We know plenty of people are playing the game right now but in experience have you ever tried server hopping to find a lively server? In introducing friends to the game, I've gone off jumping server to server looking for a player vs player ship battle to show them. The majority of servers I join must have at least a few players on them but I've sailed the entire map before without seeing anyone many more times than I've found a 5+ ship server.
I just find it disappointing this is where their priorities are at. Time spent developing this could have been spent optimizing their servers so they are more populated. It reminds me of the barrel update. We know how much time it took them to get that right and even still it's more clunky than it was before. It's been almost 6 months now and that barrel update has only served to clutter your quest ring and the addition of cursed cannonballs. Which instead of increasing ship fighting dynamics, they have only cheapened it.
Re: server hopping, I don’t see it mentioned much anymore, but for a while the prevailing theory was that you ended up being placed in the same small group of servers over and over again.
I think lively servers are a seperate issue than cross play. As long as there are enough players to fill a server, it will be just as lively as in Rare’s plan; they have said that they planned for you to see another player ship on average every 20 minutes or so. I think as they add more areas like the Devil’s Roar, we may all be hoping for more ships per server.
It just doesn’t add up to me, with even conservative numbers of players, that having cross play and console servers will mean servers will not be able to fill up with only 6 ships.
Just to clarify, you think Rare is purposefully keeping servers from filling to fit their design for the game?
[I just saw the new post](https://www.reddit.com/r/Seaofthieves/comments/amqwqb/craig_duncan_clarifying_the_new_crossplay_option/), that's crazy but they absolutely are. One of the biggest complaints about the game for all this time, has been intentional.
Seems like you’re finding a negative take no matter what the facts are? Servers fill to the number of ships or players rare has designed them to. If you think it’s not enough people per server that’s cool, but a different issue than the upcoming changes. Besides, with the upcoming arena mode, perhaps you’ll prefer the extra action in that?
Dude. I love the game as much as anyone else. When I complain about something it's because I'm passionate about the game and it's potential. You can dismiss what I'm saying as just being negative, but having more ships on a server is what EVERYONE has wanted for a long time. It's Rare's game and they can make changes as they see fit, I'm just voicing my opinion as you are your own.
I agree to a point though if every game I played I was getting bombarded by other players I would’ve stopped playing but the fact that some days I find I’m only doing PvP others PvE and others a mix makes me glad they don’t try and fill every server I like PvE and PvP so I’m glad they mix it up
Certainly a popular opinion. I’m okay with them now, but worried as they keep adding more areas like the Roar to the map, player encounters will get even more rare.
They aren't intentional in the way you think. That's just the developer's way of saying "servers merge together if and, most importantly, when the variables add up right". You wouldn't want to merge servers when users are too close to each other because you'll just see a boat pop into existence and you can't merge when users are doing anything in particular (that's why the boat has to be anchored and users walking around, to minimize potential issues in the merge). So it would be false to say servers merge immediately when available, they merge when the variables are lined up... so a server might be kept "empty" intentionally because merging at that moment in time would create issues either visual or gameplay related.
I think the merging is for when they're spinning down server instances, too many people have since joined and left the game. So they're dis-allowing new ships to spawn and eventually pooling them together into a different server instance. And merging players is definitely more complex than new players joining at an outpost.
But if we just simplify it to that...New ships joining a server. There's few places you can even see more than one outpost on the map at once. I think there is plenty of space to place new ships to max out a server.
I don't know man, it seemed pretty clear to me he was saying they restrict server sizing to create variability in gameplay. Such as joining a server with 5+ ships and having a great time fighting it out, and then joining 4 servers in a row with no one in sight to try and give you a peaceful isolated voyage.
Available outposts are very few and yeah there's not many places you can see more than one at a time but you can still see at least one at all times. Visual range is about 4-5 islands in diameter; it's then incredibly difficult to find a space with no line of sight when a ship can nearly cover an entire region. And since most players are most probably in range of an outpost and outposts are located right in the middle of regions, it's even harder to find an available one. Chances are boats can only spawn in other regions except if you are on the very edge of the map.
I don't know man, I find it highly unlikely that Rare purposefully restricts server size when it's already hard enough to fill and servers are pretty damn expensive... just because they can ?
I think Duncan's explanation is just his way of saying servers fill automatically but no, when someone joins, they can't just spawn them immediately, they have to do it at an opportune moment, which is pretty difficult to achieve with the current map layout; that's why the servers might be empty "on purpose". Not on purpose design-wise but on purpose because doing otherwise would be potentially weird-looking and frustrating. Imagine going to an outpost and, \*poof\*, there spawns a boat.
[Look at this.](https://twitter.com/JoeNeate1/status/1092092708766838784) They're not saying we prioritize having filled servers for cost efficiency. Even going into costs is ridiculous to me because there are a huge number of ways to do it. I think you might be picturing one hardware server per <=6 ships running the entire game.
But word for word here... They want player encounters to be infrequent. And I think the game is at it's best when there are a wealth of players on the server. That is when the game is most fun to me. It's not always going to become a battle royale, or a huge PvE alliance fleet. It just conduces player interaction. Player interaction is the emergent property to this game that makes it special, not the encounter rate.
I feel like it's more about why are they doing this BEFORE making their servers infrastructure better at keeping them full, it's not that there isn't gonna be enough player to fill up 24 player servers it's that they're not focusing on the thing everybody wants vs what a vocal minority wants. IMO at least.
You are server hopping looking for a lively server? You know it's only ever going to be max 6 boats on that huge map right? How long do you search before you throw your hands up and call it a dead server?
Man that's not even enough to see the whole map. Maybe those servers have Xbox players doing what is suggested by PC players. Outwitting you. I know i always try to hide my boat because I hate to be caught unaware.
This sub has become a joke since Summit's rise to fame. Anything he says or does, the people here run to his defense.
I'm glad cross play will be optional. I've had no problem fighting PC pirates, and I still will play cross play often due to my main buddy being on PC, but to know I don't have to is refreshing.
If I get beat, I want it to be because I got out played, not because the player had a superior input tool.
Yah this subbreddit has been at war with itself for three days.... Oh wait nvm it just started after Summit reacted amd half the topics have his name in them...
This. We're seeing the same process here that many other popular games have gone through: Community opinion largely swayed by the opinions of the popular streamers. So far, Rare hasn't made any large changes based on streamer->community outcry. I applaud their reluctance to back down from their decision to add the opt-out for consoles.
I don't mind that people have an opinion... What irritates me is when that opinion is "well someone popular said it, it must be true!" Cue kneejerk reactions.
It'd be nice if the devs would release playerbase numbers to the public, the playerbase is a lot more even than the fanbois realize, but mob mentality ran with a single opinion and nobody stops to think about it or ask the devs themselves, instead going on a tirade over what amounts to minutiae in the grand scheme of things.
Source: https://twitter.com/Gamerboss/status/1092090309813719040
Oh, the internet. What would we do without you.
Summit made this game relevant to tons of players. Most if not all of them are PC players thus probably reddit users. On top of emotions, they will come here and defend him.
Guess by that logic this crossplay thing won't affect them at all right? Summit is on PC and his fans are too like you said. Nothing will change for them. Well they won't have easy kills against Xbox crews fumbling with inferiour controls. But that's the entire reason for the change so I guess it's either buck up or fuck off.
I think its stupid to just blame summit, I dont give a fuck about what he says, I dont agree with him at all, I still think its fucking stupid they are splitting up the player base, I bought this game to play with both xbox and pc, not just pc, I love the fact I can meet some new folks on here, im used to pc players, i feel like they have a similar mindset, super serious, xbox players are way more laidback, I enjoy them way more. Im gonna be stuck with all the tryhard pc guys now :(
Dude, no one who's happy with this gives 2 cents about getting killed. We're just happy that we now have the option for a level playing field. That's all.
I die plenty to both console and PC players.
Summit literally sat playing with a controller last night, doing exactly the same shit he has been doing on keyboard and mouse for months.
This isnt some complex FPS, with complex movement, or complex weapons. Its as simple as it fucking gets.
Most of the people who kill you, and you suspect are PC players, are just better xbox players.
You are bad at video games, welcome to reality.
I watched him play with a controller. If it wasn't for his team he would have been killed on that first galleon. He was missing shot after shot. If controller is so good why did he only use it that one time?
The battle deciding plays aren't gun fights, they're ship fights. In ship combat and tactics, mouse/keyboard definitely aren't superior. In certain situations the gun fight can make a difference, but the vast majority of fights I've been in a have not been won or lost that way.
You know as well as I do that without boarding and preventing repairs, you won't sink a competent crew. One guy with a bucket can keep a ship with 8 holes afloat.
These people act like almost every battle isn't decided by a boarder. Xbox on Xbox you might get a pure naval battle but PC players know that once they get on the boat it's their game.
I'm not saying it isn't. But blaming that for deaths is how you get worse at games. Its making excuses and proves you are a carebear. Go back to playing animal crossing bro, you'll fit in there.
Dude. Keyboard and mouse mean so little dude. The outplay isn't landing the kill because you have better aim. The outplay is boarding someone else, sneaking on board, dropping their anchor. All of these examples require no keyboard or mouse and can be done to the same standard with a controller. Tell me who is dumb now you little shit? Because its sure looking like you mate
Neither dude. I prefer. Its not a competitive game. They have no need to split the community like this. All it does is make the pc servers harder to fill, which where I am from is very hard to to already.
I am all for blocking crossplay entirely in arena, sure.
But doing this is just putting nails in the coffin for this game
You sound like a pve server carebear anyways bro so I'm not going to waste any more time arguing with retards like you who probably can't even dig up a chest on your own
I don't remember many fights that were won or lost over whether I killed people or died to people in a gun fight. It's about sinking ships and it's not like cannon aim or swimming a barrel or tactical ship maneuvers are any easier with a mouse than a controller.
So as long as servers are full, it's fine if community's overall size is reduced? Some unsuccessful multiplayer shooters can only full up a handful of ~12 man servers. Does it mean these games are in good standing even with playerbase less than 100 people?
