Loot being meaningless to a lot of players is much more of a problem than a lot of people realize

I was treasure focused for years and I stopped in season 7 during the big Captaincy change.

I have more output than ever as a solo and I rarely sell loot now. Literally go days weeks or even months without making any gold or selling anything. I give it away mostly or fight over it and just let the other crews think I care so it doesn't lessen their experience.

I'm just the old pirate out at sea so use/discard my advice as one wishes to do.

Don't chase the carrot, just have fun, it's alright if things settle down, it's ok if not everything is intense and constantly exciting. There will be excitement. It randomly happens. Just have fun and cherish the randomness. The game has become more as it's become less about just the loot.

Not everything needs to be content or more than what others are doing, it's not just an action game, it's an adventure game, there is more than the big battles and the big steals. It's more sustainable when embracing adventure as a whole over the highlight reels.

The super focus on loot lead to the non-organic cheesing for both pve and pvp.

Part of the normal cycle.

Imo the "the problem with the game is.." has run its course

"the problem with the environment is" existed when it was a top heavy cheesefest where a few percent of the game were taking everything for their playstyles, very piratey but not sustainable

Season 8 9 and 10 are just adding qol to styles outside of those few percent of players and activity.

there really isn't a "problem with the game" anymore. There are issues but there isn't some huge problem anymore. It's sustainable.

that doesn't mean all of us are going to find a way to adapt to these changes over time, some of us are not going to, but that's not an overall game problem.

For new players, super casual players, players that do their own thing, players that use SoT as a backdrop for their social experience, most of these participants are going to continue having a mostly fun time, and some will have a much better time throughout season 10.

Personally I think those of us in the veteran play group should stop acting like our issues are big problems in the game, because season 9 really isn't that case anymore. Season 10 is continuing that.

It's a great game, it's changed and that has wide spread effects but more people are having a fun time now than before, because so much has been addressed within risk/reward and overall qol for different skill and experience levels.

The servers have people doing all kinds of stuff now. I have fights every day, I see people grinding goals every day, I see varied experience levels and intentions every day. On the servers there really aren't major issues outside of server performance. Activity on servers is in and has been in a positive spot all season long.

At some point safer seas will have a chance to improve that even more. Time will tell but I think it'll do well overall.

@amendelwyr There is indeed a lot of lost loot. For example, the Reapers who seem to enjoy harrassing me so much will generally take some good loot, my flag and go on their merry way. But I bet some swabbie would be very happy to stubble upon what more experienced players ignored and I was too annoyed or tired to bother getting back. That often includes at least one storage crate (which is an essential on any ship in my opinion). The ocean floor has too much despawned loot for it to not be recycled on the beaches.

@nitroxien

You talk about doing your "last 20 vaults" like that's representative of a large swath of players. I doubt even more than 10% have done more than 5 of them (if that!). This is the biggest disconnect I see around the complaints about safer seas as well. The hardcore stackers and grinders imagine everyone else plays the way they do and truly very few do, or even can.

Getting to PL is still a big grind for a lot of people (this is the majority of players btw - a decided minority have achieved PL, working as intended). Emissary has made it a bit easier to finish off but leveling 3 factions to 40 is an enormous amount of normal play time! Most people are not doing things like getting on Galleon stacks on an Alliance server, or rolling with a crew crushing world events for the length of a whole day. It's only a subsection of players that have borderline full time job hours into the game, over years.

Loot is VERY consequential to most everyone pre-PL especially. This is why getting PVP'd by people that it doesn't matter to engenders so much discussion, response and frustration among people just looking to while away some time in the game. Even if they take their somewhat casual approach to a more serious minded "build toward goal of PL" the obstacles are real and can become off putting to even trying. There are wildly diminishing returns to creating stratospheric reward structures and significant downsides. They could create a 1 BILLION Gold purchase today and someone would get it before the end of this week. Guaranteed. In the meantime the rest of the players will just decide that they will play something that actually puts basic satisfaction + achievements at least in their grasp.

On the flipside once you do make PL and get a handful of most-desired purchases (maybe it's Captaincy, a smattering of most coveted items from the vendors) the loot DOES become less consequential in the overall, but can still fun to pursue and especially via the new Voyages and treasure options that open up. This "feeling" of loot not being as all-consuming is indeed a reward in and of itself too and it takes a lot of work to get there! If there is a problem it's players with bajillions in Gold believing that everyone else is in the same boat, so to speak. You might roll Forts all weekend, while your average player has probably only done a number that they can count on their hands, if even that.

