Loosing emissary flag in portal

@moldarius7202
I do agree. I feel emissary should not be carried over. It's a far too easy tool for server-hopping reaper-crews to find unsuspecting crews, that doesn't expect a T5 reaper, within seconds. We do get a massive spike in ping, which you only see if you got that info enabled, but otherwise, you wouldn't know, until you check your map again, or simply just get steamrolled by the T5 reaper, that wasn't supposed to be there.

I know it's also frustrating, trying to be a proper reaper pvp crew, when most encounters leads to people running or simply panic lower, as soon as they see a reaper on the map, regardless of the grade. But at least people should have the proper way of preparing for an attack.

Portal hoping is a great addition for Reapers as it finally give them chance to find emissary and sink them or look for new challenges/battle.

If it was bad for the game, the devs would’ve done something about it by now.

Would certainly love if people are warned about a Reaper crew that appear through the portal to give people chance to react

I'm going to play devils advocate a little bit here and ask why are these T5 reapers hopping-

-They are hopping because the content/emissaries/adversaries have dried up in the current server they occupy
-Reapers hopping or being PvP hunters are actually playing that role how it should be played
-A tier 5 reaper is giving you more if you sink them rather than a fresh server hopper
-the hopping is down to a lack of incentive to fight over something in the current server

Now, reaper's hopping is creating a negative feedback on the servers. Generally I think less people are flying emissaries these days to avoid portal hoppers. The sharks have overfed. But they've overfed because they seek the encounters and the game in the last year hasn't catered towards the veteran players. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, last years updates have brought alot of new players to the game and that is a good thing.

So to conclude, hopping should remain in the game but it should become a purchasable voyage at reaper 5 (gold sink). The game needs some form of lucrative event to squabble over. Something other than gold. Something that isn't overly accessible to the new player to avoid the usual quick fight that makes them put the game down.

@moldarius7202 said in Loosing emissary flag in portal:

But why should you not loosing your emissary flag?
I like to be a reaper, but I think it is OP if you can server-hop and not loosing your grade 5, let them/us server-hop getting to T5 back and then decide if we hop again or not.

I tend to 'mostly' agree here. My crew has witnessed a Reaper 5 just suddenly appearing a few times now, occasionally almost unfairly given the state of the game, and how close to us they've spawned in.
But sinking them is lucrative.
Remember, Portal hopping is fine if you're looking to exit a sweaty server too.

I feel like making it easy for dedicated PvPer's to look for prey has to be the intended use for this.
If these Reaper 5's all hopped to the same server to face each other, wouldn't that be ideal for everyone involved?

Just let everyone carry everything through and call it a feature.

😈

I want to see chaos

I think the controversy is a symptom of a larger problem, namely that not enough people are flying emissary flags.

Everyone should want more emissary ships on the server. They act as targets for Reapers, giving them something to do. They also act as decoys, giving you flying an emissary a bit more opportunity to cash in before they come for you.

I think the intended design was for the majority of ships, maybe like 80% to fly emissary flags, meaning maybe one ship per server of 6 wouldn't be flying one sometime during their session.

I think this has not been the case, and on average maybe 1-2 ships fly an emissary.

Reasons for this:

• Education - Rare has not done a good job educating new players of the value of flying emissaries, especially when you compound this with turning in during gold rush
• Irrational or Rational fear - Assumed prevalence of server hopping reapers, general fear of losing something or "giving" your opponent something when defeated
• Player distribution - maybe there are a lot more new players than most realize, and new players just don't care yet about the advantages, even if they know about them

So I ask this:

Are less people flying emissaries because they are afraid of server hopping reapers, or are server hopping reapers hopping because not enough people are flying emissaries? I would argue, it is more the latter, as I think there is a lot of evidence that ever since introduction, emissaries have been less flown than they should be, even before portals were introduced.

Changes I would implement to help reduce the controversy and improve risk/reward:

One, force the choice to fly an emissary on players queuing in. Are you an emissary ship or not? If you choose to be an emissary ship, you are more likely put into servers with players also opting in and can never lower your flag completely. You can reset it to level 1 at any time, and can switch it freely, but you queue in as a default emissary (whatever the initiating player sets as their character's default). Forcing the choice has been proven in many fields to help improve adoption / educate the userbase. I think the only thing I would also do is allow ships to change their opt in status at any time by using the portals, maybe also streamlining the portals a bit by adding a formal transition area that isn't using the checkpoints. That way, you can still choose to do a tall tale and don't need to completely requeue. I have a lot of thoughts on this, but many are irrelevant to server hopping reapers.

