What ever happened to the minimum level feature that was going to be required for new players to be able to Hourglass?
Basically every Brig HG fight we get in OCE now is either a solo (Under 2 hours played on their account) or it's still new accounts but they can shoot out of a cannon and 2 tap you faster than you can even eat any food.
Can we please get that minimum level or time played feature or was it just forgotten, to me it sounded like a sure fire way to get rid of cheaters partly
Won't even slow effective cheaters down, especially since they've had months to prepare for it.
Strats like that only mess with people that already aren't good at whatever shenanigans they are involved in.
It's like adding counterproductive policy to mess with level 1 troublemakers that rarely ever get beyond level 1 anyway.
Gatekeeping HG is pretty much just accepting that matchmaking will never get better and is just feeding into it being a tiny bubble for people that play it all day long at higher skill levels. Effective cheaters will still be there.
The reason that cheating is so common to see is because there isn't a population big enough to dilute it. Making that population even smaller isn't even going in the right direction.
@wolfmanbush Not true. It would slow people down. It won't eliminate it, but it would certainly put a dent into it. People who cheat are going to be less inclined to get 15-20 levels of pve reputation along with a new account.
Remember, there is no economy in this game so unlike world of warcraft or other MMO's that have an economic benefit for cheaters, this game does not. Not practically at least. So any of these deterrents that would not work in games like WoW, can drastically help here.
@senjai said in minimum reputation for playing Hourglass?:
@wolfmanbush Not true. It would slow people down. It won't eliminate it, but it would certainly put a dent into it. People who cheat are going to be less inclined to get 15-20 levels of pve reputation along with a new account.
Remember, there is no economy in this game so unlike world of warcraft or other MMO's that have an economic benefit for cheaters, this game does not. Not practically at least. So any of these deterrents that would not work in games like WoW, can drastically help here.
The kind of cheaters that it will work on in SoT are those that think downloading free cheats off the internet is a good idea. Casual cheaters.
The issue with taking security advice from the general public is that it's low in effectiveness and high in inconsiderate "feel good" policy.
Loud groups are totally willing to make experiences worse for people outside of their groups, lots of times they will even be willing to support things that make it worse for themselves in the long run, all for a false sense of security and control over the situation.
This makes HG even worse for casual players and new players. It does nothing to help them in a piece of content that is largely just a fomo nightmare from start to end.
Security should always be good policy that is considerate of the experience for those that will be directly and most affected.
This is nothing more than feel good policy for experienced players. It's inconsiderate of how it will affect the experiences of those outside of the groups pushing it.
Imo it was a mistake for Rare to even show that sort of vulnerability in an attempt to cater to feedback. Security isn't a feedback situation, it's a professional situation that needs to be taken more seriously than feedback can provide. It makes "we are working on secret stuff behind the scenes" appear less concerning for cheat devs by letting it appear like feedback is more of a part in security than it should be.
@wolfmanbush You have written many words, and have said nothing. I have no idea what your counterpoint is.
You cannot eliminate the problem, you create systems that disincentivize it, along with actively detecting and removing those who choose to do so in spite of those systems. A system that makes it non-trivial to create a new account and immediately get back into cheating helps with minimal, if any, actual degradation for "normal players."
You do both. Since you cannot eliminate the problem in its entirety. If you think you can, many companies would love to hear from you.
@senjai said in minimum reputation for playing Hourglass?:
@wolfmanbush You have written many words, and have said nothing. I have no idea what your counterpoint is.
You cannot eliminate the problem, you create systems that disincentivize it, along with actively detecting and removing those who choose to do so in spite of those systems. A system that makes it non-trivial to create a new account and immediately get back into cheating helps with minimal, if any, actual degradation for "normal players."
You do both. Since you cannot eliminate the problem in its entirety. If you think you can, many companies would love to hear from you.
It's unpopular content where casual players severely struggle because of the skill gaps.
You are not acknowledging that this will make the experience worse for them. It will remove and disincentivize inexperienced interest in HG.
