We need long term community goals with rewards worth earning

@coffeelight5545 I think we need to fall back to my “alpha ship” post and get rid of alliances all together and the closest thing to it would be a reaper ship who “offers protection” to a “beta ship”. The alpha ship would be the only ship who gets gold from the other ships selling. If a beta ship sinks the alpha ship, they become the alpha ship and the old alpha gets merged to another server. This could be implemented in season 8.

@eguzky said in We need long term community goals with rewards worth earning:

@robby0316 said in We need long term community goals with rewards worth earning:

@coffeelight5545 I think we need to fall back to my “alpha ship” post and get rid of alliances all together and the closest thing to it would be a reaper ship who “offers protection” to a “beta ship”. The alpha ship would be the only ship who gets gold from the other ships selling. If a beta ship sinks the alpha ship, they become the alpha ship and the old alpha gets merged to another server. This could be implemented in season 8.

I'm sorry but what?
Are you actually suggesting players be able to extort other players & steal any treasure other players turn in, and the only way to avoid it is to be forced to PvP?

If I logged in one day and saw any treasure I turned in going to some jackarse who did not even have to fight & sink me for it; I'd stop playing.

I’m sorry I didn’t elaborate enough, the alpha ship would be the only ship to get gold from the “bully alliance” but the ship selling gold would still get gold like they normally would.

To rephrase this, imagine there are 4 ships in a bully alliance, one ship starts to sell loot, the only ship aside from the ship doing the selling to get gold would be the alpha ship.

@eguzky said in We need long term community goals with rewards worth earning:

@robby0316 said in We need long term community goals with rewards worth earning:

@eguzky said in We need long term community goals with rewards worth earning:

@robby0316 said in We need long term community goals with rewards worth earning:

@coffeelight5545 I think we need to fall back to my “alpha ship” post and get rid of alliances all together and the closest thing to it would be a reaper ship who “offers protection” to a “beta ship”. The alpha ship would be the only ship who gets gold from the other ships selling. If a beta ship sinks the alpha ship, they become the alpha ship and the old alpha gets merged to another server. This could be implemented in season 8.

I'm sorry but what?
Are you actually suggesting players be able to extort other players & steal any treasure other players turn in, and the only way to avoid it is to be forced to PvP?

If I logged in one day and saw any treasure I turned in going to some jackarse who did not even have to fight & sink me for it; I'd stop playing.

I’m sorry I didn’t elaborate enough, the alpha ship would be the only ship to get gold from the “bully alliance” but the ship selling gold would still get old like they normally would.

To rephrase this, imagine there are 4 ships in a bully alliance, one ship starts to sell loot, the only ship aside from the ship doing the selling to get gold would be the alpha ship.

And...why would anyone willingly join a 'bully alliance'?

Suppose you just stacked 3 ashen vaults, you and your friend leave the last vault and on your way to the ship you notice a reaper 5 galleon sitting 100 feet away from your ship with their broadside on you, with two players with kegs sitting on your ship. You think to yourself “why haven’t they sunk me yet?” Then it occurs to you that these aren’t mindless rabid dogs, they are organized and capable PvPers who want to give you the civilized choice of “Receive protection from the eternal flame, or be consumed by it”. So you’re faced with a choice, you can either submit, cast aside your ego and share 50% of your earnings to them. Or you can be mercilessly slaughtered and lose all your loot, but on the plus side you kept your pride.

So now this gives PvP players the choice of murdering you now and taking whatever you’ve earned so far. Or letting you live and earning 50% of your future gold for the duration of the server.

@coffeelight5545

I think your suggestion is a good one, at least directionally for the game. The devil is in the details of course, there are good ways and bad ways to encourage a bit of cooperation. As much as many might disagree, I think what you are asking for is actually lacking in the game, at least good implementations of it at least.

The game has always suffered from being paradoxically both cramped and sparse at the same time, and the game lacks any way to enjoy a bit of "friendly" competition.

Events are too small for multiple ships to partake without immediately resulting in cutthroat conflict. Yet, there is also so much ocean out there, it is sometimes hard to find players to cooperate with toward larger goals. Right now, cooperation exists when both players are rationale and realize that it is much more profitable to work together than to scrabble over chump change. But profit doesn't matter much to many players anymore, the economy is massively inflated and there nothing worthwhile to earn.

This is why I think you are right that cosmetics and challenges that encourage cooperation are an obvious unmet need in the game. And by challenges, I mean real challenge, not the forced cooperation that many are so fond of criticizing. It is only forced because it is "easy enough" to do it alone, there was no need to have other crews.