Two, server migrate all Reapers ships automatically when sunk. This one is controversial but would improve many aspects of the game. First, runners will finally have an incentive to fight back (if they win it is final). Second, Reapers will need to be a bit more cautious and choose their battles a bit better. And third, it better encourages reaper ships to act as they were intended, as a PvP faction by adding increased penalty for all reapers ship who sink, including those doing PvE and those in alliances (force breakup of alliance when migrated). I should note that I also think that in exchange for this harsh penalty, Reapers ships should no longer be visible on the map at all. Yes, very scary but remember, I'm also asking for changes that would force players to opt in if they want to fly emissaries, which I argue would increase the # of emissary ships in your server, making you less of a standout target. And yes, I realize that this means Reaper's ships can't come back for revenge sinks, but I don't think aggressors should get the privilege of revenge anyway. This one needs some work to develop because I think there is something to be said about the fight continuing even after a ship sinks, i.e getting away with the loot in a rowboat. I think this might mean a system might need to be developed so that the ship just won't respawn until all crew members come back, at which point, it spawns in the portal instead and is migrated. Minor technicalities to what I think is an otherwise positive suggestion.

That's basically it. My opinions on whether I think server hopping reapers is good for the game or bad for the game isn't really important, but overall I am fine with it, even if my changes above are implemented. The reason is that I see it is a natural response to a system that is flawed and should be improved, i.e. my suggestions above. If the system is improved, less ships will feel the need to server hop, and you will likely no longer be the only emissary if they still do, which means the cycle is self correcting. If you feel like the current system is unfair, I ask you to consider whether my suggestions above would help in any way and advocate for change if you agree. Also open to constructive feedback on the idea.

Thanks for coming to my Ted talk.

think it is OP if you can server-hop and not loosing your grade 5

I’m confused on the whole “over powered”
I was understanding OP meant as it means, over powered. But a reaper with a grade 5, able to portal server hop. How is that OP?

They can see other “Emissary ships” but those who don’t have the emissary flag are safe. Which be real, a lot of people tend to not even do emissary most the time. (That why most reapers server hop and hope to find one)

So..how is that OP?

@d3adst1ck I can see that helping as well, but I worry that a lot of people actually like the new system and so would be against reverting to the old system entirely. My suggestions, complicated as they may sound, are meant to be a compromise to help encourage all ships to have more inherent value (i.e. flags) without impacting the ability for Reaper's ships to seek out PvP quickly. It is meant to normalize flag flying so that people overall feel safer flying them. You are just one of many fish, and you don't feel like you are rewarding ships for attacking you anymore than any other ship.

I think one compromise if your idea was implement is that if you are a Reapers, maybe Reaper's ships can still see one another if they are at least grade II? I could see the system helping a bit, but I don't think the # of flags will climb by much on average.

It is tricky subject because I think a lot of PvP players very much like the current system (when it works), but the current system is not offering enough emissaries to fill their appetite, meaning that the lone emissary ships are feeling extra targeted. This means nobody is really all that happy overall, hence the frequency of server hops.

I also don't think removing Reaper's visibility from the map will help encourage significantly more people to fly emissaries. It is a convenient theory, I can see the logic, and it could be a case of Occam's razor where the theory with the fewest assumptions may be the right one.

However, I think attributing the lack of emissaries mainly to fear of grade V reaper's relies on more assumptions than my theory, which means it is actually not the simplest explanation.

Namely your theory hinges on the following assumptions:

• Most players know what they are doing / are experienced enough to know that emissaries offer increased reward
• Purposely choose to make less money even when there is currently no Reaper on the map
• Are worried enough about Reaper's to not fly a flag, but are not worried enough to check their map frequently / turn in frequently
• Know that a grade V reapers can see them
• Are self aware of their PvP capabilities and believe they will lose when attacked

These all sound possible, but is implies that the community as a whole fits the persona of a very specific type of player, i.e. a rational cynic. It implies that people are thinking rationally about the risks, but not about the rewards which is almost never the case. Psychology has shown that people tend to underestimate risks and overestimate reward. This game would need to have a "souls-like" tag associated with it for people to come in expecting the opposite, and yes Sea of Thieves is brutal, but not marketed as such.