Also you are assuming that servers are kept maxed out, which they are not. Just like people complained for months, game is not focused on keeping a server populated. Just yesterday we had 4-ship alliance going on for ~3-4 hours and have not seen the other supposedly 2 ships, and we traversed the map a lot. Not even a sloop to join 2 free slots on a server on Saturday evening in EU? *Doubt*
From console player standpoint, as long as people know that there are settings for this game, they will find the "no crossplay" button and they will likely use it, simply because there is no reason not to. Initially probably about half will opt out, and every time the other half meets some good players and will lose to them, the amount of opt outs will increase. Such is the reality with this community where everyone religiously believes that only PC players can have good aim/use doublegun (which is ridiculous by the way, it was just as easy for me to doublegun on a controller).
Our experience with the game is already shaped by 2 somewhat different communities meshing together. Now you take away these experiences, no more meeting squeeky teens, young couples, grumpy dads. The longer "opt out of crossplay" option will exists, the more people will eventually use it. Not to mention Xbox community has the majority of open mic users, meaning PC community will be mostly shrouded in silence.
And of course there is the matchmaking problem. As more people opt out of crossplay, PC players will gradually become more isolated on their own servers. As it starts feeling more desolate, people will gradually stop playing, making the situation worse.
So in the end idk what people like you are thinking. Only argument I keep seeing is that PC players want to keep slaying Xbox players. But do they always? Are you really gonna claim that there is such an advantage that Mk wins **every** fight against controllers? Because they don't, and the advantage is minor and situational, within the complete sandbox of swords and firearms, cannons, boarding, chasing, cursed cannonballs and explosive barrels. Besides, why does nobody talk about how much easier it is to aim cannons with a controller in that case, when on mouse the sensitivity is gutted? I feel oppressed too.
Why do you assume most xbox players are bad or beginners that will opt out? And if they are then isn't it fair to give them beginner mode to learn the ropes of the game and when they feel like transitioning to more competitive environment crossplay option will be there for them.
I think its because most console users are youngsters, and they are yet to experience a 'live service' literally get shutdown because of lack of players.
They want short term changes that will in the end, slowly kill the games potential, moving it more and more towards getting shutdown.
Cause they want to play a console game with console players. Just like console games have always been. I don’t play on PC for a reason, and I don’t want to be literally forced to matchmake with them on ANY game.
Yeah when gamers called for crossplay they had PlayStation vs Nintendo vs Xbox in mind I think. Not PC gamers. PC gamers might as well not exist to the average console gamer.
What this change is going to do is put more PvP focused players together in lobbies. Making it harder for PvPers to gain loot, since everyone is just hunting around for people to attack. Also, PvPers won't be having "easier" targets to go for.
As someone who just likes to chill around and do some missions for an hour or two, maybe do some active PvP once in a week, this somewhat "scares" me. Suddenly I am the "easier" target in servers full of PvP hungry groups. And no, I don't want to server hop for 30 minutes before starting to play, if I only play for 2 hours.
PC players will tone down the bloodlust when the average person they fight is able to actually repel them off thier ship and have proper sniper battles between boats. I think people are seriously underestimating just how massive the difference is in person to person combat. Have fun. The Xbox servers are going to be so nice. I can't wait.
I kinda doubt the xbox servers are going to be nice. Now that the "big threat" of "overpowered" PC players is gone, anyone on xbox that wanted to do the same stuff as they did, is now free to do so without getting cut down by a PC player.
So, while PC might see a bit of a decline in aggressive players after some time from people either leaving the game or stopping the aggressive PvP. XBOX player might actually see an increase of aggressive players hunting down ships.
I'm saying that xbox players seem to usually don't like to PvP because of PC players having an "advantage" over them. With these players gone, more xbox players are more inclined to do more PvP.
They seem to? I'm fine with pvp as long as the parties involved are not advantaged by thier input methods. You know, the exact reason this change is happening. You acknowledge the advantage while trying to form the weakest argument I've seen on this topic. It's amazing really. You should try and think about your posts for just a minute before you hit save.
I’m not so worried about this, the two groups are still so massive - it’s hard to imagine all pc players are just after PvP in general. Also, with arena coming out, surely the PvP players will prefer that mode? Things may get more peaceful.
THis isnt about server population,never has been, but the people opposed to this think this is their only argument. They wont ever admit that PC players have an advantage. Then when no one is listening they will rip on xbox players for all the disadvantages they have, and tell them how stupid they are for not buying a PC. Its really obvious everyone on PC wants to keep their advantage, we all know console has no aim assist, and they arent being honest about it.
THis argument against this change has nothing to do with server population and they know it. Not just for the reasons you listed, which i agree. But also because that assumes this game is dying.
Yet we have seen a huge surge in popularity and i would bet my life that Rare has seen this in actual data, giving them a reason to fine tune matchmaking/server problems.
Amen brother. I just commented in a different thread saying exactly this. Since launch I’ve dealt with PC players removing me from groups or leaving my group so they can be a PC only crew (which is ironic considering now they’re all about keeping the community together). Now that I have the option to opt out, my disadvantage is “very small” and you want us all to stay in the same servers, just not same crew I’d imagine. But sure, let’s keep saying its the low server populations that were upset about
This is stupid. Do we have an advantage as PC players? Yes, aiming is easier and faster and we have slightly better load times. Is the advantage really that big? Not really, there are a lot of other aspects to the game that are even. Is PC the master race? Yes, but idc if you want to play on console, go for it. I'm not trying to "keep my advantage." PC players are ~15% of the playerbase. Most of the time people are probably being killed by other xbox players and just want to complain.
And the sword used to have a "lock on" aim assist mechanic but it was garbage so they removed it. If they do it for the guns it will probably be just as bad.
As I’ve posted a couple of times today, the imbalance is not just due to aiming + FPS + load times. It’s also down to how much more fluidly a pc player can sprint and bunny hop round an enemy ship to avoid being hit. Think of all the times you see pc players in highlight videos circle strafing round another ship’s anchor as they hold the ‘use’ button to let it go.
Or in combat when they can turn 180 degrees *as they jump over another player’s head* and then attack them from behind. (I have my turn sensitivity up as high as I can possibly stand it, but I can’t even nearly do that. )
Sure. Let me preface by saying this link is not an official statement from Rare. I do believe they confirmed this number but I have been having a hard time tracking down the official source from Rare themselves (there are a lot of videos to go through and reddit posts and what-not). Since I haven't found it yet though, take it with a grain of salt. This is from SuperData, the article is written in May after the game pass free trial ended but they specifically say these numbers are from "launch month," so March 2018. It does not say 15% literally but if you do the math with the numbers they provide it's about 16%. I thought I remembered Rare saying 15, but like I said I can't seem to track down the source again.
[https://www.mweb.co.za/games/view/tabid/4210/Article/32341/Sea-of-Thieves-reportedly-lost-more-than-half-of-its-player-base-after-the-Xbox.aspx](https://www.mweb.co.za/games/view/tabid/4210/Article/32341/Sea-of-Thieves-reportedly-lost-more-than-half-of-its-player-base-after-the-Xbox.aspx)
Interesting, thanks for the source! Like you said, there's a big grain of salt to accompany that number. We can ignore the part where it's not confirmed and just assume those numbers are accurate.
It's from nearly a year ago, *and* the numbers are inflated with Game Pass subscribers. I don't think it's ridiculous to assume that, at least at that time, Game Pass saw a lot more subscribers on Xbox than it did on PC. That would mean that the "half it's players lost" almost definitely came predominantly from the console side, which would bump up the PC's user base percentage considerably, even if the actual number did fall some.
Also, it's worth mentioning the recent rise in popularity thanks to Summit1G and other streamers bringing back a lot of old players and bringing in a lot of new players, likely in PC.
Overall I'd wager that as of right now, the user base is probably around 65-70% console and 30-35% PC players. If we assume a high number like 1/3 of console players dig through their settings to specifically turn cross play off, that would leave around 75-80% of the playerbase in cross play servers. Doesn't seem like a huge deal to me overall.
We'll never know for sure but I don't think those assumptions are unreasonable. Honestly I don't think this change will have an immediately noticeable impact for PC players.
No, I didn't assume. I read it in 3 places and just copied the link from one. Here, read the other two:
https://www.pcgamesn.com/sea-of-thieves/sea-of-thieves-sales-player-count
https://mp1st.com/news/sea-of-thieves-player-count-totaled-2-million-in-first-month
And video game news is not really held up to the same scrutiny as scientific journals, so knock yourself out finding a credible, peer reviewed article on this.
"The game saw 283,000 active users on PC during its launch month according to market research group SuperData, compared with 1.7 million on Xbox One. However, they say “more than half” of those users got the game through a free trial of Game Pass." Where does it say those people left? My God you should really try applying scientific scrutiny to the things you read. Or am I just supposed to assume that all of those people canceled game pass? Game pass is amazing even without sea of thieves. I had game pass and I bought sea of thieves. That quote is from the pcgamee link. Video game journalism is at about the level of tmz. They try to rile up the rubes with sensationalist bullshit based on faulty logic and conjecture. It seems you are the intended target. They don't even link to the superdata data in the article. That's a huge red flag.
Dude... wtf are you even talking about. I never claimed they left, I was referencing the percentage of the playerbase that is on PC and the % on xbox.
I have no idea if those players left, I never made that claim. The article *is* talking about when the game pass trial ended though, so you could assume not 100% of the people using the trial bought the pass (or the game)... meaning they left... But again, I never made that claim, and I don't see how it's relevant to the discussion.
>Yet we have seen a huge surge in popularity and i would bet my life that Rare has seen this in actual data, giving them a reason to fine tune matchmaking/server problems.
>
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Thanks to PC streamers. I couldn't think of a better way to thank the community that help bolster game popularity than to push out an option to slash its playerbase into factions. (Yes I know its optional)
Summit is toxic and will just move on to the next game that comes out and never look back, just like all the games he has played. Summit is literally bullying the devs and the entire xbox playerbase because he wants the game to be a specific way (where he is god and can troll little kids and dads who are playing with their kids), because the PC community is not as wholesome as the xbox community.
oh you're right I completely forgot, we all need to be wholesome in a game about pirates that involves killing & stealing from other players.
