TDM as a feature

So anyways.. Maybe next season or season 17 we can get a TDM feature as is so often requested.. I think it would be a huge success for most players. Even for ones who only feel comfortable TDMing with friends. My question is, should the TDM feature be restricted to a specific area, like inside an instanced place, on a specific island, or just anywhere that players want? Like a toggle for crews, maybe something they vote on in the menus or vote on at their ship or on an island? AND it has to be the entire crew that votes to turn it on, but only need majority or even one to turn it off.

Just a random thought here; not necessarily a counterpoint or argument to any stated posts here thus far but maybe just an objectively different viewpoint:

There hasn't been (and probably won't ever be) any type of TDM or FPS combat mode in this game for the same reason the oft-requested guild halls, home bases and personalized islands/mansions also likely will never come to be: because it doesn't jive with what Rare has always envisioned for their game, which is SEA(!!!) of Thieves. Combat based primarily around naval warfare with personal firearms as a necessary supplement to that PRIMARY mode of combat? Maybe they don't and never will care about what a vocal (but admittedly minor) subsection of the player base wants to try and turn the developer's game into rather than what it always has been, and that's okay? In a game where the entire point of everything is being on the water and the travel between islands, ANY combat mode or customizable structure based around staying on land and away from the water is COUNTERPRODUCTIVE...?

I can imagine that "maybe a game developer should ignore what their fans want" is a controversial take for some of us here, and most certainly to all of the folks who have commented rather passionately in this particular thread specifically.

But insofar as an explanation or answer to the frequent "We keep asking for this, why are we being ignored?????!!!!!!11!11ONE!!!?!?" question that keeps popping up periodically...?

That just might be the logical answer to your question. Because they (Rare) don't want it and never did no matter how much you might.

To be as haughty and facetious as possible so as to justify the angry replies this post might generate, let me close with a quote from Oscar Wilde:

"In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it. The last is much the worst, the last is a real tragedy! . . ."

@thegrimpreacher I don't think a TDM combat "mode" is really ever going to happen either, but it still doesn't hurt to ask for it as a feature. I.E. being able to practice vs your own crew or other players somewhere.

One of the biggest sore spots for new and PvE players is getting demolished by PvP players. If they had a place or feature to at the very least practice fighting with their weapons, they could use that as an outlet to improve. Is it 100% necessary? No. But would it help a massive amount of the player base? Yes. That's what I'm advocating for.. Having Rare at a bare minimum allow us to fight amongst our own crews to mess around, practice, and help onboard swabbies to using their weapons. Getting reps in with ships is easy, because you have skeleton ships, ghost fleets, BB, etc. but practicing with weapons for PvP is a bit trickier. Fighting skeletons and phantoms isn't too difficult because they are extremely slow moving, but practicing with a crewmate where they are jumping around and having to track them and hit shots is where pirates can start to improve.

Also, since it's SEA of thieves, they should really get rid of islands, as they are land and have no place in this game. Also, the Tall Tales where almost all primarily on land, so they should get rid of most of those too. I really hope they get rid of vault quests, sea forts, skeleton forts, etc because like you said, the game should primarily revolve around naval warfare and not killing skeletons and phantoms or other players on islands.

Also, ignoring what the players want is a great way to have a game fail.. That's just a crazy take to say ignore what the fans want.. LOL. Look at Runescape, it literally failed with evolution of combat and then after listening to the FANS, the devs created Old School Runescape and now poll literally everything to the fans, and WOW it's one of the most popular MMORPGs of all time still to this day. Crazy.

@thamb0 said

@thegrimpreacher I don't think a TDM combat "mode" is really ever going to happen either, but it still doesn't hurt to ask for it as a feature. I.E. being able to practice vs your own crew or other players somewhere.

One of the biggest sore spots for new and PvE players is getting demolished by PvP players. If they had a place or feature to at the very least practice fighting with their weapons, they could use that as an outlet to improve. Is it 100% necessary? No. But would it help a massive amount of the player base? Yes.

Damn it was almost as if they had once had a gamemode for that, wonder where it went.

That aside yeh being able to toggle friend fire and just mess around with your crew is a long suggested feature. But I think they were hesitant with that due to cheaters exploiting that code or simply the bugs it brings with it.
Thrice with thinking RARE will just never bring a TDM seperate mode.

@TheGrimPreacher

I can imagine that "maybe a game developer should ignore what their fans want" is a controversial take for some of us here,

This has ALWAYS been a fine line between the gamers and devs. Many times devs have listened to what players wanted and guess what, it still failed because players talk to talk, So it's not always beneficial to listen to the playerbase ESPICIALLY when there's hidden unwanted consequences that comes with it...
If say magically 75k players wanted arena back and by some magical fate RARE re-introduces a new and improved Arena game, that would hurt adventure, why? Because HG would be dead overnight (AS if it's not suffering enough already).
Just a crude example that sometimes the devs knows better then the players demand. And not the other way around... Like @Thamb0 Mentioned I think that's a crude take nit picking examples of when gamers were right all along. But in reality it's the devs that knows better not to thin out the playerbase by introducing every single change and quirk that Tom & Timmy wants..

