A Possible Solution to Spawn/Outpost Camping, Griefing, etc.

  • xCALYPT0x
    Master
    Insider
    Boatswain

    Hey guys. I'm sure you have all read the countless posts about griefing, spawn camping, outpost camping, the respawn system, etc. This aim of this post is to offer a possible solution to all of these things with an idea for a new respawn system. Please comment with feedback because I am sure I have overlooked some issues that would arise with these suggestions.

    The Ship Respawn System - 3 Changes

    With the current respawn system, sunken ships are being respawned too close to where they were killed. This leads to two main issues:

    • The ship that was sunk can come back, with refreshed supplies, repeatedly.
    • The ship that survived can prey on the ship that sunk if they are more experienced.

    Many people have pointed out that the obvious solution here so let's discuss the first change.

    1. Have the ships spawn farther away from where they are sunk.
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    The diagram above is obviously a picture of the Sea of Thieves map. Currently there are six outposts, marked with flags (shout-out to @RareThief for the interactive map and @TheGeeNee for the map image). I have also added six colored boats (not sure if six ships can be in one instance but the example will still work). Also, this is not to scale and I a couple of the outposts and ships are right on the lines so I picked a box to put them in.

    The best way to determine the new location for a ship to respawn would be to choose an outpost that is farthest away from any existing ships. How do we determine this? One way would be to iterate through each outpost, calculate the distance between the outpost and each ship, and choose the outpost with the largest minimum distance. Assuming the red ship has sunk and is looking for a place to respawn, here is the breakdown of the distances between outposts and ships (let do = distance from orange ship, dy = distance from yellow ship, etc).

    • Sanctuary: do=1.41, db=15.3, dy=9.43, d*=14.87, dg=12.17 | MIN=1.41
    • Dagger Tooth: do=9.06, db=5.83, dy=5.39, d*=10.05, dg=14.42 | MIN=5.39
    • Galleon's Grave: do=16, db=2.83, dy=9.85, d*=10.82, dg=18.6 | MIN=2.83
    • Golden Sands: do=4.24, db=17.03, dy=10.05, d*=14.32, dg=8.94 | MIN=4.24
    • Ancient Spire: do=18.44, db=10, dy=10.63, d*=5, dg=13.04 | MIN=5
    • Plunder: do=13.93, db=14.21, dy=9.22, d*=6.40, dg=4.47 | MIN=4.47

    Then we take the largest minimum value calculated above which would be Dagger Tooth at 5.39 units from the closest ship. So this is wear our red ship should respawn. I will post the coordinates I used at the bottom of the post. Let's look at the next change.

    1. Ships respawn with no materials and must be restocked.

    With the new system, you should spawn farther away from potential enemies. This gives you a chance to restock your materials, and eliminates any way for people to scuttle their ship intentionally for fresh resources. Simple and easy.

    1. Ships that sink drop barrels with their resources (like the random ones you can find).

    A crew that successfully sinks another ship should have claim to the defeated crews resources. However, this change is actually more for the defeated crew (see player respawn below).

    I find it unlikely that a ship will be near every outpost at the time one needs to respawn, but a failsafe should be in place in case. If no outpost is far enough away from a ship, an alternative could be to spawn the ship in one of the four corners of the map, or in the middle (whichever is farthest from another ship) with a moderate amount of resources since they couldn't recover at an outpost.

    The Player Respawn System - 5 Changes

    So the boat isn't nearby anymore but what good does that do us if the person you killed keeps respawning and trying to annoy you by boarding your ship? Well first of all this shouldn't be a big deal, but enough people have complained so we'll come up with a solution for this as well. There are a number of concerns I have seen raised.

    Here is the basic fundamental the player respawn should follow.

    1. You always respawn at your ship, whether it is alive, in the process of sinking, or newly respawned.
    2. You lose all materials you had when you die.
    3. The Ferry of the Damned has a Weapons chest, so you can change your weapon loadout before you respawn (in case you're about to respawn at a sinking ship).
    4. If the entire crew is on the Ferry of the Damned, they can go through a different door to scuttle the ship and respawn it with the Ship Respawn system outlined above.
    5. Respawn timers scale with crew size.

