I’ve wanted these two curses since I started playing the game years ago, and as someone who has never liked the pvp aspect of this game season 8 is close to making me drop sea of thieves completely. Waiting for 30+ minutes in the “less than 1 minute” matchmaking queue only to 1: get one balled and lose the fight immediately (I’m a solo slooper,) 2: get completely stomped by the other person because they’re on pc and have an advantage (I’m on console,) or 3: have the fight last 90+ minutes so that even if I win I feel like I’ve been robbed of the rep I should get for time invested, I’m not even to 100 in one of the factions yet and if I don’t drop the game completely I can tell you now that I’m never touching those hourglasses again. The grind HAS to be reduced for the curses or nobody but the sweatiest sweats are even going to bother.
Increase faction rep gain or reduce curse requirement level.
There is already a much, much longer thread about this. I honestly feel like most players agree with you.
The problem is they're burning the candle from the bottom.
The bottom 10% of players will always match upward and always lose. Losses garner practically zero allegiance so the bottom 10% will view the grind as "impossible" and quit. Then there is a new bottom 10% that will always lose and quit. Then there is a new bottom 10% that will always lose and quit, until hourglass is exactly like arena where only the top 10% participate. Based on everything I've read, the community seems to think that:
- There needs to be more/better rewards on the way to 100 so the grind isn't so unrewarding.
- Losses need to generate much more allegiance so the grind doesn't appear impossible.
- When you lose a streak you should get half or a quarter of the allegiance value of turning it in.
The key is to find a way to keep the bottom 10% from quitting. More rewards and allegiance for losses makes that happen. On a more personal note, I just finished a round that took over an hour to complete. Perhaps you should be awarded allegiance as well for every 10 minutes in a battle so that these long ones don't just feel like a waste of time?
https://www.seaofthieves.com/community/forums/topic/154972/keep-the-rewards-an-anecdote/1
I have a friend and ex-cowkrer who had a degree in digital design and user-experience. When I asked her about how she could ply those skills to designing a game (granted I was specifically talking about board games, but I feel this transfers a fair bit), her advice was to slowly add rules instead, and reward the behavior you want.
You need to slowly add rules instead of starting with all the rules you love because if the game is too cumbersome with all the rules you love, it will be too difficult to choose which ones to remove.
You need to reward the behaviors you want instead of punishing the behavior you don't because users don't like being punished and will leave if you punish them, but keep pounding that dopamine button like a monkey with a chip in its brain if you reward the behaviors you want instead. Right now, the rules of hourglass reward wins almost exclusively. This makes people who lose consistently (the bottom n%) get frustrated and eventually leave. That creates a new bottom n% who will never win and leave, et cetera et cetera. This is why I call it "burning the candle upwards," the bottom disappears until only the top remains.
Not everyone agrees, I for one do not. Curses are meant to be special and rare, hard to get.
Making them easier to get is againts their design.
Just because a couple of people on forums think PvP is not fun and curses need to take only max 20 hours to get, does not mean its the correct choice for Rare.
They are special hard to get rewards that take a while to get for players participating in the new PvP mode, thats their core reason and design, and they work well for what they are designed as.
Sure MM needs work, and there could be additional rewards on the way to 100, but making leveling up faster up to 100 is not a fix.
After all, if players get the curse 2x faster and thats all they want from the mode, players will quit the mode 2x faster.
I agree with you, actually. These curses should be difficult to get and a rewarding long-term goal.
I think where we disagree is the experience of hourglass, and what is best for the game. I think that one thing everyone can agree on is the more players in hourglass, the more players in the SoT, the better the game is. That's stating the obvious. The challenge is (which I think is also where everyone will agree) that the rewards up to 100 (a mediocre figurehead and titles) aren't really that great.
There are only three types of work: good, fast, and cheap. The challenge is good/fast work isn't cheap, good/cheap work isn't fast, and cheap/fast work isn't good. Getting better rewards into hourglass (that aren't just color variants of existing cosmetics) will not be fast. The fast solution to getting players back into SoT and hourglass is simply to increase allegiance rewards, which is what we've observed this past Gifts and Glory weekend. It's a far cry from what I agree would be a good solution, but it's the fast solution that will make hourglass more fun for everyone to play.
I guess this goes to game theory: since SoT is owned by Microsoft, and will not go under any time soon, Rare has the luxury of time. I have little doubt they will give us more rewards up to 100 as soon as they can, even if it is simply a recolor. The challenge is, people are leaving hourglass quickly, and it is a miserable experience for most players. Rare needs a fast fix to get players back into the game mode, and the sad answer is the way to do that (as proven this weekend) is to increase allegiance rewards.
