so there had been a lot of topics pointing out that there is no real punishment for either dying/ getting your ship sunk or killing too many times/ sinking ships far too often than you need to. you get your ship sunk, you re-spawn, and you get a new ship with probably more supplies than you had when you died. for engaging in combat and winning you walk/sail away and it matters to you weather or not you've lost or gained something. some have suggested a gold fee for each death as punishment and some have suggested a limited number of lives. but i think we are forgetting one more valuable thing in the game to the player besides gold; something that the devs have hyped up since day one.
a player's reputation.
just in case we are still looking for ways to make the game more thrilling, here is my suggestion. my suggestion is not to decrease reputation until your reputation reaches zero (unless that is option...). my suggestion is (upon multiple deaths) that the reputation points of each faction only decrease within a player's current rank, or to stop decreasing at a certain rank (if a player is past rank 5 before rank 10, reputation will not decrease below rank 5. upon reaching rank 10 before rank 15, reputation will not decrease beyond rank 10 etc, etc.).
in more detail:
simply put that a player's reputation among all factions will decrease when their ship respawns.
but here is the catch. a players reputation will also decrease when sinking another player's ship (about the same amount as their own ship being sunk).
the reputation lost will be the same amount as you would gain from an uncommon chest.
will they have a chest to make up for the reputation lost? will they have more than enough to make up for it? will they have nothing to give you? even when you cash in their chest, will the voyages you want be available purchase anymore? will a member of your crew be ok with the risk as well? these four questions are what you must ask yourself before engaging in combat with another player/crew.
making sense of this lore wise
so, imagine being a gold hoarder. you are looking for a pirate to find treasure for you. you hear that this pirate got his ship sunk multiple times, so you would not trust him with your precious map. there is this other pirate, but in the past, he/she has sunk the people you hired, so you hate this pirate and also wont let him/her see your map unless he/she can make up for what could have been a lot of gold. then you hear of this other pirate that has good reputation, barely got his ship sunk, and barely sinks other ships carrying your cargo or your map. so you let him see the map, after he pays for it, of course.
important notes
now, i do understand that a player has to pay gold to a certain faction in order to gain access to more voyages. it would be fair if the player only has to pay the fee once. the voyages will automatically be available once you get your rank back and you wont have to pay a second time.
so what about scuttling a ship? will we loose rep for doing so? this topic in on itself is controversial. personally, i think it would be fair if it didn't, since players like to scuttle their ship to get new ones (that is, if a repair system is not added in the final game) and i think it would give players the option to honorably surrender. plus, ship spawn camping still exists and it is best if the victims are not punished for giving up.
should killing and being killed decrease reputation. there are pros and cons to this. if we only loose reputation dying, it would suck TBH. because you can be repeatedly killed by players who spawn camp mermaids, but this entirely depends on if the devs can improve the spawn system. if we only loosed reputation for killing, that would make combat awkward.
some may not specifically like my own concept, but consider this question is so. should reputation loss be a thing?
