Lets be honest "Reapers faction" is not PvP, it is PvE

@odyssee-mit-tee I think these changes are great, I am seeing it to where people only do the reapers for PVE and not PVP, I hope they take your feedback into consideration

You think, they see my Reaper ship on the map...that I wont use a rowboat to get closer? with a Keg+ Got to think smarter and outplay.

Heck, as a Reaper, left my ship at the hideout and row over to two ships at Snake Island and Chicken, sunk them with there own Kegs and rowboat back with Flags.

@diabeuzpiekla said in Lets be honest "Reapers faction" is not PvP, it is PvE:

Imo they should remove the stupid GPS. Both from grade 5 reapers and other emisarries, that would do it.

The REAL way to play as a "reaper" for now is pulling up Non-Reaper emissary flag, painting your ship as Non-Reaper faction and go hunting for flags in disguise.

Yeah GPS needs to go. Or at least turn the whole idea around so that reapers start to show up on the map only at level 4-5 (when they have terrorized the seas long enough).

Although since the beginning I've been against the entire faction, it's not needed to balance emissaries. When I see high level emissary ship I pretty much always go after them, no matter what faction I'm running or if anything.

As for the topic title that's exactly how I play reaper.. I always pick that faction when I do forts and only to get that faction leveled up fast. And when I look for PvP I do that without reapers flag.

Reapers are not purely PvP, no. Rather, they are emissary hunters. The high value of emissary flags, and the reaper grade 5 bonus (can see all emissaries on the map) make that abundantly clear.

With the emissary update, Rare added the following mechanics;

• Each emissary grade directly boosts item selling value, for the respective company.
• Each item picked up and placed on the ship increases emissary progress toward the next grade.
• At grade 5 (max), you can pick up a special voyage from the respective company. Reapers can't, but they can see every emissary on the map instead.

This has created a new gameplay loop for the main trading companies (OoS/GH/MA/AF);

1. Join emissary.
2. Complete (special) voyages to collect (and hoard) as much faction loot as you can, until you're grade 5. You can sell before that point, but you'll get significantly more profit if you wait for grade 5.
3. Pick up the special voyage and sell everything.
4. Leave the emissary.
5. Loop back to step 1.

The thing is, if you're not taking advantage of random events and PvP, step 2 can take hours to complete. And that's what the reapers gameplay loop is based on;

1. Join emissary.
2. Seek out and pirate a grade 3+ emissary. The higher they are, the more loot they will likely have on board. Repeat until grade 5.
3. Sell everything. Use the grade 5 buff to find and pirate other grade 3+ emissaries, or do PvE stuff while waiting. Keep looping this step.

That said, ships that take on the fight are an allround win for you; they're quickly over with, and either you lose and learn from the mistakes, or you win, get their loot, and potentially still made mistakes to learn from.
Ships that flee are not confident in their combat ability, which makes them even more worth chasing around; once you catch them, the fight for their loot is going to be easy. As long as you're taking advantage of the wind and cutting them off as much as possible, you're going to gain on them with every little turn they make. Any ship can be caught up to by any ship, because they each only excell in one wind direction (sloop straight against wind, brig with crosswind, galleon straight into wind).