Enter your settings and select prefer xbox & controller option. You'll likely never be paired with PC ever again.
And then set yourself a goal of perhaps 1 level per session and you'll unlock the curses eventually.
Right now a lot of good pvp players are participating in season 8, so solo is tough against better players. I'm no mug and can get murdered very quickly in some matches.
Plenty of life left in the game yet. Don't be in such a rush to obtain everything.
@i-jusa-i said in Increase faction rep gain or reduce curse requirement level.:
Making them easier to get is againts their design.I agree that ideally it should be that way, but then Rare made the mistake to give then as the first meaningful reward, then a bunch of rewards after that. The way it is designed, it's the second reward after a lame figurehead for a 80+ hours grind for the bottom 80% of the HG playerbase (not the overall playerbase, the one that specificaly use the system). Even the gold curse takes half the grind with a bunch of intermediate rewards. Imo it's a design mistake.
Just because a couple of people on forums think PvP is not fun and curses need to take only max 20 hours to get, does not mean its the correct choice for Rare.
I like PvP a lot (enough for joining dedicated discord to play Arena when the mode was dead), but I have only 10-16h to dedicate to SoT a week. I've stopped grinding after reaching lvls 60 and 19 respectively (with a 60+% winrate) after +-50h since the S8 release.
I don't want the curse right away, but I want to feel like the time I invest in an activity is respected which isn't the case at all right now lvl 100 / 1000 in both factions feel too much like an end game achievement already with 4+ months of grind for 2 figureheads and 2 curses (if I can maintain a 60% winrate, which is doubtful as the worse players than me will certainly vanish after a while).I'm not quitting the game tho, SoT is fun and rewarding elsewhere, but I'm certainly won't do much of the HG till the january update in order to be able to give it a fair shot (I would be too burned out otherwise).
The way things are designed, it not only discourages PvP averse players, but also casual (as in hours available per week) PvP players. Unless the core playerbase of Rare suddenly became Hardcore PvP players, I'm not sure if it's a correct choice for them. I understand players that already got the curses to want them to feel special tho but is it really worth risking the S8 mode to become an Arena like failure ?
@NeedSmokes said in Increase faction rep gain or reduce curse requirement level.:
Enter your settings and select prefer xbox & controller option.
I heard that there is an ingame message from rare stating the queues are not populated enough on console and that they advise those players to deselect this option in order to shorten matchmaking time. Might not be a valid option for the guy you responded to.
I don't play lots, but I have never really had any lengthy wait times solo looking to invade or defending whilst being opted out of crossplay.
I do however only get the chance to play peak times for UK. So that might make the difference for me.
I will never ever deselect the option again. To be paired with PC is game breaking for me. Would rather queue an eternity!!
@i-jusa-i said in Increase faction rep gain or reduce curse requirement level.:
Not everyone agrees, I for one do not. Curses are meant to be special and rare, hard to get.
Making them easier to get is againts their design.
Just because a couple of people on forums think PvP is not fun and curses need to take only max 20 hours to get, does not mean its the correct choice for Rare.
They are special hard to get rewards that take a while to get for players participating in the new PvP mode, thats their core reason and design, and they work well for what they are designed as.
Sure MM needs work, and there could be additional rewards on the way to 100, but making leveling up faster up to 100 is not a fix.
After all, if players get the curse 2x faster and thats all they want from the mode, players will quit the mode 2x faster.
None of the curses up to this point were even remotely difficult to get, I’ll give people who did the gold curse before checkpoints were a thing but after checkpoint that became a cake walk too. people aren’t going to just drop it after 100, at least for the skeleton because they’re gonna want cosmetics for their skeleton. And the super sweaty people are going to grind to 1000, so why does literally everyone else have to suffer this complete pvp-only slog just to GET the curses, which again have been some of the most requested things for this game from people on both sides of the argument (those who like pvp and those who don’t) Like for example one of the skeletons cosmetics is the one that the mutinous helmsman wears, and you have to get grade 5 of defeating champion ships AFTER getting the curse, unless you’re a pvp god (like top 10%) or have a decent galleon crew to go with to negate the downside of champion battles, you’re never going to have a chance of getting that cosmetic. I’ve tried one champion battle on a duo sloop and we got put against a pc galleon that raised their sails immediately and just kept their broadside to us the whole 45+ minute match without ever moving. There was literally no way for us to win. And then you get slapped with the frankly depressing amount of loss xp. This mode is gonna die just like arena did.
