The nerf to lowering a flag didn't go far enough

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe you can keep getting the Rank 5 quest as long as you have the rank 5 flag up.

Although I highly enjoy the gold and rep bump from turning in flags, I DO agree its unnecessary. I too think it would be better to get a higher multiplier for loot instead.

And Every emissary trading company should give you the multiplier on gems.

@captain-arcanic said in The nerf to lowering a flag didn't go far enough:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe you can keep getting the Rank 5 quest as long as you have the rank 5 flag up.

For GH, OoS, and Merchant's at least - hitting rank V will get you a quest which you claim from the emissary representative. I've never seen the ability to claim a second one, you have to drop the flag and work your way back up to rank V again. It's actually easiest to 'chain' them. Merchants for example, drop the rank V flag, raise a new one, do the 25 crate supply run which will get you to rank 4.5 - one more supply run and you are rank V again, rinse and repeat.

@schwammlgott said in The nerf to lowering a flag didn't go far enough:

Merchants are the only one I think it's not worthit to lower the flag to get up again...in all other factions you can collect stuff until you're V, and then sell
In merchant you have to sell the stuff to get up, means you get less xp for the same stuff

I don't want to completely go off topic here - but for merchant's at least I think the Rank V quest is just the 'best' from a money perspective. It's just a giant 25 crate cargo run and takes very little time. If you do it under a rank V flag you net something like 60k, I think it's around 40k total if you do it starting at rank 1 with the 5k drop bonus. I doubt there is better solo money in the game right now then just chaining the 25 crate runs with a small cargo in-between to continually hit rank V and repeat it.

The other benefit of that loop is that you are essentially never on the map. You quickly hit rank V while at port and are mostly sailing under a rank 1 flag where you look like you have nothing.

@galactic-geek said in The nerf to lowering a flag didn't go far enough:

Why should I keep the flag up to do the bonus emmisary voyage? What if I'm willing to make less gold with less risk? Options, yo!

It's like having your cake and eating it too. The entire point of flying the emissary flag is about risk/reward - your free to just go do Loot Hoarder quests without flying the flag after all. Why should you get to go on this awesome voyage risk free?

@captgraykid Yeah there is a huge disparity with how the factions work. You described perhaps the worse, I think Gold Hoarders is up there as well. Island after island, riddles and trying to find chests... Compare that to Merchant's where you literally just walk up to an NPC and pick up and complete ~ 4 cargo runs and are rank V - it takes like 30 mins.

With that said, my comment stands, that I think it should be work to get to rank V. More importantly though, it should feel worth keeping - to your point though, some factions might need to be tuned down and not up.

@captgraykid Don't do standard athena voyages. Do thieves haven runs.

Nerf it more and they'll get used even less, and you'll have even less flags to steal.

@cptnpotbeard said in The nerf to lowering a flag didn't go far enough:

@captgraykid Don't do standard athena voyages. Do thieves haven runs.

This is a problem. Standard and Devils Roar Athena Voyages should be worth their time. i.e. more legendary loot, bigger payoff at the end. Something closer to FotD value.

@captain-arcanic Not really because if you think about the cost of the voyage the Thieve's Haven voyages cost a significant amount more gold to purchase then Normal or even Devils Roar Athena's. At 50 Dubloons per voyage that is 10,000 gold to buy that voyage. An Athena costs 250 gold. Therefore, Thieves Haven should be more valuable.

@pithyrumble said in The nerf to lowering a flag didn't go far enough:

Nerf it more and they'll get used even less, and you'll have even less flags to steal.

That's not what I'm proposing though, I think the flag should matter. At the end of the day people will figure out the optimal plays, right now what makes the most sense is lowering the flag because another chance to get a rank V voyage paired with the reward for lowering the flag is worth more then keeping it up.

What happens if there was no reward for lowering but you got 10x more for completing voyages? Now all of a sudden you are going to see people taking the risk and sailing with the rank V flag up because the risk is worth it.

Another example, lets say I'm rank V and just turned in some chests to Gold Hoarders and see a ship on the horizon coming at me. Right now my crew basically always has one simple correct answer to this scenario - drop the flag, get some gold and rep and then either run or fight at zero risk. I'm proposing that the rank V flag is the reward because it's so valuable to you and you don't want to lose it. In this same scenario with my proposal, you wouldn't lower the flag, because that doesn't gain you anything. Rather, you now run or fight with the flag up since that is the thing which is valuable.

If the rewards for flying the rank V flag are great enough, there should be no additional reward needed for lowering it. I say, nerf lowering a flag into the ground and give nothing for that, and give everything for keeping it up!

The choice to be an emissary should be met with grand rewards and compelling risk.

@dubba-dubs Why get rid of contents it fines your really want sea of thieves to been a boring endless grind again this has made it fun your get reward for playing longer

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