Alliances need shaking up

I had a thought re: alliances and maybe putting a stop to server farms.

What if you needed to be within a certain radius of the other ships when they hand in to get your alliance cut?

So you'd get more alliances rolling together and possibly have more fleet versus fleet battles. I also think alliances should be a max of 3 ships (so long as its still 6 ships per server) again to encourage fleet versus fleet conflict.

I tend not to ally up, generally because there's nothing that you really need to be in an alliance for. If there were threats that required an alliance to answer them, like a hostile fleet of players or a difficult boss/skalleon fleet then I think we might see more interesting things happen with alliances, currently, as you point out, you just put up a flag and go do your own thing, which is kinda boring.

@viperishemu2992 said in Alliances need shaking up:

Way back in the beginning of SoT time they used to have events that required crews to work together. Hungering Deep and Skeleton Thrones.

Rare have based a few "monthly events" around their "Reaper Flag" concept. But the whole Alliance system seems to have been neglected since it was introduced.

Perhaps Rare should utilise the "Alliance Mechanic" in one of their upcoming events? Hungering Deep was great fun!

I know the hungering deep was amazing. I'm not keen on the idea of forcing crews to alliance up like they did during the hungering deep to do a specific voyage but make voyages that are so difficult you almost have no choice but to alliance up

I'd just like them to introduce something that makes alliances work together but have that chance that the other crew could turn on you and you get nothing

@themasterplan84 said in Alliances need shaking up:

I know the hungering deep was amazing. I'm not keen on the idea of forcing crews to alliance up like they did during the hungering deep to do a specific voyage but make voyages that are so difficult you almost have no choice but to alliance up

Assuming your crew wants to do such a hard voyage and given that there are 5 other crews on the same server at best, what do you think are the odds about a month after release of finding another crew within reasonable time that is willing to participate?

@themasterplan84

I always thought the alliance system needed more work. Like you said, forming an alliance should be about working together closely to do something larger... like actually working together

but right now it’s just a tool for the farmers to get more rewards for “working together” even though they really aren’t even working together - especially considering they’re probably all the way across the map from each other.

Players get higher rewards for putting up a flag and then continuing about their isolationist sailing... It doesn’t make a lot of sense.

@crimsonraziel said in Alliances need shaking up:

@themasterplan84 said in Alliances need shaking up:

I know the hungering deep was amazing. I'm not keen on the idea of forcing crews to alliance up like they did during the hungering deep to do a specific voyage but make voyages that are so difficult you almost have no choice but to alliance up

Assuming your crew wants to do such a hard voyage and given that there are 5 other crews on the same server at best, what do you think are the odds about a month after release of finding another crew within reasonable time that is willing to participate?

I mean my initial thought was to just have standard voyages that are more difficult (more skellies, tougher captains etc) with a very high reward along with commendations to encourage people to replay them but your probably right people would get bored.

Maybe the voyage could be a proper treasure hunt type voyage (varying each time) having you solve riddles, digging up clues, battling multiple skelly ships, taking on captains/pirate lords etc. The loot at the end of the voyage would need to be substantial though to reflect the difficulty and encourage people repeat them. I was thinking like 500k substantial

If say a single crew attempted it it would be near on impossible. 2 crews attempted it it would be super difficult but doable if they had a long time to attempt it and so on. If you managed to get a full server alliance it would be doable (not easy but doable) but the loot would then need to be split between more crews.

I play the game since 1 year now... but aliance doesn't work, the last weels I was solo slooping, I thought maybe I can get some faster exp and money so, I was trying slowly to near some other sloops for an aliance(a year ago it works fine) they were swimming away or attaking, one were screaming like someone, who get
r***d, because he thought I want to steal his stuff, I called him a C word and tried another server. I tried with a white flag and with the aliance flag, with the gaypride flag. If the aliance doesn't work throw it out!

What about if they introduced alliance voyages that can only be placed when you're in an alliance, these provide voyages to all crews, which provide each crew with a medallion or totem, which when used together open a vault for a boss battle.

Each crew would need to complete their own part of the voyage to get the totem, but once all the medallions/totems were in play there would be scope for betrayal and double crossing to keep alliances uneasy.

If it were a monthly with commendations and the number of totems was kept to two, you might end up with servers with 3 alliances of 2 ships apiece competing with each other to complete the voyages/steal other peoples' voyages.

@boxcar-squidy I like the idea! Sounds realistic and makeable!

@boxcar-squidy I like the idea I'm just not a fan of commendations/voyages that require people to be in an alliance to actually do them. Don't think I've done a single one of the commendations that required an alliance because I just couldn't be bothered with them

@Boxcar-Squidy Great idea mate. Alliance voyages. Love it.

I would agree with @ViperishEmu2992 that rare introduced them, and at that time we had skelly fleets, which were much tougher to finish off than they are today. They have been nerfed so much that alliances are no longer needed. But even before alliances you had hungering deep and the skelly thrones. Seems as though Rare listened to the complaining voices of people that rallied against the forced cooperation events and have abandoned them in favor of events that force combat. It is really sad to see, as some of the best times I have had in SoT were during those forced cooperative events. You never knew who truly wanted to work together, and who was doing it to get closer to your gunpowder barrels. LOL.

