Sea of Thieves is Turning its Attention to Griefers

While the developers continue to wrangle with server problems, executive producer Joe Neate has also confirmed that Sea of Thieves griefing is on the radar.

[Emme]

Yeah, if people weren't so bored, they woukdn't grief as much I guess.

[Kokyu]

Yeah I doubt that lol

[KillBill]

You don't play games online much do you?

[SkippyPaccino]

Isn't that the only people left that play? Rare dont alienate your fanbase...

[Shiken]

Well due to lack of content, one could argue that the griefers are the bad guys and the "good guys" should band together to stop them. Unless they are cheating and exploiting, why should they be punished for playing the game?

I though forging your own adventure and forming alliances in a player run economy was the point of an MMO as open as this?

[bigmalky]

I thought griefing was part of the gameplay. There goes that important mechanic.

[Slurms]

PvP is a big part of the game play.
PvP =/= griefing.

There are a couple of mechanics in the game that can be abused to ruin the game for other people, and Rare should address those.

[KillBill]

Only fix them in a way that doesn't create a worse situation. Imagine you just cleared the Skeleton fort and got all that treasure and your ship got sunk and was forced to respawn on the other side of the map (which is the general suggestion being brought up to stop griefing). All that hard work for simply a crew letting you do all the work and taking out your ship to earn an easy treasure haul.

[Kokyu]

So the only thing to do in this game and they are going to hamper it......do these people even know how to make games?

[ClanPsi1]

It's become blatantly clear over the past ten years that no, they don't. At all.

[Relientk77]

Present day Rare - No

Old Rare - Yes

[trooper_]

Pretty sad, isn't it?

[Lofabred]

Pirates are just basically rl griefers, I thought that was part of the intended play loop. What are they doing, lol - they don't understand pirating

[Slurms]

They aren't talking about stopping PvP. Griefing is abusing the mechanics to spoil other people's fun. In Sea of Thieves you can camp on an enemy ship so you can keep killing them when they spawn into the world. They need to tweak the mechanics to avoid that scenario.

[Kostche]

how are people abusing PvP? PvP is just that,, all this is, is people like in real life that need a third pary to PROTECT them, because they are unable to defend themseleves.. its pathetic

[KillBill]

No, that is not what is being talked about. Griefers aren't camping on other ships that spawn in but is talked on when the griefer themselves respawn locally and keeps coming back and coming back. Eventually depleting the other ships resources.

Simply need to fix the resource depleting issue and leave the PvP aspect in.

[Slurms]

I took it to mean griefing in general. They shouldn't do anything that stops people hunting down an enemy or effectively acting on a grudge.

At the same time, PvP can get stuck in a loop some times and it does feel a bit pointless sinking a ship with no consequence at all. At the moment PvP risk is too stacked, as the only ones that can lose are players with treasure. They need to tie some kind of value into the ship, or find some way of making players care about keeping it afloat. Nothing harsh enough to ruin your day or stop you wanting to engage a ship you think carries loot, but something.

[Lamboomington]

Spawn camping has nothing to do with 'pirating'

[ocelot07]

Can someone please explain to me how people are trolling on this game? What methods are considered trolling?

[Kostche]

they are doing PvP in the open world PvP game, there is no trolling, just butt hurt people that are unable to defend themselves and want 3rd party to intervine and protect them, bit like life

[ocelot07]

Pffft if that's the case then people need to get a grip it's a PvP game. The other day I saw a boat coming to the outpost I was at. They started placing there treasure and skulls on the beach. I killed all 3 of them and sold the stuff my self.

Cruel yes but they should of been more careful. I wouldn't say that was trolling on my part. Just me being crafty.

[Kostche]

@ocelot07 how its supposed to go down on PvP the dislikes are triggerd noobs that get ganking and robbed, and the ones that need thrid party help to protect them

[UnHoly_One]

They are talking about stuff like people that board a ship and just kill the player(s) on that ship repeatedly as they respawn.

Not stealing treasure or sinking the ship, just killing the player repeatedly.

Since there is no reward for killing players, they are just doing it to ruin that player's fun, hence "griefing".

[ocelot07]

I see yer that should be fixed. They could always give the respawning player a 5-10 second invincibility. To give them a chance to at getting into a position to defend them self.

[KillBill]

Not the issue being discussed. As the crew can simply vote to skuttle a ship to prevent that being an issue.

[mark_parch]

for me it's just unbalanced. for example i spent 2 hours doing a merchant voyage which involved getting loads of animals. once i had collected them all and a few other bits of loot i started to head to an outpost when a 2 man crew spotted me. the chances of me winning a 1 vs 2 battle is extremely small and there is also an extremely high chance of my animals dying that i spent 2 hours collecting so i tried to out run them which is impossible, it's basically just whoever gives up first. this 2 man crew followed me around the map for nearly an hour then i just gave up. so 3 hours for nothing. wont be playing the game again. i'm sure it's fun for people who want nothing more than pvp but for people who want to try and level up with the merchants especially playing solo it's extremely annoying

[No Way]

Impossible, why? I outran, outrepaired and escaped a galleon chasing my sloop. 3v1. I simply manuevered thru tight areas where it would be hard for them to do. If you can sail better, you can get away.

