Pvp is ruining SOT

PvP was a main point of SoT... Rare is ruining both aspects since they can't make up their mind about it being a skill based PvP game fighting over loot, or a sea of happy friends cooperating to take down goals together. There is a mishmash of ideas that don't work well together in this game.

@savagetwinky the only thing ruining the game is the fact too many want one or the other and don’t recognize both are inherent in a pirate game. This is not and never was meant to be solely a PvP game and it was never meant to be solely a PvE game. It is a sandbox where anything can happen.

Edit: Sorry. Didn’t mean to single you out @SavageTwinky

@nofears-fun said in Pvp is ruining SOT:

@savagetwinky the only thing ruining the game is the fact too many want one or the other and don’t recognize both are inherent in a pirate game. This is not and never was meant to be solely a PvP game and it was never meant to be solely a PvE game. It is a sandbox where anything can happen.

I understand the game. That doesn't mean the mechanics work well together.

@savagetwinky I find that they do. The thrill that anything could happen from someone coming after me to me going after them. From making new friends to making new enemies. From simple days of grabbing chickens to make some gold and enjoy good company to days of skelly ships and skull forts. This game is wonderful because I can chose what I want to do and even then things outside my control can change that direction in a heartbeat.

I love the adrenaline that is always there while playing because at any moment someone could be just around that rock waiting to say hi or waiting to sink me. Because it is not one or the other no one other than obvious cheaters has any advantage. And while there are a decent number of cheaters, you don’t see them all that often. Meaning skill is generally the deciding factor in most encounters. Not who spent more for upgrades or received upgrades as a result of experience levels obtained.

@nofears-fun said in Pvp is ruining SOT:

@savagetwinky I find that they do. The thrill that anything could happen from someone coming after me to me going after them. From making new friends to making new enemies. From simple days of grabbing chickens to make some gold and enjoy good company to days of skelly ships and skull forts. This game is wonderful because I can chose what I want to do and even then things outside my control can change that direction in a heartbeat.

I love the adrenaline that is always there while playing because at any moment someone could be just around that rock waiting to say hi or waiting to sink me. Because it is not one or the other no one other than obvious cheaters has any advantage. And while there are a decent number of cheaters, you don’t see them all that often. Meaning skill is generally the deciding factor in most encounters. Not who spent more for upgrades or received upgrades as a result of experience levels obtained.

You might enjoy it but they don't work that well together. The sandbox needs some way to focus on one of the mechanics or it conditions players incorrectly. And the 2 groups are effectively playing different games. Both sides of players are generally unhappy. Its not creating an effective PvPvE game because people still approach the two concepts like separate features in this game. PvEr's are looking at this game like PvP is a form of griefing and PvPers are dying for a good fight and borderline griefing to find it. Combine that with this expected co-operation it creates a frustrating experience for many people. Especially when they are a one time event for a cosmetic they want or the time investment with athena's/preparation.

I think the pvp is perfect. Keeps you alert and ready fo battle at any time. I’ve spent hours getting ready for skelly ship battles just to be sank on my way there by another crew and I told them great job cuz they did an amazing job taking me out and I started over. It’s an open sandbox game where anything can happen. It’s definitely a huge point of the game to have pvp

@stundorn said in Pvp is ruining SOT:

@savagetwinky but there are also players who exactly like the Mix of it.

Also many complain about having no goals, lessened commendations requirements etc. and dont get it's a PvX sandbox game where you make your story on your own.
To me it's perfekt.

Without the threat of PvP there is no salt in the Sea abd you become used to the sweet bananas and one da you dont know anymore how sweet and tasty they are, because you never tasted how salty the seas can become.
It's Yin and Yang thing. One depends on the other. The sweetness of PvE Treasures can only appreciated if you also know the salt of the Sea.

People play for pve or pvp content only dont get that SoT is a well done Mix of both and both condituon and complement each other.

Sure but its still poorly structured and engages most players the wrong way, and teaches them wrong. The PvP component of this game is not integrating smoothly and they've mostly undermined it with cooperative events / alliances. I like the PvP in this game. The PvE sucks without it but it lets players approach it entirely like a PvE game... and most players do.

i kinda agree,
i realy had eyes on this online game because Rare promised (on the very first E3 that the game was announced) there would come a option in the game that other players can't attack you.

but i advise to try and find friends, be friendly you will find nice people.
to play with, or join a Communitie.

@stundorn said in Pvp is ruining SOT:

@SavageTwinky it's allways a hard lesson to learn, but if you can manage it to handle with wins and losses and dont loose fun every loss makes the next win something special.

