Sea Beasts: Episode 3

They should just have a setting to disable PvP. There's no loot or crafting, and there's no player progression that revolves around PvP so it's not like disabling PvP would throw any balance off.

Also, I've never played this game but the combat looks like total shit. If I were trying to have fun while avoiding PvP only to find myself stuck trying to put up with the combat against other people , I'd just stop playing forever.

This is the run

Seems like the conversation around this is equivalent to getting invaded in dark souls. it sucks in that game and it sucks in this game. At least dark souls allows you to play offline.

@doncabesa: exactly, which is why game design like this sounds good on paper but never seems to work out in real life.

So I think PVP is core to this game, but I also think there are ways to avoid the griefing. The problem right now isn't that there's PVP, because that ambiguity of intention is one of the reasons this game works (in fact, you can see it in this feature - part of what's awesome is seeing the crew find ways to get around this griefer and do WAY better at it than I expected). The problem is with these griefers and trolls having no consequences to their actions. They suffer nothing to go around and attack others with nothing on their ship just to ruin other people's play sessions.

Personally, my solution would be a combo of player bounties on people who have killed you repeatedly and an in-world aggression simulation that reacts to your aggressiveness to other players. The more you attack other people, the more monsters and PVE events are out to get you. Forces you to play more moderately and makes it nearly impossible to sustain a campaign of trolling, because after the 3rd or 4th time in a short period, you'll be too busy getting away from the killer Meg or skeleton lord trained on you and your crew.

@elhoju: this does not seem like the best game for them to tackle. For one, it seems too slow paced for someone like Dan. The frustration over PVP in a game with mandatory PVP gets old too.

The concept of this game is for people to role play a bit between themselves in small groups and then bump up into strangers and role play a bit with them too. It doesn't always work, but almost everything about the game is designed for that so it works a lot better than you might expect. If you don't interact with them at all it's not surprising the most "fun" someone else can think to have is just sink you and kill you. But you can absolutely convince other people that it would be more fun to have some other kind of interaction. Sometimes you get a sociopath and just have to avoid them, but negotiating and deciding to betray or not, guessing if you will get betrayed, hiding loot or finding someone else's, agreeing with someone on rules for a game to play within the game, engaging in a pursuit or ambush or avoiding one are the real meat of the game.

And it's all in good fun because there is NO GAMEPLAY PROGRESSION anyone could steal from you, the only thing playing the game does is unlock cosmetics. At least that was the case until they locked a few of these tall tales behind completing a previous one, which is understandable but still a bit of a mistake in my opinion as we can see from this stream. You can easily complete this tall tale solo thankfully and that will unlock three more.

The crew were hardly being griefed. They got their boat taken over for a couple lives in a PvP game. I mean, games been out for a long while now, figured they were going into it expecting this sort of gameplay? I can understand not wanting that but then they shouldn't have picked this game. This game has problems and there's a reason it's gotten a lot of flack.

The repeated dialog over and over from the boss was way more annoying than the PVP.

Let's slowly swim away from a hostile player that's shooting you while saying 'don't shoot me'.

Let's scoop water out of the lower decks while being slashed instead of fighting back.

Let's plan to attack together and then not stay together and attack one at a time.

Also Abby the game scales Briggsy's health to how many crew mates you have. It'll be much harder/take longer to kill Briggsy for 3 people than for 1 person. I did it with 2 other people and it took us a solid 30-40 minutes of just pelting Briggsy with cannon balls and bullets over and over again until she finally died. It was worth it though since the other tales it unlocked were super cool.

Ahh yes, the true nature of this game rears its head. It's a PVP troll/griefer's paradise (the game 'encouraging' or not punishing it doesn't make it any less trolling or griefing). That's literally like 2/3 of the game. They shoehorned in more of the questing and all after the fact to try and pull more players in, and there was always some light collecting to be done, but nah it's pretty much just a game for groups of annoying dudes to sail around fucking with other groups of annoying dudes. Or occasionally people actively trying to dodge them while hunting collectibles (and now questing).

Because "pirates" of course.

It's why GTAO has so much in place for you to deal with other players (or the option to disable PVP entirely). It's why RDRO was dead in the water releasing without those tools. And it's why this game never really caught on outside of obnoxious streamers and their followers and the folks who hopped on just because it was free with Game Pass.

If it's your cup of tea, hey, great. Some people get off to this. Dan probably would've loved it, which should say all that needs to be said. But yeah let's say it definitely ain't for everyone.

Awww Alex's absorbed-totally-in-the-game face from the 1:12:30 to 1:13:30 mark during the skeleton battle was just adorable! :-D Love this stream and GB East. Keep it up, team. <3 Shame Dan missed out on the shenanigans this episode.

