War Chest Commendations Balance

  • SageOLegend
    Rogue

    Hello Rare team, firstly thank you for all your hard work this excellent game. You've created something very special and I appreciate the countless hours of enjoyment and memories.

    I'd like to give some player experience feedback on the new War Chest Commendations which have been introduced in Season 12, and the rewards for completing them- the Royal Sovereign Throwing Knives and Double Barreled Pistol cosmetics. I feel that the requirements to complete these commendations are unreasonable and warrant rebalancing.

    I. THE CONTEXT-

    Firstly I'd like to note that the Royal Sovereign cosmetic set has already existed for a long time in Sea of Thieves. The requirements for obtaining these cosmetics are (mostly) just reaching certain levels with the Gold Hoarder trading company, the highest level requirement being 50. Players will find themselves earning access to this set naturally on their journey to becoming a Pirate Legend. So far, so good.

    The problem is that the new additions to this set, the Royal Sovereign Throwing Knives and Double Barreled Pistol, require a full completion of the new War Chest commendations to obtain. Which currently require an absolutely ludicrous amount of play time to complete.

    II. THE PLAYER EXPERIENCE-

    Initially I believed that in order to obtain the "The War Chest Champion" commendation and earn the new Royal Sovereign cosmetic rewards, you merely needed to earn at least Grade I for each of the War Chest Commendations. The description of "Complete all of the War Chest Commendations" doesn't mention requiring Grade V, which other achievements in the War Chest DO specifically mention.

    Just obtaining Grade I for all of these commendations by itself is quite a time-consuming grind. I spent about 35 hours grinding to accomplish it all. I got 2,000 skeleton and 2,000 ghost kills with the new weapons. I mindlessly waited for 250 sharks to spawn. I endlessly repeated skeleton forts to blow up 250 keg skeletons . I walked 500 pieces of treasure along harpoon lines onto my ship. These tasks are already quite a lot to ask of any player, but even so I felt they were within the bounds of reason. I honestly don't mind a grind if I'm motivated by a cool reward. I have the Ghostly Curse already, which should say something about how much time and suffering I'm willing to commit to a good grind.

    But after finally completing every War Chest Commendation to at least Grade I, I was horrified to see that I still hadn't earned the final "The War Chest Champion" commendation. This meant that I had to complete ALL the War Chest commendations to Grade V. Here's where I feel the truly unfair time requirements come in. There are a few commendations which I believe strongly warrant rebalancing.

    III. THE BALANCE PROBLEMS-

    The biggest offender is the "Storm Sale" commendation, which to reach Grade V requires you to sell 250 Horns of Fair Winds. These horns are currently extremely rare to find. I won't go into details in this already long post, but finding them naturally is a very rare occurrence and many players are already complaining about their scarcity. I don't mind that personally as they're a very powerful item, but to require finding and selling 250 of them is just not reasonable to ask of any pirate. Completing this task in any remotely reasonable amount of time involves exploiting their spawn mechanics by idly camping at their spawn locations for hours at a time. Which doesn't feel like intended gameplay or a fair ask of players' time.

    The other big offenders here are the Bonecaller commendations. The "Skeleton Squared" commendation requires 250 Bonecallers to be shot at skeleton ships. And slightly less insane but still egregious is the "Toasty Bones" commendation, which requires 250 ashen skeleton kills by Bonecaller skeletons.

    The problem here is that Bonecallers are also quite rare items to find. These commendations rely largely on RNG to collect a huge number of Bonecallers. It would take a ridiculous amount of hours endlessly scrounging through barrels on hundreds of islands just to find that many Bonecallers. Not to mention successfully using each and every single one of them. If we were talking, say, 50 Bonecallers per commendation... That would honestly still feel like too much to ask, but not enough that I would feel the need to share feedback about it on a forum.

    IV. THE CONCLUSION-

    As it stands, the requirements for these commendations just aren't reasonable or respectful of players' time.