Except its still not working for most people. I'm on the PvP side of things, I like the thrill, I like stealing treasure... we do what we call murder Athena's where we go out of our way to collect every bit of loot, wood, cannon balls, bananas off someone else's ship. We don't rush islands. Its usually 6 hours of boring play time and a few crazy wonderful moments. In a galleon we just steam roll over many many sloops and we occasionally get a galleon to fight against, 9/10 they sink themselves. Very rarely we get a unicorn that fights back and CAN fight. Or we take on crew memenbers and convice them to do our bidding until we get them killed.

The game just isn't working from either perspective at the moment. Very few people are hitting the right balance and the game mechanically just isn't doing what it needs to do to get it right.

@personalc0ffee said in Pvp is ruining SOT:

@savagetwinky said in Pvp is ruining SOT:

PvP was a main point of SoT... Rare is ruining both aspects since they can't make up their mind about it being a skill based PvP game fighting over loot, or a sea of happy friends cooperating to take down goals together. There is a mishmash of ideas that don't work well together in this game.

Actually it works surprisingly well and no nothing is being ruined.

Read my follow ups, I think its absurd to think the game got it right.

@personalc0ffee said in Pvp is ruining SOT:

@savagetwinky Game has it absolutely right. Sorry you don't agree. Time to agree to disagree.

New players come to see this game daily. Must be doing something right and that's about all I'm going to say that.

Yah its free to try with game pass, then someone like me rolls over them and they never come back.

@personalc0ffee said in Pvp is ruining SOT:

@savagetwinky Them's the breaks.

It is a pvevP game. That P means you need to learn to PvE and to PvP. If you don't want to do that, SoT probably ain't for you. We don't do hand holding here.

And All the PvPers are leaving because its not a fun game to play.

Again I'm not against PvP. You seem to think that is an issue for me. The problem is the game mechanics do not integrate them well. You and others just keep saying no no no, but based on what? I actually pointed to the mechanics that aren't working... that is upsetting a lot of people, on both sides, and how problematic its becoming. I'm on a PvP gal and I feel like I need to find new people every week since the regular PvPers have been moving on in droves to other games. And when I say "PvP". I don't mean people only looking for a fight. I mean people that like the fight in the context of PvE. Anyone that only wants a fight has been gone since day 1 and the few people that come don't stay long and go...

@personalc0ffee said in Pvp is ruining SOT:

@savagetwinky No they aren't, that's the hardcore PvP'ers who don't want to PvE.

This is not Skull & Bones or Blackwake. There was never a huge emphasis on competitive PvP ever in this game and I don't feel there ever will be.

Because it encourages griefing and bad, disgusting, toxic behavior. (See every competitive esport title here)

This is complete nonsense. I'm not even sure who you are responding to. And aggressive players have been leaving.

@drbullhammer said in Pvp is ruining SOT:

@savagetwinky you state a lot of opinions as facts and your assertion that "all PvPers are leaving" is completely unsubstantiated. You don't like the balance and that's fine, but many do. You aren't right, they aren't wrong, those are just opinions same as the OP.

I'm basing it off of general consensus of everyone I've been playing with or attack, People's responses are usually pretty clear, most don't even put up a fight they just scuttle or tell us to take everything. How many people we've had to cycle through, how much harder it is to find competent crews or just galleons on a server... There has been a massive degradation in quality of the games I've played over the last two months. If there was truly an even distribution our experience wouldn't be so one-sided.

@personalc0ffee said in Pvp is ruining SOT:

@SavageTwinky No one ever said you had an issue with PvP.

No but you were reaffirming that PvP was important. I never said it wasn't. I'm pointing out the structure of the game in its current state isn't working to integrate both to the majority of players very well. And I'm pointing to some fairly consistent complainsts... nearly every event there are complaints about not being able to finish because of aggressive players.. these are not good mechanics to consistent pair together.

The game's PvE has no real progression, there is nothing at PL, yet they've undermined the PvP aspect and the grind at every chance they got, allowing and encouraging players to burn through it faster with alliances and less adversity to getting to the top.

@personalc0ffee said in Pvp is ruining SOT:

@savagetwinky You ain't fought me yet. You'll have to take my stuff off my corpse.

so? I never said good players don't exist... I said they are next to impossible to find which suggest long-term players are outweighed heavily by new players..

@personalc0ffee said in Pvp is ruining SOT:

@savagetwinky No, what's happened is all the murder happy children are back in school and those that game up on the game on launch from Alpha onwards have been replaced by newer people who are not as skilled.

There are tons of us still left in the sea. As they play the game more, they will get better but if you're only looking for fights, you're going to be disappointed.

This game is not about that, was my point and I don't think it ever will be.

And no, Mr Twinky, I think the game does a fantastic job of blending the two playstyles and mechanics together, just not for gun happy trigger bang bang shooty people who want a esport competitive pvp experience.

They are just going to have to get that elsewhere.

