Hourglass

@selgewick levels don't equal skill, they equal time.

@selgewick said in Hourglass:

@d3adst1ck Ye cannot lose levels. If ye could that would ruin hourglass completely and we don't want that. Also, Ney, awarding players for fighting the players with higher levels is not flawed. Since such actions would encourage 'em for improvement and reward 'em for trying and not giving up.

You're missing the point. High Hourglass level does not equal high skill, it equals high play time.

Since, ye still fight lads, who have way better skills in fighting or seafering then ye.

Much like fighting random pirates without Hourglass, it still the same thing and outcome.

I propose to base it on Levels.

So...with most people. Win or lose, we earn lvls right. Lose farm enough I reach high lvl and still fight people who are "better than me" Regardless.
IF everyone started at 0 level, someone is still gonna be the dominate one, reaching lvl 20 or so. Now they are above everyone else, who are they gonna fight? they have to suffer the waiting period until someone of 'equal' level shows up.

Again, the Dev decided they rather have everyone fight everyone regardless of "Rank" to speed up waiting periods. Which for many, waiting for a match to be found because my Level is too high is horrible.

if they will face a Pirate who is stronger then them (for example lvl 23 against lvl 36), they would get a little bum of allegiance for winning or losing

I can see this being farmed more than lose farming.

Honestly, ranked HG could be really fun but like basing it off levels wouldn't really work in the long run. Personally, I'd play a ranked version for extra rewards and stuff but I fear the amount of toxicity would go up a ton. Also, it could be discouraging for people, as trying to have low Q times has additionally led to a wide range of MMR being matched together. I think maybe having ranked as a setting to choose to fight players of your skill could work out well. And then there's the more open MMR non-ranked mode where you can get destroyed. The two modes could vary in a few ways, like Ranked having extra rewards for being different ranks (like Finals), set supplies, banned items (like tridents, horns, curse balls, cheesy stuff), no streaks but instant rewards for winning (like a gold amount that you get from winning at each tier, ex you get 25k for winning X rated match), and additional rep rewards. Non-ranked could also see a rework to put a larger focus on defending, maybe a way to defend certain WEs (for FH), and some kind of interaction with the FH ship WE. Finally, they could introduce a TDM mode for additional commendations (as well as the standard rep and gold). This rework/update could really allow people to play the game as they want. People just trying to frag out, make tons of money, fight as many people as possible, and hunt down ships with tons of treasure could really dive into the Non-ranked (Hunter/Defender mode). People seeking to scrim, have fair fights, have sweaty or really engaging fights could play ranked. Lastly, people seeking to practice their hand to hand combat, just enjoy that side of SoT, etc could play the TDM mode. This would just give people the freedom to play as they please. Often times I want a super hard fight and to really play the full potential of the game, but other times I want to defend and guarantee myself some PvP. Or I just want to TDM someone. There is no good system in this game to guarantee that consistent and fun experience, which kinda sucks. I do get that they want to keep Q times short though. You could have the ranked and non-ranked modes mix, assuming that the ranked player always gets the right match, which would cut down on q times.

@selgewick said in Hourglass:

Second, ye incorrectly interprented or understood the solution. Noone will start over at lvl 0, everyone will keep 'eir lvls.

Firstly, he didn't mean or think that everyone would start over at '0', he was using it as an example as to why it would still be unbalanced. IF everyone started over, certain players would still be much higher than everyone else since, as @Captain-Coel pointed out, it's simply an investment of who has more time to to dedicate to the mode, regardless of how good you are.

By doing by levels, it would lessen the number of lose farmers, since they would find 'emselves in positions they don't want to be.

Secondly, your premise is massively flawed because your assumption that loss farmers wouldn't want to find themselves in a position of fighting someone in a higher level is laughable. They're loss farming. It doesn't matter to them if they're fighting someone one level higher or 1000 levels higher. They're. Loss. Farming. They couldn't care less who they lose to. If anything getting more XP for fighting and losing against higher and higher rep enemies will encourage loss farming and exacerbate the problem by making it more profitable.

Noone will start over at lvl 0, everyone will keep 'eir lvls. Ye will fight those who have approximate lvl to ye.

Finally, and I'm aware in advance that this is a petty thing to complain about, but you've gotta stop the pirate talk, my dude. This is a forum for players of a pirate video game, you're not actually one. No one here is. It makes the longer posts on here like the original one you made virtually impossible to read and/or take seriously. And you don't have to sign off in EVERY TOPIC YOU CREATE like this is a letter in a bottle or a business email. We know who you are, your name is at the top of every post you write. I'm sorry and I don't wanna ruin your fun but it's cringey and comes off as some weird sort of flex to include three lines of imaginary titles you've given yourself. Thank the gods you finally stopped listing all the ships you own by name.

@selgewick

His source is literally himself. That's what "anecdotally" means.

Information according to a personal account rather than research.

You stated a nebulous someone said something and expected it to be taken as given fact from a credible authority on the subject and he asked where the info came from, then recounted a story of his own experience to the contrary.

