@jj-h816 said in Make it EASIER to GET BASE CURSE or MORE WAYS to get ALLEGIANCE levels:
You act like other pirates don’t step in and wreck the play through, that Rare doesn’t toss an anchor spamming skelly galleon at you or volcanoes. All these things happen so playthrough length and difficulty vary, much like the pvp stuff. The journey to the first curse was not that bad guys. I get that a lot of people don’t like the play style, my point exactly about the gold curse! Some got it in weeks others are still grinding. It’s ok to have something to grind towards.
I don't know about you, but with hourglass, new FoF content, easier FotD initiation, PVP in adventure mode has become a rarity (if you're not doing FoF or Fotd). Every time I hear the horn I just think, "well, we're going to be unmolested for the rest of the night." I've gone entire play sessions without spotting a single other ship (though admittedly not since the latest update where there can be six ships in a server again). That's why all of my estimates are rounded up—if you focus and don't dawdle, you can complete a TT in 1.5 hours or less (depending on the tale of course). I rounded up to two. If you ask in the discord for checkpoints, it's even faster. (I know that's cheesy but this entire topic was created by someone who doesn't like the content but wants the reward, so let's be real about what someone who doesn't like grinding TTs but wants the gold curse could do.)
Heck, if you have a friend willing to help you out (which I would be willing to do for a friend cause being in game and chit chatting with a bud is fun for me), you could do each tall tale once, cheese the checkpoints all in a row, and unlock the gold curse in a bout a week. Two weeks if you factor in interrupted sessions or missing a few nights. This is why I fundamentally don't understand it when people say the cosmetics "mean something" or "are a flex." They're not. Maybe they should be, but they aren't. Any system you create someone will find an optimized path through.
The real problem is Rare's vision versus the type of player their messaging brings in. We've all seen posts here from children or parents playing with their kids or casuals that say "we want peaceful areas," or "why is this other guy ruining my adventure" or the like. That's the type of player Rare's graphics and advertisements attract. So Rare is constantly walking the tightrope between creating content accessible to the bulk of their player base, and content the hardcore players want to flex. That's why checkpoints exist: the players were asking for TTs to be easier/shorter/more accessible because Rare knows most of their players are casuals. The issue is when you start offering shortcuts in the name of accessibility, you open up those shortcuts to exploiters who just want to speed-run the content for the reward.
(Bringing the conversation back to the topic now,)
Similarly in hourglass, Rare could not reward zero allegiance for a loss. It just goes against all contemporary design principals for match-based games. You don't get a great reward, but you always get something for your effort. That's why the first "cheese" was loss farming, especially when SBMM was broken-broken (as opposed to pseudo-broken due to low participation that we have now). Then people started dice rolling for the win, which is mathematically funny because that statistically gets you a 0.5 win rate and matches you with some pretty decent PVP'ers who started complaining about how their experience was being ruined by hourglass participants that don't actually want to PVP. And now we have invite peddling because it works, but this one I really do consider exploiting a bug and hope it gets patched quick. (Though admittedly I do invite them because a win's a win in my book.)
I do still honestly believe the best way to improve hourglass is to buff faction treasury defense. It takes PVE'ers out of the invasion queue so pirates that want good-faith PVP will more often get matched with pirates that also want good-faith PVP. And PVE'ers get a higher risk/higher reward way to play. I even saw a suggestion floating around for a doubloon voyage that gets you a Battle for the Sea of Thieves McGuffin that grants the equivalent allegiance to a PVP win that you can only buy when the hourglass is active. I like the idea—give PVP'ers a voyage for allegiance, gets them to vote hourglass increasing the participation, it's a win/win compromise. PVE'ers will hate the increased PVP risk and PVP'ers will hate that the curses are no longer PVP exclusive, but PVE'ers will love the access to the curses and the PVP'ers will love more authentic PVP in hourglass. It's the solution everyone will hate equally.