I really do not understand why people are so angry about this. Its a new update and this leveling up was designed as an end-game thing.
If you guys are just level 30, NEXT December, then maybe there needs to be some form of adjustment to the system.But i guess this complaining is part of the modern " I want everything NOW"-thinking, and people are not patient nowadays.
Why not calm down, and just play the game. Btw i play on PC and spend about 2h daily, and im level 28 in the reaper part of the new expansion, 1 in the Athena part... and that is ok. As i see it i have a year to get to level 100 in both, and that is ok.
Everyone has the right to their own opinions and this is mine.
@ghostfire1981 What makes me angry:
Progression system that values the time of players who are winning and having fun dozen time more than time of players who are losing and not having fun. As if having to play the most tedious part of the game, being punching bag for animation cancelling pvp sweats, was not harsh enough. Season 8 progression could have been player friendly to make the pvp content less annoying for casuals who try pvp, but instead it's the opposite. It feels like abusive relationship.
@ghostfire1981 said in Increase faction rep gain or reduce curse requirement level.:
But i guess this complaining is part of the modern " I want everything NOW"-thinking, and people are not patient nowadays.
I see that point a lot and I don't understand where it's coming from. People usually don't ask for everything now. That's a strawman. Or the definition of "everything" and "now" has changed to mean "the second reward out of many" and "40 - 60 hours of grind". xD
In my Opinion, the initial rewards at 100 are not a problem. I like the idea of more elite groups of each faction having the curse, and it’s far from unobtainable by the average player (in theory). Then you have the super exclusive gold versions who you could think of as elite captains in each faction, i like the idea.
The problem is the way the system is set up, as many have said before. I don’t know how you could fix it. To start, you need a player base of varying skill levels, which Is already not there, so everyone gets sweaty opponents. I think the biggest problem is the steak system. There is literally no way to know if you have a chance of winning the next battle. So by trying to stack wins, you run a huge risk of losing everything completely. It’s simply just gambling, which encourages turn ins after every win instead of holding onto streaks. And let’s be real; if your opponent is vastly better at the game then you, no amount of supplies is going to affect the outcome. So why have the steak system in the first place? Maybe if it gave you some kind of benefit after each win, but even that wouldn’t work in practice.
I just don’t know, the entire thing just seems like a good idea that isn’t working as intended. How do we make things more rewarding for players who aren’t the greatest at combat so they continue playing?
"suffer this complete pvp-only slog just to GET the curses"
Why is playing the game "suffering" to you?
I'm level 150+ and I havent suffered, Ive also played a lot of open crew on the new pvp mode.
Better crew wins, move on to a new fight.
I guess if youre not used to playing againts other people and losing then it might be suffering... but then youre playing the wrong game.
I think the biggest problem is the PVP.
Pirate's Life brought new life into the game (sorry for the pun) by way of tens of thousands of new players who immediately quit when they were shown vibrant PVE content and videos of rival pirates sharing a grog at the tavern, but received cannonballs outside of the tavern instead.
Rare's biggest mistake isn't the slow progression, it is the "choose your journey in our PVEVP sandbox" advertisements, followed by taking the two most requested curses since the inception of the game and cramming them behind a playmode much of the community dislikes and forcing them to play it repeatedly to get good at it to have any hope of obtaining those cosmetics inside of a decade.
Honestly the things that needs immediate remediation are either rewarding more allegiance for a loss, making it not feel so punishing, or awarding more allegiance for faction treasury (including if you get sunk with treasure) or another PVE way to get the curses. They're not allowed to say "choose your own journey" if they put the macguffin everyone wants behind only one style of play, and effectively requiring being good at that one style of play (which statistically by definition half the community is not).
Well, ALL other things in the game are basically rewards for doing PvE stuff. (Even the reapers faction is basically PvE stuff if you want to.) So why not have something to encourage, and/or keep the PvP part of the game alive, because there is literally nothing else that directly rewards direct PvP action in the game, after they removed the Arena (with its rewards).
As i see it, now there is a balance for the PvPvE system. Now there are things to do for both parts of the game. The PvP favouring players have something to work towards, and the PvE favouring players can do pretty much anything to level up of earn stuff. Before this new addition to the game (after they removed the Arena) the PvP community had nothing to work towards, and that led to some of them randomly attacking anything they could see (and oh boy, did players complain about being attacked and sunk). Now the PvE favouring players can feel a lot safer doing missions as most of the PvP hungry players are fighting in the new system.