One, by the by, that I can also corroborate anecdotally through personal experience from two community weekends ago where two friends and I were drunk hourglassing and basically unintentionally loss farming due to extreme lack of coordination. Over the course of a few hours we went from fighting against skilled crews that we'd normally match well with (if we were sober) to people who missed 50-75% of their shots and had no tactical awareness to crews that never fired a single cannon shot and either sailed out of bounds or just dropped anchor waiting to be sunk. Even a trio of drunken idiots can sink a ship that doesn't fight back.

Sadly, HG hasnt been updated since the season it came out.
No balance patches, no new features, no reworks, nothing.

We did get 1 new skelly set... 2 years later.

@selgewick
As said above, levels do not equal skill. Just time played. Wins/Losses is a better way of assessing skill; the Elo system in place is used in a wide variety of competitive games.

Some think that players just don't want to PvP, that's why the mode has little players. But that's wrong, most players I've met have tried it at least once. And there's been no shortage of non-hourglass players fighting over FoF vaults in the last week.

The problem is that players are rewarded for streaks instead of ranking on the Elo system.

Hourglass should have a ranking-based earning system (like every other competitive game). Players are distributed into real ranked tiers, and win/loss XP is determined by the ranked tier you're in and the difference in Elo between you and your opponent.
If you build it like a ledger, you can give rewards per month/season based on your ledger placement, like the other companies.

That would encourage players to play more than loss farm: loss farming, in its current state, is a method for lowering your ranking and giving you easier future opponents, or just to accrue loss xp faster. If the system was paying out based on your tier, loss farming would lower your tier and rewards. At face value, this seems like a nerf. But, what's really happening is that you're getting better rewards for attempting to win each game. If you're in the perfect tier for you, you're facing more players of your skill level and getting a fairer payout for winning 50% of your games, as you should.

Adding ledger rewards and daily wins/missions for more allegiance, would bring players back to the mode regularly. A regular, healthy ecosystem like that brings enough players to the mode that everyone gets more fair matches, and even when they don't, they don't lose an entire streak and lose the will to play the mode, making things worse for everyone else.

In the current state, Hourglass has alienated the mid and low-skilled PvPers, leaving it a playground for great PvP players with a giant barrier to entry for those mid and low-level players that are just starting on the mode and trying to get their curses.

@GrumpyW01f, this is honestly the best recommendation I've seen on here thus far for revitalizing the hourglass system.

@ghutar
I have made maybe 2-3 topics over the last 2 years and they never get traction from the right people. Most of the responses are other really good players/BurnBacon telling me I must be bad at the mode and want a change. I think it was my tone last time and I had a bit of a controversial title to get more clicks. So I think I caused it actually...

Do you think it's worth another go with all the PS5 players?

@Ghutar There has been an influx of PS5 players of late on the forums talking about what an insurmountable challenge hourglass seems to be due to a drought of lower level players. Might not hurt.

@ghutar
Having a team to identify and potentially fix problems in older content is the better idea. Rare doesn't go back and change anything they already added, because they've already committed those work hours to future content.

So they have to decide between building new things or fixing old things. They almost always pick building new things. Then we're left with a sea of good ideas with half-baked or outdated implementation.

It's surprising to me that they're just now splitting off teams for game stability/balance. Meaning that these topics were always competing for attention. It makes it less surprising that so many failed ideas haven't been touched again.

@ghutar
It just goes to show how unique SoT is in the gaming world. Those who love the game, love the game. Rare has a way of doing everything differently than everyone else, which has made a lot of great moments. But that same mindset has caused a lot of failures as well.

We point out failures, but after all we're still here talking about it, so they must have done something right.

Love the idea of HG as a ledger system overhaul, and COMPLETELY agree that the current system being built around streaks was a terrible design choice.

I get it in that it ties into SoT's risk vs reward trope, but it also engenders total cutthroat, un-fun, WAAC gameplay that is a huge turn off for many.

SoT is supposed a fun silly pirate game, and having the skelly/ghost curses locked behind an enormous grind that requires consistant streaks to make any meaningful progress has always struck me as a sour note.

Also, yeah, burnbacon is 99% troll. Just block him.

@selgewick
Elo systems give new players a very low starting rank. New players fighting experienced players is a result of the lack of low rank players in the mode, which is not the fault of the Elo system.
Your system makes things harder for players who levelled up but haven't improved, and it still makes it unfair for those who are fighting good players who just haven't played the mode much. If your idea was implemented today, lower-level players would think the mode is broken because they almost never get a match. With a lot more players in Hourglass, this wouldn't be as big of an issue, but if that were to happen, Elo would be the more fair system anyway.

We agree that there is a problem and a fundamental change must be made to fix it, I just think you're looking at the wrong cause behind Hourglass's current predicament.

@selgewick
Ok I see your updated reply now. Everyone starting at Tier 1 was and will be a problem for every start of a new ranking system. It was that way at the beginning, and there's nothing you can do about that with a level system either.
After a short time, rankings are more or less set (as they are now) and there aren't many problems with unfair matchmaking if the ecosystem is healthy.