    Now let's talk about some issues people have raised. Listed below are some complaints and an explanation of how these changes should fix the problems.

    • Four man crews have an advantage over solo/duo

    To address the first concern, we will give a shout out to @xImp0sterx for his respawn timer idea. You can read here: https://www.seaofthieves.com/forum/topic/32173/rare-and-all-pirates-read-spawn-change

    #5, basically your respawn wait time scales with the number of people in your crew. Simple and efficient.

    • I want a chance to reclaim my treasure if my ship is sunk.

    As long as your boat has not yet respawned, you will appear next to the sinking ship. This gives you a chance to recover some loot. You will have no materials, which means no bananas, but your ship should have just dropped a bunch of barrels in the water with the resources you had stored (see ship respawn above). This gives you bananas to heal, and cover from enemy fire. This should allow each member that respawns to grab at least one chest and make a best effort to get away with it. If near an island it can be hidden until the ship respawns and your crew returns for you. You also have a weapon chest on the Ferry of the Damned, so grab whichever weapon is going to allow you to save your chest the easiest.

    • People keep killing me as soon as I respawn on my boat.

    See #4 above. If the enemy refuses to sink your ship and is only griefing you, simply wait to respawn until your entire team is wiped and have your ship respawned elsewhere.

    Hopefully these changes can address some of the issues we have seen people concerned about. Please comment if you notice an issue with any of these ideas and contribute your own ideas to make Sea of Thieves even great (if that's possible).

    <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><
    Coordinates for those who care:
    O1: (7, 8)
    O2: (17, 8)
    O3: (24, 9)
    O4: (5, 12)
    O5: (22, 21)
    O6: (13, 22)

    r: (6, 9)
    o: (8, 9)
    b: (22, 11)
    y: (15, 13)
    p: (18, 18)
    g: (9, 20)

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  • xCALYPT0x
    Master
    Insider
    Boatswain

    In my post I forgot to mention how this alleviates outpost camping.

    If a crew decides to scuttle their ship in an attempt to conceal themselves on an outpost, all you have to do is wipe them. You will continue to respawn on your ship, and everytime they die they will be teleported to an outpost not nearby.

    If they have their shipped parked on the outpost, you simply have to focus their ship, sinking it, which forces them into the above situation.

    If they are parked on an island nearby, you have to do you due diligence to scout while you unload. Your crewmember on the boat can start to leave, and your crewmates on the island can meet you via mermaid or death (remember, death you lose your materials).

  • TouchDown1504
    Castaway
    Insider
    Founder

    @xcalypt0x Interesting ideas, you should probably share it with the megathread crowd

  • dump7244
    Founder

    @xcalypt0x I really like this idea. It gives a penalty to losing your ship as well.

  • ScalawagSam
    Seafarer

    I would suggest that instead of your respawn time being determined by your crew size. Have it instead be determined or extended based on how many crew members are also dead. This would prevent getting wiped and going back to grief the victors over and over again which is what i found the biggest problem

  • KauxDex
    Founder

    @xcalypt0x Really interesting ideas. I like them.

  • Oolnokk
    Commander
    Insider
    Founder

    @xcalypt0x I particularly like how you dont respawn at the mermaid, and the algorithm for spawning far away, but I'm indecisive about how I feel about losing your materials when you're gone, It's good because it'll promote caution instead of all out war, but it could be bad because of the part where you can pick up resources from sunken ships. People who win would only get stronger and those who lose will only get weaker. But at the same time that's the cool thing about risk, is you could somehow defeat the ship with jacked up resources and then take all of it, and end up top dog. Honestly I'm a very indecisive person but I think I did good by putting the opposing perspectives out there for other people to decide on.

