Custom Seas.. yes, I see what you are up to..
You want to attract players, and make a less toxic game for us, i agree with that, but you're overthinking it.
The best thing you can do is add a real QoL overhaul to Safer Seas to engage PvE players.
Let me show you a simply way to achieve this..
This will bring an audience, and provide something players have been asking for since safer seas launched.
(Most of this would carry over to PvEvP (High Seas) as well)
Set Safer Seas up like High Seas, all events, all progression, factions, etc.
To offset player pvp presence, add in a "Loot Aggo" threat mechanic for the wares you carry.
IE:
Gold Hoarders / Athena / Reapers = Ghost Ships and Skelly Ships
Order of Souls / Merchant Alliance = Various Skelly Ships (obviously)
Hunters Call = Megs / Krakens, etc.
So the more you have of each type of items, equals more frequent / aggressive attacks.
Now bigger threat scaling for bigger things right...? As Emissary it gets meaner..
With each grade increase aggro by 10% base value for the opposing faction.
Plus.. As Emissary you have attracted Flamehearts attention, and The Burning Blade may attack. Threat scales up with grade tier, so a G5 would be at risk of a massive armada coming to deal with you.
However this can be offset by a new "Bribe Bin" at any Reaper table. Pay a base of price of gold to bribe Flameheart so he will not send his forces after you for a set amount of time. 10k per hour of freedom to run as emissary with no TBB attacks (lowest price). (this does not affect "Loot Aggro")
Also the bribe increases by current Emissary grade and it can adjust based on what company you are representing.
IE:
Athenas Fortune = 50k base + 20% per Emissary Tier.
Gold Hoarders = 30k base + 10% per Emissary Tier.
Order of Souls = 20k base + 10% per Emissary Tier.
Hunters Call / Merchant Alliance = 10k base + 10% per Emissary Tier.
(if you increase Emissary tier after a bribe, your time gets reduced per grade by a set amount.) No cheesing it lol) IE
if paid for 1 hour.. any Grade bump costs you -10m.
Max of 10h bribes per 24h.
Seeing as Reapers Bones has non-pvp voyages, add some more types like Reaper Stashes etc to get Emissary flags. Don't remove them entirely, instead increase threat..
Add a passive aggro buff from all NPC types to Athena, because you're Athena.
Add a passive aggro buff from all (non-TBB) NPC types to Reapers Bones as well.
Rather than TBB attacking Reapers, it switches to GoF Ghost Ships. And would have a similar pay-off system tied to Athenas Fortune tables to keep GoF from hunting you down.
This effectively resolves all issues to a pure PvE setup.
There is plenty of NPC threat, based on what you do.
Also allows high tier factions to exist with a proper NPC threat.
Provides an Economic sink to pay to reduce aggro (which believe me will be used heavily).
This will convert Safer Seas to a real SoT experience without the toxic PvP elements, while still providing plenty of real threats to the table otherwise.
