ok so like S11 from a surface level gameplay standpoint: Really really good. The cosmetics are awesome, I am very much happy with the new reaper, athena, and gh cosmetics. OoS and MA not as much but they're cool ig. The plunderpass is pretty good as well this time. The new bard stuff looks good too, the weapons I haven't really seen but its unlikely I change anyways. Awesome, loving the cosmetics, my favorite part of any update. Also idk you guys didn't show it off and I haven't looked but I'm sure the Fates stuff is good too. The gameplay, pretty good update as well. I am a little dissapointed that HC didn't get any love, and I definitely do not think AF should stay this difficult. But the whole diving thing is really well done, I think everything from the UI to the tutorials and just the feel of it is great. But wheres the loot? I mean I wouldn't want the game to be absolutely broken and loot to be so easy to get it takes me 5 mintues. BUT WHERES THE LOOT??? Like I dive to an AW theres like 5 items, ok fair enough its ranked a 3. I dive to a skeleton fort and theres a few more items and yeah ok sure thats fine cus its a rank 4. I go to an LOTV a rank 5, I save maybe 5 minutes? Maybe more maybe less, and I get like 5 athena items and the rest is random ghost loot? You're losing me Rare. I go do a raid voyage, FH fleets, the only one thats time rank "5" AND I get 6 t1s and 3 t2s + the gh raid item. And I don't think I even got any captain skulls and I definitely didn't get a wraith crate. So like the max level raid voyage AND the max level lotv voyage made me at least visually, I didn't crunch the numbers, a whole lot less than doing them normally. Like I understand not wanting to throw the economy into ruin, but this feels like a half hearted commitment. You guys said "we want players to be able to play shorter sessions," SO let them do that, let them get a hefty amount of loot in these shorter sessions. Let them dive and get enough loot to send a photo to friends. That was the max Discord would let me send in one message. Anyways pt2 I think 5 - 10 pieces of loot is insane. Like it really ought to be like you dive for your company and you can get a WEs worth of loot. If you dive GH, any OoS or Merchant loot is just turned into a T1 GH generic loot. The rest of the loot stays as is, maybe you remove a few pieces for balance sake. But you don't make anything. It's insane. I spent something like 3 hours on today and made a grand total of 300k? When I easily could have doubled or tripled that doing normal events. And thank god I chose to ran Guild Emmi because these "company voyages" give you like 5 items from your company and 20 from any other one it chooses (especially veils and athena related ones). Like if I sign up with a contract from the GHs to go Gold hoarding I don't wanna end up with 2 pieces of merchant/OoS loot out of the grand total of 8 I get. I think the most massive flaw in this system is that if I go off on an adventure to play a basic WE with no company, and its say 10 tiles away, I can get 5 tiles closer and somebody could just dive straight into it. Even if I sink this person guess what? The loot table is still ruined. I don't get any money from 8 GH items, especailly if I am going for specifically merchant or OoS. Yet its there. Now I don't know the exact diving mechanics or anything, nor has this happened to me. But if it did, I'd be furious. I mean I don't even think the chances are that low either. I just haven't sailed around the open world enough to see. I mean the only guaranteed normal loot pools are Fleefs, FoFs, and FotDs + the normal company voyages. I mean I did do a fleef, it was pretty awesome. It actually gave me money, and it being central to the map meant it wasn't a long sail time either. But it was also just a skele fleet. Which is fine its just less interesting. Anyways I think its time to switch over to part 3 now, since I am approaching the limit again. So fix your loot pools please Rare it doesn't make sense. Especially on these ones like GH vaults (untested) and LotVs (tested) where it just like gave it seems less than normal, for like basically the same amount of work. But like the other thing I wanted to touch on was just the emissary grade value. I mean first of all for some reason whenever I dive with guild emmi I get like 1/3 of a level of guild emmi rep (at level 1). So thats weird. But uh why is it that I can go do a whole raid voyage and only get to like grade 2.9? And that includes the out of place items since I was running guild. Its like not only are you not giving me anything, you're giving me ~1.5x less for it all. And when you can't stack it, because you can't dive with loot, how are you supposed to sell with G5 without sailing around? Or you can just sell your 8 items for less money and then especially make nothing. It is a little weird that you don't automatically ensure that player reach a grade 5 emmissary value upon completing at least a raid. Like an AW should give you it, also include the long voyages, perhaps you could throw it into some of the shorter ones as well but thats pushing it. Like in the current balance of the system, I log on, dive (skipping maybe 10 minutes at most without considering server hopping), do an entire AW, and then STILL have to sail back from the AW to an outpost, and I make like 50-70k less. Need I say more? Last note is like please please please give rings to skeletons its insane that you guys release a new cosmetic meant to flex your levels like this and eliminate skeletons from ever being able to use them...
TL:DR
Cosmetics look great and unlocks are fine for them. Voyage balancing is a train wreck, save 10 minutes or make 50k extra? Easy choice. Someone put my worries to bed because if you are sailing to a WE and then it gets dived on and ruins the loot pool it would be terrible. At the bare minimum make it so you 100% get G5 from most of the voyages. The Fleefs are cool I like them. Fix the loot pools in another sense so that all the loot is actually company loot (I am looking at you AF voyages). And also make it so you can at least earn 15 pieces per raid voyages. Athena rep needs to be fixed, its far too slow for the amount of loot you now get doing THEIR voayges. And FotD won't work either so its gotta be FoFs and oh boy FoF hopping again!! YAY!! And finally; Joe Neate hear my prayer, let rings become skeleton ware.
S11 is a fun update but it feels like the devs half committed to the idea. The small loot pools and low emissary grades makes the diving seem less like a feature and more like an option. I think they should either commit to the game with dives including the loot pools being significantly changed so that you actually make money doing it, or just let the dives die and only be for commendations. But from the marketing standpoint it seems like the former, but the gameplay aspect seems like the latter. It just immediately screams, we weren't sure so we're just gonna choose neither and give a half-baked product
