Gold Hoarder, OoS, and Athena's Fortune Emissary Improvements

  • lexilogo
    Seafarer

    The Merchant's Alliance and Reaper's Bones have some pretty cool features attached to their Emissaries besides the simple gold/reputation multipliers and the Emissary Ledger leaderboards.

    MA emissaries get the unrefined cargo runs, which are a great iteration on their faction's sailing-focused gameplay, allowing you to plan your own routes which the Voyages don't permit.

    The Reaper's Bones also have a good one. They are highlighted on the map as a drawback, but the ability to see other Emissaries is a great aid for their intended playstyle.

    I think this leaves the other 3 Emissaries looking barren by comparison, though. So, here's 3 features I think would fit well into all of their playstyles.

    Gold Hoarders: The Gold Hoarders are all about island exploration and gathering gobs of loot, so I think Emissary activity should incentivise visiting tons of islands, and having tons of loot to show for it. So, to aid this:

    The Hoarder's Map: A map gilded with gold, which appears blank. When visiting a new island however, it lights up with a random Riddle or an X marks the spot treasure location. This guarentees every single Island you visit will have extra loot. The Hoarder's Map resets its usability on each Island every 5 days.

    Importantly, the Hoarder's Map's loot grows in average quality depending on how much loot you already have aboard your ship. At first the buried treasure will be pretty standard, but if you've got loads of chests, you can even start encountering Ashen Keys/Chests, or (rarely) even Chests of Legends and other stuff of extremely high value. This will all help incentivise your own gold hoarding, resulting in a playstyle where you'll often be heading back to Outposts and not selling, creating a unique playstyle in the Emissary ecosystem that Reapers will be sure to salivate over.

    Order of Souls: The OoS are fundamentally about PvE, and it's kind of hard to remove that from the context of Quests and World Events. So, I don't think they should be. The Order of Souls should allow its Emissaries access to the knowledge they get out of Bounty Skulls.

    What this does mechanically is that when an OoS emissary sells Bounty Skulls, they have a chance (not influenced by rarity- fouls have the same chance as an ashen villainous. and to clarify, these chances are low, something like 10% per skull) to create an Accursed Voyage, which the OoS merchant will offer to sell you in their normal purchase screen. There's no cap to the Accursed Voyage pool they'll offer, but they'll vanish as a purchase option after an ingame day has passed, and Accursed Voyages sit around in your regular Voyage pool. However, you will lose all Accursed Voyages if you stop being an OoS emissary or get sunk.

    Accursed Voyages are essentially amped up versions of regular OoS voyages, but often carry some unique rewards. Their generation is based on your current Emissary Rank, and I'll list them below with the lower ones becoming increasingly more common with higher Ranks:

    • Accursed Bounties. Works much like they do normally, though Green/Red Shadow of Fate skeletons can spawn, akin to Athena's Fortune voyages, amping up the difficulty.
    • Hunt a Skeleton Lord: Self-explanatory, you get a big old Skeleton Lord fight.
    • Destroy a Skeleton Fleet: Similar to the Skeleton Fleet World Event, but not quite as long, you must fight 1 wave of regular ships before fighting the Captain ship. Because each ship grants its own rewards it's more valuable than a Ghost Fleet, but of course it's also much harder.
    • Battle the Burning Blade: Much like it sounds, this lets you fight the Burning Blade without requiring the World Event, allowing you to get a ton of loot with much less work.
    • Stop a Skeleton Ritual: Works much like a Bounty, except the Skeleton Captain you finish the voyage with will drop a Ritual Skull.

    Athena's Fortune: Athena's Fortune's thing is mastery of the game as a whole, so its Emissary should reflect that. For this, I'm not going to add one extra mechanic, I'm going to suggest major changes to their Emissary more fundamentally:

    • Athena's Fortune Emissaries are now visible like Reaper's Bones, though they are highlighted in a different colour (probably a light green tone, like their logo) on the map. This is to pull PvP elements into the faction.
    • Athena's Fortune Emissary Flags will now be twice as valuable as others, to really incentivise those Reapers to hunt you down religiously
    • Once you are at Emissary Grade V, Athena's Fortune now accepts ALL loot, barring Hunter's Call stuff, delivery loot or Reaper's Chests. This won't earn you Athena's Fortune reputation (instead with the relevant faction the loot would've been for, or no reputation in the case of gems or etc) but it gives you the Emissary gold value multiplier. This means that if you can level up an Athena's Fortune Emissary, it acts as a sidegrade to the Reaper's Bones, allowing you to sell at any Outpost but not allowing you to see other Emissaries to hunt down.

    This means doing an Athena's Fortune Voyage as an Emissary is a bigger risk commitment, but the rewards are larger, managing to hit and keep Grade V will become one of the game's overall best moneymakers due to increased convenience compared to the Reaper's Bones, at the costs of this money being "backloaded" behind doing the Voyages first, and not allowing Emissary revealing on the map.

    Thematically, I also think this helps sell Athena's Fortune as true "rivals" to the Reaper's Bones, which is what they're supposed to be to an extent in the game's story.

