Alliance Balancing

  • Ghost of Ronin
    Master
    Insider

    Alliances have been around since the cuesed sails update and haven't had any significant changes since despite them being problematic in a few ways

    There's no incentive not to be in alliance as there's no risk and additional rewards, I personally think to make alliances less beneficial if you sell an item within an alliance your gold should be reduced instead of the current system where all allianced ships get a half the value of any sold item.

    There should be a cap on how many ships can be in alliance, currently people are forcing alliance servers by getting ships to join their alliance and if they don't comply they're spawn trapped till they leave, personally I'd make the cap 2 ships at maximum per alliance this will also shut down the boosting servers.

    Paid subscriptions for alliance servers are also another reason as to why alliances need a balance/ rework, yeah sure no one's being harmed by them paying for a boosted server but they're essentially playing in safer seas with more rewards and are essentially boosting levels and commendations that other players actually have to earn.

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  • Guildar9194
    Master

    I had an entire post going point by point, but the forums are being a bit hiccupy right now with what words are 'forbidden' without any clue as to WHAT word. So I'll tl;dr.

    No, punishing everyone is not the way to go.
    Your reasoning is 'Alliances are good, so they should be made bad'.
    And you are unhappy people did not earn their commendations the way you personally deem 'proper'.

  • BurnBacon
    Vanguard
    Insider

    Don’t worry about alliance servers. It not healthy

  • D3ADST1CK
    Vanguard
    Insider
    Founder

    @ghost-of-ronin said in Alliance Balancing:

    There's no incentive not to be in alliance as there's no risk and additional rewards, I personally think to make alliances less beneficial if you sell an item within an alliance your gold should be reduced instead of the current system where all allianced ships get a half the value of any sold item.

    If it worked this way ships would just leave the alliance before selling so their gold value isn't changed, resulting in no ships getting alliance gold making the entire alliance feature worthless. This would hurt natural alliances more than the alliance servers because they'll just make up the difference over volume + time, where as people doing organic alliances will either not bother with it or start leaving before selling.

    Capping alliances at 2 ships won't ruin boosting servers. There will just end up being 3 separate alliances boosting instead of one. The gain rate would be affected, but not by much. Again, they have the benefit of volume + time that organic alliances do not.

    The pay for access alliance servers should be shut down. I'm pretty sure that's against ToS, or at least other games have rules against doing that sort of thing. I don't know how they'd enforce that though, since the 'pay to access' is technically done in a different application and they aren't renting servers.

  • Astralenigma
    Marauder

    @ghost-of-ronin You want to know a good incentive of not being in an alliance? Griefers will use the alliance position sharing feature to constantly harrass you.
    Then you have people not even knowing there's an alliance flag as a feature.

  • Astralenigma
    Marauder

    @guildar9194 I'm having the same issue there seems to be a random char limit or something I don't know cause 1 post I switch terrible for bad and it allowed me to post.
    And I tried to make a big post here too and it failed.

  • Super87Ghost
    Commander

    @astralenigma said in Alliance Balancing:

    @guildar9194 I'm having the same issue there seems to be a random char limit or something I don't know cause 1 post I switch terrible for bad and it allowed me to post.
    And I tried to make a big post here too and it failed.

    Same issue here....

  • Ghost of Ronin
    Master
    Insider

    @astralenigma people doing pvp are not inherently greifers, they're just playing the game how they enjoy it, same with people betraying alliances in my opinion that's how it should be

  • Ghost of Ronin
    Master
    Insider

    @guildar9194 what do you mean by punishing, its a mechanic thats being exploited?

  • Guildar9194
    Master

    @ghost-of-ronin said in Alliance Balancing:

    @guildar9194 what do you mean by punishing, its a mechanic thats being exploited?

    You want to punish normal players by causing a reduction in gold gained because a few people are making alliance servers.
    That 's not a good idea.

  • Astralenigma
    Marauder

    @ghost-of-ronin said in Alliance Balancing:

    @astralenigma people doing pvp are not inherently greifers, they're just playing the game how they enjoy it, same with people betraying alliances in my opinion that's how it should be

    I'm not saying they are inherently griefers, I'm saying from experience that I got griefed by people using the alliance flag as an homing beacon and that's a good reason to not join in every alliance.