Half wanted QS to be patch because they couldn't be bothered learning the basics of tapping the sprint button in between switching guns?!?!? , the other half wanted to stay as it was since it was a fun gun mechanic (Exploit) that had a skill ceiling made it enjoyable.. There's no winners here to satisfy a split playerbase demands...

@veronik5682 I mean cheaters already do plenty of toxic stuff like drop kegs, fly, aimbot, etc.. I don't know what they would really wanna abuse with a toggleable friendly fire mode so crews could practice? If they're gonna rage hack and kill pirates, they'll do it regardless, no?
Also, thank you for not saying the A word. Don't wanna get the thread locked XD

@fysics3037 said

@thegrimpreacher People just getting into PvP suffer because there is no practical way to practice hand to hand combat. If you aren't good at hand to hand you will literally just instantly lose to someone that is good at it.

That's my gripe and I'm 99% sure the reason why the overall playerbase in this game hasn't improved at in PvP. The PvP in this game is SLOW, even moreso with all the nerfs it had the last 2 years.
But that's not even the issue, it's the lack of gameplay loop for the PvP, HG eases that but even then if your constantly sinking in HG I bet my bank account your spending more time respawning in a tavern, supplying up, raising anchor, lowering sails, sailing out, diving, waiting in queue for 8 minutes then you do fighting? A fight that lasts 2 minutes against a good player... Yep...

That is atrocious time sunk in not PvP'ing. It's demoralizing for players that want to actually get good at PvP get over that massive mountain on sinking non stop and as stated the massive time sink doing anything but PvP...

Arena had it much better 15 minutes bursts of fun games, you could sink non stop and join back the fight almost instantly. I would trade waiting 20 minutes in an Arena queue then touch HG ever again (Im 1k in both) and the 10k title is just a joke...

This also isn't even mentioning the massive issue of spawn camping that has been a plague on the game forever. Something that is often due to sheer boredom and desire to tdm.

I stop trying to sink a player off just tdm/spawncamping them, I caught a yellowbeard a while back trying to sink them by doing that, my ship sunk, I killed a player like 10 times in a row and sailing his ship into a rock that did no damage. Long story short I was met with the ban screen a few day later. The footage was biased in his favor. The support team only saw their PoV and not what lead up to it... I think if it was in HG it would of went differently who knows.

But yeah Im still really salty about that ban, I believe it's two strikes and your pema ever since the ban/report update?
I get there's some people that spawncamp just to make it a misery for the receiving end, but when I get put in the bad fruit basket for trying to get a legit sink, I got banned, lost hope and respect from RARE support and I really questioned other players claiming to be falsely banned as truth to it after my own experience.

@thamb0 said in TDM as a feature:

Also, since it's SEA of thieves, they should really get rid of islands, as they are land and have no place in this game. Also, the Tall Tales where almost all primarily on land, so they should get rid of most of those too. I really hope they get rid of vault quests, sea forts, skeleton forts, etc because like you said, the game should primarily revolve around naval warfare and not killing skeletons and phantoms or other players on islands.

What we have here is a textbook example of Reductio ad Absurdum, wherein a proposition is attempted to be disproven by following its implications logically to an absurd conclusion. It's a common refuge amongst those with shallow reading and/or comprehension skills. 😁

You misquoted me of course; I never said the game should primarily revolve around naval warfare and only the dimmest of people would follow that implication into concluding that 90% of the game's land-based content should be removed. I said any COMBAT mode that involves staying ashore for extended periods of time is counterproductive to the game's apparent aims. Since my point was clearly misunderstood, let me use smaller words: I was obviously speaking of the PvP crowd specifically, since there was never any contention in this particular conversation regarding the PvE crowds being unhappy with what they've got available to them right now. This entire forum chain has been about the addition of another combat mode since the OP and people agreeing with them are unhappy with the assumed limitations of the current mode.

Also, ignoring what the players want is a great way to have a game fail.

Side note here but I also very clearly said it was "a vocal (but admittedly minor) subsection of the player base" and not the entire player base as a whole, or even solely the PvP crowd amongst them. Giving the (vocal minority of a) player base everything that they want is also a fantastic way to have a game fail.

This goes for you, too @Fysics3037 for deliberately misquoting me with Dunno why you thought "every player is dumb and none of their ideas are good" was a strong argument... since I said nothing of the sort.

EVERY player is, in no way, dumb and I did not, in any way, imply such.

Are some of the vocal minority in any community dumb with bad ideas...? Absolutely. In fact, often the loudest ones are the ones with the dumbest ideas.

