Ahoy,
Below are the answers to some of the most frequently asked questions around the Last Ship Standing addition to Hourglass play. This should give you an insight into how we have approached last Ship Standing, and the design decisions we have made.
Where does Last Ship Standing take place?
The Last Ship Standing map is called The Seas of Sailor's Grave, which is inside a part of The Sea of The Damned. Made up of all the pirates that were never allowed passage on the Ferry of the Damned, the Sea of the Damned is where the worst souls now live out their mistakes again and again. Whilst you will be battling purely at sea and there are no new landmasses to roam, the map has been designed with its location and story in mind and we can't wait for you to see more to come.
Does the Zone Shrink in Last Ship Standing?
The zone shrinks in Last Ship Standing in the same way as in 1v1 matches. This ensures battles come to a close in a reasonable timeframe, and players cannot endlessly run.
Why Doesn't the Zone Shrink when a Ship Sinks?
The zone shrinks in Last Ship Standing in the same way as in 1v1 matches, on a timer. This ensures that matches have a more consistent timeframe, and prevents situations where runners can artifically extend the length of matches, resulting in a frustrating experience. The timed shrinking will also retain some exciting variability in matches, battles can play out in different ways with different densities of ships left in each zone size.
Why Does the Zone Shrink to its Centre and Not Between the Two Ships?
The zone shrinks to its centre to guarantee a final battle zone that is clear water, and not covered by an island or too many sea rocks for example. If an island were between the two ships, it would not be able to shrink around it and then the rules would become unpredictable and may favour one ship over the other, resulting in unfair fights. Secondly, it also means that everyone has a fair knowledge of where the battle will end and can plan/play strategically around that. Having no islands in the final zone also means that ships cannot purposely beach themselves on islands to try to claim a win that they did not earn.
Why Doesn't the Zone Move Around or Pick a Random Location?
If the position was also being randomised, we felt it would tip the balance too much into positional management where players would need to be studying the map constantly to not get caught out, whereas a predictable movement allows you to focus on the battle. The aim of adding the shrinking zone is to draw you and your opponent closer together to bring the battle to a close, not to add an element of randomised positional play.
Can I See the Battle Bounds in the World?
The Battle Bounds will be visualised in Last Ship Standing in the same way as in 1v1, making it easier and more dynamic to manage the battle zone during a match. The bounds are visualised on the map, but also visible in world too - making it super clear where the battle area is.
What About the Area Outside the Circle?
There is an area outside the Battle Bounds that we call the Seas of Fate, where you are told you are leaving the fight and have enough time and space to turn the ship around. This is necessary to not have an immediate, punishing hard edge where the Hourglass blows your ship up, and to ensure if you are solo and die you have at least a chance to get back from the Ferry and save your ship. Although you are disadvantaged by the screen desaturation effect in this area, it will also give you more chance to save your ship if you die whilst heading for it, or an enemy commands the wheel.
Will I Be Able to See anything on the Map in Last Ship Standing?
The names of the battle areas inside the Seas of Sailor's Grave are marked on the Last Ship Standing Map, aswell as marking all other Ships in the battle.
Will I get a Stocks Crate in Last Ship Standing?
You will get a faction Supply Crate in Last Ship Standing, but the number of stocks and thresholds will be balanced to account for there being 6 Ships in the battle.
Why Aren't Stocks Equalised as we aren't battling in Adventure?
Just like in 1v1, we ultimately felt that equalised stocks removes stories and gameplay from Last Ship Standing. Equalising stocks feels by-the-books fair, but removes any crew effort, luck or stories. Taking down a ship to find they had a jackpot of Chainshots feels Sea of Thieves. Finding a bunch of supplies in Adventure then deciding you want to dive to Last Ship Standing to use them feels Sea of Thieves.
Equalising stocks also equalises emotions to an extent - everything will always playout the same every time. Whilst it might be how other games would approach it, for us we felt this would mean Last Ship Standing loses character that's true to Sea of Thieves.
What Is the Stock Threshold Doing?
If you have more than the threshold of a specific item, the crate won't contain that item, but you still get everything else.
The threshold is there to enable us to give plenty of items in the crate, without it having an undesirable compounding effect after a few wins where players have huge amounts of supplies without having gathered them. Having high stocks in the crate, with a reasonably high threshold made sense to achieve this. Currently, you should be able to dive and win quickly, and still get another crate supply. If you win very quickly again, you will start to see some items not restocked. We took this broad approach but then simplified the numbers to round them out and ensure that all ships have the same thresholds, in order to make it easier to learn.