Instead, my theory posits only that:

• The majority of players do not know about emissaries / are inexperienced
• The majority of players do not play seriously enough to care
• The majority of players have a fear of all ships on the horizon attacking, reaper's or not

I think my explanations better align with human emotions. They don't know, don't care, just don't attack me. I may be biased and making my own theory sound simpler than it actually is, but I think psychology has proven that humans are emotional animals, and so the explanation should also be emotionally driven if not driven by a place of ignorance.

I think you would summarize your theory about the same way, but I disagree with the premise that people are flying emissaries even less now because of grade V server hoppers. Maybe more experienced people (who are likely to fly emissaries) quit the game because they think it is unfair, but I don't think they are still playing but now choosing to play with lesser reward anymore now than before portals. There was an average of 1-2 ships per server flying emissaries before, and that is still the case now which means that the sudden emergence of grade Vs hasn't really changed behavior among the majority of players, or at least not measurably in either direction. Maybe amongst experienced crews who know how to quickly raise an emissary in time for gold rush (merchant), but not the majority.

This is why players should be asked upfront to decide what experience they want to have. Because if you ask people if they want to make more money or less, and engage in higher risk / higher reward gameplay, more people will say yes to that because it makes the choice deliberate, which in turn actually helps people think more rationally, which again, I don't think people are.

If people were thinking rationally, they would realize that the frequency of grade V Reaper's emerging is significantly overblown, and any experienced player already knows that. Any experienced player also knows that the amount of money you leave on the table by not flying emissary is nowhere worth the time wasted, even if a grade V does emerge.

Therefore, my system can only help because the assumptions that underlie your theory is that player's don't fly flags because of the possible future chance of a grade V emerging. If that is true, they will choose to opt of my proposed system anyway. Therefore, I can only see my proposed system increasing the numbers, namely by educating new players. And I believe the increase would be DRAMATIC. I would guess a doubling of emissaries per server bringing the average to 3-4, and even higher with intelligent matchmaking.

You could ultimately be right, and my ideas are overcomplicated, unnecessary. That is your right, but I stand by my hypothesis and believe there is more evidence to support it. The forums is never a good place to ask for feedback because the majority of players do not frequent the forums, and experienced players are understandably biased to believe that new players are just a bunch of cowards.

And for that, I ask that readers of this try to think from the perspective of the overall player base, and put yourself in the shoes of other crews who maybe only started playing in the last week. They aren't cowards anymore than anyone else, they are just new and don't know yet how to optimize and use emissaries correctly, or can't even raise them yet / understand they are one time purchases for 20k. It also takes forever to raise them when just starting out digging castaway chests, so again, the value of them is not yet perceivable.

@d3adst1ck The number of bullets is organized the way it is to highlight that you would need to know exactly those things and only those things for your explanation to be true, and so your theory requires a very specific set of criteria to be correct. It is not about the number of bullets necessarily, so don't read Occam's razor as a numbers game. It is rather how specific the circumstances need to be for the theory to be true. I could split mine further too, but it is much harder to split ignorance as an explanation into multiple components than experience.

I.e. for your explanation:

• They must know the value of the emissary system and be able to correctly utilize it
• Then must make the conscious choice to throw that away with no evidence that any ship is even coming for them
• Because they are fearful enough of reapers but not so fearful that they take the one precaution to avoid them
• which assumes they know that grade V reapers can see them which many players are not taught
• and that they are self aware that if they are attacked they will lose

That is why they are separated. That is basically the logical flow I can think of to explain your hypothesis.
If I combine them the way you think is more fair and not "padded", i.e. the majority of players know how the emissary system works, then I can't arrive at the logical conclusion without paradox.

Example)

• The majority of people know how emissaries work, and fully understand the value of raising flags to V.
• They choose not to because their flags have value which makes them a bit more of a target and this somehow outweighs all the benefits they clearly understand.

It is a paradox because if they fully understand the value of raising flags to grade V, then they would also know that it is worth flying them even if you do eventually become targeted. You will make more money that way and that is just a fact, so it makes me question if they truly understood the first assumption. See?