    I'm saying that making an alliance has drawbacks, problem is the average pirate now is a memelord that doesn't care or know about any of the alliance's benefits and prefers to farm tears and content instead of gold.

    Right now is almost impossible to get the alliance commendations because most of the ships will just shoot you on sight for either your supplies or in fear of you coming to sink them.

    @d3adst1ck said in Alliance Balancing:

    Capping alliances at 2 ships won't ruin boosting servers. There will just end up being 3 separate alliances boosting instead of one. The gain rate would be affected, but not by much. Again, they have the benefit of volume + time that organic alliances do not.

    As d3adst1ck said, the suggested changes would kill organic alliances while only giving a minor inconvenience to the real issue the Alliance servers.

    The gate keeping to make an alliance is already big due to general lack of knowledge and willingness to not just sink everything on sight if you add drawbacks only people who would actually even think about making alliances would be the ones in Alliance servers and only because of the commendations.

    As it is right now, there's almost no organic alliances because you're dealing with people who would rather get all the gold and prefer fighting everything on sight or avoiding you completely instead of sharing any marginal profits, and the dive system that constantly breaks alliances due to constant server changes.

    As the average player mentality is right now, I believe that outside of an alliance server it will be practically impossible for me to finish any commendations that require people to not shoot me on sight even more getting them on my alliance.

  • Ghost of Ronin
    Master
    Insider

    @guildar9194 getting reduced gold as your splitting the profits not only sounds fair it's logical, unless there's an in lore reason why an allianced ship gets paid 150% with the extra 50% being wirelessly transferred to the allianced ship

  • Guildar9194
    Master

    @ghost-of-ronin said in Alliance Balancing:

    @guildar9194 getting reduced gold as your splitting the profits not only sounds fair it's logical, unless there's an in lore reason why an allianced ship gets paid 150% with the extra 50% being wirelessly transferred to the allianced ship

    It does not sound fair.
    It also kills Alliances; No one is going to want to group up to get less gold per item.

  • Lem0n Curry
    Vanguard
    Insider

    @d3adst1ck said in Alliance Balancing:

    Capping alliances at 2 ships won't ruin boosting servers. There will just end up being 3 separate alliances boosting instead of one. The gain rate would be affected, but not by much. Again, they have the benefit of volume + time that organic alliances do not.

    Not by much ?

    If all 6 ships on a pre-made alliance servers are doing stuff at the same rate on average; for every 100k a crew makes, they'll get 5x50k from the other crews, making 350k.
    If it was capped at two ship per alliance, they would make 100k+50k: 150k.

    That's quite the difference.

    The pay for access alliance servers should be shut down. I'm pretty sure that's against ToS, or at least other games have rules against doing that sort of thing. I don't know how they'd enforce that though, since the 'pay to access' is technically done in a different application and they aren't renting servers.

    They should IMO just use their data to try and find the people who set up such servers ( paid or not ) and those that use them; give them some points on their account and yellowbeard them for a bit. In combination with setting up (paid) Custom Servers with some basic features (e.g. no storm, no Kraken, Megs and/or Skeleton ships) they would also have a business reason to stop setting up these PvE servers

  • Super87Ghost
    Commander

    @ghost-of-ronin said in Alliance Balancing:

    @guildar9194 getting reduced gold as your splitting the profits not only sounds fair it's logical, unless there's an in lore reason why an allianced ship gets paid 150% with the extra 50% being wirelessly transferred to the allianced ship

    For that same reason you must also argue that duo sloops should see their personal income be reduced by 50%, brigscrews with 67% and galleons with 75%.... Or do you realy think a chest suddenly becomes 4x as valuable as a galleon hands it in compared to a solo slooper?

    Or are you suddenly not in favour of it being fully realistic anymore?

