You should not be able to invade a ship that's close to another ship of the same allegiance!

IMO, the better solution is altering the risk/reward for that type of gameplay.

Let's say the reward for winning is normally 100xp and the reward for losing is 20xp

As an invader, if there are more than one opposing faction ship involved, you get 50xp for the loss instead of 20xp.

As the defender, if there is more than one ship teaming up against the invader, you only get 50xp in the victory.

Conversely, if the invader winds up emerging victorious over more than one defender, they would net 150xp. And the defenders that teamed up and lost would only get 10xp in the loss.

Why not?

From my understanding. It’s an all out war
Anything goes!

@riahi-jr said in You should not be able to invade a ship that's close to another ship of the same allegiance!:

Issue: I'm sure people have commented on this already but people are abusing the defending mechanic by having an alliance of 3 ships waiting to be invaded, this ruins the whole pvp experience for the invaders who didn't sign up for a 3 v 1.

Yes they did.
In fact, they signed up for 1 ship vs 5 ships + active sea fort cannons or active volcano + megladon + kraken + skeleton ship + random kegs in the water + storm.

When you use the hourglass and the war map, you are not opting in to a totally fair 1v1 crew vs crew fight. Nobody should be under that impression, Rare was clear about their intent to have adventure still matter in full.
You are opting in to having your ship relocated near another ship, to save you the time and effort of having to find targets manually, while remaining fully subject to anything and everything adventure offers. Including the other 4 ships on the server.

Solution: Do not allow people with an active hourglass to be invaded if they're close to another ship of the SAME type of allegiance, a Servant Of The Flame could still be able to invade a Guardian of Fortune even if another Servant is nearby chasing them or getting chased, that keeps the unpredictable factor into the game without having full control simply because the Servants/Guardians are always hopping servers and can't keep their buddies with them.

Please address this Rare, keep in mind people can still do organic alliances without raising the alliance flag, thank you.

Well first of all, if you're going to try to stop people from being outnumbered in one direction, you need to stop it in both directions.
So if you were going to prevent invaders from spawning on defenders near allies, you'd also have to stop defenders near enemies (any non alliance ship) from being invaded.
This is a change both or neither issue, not a one but not the other.
And the better option to choose is neither.