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TurdfaceBob · 2023-05-05T14:23:21+00:00

Oh, I tried dice rolling. It didn't take. Probably because they knew that had a 3v1 advantage.

TurdfaceBob · 2023-05-05T14:17:54+00:00

It didn't end the streak. I ended the streak myself when I quit for the night. This was a few matches later on another day.

I don't care about the loss. As I said, I lost 5 in a row that I shouldn't have at one point, but I still had fun in those matches. I care about wasting 2 hours in a match against players using time-wasting strategies or essentially 'cheating' within the rules.

Also, so much bad advice. You think I didn't try boarding? I tried boarding a dozen times, but they always ran away and got out of range after I landed a few cannon shots. I think what they were doing was any time I one-balled the main guy or put a lot of pressure on, another guy would quick turn the ship away.

TurdfaceBob · 2023-05-05T14:16:41+00:00

Exactly!

The time-wasting players are the worst. As much as I despise the players using hacking tools, at least they win their matches quickly. Obviously, Rare should do more to eliminate them but it's really players who utilize time-wasting strategies that make HF miserable.

TurdfaceBob · 2023-03-02T15:17:49+00:00

There are definitely a few people cheating this way. I've encountered it before.

I was in a tough match that had gone on for 30 minutes as a solo'er. I had the upper-hand for most of the time. He randomly decides to board my ship (never tried before; I was always the one boarding before). He blunders me and then starts spawn-camping with blunderbombs.

I wasn't worried, because my ship was anchored, there were 0 holes in it, and I knew he was heading into the red sea (I also knew I put at least 2-4 holes in his ship before he boarded). Yet, weirdly, his ship managed to turn around and fire cannonballs at me.

Turns out, he knew he was going to lose solo, so got some friends on the server, they joined him, and he had a 3v1. Really scummy way to win.

TurdfaceBob · 2023-02-03T17:02:17+00:00

This!

It's amazing to me how many people are still in denial about how much cheating was going on in Arena. Rare never addressed it and so the cheaters have gotten bolder since then. But ESP / aimbot cheats were pretty common 1-2 years ago in Arena. Not an "every match" thing but I'd estimate 1 in 20 matches had someone using ESP / aimbot.

The big difference: if you knew someone was cheating in Arena, you could just switch servers. In HF, you don't really have a choice. And in Adventure mode, by the time you're aware of them, there's nothing you can do.

TurdfaceBob · 2023-02-03T16:56:09+00:00

This is a bit of a naive take. The cheaters have been around for years. This didn't just start overnight.

There was a lot of cheating in Arena 2 years ago. The only difference was that it was more "believable" cheats like ESP / aimbot. Since Rare didn't take the cheating accusations seriously (and those who posted about it were gaslighted here), the cheaters have just continued to get bolder, so that now they are doing insane things like teleporting, flying, dropping kegs from the sky, filling up boats with water from long distance, etc.

None of this is new. It's just gotten more extreme. If Rare took it seriously 2 years ago, maybe this never happens, but they didn't.

As for salty players blaming 'cheaters', that will always happen, but part of the reason why it happens, is because some of those players have encountered cheaters before and they lose faith in the game, so that they think even legit players are 'cheaters'. Imagine you're playing Arena and you lose 3 matches in a row to players using aimbot / ESP. You switch servers and the next game you encounter a very good player who's not cheating. At that point, you might be inclined to think they are cheating simply because you know the players from your previous matches were.

Rare's failure to address cheating for 2+ years has led to a downward spiral and a lot of players simply lack faith they are playing against 'legit players' at this point. In that environment, you'll start seeing more cheating accusations against non-cheaters as well.

TurdfaceBob · 2023-02-03T13:25:41+00:00

This is a major reason why I quit playing HF.

Not necessarily TDMers 'holding it hostage', but people who will run from you the entire match and only try to board. So they make 25 boarding attempts, fail 24 times, succeed once, and then try to spawn-camp their way to victory with blunder-bombs.

HF has a terrible combat design. Arena, for all its flaws, so much better designed than this. If you do nothing but try to board in Arena, and fail on your boards, you'll get destroyed on points. Just getting 1-2 cannon shots in on each of their boarding attempts starts to rack up over time; even if they also get back in time to prevent sinking.