  • Astralenigma
    Marauder

    @super87ghost said in Alliance Balancing:

    @ghost-of-ronin said in Alliance Balancing:

    @guildar9194 getting reduced gold as your splitting the profits not only sounds fair it's logical, unless there's an in lore reason why an allianced ship gets paid 150% with the extra 50% being wirelessly transferred to the allianced ship

    For that same reason you must also argue that duo sloops should see their personal income be reduced by 50%, brigscrews with 67% and galleons with 75%.... Or do you realy think a chest suddenly becomes 4x as valuable as a galleon hands it in compared to a solo slooper?

    Or are you suddenly not in favour of it being fully realistic anymore?

    I mean the more players the less risk it seems only fair, even if the difficulty of crewing bigger ships increases.

  • D3ADST1CK
    Vanguard
    Insider
    Founder

    @lem0n-curry said in Alliance Balancing:

    @d3adst1ck said in Alliance Balancing:

    Capping alliances at 2 ships won't ruin boosting servers. There will just end up being 3 separate alliances boosting instead of one. The gain rate would be affected, but not by much. Again, they have the benefit of volume + time that organic alliances do not.

    Not by much ?

    If all 6 ships on a pre-made alliance servers are doing stuff at the same rate on average; for every 100k a crew makes, they'll get 5x50k from the other crews, making 350k.
    If it was capped at two ship per alliance, they would make 100k+50k: 150k.

    That's quite the difference.

    I was more referring to overall effect on alliance servers. They are still operating at 100% safety for much longer periods of time than normal players, so 3 groups of 2 or 1 group of 6 isn't going to change their operation all that much.

  • Lem0n Curry
    Vanguard
    Insider

    @d3adst1ck said in Alliance Balancing:

    @lem0n-curry said in Alliance Balancing:

    @d3adst1ck said in Alliance Balancing:

    Capping alliances at 2 ships won't ruin boosting servers. There will just end up being 3 separate alliances boosting instead of one. The gain rate would be affected, but not by much. Again, they have the benefit of volume + time that organic alliances do not.

    Not by much ?

    If all 6 ships on a pre-made alliance servers are doing stuff at the same rate on average; for every 100k a crew makes, they'll get 5x50k from the other crews, making 350k.
    If it was capped at two ship per alliance, they would make 100k+50k: 150k.

    That's quite the difference.

    I was more referring to overall effect on alliance servers. They are still operating at 100% safety for much longer periods of time than normal players, so 3 groups of 2 or 1 group of 6 isn't going to change their operation all that much.

    That's true; OTOH in another topic someone said that when they used an alliance server some time ago there was a gold incentive. If that is still the case limitting the gold would perhaps make them less popular.
    I don't think there are lots of natural alliances with more than two crews, it may be worth the cons ?
    Or something like "diminishing returns", more crews would mean decreasing percentage of value of loot of other crews ?

    When Rare would make Custom Servers available for a reasonable cost, at least the money people spend on sailing with friends / sailing without PvP or just like doing the events &c would benefit Rare and thus SoT instead of filling pockets of people who spike the servers.

  • Capt Pilotes
    Vanguard
    Insider
    Founder

    I don't really like the idea of people permanently doing alliance servers as it is some kind of abuse and breaks the game. However, I can understand that certain groups of friends or guilds do alliance servers from time to time, as it is a way to meet each other and have a nice session.

    On the other hand, I don't think they need to change how alliances work. Is a way of giving another ship some kind of trust so they don't mess with your bussiness on the server. I usually do alliances when I don't want to be bothered by some new player that wants to have some fun on the seas. The other day, I was doing some world event and gave alliance to some folks that went around but warned them that the loot was ours. They wanted to do the event with us but I gently told them to go away, because I didn't trust them. They kept sailing around the event, so we decided to break the alliance and sink them.

    This is the way the alliances should work most of the times.

  • Ghost of Ronin
    Master
    Insider

    @super87ghost id rather have it that way and alliances split their earnings between their crew as well as every other ship so they only make 50 gold or so per loot item sold to disincentive alliances

  • Super87Ghost
    Commander

    @ghost-of-ronin If anything, there needs to be more of an incentive for alliances, not an disincentive. With all the diving that goes on nowadays, alliances have become rare. And this is logical, because if that other ship would imidiately sell, you basicly have a choice of getting 50% of the loot by allying or 100% of the loot by sinking them. And often they are not selling imidiately (of quickly enough before you dive again), wich would make it a choice for either getting nothing for allying up or getting 100% by sinking them. The diving system has basicly killed off a lot of the alliance system and they need to make an adjustment to fix it somehow, so it can actually be beneficial for players to form alliance again.