Experientially, you should feel like you always have enough stocks to compete, but additional ones that you have gathered can still be meaningful and useful (especially of special types like Chainshots).
What is the Approach to Chainshots and Special Items?
The approach to stocks was not to make all resource gathering obsolete, but to stop gathering being a necessity. The combination of starting stocks, the crate and shrinking zones all together ensures that crews can be competitive even from a fresh start.
Base items like Cannonballs, Wood and Food are relatively obsolete, you generally won't really benefit by gathering any more than you are given when combined with the shrinking zones that bring matches to a close sooner.
Special Ammo types are a bit different - here we wanted to give players enough to compete, but not so much that skill becomes meaningless.
Chainshots and other special ammo types can be incredibly powerful in Hourglass. The approach here was to balance the default supply with the gameplay of the match. (We're using Chainshots as one example, but this applies to all specials). This ensures that Chainshots don't become so easy to get that they stop requiring as much effort, skill and nuance to use properly. Chainshots should remain a skilled play, used sparingly by crews in opportune moments. Crews can still go and gather more supplies if they want more Chainshots, but this should feel additional rather than strictly necessary.
Stocking at an Outpost should now feel like a boost to your default specials, rather than something that is necessary to even be competitive. Players should be able to vote to rematch straight from the tunnel, and feel competitive enough without interrupting their flow to go to an Outpost. It is a careful balance here - you can imagine that if we were overly abundant with these items the quality of matches could suffer. Items like Firebombs, Chainshots and Blunderbombs being super abundant at all times for all crews of all skill levels could mean everyone is "spamming" these items with little regard, leading to potentially frustrating matches where you lost simply by being spammed enough times, as opposed to losing to a crew that genuinely outskilled you.
Anyone can still go and gather an abundance of supplies before diving, but it should no longer be critical to do so.
Why Do Emissary Flags Auto Raise In Last Ship Standing?
In Hourglass, if a player has a Reaper's Bones or Athena's Fortune Emissary Flag raised, it gives them more rewards in the following ways:
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It unlocks Reaper's Bones or Athena's Fortune reputation when you complete a battle, alongside Emissary Value
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When the Hourglass is cashed out, it awards Emissary Value, and the gold and reputation are multiplied by your Emissary Grade
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Being an Athena’s Fortune Emissary also unlocks the ability to cash in Reaper’s Bones Flags (either Won in Battle or not) and Athena's Fortune Won In Battle Flags at Athena’s Fortune for reputation. This is locked behind Emissary status to ensure that players who have not yet reached Pirate Legend do not have an on-demand way to access Legend progression.
If you have a Guild Emissary raised and if someone on your crew has the entitlement for the Emissary Flag that matches your Faction, it acts as if you have the matching Faction Emissary Flag raised and enables the same rewards. For example, if you are a Guild Emissary fighting for the Guardians of Fortune, and someone on your crew has the Athena's Fortune Emissary Flag unlocked, all rewards act as if you have the Athena's Fortune Emissary Flag raised, except that values will be modified by the Guild Emissary modifiers, and Emissary Value will be attributed to your Guild. This allows you to still get Company reputation when playing as a Guild Ship in battles.
Whilst Guild Emissary Flags do not currently have a "Won In Battle" status, this is something we hope to add in the future.
In addition to this, it also means your opponents are more likely to have an Emissary Flag for you to take as a reward. These "Won In Battle" Flags can earn you gold and reputation, plus Allegiance too, if you cash them in whilst pledged.
What If I Want to be a Specific Emissary?
If you already have an Emissary Flag up, nothing will happen. We only auto-raise one to match your Faction if you do not have one currently raised.
What If I Want to be a Guild Emissary?
We do not auto-raise a Guild Emissary as the default is to match the Faction that you are battling for, and putting Guild up may conflict with the Emissary Ledger you wanted to progress here - you may want either. However, if you put Guild Emissary up and then enter Last Ship Standing, when you lose, you will be able to vote to go again. If you choose this option, the Guild Emissary will be auto-raised again for you, allowing you to go back to back without returning to an Outpost to re-raise.
