Hourglass is Dying

@soulstinger2k20 to that point, if Rare were to rework the way loss allegiance is calculated per match, they could use match data to break ties and determine winners after a certain time limit. Borrow from what Arena already had.

To reiterate, lets say win allegiance is fixed at a value of "X." During the match, the game could track the number of successful cannon hits, holes repaired, and boarders killed for each team. Point values of each category is a separate discussion, but for now, they all contribute to an overall score.

If a match reaches the time limit and neither team has sunk, the team with the bigger score wins X allegiance. The losing team wins allegiance valued at ≤X, depending on their score in relation to the winning team's.

For example, if a match ends at the time limit, and Team A scores "100" over the match, while Team B scores "75," then A wins X and B wins 0.75X.

With the same score, if B somehow sinks A before the time limit, then B wins X, and A also wins X, as they put in the effort needed to out-score B up until they sunk. But if the match ends before the limit and A wins, then they are rewarded X, and B is rewarded 0.75X.

I'm also not sure what an appropriate time limit would be. Being an Arena 2.0 guy, I'm biased in favor of 15 min. Whatever it is, the match length shouldn't be taxing to the average, casual player.

Thats all well and good... but look at their level of involvement with HG so far.

We'de be lucky if we got a shrinking boundary.

To be fully honest I am hoping against hope that HG gets SOME sort of attention with Flameheart's return in S13.

SoF ship set, new skelly bits, something...anything

I'd be down for a rework of the streak system, I mean its cool to get a big streak, but more consistent rewards would be nice. Also end game HG players don't even care about streaks outside of commendations. Like it doesn't really benefit anyone.

@fysics3037

Also end game HG players don't even care about streaks outside of commendations. Like it doesn't really benefit anyone.

+1 on that.
For 0-100, you want to get a big streak if you can to level up fast. Unless they're getting their second curse, big streaks are often avoided for consistent payouts.
From then on, the goal is to get 50 champion streaks, so the streak system just becomes a chore for a looooong time.
Then the streak system is just an aside and you just try to go as long as possible without sinking.
It's best for top tier players but that doesn't mean it's the best system for them, either. In my experience, it's just a boring number that forces me to play longer to receive good rewards. I'd love to have better short-term options in hourglass.

@grumpyw01f said:

In my experience, it's just a boring number that forces me to play longer to receive good rewards. I'd love to have better short-term options in hourglass.

100%.

Using CoD (or even Arena) as an example: rather than needing to do well consecutively in at least 4 matches to maximize XP gains, your performance per match dictates XP gained. That's it.

A streak should feel like a bonus, imo. It's a metric that should still be tracked, still be displayed, still add value in terms of allegiance. But it should be a cherry on top. Not the whole sundae.

@grumpyw01f I think this is working again? We've been sinking organic hourglass players and it's been counting.

@xzodeak
Interesting. Noted and intrigued.

@grumpyw01f said in Hourglass is Dying:

@a-soft-object
I agree that those are problems, but it hasn't deterred the top tier players. If you make those changes, you make the battles better, but you don't fix the underlying problems.

iMHO, you need both. 100% agree with the points both of you made. For example, better players will accumulate supplies as they streak. Average players are less likely to stock up before a match. Better players are more likely to be able to shut down a match that would otherwise drag on., or are at least enjoying the fight if evenly matched! Average players vs average players are more likely to stalemate or run.

@d3adst1ck said in Hourglass is Dying:

The problem with streaks is that it can feel like a chain because you can get stuck in a match against a crew that peels away a lot to repair or reset or just runs. Since there's no time limit, this is a huge waste of time and drastically lowers your potential xp/hr. Once this starts to happen, I'd rather just sink and go do something else but if I'm trying to get my streaks I'm kind of stuck. I think the bonus xp for streaks was a good idea, but basing commendations around streaks was a terrible idea.

I don't think I'm ever going to complete any of the streak based comms at this point because once a fight starts hitting 15-20 mins I'd rather just kamikaze, end it with a win or loss and move on to the next one. At this point I'm only playing maybe 4 hours a week over 2 sessions total, and I'd rather not spend a quarter of my session time engaged in one fight for minimal xp.

