Loot Needs a Complete Reset

  • Chronodusk
    Commander
    Insider

    This issue started when the Devil's Roar received it's first major nerf shortly after the initial Forsaken Shores release, it got worse with Shrouded Spoils, and has been going downhill ever since I think.

    There is too much high value loot to be gained in short periods of time these days.

    Progression seemingly becomes more and more broken with each update. When Shrouded Spoils released, forts became constantly available - players stopped fighting for them, and they became something that anyone could just farm with absolutely no danger or hardship apart from the time it takes to slash away at skeletons - Anyone can see that the Fort of the Damned is an attempt to bring back the old fort PvP.

    Standard Stronghold hauls used to be a sight to behold, now when you lay eyes on them, it's numbing because of how common it's become. The progression curves and heavy gold wallets are very telling - players can become Legends in no time with little effort. Over-pricing items for gold in Duke's Black Market helps to some extent. New cosmetics are nice, but it's really just force-draining the gold from players' wallets by releasing one new set a month - even then, rep is still broken.

    It's gotten to the point where rare loot (that isn't really rare anymore) has just become so prevalent that nobody cares about it.

    So in order to get players to engage with new events, you're having to add more value.... and add more value... and add more value... and you're going to reach a point where there's nothing of higher value you can add - and by then, all progression will be ruined.

    So what will entice players for the next big thing? Three Athena Chests? Athena's Fortune voyages are on their way to becoming obsolete now with the Fort of the Damned - and I predict Athena's will suffer the same fate as Stronghold loot. I've already seen posts where people have stacked 4 or 5 Fort of the Damned hauls at once. People will no longer care to steal these once the dust settles on the Fort of the Damned and engagement with the event calms down.

    In Summary

    Perhaps gold and rep gains across the board should be decreased, maybe it's time to rebalance the rewards for every activity in the game and re-establish the base-line for what players consider worthwhile. Something needs to happen, because the loot bubble is close to popping and there is almost no room to add value to an activity without breaking progression completely. - ultimately what will happen when people reach Legend and Athena 10 quickly and easily is that nobody will have incentive to steal or engage with anything on the Sea of Thieves.

    Disclaimer:

    I think the Fort of the Damned is a splendid addition to the game and Rare did a fantastic job - I've had a lot of fun so far. I am outlining a larger issue though that may affect the game as a whole.

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  • JetOrchidee97
    Vanguard
    Insider
    Founder

    Maybe Rare will add a new title like True Pirate Legend, with numbers and stuffs to level up, to distinguish from the fake ones.

    I'm glad you wrote the dislaimer, because I was starting to think that you weren't a true Rare fan you know?

  • Ruigtand NL
    Master
    Insider

    Aye soon they have no other option left but to grant us the private empty pirate cave with fancy slider and a super sweet animation when we gently slide some of our digital gold counter in and turn it into this awesome growing and glinting pile of pirate treasure ^^

  • Nukdar
    Marauder
    Insider

    I used to have a lot of money, not arrived at 1 million but I used to have 900k, I bought some ship parts, without expecting Rare to put this recolors and this variant items in the black market. So now I have issues to farming that much to be able to buy all that stuff. Thoose prices are unreachable unless you have loot enough to sell and recieve a nice amount of gold. If you want to reduce the loot of the seas or the rare one, you will have problems to buy everything at the black market in some future patches, cuz you will end up earning less and less.

    I think Rare is taking thoose steps accordingly to the increased prices they put in the Black market... I guess if this shop wasn't that expensive, it wouldnt need to UP those selling prices that much. But that's just my opinion... I Hope they stop too increasing the value of things in general, cuz it's just messing up the prices we used to have before all this. Need a balance of both things, selling and buying price.

    Yehaaaa!!
    Spread the curse in the seas!!

  • Chronodusk
    Commander
    Insider

    @jetorchidee97

    Ha yeah maybe

    And yeah I always appreciate what Rare do for this game, and I will be the first to say that they are certainly very caring and hardworking people.

    I do care about this game, which is why I feel like bringing attention to issues like this that could potentially be detrimental to the game's future.

  • D3ADST1CK
    Vanguard
    Insider
    Founder

    At this point I don't think there is any way of fixing it. They've added high priced items to the black market to try to bleed some bank accounts. The problem is that in order to be able to buy these high price items for the average player, they are going to need to collect a lot of gold and you can't do that on castaway and seafarer chests alone.

    I think removing the high tier loot from random spawns would be a good start but I think it should be phased out slowly so that the players get used to the new economy. Higher tier loot should be available at forts and fleets. Mid tier loot from encounters like the meg/kraken/skeleton ships. Random loot should be low tier and maybe more plentiful? Voyages should award based on the voyage level, obviously.

    Pricing for black market items would need to be tweaked way down after that, or the items would need to be available for longer. Right now they are priced to drain surplus gold but the average joe isn't going to be collecting 500K+ per month.