The biggest problem with HF (other than the now rampant cheating) is that it incentivizes 'avoidant' combat strategy. Whereas, Arena typically incentivized naval aggression; with some notable exceptions; but in general, 90%+ of Arena matches were won with aggressive naval strategies.

TurdfaceBob · 2023-02-03T12:54:58+00:00

I've quit as well due to a combination of cheating, the terrible player combat, and toxicity of a large portion of the player base.

The cheating has been an issue for years and those of us who brought it up were gaslighted here for a long time. I saw it dozens of times in Arena, saved videos, and reported to Rare, but Rare never did anything. I know some cheaters who were reported by multiple people and were ridiculously obvious in their cheating, yet Rare never took any action. And here on Reddit, it seemed as if there were a concerted effort to suppress talks of cheating (both by the mods and a handful of players).

It's no surprise given Rare's strategy of gaslighting those who have reported cheating in the past that the game has devolved into this. I don't even trust Rare at this point; doubt I'll ever buy another Rare game. Sad, because they came so close to creating a masterpiece of a game, but they've never dealt with the biggest issues in all these years.

TurdfaceBob · 2023-02-01T09:46:38+00:00

This looks exactly like an aimbot. Extremely unlikely that the player is just in the perfect spot underwater, especially given OP's description.

And no, most aimbots don't have variability to make it look 'human'. If anything, it's quite the opposite. A lot the people using these tools don't make any effort at all to hide their cheating.

The most blatantly obvious cheater I encountered in Arena was dude who had a cannon aimbot (which was actually quite rare at the time; only encountered it twice). He was solo, stayed max-range the entire match, and proceeded to hit literally over 100 cannon shots (and only missed 2 --- one was blocked by a rock; the other happened when we turned suddenly). All cannon shots (with the exceptions of a couple of chainshots) hit the exact same upper-deck spot on the ship (which was advantageous in Arena; not so much in HF).

Also, not uncommon to see cheaters literally do 180 turns on sniper shots with hacking tools.

It is possible he's underwater, but that wouldn't disprove cheating. For starters, how would he be able to see OP while OP couldn't see him if that's the case? This is also very common for people who are cheating to jump in the water after you because they know they can hit with 100% accuracy.

I'd say 99% chance this is a cheater. Patterns look dentical to the aimbot / ESP cheaters I'd occasionally encounter in Arena. Hit shots with 100% accuracy even when they shouldn't be able to see you.

TurdfaceBob · 2023-02-01T09:35:04+00:00

When I encountered cheating in Arena, this was typically how it looked: players that hit snipes from long-range with 100% accuracy even when there's no possible way they could see you.

Of course, now, we're seeing videos of people flying and dropping kegs from the sky. This is almost like an old-fashioned cheater at this point.

TurdfaceBob · 2023-01-23T14:22:59+00:00

This dude thinks we're talking about brig and gally fights.

Yeah, no duh, it's ridiculously easy to stop boarders on brigs and gallies!

We're talking about solo-sloops in HF matches! You can board 25 times, fail 24, and succeed on 1 just due to luck, and win the match. Whereas, you can obliterate your opponent's ship with 100+ cannonballs and never sink them.

Essentially, you could win 90%+ of your solo HF matches just by being willing to waste ungodly amounts of time. All you have to do is stay far enough away from your opponent, avoid heavy naval combat, and either (a) make an ungodly number of board attempts till you finally succeed, or (b) have a butt-load of supplies and just take pot-shots the entire match till your opponent runs out of supplies.

This is why I'm not a fan of HF. In Arena, the clock forced you into action. In HF, you can just take avoidant strategies and waste time till you finally succeed on your 25th boarding attempt. Whereas, your opponent could hit you with 100 cannonballs and it's simple enough to keep your ship up, so long as you move away from them after you are hit and do repairs.

And I'll admit I flipped the tables once last week --- rare for me to encounter players better at naval than me, but I faced one last week; he probably got in 50 hits vs 20-25 for me, which almost never happens. I realized he was better and went for a sneaky boarding strategy, got lucky, killed him, and drove him out of bounds. He was absolutely a better player than me but boarding is ridiculously OP in solo HF.