Yeah, Hourglass often feels like you're chained to it. I get more enjoyment in battles over Chests of Fortune, and I'm sure many other do as well.
I'd play it much more if it was appealing in short-form. Then maybe more crews would end their sessions with an hourglass game?

@da-german420
Funnily enough, I have a calculator for this stuff. If you drop your hourglass every time you win, it will take you 20 wins at most to reach level 100. 1 loss counts for 1/6 of a win, so I can do some math:

Worst case:
Win 17 times, lose 18 times and drop the hourglass after every win.

Best case:
Get a 3-streak 4-5 times with some losses here and there and you sell at least a grade 1 flag after every win.

Of course, your experience will be somewhere in the middle but there ya go. You're 92% there so don't lose heart!

@grumpyw01f
Hourglass is dying, When you cant find players, I have still not encountered that problem.

I dont like to divide the playerbase into ranks/ledgers unless Hourglass will make certain to give you opponents after (selected time) in the queue. As I have heard, that does exist with the current sbmm, even though it is terrible.

With the anti-cheat and hopefully consistent updates related to the anti-cheat, I believe that Hourglass is fine.

Maybe fix streaks and make it more rewarding to win and lose with streaks, it would encourage players to become champions. (still haven't defeated 30 champions.)

Remove Guild or make the flags sellable

@GrumpyW01f
I agree with the sentiment hourglass is dying while personally, I dread 1v1 arena combat a majority just tough out the 100 levels for the skeleton or ghost and never return. I'm probably of the minority that'll tough it to 200. And, while yeah an on-demand pvp is great for some but making it so the only actual way to earn the rep for flame by queueing wait for a couple minutes, and either sit there and lose or spend 30 minutes slugging it out in a prolonged fight of attrition be it using sloops, brigs, whatever. The pay off is less worth it when the overworld pvp actually can be a lot more engaging and exciting than what amounts to either a long range slap fight, getting bodied by undesirables boarding and just spawn camping to sail you OOB so you get nothing or just slammed by a cheater. My point is the mode is going to be in a similar case like a lot of things left to the wayside by devs who would prefer either focusing on the next big thing instead of refining the halfbaked mode HG currently is.

@blandmann said in Hourglass is Dying:

@GrumpyW01f
I agree with the sentiment hourglass is dying ( ... )

We did yesterday and the day before both duo-sloop and brigantine Hour Glass sessions of 2 hours+ (in the evening), we had no problem finding opponents.

@lem0n-curry
I'm not talking about queue times being the main problem, the main issue I'm pointing to is it's kind of a medieval game situation where you have players refine the gameplay to a point thart it just becomes unfun to fight against, ad infinitum. Ghostly even explained it in the OP you get less casual people who want to play thereby you're left with those who're either creame of the crop which can and will body you making the experience all the more tedious and annoying against those who drag it out to almost an hour. The only incentive for casual players who can't actually get wins properly just either wash out or turn to loss farming and after that it cycles out once they have their curse of choice, if hg was more a quick in and out scenario with fights lasting more than five to eight minutes on a timer. Maybe there would be more playing or allowing like 1/8th the exp gained piggy backing from turning reapers chests in to increase standing with both. I don't know.

@lem0n-curry before the PS launch, HG's active player pool was mostly made up of two types of folks: 1) folks who enjoy PvP and are good at it, and 2) folks who don't enjoy PvP, but want the curses.

This left out 3) folks who enjoy or don't mind PvP, but aren't that great. And this, imo, is where most of SoT's playerbase sits.

As long as there are players queueing in either groups 1 or 2, they will continue to find matches with others in those groups. But this is hardly as active as HG could be.

Re-working the system to appeal to casual players would improve the experience for everyone. Sweaty players would still get sweaty fights. And folks in that second group might even change their opinion on PvP, if they are paired against more reasonable opponents.

Any spike in casual activity HG is seeing right now from PS players will most likely follow the same trend it saw on xbox/pc, if the issues brought up in this thread aren't addressed.