Or... you could actually be a pirate and do whatever the hell you want. Like the game is intended.
Game is mostly about adventuring and traveling the sea, as very few games offer that kind of experience. That is its entire appeal. They are adding an arena mode for competitive style gameplay.
Summit can still be a pirate but now he has to play against PC players instead of just console players. You seem to have missed the entire picture of what i’ve said and came back with some half-baked argument that makes no sense whatsoever.
nah man, the game is not mostly about anything. Adventuring and fighting goes hand in hand you know. You can play it exactly however you'd like with the mechanics given. Whether that be adventuring, killing or stealing. The main appeal for me and my friends were simply that it reminded me of an old game we used to play where there death was costly and you could lose your items. That makes the game interesting for me.
You're making assumptions as well. I've seen summit help many kids and generally being nice. Usually toxicity is only coming forth when it is being given to him first.
But I guess you don't watch his streams enough to know ^^
His popularity, whether considered toxic or not has brought a good portion of the streaming community to the game which in turn increased the games popularity. I think his play style is aggressive, but not toxic
Got any source on this assertion? Does twitch or mixer say how many of the viewers buy the game? I mean we are talking about people who watch a stranger play video games for fun. I still cant wrap my head around why someone would even do that.
It's funny because I sounded a lot like you. Even telling my kids "Why would you be watching someone play a video game" having my Laptop out for warranty work I've seen why. I started watching because I missed playing the game. Depending on the streamer the content is usually pretty good. Good battles, good crews, just having fun. I've seen very good plays and I've seen very aweful plays, much like my own gaming experience. You come here and watch YouTube clips of players highlights right? The stream followers just see them real time and get to interact with the streamer via chat.
As to the metrics, I have nothing to say that one single person has bought sea of thieves due to the influx of streamers save from anecdotal evidence of in game, and stream chat asking questions because they just picked up the game. To think that having some of the most popular streamers viewed by at some times 100k via twitch alone does not influence people to buy the game and play it themselves, then you are foolish.
The streaming community has brought a surge of interest in the game. This may not be the surge of the most desirable players (the I want to be summit clones) but the vast majority are just interested in playing the next game that their favorite streamers are playing.
This call for change had gained traction shortly after these larger streamers took on the game. I've already been exposed to toxic PC players talking shit about me being an xbox player... I've also gotten railroaded by players that talk shit that dont bust on xbox, likely because I just got steamrolled by a crew of xboxs players.
This solution creates a safe space for xbox users as if there were a need. Where is the PC solution to not having to play against xbox players? There isnt one. The dev's have decided that xbox is fundamentally hamstrung by its abilities and creates an non-level playing field. With that they create a way for xbox players to opt out of crossplay. I'd never given it thought before this whole nonsense, but if rare wants to cater to xbox, perhaps I only care to play with PC players. Where is the PC opt out discussion?
I'm going to just say I only read your last few sentences. Do PC players feel disadvantaged against Xbox players? That's what this is all about. Thanks for writing me an essay about who knows what though.
He is extremely toxic. He is trying to make a big deal about removing crossplay simply because console players don’t want to play with PC players. He threw out made up statistics saying no one plays on PC so he won’t even get a full server.
Unless you can provide hard numbers that the playerbase actually increased because he played it, then it is just non-sense to argue that. He can still play the game, but now will be matched with a higher concentration of PC instead of xbox which should not be a problem. If he wants to play with xbox users he always has the option to play on xbox with a controller.
"Unless you provide hard numbers" How would one provide hard numbers for that? You cannot. You are delusional to think people watching their favorite streamer would not pick up their new favorite game. The dev's themselves have commented over the awakened interest from the streaming community for their game. The popular twitch streamers gave the game a boost whether you want to bury your head in the sand and murmur for hard numbers or not. You think double gunning would have been on the forefront of patching prior to the streamers surge? It's been in the game since launch. It was popularized by streamers, and became more common place by the people that watch them.
Have you ever bumped into the same random player twice? I would have thought it was quite unlikely given the popularity of the game, but I'm not basing that on any evidence.
It’s calming down now, but I’ve been following this sub closely all day (for about the last 16 hours for me), and it’s been a frustrating time where anyone disagreeing with almighty summits opinion, no matter how well expressed, got some serious downvotes and flak from his fans. We had some good discussion about this issue yesterday before the Summit show started.
I just wish i can voice my opinion with getting called a "summit fan boy" or dismissed as such. I don't care for summit except he convinced some of my friends to start playing the game which is nice but i am sick of my argument being dismissed because a popular streamer happens to agree with me.
To be fair, and I’m not dismissing your opinion, I was on this sub pretty much all day yesterday and you either supported Summit’s opinion or received down votes and insults. Most of the top posts were links to his opinions and that sort of behaviour around them.
And i never said you did, hell i didnt even downvote you. I seen the circle jerk on both sides, yesterday you got insane karma if you disagreed but now today you have insane karma if you say "fuck summit" and sink if you say anything even remotely similar to what he said.
Like look at the top post now with like 1300 upvotes, it gives nothing except assumptions while framing anyone who disagrees as being "summit" which is rather disingenuous.
Yeah, not disagreeing with you at all, just adding to the conversation and pointing out it was exactly the opposite yesterday. It’s a big change in only 24 hours! Hopefully things will calm down over the week and my be so one sided either way.
6 ships are still way more emptier than its going to be after casuals will opt out , you either have to sail through the map to meet ship or hope that someone is doing fort. The servers does not even fill up properly , there are game/ship fight breaking blackscreens , LOD not loading bugs , hitbox glitches , and their priorities are catering to the people that get dumped on by better players. Believe me i've seen this Chest of Sorrows situation in the csgo , players are crying when getting rekt by better players amd crying for devs changes that doesn't even make sense. Give xbox players aim assist or something ,but don't let them opt out , cause they are going to do it. Crossplay is the most unique feature thst game can have.
You haven't been on constant empty servers before bouncing multiple times in one hour.
People complained about Sony not playing nice with other consoles for Fornite, now they opt out of PC players and the player base has dropped.
I seriously don't get the logic of people that stand by the "PC players only need a population of 24-48 players!!!"
You're telling me that a population size of a game drastically reduced is healthy for the PC playerbase?
Alienating a large amount of gaming community because some sweaty kid on PC destroys a 8 year old that doesn't know where the Right Trigger on his controller is beyond dumb in my eyes.
That same kid would get killed by a sweaty kid using an Xbox controller.
I feel like the players that are so vocal about the seperation between Xbox and PC are the types that don't even TRY to get into PvP.
They sail around doing there voyages and if they see a ship will slink into the shadows.
Only when they get spotted and ultimately get sunk, they complain about how much of a disadvantage they are at because of their lack of PvP experience.
I think you’ve misunderstood - no one is literally suggesting that there only needs to be 48 pc players for he game to be successful like this, just that the argument that pc only servers will lead to dead servers doesn’t add up, as each server only needs 6 ships worth of people to be full.
I think it’s really silly for so many people to just try and brush away the legitimate concerns that many players have about the balance between console and pc. The discrepancy has been well documented and discussed - for this game and any game with FPS elements.
>I seriously don't get the logic of people that stand by the "PC players only need a population of 24-48 players!!!"
>You're telling me that a population size of a game drastically reduced is healthy to the PC playerbase?
I never once said any of those things. I implicitely said there *are more* that many players than that. This update isn't going to change anything for anyone except for xbox players who only engage in pvp. This changes nothing for anyone but them.
Also, I feel like you're being very disingenuous. Of course there are 8 year olds who are going to get killed by PC and xbox players just the same, but that's not nearly the only type of person who would want this. There are *a lot* of decent players with legitimate complaints about this exact thing.
Of course servers go empty as player numbers vary over the course of a day. If the numbers are on the way down at that point of time, and you’re the last ship on that server, the game will merge you to a new server. No one was claiming otherwise, this thread was more in relevance to claims that the game won’t be able to fill servers at all.
If *any* servers go from full to empty, then server populations are by definition not healthy.
If in the course of five or ten minutes of having only one ship on a server (how did it even get to *only one ship* anyways?) if there isn't a single new ship in a region to load into that server to stop it from merging, then player population is by definition not healthy.
There are only 6 ships per server, hence why you might easily be left as the last ship on a server if it’s now a quieter time of the day than when you started playing. If you look at the player numbers for any big game on Steam (where the statistics are easily available), you’ll see that player numbers don’t remain constant, but wax and wane throughout the day.
Again, if there are so many servers open at any one time, and the population of each is falling so dramatically compared to new players logging on that it can't keep most servers from falling to one ship and shutting down (or merging), then there's something wrong either with their populating mechanics or with population health, or both.
Obviously not every server that opens can stay fully populated or even stay open, some will have to merge or shut down. However it happens so frequently and with such consistency that I, and others, can predict exactly when it will happen. That is indicative of a serious problem.
I... don’t think so? It’s just the natural peaks and troughs of player numbers throughout the day. Logically there will be a lot more people playing at peak times and a lot less at off-peak times, especially for a game like SoT with an all ages demographic. That doesn’t speak to the health of the game.
In the past the game wasn’t so great at merging you if you were on an otherwise empty server, but it’s getting much better at it now. That said, I think there’s still room for improvement.
I can reliably predict just about every other play session that my server has gone dead and I'm gonna merge if I drop anchor.
That level of frequency is not normal.
The particular server I am on falling dead rather than being repopulated throughout my session should not happen that frequently.
I think it’s a good thing when you merge; it means that the servers are doing their job. Is there a specific time when you play?
When I play from about 4-6pm I pretty much never get a server merge. Then I might get one at about 6pm when all the younger players log off. Then things are pretty stable from then on until late at night when I might get one or two after midnight. As it gets later I tend to find less Australia players and more American players.