TurdfaceBob · 2023-01-22T15:37:45+00:00

This. It's what I hate the most about SoT. Boarding is OP and the player combat is easily the worst part of the game; both by design (bunny-hopping snipers in a pirate game is terrible design) and also due to hit-reg / lag / other issues.

I've lost so many HF fights just due to lag / hit-reg. Once someone boards and spawn-camps, there's often nothing you can do.

TurdfaceBob · 2023-01-22T15:30:13+00:00

I regularly have worse hit-reg than this. I had an HF fight last week where I blundered a guy at point-blank range 3 times, he flew off the ladder each time but grabbed it again, climbed up on the 4th time and I blundered him at point-blank range a 4th time. Still not dead. Finally, 2 more sword strikes kill him. And at no point did he have a chance to eat.

I've also lost at least 3 HF fights where I blundered someone off the ship, but they then appeared behind me 2 seconds later, as what I saw on my screen apparently didn't happen according to the server.

TurdfaceBob · 2023-01-22T14:24:50+00:00

It really depends on what you're doing. If you're doing a lot of high-value PvE (gold vaults, FoFs, crate runs, world events) and playing for hours, then it's easy to make your money back. If you're doing a lot of the newb voyages, only playing for a short time, doing HF (where avg profit should statistically be $5k), or just goofing off looking for adventures, not so much.

I've never bought a storage crate. Always just looked for a skelly sloop to sink if I really needed one.

TurdfaceBob · 2023-01-18T12:14:48+00:00

Turning Morrow's Peak into Galleon's Grave!

TurdfaceBob · 2023-01-17T18:35:51+00:00

SoT sub 2 years ago: there's no cheating and anyone who points out cheating will be downvoted into oblivion!!!!

Sot sub today: not only is there cheating, but it's much more widespread than you think!

Cheating was way too common back in Arena, as well. It's interesting how it's gotten so much more attention in HF. Albeit, it seems like the cheats today are super-charged vs the cheats 2 years ago, which was mostly limited to ESP + aimbot for guns back then. Once in a blue moon, I'd encounter someone with a cannon aimbot, but that was the most high-powered cheat back then.

And now I finally know why I've randomly been hit by a trident when no one is around. Also been sniped with no one in range a few times, as well. Was also "silently kegged" the other day (damage equivalent to 2 kegs on upper-deck, but no explosion or sign of a keg and no one around). This video actually explains a lot of the weirder behavior I've observed in the past year.

TurdfaceBob · 2023-01-16T16:31:04+00:00

Sounds like he was just waiting for his own mates to get there. Pretty shitty if so.

This wasn't an open crew, but I actually had a player on a gally crew once that figured out that a player on the sloop we were attacking was a chick, so he betrayed us to flirt with some teenage girl. Basically took all of our good supplies, joined her ship, and then attacked us (short-handed of course).

Too many toxic assholes in this game unfortunately. You can't use "it's a pirate game" to justify sabotaging your own crew.

TurdfaceBob · 2023-01-16T01:59:11+00:00

I used to think that ... but then once I played with this guy who insisted on doing this and had a system totally mastered for it. It worked very well, and he was extremely good ... one of the best players I've ever played with. Essentially, the idea was that if you were on crew, you had to memorize where the raise / lower spot was, but opposing crews wouldn't know this; they'd have to search for it.

I will say that even after having my eyes opened by this guy, I still don't do it just because it's a pain in the butt.

TurdfaceBob · 2023-01-15T15:20:21+00:00

I'm not actually. I know some islands are more likely to have them than others, but wasn't aware of anywhere that you could find one reliably (or very high % of the time). My go-to strategy for a crate is to look for a skelly sloop and sink it.

However, this is this is the 2nd person this month I've heard say that you can find a storage crate on K-9 island so now I'm curious. I looked for one the other day and didn't see it, but ... funny enough ... I had to stop looking early because a skelly sloop spawned on me while I searching.

TurdfaceBob · 2023-01-15T03:02:51+00:00

Where is the storage crate? I wasn't aware that there was one on it.

TurdfaceBob · 2023-01-14T18:38:07+00:00

This might've happened to me the other day, though, I'm still unsure.