@theblackbellamy said in Hourglass is Dying:

@lem0n-curry before the PS launch, HG's active player pool was mostly made up of two types of folks: 1) folks who enjoy PvP and are good at it, and 2) folks who don't enjoy PvP, but want the curses.

This left out 3) folks who enjoy or don't mind PvP, but aren't that great. And this, imo, is where most of SoT's playerbase sits.

As long as there are players queueing in either groups 1 or 2, they will continue to find matches with others in those groups. But this is hardly as active as HG could be.

Re-working the system to appeal to casual players would improve the experience for everyone. Sweaty players would still get sweaty fights. And folks in that second group might even change their opinion on PvP, if they are paired against more reasonable opponents.

Any spike in casual activity HG is seeing right now from PS players will most likely follow the same trend it saw on xbox/pc, if the issues brought up in this thread aren't addressed.

The months before PS5 launch we (and I assume others as well) didn't play Hour Glass because of the bugs that hindered you in PvP, we started again now as those bugs at least seems to be fixed. Not sure you could contribute all of the increased participation to PS5 players.

@sandfeld2004

I dont like to divide the playerbase into ranks/ledgers

I never said it should split the playerbase. Just give payouts based on those ranks. The system would attempt to match those players first (just like it does now) but there will always be mistakes. I believe that the SBMM system is fine when there are more players, so my ideas are focused on making that happen.

Maybe fix streaks and make it more rewarding to win and lose with streaks

To 'fix' streaks by giving out larger win payouts in general, just makes levelling up easier. Players who have grinded/are grinding now would rightfully have a problem with that. I'd rather change the system to be fair to everyone rather than just making it easier to level up. More loss Xp if you tried to win makes sense though. Wins should only be more rewarding if you faced a hard crew. Which is the reasoning behind a ranked system.

it would encourage players to become champions. (still haven't defeated 30 champions.)

Unless they get rid of the 50 champion streaks after getting a curse, that's never going to change.

@lem0n-curry
SoT's currently the highest pre-ordered game on PS5 if analytics are to be believed, and in truth history has and will repeat itself of casual players being filtered out leading us back to square one due to the sweatier side ruining the game for most again al a chivalry/mordhau situation. Loss farmers are making more exp in a faster time span than say winners if the math still holds up and even then they have to lose roughly ~1300-1400 matches to hit 100. At least in mordhau you still gain more exp/gold even if you lose because it factors participation rather than overall winning. Yeah, you'll still get more for winning but the point is to make a match engaging rather than being cheesed to death by someone who's spent nearly an endless amount of time perfecting movement and launch exploits and so on. To me if the mode is fun and engaging I'll put in the hard yards, right now I've had such a heavy loss streak even with a decent crew I don't feel the point to bother

@lem0n-curry HG inherited plenty of bugs & the playerbase gave it a go at launch.

There are plenty of posts regarding matchmaking/casual playerpool, and suggestions to improve those areas, which predate the more recent bugs that you're referring to.

And even during that period that you were perhaps inactive, there were still players in the first two groups that were willing to put up with those bugs to an extent. Before coming in here and complaining of course.

Just some food for thought.

@theblackbellamy said in Hourglass is Dying:

@lem0n-curry HG inherited plenty of bugs & the playerbase gave it a go at launch.

There are plenty of posts regarding matchmaking/casual playerpool, and suggestions to improve those areas, which predate the more recent bugs that you're referring to.

And even during that period that you were perhaps inactive, there were still players in the first two groups that were willing to put up with those bugs to an extent. Before coming in here and complaining of course.

Just some food for thought.

I doubt loss farmers would complain - maybe because the opponent could not sink them quick enough 😁.

@dragotech123

I heard from different people on Youtube and Reddit that going for a streak of 2, lowering the hourglass and raising it again is an optimal method to play.

I ran the numbers. Setting a 2 streak w/ hourglass sell as the baseline, selling at champion is a ~20% increase to allegiance gain per game, while losing at 2 or 3 streak is a ~20% loss to allegiance gain per game.
Meaning you have to gamble -20% twice to earn a +20%.

Someone in another thread was requesting to bring back (Arena) Sea Dog items & part of the suggestion was to release them in re-colors.