Most people will agree that the game does become a different level of "fun" when you become less concerned with loot, as mentioned above. It's odd when people with an oversized pile of it pretend that it's meaningless to everyone else. A way to do real harm here to the health of the game is to start putting more/new $10+ million items on the vendors. People will look at that and know it's never possible and simply not play. There are other games always beckoning that don't do that.

Only the people who have played an unhealthy amount on the seas or those cheesing life in alliance servers will no longer care about loot.

For everyone else, it's still nice to gather a shiny cache and get to cash it in. No more 50+ million ship sets plz.

It's nice not caring about loot. I don't bother carrying anything unless I'm doing merchants so if someone gets close, I just scuttle and start again on the next server. Loots pretty meaningless, fighting is even more pointless. So yeah, feel free to take my 3 plants and shoot me a message about what a coward I am for not bothering to fight.

@nitroxien

It has nothing to do with loot and everything to do with supplies. Supplies are HUGE in PvP.

@jazzach said in Loot being meaningless to a lot of players is much more of a problem than a lot of people realize:

@nitroxien

It has nothing to do with loot and everything to do with supplies. Supplies are HUGE in PvP.

Sure, 1 out every few ships you might sink on the open seas might have a worthy cache of supplies to raid but this seems the most inefficient and time consuming way to supply as can be imagined. Especially when so many sweats are awash in gold and can purchase plenty outright. Seems a thin justification.

@merlin-mav-k

No, every ship STARTS with a worthy cache of supplies. It's great actually because you do get rewarded for everyone you sink in one way or another. It's not a problem and it's intended to be this way.

You're brushing aside my point but it is extremely valid. PvP uses a TON of supplies. Especially when you consider taking on multiple opponents at the same time or back to back, which happens a lot ESPECIALLY if you want to take the loot. FoFs for instance, are very often contested by more than two boats.

Most folks ARE trying to compete for the treasure but they still need supplies to do it and more often than not sinking someone is the quickest way to get ahead in supplies.

@jazzach I just timed myself for how long it takes to walk to the merchant person and the shipwright and it turned out that it wasn't even close to the amount of time it took for me to chase down the last runner I met in HG.

@crowedhunter

You're reaching. Obviously we get captain supplies also. Captain supplies however, are missing the most important piece, Chain Shots. It's way easier to find these on player boats than running around scouting every island for them and more times than not we don't know what your supplies look like until we sink you so for all we know you're ballin. Do you really expect every PvPer to board you and scout your supplies before opening fire? That's silly.

Furthermore, PvPers aren't just looking for "enough" supplies. That's a PvE player mindset. PvPers are looking for all the supplies they can get because again, we don't know what we're gonna encounter and we want to be prepared for any of it.

Lastly, nobody owes you a safe pass. It is completely legitimate for someone to sink you just because they like sinking boats. This is a PvP game, complaining that you shouldn't have to deal with it when there's thousands of PvE games you could play is pure entitlement.

@jazzach Are you sure you meant to reply to me? I think you made a good point about chainshots but then you like borderline changed the subject on me.

@jazzach Sidenote: if you're struggling to find chainshots, I usually find like 2 every 3 islands tops. Islands are things you'll pass on your way to go plunder someone for 4 chainshots.

@crowedhunter

I thought you were the other guy but it still sounds like you're defending him so my point still stands. We do get captain supplies AND we sink everyone we can for their supplies. Mainly in hopes that we get some chain shots.

@crowedhunter

Yes but chain shots are in such short supply you'll never have as many as you like. Especially considering most PvPers leave game and fish for servers instead of portal hopping now a days. We're quite literally always looking for absolutely every chain shot we can get. Unfortunately for OP, this includes the ones on his ship.

@jazzach There are only 4 chainshots on a new ship. When I find them in a barrel there are usually like 3.
Maybe you guys should just practice your aiming or something if you're really having this much trouble meeting your needs for chainshot.

@crowedhunter

Facepalm, I play with randoms every day and they all do the same thing. It's not about having enough. There's never enough that we can just fire them continuously so you're basically always going to get attacked in the hopes of finding EVEN 4. Either way I've made my point. The incentive to sink you is always there. Even if you have no loot. Don't hate the player, hate the game.

@jazzach No hate. I really enjoyed talking with you. Thanks:)

@crowedhunter

Another thing to consider is that if the reapers run off enough of the server they're on they can get lucky and get server merged possibly landing them in a server with a FoF or a crew doing FotD while also allowing them to keep supplies/loot and bypass portal hopping/fishing for servers. So even if they knew you had 0 loot and 0 chains they may still have a reason to sink you. Basically it's nowhere near as cut and dry as PvEers seem to think. There is almost always a good reason to sink anyone and everyone.