I think your suggestion is best accomplished in "instanced" areas through the portals. I am adamant these are coming to SoT with the way the adventures and migration tech has been evolving, but it is still totally speculative.

To be brief, I imagine them working like areas you can queue into on-demand, maybe with some kind of entry fee that could be gold, doubloons, or a combination of loot. You will be queued in with maybe one or two other crews. Some dungeons will be completely PvP enabled, others more limited / only allowed in certain areas, and others still maybe completely PvE in which the ships earn the same rewards for successful completion. Cosmetics would be an obvious reward, but I imagine these offering gold, trinkets for your ship, titles, and even small amounts of ancient coins / coupons to the emporium. To your point, there should be rewards worth the challenge, and this could be a natural way to introduce another sail variant with the V shape sails.

What you do in the dungeons to earn these rewards is a totally different conversation, but the main goal should really be challenging content with an element of "friendly" competition, and then maybe also with the option to enable PvP or allow ships to "invade" your dungeon for the chance of greater rewards. That would be the best of both worlds, and I think everything we are seeing is pointing to this. These could be tied into a larger community event or not, but the content is what really matters, to me at least. The story can be whatever it needs to be to support a fun and repeatable gameplay loop.

@robby0316

My idea of the secondary alliance was to stop server alliances from taking advantage of the community goal idea.

I actually support the original alliance system. Yes people abuse the system but I have had people betray my alliances before.

@eguzky said in We need long term community goals with rewards worth earning:

@robby0316 said in We need long term community goals with rewards worth earning:

@eguzky said in We need long term community goals with rewards worth earning:

@robby0316 said in We need long term community goals with rewards worth earning:

@eguzky said in We need long term community goals with rewards worth earning:

@robby0316 said in We need long term community goals with rewards worth earning:

@coffeelight5545 I think we need to fall back to my “alpha ship” post and get rid of alliances all together and the closest thing to it would be a reaper ship who “offers protection” to a “beta ship”. The alpha ship would be the only ship who gets gold from the other ships selling. If a beta ship sinks the alpha ship, they become the alpha ship and the old alpha gets merged to another server. This could be implemented in season 8.

I'm sorry but what?
Are you actually suggesting players be able to extort other players & steal any treasure other players turn in, and the only way to avoid it is to be forced to PvP?

If I logged in one day and saw any treasure I turned in going to some jackarse who did not even have to fight & sink me for it; I'd stop playing.

I’m sorry I didn’t elaborate enough, the alpha ship would be the only ship to get gold from the “bully alliance” but the ship selling gold would still get old like they normally would.

To rephrase this, imagine there are 4 ships in a bully alliance, one ship starts to sell loot, the only ship aside from the ship doing the selling to get gold would be the alpha ship.

And...why would anyone willingly join a 'bully alliance'?

Suppose you just stacked 3 ashen vaults, you and your friend leave the last vault and on your way to the ship you notice a reaper 5 galleon sitting 100 feet away from your ship with their broadside on you, with two players with kegs sitting on your ship. You think to yourself “why haven’t they sunk me yet?” Then it occurs to you that these aren’t mindless rabid dogs, they are organized and capable PvPers who want to give you the civilized choice of “Receive protection from the eternal flame, or be consumed by it”. So you’re faced with a choice, you can either submit, cast aside your ego and share 50% of your earnings to them. Or you can be mercilessly slaughtered and lose all your loot, but on the plus side you kept your pride.

So now this gives PvP players the choice of murdering you now and taking whatever you’ve earned so far. Or letting you live and earning 50% of your future gold for the duration of the server.

So you want to add blackmail and extortion, and think this is an idea worth removing normal alliances over?

I have to hard disagree.
Bullies on 3-4 man ships would target sloops, as fighting back would be next to impossible. And this idea literally gives bullies power and encourages them to be bullies.

You’re right, good thing bigger ships don’t already target smaller ships and steal hours worth of grinding. I’m happy that Sea of Thieves doesn’t promote pirating or thieving from other players. It’s awesome that Rare doesn’t encourage being on a crew over being solo because then we might end up with bigger ships sinking smaller ships and stealing all their loot. I’m happy you brought up that point, I wouldn’t want to encourage players to sink other ships. Sometimes I forget that a bully is someone who lets you live and offers you protection from other hostile ships, at a price. While a nice player who isn’t a bully is someone who murders you without a second thought and spawn camps you until your ship sinks, all for free! Thank you for your point, I definitely don’t want bullies to play this game and we should have more nice guys who murder you instead of extorting you. Bravo.