The children were never good at the game. And this started happening long before they were back in school. And no I'm not only looking for fights. You're clearly not listening to my argument and think I'm looking for some full blown PvP mode. We are done unless you can actually explain why you think the mechanics are working.

@personalc0ffee said in Pvp is ruining SOT:

@savagetwinky Why do you think they aren't? Because you said so? Because your friends said so?

Well I said they are. So what do you think of that?

Fact: ONLY Rare knows, so you and me, we're speculating.

I'm not speculating. Having a near general consensus with everyone I've played with except for a couple of zealots on a forum is far from speculation. Rare might have actual hard numbers but we can still use the community to gauge..

hell even the forums are a good example of this... I talk to the same few people in every thread... new people come and go.

@drbullhammer said in Pvp is ruining SOT:

@savagetwinky you're basing your assertion on anecdotal evidence, nothing more. You can't reasonably expect that to represent the actual numbers anymore than the opinions stated here, on Reddit, or in discord. Those are all small segments of the player base and not necessarily an accurate representation of the player base as a whole.

I've played with over 100 people and have a fairly consistent experience with the 100s of people that I engage in the game with. That would be statistically relevant. The next best thing I can do is start actually grab a spread sheet and grab hard numbers.

@personalc0ffee said in Pvp is ruining SOT:

@savagetwinky 100 people in a maximum playerbase of 5 million that ever owned this game?

Heh.

Even if we go off active playerbase, there's at least 300,000

5 million player base? They haven't released the numbers of how many people are playing since release... This is less valid then the survey sample size I'm proposing.

Also do you know what sample size a survey would need to be and the % error?

For 10% error you need only 100 people for a survey, 1% error 10,000. That's 90% or more confidence either way with a sample size of 300 (90%) -700 (99%). For 5 million people you need only 700 sample size.

@zannarii you king of people are so funny.

never played with me before, and then thinking i need a lesson or tips to play the game.

you don't get my point.
next time ask more instat of answering

@drbullhammer said in Pvp is ruining SOT:

@savagetwinky anecdotal.

Tell me the difference between conducting a survey over the phone or through matchmaking?

Funny thing about matchmaking, it gives you a fairly diverse sample while also giving you a large sample size the more you play. Can I speak 100% confidence or precision? No, but is what I'm saying somewhat valid of the experience the game is providing... yes.

@savagetwinky said in Pvp is ruining SOT:

And All the PvPers are leaving because its not a fun game to play.

Again I'm not against PvP. You seem to think that is an issue for me. The problem is the game mechanics do not integrate them well. You and others just keep saying no no no, but based on what? I actually pointed to the mechanics that aren't working... that is upsetting a lot of people, on both sides, and how problematic its becoming. I'm on a PvP gal and I feel like I need to find new people every week since the regular PvPers have been moving on in droves to other games. And when I say "PvP". I don't mean people only looking for a fight. I mean people that like the fight in the context of PvE. Anyone that only wants a fight has been gone since day 1 and the few people that come don't stay long and go...

However PvP is the reason the game is being ruined? This is where I am getting confused, 'cause you seem to be contradicting yourself. Is it because the game has too many people that are "idiot PVP players who want to screw your night up" or "Anyone that only wants a fight has been gone since day 1 and the few people that come don't stay long and go..." so everyone is focused on PvE?

Your original post seems to be a bit salty due to the fact that you were ambushed (which in 99% of the times on the team being ambushed (mistakes were made) as avoiding a battle is pretty easy - though you might be chased across the seven seas and to the ends of the world (which btw happens to the best of us)). In the mean time you state that you also are in favor of PvP, but hate that most people do not manage to give you a decent fight? Though by the sound of it you also didn't really put up much of a fight either.

That is why I believe that the problem you are encountering is more due to the pirates needing to learn to be better pirates. As the issues seem to be more based on the players and their pirating style than the actual game mechanics (which are not perfect, but I do not see the mechanical argument you are making - unless if I read between the lines of your reactions stating: PvP isn't rewarded enough (but that is an assumption on my side).

I personally do not agree with your argument there no pirates out there that want to fight. First of all, it is something you have control over (how do you approach another pirate crew). I tend to base it on a case by case basis where how the player acts towards me determines whether or not I am friendly or foe. I have encountered both frequently, maybe due to my approach being in ones face (which understandably can cause people to panic) and that if people try to kill me and don't talk I just go full assault. Though there are clear differences in skill levels and a fun fight can be hard to come by - as this is all very dependent on the situation, stock, positioning, awareness of the crew and teamwork.

@cotu42 said in Pvp is ruining SOT:

@savagetwinky said in Pvp is ruining SOT:

And All the PvPers are leaving because its not a fun game to play.