    Also don't forget that forming an alliance is always a huge risk for the ship that has the loot, since you never know if that other ship actually wants to be friendly, or only uses it to let your guard down and then sink you... So on top of that risk also giving them a punishment (less gold) is insane, because that would be a higher risk, lower reward situation.... That makes no sense whatsoever....

  • TheGrimPreacher
    Captain
    Insider

    ...or (and I know this is a super hot take here) every player of this game could try minding their own damn business and not worrying how other players or crews earned their gold, comms or cosmetics since it literally could not affect them less. On account of, once again, being absolutelyNONE of their business. I know I repeated myself there, but it was a super important point to drive home.

    I've been sailing five years in this game and you know what I've never done? Seen a hat or sails or figurehead and immediately thought, ' Damn, I bet they earned that in Safer Seas or on an alliance server and not the correct way!'

    I've beaten double curse and double golden curse pirates in hourglass with a lucky bit of playing (certainly through no great skill I can lay claim to) and you know what I've never thought?? 'Damn, I bet they were loss farmers or boosters and didn't earn those curses the correct way!!'

    I've just gone about my day and literally forgotten about the encounter within 10 minutes of play.

    As if I or you or ANYONE has a god-given right to determine how someone plays and progresses in a VIDEO GAME more than anyone else does.

    You'll find if you just mind your own damn business and leave others to theirs, you might just enjoy playing a little bit more. Lord knows I cartainly do.

  • Ghost of Ronin
    Master
    Insider

    @super87ghost there is absolutely zero risk in forming an alliance, especially with how far you can join an alliance from and most players won't say no to free magical gold appearing in their pockets for no reason.

    At the moment there's zeeo disadvantages besides the tiny chances of betrayal

  • Guildar9194
    Master

    @ghost-of-ronin said in Alliance Balancing:

    @super87ghost there is absolutely zero risk in forming an alliance, especially with how far you can join an alliance from and most players won't say no to free magical gold appearing in their pockets for no reason.

    At the moment there's zeeo disadvantages besides the tiny chances of betrayal

    So you think being in an Alliance needs a heavy drawback simply because it lacks a heavy drawback?

    Why do you care? Why do you want other players -complete strangers- to be punished for being in an Alliance simply because you don't like that they're not being punished for being in an alliance?

    And being betrayed is the risk. Why does it need some steep gold punishment just because you think Alliances are unfair?

  • Th3 Tater
    Marauder

    Tools not rules.

    Bad idea.

  • Ghost of Ronin
    Master
    Insider

    @guildar9194 everything that makes the game easier needs pros and cons

    Being in an alliance however is all pros, no cons

  • Guildar9194
    Master

    @ghost-of-ronin said in Alliance Balancing:

    @guildar9194 everything that makes the game easier needs pros and cons

    Being in an alliance however is all pros, no cons

    So you want it to have drawbacks for the sole reason that it does not have drawbacks?

    I mean, other than the risk of betrayal.
    The loss of any gold the betraying party has.
    The loss of YOUR gold if they manage to sink you...

    But yeah, no drawbacks. No cons at all. So we should nerf it into uselessness, because one guy wants to control how everyone else earns gold.

  • Ghost of Ronin
    Master
    Insider

    @guildar9194 betrayal in alliances is rare, also yes something as over powered as alliances should have draw backs, I assume you have a bias or something

    Lets take safer seas, you're playing without risk and in return you cant level up past a certain point or use a captained ship

    Alliances have 0 draw back, you get more gold, there's less threat in the server and there's no cons, also if its a large alliance a ship that betrays doesn't stand much of a chance anyway unless they're skilled.