Do You Want to Fight Again? - TEMPORARILY DISABLED
When you lose a Last Ship Standing match, you will be asked in the tunnel if you want to battle again immediately. If your crew votes to do this, then you will be matchmade to another match without having to dive up to Adventure and revote on the Hourglass and War Map. If you vote against another battle, you will surface back in Adventure as usual. This change combined with the addition of the stock crate and auto-raising of Emissary makes the loop much faster and easier for back-to-back matches!
Due to an issue with game stability, this feature is temporarily disabled and will be reintroduced as part of a follow-up update
What is the Design Approach to Rewarding and Valuing Last Ship Standing?
Principally, Last Ship Standing is valued with rewards that are comparative to your efforts in a 1v1. What that means is that we take into account:
- 1v1 is still a core way to play Hourglass, and so both modes should feel fair and balanced compared to one another.
- Last Ship Standing allows you to earn rewards without winning, so it's less "all or nothing" than 1v1.
- Winning a Last Ship Standing will generally require more effort than winning a 1v1 - so it earns you more rewards. At the same time though, you are unlikely to personally have battled off all 5 Ships, so it shouldn't be as rewarding as winning 6 individual 1v1s.
- Winning a Last Ship Standing that started with 6 Ships is harder than Winning one with 4 Ships. We scale the rewards depending on the number of ships in the match.
- Lower positions might be earned without much action on your part (for example if another ship sinks really quickly, you are already in 5th), so it's not a linear ramp of rewards with positions towards the top much more rewarding than those lower down.
Streaks are also still accounted for in Last Ship Standing:
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When you Win in Last Ship Standing, you are awarded a Streak that is bigger than when winning a 1v1, dependant on the number of ships that were in your battle.
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When you Win in Last Ship Standing, your Streak awards you more rewards as it does in 1v1
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When you Win, your opponents Streak awards you more rewards. In 1v1, this is from one Ship. In Last Ship Standing, you get this extra reward for every ship that was in the battle. As a benefit to being the ultimate victor, you are awarded the streak value from everyone in the battle. This also means that Ships with a higher streak are not going to be overly vulnerable to everyone focusing on them to earn more rewards as the streak only benefits the overall winner, keeping the flow of Last Ship Standing about overall victory and not targeting streak ships.
When we refer to rewards, this thinking has been applied across all the rewards, so includes:
- Allegiance for Finish Position
- Hourglass Value for Winning (you lose the Hourglass when you sink, so this only applies to the Winner)
- Reputation for Finish Position when using Reaper/Athena/Guild Emissary
Please note, we also use the average time to play a 1v1 and a Last Ship Standing when balancing these rewards, so that when we are valuing them compared to each other, it takes into account any difference in match time. As an example if we wanted a specific action to be double the reward in one mode, we mean double the reward in the same amount of game time - not necessarily the same amount of matches.
What if there are less than 6 Ships in the Battle?
We hope that being unable to find a full match will happen minimally given that Last Ship Standing is only available during certain windows, our aim is to provide the best matchmaking experience possible and more players playing at the same time helps here. However, in order to ensure you can start a match, we wait for 6 players but will after time fall back to 5 players and then finally to 4 to ensure you can get a match rather than not be able to play. This is similar to how Arena functioned.
Should matchmaking need to fall back to a slightly smaller match to ensure you are able to start with less ships, all rewards are balanced accordingly. In other words, Winning a 5 Ship Match rewards slightly less than Winning a 6 Ship Match, so that rewards are fair to your effort. It would not make sense to reward the same for coming 4th in a 6 Ship Battle, and last in a 4 Ship Battle.
What is your Stance on Teaming?
In a Last Ship Standing mode, players dynamically switching targets in an attempt to be the Last Ship Standing is an inherent part of the game mode. If one ship is already being attacked, it is a valid choice for you to also attack them in order to better guarantee the sink, placing you one step higher.
If players are using Teaming in a way that crosses the line into harassing, bullying or otherwise toxic this is not acceptable and should be reported and will be dealt with by our Player Support Team.
For certain smaller matchmaking pools, such as those as ultra high skill, we recognise that players may be identifiable by others in the match and might feel they are being teamed on due to their skill/notoriety. In this case, we encourage those players to use the tools we give everyone in game to have anonymity. You can change your cosmetics and use the Scrambling features to ensure you are not recognisable.
While this is the first introduction of this new mode, it will return monthly in our live calendar. We'll therefore be monitoring this behaviour and will look for your feedback on how frequently this takes place before assessing what changes could be made in the future.
See you in Last Ship Standing!
Shelley "Pressgang" Preston
Associate Design Director
