The new Alliance system and changes needed..

@ghostpaw said in The new Alliance system and changes needed..:

Since you asked, I think the current system is very well thought out. This may change as I see how it plays out within the community, but at present do not see a reason to change it. A 25% cut for alliance members is pretty low when you consider the work the team has to put in to sink a fleet of skeleton ships. I also believe everyone sharing 100%, or evenly splitting the loot at turn in would result in servers filled with everyone in the same alliance or more betrayals to thin the alliance out before turn in.

As it is, each time loot is distributed, crews have to decide if they are comfortable taking only 50% or do they want to betray the group and try their chances at the full amount. It also means crews are more likely to distribute treasure across the ships or risk being attacked for being overly greedy.

I am confused by your scenario of PLs throwing down an Athena's voyage and letting multiple crews complete it. Are voyages shared across crews? I had not heard of that. My current understanding is that the ship with the voyage has to complete it.

With respects to the PLs throwing down Athena's. No, one voyage does not extend to multiple crews. However, if you are on an alliance, you can throw down one of your voyages on their table for them to complete. So the PL could give everyone an Athena's voyage and sit back to reap the rewards. Especially that with the Alliance system, the other crews still receive 100% of the reputation gain, and only 50% of the gold. With Athena's and higher ranks, people care less about gold and care a lot about reputation.

I like the current reward distribution system JUST for Cursed Sails. After this event I think Alliances need to evolve into something slightly different. For me during small events and not during these collaborative big updates, the 100% and 50% shares are just to high, it will lead to very little betrayal and significantly higher 'everyone on the server doing their own thing, while in an Alliance for free rewards' thing.

However, I can't see the future, so this may not happen. It is just something I think will happen and makes me feel uneasy because that will completely change the game.

Agree with OP. There’s zero reason not to join an alliance. I’m a Pl A6. Waited until hitting PL before doing a single Athena quest. It was then I realized 80% of the pirates running around in Athena gear weren’t even legends and that I could have been leveling both at the same time.

It’s why the awesome new ship means little, people that aren’t even legends are already rocking parts of it.

Now with Alliances having literally zero drawback, the system is further diluted. 3 ships in an alliance will easily make 4-5 times the amount a non-allied ship will make. That rep counts is even more insane.

I think it should be 50% across the board, no rep except for turning in crew. Even 50% gold for the turning in crew. There needs to be some drawback to the system.

I feel the system needs to be 50/50 split across the board. We had five ships in a alliance yesterday doing the fight near smugglers bay when a crew sailed by as we were all going to the outpost to cash in and they joined the alliance. I think it needs to be capped at five ships for the event. And after that put in a place a voting system for new ships to join and cap the alliance at three ships max. And regarding the PL's just sitting back and doing nothing those aren't PL's they are just lazy players who found a way to exploit the game mechanics and let others think ohh I can do Athenas get money and ghost gear if I do the quests.

@ghostpaw said in The new Alliance system and changes needed..:

@bambam-bm said in The new Alliance system and changes needed..:

With respects to the PLs throwing down Athena's. No, one voyage does not extend to multiple crews. However, if you are on an alliance, you can throw down one of your voyages on their table for them to complete. So the PL could give everyone an Athena's voyage and sit back to reap the rewards.

And what would stop the other crew from disbanding after you toss out your voyage? Being marked on the alliance's map seems pretty risky, especially once the Atehna's chest is unearthed. The alliances are having trouble staying together after sinking one fleet. I am skeptical a massive, long term alliance would last.

Because there is ZERO reason to attack a ship on your Alliance that has the Athena's chest. Nobody.. Nobody grinding Athena's cares about the gold, they just want the reputation gains. And you get 100% of the reputation gains from other ships in the alliances turning loot in, so no reason not to allow the other crew to turn it in. It is actually less risky to be in an Alliance doing Athena's. They will never know when you obtain the Athena's chest, and you will always know where they are on the map, if they are a threat or not.

I hope I am wrong, but I have already seen entire servers doing this for quick Athena's rep.

You are right, it feels like alliances disband fairly quickly after skeleton ships. But that is because this mechanic is new, and everyone has just 1 goal, the ships. Once the event is over, we will probably see alliances used for other means of grinding.

Sure, there is always the " we can just leave the alliance before we turn treasure in" but there is no incentive to do that, no downside in turning treasure in while in an Alliance.

P.S. I am using Athena's as an example, this could be done with any of the 4 factions.

whispers

You could have done this without an alliance...And people have done. I've taken people on board and given them a share of the loot.

@omnijobs said in The new Alliance system and changes needed..:

I see alliances doing Athena voyages as a good thing. As the legend you grace every other ship with a chance to earn Athena rep and a decent payout and you get a portion of that for yourself while working with your own crew. I think its a great way to reduce the grind of Athena after doing the math at our completion time it would take a couple months ish to get to level 10. While playing nice gives us a chance to reduce that. I think its a good option since we don't have rep packs for Athena rank. And we are a combat crew so anything that reduces the chance of us just attacking on site is probably a good thing.

I do think this should be a possibility yeah. I just don't think the reward should be as high as receiving 100% of the reputation gains and 50% of gold from other crews turning in their treasure.

There shouldn't be a "no downside at all" in being in Alliances.

There should be those instances in which entire servers / a few ships are friendly enough and are benefiting from each other.