It is very necessary to get new and inexperienced players involved in HG so that more people can have fights that are competitive.
That's the real issue in HG, the lack of interest in contrived combat from players that aren't in the experienced/sweat stages of gameplay.
It was unpopular from the beginning which is why one of the very first major changes was to mess with stamps so players could get fights. That was before cheating even became the loudest frustration in HG. Unpopular from the beginning, which is terrible for casual/new players. This change makes that worse.
@wolfmanbush I don't think many people to come to Sea of Thieves because of hourglass. I don't think its a core selling point.
I hear your point on wanting to widen the curve, but I would argue cheaters do more to take people out of the game mode, which then centralizes to only the most "hardcore" sweats as you describe. I don't really even play it because of the cheaters, not the skill gap. So we disagree on the more important of the two problems, which is fine. I think cheating is more of a detraction from hourglass than new player onboarding for people who would "come to the game to play hourglass" which I just don't think actually happens. It's more something people do after getting Pirate Legend, or having played adventure with friends or the like.
A lack of fair play will always kill any competitive mode, more than lack of new entrants ever would in my opinion. Also let's not assume matchmaking problems are just because of the total number of players either - we don't know what algorithm they use or if they factor in streaks to matchmaking.
There is already a very strong "carrot" for getting into PVP being the curses. Hourglass doesn't need any additional motivation, people who want the curses will do what they need to get into Hourglass. From there it's making sure they keep playing, by not losing to cheaters constantly.
@senjai said in minimum reputation for playing Hourglass?:
@wolfmanbush I don't think many people to come to Sea of Thieves because of hourglass. I don't think its a core selling point.
I hear your point on wanting to widen the curve, but I would argue cheaters do more to take people out of the game mode, which then centralizes to only the most "hardcore" sweats as you describe. I don't really even play it because of the cheaters, not the skill gap. So we disagree on the more important of the two problems, which is fine. I think cheating is more of a detraction from hourglass than new player onboarding for people who would "come to the game to play hourglass" which I just don't think actually happens. It's more something people do after getting Pirate Legend, or having played adventure with friends or the like.
A lack of fair play will always kill any competitive mode, more than lack of new entrants ever would in my opinion. Also let's not assume matchmaking problems are just because of the total number of players either - we don't know what algorithm they use or if they factor in streaks to matchmaking.
I got into arena before I got very much into adventure and this was my first live service game that I got into.
I didn't much care for SoT early on. It was an extraction game that was short on true adventure. It eventually became an amazing game but it took a while to get there for me.
People might start in HG and then realize there is more to the game. Something new players can do that I couldn't do at the time is they can blend adventure and HG if they want to. I had to choose one or the other. Hgers can create more of an adventure experience if they don't just stick to the linear fomo part of the content.
@wolfmanbush That's fair. There are players like yourselves, I am just making the statement that the vast majority of players are likely not like yourself. It's likely also why Arena was shut down, that's not the core audience.
If your main hope is to get more people into playing hourglass, the point I am making is that the best way to do so is to ensure that players who opt into the game mode who came to the game originally for other reasons, experience the mode in a fair way. That keeps the top of funnel for that game mode much more healthy than it would be than optimizing for people who get the game only for "structured pvp" when the game is otherwise marketed as open-world sandbox pvpve.
Hourglass is a very minimal part of the game, and all the new players i have tried to introduce to the game and did HG with do not want to play the rest of the game because they get dookied on by hard cheaters on fresh accounts constantly.
Having a minimum rep level for participation in HG would also ensure that people go into it with atleast some experience of how the game operates
@captslippery And by doing so you are further constricting available players to the mode which in turn increases wait times for a match that are already too long for many people. It will do absolutely nothing to hinder cheaters from the mode, only make it more unbearable for those who are playing legit by increasing wait times due to fewer players being able to participate. Also it won't necessarily make players better by making them wait as you assume their play in open seas would translate into Hourglass or PvP skills as time played or company levels gained mean nothing since there are very few ways to advance levels via PvP only.