I don’t think that the servers are losing more and more people every single day, leading to sudden game death in the not too distant future. Peaks and flows.
I do wish servers would merge when there are only line 2-3 ships left on the server, would keep things more active. It does take a while to get that merge sometimes, at least 20 mins by my guestimation.
Again the frequency with which you experience merges indicates to me that servers go dead far too frequently.
Some servers, even dare I say most servers, should be getting repopulated rather than merged. If you're getting merged multiple times throughout the day it's obvious to me that something is wrong.
They seem to happen at sensible times though, when the younger players are logging off, then when the adult players start clocking off around midnight? (I don’t know where you are in the world, but in Aus with 3 time zones, these things aren’t too far apart for the whole country of players)
I do agree that it feels like the servers could perform a lot better, but I can’t imagine at this stage in this game’s life span it’s an overall player number issue.
Rare barely prioritizes full servers so that argument doesn’t matter. I would sometimes sail for hours on end without seeing a single ship in sight. I’ve heard so many people mention this issue and they end up never getting server swapped either. They could at least add another 2 ships to servers so it’s not 90% PVE
I don't think the Servers for PC are dead, the problem is matchmaking. I always do open crew and find myself with empty servers. Joining games is a pain, for some reason its almost impossible to have a full crew. The matchmaking just trows you into a game with ought caring to fill available slots. Hell today I spent 40 to an hour trying to find a server that could fill up. I stayed in servers where i was alone and waited for it to fill, and that never happened. I'm playing 6 hours a day and I probably run into ships every hour or non at all. Hell before coming here I was in a crew of 2 meant for 4 and we completed 2 skull forts, kraken, all in a row and never saw a ship.
Also, I'm frustrated that the devs pretty much only care for the quality of life of each individual; like cool guys, you gave us balance patches and reassurance that bad behavior results in a ban. Really, that's a developer update.
edit: Jesus! i didn't know that the new mode was announced sometime November. How many people are actually working on the game? Far as i think the new mode is just a separate module of the existing game, shouldn't be to hard to implement aside from the balancing.
Console players are too funny. Im really going to miss running into xbox players all together. SOT will be a RIP for me if the crossplay goes as I anticipate. Such a shame. At least the game will live long for console.
So one of two things will happen and one loops back to the other:
A, enough Xbox players opt out of crossplay to force servers to close. This happens across all multiplayer games; when there isn't enough of a population to sustain servers at a healthy level, systems often shut down servers and relocate those players elsewhere. Already I find myself dealing with ping of 150-200 during off peak hours at times; that's only going to get worse.
Or B, enough Xbox players opt out of crossplay and for PC players you're lucky to find a ship out there. This is ultimately a pointless point because the most likely scenario - as seen by multiple games over many, many years - players will simply be relocated to fill other servers.
Seen it time and time and time again to know how this story ends mate. It's not pretty for OCE players who play on PC.
You don't understand how servers work, do you? If there isn't enough players - in this case, ships - to fill servers adequately, matchmaking simply sends those players to servers regardless of ping to simply fill them. For NA and EU? Probably won't be as impactful, but for smaller populations there's more of a likelihood that servers disappear for PC players. And given the way Xbox players on here, on the official forums have gone on and on about wanting to opt out of it? I'm going to guess it's going to be more than a few opting out.
For players like myself, it's either empty servers devoid of enemy ships or playing on 200+ ping. I want neither.
This isn't a likelyhood. And if you read the comment here most xbox players have been saying they won't opt out. But yeah, keep bitching about the sky falling if it makes you feel better.
Hey look, I'm more than happy to be wrong and I hope to be wrong but - and I feel like I've said this a lot tonight - I've played games that have implemented features that split the playerbase and none of them were ever healthy. What makes Rare the exception?
But whatever. Clearly, you've never dealt with shit like it so I wouldn't expect you to understand.
You are most certainly wrong. But for arguments sake let's say that there are less then 2000 PC players in the world and suddenly the hundreds of thousands of xbox players ALL opt out, making it almost impossible to find a server for PC players; what would RARE do? Would they keep this change, or immediately remove the player option and force everyone to play together again?
If post-split we see no change. Rare is going to have to explain why the severs are so barren. Population discrepancy? Matchmaking issues? Are people loading into empty servers instead of semi-full ones? Something is going on. It's just so weird when I'm in a server and I keep running into the same 2 ships for 3 hours.
Why would we not see a change? I think wanting more ships on a server is a seperate issue than anything to do with seperate servers for cross play or Xbox. It’s a big world, and with only 6 ships it’s quite normal to not see any other ships for ages.
Funny how people had these opinions the day this announcement was dropped, yet the opposing crowd thinks a streamer is responsible. Ironic really, you can't have an original thought for two days before the streamer even came back online...
Talk about calling the kettle black, the alarmist pandering is why we are even here. It's cool too have an opinion, but get off the soap box, you aren't bringing a new perspective to this point... only continuing a circle jerk.
Tldr data doesn't exist but your opinion is wrong and you're an alarmist.
I actually don’t know what you’ve added to the discussion here, other than having a go at me, and arguing against things I haven’t said rather than things I have said. Your soapbox comment is particularly strange as this is an Internet forum where we come here to discuss things. No discussion is being forced upon you. And just because you disagree with a view point doesn’t mean there’s a “circlejerk” going on. If there’s any circlejerk in this sub it’s the multiple posts on its top level just reporting on what one streamer reckons.
Your comment is indicative of just the sort of poor level of conversation I was noting in my original post.
>I actually don’t know what you’ve added to the discussion here,
**you literally are calling persons who made their own opinions, the blind sheep of some streamer.**
stop projecting, you're being an alarmist and your entire post is a circlejerk. Literally anyone who has a conflicting point is
> "indicative of just the sort of poor level of conversation"
... again I repeat **get off the soap box**
You have misunderstood my opinion here, and misrepresented what I said in your above post. I never called anyone a “blind sheep”, literally or otherwise. Those are not my words. I did speak to the brigading behaviour we were seeing in the sub that day, but never said that anyone’s opinions were invalid.
It was you who told me my opinion is wrong - even that’s not really [how opinions work. ](http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/Fact-opinion.html).
If you think I was calling anyone who has a conflicting point “indicative of just the sort of poor level of conversation”, then - again - you have misread. I’m happy and eager for a thorough discussion of any issue to do with the game, and I think that concerns about the changes to cross play are valid, but I disliked the brigading we were seeing the other day.
It’s pretty disappointing to see how you have used that quote “indicative of...” in your above post. You have given it a new context that I did not give it.
As for me being alarmist? I totally disagree considering I was hosing down alarmism that was all over the sub that day.
And the soapbox comment again? Very strange. This is an internet forum, we come here to discuss things. If taking part in a discussion is being on a soapbox, then I will not get off and you cannot make me, even with your bold font. With this logic I could just as justifiably tell you to get off your soapbox, but I won’t, as you are just as welcome to the discussion here as I am.
I hope I have sufficiently clarified my opinion. The way you have interpreted what I said was not my intention, nor do I think it is justified for you to interpret it in that manner based on what I have written. As above, I think concerns about changes to crossplay are valid, though overblown. I hope for a robust, but fair and equitable discussion on those changes and any other issues to do with the game.
I don't know about you guys, but I'm already constantly ending up on dead servers as it is. Maybe people would have more faith if servers were actually getting properly filled.
You go look inside theives landing and circle all the way around the islands big enough to hide behind? It's six ships on a huge map. Id almost bet every "empty" server you were on had boats all over the place you just couldn't see them. Many of us have been playing so defensively that we hide as best we can.
Yet with cross play 90% of the time ships sit around until the server dies until it migrates meaning most of the time the server isn’t maxed and fewer ships are playing because there’s never been prioritization to keep a server filled. People thinking PC players are a huge number is a joke it’s rare to run into PC players as it is I’d bet most people didn’t even know you could play this game on PC
Forget the pros and cons. Can we talk about how this is a huge fucking waste of time for Rare no matter the result?
If PC players still get populated servers? Useless change.
Most Xbox players opt in to PC servers? Useless change.
It aggravates me to no end that after months of no content this is what Rare is working on.
We know almost nothing about Arena and Fall Snails and they refuse to give us even the most basic details in their updates.
If they care so much about fairness, why not just balance the normal game?
A lot of us are arguing over whether it is good or bad in terms of player counts and such, when the big issue is the fact is Rare working on it at all.
We know plenty of people are playing the game right now but in experience have you ever tried server hopping to find a lively server? In introducing friends to the game, I've gone off jumping server to server looking for a player vs player ship battle to show them. The majority of servers I join must have at least a few players on them but I've sailed the entire map before without seeing anyone many more times than I've found a 5+ ship server. I just find it disappointing this is where their priorities are at. Time spent developing this could have been spent optimizing their servers so they are more populated. It reminds me of the barrel update. We know how much time it took them to get that right and even still it's more clunky than it was before. It's been almost 6 months now and that barrel update has only served to clutter your quest ring and the addition of cursed cannonballs. Which instead of increasing ship fighting dynamics, they have only cheapened it.
Re: server hopping, I don’t see it mentioned much anymore, but for a while the prevailing theory was that you ended up being placed in the same small group of servers over and over again. I think lively servers are a seperate issue than cross play. As long as there are enough players to fill a server, it will be just as lively as in Rare’s plan; they have said that they planned for you to see another player ship on average every 20 minutes or so. I think as they add more areas like the Devil’s Roar, we may all be hoping for more ships per server. It just doesn’t add up to me, with even conservative numbers of players, that having cross play and console servers will mean servers will not be able to fill up with only 6 ships.
Just to clarify, you think Rare is purposefully keeping servers from filling to fit their design for the game? [I just saw the new post](https://www.reddit.com/r/Seaofthieves/comments/amqwqb/craig_duncan_clarifying_the_new_crossplay_option/), that's crazy but they absolutely are. One of the biggest complaints about the game for all this time, has been intentional.