    Additionally, the rewards aren't an appropriate match for the grind in two ways. One, they are part of an existing cosmetic set for which there have previously been no comparable time requirements to obtain. And two, at the end of the day the reward just doesn't match the severity of the grind. For the amount of time you currently must spend to obtain these cosmetics, they need to be the Legendary Golden Throwing Knives of the Pirate Lord or something. The Royal Sovereign throwing knives are cool and I personally want them because I enjoy green cosmetics for my pirate. But they are a mismatched reward for this grind.

    I'll leave the balance decisions to you, the professionals. But from my player's perspective I feel the best balance change would be to lower the requirements for the "Storm Sale", "Skeleton Squared", and "Toasty Bones" commendations. Even better would be to change the unlock requirement for the Royal Sovereign Throwing Knives to the related "Knife-Wielding Natural" commendation, and likewise the Royal Sovereign Double Barreled Pistol to the "Double Barrel Master" commendation.

    Thanks for your time and consideration!
    -Captain Sage O'Legend

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  • BurnBacon
    Vanguard
    Insider

    I spent about 35 hours grinding to accomplish it all.

    Or you could...idk play the game fluently and just allow the achievements and commendations to unlock naturally instead of causing yourself issues.

    t would take a ridiculous amount of hours endlessly scrounging through barrels on hundreds of islands just to find that many Bonecallers.

    Like I said, dont stage your gameplay around doing these like that. Just let it happen. Maybe down the road you will do a new world event with a chance of getting a Box with 5 of them.

    As it stands, the requirements for these commendations just aren't reasonable or respectful of players' time.

    Your making it sound like the game is gonna close down very soon, like there isn't a future. Or they are gonna be removed.
    Just Play.

    change the unlock requirement for the Royal Sovereign Throwing Knives

    Im gonna laugh when they start releasing "Bette" cosmetics for the knives and people feel they wasted time grinding these out xD

  • WolfManbush
    Champion

    It'll be interesting to see if anything changes. There are examples of grinds lasting and grinds being massively nerfed so I wouldn't be surprised either way.

    I've done all the super grindy stuff with just a few comms left but I made that decision to get after it and don't have any interest in kicking the ladder out for others, so if it gets nerfed it gets nerfed.

    Horns are fun and I've said since they were released that I wanna see people using them to enjoy the sandbox.

  • SageOLegend
    Rogue

    @burnbacon

    Collecting commendations naturally over time can be fun as well. I'm only 18 barnacled chests away from the 300 required to unlock the Silent Barnacle set, for example. I've been slowly and happily working toward that goal over the course of 4 years now. Totally valid.

    However, different players enjoy different play styles. Some folks enjoy that "achievement hunting" grind, and there's nothing incorrect or bad about playing that way. I'd say that in many ways commendations/achievements invite players to specifically and intentionally pursue them by their design. But only for the type of players who are interested in such things.

    In my case, there are certain cosmetics I want to specifically grind for and some I'd rather pursue casually during regular play for many years to come. I think it's most fun when both kinds of play are accounted for.

    In the case of the commendation requirements I mentioned in this post, I feel that both naturally acquiring them and grinding for them aren't balanced for very reasonably. The grinders will be frustrated, and most casual players will be a dusty pile of bones before they finish them naturally, haha. And either way the set cosmetics locked behind them aren't accessible in the way they should be, in my opinion.

  • Captain Coel
    Commander
    Insider

    @sageolegend Toasty Bones only requires 50 kills its quite easy. Also Storm sale was tedious, but was doable. Bonecallers are rare, but I'll start hunting them now that I'm done with horns.

    These are meant to be long term commendations. I just wish more skins were tied to them all, it would make it more rewarding.

  • Kezmur
    Marauder
    Insider
    Founder

    I've been pecking away at the other stuff, and I agree 250 for the blone cone is absurd. IF there's only one that gets adjusted, it should be that. Literally knock a zero off even to make it fine with how rare it is. 25 blow cones makes sense, that's less than Breath of the Sea commendation. Breath of the Sea is more common and only need 30 of them. Blow Cone is rare, so you need less, 25. Makes sense

  • SageOLegend
    Rogue

    @captain-coel

    Ahh, thanks for the correction! If Toasty Bones only requires 50 for Grade V that's not so bad. In that case I withdraw my critique of that particular commendation.