If they want Hourglass experience, that is the best place to learn it. Restricting access would do nothing to help newer players or discourage cheaters, only hurt the mode by reducing available players further than it already has.
I'll be real, i'd rather have no matches at all than to be matched against new players or cheaters constantly - in OCE we don't even find full crews hourglassing anymore on Brig, it's just either swabbies who have no idea what they're doing or a solo who just turns out and runs only to invite a cheater friend on a - you guessed it 8 min old account
Maybe Rare should make it so you cannot dive solo on a brig or Galleon - this would prevent atleast the issues that i have been coming across. it would also put a dent in the money making system that people have for boosting and selling PvP curse accounts
Can't cheaters just dive hop?
After they added voyage diving, I have friends who basically event/reaper hop using low tier GH dig voyages.
Dive, pop up right in front of the small island. Check the map. If you have the event or high grade Reaper, cancel the voyage. If not, do the few digs and hop again.
So even if you add level restrictions to HG, cheaters could dive, check the map for HG fights or their "player list" for people to harass. Then they could just TP/fly to their targets, ruin the fun, and then dive again.
Level restrictions also do nothing to address closet cheaters.
What the game really needs is a more robust anti-cheat and background metric tracking (gun/cannon accuracy; player-related K/D ratio) so that Rare can flag and identify even potential cheaters for their security team to investigate.
I've suggested a "kill cam" type of feature in the past, and I think this would also aid the reporting system, leading to catching more cheaters.
@theblackbellamy Yes, but remember most cheaters cheat for advantage. Its the hourglass cosmetics that most people want. And again, it's not a fix everything at once thing. You add multiple things that can help, this helps preserve the "competitive" portion of the game, there's still work to do everywhere else as there always is. That doesn't mean you do nothing.
A kill cam is extremely technically intensive both in terms of implementation and server load (when the servers can already only support 20 people and have performance issues at that)
... Its the hourglass cosmetics that most people want.
Maybe, which is why I suspect there is a decent chunk of them that are closeted and already cheating in the game. A level restriction now does nothing to deal with them, it only hinders new players who are potentially cheating; among all the other new players who aren't.
There are cheaters who are obvious, and get banned repeatedly, and keep coming back on new accounts. The level restriction aims to slow them down.
But my whole comment was about the fact that these cheaters, who just want to watch the game burn and harass others, already have the means to bypass any HG restrictions. They can still find HG players, or players on their lists, by simply diving from server to server.
Meanwhile any new closet cheaters just wait through the restriction and enter the HG pool when they can, among all the other closet cheaters who never left lol.
If a kill cam isn't feasible, then it isn't feasible. But something needs to be done to detect cheaters, better than EAC is currently able to.
@theblackbellamy Your points have already been addressed in the thread above.
I hear what you're saying, just solve the problem entirely or don't solve it at all. But that's not tenable. Solving this requires a multifaceted approach which includes detecting those who are already cheating, as well as making it more difficult for new cheaters to easily get in at the same time.
I hear what you're saying, just solve the problem entirely or don't solve it at all... Solving this requires... making it more difficult for new cheaters to easily get in...
It makes it more difficult for new regular players to get into HG.
It makes it more difficult for closet cheaters to get into HG.
It will not make it more difficult for the repeat offenders who keep coming back on fresh accounts, while being obvious about it. Dive hopping is already a way to bypass potential restrictions, allowing them to find ongoing HG fights to interfere with.
I'm all for multifaceted solutions. But with a level restriction, it really comes down to how you weigh the cost of "making it more difficult" for regular players to enter, with the benefit of essentially delaying closet cheaters from entering the pool. Imo, HG already struggles to maintain casual activity. It needs changes to attract more new players to play, not keep them out.
"Solve the problem entirely or don't solve it at all," doesn't really reflect my opinion. It's more like, "a solution needs to target the right people."
The way you make it more difficult for new cheaters is the way you make it difficult for current cheaters: better detection, and metric/input tracking to flag unusual behavior.
