is like 20-30 people got a lot of buddies to play with) with many of them having gone hard for gold curse and more notable 300 barnacle chests! Most spammed fleets to get these done and treasured the barnacles with their life. I have personally rowboated from Reapers Hideout all the way to golden sands just to sell 1 barnacle chest lol!

Glad we can have some agreement :) !

@greengrimz I am 100 percent on board with this! I would love more in depth and new PVE event not just recycled old content!

I personally would love to see bosses have more complex mechanics not destiny or WoW level but still more than just bullet sponges.

That being said these are much more difficult to do on Rares part and once done enough would lead to the same problem.

At least adding a cosmetic reward through a PVE grind would push us more to want to do it for longer than we usually would!

That being said I fully agree more interesting PVE would definitely push us to do more PVE but that is far far more work and require more long term than my quick fix of just adding better time limited cosmetics and linking simple cosmetics to commendations.

@greatfailure82 To be fair, OP is a player that has unlocked more commendations and achievements in this game than most people ever will. He's definitely done his PvE. No question. The PvE content has become stale to a lot of folks. Nothing with any sort of replayability has been introduced in like 9+ months and the events have been uninspired, recycled, and unrewarding.

I don't mind PvP, I enjoy it, make me work for my loot, what I don't like is when PvP players come double gunning and then get toxic and call me a "PvE Sword Bot"now you see, I am not that good at PvP, I think Im Okay (Im a scrubby Console player btw) but I really don't understand how some players employ a broken strat that is Blunder+Eye and then tell me I have no skill? I enjoy the PvP and fighting, but what isn't enjoyable is players employing basically a one shot tactic and then regailing me with the classic "Git gud"

PvP is what makes this game enjoyable. If I did PvE only I would get bored pretty fast. I'm not even close to the same level as @nitroxien but I understand why PvP'ers just hunt players and don't engage in PvE. Its predictable and once you know the methods its just easy. SoT is an old school game in my eyes, it doesn't provide better weapons through grinding PvE, it doesn't give you better ships. The only way to get better is to put the time and effort in and I like that.

This game needs some new high value items, loot and cosmetics to re-engage interest. 2021 updates have been focused on new and casual players. That's why the veterans are portal hoping etc, to find the content. Hopefully some end game content is coming which is based around PvP.

Also I would add, this shows why its actually a poor decision on Rare's part to only promote large crews. Creating an official hardcore mode for solo Sloops would actually provide a new challenge for PvP'ers while also levelling the playing field a bit for newer players. Special cosmetics flying reaper 5 as a solo for example.

@nitroxien said in A Response from a PVP player to why we do not PVE:

Over the past few months there has been an increase in posts on this forum and the subreddit about PVP players that just portal hop and do not engage in PVE content and the surrounding discussion on this matter. Now the posts on this matter are NOT concerning new players who just sail around without an idea of what a voyage is yet and losing every naval fight these posts are made typically in response to numerous sinks to extremely good players with no loot on their ship finding and sinking players while they are doing PVE activities. These players either wear rare/hard to obtain cosmetics or look almost vanilla most of the time but is clear they have a lot of experience.

Yes I am one of these players in every regard, in my group of friends we play with we are all LSD/TSD (or in the middle of the grind flying through with a near 100% win rate), can be seen often TDMing in arena, sink consistently big streamers of the game including Blurbs, Pace22... and have had good fights against a hand full of NAL players even playing with a few (mainly losing these guys are insane). However, unlike NAL players who are constantly in scrimmages practicing, we are often sailing for PVP in adventure when bored.

So why do we not engage in PVE so heavily well there are three reasons:

First lack of what we deem personally as worthwhile cosmetics. Most of us are of the opinion that the new cosmetic releases from Rare for engaging in PVE content has not really hit the mark. Most of the new cosmetic items we feel are usually over the top with some giving you a disadvantage for using (ship cannons mainly). Most of us enjoy mainly sleek and simple cosmetics that we can pair with a few more complex cosmetics. Having a bunch of complex cosmetics on really does not look that good most of the time we feel and instead, most of us typically have a bunch of more simple looking cosmetics paired with a few fancy over the top ones. Example that most players have seen are the pirates with typically simple pants (like Morningstar, Black Dog, or something else along those lines) with matching boots no shirt but paired with gold curse and tattoos. This idea of mainly simple and sleek cosmetics alongside a few rare and accentuated ones. Most of the new cosmetics just don't feel to fit that too well and even when they do they are so easy to get that no PVE is required to actually get them.

Second: lack of good limited-time rewards. The only progression in this game is progression of cosmetics and so we want to show of rare/hard to get cosmetics but most of the new rewards coming don't feel they hit the mark with what was discussed in point 1. Most of the people I play with typically now don't even really care about finishing events due to them not getting cosmetic rewards that we would ever care about using and to make things worst most now come back anyways which means that if they ever change their mind in the future they can just go on and grab it. This game seriously needs to go back to making good time-limited cosmetic rewards that requires PVE. Once again good is opinionated however amongst my group personally far prefer mainly sleek and simple looking cosmetics in contrast to most of the newer rewards.

Third: This does not apply to all of us but a lot of us are just done with PVE content. Very few of us are going for full completion of the game trying to get as many commendations as possible. Most of the group has all the PVE content which unlocks good (referring again to point 1 as what constitutes good) cosmetics done so don't care to do more. If this game had more cosmetics locked behind difficult commendations then more of us would be going for it but till then there just does not feel a need to. To give an idea of how easy some of these commendations are we all finished the newly added season 5 commendations in 3 days or less.

Overall to get us back to PVE there needs to be an incentive to do so. This should be done with the addition of more good (discussed in point 1) cosmetics that are either limited time or locked behind hard to get PVE commendations.

For an idea here are my personal cosmetics:

Pirate: Black dog hat, dawn hunter shirt, Ferryman gloves, athena eye patch, black dog boots, black dog pants, jacket of the dammed, glitterbead, PL curse, obsidian sniper, ferryman blunderbuss.
Ship: Insider hull, Insider Figurehead, DA sails, Magpiewing cannons, cutthroat cannon flares, obsidian wheel, and admiral capstan.

Resolution: 3840x1080p (super ultra wide standard 90 FOV before someone asks)

As a new player who hates PVP, this is a fair post. Sounds like you're after a fun fight and not dominating players.

The issue stems around people going after people they know can't handle them.
Example: You someone with no flag hung parked outside of a PVE event struggling with the content and then attacking their ship so they can't respawn and waiting at the PVE event so you can kill them again.

OR

Same as above except instead of targeting their boat you kill the players and then wait on their ship to spawn kill them over and over.

In all honesty I think there should be another tutorial that covers the actual game and not just the tutorial island with no enemies.

The tutorial can play out like the Heart of Flame Tall Tale in the sense of you have to play it multiple times to go down each path to earn everything.

Each path could be a Faction (Horders, Souls, ect.)

You can do it for rewards once(reward being a level or two in the faction), is optional, and it would have the newer players experiencing how things work before stepping into the game.

If a new player has done tasks 3-4 times before stepping on a boat with others they are less likely to be a burden rather than a valued member of the crew.