  • saladbrains
    Master
    Founder

    @xcalypt0x some thoughts. what if your ship instead respawns one of a few ways (as @Niilrokk commented, if you scuttle your ship to get away from combat, you end up getting weaker - in terms of supplies - and the other team gets stronger):

    • if you have more resources than the base amount of ship resources your ship respawns with the base amount of resources
    • if you have less resources than the base amount of resources, your ship respawns with the amount you had.

    i believe this would counteract that problem and provide a tiny bit of risk for those engaging in PvP, it would also continue to eliminate people scuttling their ship to restock their supplies.

    i quite like your idea of the respawn system. i would much rather 'lose fairly' and spawn ages away from the ship/crew that killed me than attempt to regain my treasure/ship, potentially lose, scuttle or have my ship sunk only to respawn an island or two away. the people who want to fight back still have the opportunity to do so while their ship is still afloat or sinking but not yet destroyed. many kudos!

  • LiebeErdBeer
    Founder

    Aggre with most of things but this :

    5, basically your respawn wait time scales with the number of people in your crew. Simple and efficient.

    It's clearly a NO for me. I don't why you want a scale timer depending on your teamate. When you are died NOTHING force you to respawn.

    If you was died before fight due to bug or sharks I don't know why you should wait more time. And I don't know why you should wait less time if you are more dead.

    Respawn timer is for me good, if you want to use "scuttle respawn", then just wait all your teammate after taking decision.

  • xCALYPT0x
    Master
    Insider
    Boatswain

    @Niilrokk @saladbrains Thanks for the feedback guys. The concern you raised about ship resources allowing one crew to snowball hadn't occurred to me. This is certainly something that could become problematic.

    @LiebeErdBeer I would agree that dying to due to a bug or shark, or anything not PvP related would not warrant a scaling respawn time. Perhaps it could only scale for death via another player. The idea was mostly to help solo/duo ships who are being attacked by a galleon so they have a better chance to defend themselves. Could you clarify what you meant by waiting less time if you are more dead?

  • PADO83
    Captain
    Insider
    Founder

    Anybody who is not good at this game yet, claims greifing.
    I like it the way it is and it's a pvp/pve pirate game get good or die it's that simple.
    I think Rare should just introduce pve only servers for people that don't want pvp and change nothing in the pvp, it's perfectly balanced except for inderviduals skill level in the game.

  • PADO83
    Captain
    Insider
    Founder

    I have taken out ships solo and duo no problems and also been taken out just as many times it's down to player skill.

  • xCALYPT0x
    Master
    Insider
    Boatswain

    @pado83 Personally I would vote against PvE servers because I do not like to split the community.

    That being said, I have not had any issues with spawn camping or outpost camping but have read posts from a lot of people that have and wanted to offer some potential solutions.

  • PADO83
    Captain
    Insider
    Founder

    I've been spawn camped and outpost camped it's all in the nature of the game being a pirate pvp game after all.
    And it's one of the things that bought me to this game the trailer showing that you can go get treasure yourself or kill other pirates at outpost or anywhere in map and take it so it's in the game for a reason.

  • danger rocks
    Master
    Founder

    Il throw a spanner in the works here,sometimes the reason you bring your boat back to the location you where sunk is that it’s the next stage in your map. You either don’t come back and cancel your quest losing the gold you paid for it ( which is ok for a short quest but not so on a large one) as far as I know you can’t have two quests running at the same time so you have to cancel and lose out. The boat that has just sunk you takes it that because your coming back you want revenge where you just want to carry on with your treasure hunt and so starts the circle again, I don’t see why I should end up across the map and resourceless as a fix for some griefers

  • PADO83
    Captain
    Insider
    Founder

    It's just like people getting way to salty in games like ark pvp if you can't handle it maybe pvp isn't for them but that being said I'd hate for people to miss out on a great game simply cause the don't pvp hence why I think pve servers or something similar (maybe different levels of servers like a hardcore server and a casual server you can choose when choosing ships etc) would help keep those pve people.

  • LiebeErdBeer
    Founder

    @xcalypt0x said in A Possible Solution to Spawn/Outpost Camping, Griefing, etc.:

    @LiebeErdBeer I would agree that dying to due to a bug or shark, or anything not PvP related would not warrant a scaling respawn time. Perhaps it could only scale for death via another player. The idea was mostly to help solo/duo ships who are being attacked by a galleon so they have a better chance to defend themselves.