If a new system to gain progress in the new " WAR factions", by doing PvE stuff was added, there would need to be a counter balance to this system. Perhaps make them visible on the map for everyone, to show that they are currently collecting progress, so that anyone can attack and claim it for themselves. If not, this progress could easily be cheesed by doing safe things without the risk of getting attacked. Also alliance servers would break the system completely.
Balance, my friends, balance is important.
1000% agree with you, the PVP community should have exclusive cosmetics to flaunt.
10000% disagree it should be the curses every player wants. Rare is basically telling the PVE community "we don't care about you" putting the curses behind PVP, or at least that's how it feel.
@ghostfire1981 You speak of balance and yet I’m gettin matched against people who have the curses already and again, if I want any chance of even a 20 minute queue time I have to play against pc players IE lose every match. I have spent 15 hours this past day doing nothing but pvp and I have not gotten a quarter of a level yet because I’ve lost every match. Pc vs Xbox is not even a comparable fight if the pc player is even halfway decent. I’m at 89 in my first faction and like I said, I’m practically ready to give up. The time invested is not even remotely worth it. You get nothing unless you go on like at least a 10 streak.
@historicmold440 said in Increase faction rep gain or reduce curse requirement level.:
@ghostfire1981 You speak of balance and yet I’m gettin matched against people who have the curses already and again, if I want any chance of even a 20 minute queue time I have to play against pc players IE lose every match. I have spent 15 hours this past day doing nothing but pvp and I have not gotten a quarter of a level yet because I’ve lost every match. Pc vs Xbox is not even a comparable fight if the pc player is even halfway decent. I’m at 89 in my first faction and like I said, I’m practically ready to give up. The time invested is not even remotely worth it. You get nothing unless you go on like at least a 10 streak.
That's, not bad actually. I'm on pc with a few hours to play most nights and I'm 28/17. Want to trade??
In my own experience, putting it behind PVP was a mistake because I love the PVEVP sandbox and get bored of repetitive play. I swap between PVE and PVP frequently in any given session and am remarkably disinterested in the vast amount of PVP in my future... The grind is real.
@historicmold440 said in Increase faction rep gain or reduce curse requirement level.:
@ghostfire1981 You speak of balance and yet I’m gettin matched against people who have the curses already and again, if I want any chance of even a 20 minute queue time I have to play against pc players IE lose every match. I have spent 15 hours this past day doing nothing but pvp and I have not gotten a quarter of a level yet because I’ve lost every match. Pc vs Xbox is not even a comparable fight if the pc player is even halfway decent. I’m at 89 in my first faction and like I said, I’m practically ready to give up. The time invested is not even remotely worth it. You get nothing unless you go on like at least a 10 streak.
Well i play on PC, and im just level 28 in one faction, and 1 in the other (Athena/ghost) one. And i probably get to level 100 in both by the end of next year. The fact that you are already that high in one faction says to me that you are really grinding the game. Some people like the grind, i do not, and i play accordingly. For me grinding any game, will make me loose interest. But again that is just me.
Also most casual players are probably around level 30 or so. The fact that you are already 89 in one faction means that you are probably in the top 1% in the game right now, so naturally you are paired with the other 1% top players. That explains why you are in matches with the really good players.
@historicmold440 the series X is stronger than most gaming pcs... It's controller vs kbm. I can tall you that there are lots players that use kbm on pc that are just mediocre. Also not all of us high end pc players use a kbm for SoT. I have a fairly high end pc, one that is better than a series x, and I use an xbox elite controller.
An army fights on its belly.
The idea that the only actions worth anything in a war is winning battles is grossly out of touch with reality. I know this is a game but the point I'm making is that Rare can't legitimately claim this is a PVEVP game, put "respect other pirates' journey" in the pirate code, then disrespect a significant portion of their players' chosen journey by lockin the most coveted curses in the game behind one game mode (PVP) . It's aggressively hippocritical.
@lordqulex said in Increase faction rep gain or reduce curse requirement level.:
An army fights on its belly.
The idea that the only actions worth anything in a war is winning battles is grossly out of touch with reality. I know this is a game but the point I'm making is that Rare can't legitimately claim this is a PVEVP game, put "respect other pirates' journey" in the pirate code, then disrespect a significant portion of their players' chosen journey by lockin the most coveted curses in the game behind one game mode (PVP) . It's aggressively hippocritical.
You can vote for the hourglass and go PvE waiting for a player to attack you, so it's still a PvPvE game.
Faction treasury is not an effective way to earn the curses. Flat out. The issue is Rare locked the most coveted curses in the game behind a game mode that a significant portion of the community has no desire to participate in, and statistically half the community is below average at. That is the insult to injury.
