Alliance Servers

This is like banning customers for showing up on free donut day at the shop.

They aren't doing anything wrong, they are just benefiting from an unbalanced system of rewards. Not their problem that it exists.

They aren't entitled to the contradictory rewards they benefit from but coordination and cooperation isn't an issue.

People should be able to generally do what they want but the rewards for those preferences should be balanced in consistency with the risk/reward principles of the foundation. More risk more reward, less risk less reward. Most reward for least risk isn't a feature that makes any sense.

My newest idea is get rid of the alliance currency reward completely for the typical day and add them to gold and glory and community day. This helps boost the organic experience during special times and balances out the rest of the month.

@wolfmanbush Y'know I agree with this.

@burnbacon If they are caught excessively abusing server alliances a reaping they rewards there should be some disciplinary action, like limiting their gold income? Just some sort of negative factor.

Ehh i would rather destroy them xD
But bans are a bit harsh, a warning should be given out.

@timedsatyr79799 Yeah, that is fair, but after the warning they are caught forming one possibly more harsh disciplinary actions?

Here’s how I look at it. There’s a system in place for some servers to “take over” a server, and for some of these servers there’s actually a way to PAY for a quicker queue. This imo is the same as buying cheats, you’re paying to cheese commendations. You’re paying to cheese reputation and gold. I wouldn’t care that they cheesed these things but this game is cosmetic based. Arena suspensions were handed out to people who cheesed commendations and wins, if that standard was set in Arena I see no point in that being the same for alliance servers. But I think they should entirely nerf alliances to the ground. The original point of alliances is that they were meant for taking down large threats like the Megalodon when that released or the Skeleton fleets when those were a challenge. I say we bring back harder PvE, nerf alliances so gold and reputation isn’t part of rewards and give incentive for players to alliance and take down threats then communicate on loot or betray.

@capthitreg sagte in Alliance Servers:

Being found in an alliance server should be a bannable offense.

They worked for it. Most of them need hours to get on the same server, so let them be.
Now with the 16 player restriction it's even harder for them to start one...

@pithyrumble you seem to always miss the bigger picture when it comes to this topic. It’s not about how people play, it’s about how easy it games the game for them. It’s unfair that people who are a full and competent crew go through a somewhat long grind then there’s people who buy faster queues on alliance servers or sit around doing nothing for hours and achieve something. This game is cosmetic based, take away cosmetics and this game is just a one time experience. Please consider how others feel about a situation and don’t overreact.

@jojo-buddy-v2 sagte in Alliance Servers:

@schwammlgott I think a ban is a little harsh, but I agree that alliance servers ruin progression. I once met someone who just played on alliance servers who was a pirate legend (not very hard these days but still) and he didn't even know how to pull out a map. That should never bethe case where someone can not play the game and get pirate legend.

That's surely an extreme example...
Not sure, how this could be improved...getting rid of alliances is not the way imo...the 50% you get when an allie sells the stuff should also stay imo, there needs to be at least some incentive to allie up...
But the emissary bonus, from that stuff other crews sell, can be canceled, that's a bit too much, I think

@ottyman8687 sagte in Alliance Servers:

No don't ban them I've got a better idea!

We find people with TSD and LSD titles and have lots of PvP kills and automatically place them in Alliance Servers so that they can kill everyone there.

I think getting put in their place by a better player is better punishment than permanent ban.

Offtopic and surely a stupid question for a day1 player like me...so shame on me:
What's "TSD and LSD"?

@schwammlgott Maybe reduce the reputation and gold incentive, bring back harder threats to make alliances almost always needed to take down certain threats, then let people decide if they want to betray afterwards or not and continue their alliance. I think it’s too safe to be in an alliance now a days. A competent will always betray, a bad crew will always try and stay in their safe zone of an alliance.
(But this is balancing for a NATURAL alliance, unnatural are a different story). Unnatural alliances are incredibly safe and destroy the purpose of alliances and their original reason for existing. With no threat there’s no challenge, and that’s the main argument.

@schwammlgott Legendary Sea Dog and Triumphant Sea Dog

@pithyrumble I understand you don’t mind it but it undermines the title and cosmetic for a lot of people when it comes to this topic. And yes, the main server alliances like Requiem have a payment method of having faster queues. This is way overlooked by Rare and it ruins the experience of this game not being P2W.

@mrstinkyfart169 said in Alliance Servers:

@wolfmanbush in place of a monetary reward, would you add any other mechanics to emissary, or just leave it with the ledger rewards? I do agree that turning the bonus off during "normal times" would decrease the frequency of Alliance Servers.

I wouldn't replace it I would see it as balancing what was long left unbalanced, well maybe I would (will hit this in a minute)

alliances are tricky because there is what they want to do with them vs the reality of the environment

reality of environment is that when people can do pretty much whatever they want in a shared environment it is going to create constant clashing and a lot of people don't want to be pushed into the cooperation via commendations/rewards

imo it was just an overly optimistic feature that was left alone far too long rather than just balanced like everything else.