    What do you guys think? Are these ideas even necessary, are they just barking up the wrong tree, do you have something better?

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  • twodozenrats
    Marauder

    Absolutely. All of this stuff would be awesome, but I especially agree with the Athena idea. But I have a few questions:

    • Will Athena's Embessaries be able to sell embessary flags? I don't think they should be able to, except for reaper flags, which you should be able to sell to the factions anyways.
    • Will an Athena Embessary's level be visible on the map?
    • For the Order of Souls, would it make sense to focus the loot into bounty skulls and mermaid gems for them to really be a "Order of Souls quest"?
    • The hoarder's map is a good idea, but seems a bit overpowered because of the sheer number of islands. Do you have any ideas for a handicap on them?
  • lexilogo
    Seafarer

    @mr-whaletoes said in Gold Hoarder, OoS, and Athena's Fortune Emissary Improvements:

    Absolutely. All of this stuff would be awesome, but I especially agree with the Athena idea. But I have a few questions:

    • Will Athena's Embessaries be able to sell embessary flags? I don't think they should be able to, except for reaper flags, which you should be able to sell to the factions anyways.
    • Will an Athena Embessary's level be visible on the map?
    • For the Order of Souls, would it make sense to focus the loot into bounty skulls and mermaid gems for them to really be a "Order of Souls quest"?
    • The hoarder's map is a good idea, but seems a bit overpowered because of the sheer number of islands. Do you have any ideas for a handicap on them?

    I think it'd be fair to exclude Emissary Flags from the things Athena's Fortune Emissaries could sell, yes. Honestly though, I wouldn't mind either way.

    Yeah, AF Emissaries having their levels visible on the map would keep things consistent with the Reapers.

    I think it could work without skewing the loot tables, but yeah, making skulls more likely could also be a nice boost, if the OoS Accursed Voyages aren't providing enough Emissary Value.

    It depends how it panned out in testing, because I can't be entirely accurate on predicting how much gold people would make from it. The Hoarder's Map could have some extra limitations placed on it if it was too overpowered, such as an invisible points tracker based on Emissary Value, if your invisible "points" get too low from being expended generating chests without producing Emissary Value to make up for it, the map goes dull and you need to earn more Emissary Value before it works again, or just changing the loot tables to nerf them if they get too crazy.

  • MRCOOKIEJAM
    Ship Mate
    Insider

    Honestly for me, I think Athena needs to be buffed even more. I know Athena got buffed when the Fort of Fortunes (FoF) came out, but it still is a heck of a grind to get to Athena level 20.

    I think the CORE Athena voyages that you buy from the Pirate Lord in the Legends area should be updated and have GUARANTEED at least 4 Athena Items, as well as improved spawn rates for the Mega Athena kegs to help speed this up.

    It's very sad to see that the Athena runs that Larinna gives you, are much more profitable, gives more Athena rep/loot and much more easier than the actual voyages that your supposed to do.

    So I think the Athena voyages are in dire need of an overhaul/update.

  • Galactic Geek
    Seafarer
    Founder

    GH: A grinder's/alliance server's/gold hoarder's dream. Too easy to take advantage and abuse. No.

    Athena: Already hard enough without having an auto target on your back like the Reapers do. So, no.

    OoS: Completely takes away from dynamic world events if you can just purchase them. So, again - no.

  • lexilogo
    Seafarer

    @mrcookiejam said in Gold Hoarder, OoS, and Athena's Fortune Emissary Improvements:

    Honestly for me, I think Athena needs to be buffed even more. I know Athena got buffed when the Fort of Fortunes (FoF) came out, but it still is a heck of a grind to get to Athena level 20.

    I think the CORE Athena voyages that you buy from the Pirate Lord in the Legends area should be updated and have GUARANTEED at least 4 Athena Items, as well as improved spawn rates for the Mega Athena kegs to help speed this up.

    It's very sad to see that the Athena runs that Larinna gives you, are much more profitable, gives more Athena rep/loot and much more easier than the actual voyages that your supposed to do.

    So I think the Athena voyages are in dire need of an overhaul/update.

    True, it might be the case that base Athena content needs to be looked at before an Emissary reimagining. I don't think they'd change in base concept but them being more creative/interesting, and certainly more rewarding, would go a long way.

    @galactic-geek said in Gold Hoarder, OoS, and Athena's Fortune Emissary Improvements:

    GH: A grinder's/alliance server's/gold hoarder's ddream.Too easy to take advantage and abuse. No.

    Athena: Already hard enough without having an auto target on your back like the Reapers do. So, no.

    OoS: Completely takes away from dynamic world events if you can just purchase them. So, again - no.

    GH I do concede could end up being out of control for moneymaking, if balanced poorly. I don't want back to back Ashen Chests of Legend, just some financial rewards for chest stacking on this specific Emissary. Though, in my defense, Alliance servers are just out of control in moneymaking anyway, and I imagine it'd make more sense for them to just go all Reaper Vs and do world events instead of this, as Reapers get the universal loot multiplier.

