Iea: Persistent Maps

  • LordQulex
    Master

    I think I have an idea that would both benefit players and make burying loot a mechanic worth interacting with.

    First, the problem: I don't think your average player buries treasure. My family goes to bed around 7:30 pm every night, giving me 3.5 hours to play; and I do, virtually every night. But I don't feel that's "average." I have many games that I play with friends and getting in one to two hours every few nights is about it. So, in my age demographic anyway (millennials, "old millennials," Xennial, what have you), the idea that you'll bury treasure when being pursued and come back to pick it up later is absurd. There is no later. You spend 60 minutes getting the loot and grade five emissary, then 60 minutes getting chased. Maybe you drop off a chest or two sailing past an outpost, maybe you get sunk, maybe you don't, but either way we basically run out of time to retrieve and sell the loot.

    So, why should I bury it? Setting aside that burying treasure didn't happen in reality, why would fantasy pirates bury treasure? Because it's their "bank." You bury it later in hopes of amassing enough to come back later, dig it up, and retire in luxury. The idea of lost buried treasure was that pirate X buried a bunch of treasure and died before they dug it up. So why don't map bundles persist on my captained ship? This would be great for players with less time to play. Get some treasure, bury it, dig it up in a later session to pick up where you left off.

    The way I envision this being used is do a voyage or two, bury the treasure, come back another night to do another voyage or two, bury the treasure, come back another night to raise emissary, dig it all up, and sell at grade five. It doesn't really change the risk/reward balance; there is still loot on the ship to be stolen but instead of dropping it off at an outpost it's dropped off at a random island. You can still have the map bundle stolen, or lost when your ship sinks. (If the map bundle disappears I image the loot does as well, if you log off.)

    May not make the map board any better, but it makes burying a mechanic some players would interact with.

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  • Captain Coel
    Captain
    Insider

    @lordqulex This kind of invalidates the whole "session based game". We are meant to start fresh each time. this allows you to carry things from one session to another. Also you could bury while being chased and that's no good to remove that from the crew chasing.

    As always. If you have more loot than you are willing to lose, you should sell.

  • LordQulex
    Master

    @captain-coel said in Iea: Persistent Maps:

    @lordqulex This kind of invalidates the whole "session based game". We are meant to start fresh each time. this allows you to carry things from one session to another.

    Hm, valid point... They did add the map board and sea forts to accommodate the more casual players with limited time to play. I was hoping this would open up emissary voyages to pirates that rarely get to do them due to time constraints, but if those are the only thing they're missing they're not missing much. The only one worth doing is GH—OOS emissary voyages are just more of the same, and MA emissary voyages are more of the same as well, but nerfed from ten items to four now.

    Also you could bury while being chased and that's no good to remove that from the crew chasing.

    You can do this now anyway... what's the difference? Being chased, jump off, sell a box or bury it, if the chaser sees it they dig it up if they care. This doesn't change anything.

    As always. If you have more loot than you are willing to lose, you should sell.

    It's not about more loot than you're willing to lose, it's about making a fun and thematic mechanic compelling and interesting to interact with. It's not about winning or losing, chasing or running, it's about encouraging pirates to engage with burying treasure, which right now there is simply no reason to do so.

  • Rare Jumbie
    Captain
    Insider

    I somewhat agree with your suggestion but also feel that loot should be (mostly) session based. Your argument that burying is a dead/unused mechanic is pretty apparent, though. There isn't an item valuable enough for me to bury and return later to hand in myself. There's also very little reason to be charitable and hand my map bundles to other crews—which, by the way, is pretty difficult to do since most crews are skittish and either run or attack on sight.

    Instead, I think an interesting mechanic would be that after a map has been placed on the quest board there is a chance that someone else may dig it up, but there's also a chance that if they don't you'll be able to retrieve it later (at the discretion of the server) at 2-3 times the value. This encourages all players to take a little gamble even when there is no other reason to bury.

  • LordQulex
    Master

    @jumbie7311

    When they were first introduced, the commendations were for burying a number of pieces, not a value. So my crew discovered if you bury three worthless trinkets and the chest they were in, that's four out of five items needed on an island for the commendation. So even if you did grab a map bundle from the board, it'd be worth a whopping 500- gold. One random captain's chest is worth more than most map bundles. Even if I were to find one waiting for me on the dock when I spawn in, where many pirates and I leave our supply crates when we're done, I'd be dubious that it'd have more than a few secret keepers.

    If it's the end of my session, and I'm going to sell my treasure anyway, it makes very little difference whether I sell it or bury it. The answer can't be to apply emissary bonus to buried treasure, that would effect the collect/fight/turn in cycle if any random island could be a turn in point. But why would I bury treasure instead of sell it if I need to log off now? Especially if in order to get my value I need to post the map bundle at an outpost, which if I could make it to I'd just sell my loot anyway? It can't be there next session because the game is supposed to be "session based," but buried treasure is meant for later and later never comes... I guess Rare is choosing for burying treasure to be a dead mechanic over allowing it to go from session to session, so being a session based game loop is more important than I thought. I don't really feel that this is remarkably game-breaking, until crews start burying their supply crates so they can bring hundreds of cannonballs and planks into their next session. But again, I don't feel that very game breaking either.

  • Rare Jumbie
    Captain
    Insider

    @lordqulex

    Sorry if I wasn't clear. I wasn't suggesting that the buried loot be dug up by you in the same session. I was saying that, if a crew wants to gamble, bury their loot and come back within a day or so, in a different session, to see if it's still on their quest board. If it is, great, they get their loot back with a multiplier on top. If not, it means it was actually used by another crew. This partially satisfies your "bank" idea except there's still some risk involved.

  • D3ADST1CK
    Vanguard
    Insider
    Founder

    The problem with buried loot remaining accessible to you in another session is that it creates a bunch of scenarios where you just bury something valuable, log off and then log back into a different server to retrieve it. This can easily be used to swap servers after the finale of special voyages/world events, or to secure stolen loot permanently in a rapid amount of time.

  • LordQulex
    Master

    @d3adst1ck said in Iea: Persistent Maps:

    The problem with buried loot remaining accessible to you in another session is that it creates a bunch of scenarios where you just bury something valuable, log off and then log back into a different server to retrieve it. This can easily be used to swap servers after the finale of special voyages/world events, or to secure stolen loot permanently in a rapid amount of time.

    Yea, honestly the only thing valuable and rare enough for that to matter is the Chest of Fortune, but you could just bury it immediately upon completing the fort and go to a server that doesn't know one is in play and sell it easy breezy after getting to grade five another way... Adding high-tier loot to the "unburyable" category makes this mechanic worthless...

    I'll need to think on this. @Jumbie7311 is right, there needs to be more risk associated with this to make it fair and balanced...

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