It's a shame about not having a dedicated PvE server with other human players partaking in the story questing side of the game. Although, as it has now informed me of that fact, I won't be picking up this game until Rare implements it. :-)

Abby wasn't wrong with the "get in there" strategy with the full crew. That was basically the strategy for the rest of the game (sword spamming, especially if you can bottleneck enemies), but that's why they added that small AoE explosion on Briggsy. The downside is it devolves to the only other strategy in this game, which is constant kiting. It's resource intensive but having two on cannonballs and two kiting (swapping roles when you run out of food/ammo) is a relatively safe bet.

Couple quick tips:

To somewhat avoid PvP, turn off the lamps on the top deck, they stick out like a sore thumb at night. There's also the option to raise the "Alliance" flag (instead of the rainbow) and it will give nearby ships the option to team up with you if they also have it raised.

Also, when you're "parking" or navigating anything treacherous, raise the middle sail 1/4 of the way up. You lose a little speed but it allows the helmsman to have a full of any obstacles near the ship (other than shallow water).

@frankie_musix: So on the one hand I think playing this game as a solo story game seems like it would get super dull super quick. On the other hand if Abby wants to play it that way I don’t see why the game can’t let her. I get it if let’s say a game like Journey insists on the multiplayer. There is actual artistic intent there. But Sea of Thieves isn’t making some sort of bold artistic statement. If Abby and others watching this would have more fun if they opened a pve server then why not do so? You can still play the game how you want. Your enjoyment won’t be any less. And in this specific case it’s not like there are a bunch of other pve games just like this for Abby to play. It’s not a case like say, Rust, where you have games like The Forest and Subnautica that offer solo and/or pve options with similar gameplay systems. What other multiplayer pirate exploration game is there?

Also to the crew - If you are going to keep at this series you need to accept that pvp is part of the game and when engaged by another ship you really need to stop what you are doing and fight back as a team. You absolutely should not have lost most of those battles. You just need to fight back and not immediately give up. Also, if Abby is holding all the special cannon balls she probably should be the one manning the cannon.

If there's no option to turn off PVP, what's the sign on the death ship that's like "Click here if you're annoyed by everyone killing you"? I thought that was a pacifist mode.

Destroying a docked ship seems like a waste of cannonballs. Isn't ship-to-ship combat with multiple participants more fun than causing a minor disturbance in someone's single player adventure? I also wonder if they're getting attacked more because they're flying the rainbow flag.

the problem is they are just being trolled at a story objective. If it was actually being a pirate it would because people were trying to steal treasure from them. those people were just camping a story objective to be jerks

looked at the comments for the first time in awhile, wish i didn't now.

the trolling from other players is one of my least favorite things about this game. i wouldn't care as much if getting attacked by another group didn't have a chance of you losing hours of progress. on the other hand, when you fight back and beat trolls is such an amazing feeling. one example, our group had just finished returning some chests when this smaller ship attacked our 4 person ship. when we start firing back they ran away, but we followed them for probably 30 something minutes making it our mission to sink their ship. we did and it was a glorious, 'fuck you' to them for messing with us.

sorta think the best strategy against them is to just fight back. hard to do when you're anchored, but it seems to be the best tactic against them from what i've seen.

also fuck Briggsy, hated this mission and almost had me quit this game completely. it's a broken boss fight when you have 4 people.

Looks like a griefer style PVP game does not work with GB content. I don't expect GB, nor want them to play, hour and hours of this game to get on a similar skill level of those who still play it. Shelve it.

I am all for games having options for players to enjoy it. This game doesn't seem to offer anything for those people who just want to play the story content. Games do not have to be for everyone. But if it doesn't even try to provide to more types of players, then feel free to drop it.

I don't like watching this game at all so I'm missing out but just wanted to note that Sea Beasts is a good ass name for a feature.

This stream has convinced me to continue avoiding Sea of Thieves; I despise games that do not handle the balance between PvP and PvE well.

Hopefully the failure of Sea of Thieves doesn't shut down Rare, but if it does then at least it will send a message to other developers to do a better job with such "PvPvE" games in the future.

Going to be a little brutal here. I don't feel that bad for them. There was some trolling going on, no doubt, but I've never seen 3 people in the same room playing the same game be so amazingly uncoordinated. It's both entertaining and frustrating to watch. They were pulling it together at the end a little more which is why it became lame. But watching them as they never group up and get slaughtered by just a few people at a time, or mostly never wait for each other before attacking... it's like their plan is always, "We'll do this together, but we'll each do our own thing while doing it."

The first couple of episodes of this feature really caused me to have a 180 on this game, whereas it previously just seemed boring I was now super into the story mode questing. I told my gf about it and she was interested as well and we were talking about getting a couple of PC copies. But now after seeing this episode we're out. If Rare ever adds a PVE mode we'll gladly be back on board but for now, hell no.

