Reaper Bones on map

Honestly, I could live with this. Keep the same thing now where we can see the current grade of the reaper bones flag but only emissary ships could see them. Any emissary could see the reaper bones ship on the map, regardless of its current grade.

@schwammlgott This is one of the greatest suggestions I have seen on this forum in over a year! Devs, you need to seriously consider this to breathe some life back into Reaper's!

I disagree.

In a game where it's ok to sneak up and kill people and take loot. It's been defended by mods that sailing into the red is approved and is an acceptable strategy etc. It is also acceptable to allow crews to hunt reapers. That's the point of the reaper flag.

In the same way everyone defends SOT and the way it's designed to be a pvpve game..the reaper is specifically designed to be a risk/reward scenario. Hard mode if you will.

So if an emmisary sees you, decides to take their flag down and spend the rest of the game sinking you till you leave the server then that is their right.

I personally do this and will continue to. Putting up the reaper flag says "your my prey and I'm coming for you" so I will watch you, wait till you hit 5, drop my flag and come bring my nuke as a present.

I'm 75 in everything but reapers so I'll be in the same boat as you soon. But that doesnt change my opinion. Reapers is pvp hard mode and I expect grinding this to be difficult and frustrating. That's why it's so rewarding when you succeed.

Players get hunted all the time with no benefit to them. They get sunk, their loot stolen and they say "there is nothing in it for me I'm just prey" I see no reason why the prey shouldnt have an outlet to defend themselves.

In this game pirates load in all the time with nothing on their boat, nothing to lose and chase down ships. I'm sure the ships getting hunted would love if their attacker would bring them loot too but theres no way to force that 🤪

However! I do see your point that a reaper on the map and constantly getting hunted with no flag halts progression! Therefore I have a few counter suggestions!

1. Reapers flags can be turned in at any emmisary. However the multiplier is only beneficial if your rank 4 or 5 in the opposing faction. This will cause less ships to drop flag and server hop and there would be an increase to rank 4 or 5 flags coming after YOU. If gold hoarder, merchant, and order of souls get a huge boost by turning the reaper flag in they will see it as an opportunity when the reaper shows up instead of a hindrance and the reaper will have more opportunities to get rank 4 or 5 flags

2. minor rep and gold gains for battling in general for reapers. Cannon shots, kills and sinking in general all count for rep and gold towards reapers. Therefore if a non Emmy does come after you, kick their butt..sink them and your still getting some credit.

3. Switch the flag system to a system similar to the arena or the skelle fleet. When a ship sinks your would have an alert pop up just like when your emmisary ship sinks that says "you sunk a rank X ship!" And you receive rep and gold accordingly, this of course could have a non Emmy added for less rep but would still make it beneficial to fight and sink them.

4. Add less emphasis on flag hunting and go back to the good old fashioned loot stealing. Loot and stolen loot count more. But the Emmy's cant see reapers on the map EVER. Reapers cant see Emmy's at 5 either tho! Basically put the game back the way it was before everyone started server hopping and dropping flags. Clearly regular loot would be a grind but any stolen loot in general gives a good chunk

Thoughts?

Also these are SEPERATE suggestions lol read them as separate ideas not as one big one lol

@schwammlgott I do not think this is necessary.
Reapers are kind of an organic player villain in the sea and being trackable by everyone makes it very cool thematically, but more importantly, as a game mechanic, you give out your position to everyone in exchange 2 things:

1. All emissaries position.
2. You can sell EVERYTHING (almost actually) to the reapers, this means that your x2.5 (on grade 5) counts for every type of loot, which is a very big boost imo. All other emissaries are forced to farm just 1 thing to use the multiplier efficiently, repaers can do whatever they want!

Which is pretty balanced in my opinion

I think both thematically and as a game mechanic, being visible by all players is ok, specially for a faction that wants to be PvP-oriented. I think that attacking a ship/being attacked by it that has no loot is part of the game, I think that when playing a faction that already helps you to track down ship that have a higher chance to carry a decent loot, asking for the attackers to also have a gold reward is just too much. This would not only lower the risk for a Reaper Emissary (specially if grade 5) but also rewards you for free for just defending yourself. I think this is just asking for too much.