But at the current moment, there is just no reason whatsoever not to do stuff while being in an Alliance. The only reason would be "I just want to fight someone, idc about rewards"

idk i dont see it hurting anyone. just more people can get money and rep with other pirates. itll bring us together more and make people less vicious than already are. i think there is no downside to alliances there is no downside to anyone haha so whats the problem. you dont have to accept the alliance if you dont want. or you can and get free treasure whats the problem. they even halved the cost of everything not legendary. they added the doubloons to boost a full rank of rep for 30. they are clearly trying to reduce grind on us especially newcomers i dont see anything bad with that.

Does anybody know if when an alliance member turns in an item that is linked to a commendation (say Captains Chest), wether this counts towards said commendation? I know we get 50% of the value, but does it go towards commendations?

@omnijobs said in The new Alliance system and changes needed..:

@bambam-bm It's really hard to say what the right move is. reducing that payout could get rid of any reason to join an alliance. I feel this is a very hard system to balance well because the community seems really split on what they want with it. Personally I would be willing to take a reduced loot gain if they added the ability to let friends join server and ally with me. otherwise there is not enough reason for me to want to ally with other ships short of wanting to 100% all commendations.

It absolutely is hard to say the correct action for Alliances. I am throwing out my 2 cents in hopes Rare collectively looks at all the feedback for them and either keeps it the same or changes it. Since they even said in their most recent update video, they want feedback for this system and are eager to read them and think about any changes.

My biggest worry is just that there is zero reason not to join an alliance. There is no downside. With the generous rewards, 100% reputation gains, and 50% gold gains. It is a big incentive for everyone to just play nice always.

I do like a mix between PvP and PvE and working together. Prior to this, I have seen people complain how hostile the seas are. I am worried it is a complete 180 and the seas may not be hostile at all, ever.

I might be wrong, but.. I also might be right.

A server wide alliance should simply the meta now. It makes no sense to do anything else. I really don't see how Rare could have overlooked this so badly. I like that they're trying to incentivize working together but now there's way too big if an incentive to work together. They made PvP a complete waste of time for everyone involved. The whole point of this game is to not know what other people are going to be like, now everyone will just be friendly.

@musicmee Ah, that sucks. Thanks!

@mechwarr The way it should be in my opinion is that there should be dozens of ways to make money in the game that are far too difficult for a single galleon to complete, and so the alliances are for the purposes of doing those quest types. They can subsequently pay out more than enough money to overcompensate the fact that the alliance causes a 50/50 split rather than a 100/50 split.

There really isn't anything that requires multiple crews just due to the difficulty alone. The only way money duplication makes sense is if both ships in the alliance are doing an insanely difficult quest type that is paying rewards that are too low for the amount of effort a single ship would muster (skeleton ships, megalodon if it had treasure).

Where the system falls apart is when you both meet up, start two separate quests and go your separate ways, doing basic quests and getting passive loot from halfway across the world for free.

@bambam-bm said in The new Alliance system and changes needed..:

My biggest worry is just that there is zero reason not to join an alliance. There is no downside. With the generous rewards, 100% reputation gains, and 50% gold gains. It is a big incentive for everyone to just play nice always.

Where did you get the information that other crews get 100% reputation? The only crew that gets 100% reputation (and gold) is the crew that delivers the loot. Every other crew gets 50% gold and reputation.

[Mega Thread] Alliances:

Rewards in an Alliance

• When in an alliance, the crew that cashes in the treasure gets a full 100% of the Gold and XP. All other crews in the alliance get a 50% reward of Gold and XP.
• All crews in the alliance will earn progress towards commendations that involve earning gold within a Trading Company when a reward is cashed in.
• One crew will earn progress towards Commendations that have a fixed point of trigger, i.e. The crew that opens a Fort door.
• One crew will earn progress for voyage-based Commendations, i.e. the crew that sails X nautical miles while on a Gold Hoarder voyage.

Im all for an alliance system where money is duplicated and handed to me and everyone and we all win irl. In the pirate game we all play though? They should have just called this Sea of monsters and themed it as a mythological exploration game.

This game seems less and less like a pirate game with every update, and more like a weird dream/nightmare that we can’t wake up from. Just tend those sails, gather some supplies, you want to pirate? Well prepare to be made to feel bad and to be judged for not playing patty cake and dress up instead. Being a pirate is allowed, there’s just no reason for it besides the thrills, everyone would rather stand around and work sails and fight ai that gets stuck in rocks and doorways and is only able to kill us by sheer numbers. The ai ships get stuck and move really unnaturally.

Where is a real pirate economy and some actual game dictated pirate mechanics like bounty’s or notoriety or a black market for stolen goods, more goods to be stolen etc. this game should be about pirate social interaction, which is combat, treachery and deception, not this super friendly pirate nonsense.

Split it evenly. That's the only way to go. 50/50.

I think the Alliance system is fine as-is. Going lower than 50% for allied crews would kill the incentive, and giving the turn-in crew less than 100% means they're getting punished for their own turn-ins. The rep grind sucks so this helps make it more bearable.

Betrayals are still possible for folks who want to be greedy. Personally I think it's too early to go around saying whether or not Alliances are broken/OP and wait it out until Skeleton Forts are back and the Cursed Sails event is over, then see what becomes the 'meta' of sorts.

Also I think the majority of folks in this game much prefer the current state of things compared to how it was prior where everyone avoided one another and treated each other as shoot on sight.

@trickrtreat01 said in The new Alliance system and changes needed..:

Alliances are a lame attempt at making this a PVE game. Time to gear up and sail out and sink some ships.

Hate to break it to you buddy but SoT was never meant to be a PvP game and PvE is the content that keeps players coming/staying.