    Storm Sale seems extremely tedious to say the least. How long would you say it took you to complete? Did you sit around camping the spawn locations? Did you recruit help? I'm hesitant to ask my pirate mates to assist me with such a mind-numbing task. I'd rather spend my time with them doing more fun activities.

    I agree that these commendations were designed with long-term play in mind. But clearly there are pirates among us who want to grind for the rewards specifically. I think there's a better balance to be found that works for both play styles.

    More or flashier cosmetics would be better rewards too, I agree. And I wish the longer grinds were the ones that involved fun gameplay, rather than chasing rare spawns.

  • Kezmur
    Marauder
    Insider
    Founder

    I'm fine with Bone Callers being 250 skelly ships actually, that's something I can easily do slowly over time and it's fine. I fight skelly ships all the time. Sunken Shrines take too long and don't guarantee a blow cone, and I have very little reason to do sunken shrines normally. 250 shrines would be absurd even if they were a guaranteed spawn. And sunken ships the spawn rate is even lower. The cosmetic you unlock for the weapon isn't even that good, none of the weapon shop cosmetics are anything special.

  • Captain Coel
    Commander
    Insider

    @sageolegend a group of four all hunting horns and I would run additional accounts camping locations in the background. we average about 12-14 horns an hour.

    It's worth noting for this I have the ability to run multiple old pcs. I also have 4 licenses for Sea of Thieves. I'm. a. lunatic.

  • D3ADST1CK
    Vanguard
    Insider
    Founder

    @captain-coel said in War Chest Commendations Balance:

    @sageolegend a group of four all hunting horns and I would run additional accounts camping locations in the background. we average about 12-14 horns an hour.

    It's worth noting for this I have the ability to run multiple old pcs. I also have 4 licenses for Sea of Thieves. I'm. a. lunatic.

    There's no way this should be considered reasonably 'doable'.

  • Loch1907
    Commander
    Insider

    I see it as another way of Rare pushing people to buy from the Pirate Emporium for Throwing Knife & Double Barrel Pistol skins. The grind for the most basic skins from the outpost shops is so long for the average player, it forces them to buy from the Pirate Emporium if they don't want to settle for default skins for both these weapons.

  • WolfManbush
    Champion

    @captain-coel said in War Chest Commendations Balance:

    @sageolegend a group of four all hunting horns and I would run additional accounts camping locations in the background. we average about 12-14 horns an hour.

    It's worth noting for this I have the ability to run multiple old pcs. I also have 4 licenses for Sea of Thieves. I'm. a. lunatic.

    I did it solo/high seas selling mostly 1 at a time (a few times 2 at a time) shrines/shipwrecks/pvp.

    We are both extreme examples of play in this game in different ways.

    In the patch notes I see they made horns even more rng which would have slowed down your way significantly. You still would have gotten it done pretty quick but the change is going to make it significantly more time consuming for the people that already will likely take years to even complete it.

    The casual players carry this game. It's not the extreme solos like me or people that do a lot of coordination to get it done.

    Hg is less fun because they cater it to the extreme. Horns are less fun because the metas are built around extreme commendation grinding.

    Just doesn't make sense to me to bring in so many casual players while frustrating so many long time organic style players just to keep adding grinds that aren't consistent enough to serve either.

    These grinds are just serving small groups on social media to get a few clicks while sacrificing the fun for people that also wanna make some progress and have some fun but don't want to (or even have the option to) engage in the extreme play that some of us are involved in.

  • Captain Coel
    Commander
    Insider

    @d3adst1ck doable in a kind sense.

    @WolfManbush you and I are definitely different ends of the extreme.

    It's meant to take awhile. I'm not saying I agree with the 250 total. it was tedious and boring from a gameplay perspective. However having my crew there to joke with the whole time made it okay.