I don't think this is a problem related to the Reaper faction, it just happens that players attack you with starting resources adn just make you waste stuff to sink them without any risks (yes, technically reapers suffer this more often since everyone knows their position). Adding a mechanic that spawns barrels after a ship sink with all the resources inside would both benefit to these kind of encounters and reduce spawnkilling cases (which I think we all agree doesn't make the "victim" enjoy his time).

@mbserious

That's fine not all suggestions are good ones that's why I scattershot and gave 4 different ones. Lol

There seems to be a big problem with reapers now as most servers by the time reaper hits rank 5 already had all the emmys on the server put their flag down and leave. Those that dont leave will still attack flag down. And those who dont attack will run to the red sea. I see constant reapers posts asking for freebies (not this post) spawning loot near their boat instead of in the red. Asking for ways to stop emmys from taking their flag down etc. I loathe the idea of running reapers because I know the second I put it up everyones leaving or hunting me flag down.

100% something needs to change as most high level reapers got it from grinding forts not pvp and those left are expected to turn in flags when a majority of the player base takes that option away from you the second they see you. Reapers literally cause servers to empty out and that makes it impossible to level when no one will put their flag up if they see you, especially at rank 5.

The idea of making yourself invisible to non emmys makes sense...but a non emmy can put a flag up...see you..put it back down and charge so unless there is a debuff or something for flag flipping that will not do anything.

My suggestions are also up for being tweaked. Only so many cannon shots before you cant get credit from that ship anymore and let's say..10 to 20 cannon shots and then the rep stops until the ship sinks..as an example. Reapers shouldnt be a cannon farming, fort spamming rep but they def need some love because if the expectation Is reliant on flags that are entirely in the hands of the pve crowd that will quit or run at the sheer mention of a reaper then I'll pass on that rep and do the merchant commendations again lol yep, searching barrels for wood crate missions sounds more appealing then sailing an empty server because I put my reaper flag up 🤣 ohh or maybe I'll start fishing again that seems more productive too 😋

I really like this suggestion, but I can see others points as to why they might not like it. Perhaps another suggestion would be that with the reapers emissary flag up, if you sink an enemy ship, you get rep for it. Something along the lines of sinking a skelly ship, taking out meg or karen, or even completing a mission. All of which you get instant credit towards rep towards your emissary level.

But in this case, instead of rep towards the flag level, it is rep towards Reapers levels themselves, along with a small amount of gold. Turning away and defeating someone that hunts you down should have some sort of reward, and while I do like the reward of simply destroying anyone that wants to come at us, I don't think an in game reward is a terrible idea.

But I also like the original idea of only other emissary's can see a reaper emissary.

@mbserious

I was talking to a friend the other day too and they made a good point.

When steam comes out there will be a boost in players. This is good for reaper hunting.

But months down the line...a vast majority of the player base will have completed the emmisary stuff and maxed out level and the amount of emmys on the game will drop drastically and everything will go back to how it was. Those who do put it up wont NEED it and will put it down if they see a reaper. What will reapers do when there are no flags to be had? It's a very likely possibility we will be seeing posts from reapers who cant find flags on empty servers down the road. The meta now is already to run. Quit, scuttle, red sea etc how will reapers level when no one is even bothering to put the flag up?

@mbserious

I believe they (rare) didn't intend it to be 100% pvp focused, but with the possibility to see other ships when they get 5, and seek those fights. This would work better if noone could spot them on the map before they got grade 5.

I just thought of something and want to change gears here, but why not allow everyone on the map still be able to see the Reapers ship from levels 1-4, but once you hit level V Reapers.. they should go DARK and no one can see them! If Reapers alliance is ‘suppose’ to be a PVP alliance then make it so. Make it rewarding for them where they go Invisible but they’re still able to see other emiss’s on the map. But they (other ships) can’t see them at V.

EDIT: Also, to the guys point about “no flag no Reapers for you”. I think I agree with that. This would stop Server hoppers and if you’re playing the game the way it’s intended, then if you don’t put a flag up then you’re basically saying to the server I’m not trying to play “The alliance game”. Just minding my own business. Whether that TT’s or just normal looting.