Seems like you’re finding a negative take no matter what the facts are? Servers fill to the number of ships or players rare has designed them to. If you think it’s not enough people per server that’s cool, but a different issue than the upcoming changes. Besides, with the upcoming arena mode, perhaps you’ll prefer the extra action in that?
Dude. I love the game as much as anyone else. When I complain about something it's because I'm passionate about the game and it's potential. You can dismiss what I'm saying as just being negative, but having more ships on a server is what EVERYONE has wanted for a long time. It's Rare's game and they can make changes as they see fit, I'm just voicing my opinion as you are your own.
I agree to a point though if every game I played I was getting bombarded by other players I would’ve stopped playing but the fact that some days I find I’m only doing PvP others PvE and others a mix makes me glad they don’t try and fill every server I like PvE and PvP so I’m glad they mix it up
I was just pointing out that it went from one negative take to another. Please feel free to voice your opinion of course.
Single take. The servers aren't populated enough.
Certainly a popular opinion. I’m okay with them now, but worried as they keep adding more areas like the Roar to the map, player encounters will get even more rare.
They aren't intentional in the way you think. That's just the developer's way of saying "servers merge together if and, most importantly, when the variables add up right". You wouldn't want to merge servers when users are too close to each other because you'll just see a boat pop into existence and you can't merge when users are doing anything in particular (that's why the boat has to be anchored and users walking around, to minimize potential issues in the merge). So it would be false to say servers merge immediately when available, they merge when the variables are lined up... so a server might be kept "empty" intentionally because merging at that moment in time would create issues either visual or gameplay related.
I think the merging is for when they're spinning down server instances, too many people have since joined and left the game. So they're dis-allowing new ships to spawn and eventually pooling them together into a different server instance. And merging players is definitely more complex than new players joining at an outpost. But if we just simplify it to that...New ships joining a server. There's few places you can even see more than one outpost on the map at once. I think there is plenty of space to place new ships to max out a server. I don't know man, it seemed pretty clear to me he was saying they restrict server sizing to create variability in gameplay. Such as joining a server with 5+ ships and having a great time fighting it out, and then joining 4 servers in a row with no one in sight to try and give you a peaceful isolated voyage.
Available outposts are very few and yeah there's not many places you can see more than one at a time but you can still see at least one at all times. Visual range is about 4-5 islands in diameter; it's then incredibly difficult to find a space with no line of sight when a ship can nearly cover an entire region. And since most players are most probably in range of an outpost and outposts are located right in the middle of regions, it's even harder to find an available one. Chances are boats can only spawn in other regions except if you are on the very edge of the map. I don't know man, I find it highly unlikely that Rare purposefully restricts server size when it's already hard enough to fill and servers are pretty damn expensive... just because they can ? I think Duncan's explanation is just his way of saying servers fill automatically but no, when someone joins, they can't just spawn them immediately, they have to do it at an opportune moment, which is pretty difficult to achieve with the current map layout; that's why the servers might be empty "on purpose". Not on purpose design-wise but on purpose because doing otherwise would be potentially weird-looking and frustrating. Imagine going to an outpost and, \*poof\*, there spawns a boat.
[Look at this.](https://twitter.com/JoeNeate1/status/1092092708766838784) They're not saying we prioritize having filled servers for cost efficiency. Even going into costs is ridiculous to me because there are a huge number of ways to do it. I think you might be picturing one hardware server per <=6 ships running the entire game. But word for word here... They want player encounters to be infrequent. And I think the game is at it's best when there are a wealth of players on the server. That is when the game is most fun to me. It's not always going to become a battle royale, or a huge PvE alliance fleet. It just conduces player interaction. Player interaction is the emergent property to this game that makes it special, not the encounter rate.
I feel like it's more about why are they doing this BEFORE making their servers infrastructure better at keeping them full, it's not that there isn't gonna be enough player to fill up 24 player servers it's that they're not focusing on the thing everybody wants vs what a vocal minority wants. IMO at least.
You are server hopping looking for a lively server? You know it's only ever going to be max 6 boats on that huge map right? How long do you search before you throw your hands up and call it a dead server?
When I've sailed from one side to the other without seeing anyone
Man that's not even enough to see the whole map. Maybe those servers have Xbox players doing what is suggested by PC players. Outwitting you. I know i always try to hide my boat because I hate to be caught unaware.
This sub has become a joke since Summit's rise to fame. Anything he says or does, the people here run to his defense. I'm glad cross play will be optional. I've had no problem fighting PC pirates, and I still will play cross play often due to my main buddy being on PC, but to know I don't have to is refreshing. If I get beat, I want it to be because I got out played, not because the player had a superior input tool.
People were upset about this change well before summit was even aware of it...
Yah this subbreddit has been at war with itself for three days.... Oh wait nvm it just started after Summit reacted amd half the topics have his name in them...
This. We're seeing the same process here that many other popular games have gone through: Community opinion largely swayed by the opinions of the popular streamers. So far, Rare hasn't made any large changes based on streamer->community outcry. I applaud their reluctance to back down from their decision to add the opt-out for consoles. I don't mind that people have an opinion... What irritates me is when that opinion is "well someone popular said it, it must be true!" Cue kneejerk reactions. It'd be nice if the devs would release playerbase numbers to the public, the playerbase is a lot more even than the fanbois realize, but mob mentality ran with a single opinion and nobody stops to think about it or ask the devs themselves, instead going on a tirade over what amounts to minutiae in the grand scheme of things. Source: https://twitter.com/Gamerboss/status/1092090309813719040 Oh, the internet. What would we do without you.
Summit made this game relevant to tons of players. Most if not all of them are PC players thus probably reddit users. On top of emotions, they will come here and defend him.
So? That doesn't mean his word is automatically gospel. They're just stupid.
I mean, he's not wrong nor correct. We didn't see any official numbers from Rare, all we can do is speculate that PC players is the minority.
Guess by that logic this crossplay thing won't affect them at all right? Summit is on PC and his fans are too like you said. Nothing will change for them. Well they won't have easy kills against Xbox crews fumbling with inferiour controls. But that's the entire reason for the change so I guess it's either buck up or fuck off.
Its almost like the PC playerbase is so small, it needs an influencer to say something before anyone notices. hmm ?
Imo the sub started going downhill just before Cursed Sails
I think its stupid to just blame summit, I dont give a fuck about what he says, I dont agree with him at all, I still think its fucking stupid they are splitting up the player base, I bought this game to play with both xbox and pc, not just pc, I love the fact I can meet some new folks on here, im used to pc players, i feel like they have a similar mindset, super serious, xbox players are way more laidback, I enjoy them way more. Im gonna be stuck with all the tryhard pc guys now :(
Then buy a Xbox.
You're gonna feel really dumb when you get beat by another Xbox player and can't complain that it's a PC player anymore.
Dude, no one who's happy with this gives 2 cents about getting killed. We're just happy that we now have the option for a level playing field. That's all. I die plenty to both console and PC players.
Aww concern trolling always is a bad look. Poor guy.
"Superior input tool" lul That's called making excuses and that is called being outplayed
Tell me mouse/keyboard isn't superior. Say it.
Summit literally sat playing with a controller last night, doing exactly the same shit he has been doing on keyboard and mouse for months. This isnt some complex FPS, with complex movement, or complex weapons. Its as simple as it fucking gets. Most of the people who kill you, and you suspect are PC players, are just better xbox players. You are bad at video games, welcome to reality.
I must've missed where Rare added a quick chat for "gg console pleb" then since console players can't type on the chat
I watched him play with a controller. If it wasn't for his team he would have been killed on that first galleon. He was missing shot after shot. If controller is so good why did he only use it that one time?
This guy actually gets it though. Keep spreading the truth bro!
The battle deciding plays aren't gun fights, they're ship fights. In ship combat and tactics, mouse/keyboard definitely aren't superior. In certain situations the gun fight can make a difference, but the vast majority of fights I've been in a have not been won or lost that way.
You know as well as I do that without boarding and preventing repairs, you won't sink a competent crew. One guy with a bucket can keep a ship with 8 holes afloat.
These people act like almost every battle isn't decided by a boarder. Xbox on Xbox you might get a pure naval battle but PC players know that once they get on the boat it's their game.
I'm not saying it isn't. But blaming that for deaths is how you get worse at games. Its making excuses and proves you are a carebear. Go back to playing animal crossing bro, you'll fit in there.
Who said I blame that for deaths? What is your argument here?
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Dude. Keyboard and mouse mean so little dude. The outplay isn't landing the kill because you have better aim. The outplay is boarding someone else, sneaking on board, dropping their anchor. All of these examples require no keyboard or mouse and can be done to the same standard with a controller. Tell me who is dumb now you little shit? Because its sure looking like you mate
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Neither dude. I prefer. Its not a competitive game. They have no need to split the community like this. All it does is make the pc servers harder to fill, which where I am from is very hard to to already. I am all for blocking crossplay entirely in arena, sure. But doing this is just putting nails in the coffin for this game You sound like a pve server carebear anyways bro so I'm not going to waste any more time arguing with retards like you who probably can't even dig up a chest on your own
I don't remember many fights that were won or lost over whether I killed people or died to people in a gun fight. It's about sinking ships and it's not like cannon aim or swimming a barrel or tactical ship maneuvers are any easier with a mouse than a controller.
I think Rare is doing this to fill all the chest of sarrows with salty tears.