Though I will admit, the fact that it is a paradox does make it feel like it could be true, since people are irrational. It's just that anybody who knows how the system works will become less irrational with experience, so it would be odd if people were fearful forever even though experience will quickly teach them that they could have made more money if they just had raised since a reaper's never came.

For me, your logic only works if the majority of players are new / inexperienced / can't make full use of the emissary, which suggests that it is a lack of education that is responsible for not flying them, not a conscious choice.

And do you really think that players who know how the emissary system works are really more likely to not fly a flag than people who can't even find the table to vote on it? That is a major logical failure.

In summary, you are free to pad my explanations as well, but I have the logical advantage because there are an infinite amount of things you can learn about the game, but only a singular 0 of not knowing anything about the game or not caring enough. This is what makes my argument and solution the simpler one, which by the way is often called Occam's razor but is not actually what Occam's razor says.

My goal wasn't to make it a 5 vs 3 debate, even though I should take responsibility for saying that it is the # of assumptions that decides who is right. That is not technically true either as it is very difficult to summarize the true definition of Occam's razor, but the fact is that I feel I was actually generous in consolidating the number of things that would have to be true for your theory to hold. The complexity of the assumptions is important too, and we could spend lifetimes thinking of all the ways to simplify.

As for the overhead and development time, the simplest solution is not necessarily the one that takes the least development time, unless you are a programmer at Rare by chance? As a gamer, you should not be concerned about what takes the most dev time, rather what offers the best solution. I already acknowledged that I think removing all the visibility of emissaries would probably help, and that I agree with your suggestion.

But I also would argue that it is not a "very simple problem" either, because there will be others who won't like that idea. I also take issue that you think I am steering players to play a specific way. I am simply making the choice more deliberate. You can still choose not to fly emissaries.

This has been discussed to death and even has a megathread so I am unsure why mods let these threads continue.

The portals benefit others, not just Reaper. Athena 3-4 and someone chasing you that you are certain will sink to? Drive-by sell and hop to keep your flag.

Honestly would not care if they removed the feature either but then merges need to happen when a Reaper of any grade is on a map with zero other emissary ships. Something Rare has stated they don't want but honestly needs to be there for balance.

Players mention Reapers being able to "keep their grade 5 reward" when going through a portal. Let me ask, do other emissary ships have a RNG percent chance of getting/not getting their emissary quest at grade 5? Reapers sure do and without the ability to seek anyone out, that is multiplied as it was originally in the emissary system pre-portals.

Mega thread link for those of you interested on hearing Rare state it is a feature: https://www.seaofthieves.com/community/forums/topic/139210/mega-thread-tunnels-of-the-damned-migration/253

@d3adst1ck

I don't disagree with your first paragraph, but think you may be overestimating the experience of the overall player base. Most people I encounter are relatively new players, and I would guess that people who have only been playing for about 2 weeks or less, or are returning after a very long hiatus before emissaries make up about 30-50% of the concurrent player base, with new players making up for the majority who choose not to continue playing. These players do not have the experience to think logically about the risk of being attacked by server hopping grade Vs which they probably don't know exist, don't know can see them, and don't even know are armed to the teeth. They won't arrive at the conclusion we both know is logical which is that for them, it probably isn't worth flying an emissary if they don't know how to make full use of it.

Instead, to your point they would fly emissaries with relative blissful ignorance, but that is not what we observe. Just try it, queue in open crew and see how often they suggest flying an emissary, and how often they just sail off with no voyage, no flag, no supplies. Open crew has a bad reputation for a reason. I literally have never encountered a player in open crew who said he didn't want to fly an emissary because he was afraid. It's always a question about what it is or what it does, or someone is is "just goofing around."

This is very different to assuming that the majority of players are experienced, and from that experience have learned that it is better to not fly emissaries period. I just don't think that is true because their experience would tell them the opposite, which is that the fear of server hopping reapers is way overblown relative to the money they leave on the table. And experience tends to remove the emotional side from decision making, which is what makes the theory a paradox in mind, and not appropriate to make into two bullet points despite my attempt. There is a lot more context which you happily provided, and which is why I again, made it into 5 bullet points as to capture the additional context of what might go through their head, but why I disagree it was representative of the overall playerbase. There are certainly elements of truth to what you wrote, but which I disagree are responsible for the lack of emissaries in any given server.