@fysics3037 Best to just fully ignore him and his superiority complex.

@thegrimpreacher said:

I said any COMBAT mode that involves staying ashore for extended periods of time is counterproductive to the game's apparent aims.

Keeping the conversation to this...

When I suggested the Sea Dog Tavern in the Sea of the Damned, it's because it would be the lowest effort solution from Rare. Giving the players an instance to have no-holds-barred PvP, in which they can "TDM" if they want to. An instance that already existed, and would simply need to be added back to the game.

This keeps TDM activity out of Adventure servers, where everyone else can engage in everything else the game offers.

As for keeping any official mode ashore for extended periods, this isn't necessary either. A TDM mode could be two endlessly circling ships (in a separate instance), where teams fire off to opposing ships to kill crews, or defend their own against attackers. No weapon limitations. Free, respawning throwables and food lol. It would be useful for boarding/anti-boarding practice, giving players the freedom to mess around, try different things, all while nothing is on the line for them to lose.

In Arena, we sometimes had ship TDMs between willing crews, which were also (jokingly) referred to as "camp wars." Of course, I wouldn't call any official mode "camp wars." But there are ways to make a TDM mode that has practical relevance to the game's naval "COMBAT."

@fysics3037 said in TDM as a feature:

@thegrimpreacher You said "But insofar as an explanation or answer to the frequent "We keep asking for this, why are we being ignored?????!!!!!!11!11ONE!!!?!?" question that keeps popping up periodically" and "I can imagine that "maybe a game developer should ignore what their fans want" is a controversial take for some of us here, and most certainly to all of the folks who have commented rather passionately in this particular thread specifically." which both ostracize the people requesting this feature. If you believe everyone requesting this feature aren't lower than the common person than why would you type "?????!!!!!!11!11ONE!!!?!?" or leave that quip about the "truth" being hard to accept? It seems as if that is solely to paint the people asking for it as a "less than" group, or put yourself + the devs above everyone else. Both of which are quite ridiculous ideas. I simply wrote the backhandedness of your comments in a clearer text. Also the fact your response generalizes small minority groups of players as "dumb" again is just further evidence of your bias.

I am well aware of what I said. In fact, I'm the one who said it. What I didn't say is any of the drivel that you spouted following my quote that is far more representative of your bias than mine. I didn't ostracize anyone, you inferred it. As is evident by the phrase you used: "it seems as if". Which literally translates to "this is what it looks like to me".

If by "clearer text" you mean grossly mischaracterized, I quite agree. I don't think my opinion does or should carry more weight than anyone else's. Do I think the devs's opinions and desires of their own game carry more weight? Absolutely. It's their OWN game. You know what MOST people do when they start a book they don't like? They stop reading it and pick up something else. They don't write a letter to the author telling them they should change the entire premise of the book to suit the reader's whims after every new chapter they read.

And please do point out where I "quipped about the truth being hard to accept...?" I re-read my posts twice and don't see at all where I said anything of the sort. I assume it was yet another thing you inferred based upon your own bias and then "claimed" I said. Just like how I, in no way, claimed small minority groups of players are dumb in their entirety. I said the loudest members of such groups often had the dumbest ideas. Which is true of literally all social groups, large and small.

You seem to be quite fond of taking everything everyone says out of context to suit your desire to be some kind of champion of the voiceless underdog here.

As we're no doubt nearing a mod's intervention on their thread, I'll be dropping my own anchor here. Respond if you wish, but I won't be reading or responding any further. I don't feel like getting banned from the forum for defending myself from your out of context assumptions.

EDIT: I just realized I asked you to point something out to me in an earlier paragraph and then told you I wouldn't read any responses a few sentences after that. Apologies. Please do not bother to point anything out to me, as I will not be reading any further into this forum topic. Happy sailing.

As everyone said, sadly there are many toxic PvPers. However, there are just as many, if not more, wonderful competitive gamers that love PvP and will be the first to toss a GG or helping hand.

I hope that Rare can continue to strike a balance with PvP. Player engagement is the only way I can consistently get my friends and family on this game.

After a FoF, FoTD, Briggsy or voyage/quest of the sort without seeing real players, they are pretty much cooked.

Once you can manage a ship, voyages without the risk (or assistance) of other players just feels like the loot is not worth the value. May as well play safer seas, and if you’re going to do that, may as well play RDR2 or Elden Ring or GTA.

Sot is my favorite game of all time, specifically for the experiences I’ve had with and against other players. It is the driving force to rack commendations to share with guild or get better to fend off menacing ships.

I know one thing for sure: you cannot build a sandbox game around whether or not humans are toxic. I hope that if anything, Rare and team can continue to think creatively to INCREASE player engagement, rather than worry that it will create more bad blood. Make the sea feel alive. Focus on alliances, reliances, friendships and guild improvements, but keep the opportunity to engage with others as a focus (PvP).