Again I'm not against PvP. You seem to think that is an issue for me. The problem is the game mechanics do not integrate them well. You and others just keep saying no no no, but based on what? I actually pointed to the mechanics that aren't working... that is upsetting a lot of people, on both sides, and how problematic its becoming. I'm on a PvP gal and I feel like I need to find new people every week since the regular PvPers have been moving on in droves to other games. And when I say "PvP". I don't mean people only looking for a fight. I mean people that like the fight in the context of PvE. Anyone that only wants a fight has been gone since day 1 and the few people that come don't stay long and go...

However PvP is the reason the game is being ruined? This is where I am getting confused, 'cause you seem to be contradicting yourself. Is it because the game has too many people that are "idiot PVP players who want to screw your night up" or "Anyone that only wants a fight has been gone since day 1 and the few people that come don't stay long and go..." so everyone is focused on PvE?

Your original post seems to be a bit salty due to the fact that you were ambushed (which in 99% of the times on the team being ambushed (mistakes were made) as avoiding a battle is pretty easy - though you might be chased across the seven seas and to the ends of the world (which btw happens to the best of us)). In the mean time you state that you also are in favor of PvP, but hate that most people do not manage to give you a decent fight? Though by the sound of it you also didn't really put up much of a fight either.

That is why I believe that the problem you are encountering is more due to the pirates needing to learn to be better pirates. As the issues seem to be more based on the players and their pirating style than the actual game mechanics (which are not perfect, but I do not see the mechanical argument you are making - unless if I read between the lines of your reactions stating: PvP isn't rewarded enough (but that is an assumption on my side).

I personally do not agree with your argument there no pirates out there that want to fight. First of all, it is something you have control over (how do you approach another pirate crew). I tend to base it on a case by case basis where how the player acts towards me determines whether or not I am friendly or foe. I have encountered both frequently, maybe due to my approach being in ones face (which understandably can cause people to panic) and that if people try to kill me and don't talk I just go full assault. Though there are clear differences in skill levels and a fun fight can be hard to come by - as this is all very dependent on the situation, stock, positioning, awareness of the crew and teamwork.

People come and go, as someone that has PvP'd from the beginning my experience on the PvP end has become lackluster because mostly anyone good has left the game or is disinterested in playing it. You missed that distinction. Being apart of a galleon crew there just aren't as many galleons's around that can put up a fight. And sloops generally don't want to. However, the vast majority of people do not engage in PvP often enough to get good at it so you end up with a situation where someone can lose hours of progress because of PvP. I think part of my experience is being on a galleon where the majority of ships on any server now are smaller ships.

The game's current implementation of PvP has turned into undermining someone else's progress. There isn't enough focus on loot for PvP... the voyage system just doesn't construct that type of game. Its completely hit or miss if someone has loot... I mean most of my PvP night's nowadays is just us decorating our ship with Athena crates from other ships, getting their crews to join us and getting them killed, or releasing them on an island and hunting them down. This issue only got exasperated with cooperative events because there is nothing to gain for PvP there.

edit: rereading your post again its clear you didn't understand what I've said or it wasn't clear. I didn't say "no one wants to put up a fight". I said willing and CAN are mostly rare. I haven't been sunk off guard in a while. I've been sunk by 4 crews total in 3 months of play. I remember each of the situations. They all held there own in combat where we were the aggressor, except for one crew of try hards that were stream snipers. The vast majority of PvPing I do doesn't feel good. It feels like borderline griefing. I'm salty because the game is not well structured for fun engaging PvP. I don't get chased, we don't run. We killed 4 alliance ships in a row on stock resources at a fort...

@savagetwinky it seems that anyone that recognizes for this game to work you need both the PvE and PvP, enjoys it and see nothing wrong with the model. Which is the majority of those playing it. The only ones that feel it is broken lean towards one or the other. Or feel it should only be about one over the other. Which is not the case in SoT. And I believe that for the most part the mechanics of the game work perfectly for this mixed environment.

@nofears-fun said in Pvp is ruining SOT:

@savagetwinky it seems that anyone that recognizes for this game to work you need both the PvP and PvP enjoys it and see nothing wrong with the model. Which is the majority of those playing it. The only ones that feel it is broken lean towards one or the other. Or feel it should only be about one over the other. Which is not the case in SoT. And I believe that for the most part the mechanics of the game work perfectly for this mixed environment.

Again, and again... I've never stated we should drop either. I'm saying its poorly implemented and the PvP ultimately doesn't work well.

@drbullhammer said in Pvp is ruining SOT:

@savagetwinky you're not conducting a survey. Your gameplay affects the responses you receive. You aren't taking down data about how long people have played, what they want from the game, what they typically want from a game, what they would like to see added/removed/changed.

Except that is basically the survey, the response to my gameplay is a pretty clear answer to how people perceive PvP.