    I wouldn't recommend people do it the way I did, and today's patch notes changed the ability to grind it as well.

  • WolfManbush
    Champion

    @captain-coel said in War Chest Commendations Balance:

    @d3adst1ck doable in a kind sense.

    @WolfManbush you and I are definitely different ends of the extreme.

    It's meant to take awhile. I'm not saying I agree with the 250 total. it was tedious and boring from a gameplay perspective. However having my crew there to joke with the whole time made it okay.

    I wouldn't recommend people do it the way I did, and today's patch notes changed the ability to grind it as well.

    I don't mind them taking out farm locations as far as people just going to the same spot after a bit of time but they should def bump up the spawns in other locations.

    Washed up on the beach, better rng in shipwrecks, fleets should drop one, island captain riddles, etc

    They should be out there more than they are, in a variety of ways imo.

    Then 250 is alright.

  • Kezmur
    Marauder
    Insider
    Founder

    @loch1907 said in War Chest Commendations Balance:

    I see it as another way of Rare pushing people to buy from the Pirate Emporium for Throwing Knife & Double Barrel Pistol skins. The grind for the most basic skins from the outpost shops is so long for the average player, it forces them to buy from the Pirate Emporium if they don't want to settle for default skins for both these weapons.

    It probably does work for many to get them to buy from the shop, but those kind of tactics just make me resentful towards them and refuse to touch the store versions. If there were cool skins and more skins available in game, it's be okay. There should have been at least half a dozen for each weapon available to just purchase, without commendations, and the current skins should have been part of that, and then cool skins llocked behind commendations. If that was the case, some emporium skins wouldn't be a big deal, there's cool stuff in game, different cool stuff in emporium. It's fine. But instead it's only three mid-at-best skins unlockable in game, one of which behind an insane grind, and they have more skins in the emporium than they do in game. It's offensive at that point. I'm more likely to just not use the weapons at all than to buy the emporium stuff like that.

  • Captain Coel
    Commander
    Insider

    @wolfmanbush said in War Chest Commendations Balance:

    @captain-coel said in War Chest Commendations Balance:

    @d3adst1ck doable in a kind sense.

    @WolfManbush you and I are definitely different ends of the extreme.

    It's meant to take awhile. I'm not saying I agree with the 250 total. it was tedious and boring from a gameplay perspective. However having my crew there to joke with the whole time made it okay.

    I wouldn't recommend people do it the way I did, and today's patch notes changed the ability to grind it as well.

    I don't mind them taking out farm locations as far as people just going to the same spot after a bit of time but they should def bump up the spawns in other locations.

    Washed up on the beach, better rng in shipwrecks, fleets should drop one, island captain riddles, etc

    They should be out there more than they are, in a variety of ways imo.

    Then 250 is alright.

    completely agree. I'd even be okay with shrines being 50% amd treasuries being 90% chance. they are fun to play with.

  • WolfManbush
    Champion

    @captain-coel said in War Chest Commendations Balance:

    @wolfmanbush said in War Chest Commendations Balance:

    @captain-coel said in War Chest Commendations Balance:

    @d3adst1ck doable in a kind sense.

    @WolfManbush you and I are definitely different ends of the extreme.

    It's meant to take awhile. I'm not saying I agree with the 250 total. it was tedious and boring from a gameplay perspective. However having my crew there to joke with the whole time made it okay.

    I wouldn't recommend people do it the way I did, and today's patch notes changed the ability to grind it as well.

    I don't mind them taking out farm locations as far as people just going to the same spot after a bit of time but they should def bump up the spawns in other locations.

    Washed up on the beach, better rng in shipwrecks, fleets should drop one, island captain riddles, etc

    They should be out there more than they are, in a variety of ways imo.

    Then 250 is alright.

    completely agree. I'd even be okay with shrines being 50% amd treasuries being 90% chance. they are fun to play with.

    treasuries require a lot of effort so that one for sure should be 100% imo

  • SageOLegend
    Rogue

    It's been about a week since I made this post, overall I still find myself feeling pretty deflated about the state of these commendations and cosmetics. Unless something changes I can't see myself pursuing these any more despite all the time I've already put in, unless something changes in a future patch.

