It’s time to bring the Sea Dogs into Adventure mode! My proposal brings elements of Arena 1.0 while giving PvP lovers an appropriate home.
- This new faction would have its own Emissary, Voyage, and unique Emissary Quests.
- Loot would be handed in at The Glorious Sea Dog tavern. Exact NPC location would change as the voyages change. Lesedi is busy!
- Sea Dog emissaries would appear on the map to all players similar to how the Reaper emissary works.
- Sea Dog Emissary can be lowered at outpost as well as at The Glorious Sea Dog tavern, but it can only be raised at outposts. This is to prevent crews from going to the highly centralized Glorious Sea Dog tavern and waiting for crews to come into view before raising their emissary.
- Sea Dog Emissaries cannot see Reapers on the map. Sure, you could get a last known location before you decide to represent the Sea Dogs, but that’s it.
- Sea Dog Emissaries cannot alliance with any crew under any circumstance.
- Other crews on the server would benefit by being on the server with a Sea Dog.
- All players on the server would have a small ticker warning them how many Sea Dog crews are on the server. It would appear right above your health bar and just give you a quick visual so you're not having to worry about checking your map constantly in the middle of a voyage.
As you read through this concept, you may think that this encourages a sink-on-sight playstyle. I would strongly disagree. Those players with the sink-on-sight mentality are already here and are not going away. This would simply give them a home, and moreover, a home that would flag them on the map so you know who to avoid. It would also encourage elements of PvE in an otherwise PvP heavy playstyle.
Loot:
The only loot items that receive an emissary bonus for the Sea Dogs are: stolen loot of any faction, Sea Dog Chests, emissary flags of other Sea Dogs, and emissary flags of Reapers. They do not accept the broken flags of any other faction. This part is really important: Similar to Merchant Cargo, the only time your emissary level would rise is once loot is turned in. Your emissary level would not raise by just touching loot or getting it onboard your ship. Now, you could absolutely turn in non-stolen loot to the Sea Dogs, but you would not get any emissary bonus for that loot. Nor would it help to raise your emissary level once turned in. This is more a convenience feature in case you come across any emergent PvE during your time as a Sea Dog. This part is also really important: Loot would only count as stolen AFTER you have elected to be a Sea Dog emissary. What that means is that there are no “silent Sea Dogs” so to speak. If you steal loot and you’re not a Sea Dog emissary, guess what, it doesn’t count as stolen loot. If you go sink a Sea Dog and you're not a Sea Dog emissary, even that flag does not count as stolen.
Voyage:
The Sea Dog Voyage would only be available to those that are flying the Sea Dog emissary flag. It would be 5 static maps with ‘X marks the spot’ locations across the sea. They would be on a timer similar to Merchant Contracts. They would be available for 25 minutes and any active Sea Dog emissary can go dig those Sea Dog Chests up. As crews recover the buried Sea Dog chests, that map expires and vanishes from the radial of any Sea Dog emissary on the seas. After 25 minutes, all maps would expire. There would then be a 5-minute cool down period before a whole new set of 5 maps is generated for the Sea Dogs. If you get sunk, you lose access to the voyage until you re-raise emissary.
Sea Dog Chest:
The Sea Dog Chest would appear on the map to everyone similar to a Reaper Chest, but only after it is dug up. The Sea Dog Chest would be worth a static 1k gold as well as a static emissary value. It would take 20x Sea Dog chests to reach Grade 5 emissary level by turning in exclusively Sea Dog Chests. If you’re doing the math, it would take 2 hours to get to Grade 5 by selling nothing but Sea Dog Chests assuming you were successful in gathering all 5 during each 25-minute window and selling them.
Emissary:
With only stolen loot and Sea Dog chests counting towards your emissary level, it’s going to be much harder to reach Grade 5. Therefore, Sea Dogs will not only match the traditional emissary bonuses, but do you one better. Grade 2 would be a 50% bonus. Grade 3 would be a 100% bonus. Grade 4 would be a 150% bonus. Grade 5 would be a 250% bonus. Broken Sea Dog Flags from sunken Sea Dog emissaries would be valued by their emissary grade similar to any other broken emissary flag.
Emissary Quest:
This would be different than every other emissary quest. With each level of emissary grade you achieve as a Sea Dog, you would get a copy of a single quest in the wheel of another crew on the server. Loot value from these completed stolen quests would also have a 20% increased value to entice Sea Dogs into doing them. This part is important: The original crew would still own their quest, but it would get flagged in their quest wheel as being a Sea Dog target. The quest copied could be a skeleton’s orders, a bottle quest, a skeleton crew bounty, a portion of a map for a Gold Hoarder Vault, a clue from a lost shipment voyage. Literally anything. Then, once you reach Grade 5 as a Sea Dog, you would get 4x quests from the crews across the sea. If for some reason no quests are available to copy as you progress through the emissary levels, random quests would be generated for you and you’d have no idea if it originated with another crew, or if it was randomly generated, but it would count as stolen just the same. EDIT: I took out the part about the RNG favoring. These copied quests are more so intended to lead you to your prey. The crew that owns those quests would need to make the decision on continuing that segment of their voyage or avoiding it since it'll be flagged as a target by the Sea Dogs.
Everyone else on the server: There's a lot here so I'll break it into pieces.
- The "Sea Dog threat bonus". There’s a distinct PvP threat present on the server. While they may be a “PvE Sea Dog” simply collecting Sea Dog Chests and completing stolen quests, the threat is real, VERY real, and you never know when you’ll become a tasty treat. To discourage people from simply leaving servers when Sea Dogs are present, you would get a scaled bonus for turning in loot on that server. 1 Sea Dog present = 20% bonus, 2 Sea Dogs = 40% bonus, 3 Sea Dogs = 70% bonus, 4 Sea Dogs = 110% bonus, 5 Sea Dogs = 160% bonus. The bonus would be of the base value of the item, but would not apply to any items an allianced crew sells. Example: you sell a sapphire gem as a Grade 5 Gold Hoarder and there is one Sea Dog on the Server, you would get: (1k base value) + (1.5K emissary bonus) + (200 Sea Dog threat bonus) Obviously, Sea Dogs themselves would not get that same bonus from the presence of other Sea Dogs.
- Broken Sea Dog emissary flags can be sold to ANY trading company. This would provide a reward to anyone not flying the Sea Dog emissary should they emerge victorious from a battle with a Sea Dog.
Wrap-up:
Remember, the Sea Dogs are PvP faction at their core. A competitive bunch. If you're a Sea Dog emissary and get sunk by a sweaty crew with no loot that's simply out to hunt Sea Dogs, you can't get mad. That's part of the risk, and part of the reason you signed up to be a Sea Dog in the first place. But, you can scuttle easy knowing that crew cannot progress as a Sea Dog unless they were already representing the Sea Dogs as an emissary themselves. This would also allow the current Reaper faction to function as the true high risk/reward PvPvE faction that it is today. Imagine the Reaper vs Sea Dog battles that could take place with the outposts of each faction so close on the seas!
Would love to hear your feedback!
