Why are FOTD so rare?

Because of its very high loot payout as well it’s high risk.
Nobody wants to do the risk and build up.

@needsmokes said in Why are FOTD so rare?:

I've done it twice.. Too much like hard work for gold I don't really need. Would rather just attempt to steal the loot from someone else if I ever see it active. Same with forts.

THIS is why they are rare. Everyone has this attitude these days. Including me.

I think it’s simply too much work to get it going which I don’t think very many people are willing to do.

I think it should have all the lights pre-lit and only require the ritual skull to start it.

@needsmokes said in Why are FOTD so rare?:

I've done it twice.. Too much like hard work for gold I don't really need. Would rather just attempt to steal the loot from someone else if I ever see it active. Same with forts.

I mean with a galleon crew 3 on island 1 on boat you can finish it in 15 minutes. Shortest time iv ever done it was 12 minutes. The average crew not dealing with enemy ships can average finishing in at least 25 - 30 mins.

@n3farious3202 said in Why are FOTD so rare?:

I think it’s simply too much work to get it going which I don’t think very many people are willing to do.

I think it should have all the lights pre-lit and only require the ritual skull to start it.

Every new server starts with all the lights lit, requiring only a ritual skull so that is already in the game to an extent.

@needsmokes said in Why are FOTD so rare?:

@bigtorvol

It was novel once, twice was a grind... Much more entertaining taking someone else's. And I would say my FOTD heists probably have about a 95% success rate. And takes very little time and effort. The skull is in the sky to make us all aware that someone is doing lots of work on our behalf. Go take what's yours.

Id agree with you. Its much more satisfying to steal it. I did the fort 50 times in the first week it was released. Wanted to be one of the first to get that raider of the damned, and that was painful to say the least.

I have found them to be more scarce now that the novelty has worn out but I wouldn't say they are rare per se. I reckon if you go looking for them on Fort Night Fridays now and gold rush hours your likely to find a good handful.

But like all things in games when the novelty wares off and others things come out, some things dip in activity. But they are still pretty common. At least on my regions servers.

@jumli7 Ritual skulls are one of the only pieces of loot in the game you can actively seek out and know 100% your going to get a drop. I would argue that you could get all the lights (most of them at least) and the skull (without digging it in a voyage from duke) in 20 - 30 mins no issue. And that would give you a few skulls to repeat the fort if desired.

@needsmokes

Yea alliances seem to be the common fort runs. A lot of discord servers set them up and im kind of ok with it. Thing with alliances especially big ones is they dissolve real quick and after a few runs things get nasty. Everyone likes having 4 boats together until someone hurts someone elses feelings lol you know what I mean.

Done my 50 don't need to do it any more

The FOTD is very difficult to activate, since you need to collect every color Flame of Fate, as well as Ritual Skulls. You'll mainly see mega-alliances doing it because more players means you can complete the tasks of gathering flame colors and ritual skulls easier.

Plus, people have likely already done the mega-tryhard thing and ground out the fort until they had all the commendations.

Every server is a "FOTD Server".

If you want to do FOTD, go for it. Get yourself the pretty lights, find a ritual skull, and activate it yourself.

If you are just server hopping, hoping to find that another crew has activated the fort for you, then clearly you are part of the problem!

@shadyjayp Unfortunately, we cannot change whether people want to activate it. We just have to accept that 90% of the community are [Mod Edit - Filter evasion and name-calling] and will avoid any chance of getting into PvP since everybody knows that the second the FOTD skulls appears in the sky, the whole server rumbles towards it.

The Fort of the Damned is a lot of work and takes a significant chunk of time. Chances are more than likely that after all that time and effort, a better crew will come along and steal it all. It's just the way the whole thing is set up. The crew that starts and slogs through the FotD bears all the risk. Waiting for such a crew to finish before attacking them and hopefully stealing the loot bears very little risk. There are plenty of players that server hop looking for an active FotD to steal. It's hard to justify the effort knowing it's very likely you'll lose it all in the end.

I did it once. took an hour and a half, only to have some people run in once we finally beat it and open the door just to steal everything and kill us along the way.

why bother when people are just gonna be like that and make you do all the work so they can get all the reward?

@shadyjayp said in Why are FOTD so rare?:

I feel FOTD is getting rarer and rarer sight nowadays. Haven't been on a FOTD server for weeks now, despite playing almost every day and switching servers quite actively if the server seems too quiet. Stacked a few forts myself and no one even came to challenge.

Why are people not going for the best loot in the game? What could be done to encourage people to do more FOTD?
My two cents: make the ritual skull cheaper and maybe buff the rep from the FOTD loot just a little compared to same loot elsewhere. Would that break the balance?

no one wants to do them because of pace and the army of tuccers

@callmebackdraft said in Why are FOTD so rare?:

@shadyjayp
1 - Because more and more people are flushed with cash
2 - Because there are loads of events now, every event takes time to do (especially the bigger ones that have worthwile payout (eg blighted bonus)
3 - i can get more money doing other stuff then doing that in the same amount of time that takes with less risk of getting attacked (which i dont mind but alot do)

The only way to make FOTD worth it is doing it at grade V reaper where every piece of loot has a 2.5x multiplier.

And as i warned about before the emmisary system while cool and all has further destroyed the economy, i make millions per week whilst only playing max 2 times per week.

Can't upvote this enough.

It's hard to find reason to go through all the work when you have tons of excess gold and all the commendations already.

Only thing that's special about FOTD is athena, but that faction is so nerfed atm that turning in one chest doesn't level you up at all. It's only worth if you steal it (unless you are 'Legendary thief' already, then it's worth nothing again)...

Economy really requires rework and rebalancing to make things like FOTD great again.

@closinghare208 But is there really an army of tuccers? I mean I do forts myself and I also tucc everytime the fort is up. However, I've done the fotd many times and stacked them and never a single tuccer, rarely even anyone challenging. When tuccing only twice have I encountered competing tuccers.
Are there really that many tuccers or is it more a myth and pirates assume someone will tucc and steal the fort? I know own experience isn't really an empirical evidence, but I doubt tuccers are that big of an issue that people tend to think.

@shadyjayp You are one of them so you are part of the problem

@closinghare208 It is not a problem, it is part of the game just as doing voyages or forts. Just a different play style, easily countered by being alert and checking your surrounding. You have to accept different playstyles and ways in a PvPvE game. FOTD is suppose to be a PVP encounter and challenged, my question is why are people so afraid of losing loot and not even starting it..