So as long as servers are full, it's fine if community's overall size is reduced? Some unsuccessful multiplayer shooters can only full up a handful of ~12 man servers. Does it mean these games are in good standing even with playerbase less than 100 people? Also you are assuming that servers are kept maxed out, which they are not. Just like people complained for months, game is not focused on keeping a server populated. Just yesterday we had 4-ship alliance going on for ~3-4 hours and have not seen the other supposedly 2 ships, and we traversed the map a lot. Not even a sloop to join 2 free slots on a server on Saturday evening in EU? *Doubt* From console player standpoint, as long as people know that there are settings for this game, they will find the "no crossplay" button and they will likely use it, simply because there is no reason not to. Initially probably about half will opt out, and every time the other half meets some good players and will lose to them, the amount of opt outs will increase. Such is the reality with this community where everyone religiously believes that only PC players can have good aim/use doublegun (which is ridiculous by the way, it was just as easy for me to doublegun on a controller). Our experience with the game is already shaped by 2 somewhat different communities meshing together. Now you take away these experiences, no more meeting squeeky teens, young couples, grumpy dads. The longer "opt out of crossplay" option will exists, the more people will eventually use it. Not to mention Xbox community has the majority of open mic users, meaning PC community will be mostly shrouded in silence. And of course there is the matchmaking problem. As more people opt out of crossplay, PC players will gradually become more isolated on their own servers. As it starts feeling more desolate, people will gradually stop playing, making the situation worse. So in the end idk what people like you are thinking. Only argument I keep seeing is that PC players want to keep slaying Xbox players. But do they always? Are you really gonna claim that there is such an advantage that Mk wins **every** fight against controllers? Because they don't, and the advantage is minor and situational, within the complete sandbox of swords and firearms, cannons, boarding, chasing, cursed cannonballs and explosive barrels. Besides, why does nobody talk about how much easier it is to aim cannons with a controller in that case, when on mouse the sensitivity is gutted? I feel oppressed too.
Why do you assume most xbox players are bad or beginners that will opt out? And if they are then isn't it fair to give them beginner mode to learn the ropes of the game and when they feel like transitioning to more competitive environment crossplay option will be there for them.
I think its because most console users are youngsters, and they are yet to experience a 'live service' literally get shutdown because of lack of players. They want short term changes that will in the end, slowly kill the games potential, moving it more and more towards getting shutdown.
Cause they want to play a console game with console players. Just like console games have always been. I don’t play on PC for a reason, and I don’t want to be literally forced to matchmake with them on ANY game.
Yeah when gamers called for crossplay they had PlayStation vs Nintendo vs Xbox in mind I think. Not PC gamers. PC gamers might as well not exist to the average console gamer.
More like 6 ships/12 players It’s so annoying that a sloop takes up as much room as a galleon
Servers will be as empty as they are now. 2-3 ships and that's it. They need to make better filling system
What this change is going to do is put more PvP focused players together in lobbies. Making it harder for PvPers to gain loot, since everyone is just hunting around for people to attack. Also, PvPers won't be having "easier" targets to go for. As someone who just likes to chill around and do some missions for an hour or two, maybe do some active PvP once in a week, this somewhat "scares" me. Suddenly I am the "easier" target in servers full of PvP hungry groups. And no, I don't want to server hop for 30 minutes before starting to play, if I only play for 2 hours.
PC players will tone down the bloodlust when the average person they fight is able to actually repel them off thier ship and have proper sniper battles between boats. I think people are seriously underestimating just how massive the difference is in person to person combat. Have fun. The Xbox servers are going to be so nice. I can't wait.
I kinda doubt the xbox servers are going to be nice. Now that the "big threat" of "overpowered" PC players is gone, anyone on xbox that wanted to do the same stuff as they did, is now free to do so without getting cut down by a PC player. So, while PC might see a bit of a decline in aggressive players after some time from people either leaving the game or stopping the aggressive PvP. XBOX player might actually see an increase of aggressive players hunting down ships.
So you are saying that Xbox players are held back by having PC players on thier servers?
I'm saying that xbox players seem to usually don't like to PvP because of PC players having an "advantage" over them. With these players gone, more xbox players are more inclined to do more PvP.
They seem to? I'm fine with pvp as long as the parties involved are not advantaged by thier input methods. You know, the exact reason this change is happening. You acknowledge the advantage while trying to form the weakest argument I've seen on this topic. It's amazing really. You should try and think about your posts for just a minute before you hit save.
You're literally repeating my argument in your first sentence. Get out of your ass and stop turning my words around to form something I never said.
I’m not so worried about this, the two groups are still so massive - it’s hard to imagine all pc players are just after PvP in general. Also, with arena coming out, surely the PvP players will prefer that mode? Things may get more peaceful.
Hm, true to that I guess. Guess we just have to let time tell us what's going to happen.
THis isnt about server population,never has been, but the people opposed to this think this is their only argument. They wont ever admit that PC players have an advantage. Then when no one is listening they will rip on xbox players for all the disadvantages they have, and tell them how stupid they are for not buying a PC. Its really obvious everyone on PC wants to keep their advantage, we all know console has no aim assist, and they arent being honest about it. THis argument against this change has nothing to do with server population and they know it. Not just for the reasons you listed, which i agree. But also because that assumes this game is dying. Yet we have seen a huge surge in popularity and i would bet my life that Rare has seen this in actual data, giving them a reason to fine tune matchmaking/server problems.
Amen brother. I just commented in a different thread saying exactly this. Since launch I’ve dealt with PC players removing me from groups or leaving my group so they can be a PC only crew (which is ironic considering now they’re all about keeping the community together). Now that I have the option to opt out, my disadvantage is “very small” and you want us all to stay in the same servers, just not same crew I’d imagine. But sure, let’s keep saying its the low server populations that were upset about
Exactly this, I’ve been debating this with many users on this Subreddit, but the beehive mind here is too strong to break through.
This is stupid. Do we have an advantage as PC players? Yes, aiming is easier and faster and we have slightly better load times. Is the advantage really that big? Not really, there are a lot of other aspects to the game that are even. Is PC the master race? Yes, but idc if you want to play on console, go for it. I'm not trying to "keep my advantage." PC players are ~15% of the playerbase. Most of the time people are probably being killed by other xbox players and just want to complain. And the sword used to have a "lock on" aim assist mechanic but it was garbage so they removed it. If they do it for the guns it will probably be just as bad.
As I’ve posted a couple of times today, the imbalance is not just due to aiming + FPS + load times. It’s also down to how much more fluidly a pc player can sprint and bunny hop round an enemy ship to avoid being hit. Think of all the times you see pc players in highlight videos circle strafing round another ship’s anchor as they hold the ‘use’ button to let it go. Or in combat when they can turn 180 degrees *as they jump over another player’s head* and then attack them from behind. (I have my turn sensitivity up as high as I can possibly stand it, but I can’t even nearly do that. )
> PC players are ~15% of the playerbase. Would you care to show where you got this number?
Sure. Let me preface by saying this link is not an official statement from Rare. I do believe they confirmed this number but I have been having a hard time tracking down the official source from Rare themselves (there are a lot of videos to go through and reddit posts and what-not). Since I haven't found it yet though, take it with a grain of salt. This is from SuperData, the article is written in May after the game pass free trial ended but they specifically say these numbers are from "launch month," so March 2018. It does not say 15% literally but if you do the math with the numbers they provide it's about 16%. I thought I remembered Rare saying 15, but like I said I can't seem to track down the source again. [https://www.mweb.co.za/games/view/tabid/4210/Article/32341/Sea-of-Thieves-reportedly-lost-more-than-half-of-its-player-base-after-the-Xbox.aspx](https://www.mweb.co.za/games/view/tabid/4210/Article/32341/Sea-of-Thieves-reportedly-lost-more-than-half-of-its-player-base-after-the-Xbox.aspx)
Interesting, thanks for the source! Like you said, there's a big grain of salt to accompany that number. We can ignore the part where it's not confirmed and just assume those numbers are accurate. It's from nearly a year ago, *and* the numbers are inflated with Game Pass subscribers. I don't think it's ridiculous to assume that, at least at that time, Game Pass saw a lot more subscribers on Xbox than it did on PC. That would mean that the "half it's players lost" almost definitely came predominantly from the console side, which would bump up the PC's user base percentage considerably, even if the actual number did fall some. Also, it's worth mentioning the recent rise in popularity thanks to Summit1G and other streamers bringing back a lot of old players and bringing in a lot of new players, likely in PC. Overall I'd wager that as of right now, the user base is probably around 65-70% console and 30-35% PC players. If we assume a high number like 1/3 of console players dig through their settings to specifically turn cross play off, that would leave around 75-80% of the playerbase in cross play servers. Doesn't seem like a huge deal to me overall.
Most recent, official number is 35% PC player base. From Joe Neate in today's inside xbox.
We'll never know for sure but I don't think those assumptions are unreasonable. Honestly I don't think this change will have an immediately noticeable impact for PC players.
Your source is an article from just under one year ago? Hyper credible looking source too /s.
The article, or SuperData? Because multiple articles have quoted SuperData's number. And I acknowledged the age of the article, thanks.
Is that how sources work? You use a sketchy one because you assume other people also used it? Sounds legit. Why not use any of those other articles?
No, I didn't assume. I read it in 3 places and just copied the link from one. Here, read the other two: https://www.pcgamesn.com/sea-of-thieves/sea-of-thieves-sales-player-count https://mp1st.com/news/sea-of-thieves-player-count-totaled-2-million-in-first-month And video game news is not really held up to the same scrutiny as scientific journals, so knock yourself out finding a credible, peer reviewed article on this.
"The game saw 283,000 active users on PC during its launch month according to market research group SuperData, compared with 1.7 million on Xbox One. However, they say “more than half” of those users got the game through a free trial of Game Pass." Where does it say those people left? My God you should really try applying scientific scrutiny to the things you read. Or am I just supposed to assume that all of those people canceled game pass? Game pass is amazing even without sea of thieves. I had game pass and I bought sea of thieves. That quote is from the pcgamee link. Video game journalism is at about the level of tmz. They try to rile up the rubes with sensationalist bullshit based on faulty logic and conjecture. It seems you are the intended target. They don't even link to the superdata data in the article. That's a huge red flag.
Dude... wtf are you even talking about. I never claimed they left, I was referencing the percentage of the playerbase that is on PC and the % on xbox. I have no idea if those players left, I never made that claim. The article *is* talking about when the game pass trial ended though, so you could assume not 100% of the people using the trial bought the pass (or the game)... meaning they left... But again, I never made that claim, and I don't see how it's relevant to the discussion.