While this makes sense, would be great to have and whatnot, I just don't see a way for them to make it happen, and here's why:

If it's a seperate server (like Arena was), they're not going to spend money maintaining that server for tdm, when it happens organically during pvp, both in hourglass and in Adventure. Why have a seperate server just for people to practice what already happens during gameplay? So, it means it would have to take place somewhere in adventure.

If it's a random island somewhere dedicated to it, how do you enforce only that style of play? What's to stop other players from coming along and sinking your ship/trolls, etc.? On top of that, what happens when players coming to practice TDM can't even get a foothold on the island, as they keep getting sniped/killed all the time?

I've TDM'd quite a bit with my friends, and we've had to agree to rules in order not to make it unfair for the other team (wait until the person is on the island before you can start, no tucking on ships, etc.).

It's a great idea on paper, and sounds really fun to do, don't get me wrong. Getting it to work however, is a whole other ballgame. If everyone could all agree that a certain island is reserved for TDM, fine, but getting people to agree to those terms and cooperate/respect those who are there and practicing, isn't possible.

@fysics3037

It would be really cool if they did what you describe, something similar to what WoW does where you can set your hearthstone somewhere. So if your ship sinks oh well. Sadly, they're not going to do this.

@fysics3037 Not a bad idea, but then player's wouldn't be able to really do the skeleton fort for the orbs. So, are you suggesting making new skeleton camps for tdm or having just one skeleton camp on the server randomly being selected? Just curious how it would work. Also, players would need to be okay with leaving their ships unattended all next to the skeleton camp. It would be nice if we had a tdm area that we could sail our ships into the tunnel of the damned and then fight at something like the twisted SDT from the adventure. Except maybe this time we can also go inside? Still, I think the best course of action is to just hope Rare implements a system where crews can turn off or on the ability to fight each other. Everyone has to vote to activate it and then only one person from the crew is needed to turn off the feature and it can be done from the esc settings. I think that is the best avenue to allow tdm between crewmates who want to practice or just partake in it for fun. Nothing is still stopping players from tdming other crews at islands if they agree to it, albeit can be difficult to set up or actually find crews without having to use outside sources, but the very least we could get is the crew tdm option.

Because Sea of Thieves wasn't designed to be like that. What's more, promotions based on kills, even though present in the Arena, we can see where that got us! It's not for nothing that these stats are not present in Allegiance!
Once PvP players understand that SoT is first and foremost an adventure and role-playing game, maybe this community will grow up a bit!
And since we know our players well, if ever there was an AFK option to boost reputation... BUT YES, of course... In an arena perhaps, but forget the arena: it's dead and buried!

@zeyrniyx you’re right! But it’s a sandbox game first and foremost. As an RPG, you can choose to be a feared reaper and only PvP, so it deserves all of the support and respect just as much as PvE.

@h0b0jo0e

Yes 1000x over

@super87ghost I think you're mistaken. All of the past updates since hourglass have been PvPvE updates. Not a single one has been a PvP specific update. If so, please inform me which ones? The Burning Blade? Not a PvP update, since you can literally complete it without fighting any real players.. SoSS update? Not PvP, because again you can complete that voyage without ever interacting with another player. You keep saying we've received all of these PvP specific updates, but I can't think of one since Hourglass... which was now over 2 years ago. Yes, the Adventure mode means that literally any update to PvE will by proxy affect PvP because players can always attack others, but I think @Fysics3037 is talking about a REAL PvP centric update that truly focuses on PvP, not PvE with potential for PvP. Besides HG, which is in a terrible state, Rare has only given PvP focused players PvE updates that they can go fight people over. Again, please refresh my memory and give me examples of actual PvP only updates.

This is why I advocate having a Season that reintroduces the Sea Dogs, allows crews to PvP amongst themselves, to practice, learn, and have outlets for teaching new players whilst still being fun for OGs to mess around with. They could also add in the "Silver" idea that Captain Falcore had, AND they could create a small area on the map, or in a tunnel of the damned, which is basically a PvP playground for fun. Just have it be a large island with a fortress on it and have 4-5 non-player sloops around it, where players can portal to and just mess around and PvP. No time limit, no real score, no queue times, just go an interact with who ever is there, or simply your own crew. "Hey galleon crew, wanna go to X Island and fight for awhile?"
"Sure".

Let players level Sea Dogs up by getting silver from participating in combat on the seas, and for those wanting to practice their skills in the safety of their crew, or with some new friends from a server, or just with anyone who portals to the Island on that server, then give them the Sea of the Damned Island X. It's not that hard. Add multiple outlets for PvP so that all skill groups can find their space and then venture into other aspects of PvP when they want. Don't just make a voyage, slap PvP on it and expect everything to be better for those players, because now no one is happy.