If it had always been linked to special weekends/days of gold flooding I think it would have been sustainable for keeping some form of significance in the game while also kinda sorta achieving the goal which is to get people to play together potentially in a non hostile way.

The only way to make alliances interesting is to add incentives and the only way to add incentives is either gold (which adds nothing to the game but cheesing) or try to push people into it (which many don't enjoy)

They nerf'd commodity crates to death and left alliance rewards alone. I'd potentially bring back worth-while commodity crates and toss the cheesey alliance rewards. Maybe turn alliances into merchants for bonuses and link commodity crates and alliances so that they can run them as a team for extra money but just in a less cheesey way. Even if alliance servers were cheesing it at least it would be from some sort of cooperation within the feature rather than just farming FOTD and events all day.

The organic style player should have opportunity to make some extra coin. It's sustainable and the organic experience should be what is encouraged (not required). Alliance cheese in the way that exists doesn't do much good for the game when it's really just large operations that are making 50 million a month with very little risk and the organic players are getting betrayed/killed trying to make a few extra coins on the non-manipulated server that they invest in.

It's tragic how commodities were added and almost immediately killed off, maybe they can be revived.

Me being the OP I might have overreacted, what I was trying to convey that server alliances have been a problem for awhile now, and the people that have been abusing it should have some sort of disciplinary actions taken against them. I also think the alliance limit capacity should be 2 to counter server alliances servers on a large scale, and if you are in an alliance you should have a larger chance to get merged and or other people with more hours to load into your game, so more experienced players might sink you.

@capthitreg sagte in Alliance Servers:

Me being the OP I might have overreacted, what I was trying to convey that server alliances have been a problem for awhile now, and the people that have been abusing it should have some sort of disciplinary actions taken against them. I also think the alliance limit capacity should be 2 to counter server alliances servers on a large scale, and if you are in an alliance you should have a larger chance to get merged and or other people with more hours to load into your game, so more experienced players might sink you.

There's a problem with this...if you are in an alliance, you don’t merge...

I said it before, the only thing I would definitly change to alliances is, that you don’t get the emissary bonus when the allie sells...
About alliance servers, I don’t care, they worked for it, so let them be

Edit: after a little thinking...maybe also get rid of the reputation you get from tgat 50% gold you get...so basicly just the gold should stay

@klon3dx sagte in Alliance Servers:

@schwammlgott Legendary Sea Dog and Triumphant Sea Dog

😅
Kind of obvious...now I feel even more ashamed 🤣

@valor-omega said in Alliance Servers:

I'm sorry, but if people allow their hard work to somehow be devalued by what another player does in a completely different server that they aren't even a part of, that's their problem. The issue with this debate is there is no way to tell if someone earned something while in a normal server, or an alliance server. Aside from time-limited cosmetics, and cosmetics from promotions, MOST cosmetics will be gradually unlocked over time anyway. At this point there are barely any active alliance servers anymore, as most have disbanded, forced to shut down, or are so inactive that it doesn't have any effect on regular servers. If people have an avenue to enjoy the game, and if it's not literally destroying the game or the community, I see no reason why people shouldn't be allowed to. It's a sandbox game; people have the tools and agency to play how they want.

Imo this is a common apathetic/supportive take but it's one based on distraction.

Are the rewards highly inconsistent and unbalanced based on every on thing that has been balanced within the game?

Does creating significantly more reward in a significantly less risky environment contradict the foundation of risk/reward in this game?

Threads that begin like this one aren't helpful because it allows supporters of the unbalanced rewards to focus on the hyperbole rather than the real issue. Should something that is unbalanced be balanced to maintain consistency with all other currency balance adjustments?

Playing loose with balance and sacrificing consistency and standards has expanded beyond just alliance rewards. Massive supplies with very little server investment now exists.
Without balance the foundation of risk/reward falls apart. We already see the effects, events don't often get done, high value targets are less and less. More and more people consider their experience boring and uneventful. That is directly tied to balance being sacrificed.

Significance and peacocking are massively important in an experience like this. It's what largely keeps people active. "It doesn't matter" leads to it not mattering and when it doesn't matter there is no motivation to participate. It's a game that is based on cosmetics and effort to get the cosmetics. Significance and standards for effort very much matter when it comes to keeping the game active.

A risk/reward environment where the most incentivized styles are alliance servers and hopping pvp is not sustainable.

@valor-omega counter argument, spawn camping WAS suspension worthy. Cheesing arena cosmetics was suspension worthy. Wanna know WHY? Because Rare saw it as UNFAIR. Just like how some people find it UNFAIR that these people sit around without threats in a shared world experience with threats. This isn’t a sandbox game, this isn’t Minecraft and it isn’t Terraria. It could have a sandbox mode like custom servers, then maybe it’d be considered a somewhat decently sized sandbox experience. Rare has advertised this game in many different ways but as many people have said since this game has come out, it’s less of a sandbox and more of its own thing.