    They already have possibility to defend themselves, I have sanked many times galleon with 4th crew with my mates on Sloop. Respawn time scale will not change lack of skill of some players. And they still will come complaints on forum.

    Could you clarify what you meant by waiting less time if you are more dead?

    Because in your solutions, the reduce time scale by members could be used to faslty more fastly used the "scuttle respawn). I assuming on your post that the "scuttle door" is based on the same system as the respawn door (players must wait a bit of time) then you need to wait other crew to go in. But in reduce or uprise, I think scale timer isn't a solution, and will change nothing.

  • P B JamyTime
    Master
    Insider

    As many have said, no solution is needed, don’t change a thing.
    I posted this in another pvp griefing thread but it’s better suited here...

    I definitely want the opportunity to reclaim the loot I worked an hour getting just for me to turn around and lose it in seconds due to unforseen circumstances that are out of my crew’s control, like a crewmate eliminated in the heat of battle by connection issues. During the test, this exact scenario happened to my crew and we were able to right that wrong by regrouping, reclaiming, and then hauling a**e out of there, knowing they’d receive the same opportunity we did. Had we been spawned into a new server, that wouldn’t have been the case. I feel same server spawn is much needed in this case since connection issues will forever frequently impact gameplay. No amount of skill or preparation can make up for it. Further outpost spawn would’ve crippled our result as well because much time was already lost waiting for him to load the game and rejoin.

  • Aenima123
    Founder

    To me, the solution would be a mix of yours and something more straighforward :

    -A mermaid spawns where you boat sunk, its only use is to go to your freshly spawned ship, if you're not dead, you can ignore it and keep fighting on the water to try to secure your chests. If you die trying, you don't respawn at the mermaid but at your new ship.

    -First ship respawn is like it is right now, not very far, if you sink again, it will respawn further and further away each time you got sunk by the same opponent

    -For the ressources, i like @saladbrains idea

    @xcalypt0x said in A Possible Solution to Spawn/Outpost Camping, Griefing, etc.:

    @pado83 Personally I would vote against PvE servers because I do not like to split the community.

    That being said, I have not had any issues with spawn camping or outpost camping but have read posts from a lot of people that have and wanted to offer some potential solutions.

    The whole "PvE servers split the community" is utterly wrong. It's the same discussion all over again each time a new survival games is released.
    Fact is, if you don't give PvE servers to PvE players, a portion of them won't buy the game anyway, and another will stop playing very quickly after being ganked a few times.
    So as a dev, you can say "i don't want PvE in my game", that's okay, but you can't use the "PvE servers will split the community" bullsh*t argument. PvE players don't mingle with PvP players for very long anyway.

  • P B JamyTime
    Master
    Insider

    Honestly, griefers will only be hurting themselves anyway in the long run, they will never gain legendary status since progression can’t be achieved this way.

    As an alternative though, the only change I’d get on board with is allowing the crew who lost their ship to choose whether to spawn in the same server or a different one.

  • Aenima123
    Founder

    @letha1-phoenix said in A Possible Solution to Spawn/Outpost Camping, Griefing, etc.:

    Honestly, griefers will only be hurting themselves anyway in the long run, they will never gain legendary status since progression can’t be achieved this way.

    As an alternative though, the only change I’d get on board with is allowing the crew who lost their ship to choose whether to spawn in the same server or a different one.

    It's not only about griefing problems, it's about balancing and common sens.
    To me, it's very frustrating that a ship i just sunk respawn at eyesight range, it's not immersive and i'm not interested to keep fighting the same opponent again and again. That does not make a fun gameplay.
    And when i just sunk a ship and kill all the crew, i consider that i deserve to collect my bounty without them keep respawning EXACLTY where the chests float. It doesn't make a lot of sens and again, even if SoT isn't exactly a simulation, it breaks a good chunk of the immersion to me.