You said it yourself, you don't always fly the reapers flag and yet are still out to attack ships doing world events. Would it matter if they were flying emissaries in that situation? No, and you didn't teach them that they were safe because they weren't flying an emissary by doing that. Quite the opposite, and which was a good lesson that the seas have always been dangerous and are only slightly more dangerous now that portals are a thing. Why only slightly? Because, the majority of players aren't flying emissaries, so it isn't really any more dangerous for them, and the odds are still fairly rare that your server gets invaded to begin with.

So to me, the solution is is really a matter of game theory. What is best for both parties is best for the individual. Give Reaper's more targets, and suddenly any individual ship is less of one. While I think there is merit to the idea of removing all emissary visibility from the map, and going back to manual hunting of ships; I think there will be strong opposition to this from the PvP crowd, which makes your simple solution of just disabling map visibility a matter of managing community backlash. And I think that is probably harder and more dangerous for Rare than the more technically challenging UI and mechanic improvements I am suggesting.

This is why I suggested ways to nerf reapers without removing their ability to see other ships by migrating after sinking while simultaneously suggesting how to get more of the fresh blood to try out emissaries. The balance is important, and I don't think more players would suddenly start flying emissaries simply because they have less information than they did before about where the Reaper's ships are located.

@schwammlgott

I didn't know that they're monitoring this case right now.

I really love RP, I like to play my "Role/Emissary" how it should be played. I'm also a lover of good pvp, and accept them more than I avoid them.

As a Reaper I see me as a watcher of the server, does who has a flag I'm gonna attack, if there is no flag, I'm checking the world including the outposts. If there's no flags left I did a good job and mostly had fun, if couple of ships leave there's gonna be a server merge anyway, so for me personally I don't even see the thing with server-hopping at all. But that's my opinion and doesn't matter under which flag you are, and is not included in this discussion.

As a other Emissary my job is doing the activities of it AND watching for Reapers. As soon as you see a Reaper you know, Time is ticking until they hit T5. With a T5 hopper, the crews doesn't have this advantage anymore to prepare themselves.

Despite that, if you're server is dead you can either change it, in my op the only good way to do to scuttle it and re-log but as I said its my op, or you can hop into Arena.

On the other Hand I must also say, I did follow a few ships, trying to sink them and the just flew through the portal. This, to be fair, must be blocked also. Maybe that the Portal only opens when the Ship is on the Outpost, like the Ship has to be on outpost for changing stuff or lower emissary.

I'm happy getting inspiration and opinions from you guys!

@hotklou9848 said in Loosing emissary flag in portal:

How about instead of losing your emissary flag entirely it just gets downgraded? Downgraded to grade 3 or something. Then all emissaries could still keep their flags, but the Reapers would first have to level their flag up again before they can see other emissaries again. Then the other emissaries would at least have some time to prepare before the recently-arrived Reaper inevitably gets back to grade 5 again.

For Reapers only, I hope. Otherwise a Gold Hoarder gets to grade 5, gets his Emissary voyages, does them and hands in loot. Goes to Portal and now is level 3, upgrade a bit and can claim the Emissary voyages again.

Not sure about the efficiency there as I normally drop the emissary flag when doing the voyages and get to grade 5 again easily. But a way to cheese some emissary flag in a loop 3 to 5 seems wrong.

I have no issues for R5 who have been on an emissary-free server for some time to have the option to switch servers for a limited time and then arrive at a position far far away from activity, close to the Red Sea but with one or more emissaries present.

@schwammlgott said in Loosing emissary flag in portal:

@kommodoreyenser sagte in Loosing emissary flag in portal:

Players mention Reapers being able to "keep their grade 5 reward" when going through a portal. Let me ask, do other emissary ships have a RNG percent chance of getting/not getting their emissary quest at grade 5?

What do mean with chance of getting/not getting emissary voyage?
As soon as you go through the portal ALL VOYAGES you have in your radial ARE GONE...including your emissary voyage! And that voyage is, besides the gold multiplier, your reward for beeing rank V
A reaper on the other side, gets the multiplier AND keeps his "reward", that's the ability to see other emissarys

I was referring to making all emissary factions like reapers if you want to remove the portals. There isn’t always an emissary ship on the server, especially once you hit grade 5. Since their grade 5 reward is seeing other emissary ships, more often than not there aren’t any at that point. How about we make all other factions have a 33% chance of getting their voyage rather than guaranteed?

