HourGlass feels so bad.

Yeah, it's ironic that an on-demand PvP mode can earn you levels and streaks without you actually having to sink anyone. It's like being rewarded for no participation.

@callmebackdraft said:

Loss without any streak = 0
Loss with a streak = 50% rep value of streak when sold regularly

Simple way that effort is required and also makes it that people like to run higher streaks since it isn’t as punishing to lose high in the streak

If the bulk of XP was determined by match, rather than streak, it would also be less punishing to lose a high (or any) streak.

And 0 XP for any loss without a streak just doesn't seem right. Especially if someone's first fight ends in a close loss, and plenty of effort has been made, which now won't be acknowledged. At least with the current system, they're getting something.

Shame that when they decided to get rid of Arena, they got rid of all of it, when parts of it could have been borrowed to make HG a more fun and fair experience.

So you upset over free wins.
That is one of many things I’ll won’t understand.

Nobody cared when they sunk your ship when you were off ship digging up loot.
It still open world hourglass is an instant pvp, no rules on how you battle. Be more prepared

@theblackbellamy it's a tough balance for sure. I definitely think they could have done something with participation, maybe ot only helps your xp in a loss. But if you can farm "participation" by just spawn killing people that would not be a healthy system either. It's a tough balance to have it based on cannon hots or kills, the truth is we saw it happen in arena where people just farmed points on the weakest ship. Especially if there wasn't an xp cap for participation we would see people get incredibly toxic about it.

But the flip side is SOMTHING about hourglass has to change. As is, it doesn't reward the right behaviors.

@captain-fob4141 exactly. Arena wasn't perfect. Its score system could have been modified & Rare could've made separate modes with clearer objectives to determine scores.

But they can borrow what did work and, as you said, track in-game activity to reward XP based on the loser's activity, as a percentage of the winner's.

Rather than counting "cannon hits" count holes produced or ship parts broken (e.g. masts, wheel). To offset hit and run tactics, also score repairs made. Rather than counting kills, which just promotes spawncamping, count boarders killed and one balls.

There's a way to make the scores make sense for HG. And there's a way to make rewards make sense.

Provided time limits: A sink can reward the most XP possible. A win (by time limit) can reward the second most XP possible. A loss always awards based on activity as a percentage. A tie can grant a nominal amount, and both crews are merged out to separate servers, retaining their supplies and streak. With this, "loss farming" would fairly grant 0 XP.

In games like CoD, or even in Arena, our performance in each match determine the bulk of our XP/progress. They designed HG around an Elo system... and they expect casual players to go on win streaks. Lol.

Deeds, lots of Deeds based on participation. Any pirate kill Deeds would have to be geared to killing unique pirates so as to not encourage any spawn camping (if you even include any based on pirate killing at all). But things like the following could work:

Land 10 Cannonball Hits in Hourglass
Land 5 Scattershot Hits in Hourglass
Land 5 Chainshot Hits in Hourglass
Land a Cursed Cannonball in Hourglass
Land a Wraith Ball in Hourglass
Land 3 Firebomb hits in Hourglass
Land 3 Blunderbombs in Hourglass
Drop a Mast in Hourglass
Break a Capstan in Hourglass
Break a Helm in Hourglass

These could grant extra Allegiance and reset daily. It encourages offense over defense (just tanking and resetting is not worth it in this way). Sure, it could all be done in one fight, but if you encourage casuals to at least engage in one match per session with the bait of proper participation granting you at least a good bit of Allegiance after that fight (plus your win or loss amount), that would do a lot to make for a healthier environment with greater participation.

For those that really like to play multiple matches they can chase Streaks as the system has in place already.

That alone would do a lot to make things better in Hourglass, but you could go further and enhance the Defense side of play by bringing back hunting Champions, adding Emergent Battles (where if two Ships on a server that are both set to Hourglass encounter one another it automatically triggers a Battle), and bring back the Capture the Fort thing from the Adventure where you can capture those to up a bonus for wins on your Server for your Faction (this would play well with the Emergent Battles idea).

Add that on top of Deeds and I think Hourglass would really flourish in the game, and bring a real sense of an actual war taking place between Athena and Reapers.

@burnbacon Lad, whatever you are saying is making little sense to me. On the high seas I'm always prepared. We play hourglass to see who is better, no reason we should have outside factors. I should not feel like I need to loot 3 islands before each fight because you never know how stocked the opp will be. I should not be thinking 20 minutes into the fight "This player has ran the whole match and im losing xp at this point".

@theblackbellamy yeah honestly any even half baked system would feel better and be more rewarding than what we have. It really blows my mind... you're not rewarded for growth or skill, and streaks are really dumb in a game mode where you SHOULD be equally matched against the opponent with a 50/50 win rate.