    I can deal with it, but it could be improved a lot imo.

  • xCALYPT0x
    Master
    Insider
    Boatswain

    @danger-rocks @Letha1-Phoenix Thanks for the input! I can see how dying, spawning farther away from your objective forcing you to sail all the way back, and then dying again would get very annoying. This could potentially make players leave, which would be unhealthy for the game.

    Would love some help brainstorming a remedy for this.

  • xCALYPT0x
    Master
    Insider
    Boatswain

    @liebeerdbeer

    Because in your solutions, the reduce time scale by members could be used to faslty more fastly used the "scuttle respawn). I assuming on your post that the "scuttle door" is based on the same system as the respawn door (players must wait a bit of time) then you need to wait other crew to go in. But in reduce or uprise, I think scale timer isn't a solution, and will change nothing.

    I think scuttling the ship would be done less if you don't start with full resources when the boat respawns. This way it is only beneficial if another crew is spawn killing you on your own ship.

    That being said, I think the bigger issue is ships respawning too close, and I don't think a scaling respawn timer is an absolute necessity.

  • xCALYPT0x
    Master
    Insider
    Boatswain

    @aenima123 You'll have to excuse my concern over splitting the community. I have played Runescape and Combat Arms. The former is now split between Runescape 3 and Old School Runescape and latter now has Combat Arms Reloaded and Combat Arms Classic. I understand there might be people who end up not buying the game at all without PvE. Would be interesting to see a poll done asking PvEers if they would still play without PvE servers, or how long they think they could endure without them.

    In the end, I want Rare to make the decision that is the most healthy for the game. Ultimately that means the decision that will make them more money, and then keep the game around longer. If that requires PvE servers, I will support it fully.

  • P B JamyTime
    Master
    Insider

    I like it how it is but to please both maybe the option to choose where to spawn. First which server, then which outpost. No change for me but a solution for those opposed to the current system.

  • MerlynJC
    Commander
    Insider

    I like the idea of spawning where your ship is if you are dead. so if the ship is still afloat then you spawn on it. if it is sunk then you spawn where the new ship is, and not in the water. this gives the crew that is victorious in the fight time to claim there prize.

    I don't like the idea of goods/materials floating up because it allows the winning crew to restock without any effort, there is a nice dynamic in, "we are low on boards and cannonballs do we engage or do we do a resupply run at a fort of island." If there were any debris left maybe a small amount of boards and bananas. cannonballs are too heavy to float, even in a wooden barrel.

    I think there should be some way to scuttle your ship when you are dead, thus preventing being killed over and over if the other crew is keeping your boat afloat.

    I would keep the spawn times as they are. or perhaps a system were it is longer if you die more than once in a short amount of time. But I wouldn't go too much longer.

    I think the ship re-spawn distance is currently alright because of quest, you would want to be close to were you need to go. if you plan to go back into the area, just know that thar be pirates there! and plan accordingly.

  • Aenima123
    Founder

    @merlynjc said in A Possible Solution to Spawn/Outpost Camping, Griefing, etc.:

    I don't like the idea of goods/materials floating up because it allows the winning crew to restock without any effort, there is a nice dynamic in, "we are low on boards and cannonballs do we engage or do we do a resupply run at a fort of island." If there were any debris left maybe a small amount of boards and bananas. cannonballs are too heavy to float, even in a wooden barrel.

    Yeah but when you sink a ship without anything on board, it would at least give you something in reward for your effort. And since it's frequent... Not a thousand cannonballs, just a few barrels with ten or twenty planks/cannonballs/bananas. Just like those with the flock of birds above.

    I think the ship re-spawn distance is currently alright because of quest, you would want to be close to were you need to go. if you plan to go back into the area, just know that thar be pirates there! and plan accordingly.

    Thing is, when someone just been sinked, he has nothing to lose anymore, so he will keep coming back again and again to keep you from taking the fruit of your labor. That's just lame. And that's why the ship should respawn further away.