There are your ledger rewards right there. At least for a few months or seasons or however long those things take to update. Servant's Sea Dog weapons in red, black, gold and white. Guardian's Sea Dog in green, black and teal. Could turn out nicer than the G/TSD sets.

@theblackbellamy said in Hourglass is Dying:

Someone in another thread was requesting to bring back (Arena) Sea Dog items & part of the suggestion was to release them in re-colors.

There are your ledger rewards right there. At least for a few months or seasons or however long those things take to update. Servant's Sea Dog weapons in red, black, gold and white. Guardian's Sea Dog in green, black and teal. Could turn out nicer than the G/TSD sets.

It keeps the nature of the originals and adds something for everyone to work towards without needing to make a new set. The ideal solution I think.

@blandmann

My point is the mode is going to be in a similar case like a lot of things left to the wayside by devs who would prefer either focusing on the next big thing instead of refining the halfbaked mode HG currently is.

The big question is: would players fight over the FoF so much if Rare didn't keep adding new cosmetics to earn every season? No, we've seen how little they were done when the Fleet had the CoF. So, when there's nothing to work towards, players move on to something else. That's why the CoF/Reaper's chests need new commendations every season. Rare knows that, and that's why the Fate of Fortune set is structured the way it is.

It's the same with Hourglass, but Rare just hasn't yet been willing to put the effort in to make it a healthy ecosystem. Even just a few basic changes, like a ledger and dailies, would improve faction battles a lot. Rare needs to realize that new things are better when they're built on solid foundations, and what better foundation for Flameheart's war than a Faction battle system that players are actually willing to engage in. The chroniclers are there for a reason; we need to get hourglass tied into the story.

@grumpyw01f said in Hourglass is Dying:

@blandmann

My point is the mode is going to be in a similar case like a lot of things left to the wayside by devs who would prefer either focusing on the next big thing instead of refining the halfbaked mode HG currently is.

The big question is: would players fight over the FoF so much if Rare didn't keep adding new cosmetics to earn every season? No, we've seen how little they were done when the Fleet had the CoF. So, when there's nothing to work towards, players move on to something else. That's why the CoF/Reaper's chests need new commendations every season. Rare knows that, and that's why the Fate of Fortune set is structured the way it is.

It's the same with Hourglass, but Rare just hasn't yet been willing to put the effort in to make it a healthy ecosystem. Even just a few basic changes, like a ledger and dailies, would improve faction battles a lot. Rare needs to realize that new things are better when they're built on solid foundations, and what better foundation for Flameheart's war than a Faction battle system that players are actually willing to engage in. The chroniclers are there for a reason; we need to get hourglass tied into the story.

Humor me for a moment, let's say rare is smart and does tie the hourglass to the flameheart update. And, it begins allowing for an alternate method to gain flames or athena favor or at the least they realize the current build isn't solid and maintaining the numbers they expected. What does that mean for the modes already life support ecosystem then? Anyway you slice it due to a lack of response or disinterest on rares part for a mode that can't properly sustain the player retention. Pretty much leaving it as a medium to low priority and wasted resources on their end trying to maintain. Like, you said CoF/Repeaers at least get the TLC needed each season along with the FoF to maintain the retention they have already in that regard.

@grumpyw01f

The streak system is absolutely silly. They need to fix so you get my upvote.

@rare-jumbie said in Hourglass is Dying:

@grumpyw01f

The streak system is absolutely silly. They need to fix so you get my upvote.

They could have a loss streak system for every x amount of losses stacked it pays out in y amount of exp for a win breaking the losing streak. This way it feeds the dopamine hit of actually feeling like you're making a comeback.

@blandmann said in Hourglass is Dying:

@rare-jumbie said in Hourglass is Dying:

@grumpyw01f

The streak system is absolutely silly. They need to fix so you get my upvote.

They could have a loss streak system for every x amount of losses stacked it pays out in y amount of exp for a win breaking the losing streak. This way it feeds the dopamine hit of actually feeling like you're making a comeback.

A perfectly fine idea that doesn't encourage loss farming but still rewards you for your previous efforts, even if they were a loss, when you eventually win.