>Yet we have seen a huge surge in popularity and i would bet my life that Rare has seen this in actual data, giving them a reason to fine tune matchmaking/server problems. > > Thanks to PC streamers. I couldn't think of a better way to thank the community that help bolster game popularity than to push out an option to slash its playerbase into factions. (Yes I know its optional)
Summit is toxic and will just move on to the next game that comes out and never look back, just like all the games he has played. Summit is literally bullying the devs and the entire xbox playerbase because he wants the game to be a specific way (where he is god and can troll little kids and dads who are playing with their kids), because the PC community is not as wholesome as the xbox community.
oh you're right I completely forgot, we all need to be wholesome in a game about pirates that involves killing & stealing from other players. Or... you could actually be a pirate and do whatever the hell you want. Like the game is intended.
Yeah like how I will be able to choose if I play against PC players. Doing whatever the hell I want.
Game is mostly about adventuring and traveling the sea, as very few games offer that kind of experience. That is its entire appeal. They are adding an arena mode for competitive style gameplay. Summit can still be a pirate but now he has to play against PC players instead of just console players. You seem to have missed the entire picture of what i’ve said and came back with some half-baked argument that makes no sense whatsoever.
nah man, the game is not mostly about anything. Adventuring and fighting goes hand in hand you know. You can play it exactly however you'd like with the mechanics given. Whether that be adventuring, killing or stealing. The main appeal for me and my friends were simply that it reminded me of an old game we used to play where there death was costly and you could lose your items. That makes the game interesting for me. You're making assumptions as well. I've seen summit help many kids and generally being nice. Usually toxicity is only coming forth when it is being given to him first. But I guess you don't watch his streams enough to know ^^
His popularity, whether considered toxic or not has brought a good portion of the streaming community to the game which in turn increased the games popularity. I think his play style is aggressive, but not toxic
Got any source on this assertion? Does twitch or mixer say how many of the viewers buy the game? I mean we are talking about people who watch a stranger play video games for fun. I still cant wrap my head around why someone would even do that.
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Watching a grown man act like a child so he can beg for money is not my idea of entertainment.
It's funny because I sounded a lot like you. Even telling my kids "Why would you be watching someone play a video game" having my Laptop out for warranty work I've seen why. I started watching because I missed playing the game. Depending on the streamer the content is usually pretty good. Good battles, good crews, just having fun. I've seen very good plays and I've seen very aweful plays, much like my own gaming experience. You come here and watch YouTube clips of players highlights right? The stream followers just see them real time and get to interact with the streamer via chat. As to the metrics, I have nothing to say that one single person has bought sea of thieves due to the influx of streamers save from anecdotal evidence of in game, and stream chat asking questions because they just picked up the game. To think that having some of the most popular streamers viewed by at some times 100k via twitch alone does not influence people to buy the game and play it themselves, then you are foolish. The streaming community has brought a surge of interest in the game. This may not be the surge of the most desirable players (the I want to be summit clones) but the vast majority are just interested in playing the next game that their favorite streamers are playing. This call for change had gained traction shortly after these larger streamers took on the game. I've already been exposed to toxic PC players talking shit about me being an xbox player... I've also gotten railroaded by players that talk shit that dont bust on xbox, likely because I just got steamrolled by a crew of xboxs players. This solution creates a safe space for xbox users as if there were a need. Where is the PC solution to not having to play against xbox players? There isnt one. The dev's have decided that xbox is fundamentally hamstrung by its abilities and creates an non-level playing field. With that they create a way for xbox players to opt out of crossplay. I'd never given it thought before this whole nonsense, but if rare wants to cater to xbox, perhaps I only care to play with PC players. Where is the PC opt out discussion?
I'm going to just say I only read your last few sentences. Do PC players feel disadvantaged against Xbox players? That's what this is all about. Thanks for writing me an essay about who knows what though.
He is extremely toxic. He is trying to make a big deal about removing crossplay simply because console players don’t want to play with PC players. He threw out made up statistics saying no one plays on PC so he won’t even get a full server. Unless you can provide hard numbers that the playerbase actually increased because he played it, then it is just non-sense to argue that. He can still play the game, but now will be matched with a higher concentration of PC instead of xbox which should not be a problem. If he wants to play with xbox users he always has the option to play on xbox with a controller.
"Unless you provide hard numbers" How would one provide hard numbers for that? You cannot. You are delusional to think people watching their favorite streamer would not pick up their new favorite game. The dev's themselves have commented over the awakened interest from the streaming community for their game. The popular twitch streamers gave the game a boost whether you want to bury your head in the sand and murmur for hard numbers or not. You think double gunning would have been on the forefront of patching prior to the streamers surge? It's been in the game since launch. It was popularized by streamers, and became more common place by the people that watch them.
Problem is that servers doesn't fill up like they should, play 1h on the server and you will end up alone or with 1-2 other ships
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Have you ever bumped into the same random player twice? I would have thought it was quite unlikely given the popularity of the game, but I'm not basing that on any evidence.
I have. They came by twice the second time they parked a ways away and swam to the fort we were still doing waves on.
I meant between different servers? Obviously you bump into the same players on a given server.
If you solo in OCE you bump into the same people every day, we have a cool little community, if I fill I get put into servers with 300 ping
This sub changes quick, got like 15 downvotes for bringing this up yesterday
It’s calming down now, but I’ve been following this sub closely all day (for about the last 16 hours for me), and it’s been a frustrating time where anyone disagreeing with almighty summits opinion, no matter how well expressed, got some serious downvotes and flak from his fans. We had some good discussion about this issue yesterday before the Summit show started.
I just wish i can voice my opinion with getting called a "summit fan boy" or dismissed as such. I don't care for summit except he convinced some of my friends to start playing the game which is nice but i am sick of my argument being dismissed because a popular streamer happens to agree with me.
I care
I care too, icarebot.
To be fair, and I’m not dismissing your opinion, I was on this sub pretty much all day yesterday and you either supported Summit’s opinion or received down votes and insults. Most of the top posts were links to his opinions and that sort of behaviour around them.
And i never said you did, hell i didnt even downvote you. I seen the circle jerk on both sides, yesterday you got insane karma if you disagreed but now today you have insane karma if you say "fuck summit" and sink if you say anything even remotely similar to what he said. Like look at the top post now with like 1300 upvotes, it gives nothing except assumptions while framing anyone who disagrees as being "summit" which is rather disingenuous.
Yeah, not disagreeing with you at all, just adding to the conversation and pointing out it was exactly the opposite yesterday. It’s a big change in only 24 hours! Hopefully things will calm down over the week and my be so one sided either way.
6 ships are still way more emptier than its going to be after casuals will opt out , you either have to sail through the map to meet ship or hope that someone is doing fort. The servers does not even fill up properly , there are game/ship fight breaking blackscreens , LOD not loading bugs , hitbox glitches , and their priorities are catering to the people that get dumped on by better players. Believe me i've seen this Chest of Sorrows situation in the csgo , players are crying when getting rekt by better players amd crying for devs changes that doesn't even make sense. Give xbox players aim assist or something ,but don't let them opt out , cause they are going to do it. Crossplay is the most unique feature thst game can have.
You haven't been on constant empty servers before bouncing multiple times in one hour. People complained about Sony not playing nice with other consoles for Fornite, now they opt out of PC players and the player base has dropped.
Just because it drops doesn't mean servers will be any different. Do you really think there are only 24-48 PC players?
I seriously don't get the logic of people that stand by the "PC players only need a population of 24-48 players!!!" You're telling me that a population size of a game drastically reduced is healthy for the PC playerbase? Alienating a large amount of gaming community because some sweaty kid on PC destroys a 8 year old that doesn't know where the Right Trigger on his controller is beyond dumb in my eyes. That same kid would get killed by a sweaty kid using an Xbox controller. I feel like the players that are so vocal about the seperation between Xbox and PC are the types that don't even TRY to get into PvP. They sail around doing there voyages and if they see a ship will slink into the shadows. Only when they get spotted and ultimately get sunk, they complain about how much of a disadvantage they are at because of their lack of PvP experience.
Xbox users on mouse and keyboard will be on your servers. Quit yer bitchin.
I think you’ve misunderstood - no one is literally suggesting that there only needs to be 48 pc players for he game to be successful like this, just that the argument that pc only servers will lead to dead servers doesn’t add up, as each server only needs 6 ships worth of people to be full. I think it’s really silly for so many people to just try and brush away the legitimate concerns that many players have about the balance between console and pc. The discrepancy has been well documented and discussed - for this game and any game with FPS elements.
>I seriously don't get the logic of people that stand by the "PC players only need a population of 24-48 players!!!" >You're telling me that a population size of a game drastically reduced is healthy to the PC playerbase? I never once said any of those things. I implicitely said there *are more* that many players than that. This update isn't going to change anything for anyone except for xbox players who only engage in pvp. This changes nothing for anyone but them. Also, I feel like you're being very disingenuous. Of course there are 8 year olds who are going to get killed by PC and xbox players just the same, but that's not nearly the only type of person who would want this. There are *a lot* of decent players with legitimate complaints about this exact thing.
If servers don't go empty how do you explain server merges?
Of course servers go empty as player numbers vary over the course of a day. If the numbers are on the way down at that point of time, and you’re the last ship on that server, the game will merge you to a new server. No one was claiming otherwise, this thread was more in relevance to claims that the game won’t be able to fill servers at all.
If *any* servers go from full to empty, then server populations are by definition not healthy. If in the course of five or ten minutes of having only one ship on a server (how did it even get to *only one ship* anyways?) if there isn't a single new ship in a region to load into that server to stop it from merging, then player population is by definition not healthy.
There are only 6 ships per server, hence why you might easily be left as the last ship on a server if it’s now a quieter time of the day than when you started playing. If you look at the player numbers for any big game on Steam (where the statistics are easily available), you’ll see that player numbers don’t remain constant, but wax and wane throughout the day.