    @Kezmur I agree that 25 would be a much more sensible number for the Grade V Storm Sale commendation, you make a good point about the similar commendation for collecting the Breath of the Sea. :)

    @captain-coel Thank you for sharing about your experience/strategy for collecting those horns. I'm impressed by your dedication and ingenuity! I do think this highlights just how out-of-balance the requirements for the commendation are as they stand.

    @Loch1907 I think Rare definitely wanted to have some really cool skins available in the Pirate Emporium at the launch of the season in order to make some money for all the time/effort that must have gone into creating these very cool new weapons. And yes, most likely they left the initial outpost shop cosmetics as rather basic to encourage those sales. I don't mind this generally, as I want them to be rewarded financially for all the hard work they put into creating cool new content. But I think there should always be the option to earn the basic cosmetics with a reasonable amount of play time for those who want them. My issue is that it's just not realistic for anyone but the most extreme players to do so currently.

    Since I fist made this post they have patched the spawning requirements for the Horn of Fair Winds in the shrines and treasuries, making it so that they can't be farmed in bulk any more and ensuring the grind to 250 will be excruciatingly long. This feels like doubling down on the Storm Sale commendation requirement, or at least not recognizing it as a problem yet. Which is frustrating.

    Regarding the 250 Bonecaller requirement for the Skeleton Squared commendation, upon further rumination I find this requirement especially frustrating because shooting Bonecallers at skeleton ships is probably the least interesting use of them to me. By definition you are removed from the fun of seeing your skeleton minions if you're shooting them at an NPC ship from a cannon... Even if I resigned to spending the next few years slowly grinding the commendation, I feel this would sap all the joy from just using the Bonecallers organically. I want to feel free to use them in regular gameplay! Instead I would just be hoarding them, clogging up my inventory in the hopes of seeing a skeleton ship or diving to find skeleton ships at the end of every session... It's a commendation which discourages the more interesting uses of this fun new tool in my opinion.

    As if to rub a bit of sea salt in the wound, the beautiful new title screen for Season 12 has the Royal Sovereign Double Barreled Pistol just sitting on the table, mocking me... haha

    The artists and marketing team know that these cosmetics look quite nice and want to put them front and center, but in my opinion this probably represents a bit of miscommunication between them and whoever balances the commendations. They even made a fun YouTube short which shows a pirate using this weapon: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/DG8aIprGBHc

    As if to say “Look, this could be you!”

    No. No it couldn’t. XD

    Unless you are, say, willing to go to the lengths of simultaneously running multiple computers and accounts to farm ridiculous numbers of horns like @captain-coel or gruellingly sell 1-2 at a time all the way to 250 like @WolfManbush ... no regular player is going to be using these shiny green double barreled pistols any time before Season 20. Or longer. And realistically only a tiny fraction of players will ever earn them unless the requirements are changed to be more reasonable. And again, these are not super-special legendary items or anything. They're essentially some very basic cosmetics which are part of a previously existing set. It just doesn't feel right.

    This thread has gotten 2.3k views in just a week, which seems to be a bit more than average. I figure that means some other pirates are probably sharing my frustrations. You're not alone, mateys!

  • eduardoswk
    Seafarer

    I fully agree that those new commendations are grindy too much. whats even worse, its grindy with a lot of RNG involved - in comparison with breath of the sea, there you at least know that u have one at least guaranteed if you got quest.
    Its nonsesne to find that many horns, ever. If thats the way rare want to attract people to play the game longer than i think thats not really a good idea.

  • SageOLegend
    Rogue

    Wow, Rare announced in their latest news video that they will be rebalancing a lot of these commendation requirements in the next patch!

    It gladdens me pirate heart mightily to see these changes being made. Looking forward to seeing the details in the patch notes next week! Woo!

    Big thanks to the balance team at Rare for addressing these. :)

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