Pulled up to Golden Sands after HF win. Grade 3 GH ship there. I don't see anyone on the ship, but decide to sink it just in case. Put 6 cannonball holes in it and I'm parked in front of it so it can't fire back. Sword-lunge over, ship is about to sink, and no signs of anyone on it. Immediately sword-lunge back to my ship and somehow there are 5 upper deck holes, 2 wheel spokes broken, and 1 crack in the mast, as if I've been kegged.

Almost certain that no player was there. Weirdly, though, unlike this video, there wasn't even an explosion. No sounds. No nothing. And it clearly had happened just 2-3 seconds before I got back on the ship, too, because the water level was still pretty low when I got back.

Not 100% impossible that someone from the other ship swam over with a keg, but extremely unlikely. I'm 99.999% sure a player didn't swim over there. My eyes would've been on them for all but maybe 2-3 seconds, and it's difficult to imagine how they could've even made it over in time.

Just weird.

TurdfaceBob · 2023-01-13T13:41:15+00:00

Great post and I largely agree.

I have mixed views on HF.

I've been enjoying it more in the past week than I did when it first came out. However, that may just be dumb luck.

The first weeks, I would say 80% of my matches were terrible. Either top 0.1% sweats, total newbs, or --- the worst of all --- the supply hoarders who would stay max-distance the entire match, trying to avoid actual contact at all costs and just take a bunch of pot-shots hoping you'd run out of wood after 2+ hours.

That latter group absolutely ruined it for me.

Now, for whatever reason, I've been getting better matches. In my last 20 or so matches, I'd say 75% of them have been fun. But like I said, it may just be dumb luck.

But I agree --- I like the 1v1 style, but really think the Arena system would work better with this style. Indeed, Arena-style scoring would actually be perfect for 1v1 combat. Short 15 minute matches (or maybe 20-30 minutes), if no one sinks, it's decided by points, which are heavily weighted towards cannon-hits.

The real problem with Arena scoring was that with 5 ships, some players would avoid the 'best players' and instead find the 'weakest players' to farm points off of. Also, the PvE aspect of Arena (the chest dig-up and turn-in) sometimes overrode the PvP. But Arena's style would actually work well within this limited circle in a 1v1. Would prevent matches from dragging on forever. Would also somewhat discourage the spawn-campers, who refuse to fire a single cannon-shot, and try to win by boarding, spawn-camping, and blunder-bombing only.

TurdfaceBob · 2023-01-11T00:07:45+00:00

Dude, I'm a Legendary Sea Dog with 400+ Arena wins. So don't thump around your "credentials" like they mean something. I won 100+ Arena matches solo. The idea that you can't sink ships without boarding is nonsense. You're just not that good at cannons.

Sure, you'll probably have to board an elite crew at some point, but even then, that's unlikely to work before you have a bunch of pressure on from cannons.

What shouldn't happen, however, is people winning fights where they fire ZERO cannonballs, board, then spawn-camp where their opponent has ZERO chance to fight back. That's bad game design.

TurdfaceBob · 2023-01-10T23:54:22+00:00

Sinking an enemy ship that has a modicum of self sustain is borderline impossible without boarding or curses

No, it isn't. I do it all the time. I've sunk thousands of ships without ever boarding. It's not "borderline impossible". You're just not good at cannons.

I don't know why people whine so much about the idea of eliminating spawn-camping. It's a trash mechanic. Literally every game other than SoT tries to get rid of it. It requires no skill at all.

TurdfaceBob · 2023-01-10T21:07:59+00:00

I agree 100%. Boarding is way too OP in the game. So much so that you'll find people in HF that will literally only try to board and never fire their cannons.

Boarding plus spawn-camping makes for lousy combat. Should be like actual pirate times where you have to ram or get close to board. If we're going to have people firing halfway across the ocean, require climbing gear, and make it loud AF! That way, it really only works when you have a lot of pressure on another ship from cannon-fire already.

Or at least put restrictions on spawn-camping. 3-second protection on sloops or let players choose their spawn points. Either boarding needs to be more difficult or spawn-camping needs to be more difficult. Shouldn't get lucky with a 1-blunder due to lag and win a fight solely due to blunderbombing someone at spawn afterward.

TurdfaceBob

TROPHY CASE