Hourglass NEEDS more rewards between level 0 - 100 and 200 - 1000.

@animeowl0807 agreed. alotnof us have been saying this since the beginning.

I'd love to see them work on 0-100 first. Giving people a constant carrot to work toward would likely keep more people engaged. after that work on 200-300n then 400-500 etc.

While I completely agree, more rewards are needed, if they just added a bunch of cosmetics from 200 onwards, I still wouldn't come back to hourglass. It is stale and like LordQulex said, not rewarding. I enjoyed parts of it on the road to the curses and I occasionally do the odd match solo just for pvp practice but that is it. The mode lacks playstyle freedom. Going forward in my opinion they need to start opening it up by awarding more allegiance to defence and providing more ways to gain allegience. PvPvE needs to be incorporated into the mode, that's what makes the rest of the game so appealing.

@animeowl0807
Agree with 1-100 rewards, nothing huge, but something nice to get on the way. The figurehead is plain and uncompleted before 100, so its not a reward until u get the full version in a sense. I think even a slightly cool sword at lvl 50 would do much.

As for 1-1000, idk. I would already say that lvl 1-100 and 100-200 is huge grinds for a stale mode(x2 considering factions, so 4 long grinds). Improvements of the mode experience or presidence(not based on win streak) in progression would open up for more rewards. We already have gold variants for the "pvp thirsties". Any more rewards could create a PvP gate with very very high participation zealing. Only 1/1000 have the skele and ghost curses. Any more/higher pvp locked cosmetics would likely down prioritize 99,9% of the playerbase.

I agree, 0 - 100 would get more casual players in HG more and liven up the mode a bit more.

And we need more from 200+. I basically haven't touched guardians since getting 200. And on servants there's only a small few skele bits to get.

@animeowl0807 I wish I could agree but clearly the PvP only mantra isn't working otherwise it would be vastly more popular. It needs something more for it to be a big hit amongst the majority of the playerbase. PvP should remain a part of it, it is a war for the Sea of Thieves after all but that role play of representing your faction doesn't exist. The gameplay should be the reward, not just the pixels. It should lend back in to the games original values of risk vs reward. It was sold as a mode that you'd opt in on when going about your journeys or vote on if you want instant PvP. There's no incentive at all to take part while going about normal adventure which is the 1st problem. After that it's just lack of variety.

I know that many are voicing for cosmetic rewards, but if you examine some of the other 'events' in Sea of Thieves, like world events, and the Skull of Siren Song, a good few of them reward the player with something that can potentially help them on the High Seas, or unique pieces of loot.

Doing a ghost fleet gives you wraith balls, skull of siren song gives you the skull of siren song, forts can give you mega kegs.

Rewarding the player with interesting tools or options to help them find success in the main game might actually be good thing. If they knew that winning a single match in HG per day would allow them to get two CoF in a single world event then they may consider doing it.

Maybe it could give them an immediate Grade V in what ever Emissary they wanted to raise.

I think the best reward, though, would be to be able to dive to Siren Treasuries and retrieve 'battle artifacts' from your previous sunken adversaries. These 'battle artifacts' would be graded on the MMR of your opponents -- the higher the MMR of your sunk opponents the more gold and rep it's worth -- keep some special cosmetics behind handing these in so that players who don't often play HG can be pleasantly surprised when they sink a crew who were attempting to retrieve these artifacts.

Keep Allegiance rewards in Hourglass.

@lordqulex, well said.

You either like pvp or you don't.
Also if you complain about lack of rewards you clearly haven't seen skeleton curse customization xD

@adara-haze
guardians of fortune crying in silence...

@animeowl0807 They need more rewards in general. Apart from the Ghost Curse I haven't changed my clothing since Dark Adventurer came out and probably kept my ship customization relatively the same for about 2 years. Its not the main problem with Hourglass though its that the matches just aren't fun. They need to be time limited and/or fixed supplies. That way people aren't investing resources, gold and a lot more time in a match where you get 1/4 of a level. Then because no one plays Hourglass the ones that do there matches become even more miserable because you jump from people who have maybe 100 hours in the game to have 300 days in the game. Then its just like well I can't fight someone like that I haven't been tested to that sort of level.

I've probably played close to 200 matches at Level 100 for Guardians and Level 43 for Servants. I probably had about 10 games where I thought "that was cool and intense I've feel like I'm getting better." The rest of the time its miserable either because its too easy and I'm one balling the enemy at a stupid range or I just get hammered by someone who like I said has 300 days in the game. There's no middle ground for people like me who are on the higher then average end of the player population. There's just 2 types of players.

I hope with Flameheart's ship coming in Season 13 they expand upon Hourglass modes a bit.

How cool would it be if they added a passive Hourglass to Flameheart? Let Champion Ships invade when they dive to the upscaled encounter option on the WarMap.

@a10dr4651 I 100% agree that Treasure Value does need to be rewarded higher.

I think what could work is rework the mode slightly. Instead of the Hourglass choosing the faction of Seekers/Guardians, have one side be 1V1 mode, where you vote on the warmap what faction to be, and then dive to battle. Have those battles be in an instanced arena, NOT in the High Seas... maybe use the Corrupted Seadog Tavern asset, which would have a Shipwrite/Crate Vendor, and the ability to vote down in there.

The second would be the PVPVE Mode. Where you either vote to passively gain treasure, or you vote to dive down to hunt down a passive player. This WOULD require you to be flying an emissary flag, which would signal what mode you were on. (NOTE: Guardians would let someone flying Merchant, Goldhoarder, Order, or Guild Flags). When you do this you gain Tribute Value the longer you sail, the more ships you sink, and the more treasure you collect. If you were flying a Reaper Flag, you would dive into a server with a passive ship. In this mode there is NO arena, purely the full map. The Passive Ship would be marked on the map (For the Diving Reaper only), with its Icon depicting how valuable they are. The Reaper would be marked as normal.

For the Passive Ship: you are marking yourself to be Invaded, and your value increases the longer you are active, and the amount of treasure you pick up. Since there is no "Arena" you can be invaded at anytime, regardless of ship proximity, and not have the knowledge that you are being hunted.

For the Invader: you are now tasked with the decision: how long do you wait to collect the treasure. You can see how valuable they are, but in turn also may look suspicious being a fresh reaper not gaining in rank at all.

For this mode to be successful you would not be able to Activate the Hourglass at all if you are currently in an alliance... and since an Emissary Flag is required for the Passive/Invader mode, you won't get a lot of people accidentally activating it.

I think these modifications would make people more interested in the mode, since it would prevent the third partying in the 1v1 battles, and it would also make the acquisition of treasure mean more to the people flagging themselves for invasion.