  • P B JamyTime
    Master
    Insider

    @aenima123

    Thing is, when someone just been sinked, he has nothing to lose anymore, so he will keep coming back again and again to keep you from taking the fruit of your labor. That's just lame. And that's why the ship should respawn further away.

    As I said before... had this been in place we would’ve missed our opportunity to reclaim our treasure after being sunk due to a crew mate being kicked from the game, not from losing a fair fight. The opposition had their sails down when we arrived but had we been spawned further out, they could’ve possibly left the island. Every ship after winning a battle has the option to drop their sails and leave. If you stay, you run the risk of being hunted down as any pirate would do.

  • danger rocks
    Master
    Founder

    @xcalypt0x it’s impossible to create a fix for people’s personality’s, I’ve been an insider for about 9 months and have played a lot in that time. I have suffered from griefing a bit but it was usually around specific locations where I needed to go and kept running into the same maties, for me rather than working on trying to come up with a punishment a work around is needed. If your on the third map of a quest and need to get on a specific island you can’t go elsewhere because you can only have one quest open at a time. The message in a bottle is a good distraction for you to take time away from the specific island but the ability to start a second quest and pause your first one to comeback to would help me, I don’t know about everyone else, the griefers can only torture you if you keep coming back, so remove the need to return to that area and it may help

  • Aenima123
    Founder

    @letha1-phoenix said in A Possible Solution to Spawn/Outpost Camping, Griefing, etc.:

    @aenima123

    Thing is, when someone just been sinked, he has nothing to lose anymore, so he will keep coming back again and again to keep you from taking the fruit of your labor. That's just lame. And that's why the ship should respawn further away.

    As I said before... had this been in place we would’ve missed our opportunity to reclaim our treasure after being sunk due to a crew mate being kicked from the game, not from losing a fair fight. The opposition had their sails down when we arrived but had we been spawned further out, they could’ve possibly left the island. Every ship after winning a battle has the option to drop their sails and leave. If you stay, you run the risk of being hunted down as any pirate would do.

    The idea would be the following : First time a ship sinks you, your new ship spawns nearby, like now, so you've got a chance to come and reclaim your booty, if the same crew sinks you again, your ship respawns further and it will take you more time to come back, if you manage to come back in time anyway and they sink you a third time, your ship will ship even further, etc.

  • xCALYPT0x
    Master
    Insider
    Boatswain

    @danger-rocks That sounds like an excellent solution to me. It might even help alleviate the pain of dying and having to travel far if your respawn was quite far away. Perhaps the crew can shift gears and focus on a closer voyage on the way back to their original destination.

  • P B JamyTime
    Master
    Insider

    @aenima123 Gotcha, I could get down with that ;D

  • OneDeviousDog
    Captain
    Insider

    Seems like a simple math problem to force respawn a minimum distance from all other ships. The question is how far is far enough.

  • Lukevanes

    Hi I’m Luke I really like the game but in pvp the spawn rates are way to quick because I was in a battle in the beta and someone had boarded our ship took our treasure and before he could escape I spawned in and killed him personally I was happy but not sure about him

  • clarkalii

    As somebody with a computer science degree, it made me laugh really hard that the original poster went to the trouble of incorporating a map and a basic maths outline for the Rare software engineers on how to go about calculating distances between ships and outposts as if it were some great algorithm. Making posts about game play opinions is one thing. It's another thing to act like the Rare engineers don't know basic math. Just offer your game play opinions. They know how to program. Lol.

    With that said, I don't think this issue is complicated. The mermaid is stupid, yes. If your ship has been destroyed, you should no longer be able to respawn on the mermaid. You've lost the battle. You also shouldn't be able to stall while two other people get the ship. No respawning, period.

    You also also shouldn't be able to spawn 1 minute away from the battlefield in a freshly supplied ship. If you spawn people far enough away, also, it doesn't matter significantly whether the new ship is supplied automatically. And, no, you don't necessarily need to respawn at an outpost. The game will already respawn players on random islands if other outposts are occupied (the latter is my guess at why the game sometimes does this).

    No real hard opinion on whether you should be able to loot resources from destroyed ships.

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