If there was a Reapers Bones quest, how should it work?

I think if they add AI trade ships and quests around them. The Reapers would be the place for them. Hunt and Sink styled missions would be cool.

Love the king of the hill idea. It relies on other players being brave enough to try. Which let’s face it, most aren’t. Or may simply be too busy.
But damn, I think there’s something strong to this.

@ollieoxenfree

I posted a variation of this, where the "attacking" ship would actually perform part of a Vault or Lost Shipment and obtain the Vault Key or Captain's Key.

The Vault Key or Captain's Key can be submitted to an NPC, and a curse be performed on it.

In exchange for the key, a gem is offered to the attacker, which can be placed on the boat and will glow when another crew touches the cursed key.

The server then presents other crews with a special bottle voyage that actually leads directly to this cursed key which can be dug up on an island chosen by the server. They don't have to go through rubble in the seas, or dig up any pieces of a map; they get a key that leads directly to a functional vault with loot!

Of course, one might ask why a crew would ever take up such a voyage if they know that it always leads to a cursed key, in which an attacker knows the location of the vault.

So I offer an additional scenario where occasionally, the server presents these voyages in similar fashion where the key is not cursed and in which there is no attacker, but still leads to a functional vault.

The crew that picks up the quest never knows whether they are going to touch a cursed key or a regular key! It's just a risk that they take for a quick reward!

With server migration always being a thing, I think the voyage should be a wager between two willing Reaper ships.

Up to 100,000 gold wager against any crew who accepts. It lists the ship type on the wager, and matches based on platform.

Players post this to a bulletin next to the emissary table, and other crews can accept. Once they accept, the initial crew is notified and can choose to confirm. Once they do, a timer is set and in 20 minutes, both crews will be merged into the same server.

The voyage can then be a king of the hill style voyage (control the area, turn in the most treasure), a competitive treasure retrieval voyage (go to the same island like arena), or even a competitive fleet style voyage (winner sinks the most ships or sinks the other vessel).

I think the key is that it should always involve willing participants so that the voyage is a reliable source of PVP. Once the contest is over, I think it would be best they get merged away again as this could easily turn into a way for ships to create alliance servers.

@magicjack69

It is the PvP trading company, so a Reaper’s Bones voyage can’t be too PvE heavy.

I think you should be able to choose between a quest based on one of the three companies. It’s a high value voyage that both the reaper and the emissaries can see.

Any emissaries on the server could be notified that a mysterious cursed map has been added to their inventory once a Reaper ship votes their voyage up.

This would increase the likelihood of Reapers and Emissaries being brought together, but it would also be clear to Emissaries that chasing this voyage map could mean trouble.

Yeah similar to what you say.
It should be a PvP encouraging event for Reapers, something which encourages the whole map to swarm in.
Not PvE.

It could also be something which creates a treasure of no value to the Reapers, but baits everyone else to be their loot pinyata.

Like opening a cursed treasure vault, all the treasure has to be kept on a ship for half an hour before the curse lifts and it can be sold. During this half hour the treasure taking crew and ship is cursed (maybe become skeletons or something and the treasure is red ghost effect until the curse lifts and it reverts to green) and show on map, killing/sinking cursed players is very valuable to the Reaper mission crew, that is their activity objective.

This sort of thing encourages and rewards other players for opting into PvP. They are being offered very valuable treasure but at the cost of making themselves easily hunted.
It is paying them to opt-in to PvP gameplay. Don't get salty about taking a Reapers red chest and then being targeted.

Another quest could be to tag a level 5 emissary on ANY server, and the portal will open to take the Reapers to that server with bounty to take their now cursed flag, which they can't take down for a period.

Obviously this needs netcode updates to enable 7th ships in servers.

But it means no level 5 is safe, by going level 5 you are accepting PvP gameplay.

Not so fun for the hunted crew. But it is encouraging PvP towards experienced players who opt-in to the level 5 emissary system rather than PvP players beating up fresh spawns.

For those saying that the quest should be PvP encouraging, I agree, but many of the complains that other players have about Reaper's is that they often bring nothing of value to a fight.

PvE in this game is what gives ships their value, because successful PvE always rewards loot. And a ship with loot, is worthy of a battle.

Reapers (or any crew) should be able to do some PvE and use it as a lure for other ships. They should be able to plant loot around the map and be notified when another crew has picked up that loot.

My suggestion being able to find Vault Keys and Captain's Keys in bottle voyages does exactly that. Half of the time these voyages are found, it's because someone has submitted the key, and is waiting near the vault; the other half they are not, and the server is literally just throwing you a bone.

I think it should be something like they did with the Wandering Reaper runs. A voyage in a specific location(s) that is all PvE. Everyone will know about it and also be doing them so there will be tons of big battles on the sea and on land. If you see a Reaper flag go up you would know where they were going and could set up an ambush. Make it a time limited event with cool rewards so everyone is doing it.

The voyage doesn’t need to be PvP focused, it just needs to bring many crews to the same location, the PvP will happen all by itself organically in fun inventive ways.

https://seaofthieves.fandom.com/wiki/The_Reaper's_Run_of_Wanderers_Refuge_Voyage