    For Athena, it's worth keeping in mind Reaper Emissaries can already see them. Would definitely be hellish for a solo slooper, but that's why Emissaries are an optional feature.

    I don't think it's so bad for OoS though. I should clarify the Skeleton Lord option is on a random Island, it's not for a Vault stash. Much, if not most, of the Ghost Fleet Event's rewards come from the fleet itself, not the Burning Blade, and it's the same case with skeleton fleets having their numbers reduced. They're essentially all "mini" versions of the World Events, which still offer some risk from other players because of how long they are, but lessen it, in exchange for being less profitable overall and not having the blanket rewards buff a Reaper flag would get you.

    Those points aside, do you have alternative concepts or reworks you think would work better? Do you think ideas like these are necessary, or that these Emissaries are fine without extra features?

  • MostExpendable
    Commander
    Insider

    Wow, these are some incredibly well thought out ideas. I would love to try out everyone of them!
    Who knows if they’d all work, but they definitely each earn their place in the “worth a try” section.
    Well done!
    Hope it gets some upvotes.

  • Galactic Geek
    Seafarer
    Founder

    @lexilogo said:

    For Athena, it's worth keeping in mind Reaper Emissaries can already see them.

    This is a false and/or misleading statement. Reaper Emmisaries cannot see Athena Emmisary crews at all UNLESS the former have reached level 5 1st.

    With that said, I do think something could be done to potentially expand upon the companies after seeing what's been done with the Merchant Alliance, but currently I do not have a clue as to what that could be and still improve gameplay while still maintaining balance.

  • Ninja Naranja
    Legend
    Insider

    Now this here is a full on thought out concept. I’m loving this idea.

    It hadn’t even crossed my mind that the other Grade V Emissaries we’re pretty lackluster. Although I’ve always thought that Merchant’s was the worse by far, since handing in cargo is such a pain.

  • SweetSandMan
    Commander
    Insider

    I like some of these conceptually, but I feel like they need some tweaks to make them a more similar risk/reward system to the Merchant Alliance. They need to be a buy-in that can be stolen. The other thing that needs to be kept in mind is that alliance servers will be able to exploit these things and I'd hate to see things nerf'd to oblivion similar to the MA Commodities. Maybe make all of these items ineligible for any alliance bonuses if they aren't going to revamp the alliance structure.

    For GH, I like it's but I feel it should be a stacking system where you can buy a bunch of X marks the spot maps individually from the GH tent. They wouldn't be cheap maps, but they would be highly lucrative GH specific items that you would dig up. No need to be digging up chests of legends as a GH. But Tribute Chests here and there? Absolutely. And it doesn't necessarily have to be a current in-game item that you're digging up. The MA Commodities were all new loot types when they were introduced. All new GH items could be introduced for this type of mechanic.

    For OOS, I think having an enhanced Bounty system with Skeleton Lords would work. You pay a pretty penny for the voyage, but the battle is going to be similar to what you'd see on a Skeleton Fort / FoTD. Waves of various Shadows of Fate, followed by Skeleton Captains, followed by a Skeleton Lord. When you buy the voyage, part of the quest table would have 3 lanterns on it and after you activate the voyage, those lanterns would be lit with the appropriate flames of fate for your voyage for you to acquire and take with you.

    For Athena, like the idea as presented as long as Athena can turn in broken emissary flags similar to Reapers. Might need some tweaks but overall good.

  • MadFrito99
    Seafarer

    Athena's Fortune Emissary Flags will now be twice as valuable as others, to really incentivise those Reapers to hunt you down religiously….no lol its already bad as it is and you want to make it worse???

  • twodozenrats
    Marauder

    @madfrito99 But think about the benefits… Athena's Fortune is really, really underpowered when it comes to the loot you get from their "high value" voyages, even with an emissary flag. The benefit of making Athena's effectively a reaper and luring reapers to them will make the seas more dangerous for Athena emissaries, but a whole lot more valuable, especially if you can turn in reaper flags. Personally, I think it will encourage more Pirate Legends to be true to their title in combat, and that's a good thing. Overall, it would make being an Athena emissary more dangerous, more profitable, and more fun.

  • MadFrito99
    Seafarer

    i understand what your saying but most people just want more athena loot intergrated in the voyages so its not so ridiculously grindy…its already the worst emissary to run…biggest target for reapers…and you want to make it even worse lol doesnt make sense

  • lexilogo
    Seafarer

    @madfrito99 said in Gold Hoarder, OoS, and Athena's Fortune Emissary Improvements:

    i understand what your saying but most people just want more athena loot intergrated in the voyages so its not so ridiculously grindy…its already the worst emissary to run…biggest target for reapers…and you want to make it even worse lol doesnt make sense

    The point is not to make the AF emissary better for grinding reputation with the faction itself, but to make the AF emissary a tempting, viable option even after you've hit Level 20.

    Whether or not AF reputation should be made less grindy is a different discussion, and doesn't have to tie into Emissaries.

  • MadFrito99
    Seafarer

    i agree it should be more tempting…but by making the emissary worth even more will make it even worse to run athena. you do realize nobody likes to run athena as it is right?

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