Sees a new GBE video. Gets excited.

Sees that it's another Sea of Thieves video.

Excitement evaporates.

@frankie_musix: In my experience you are a very small minority though. I like the game and have played it quite a bit, but the interactions you describe are very few and far between. I've had some amazing sessions where things happen that can only happen this game.

90% of the people in my experience don't communicate and just either do nothing or shoot on sight regardless of what you are doing. Roleplay is few and far between. Devalueing valid criticism people might have because "they parrot the streamer" seems a bit dismissive, especially if by complete coincidence you don't agree with their criticism. There seems no reason to me why you shouldn't be able to opt out of PVP if you are doing a quest like this. Especially if the game stay so poor at tracking progresss.

Sea of Beasts episode 2. 1:39:00-1:41:30. Crew finds a player. Crew kills him, then sinks their ship. No shots where fired on his part, with the exception of a hook shot. He does shoot at his own ship, for some reason...

Plus, I bet whoever did a drive-by and sunk their ship was having a blast, no pun intended. If they where streaming, bet chat probably went bananas. The guy who took on a 3 person crew by himself was probably feeling pretty cool too.

For this game communication is key and they where set into playing it like PvE adventure game ...and it just isn't. Kinda why I don't like nor play it after trying it for a while.

This episode is basically my experience almost every time I play the game.

Yeah PvP is the only thing I would be interested in while playing this game, PvE is mindnumbingly boring as shown in this episode. I would rather see the crew fly black colors, but apparently it would be trolling. Oh well.

I think the best fix for this game is to introduce a skill called:

'Parley - Cooldown 60mins - Once Parley has been announced, the pirate in question cannot engage in PVP (hurt or be hurt) for 30mins'

This way if you're in the middle of a quest and have some people trolling you, you can announce Parley and be safe for a set time.

@kblosnack: I've been hoping for this since launch. It's ultimately Rare's choice, but damn it would really make this game less of a stress inducer for me.

As much as I adore this game, these encounters with grievers absolutely breaks me mentally. It sucks so much. I fully understand their stress.

The true griefer is the lack of checkpoints carrying over between play sessions.

I enjoy watching his, but boy does the combat seem like total shit. Especially when you're swarmed with 5 skeletons, can barely hold any ammo, and the fucking skeletons can heal too??!??! Rare really dropped the ball with this. Also nothing to do when you run into other players who grief you over and over...

The total lack of checkpoints, not being able to hold some of the quest items in your inventory, spongy boss combined with pvp really just seems like a mess of design.

They don't seem like they're enjoying themselves very much. :\

after about 30 hours of solo, im trying SO hard to like this game i WANT to. but i spent 2 hours on this indecipherable quest without a guide(childrens drawings one) just to have 2 assholes come and sink my ship along w the story quest items that had 0 value to them on my way to turn them in, AFTER i had run into a kraken that i couldnt escape or kill on my own.. im sure its better w 4 ppl but then you just get targeted for having the "big ship"

Being undermanned in SoT seems tough!

This made me and friends go back to the game and we have had a lot of fun. Its a shame if its the last video they do, no matter what happens in regards to other sea dogs.

Wow this feature was fun for 2 episodes, but seeing the group have no fun here just makes this hard to watch. The game as it is seems shitty to play.

Kudos to them for sticking it through to the end. So frustrating to watch I can't even imagine what it felt like playing through that. The griefing aside, to be dumping bullets into an enemy without any kind of feedback to know you're on the right track is atrocious! I have no idea if they were even making progress at all. And the constant repetition of lines her same two or three lines...OMG. Took me back to rider meet horse, horse meet rider.

I mean, if you remove the PVP aspect then the game has even less value than it has to begin with, there's no reason why they can't sail away and stock up on supplies/explosives and then be ready to fight back or just hunt those players down and sink them good and proper. I understand that's something you just have to learn through doing though.

I've never been a hardcore PVPer in games and I think PVP mentalities are generally toxic but it's clear that SoT needs that level of freedom between players or else the game truly serves no purpose in being an online open world pirate game.

The real SoT experience in my opinion is stuff like a solo player on a small boat who is tracking a full crew in a large ship across the ocean who are on a big quest. The solo player waits for them to find the rare treasure, and then concoct a clever way to steal it either by stowing away on board until the right time to strike or using explosive barrels to sink the entire ship and then it's kind of a race to see who can get the loot back and turn it in first. That's some incredible shit to see.

As for Briggsy, I've seen people just search out a few explosive barrels and then drop them near her and just blow her up immediately and that's it. As much as Rare tries to add story to the game, its shine is just the fact it is ultimately a pirate simulator, that has always been the thing it does fairly well even despite not having as much depth as it should. It's not even necessarily that you have to be exceedingly good at the game as much as you just need to be more resourceful than the other players.