[mark_parch]

@No Way
it was a sloop following me so all literally all you have to do is set 1 sail to catch the wind if the people following are also setting that 1 sail to catch the wind it's impossible and any tight area i can go through they can go through

[Chaosdreams]

So from the sounds of it this game is a sinking ship eh?

[Kostche]

So attacking people being a Pirate in open world PVP game is now greifing? what else do you expect Pirates in open world PvP game to do? omfg... hey guys you can PvP but do not do it... smh, if you are talking about people picking randoms and them randoms are not wroking together, then choose more wisley who you pick to play with

what they want to fix is the jumping of the boat & boarding the other players boat rinse and repeat BS, make jumping in the ocean more dangerous

[UnHoly_One]

They aren't talking about stopping pvp.

Attacking other players is part of the game.

[Kostche]

i never said they was stopping it, i said they was stopping the way people are doing it, because people are complaining about being attacked, regardless of how many times, like i said catering to the snowflakes that need third pary to protect them, because they are weak pathetic individuals that cannot even deal with PvP in game, i guarantee they are like that in life, weak pathetic snowflakes that crumble at everything and every word

[Slurms]

@kostche jumping in the sea over and over to attempt to board a ship is part of the game. Learn to protect yourself you "pathetic snowflake".

[gamer7804]

probably referring to when a group instantly puts someone into the brig for no reason, they should also try to tackle the PC players hacks, invincibility etc.

[FPS_D3TH]

The problem is how far away the just killed and ship sunk players spawn. It’s too close. I think if you sink twice within a time limit you should get moved to a different server instance. Not like you’re getting your loot after all that. I’m not sure how long loot lasts in the world before despawning but I know if it’s in the water and isn’t picked up it’ll disappear before you can return to the same area.

[ocelot07]

Loot lasts a fair time at least 10 minutes. My ship sank the other night without me realising I was taking on water. I returned to the place it sank I couldn't see my treasure. Went down to the bottom of the sea bed and it was there.

[KillBill]

Nope... I have gone off to an island chain and grabbed treasures and hid them in different places and came back much much later with crew and picked them up from where I left them.

[FPS_D3TH]

Must be why I keep finding random captains chests lol

[KillBill]

@D3TH_D33LR - You can sink a ship also and the treasure will follow the tides to wherever they take them. The sea is actually cloud generated and is the exact same on all people playing in that server. This way when a wave takes your ship in the air the other crew will see the exact same movement of waves and ships. Very demanding, much more so than just regular interaction on land that does not move.

[MeteorPanda]

..a pirtate game with no story and nothing to do but roam..has girefers. do tell me more what you wanted out of a incomplete game called sea of Thieves. ffs.

[obidanshinobi]

They need to turn their attention to adding NPC ships to pirate.
If the only ships out there are real players, in a pirate game, WTF did they expect ?

I'm having fun with it at the mo, not sure how long that will last as Ni No Kuni 2 and Far Cry 5 are very tempting right now.
Game's fun but desperately needs more content, and not in 3 months time, IT NEEDS IT NOW !! The game will be dead in 3 months time. They need to look at what they can add with existing assets and add more things to do ASAP.

[Kiknyonutz]

People would probably grief less if they had more things to do in the game. I own it, I enjoy it, however it gets tiresome doing the same three redundant quests. The true end game difficulty is measured by the people you're playing against since the AI doesn't pose much of a challenge

[MegamanXXX]

This game is a big disappointment

[Donnie81]

I wish n4g would turn its attention to griefers

[maybelovehate]

Thank goodness. People must have a lot of time on their hands to spend their entire playtime getting nothing and just griefing other players. I can see how a developer wouldn't expect this to happen since it is an utter waste of time, but I guess they didn't realize what utter wastes of life some gamers are.

[KillBill]

Pretty simple option fix. Add a choice (can be a vote option for a crew) where you can choose spawn local or spawn non-local. Non-local will give the ship the normal spawn loadout of cannon balls, bananas and lumber. While spawn local will put the ship in a closer general location but completely empty and require crew to restock from local island.

And when a ship is sunk the ship that did the sinking should get an appearance from Poseidon who grants them an added 15~20 inventory boost to each of the 3 major items. (depending on the size of the ship they sunk)

The biggest issue really is only around skull forts where you can often see yourself spending a lot longer time in defeating the skeletons on the island to get at the treasure stash.

But it would be really awful if you near defeated all of the skeletons only to have your ship sunk at that point and be forced to respawn far away from your treasure cash left behind.

PvP is the staple of the game. Can't fix grieving when it is a main staple of what the game is about. You plunder the other pirates for their booty.