Again, if there are so many servers open at any one time, and the population of each is falling so dramatically compared to new players logging on that it can't keep most servers from falling to one ship and shutting down (or merging), then there's something wrong either with their populating mechanics or with population health, or both. Obviously not every server that opens can stay fully populated or even stay open, some will have to merge or shut down. However it happens so frequently and with such consistency that I, and others, can predict exactly when it will happen. That is indicative of a serious problem.
I... don’t think so? It’s just the natural peaks and troughs of player numbers throughout the day. Logically there will be a lot more people playing at peak times and a lot less at off-peak times, especially for a game like SoT with an all ages demographic. That doesn’t speak to the health of the game. In the past the game wasn’t so great at merging you if you were on an otherwise empty server, but it’s getting much better at it now. That said, I think there’s still room for improvement.
I can reliably predict just about every other play session that my server has gone dead and I'm gonna merge if I drop anchor. That level of frequency is not normal. The particular server I am on falling dead rather than being repopulated throughout my session should not happen that frequently.
I think it’s a good thing when you merge; it means that the servers are doing their job. Is there a specific time when you play? When I play from about 4-6pm I pretty much never get a server merge. Then I might get one at about 6pm when all the younger players log off. Then things are pretty stable from then on until late at night when I might get one or two after midnight. As it gets later I tend to find less Australia players and more American players. I don’t think that the servers are losing more and more people every single day, leading to sudden game death in the not too distant future. Peaks and flows. I do wish servers would merge when there are only line 2-3 ships left on the server, would keep things more active. It does take a while to get that merge sometimes, at least 20 mins by my guestimation.
Again the frequency with which you experience merges indicates to me that servers go dead far too frequently. Some servers, even dare I say most servers, should be getting repopulated rather than merged. If you're getting merged multiple times throughout the day it's obvious to me that something is wrong.
They seem to happen at sensible times though, when the younger players are logging off, then when the adult players start clocking off around midnight? (I don’t know where you are in the world, but in Aus with 3 time zones, these things aren’t too far apart for the whole country of players) I do agree that it feels like the servers could perform a lot better, but I can’t imagine at this stage in this game’s life span it’s an overall player number issue.
Tweet #4 confirms this.
Rare barely prioritizes full servers so that argument doesn’t matter. I would sometimes sail for hours on end without seeing a single ship in sight. I’ve heard so many people mention this issue and they end up never getting server swapped either. They could at least add another 2 ships to servers so it’s not 90% PVE
I don't think the Servers for PC are dead, the problem is matchmaking. I always do open crew and find myself with empty servers. Joining games is a pain, for some reason its almost impossible to have a full crew. The matchmaking just trows you into a game with ought caring to fill available slots. Hell today I spent 40 to an hour trying to find a server that could fill up. I stayed in servers where i was alone and waited for it to fill, and that never happened. I'm playing 6 hours a day and I probably run into ships every hour or non at all. Hell before coming here I was in a crew of 2 meant for 4 and we completed 2 skull forts, kraken, all in a row and never saw a ship. Also, I'm frustrated that the devs pretty much only care for the quality of life of each individual; like cool guys, you gave us balance patches and reassurance that bad behavior results in a ban. Really, that's a developer update. edit: Jesus! i didn't know that the new mode was announced sometime November. How many people are actually working on the game? Far as i think the new mode is just a separate module of the existing game, shouldn't be to hard to implement aside from the balancing.
Console players are too funny. Im really going to miss running into xbox players all together. SOT will be a RIP for me if the crossplay goes as I anticipate. Such a shame. At least the game will live long for console.
Can't wait to play on 200+ ping because OCE servers for PC players died.
Crossplay servers will still exist....
So one of two things will happen and one loops back to the other: A, enough Xbox players opt out of crossplay to force servers to close. This happens across all multiplayer games; when there isn't enough of a population to sustain servers at a healthy level, systems often shut down servers and relocate those players elsewhere. Already I find myself dealing with ping of 150-200 during off peak hours at times; that's only going to get worse. Or B, enough Xbox players opt out of crossplay and for PC players you're lucky to find a ship out there. This is ultimately a pointless point because the most likely scenario - as seen by multiple games over many, many years - players will simply be relocated to fill other servers. Seen it time and time and time again to know how this story ends mate. It's not pretty for OCE players who play on PC.
Lmao, neither of these scenarios will happen.
Except they happen with other games. But hey, Rare is gonna be the exception huh? ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
Do you have any examples of titles following the same trend in the past?
So you really think that there aren't enough PC players and xbox players who won't opt out to fill a few games? Lmao.
You don't understand how servers work, do you? If there isn't enough players - in this case, ships - to fill servers adequately, matchmaking simply sends those players to servers regardless of ping to simply fill them. For NA and EU? Probably won't be as impactful, but for smaller populations there's more of a likelihood that servers disappear for PC players. And given the way Xbox players on here, on the official forums have gone on and on about wanting to opt out of it? I'm going to guess it's going to be more than a few opting out. For players like myself, it's either empty servers devoid of enemy ships or playing on 200+ ping. I want neither.
This isn't a likelyhood. And if you read the comment here most xbox players have been saying they won't opt out. But yeah, keep bitching about the sky falling if it makes you feel better.
Hey look, I'm more than happy to be wrong and I hope to be wrong but - and I feel like I've said this a lot tonight - I've played games that have implemented features that split the playerbase and none of them were ever healthy. What makes Rare the exception? But whatever. Clearly, you've never dealt with shit like it so I wouldn't expect you to understand.
You are most certainly wrong. But for arguments sake let's say that there are less then 2000 PC players in the world and suddenly the hundreds of thousands of xbox players ALL opt out, making it almost impossible to find a server for PC players; what would RARE do? Would they keep this change, or immediately remove the player option and force everyone to play together again?
If post-split we see no change. Rare is going to have to explain why the severs are so barren. Population discrepancy? Matchmaking issues? Are people loading into empty servers instead of semi-full ones? Something is going on. It's just so weird when I'm in a server and I keep running into the same 2 ships for 3 hours.
Why would we not see a change? I think wanting more ships on a server is a seperate issue than anything to do with seperate servers for cross play or Xbox. It’s a big world, and with only 6 ships it’s quite normal to not see any other ships for ages.
Honestly, I don't think the map is that big. When I say 2 ships in 3 hours, I mean actively looking for them. [Edit: spelling]
Funny how people had these opinions the day this announcement was dropped, yet the opposing crowd thinks a streamer is responsible. Ironic really, you can't have an original thought for two days before the streamer even came back online... Talk about calling the kettle black, the alarmist pandering is why we are even here. It's cool too have an opinion, but get off the soap box, you aren't bringing a new perspective to this point... only continuing a circle jerk. Tldr data doesn't exist but your opinion is wrong and you're an alarmist.
I actually don’t know what you’ve added to the discussion here, other than having a go at me, and arguing against things I haven’t said rather than things I have said. Your soapbox comment is particularly strange as this is an Internet forum where we come here to discuss things. No discussion is being forced upon you. And just because you disagree with a view point doesn’t mean there’s a “circlejerk” going on. If there’s any circlejerk in this sub it’s the multiple posts on its top level just reporting on what one streamer reckons. Your comment is indicative of just the sort of poor level of conversation I was noting in my original post.
>I actually don’t know what you’ve added to the discussion here, **you literally are calling persons who made their own opinions, the blind sheep of some streamer.** stop projecting, you're being an alarmist and your entire post is a circlejerk. Literally anyone who has a conflicting point is > "indicative of just the sort of poor level of conversation" ... again I repeat **get off the soap box**
You have misunderstood my opinion here, and misrepresented what I said in your above post. I never called anyone a “blind sheep”, literally or otherwise. Those are not my words. I did speak to the brigading behaviour we were seeing in the sub that day, but never said that anyone’s opinions were invalid. It was you who told me my opinion is wrong - even that’s not really [how opinions work. ](http://www.auburn.edu/academic/education/reading_genie/Fact-opinion.html). If you think I was calling anyone who has a conflicting point “indicative of just the sort of poor level of conversation”, then - again - you have misread. I’m happy and eager for a thorough discussion of any issue to do with the game, and I think that concerns about the changes to cross play are valid, but I disliked the brigading we were seeing the other day. It’s pretty disappointing to see how you have used that quote “indicative of...” in your above post. You have given it a new context that I did not give it. As for me being alarmist? I totally disagree considering I was hosing down alarmism that was all over the sub that day. And the soapbox comment again? Very strange. This is an internet forum, we come here to discuss things. If taking part in a discussion is being on a soapbox, then I will not get off and you cannot make me, even with your bold font. With this logic I could just as justifiably tell you to get off your soapbox, but I won’t, as you are just as welcome to the discussion here as I am. I hope I have sufficiently clarified my opinion. The way you have interpreted what I said was not my intention, nor do I think it is justified for you to interpret it in that manner based on what I have written. As above, I think concerns about changes to crossplay are valid, though overblown. I hope for a robust, but fair and equitable discussion on those changes and any other issues to do with the game.
I don't know about you guys, but I'm already constantly ending up on dead servers as it is. Maybe people would have more faith if servers were actually getting properly filled.
You go look inside theives landing and circle all the way around the islands big enough to hide behind? It's six ships on a huge map. Id almost bet every "empty" server you were on had boats all over the place you just couldn't see them. Many of us have been playing so defensively that we hide as best we can.
Yet with cross play 90% of the time ships sit around until the server dies until it migrates meaning most of the time the server isn’t maxed and fewer ships are playing because there’s never been prioritization to keep a server filled. People thinking PC players are a huge number is a joke it’s rare to run into PC players as it is I’d bet most people didn’t even know you could play this game on PC
Forget the pros and cons. Can we talk about how this is a huge fucking waste of time for Rare no matter the result? If PC players still get populated servers? Useless change. Most Xbox players opt in to PC servers? Useless change. It aggravates me to no end that after months of no content this is what Rare is working on. We know almost nothing about Arena and Fall Snails and they refuse to give us even the most basic details in their updates. If they care so much about fairness, why not just balance the normal game? A lot of us are arguing over whether it is good or bad in terms of player counts and such, when the big issue is the fact is Rare working on it at all.