  • Chronodusk
    Commander
    Insider

    @d3adst1ck

    Yeah I appreciate the Black Market being a vehicle to bring more cosmetic options into the game, I'm very pleased with that addition - what I'm not pleased with is the choice to drop few pieces at a time at unnecessary price points just for the sake of saying we have a place to funnel all of the gold we have...

    You're right, they would need to phase it out. I'd really like to see the metric for players who actually bother with regular voyages after reputation level 25... I'm sure it's very few. It's not a good thing to have things in the game taking up space that nobody bothers with.

    Soon enough, 50% of this game's Athena 10s will get there before even reaching Pirate Legend. Rare is contriving this problem all on their own.

    Most people will probably not agree with me because attention spans are getting shorter and shorter and people like to burn through the game's progression as quickly as possible.

  • NeedSmokes
    Commander

    I think the current cost of new cosmetics being added will help those with lots of gold use some of it up, and be a challenge for newer or less frequent players to be able to afford everything.

    I do however agree with the OP that big chunks of gold can be found easily everywhere.
    The days where you would treasure the odd item above 2,000 gold in value/xp has long gone. I can gain more gold sailing between islands with a harpoon alone than a fort would've ever gave me during the start of this game.
    I hate the level cap of 50. Wish it would be infinite.

  • BlazeDrake100
    Marauder

    @chronodusk
    Yeah, I literally got 3 villainous skulls from a meg today. They definitely either need to tone down the loot or buff the challenge for a lot of things. I think the problem started last Christmas with gilded voyages, which became reapers runs, and made loot meaningless.

  • Cpt SockMonster
    Champion
    Insider

    Im just suprised that not many other people talk about this issue.

    Cosmetics is supposed to be a goal to be reached, but with all these new ways to get thousands of gold easy now, and people having millions of gold in their pockets, it doesnt realy feel like a goal to work for anymore.

    Rare needs to come up with ways besides cosmetics only to spend our gold.
    Like gambling games, trading gold overal, or even being able to use our own gold to put a bounty of someone's head (Just some idea's).

    I would even go as far as putting a limit to the amount of gold you can have to atleast 2 million or something, because we do not need 10-20 million gold.

  • Chronodusk
    Commander
    Insider

    @cpt-sockmonster

    Gold isn't even the larger issue - reputation is. You can farm your way to legend with ease now. Now that there's another way to farm Athenas with this new fort, Athena progression pacing will be ruined as well.

    It does decrease the relative value of these achievements across the board for people who worked harder to earn them - even if you don't agree with that, by allowing players to burn through all of the game's progression so rapidly, Rare will achieve nothing more than just making it harder for themselves to incentivise player engagement with newer features and events.

  • Peteloaf777
    Champion
    Insider
    Founder

    Raise level caps from 50 to 100? 200? That’d give more of a meaning to loot again. Rep as well as gold like in the good old days.

  • Cpt SockMonster
    Champion
    Insider

    @chronodusk said in Loot Needs a Complete Reset:

    @cpt-sockmonster

    Gold isn't even the larger issue - reputation is. You can farm your way to legend with ease now.

    I understand that it is an issue to, but gold is the bigger issue. In the end Pirate legend doesnt realy mean much besides you've played the game for a while.

    Gold, loot & cosmetics are the biggest driving force in this game. but if you don't need to grind gold again, then what is the point going out there in the world grinding quests, or stealing someones loot to get the cosmetics you want?
    It kinda defeats the purpose in this pirate game.

    People are even complaining about not being able to spend their dabloons to now.

  • Chronodusk
    Commander
    Insider

    @cpt-sockmonster

    The point is that there needs to be some driving force behind why a player wants to acquire loot. Usually it’s the rep progression that does that.

    Without a need for rep, because they were allowed to grind to legend so quickly - are people really going to be enticed by loot any more? I do not think they will be nearly as much.

  • Cpt SockMonster
    Champion
    Insider

    @chronodusk said in Loot Needs a Complete Reset:

    @cpt-sockmonster

    The point is that there needs to be some driving force behind why a player wants to acquire loot. Usually it’s the rep progression that does that.

    Without a need for rep, because they were allowed to grind to legend so quickly - are people really going to be enticed by loot any more? I do not think they will be nearly as much.

    The driving force is supposed to be cosmetics, thats why we grind for the gold (or atleast used to).

    It's kinda like World Of Warcraft, were you can buy the level token en get max level almost in an instant.
    People have so much gold & dabloons now that there's no point going out there grinding, if they can just get all the stuff they want immediatly (same can be said about getting the legend status easiér now).
    Earning & spending gold is supposed to be a cycle to balance each other out, and so people keep having something to do.

    Pirate Legend is simply a side progression system that doesnt require gold, in the end the title doesnt mean as much as we want it to be.

    This game has no end, so trying to increase the rep aint going to do anything, Rare needs to fix their gold system & introduce more ways to spend our gold so we will always have something to go out there for.

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