@lordqulex said in Increase faction rep gain or reduce curse requirement level.:
Faction treasury is not an effective way to earn the curses. Flat out. The issue is Rare locked the most coveted curses in the game behind a game mode that a significant portion of the community has no desire to participate in, and statistically half the community is below average at. That is the insult to injury.
Anything that is above 5% of the community is significant though, apart from that, how do you know what exact percentage of the community does or doesn't want to participate in it? Did you create some sort of poll? How can half of the community be below average at if the average is a summary of what a general community member would perform at? Are you saying the other half is above average, that way it evens out? What are the other half taking to be that good? Why are they that good?
I say "significant part of the community" because I don't know the specific percentage but a number of people who post here or have told me over voice chat from the official LFC Discord that they want another way to unlock the curse. No one asking for PVE servers has any interest in hourglass self evidently.
I say half the community is below average because that's the definition of average; 50% of the people are below average, and 50% are above average. That's quintessential to the definition of average... I suppose yes technically that's the median and not the mean but I didn't think anyone here would split hairs over mathematical terms with me...
@lordqulex said in Increase faction rep gain or reduce curse requirement level.:
Faction treasury is not an effective way to earn the curses. Flat out. The issue is Rare locked the most coveted curses in the game behind a game mode that a significant portion of the community has no desire to participate in, and statistically half the community is below average at. That is the insult to injury.
I have no desire to do PvE and yet I do because most in-game rewards are based on PvE.
I don't like delivering animals, but I do.
I don't like to fish, but I do.
I don't like Tall Tales, but I do.
The world is not a place of flowers where we only do what we like. I know games are supposed to be fun, but if a person wants a reward, then deserve it.But preference is not stopping you from doing it. You may not enjoy tall tales but skill is not preventing you from getting the gold curse.
A PVP skill ceiling literally prevents players from getting the curse.
Rare is essentially gatekeeping the curses and gaslighting the players by offering a pittance for losses and pretending like faction treasury makes a difference.
@lordqulex you are not 'stopped' from getting it as there is still progress, however small, towards the Curse.
@triheadedmonkey
Really? You're going to call that tiny tick off allegiance progress? I've seen posts on these forums describing it as anywhere from a joke to insulting.
And yes while technically progress is not "stopped", anybody who can't generate a 4 streak (which based on many of the posts I've read is a significant portion of the community) will invest significantly more time into trying to get the curses than the teeny percent of players who thought they were too easy and please make levels 200-1000 harder.
It's the investment-to-reward ratio that the community is primarily aggrevated about I think. Peoples' recommendations from increasing the allegiance for losses to adding more cosmetics between levels 1 to 100 are all about making the grind worthwhile.
A skill based match making system based on Elo rating will usually match crews giving each a close to 50% win rate. Which means, in general, crews statistically will win once then sink. But there are many players struggling to get a 1/5, 1/10, or 1/20 W/L ratio. Those players are required to invest vastly more time into unlocking the curses than the players saying things like "everything is great, and I have a 90% win rate."
Players who have a slower, more arduous journey for the curses are merely begging for the the grind to be a bit more rewarding so that their daily progress produces at least a little gratification. I for one don't feel very accomplished after playing for three hours and failing to get a single win. And if it's not a gratifying game mode, people will leave it. Which based on many posts here, they are. I'm merely making suggestions that will bring players back and keep players interested in hourglass. If that is not the goal, to engage and encourage players to join, then why are we here?
@lordqulex You said it is stopping you....just here to clarify it doesn't stop you at all.
Is the Season more PvP orientated? Yes.
Does it prevent anyone from gaining the rewards? No.
It is not time-limited and is not meant to be a speed run.
Some people have speed run it but are absolute outliers and not the norm.
The Curses are supposed to be rewards not hand out freebies.
If I could just load in, scuttle and get decent rewards.....that doesn't seem fair or right.
@triheadedmonkey That's a bit cheeky. :p I guess it would still be theorically true if a loss gave 1/1000th of a level so you're not taking much risk there.
@triheadedmonkey said in Increase faction rep gain or reduce curse requirement level.:
It is not time-limited and is not meant to be a speed run.
As long as there is a meaningful population of players participating. But here again it's theorically true as long as no-one is preventing you to dive and wait for an opponent.
@grog-minto Theoretically ....I could be hit by lightning tomorrow and miss all sorts! 🤷♂️
As for population/MatchMaking, some of the improvements coming should help https://www.seaofthieves.com/news/S8-matchmaking-changes