  • Guildar9194
    Master

    @ghost-of-ronin

    betrayal in alliances is rare

    Having been betrayed a number of times; No it's not.

    also yes something as over powered as alliances should have draw backs

    It's not 'over powered'. You just want to dictate how other people enjoy the game.

    I assume you have a bias or something

    I am unaware that I'm a mirror, as you are clearly biased against alliances.
    May want to project less.

    Alliances have 0 draw back

    I listed 3 drawbacks.

    there's less threat in the server and there's no cons

    I listed 3 cons. You repeating a lie to fit your bias does not make it truth.

    also if its a large alliance a ship that betrays doesn't stand much of a chance anyway unless they're skilled.

    I've never seen an alliance of more than 2 ships on a server.

    The bottom line is that you don't like alliances and you want to control how people enjoy the game so you think alliances should be punished because you want to ignore the risks inherent in forming an alliance to erroneously claim 'there's no cons!'

    Absolutely no one has agreed with your reasoning that alliances are 'op' and no one has agreed that they should be nerfed.
    That should lead you to believe you are wrong. Both in your belief about alliances being OP, and your take on 'fixing' this non-issue.

  • Super87Ghost
    Commander

    @ghost-of-ronin said in Alliance Balancing:

    Alliances have 0 draw back

    This is just false, they have a lot of drawbacks:

    1. You need to let another ship decently close to form an alliance, wich if you carry loot is a huge risk
    2. In an alliance you give others important information for if they want to attack you: where you are, what you might be doing, if you dug up loot, etc.
    3. You increase your risk of other ships finding out where you are, since they no longer have to spot you, but can also see find you on the map of your allied ship if they manage to board you.

    @ghost-of-ronin said in Alliance Balancing:

    there's less threat in the server

    No there's not. An allied ship is just as much as a threat as a non-allied ship. In fact: because that allied ship can see your location on their map (and enemies that board that allied ship can also see you on that map), the risk can even be bigger if you are not sure that that allied ship is actually friendly (and you can't be sure unless you know that person).

    @ghost-of-ronin said in Alliance Balancing:

    there's no cons

    Already disproven the first time that you mentioned it (the fact that you mention this same thing twice to make it seem like you make more points is also telling...)

    @ghost-of-ronin said in Alliance Balancing:

    also if its a large alliance a ship that betrays doesn't stand much of a chance anyway unless they're skilled.

    Why? Most likely that 3rd ship is not close when the betraying ship acts (because the betraying doesn't want to get 3rd partied) so it's not capable of helping you, or if the 3rd ship can even be colluding with the betraying ship. Even if they are close and not in collusion with the betrayer, you have no insurance they would even want to help you. They could just as likely flee (because they don't want to risk their loot) or still chose the side of the betraying ship (because they too like to have your loot, or think they have more chance sinking the betrayer then you, so collectively taking out you is that more logical). So no, a larger alliance doesn't give you more security.

  • Nex Stargaze
    Commander
    Insider

    There are practically 0 reasons to change the alliance system as it is.

    I get that the setback to alliances is alliance servers, having to fight an alliance of ships (which is a deadly numbers game if you choose to fight such odds), and the supposed lacking incentive to risk being in an alliance (besides the obvious one of the enemy getting close to you and taking advantage of your naivety).

    In reality, these don't matter as much, but that's not to say this suggestion isn't without merit.

    Rare has, for the most part, taken 0 accountability in the actions committed by alliance servers, and writing off these groups of entitled paywalled players as a "small group that's not much to worry about until it becomes big enough for them to want to do something about it" has made people concerned about how such systems are even allowed in the first place, especially when there's a pretty good chance that paywalling access to an initially free activity in the game is a blatant violation of the EULA. Yeah, it's petty to even go this route over alliance servers but the results of these servers are why these suggestions and arguments are being brought up at all, the results being that the culture brought up from these servers are ultimately unhealthy for the game's organic nature, and the players who probably didn't want to be sworn at with slurs a-plenty because they sunk someone in the pirate sandbox video game.

    All I think this thread should be focused on is the long-needed policing of a very dangerous and hostile culture in the Sea of Thieves all behind a mechanic that enables them to be this way.

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