There was an uneasy feel to it. And the flag, when introduced, only seemed to make it that much worse. Which was exciting. The latest bilge rat voyages have become nothing more than re-skinned events. Maybe it is time for Rare to go back to those forced cooperative events. Even if they only did them ever third or fourth bilge rat adventure. It would shake things up and bring back some of that excited fear the game had.

Edit: After all, Rare keeps saying they are trying to influence many different types of scenarios to encourage different player behavior. Put away the reaper flag for a change of pace and force the alliance flag again.

@nofears-fun yeah, I enjoyed the Meg and the Skellie fleets at first. They don't need alliances now though.

Those cooperative events were fun and they changed up the gameplay a bit.

They weren't without problems though, particularly the difficulty in getting people to do them after they'd been out for a day or two.

@nofears-fun

I'm more partial to PvP, theft, and piracy myself. But I always say that what makes this game special is the variety of player types and interactions you can have. The forced cooperation is not necessarily a good thing. Giving players the means to use cooperation and theft equally to complete the task efficiently is the key here.

@chronodusk I don't mind PvP, not at all. My only point was, truthfully, some of the most memorable times in game were during those forced cooperation times. Though, when reaper chest first came out, the first two days were certainly exciting and fun and memorable. But they only lasted 2-3 days, then no one wanted the reaper chest. But the forced coop events seemed to last a bit longer. Especially the skelly fleets.

Remember, one of the fun parts of forced coop is betrayal. Not that I have ever betrayed anyone I was working with, at least not without cause to do so, but trying to figure out, are they really trust worthy. And usually you can tell when they are not. And that makes it fun, thinking you know, but not really sure. And when they do betray, trying to either get revenge, or not letting them succeed makes it fun.

@glannigan that they don't make everyone green and friendly fire are probably the only things I like about alliances

I really like the idea of alliance voyages @Boxcar-Squidy and @NoFears-Fun. Like mentioned time to stop all the reaper voyages that are just cloned copies of everything over and over for the last year.

Thought this game was supposed to open to all kinds of voyages. It has been said many times that the Sea of Thieves is supposed to be a PvE open world with possibilities for PvP depending on player interactions. All Rare has done for all this year so far is update the game with reskinned, recolored, renamed, retextured content that pushes everyone towards PvP game play.

I do not mind PvP game play at all, but Rare needs to stop forcing it and giving preference towards it. Joe Neate keeps saying they want to see what behaviors the content inspires. We know what it inspires. A few days of players logging on for more of a chance for PvP around the time an update drops. Some players hurry to complete commendations for the same things over and over. Then most everyone is bored and the sea quiets down and even feels empty until the few days around the next update.

Rare needs to start updating the Sea of Thieves with truly new, creative game play that inspires all types of game play. Content that grows and expand the game past the same repeating cycle of completing voyages to level to Pirate Legend with no where else to sail to but the same things over and over.

@themasterplan84

I made a topic about three months back with a suggestion about alliances that was met with one response that read like the person didn’t read what I wrote and I left it go as to not even get into feeding a troll. So here’s the idea.

As of now the tavern is used primarily for role play, starting the shroud breaker, entering the legends cave and filling your tankard.

I propose a new mechanic for the tavern. At the tables players can place down an alliance proposal similar to a voyage. For the alliance to form half of the other crew and half of the crew that shared the alliance must vote on it.

1 vote from a sloop, 2 from a brigantine, 2 from a galleon. The ships that choose to be in the alliance must be in close proximity to the outpost. Once enough votes are cast from all crews present the crew that put out the alliance accepts it or declines it.

While I like the alliance flags and how it works now. I picture crews gathering in the tavern to form this alliance. Needing half the crew to do it leads to a watchmen staying behind on the ship. Creating an uneasy tension of trust.

Not saying remove the alliance flags. I’m proposing a new way to form them.

To force a ship and crew from this formed alliance a player from another crew must climb to the flag box on another ship in the alliance and cut the flag down. This action takes some time and alerts the crew who’s flag is being cut.

The crew can also opt out by voting on the captains table as the alliance will place a manifesto of the other crews and the players names currently in the crews. This manifesto can be checked to verify any saboteurs who are trying to sneak aboard.

Once you leave this alliance you can not rejoin

This type of alliance would be a separate type of alliance from the ones now.

@themasterplan84

If all that were to happen then it wouldn’t he fair to the crews who work hard for those rewards from voyages. You lose nothing in an alliance where someone wants to mooch off you for XP and gold (I’m someone who loves doing mass cash-ins and I often have to explain that to people right away when they wanna make an alliance with me).

Alliances are for people who wish to team up, without being in the same crew. I’ve gone to the rescue for crews in an alliance, and I’ve been rescued by other crews in my alliance.

Alliances can also help you make friends. (In B4 “this isnt Sea of Friends). By making friends you have the opportunity to say, go from being a solo sloop to a fully manned galleon crew.

Alliances also have risk. People know where you are. People in your alliance who are boarded, make you at risk cuz the enemy pirates can look at the map to see where you are. You can be seen on the map by ships in your alliance and they could be plotting to stab your back like the pirates they are.

There’s risk with alliances. There’s much to gain as well. All is fair within the sea of thieves.