I've seen several of good statements throughout the post and I will comment on a few, that would make sense got Rare to change.

I saw a comment where it was suggested that people automatically was assorted into an emissary.

• I kinda like this idea, but instead of making it automatically, make it so if you chose to run a gold hoarder quest, you become a gold hoarder emissary. And the same for the other factions. Simply to make emissary more common again, make people that forget or dont know about the emissary, run it. And just in general gives the reapers more to hunt.

Another comment was that instead of losing the emissary, downgrade it. This would be a fair balance, even though my initial thought was to remove the emissaries all together when jumping. But a downgrade would be a fair midway.

Making reapers invisible on the map.
I do like this idea somewhat, as it will make less people switch server whenever they see the mark, regardless of the grade or panic drop. However, maybe make is so you can see them, when you too reach grade 5 emissary. So like you see me I see you kind of deal.
Maybe a Balance could also be that Reapers only can see emissaries that's grade 3 or more, once they hit their own grade 5, but that might be too difficult.

@schwammlgott said in Loosing emissary flag in portal:

@kommodoreyenser sagte in Loosing emissary flag in portal:

@schwammlgott said in Loosing emissary flag in portal:

@kommodoreyenser sagte in Loosing emissary flag in portal:

Players mention Reapers being able to "keep their grade 5 reward" when going through a portal. Let me ask, do other emissary ships have a RNG percent chance of getting/not getting their emissary quest at grade 5?

What do mean with chance of getting/not getting emissary voyage?
As soon as you go through the portal ALL VOYAGES you have in your radial ARE GONE...including your emissary voyage! And that voyage is, besides the gold multiplier, your reward for beeing rank V
A reaper on the other side, gets the multiplier AND keeps his "reward", that's the ability to see other emissarys

I was referring to making all emissary factions like reapers if you mwant to remove the portals. There isn’t always an emissary ship on the server, especially once you hit grade 5. Since their grade 5 reward is seeing other emissary ships, more often than not there aren’t any at that point. How about we make all other factions have a 33% chance of getting their voyage rather than guaranteed?

Häh? What kind of logic is that? 🤦🏻‍♂️

Edit: and what are you talking about removing the portals? We talk about removing the flag when going through the portals...

Removing the method by which you always can improve your chances of finding emissary ships to hunt. That is what I meant by removing portals.

What kind of logic is it that Reapers “carry their grade 5 reward” through a portal? The portal useage only improves their chances of getting to use their grade 5 reward, it doesn’t guarantee they will end up on a server with emissary ships. That isn’t guaranteed like other faction’s grade 5 rewards which you get to use every single time you hit 5.

@madziewolf Forced emissary would effectively put a bounty on every ship. Emissary is risk/reward. Forcing added risk on every player is not ideal.

Additionally, downgrading Emissaries would be OP for every Emissary; most specifically for Athena Emissaries. One could get to Grade 5 Athena, do the emissary quest, hop, and then only have to do maybe 4 chapters of a TH Run in order to get Grade 5 again and get another emissary quest...then rinse and repeat infinitely...yikes.

Yes, it would make portal hopping fair for all emissaries, but it would make it way too powerful. You'd see every PvP averse Emissary crew portal hopping at the first sign of a battle.

In its current state, it's only OP for the Reaper faction. They effectively have an endless Emissary quest. It's unfortunate that they removed some of the risk associated to the risk/reward of running Reaper and hopefully they course correct at some point. But honestly, I'd rather have it as only OP for one faction as opposed to all factions.

@schwammlgott said in Loosing emissary flag in portal:

@kommodoreyenser sorry, but I don't want to go further into that way of thinking...the reaper V does have his ability to see other emissarys, no matter if there is one or not

lol, and other emissary factions could have the ability to claim a grade 5 voyage, whether they actually end up receiving one or not.

I know why you don't want to discuss it further, it doesn't support your narrative. It however would be equal if the ability to carry a flag through portals was removed and Rare still didn't want to implement emissary merges.