[Mega Thread] Alliances

  • khaleesibot
    Master
    Founder

    alt text

    Introduced in our Cursed Sails Release 1.2.0 is a new feature called Alliances.

    An alliance is when two or more ships have chosen to form a formal alliance by raising one of the Alliance Flags found in the Flag Box in the Crow’s Nest. We've seen lots of discussion about how Alliances work, and the following should help clarify some of those questions!

    Joining and Leaving an Alliance

    • To initiate an alliance raise the “Offer Alliance” Pennant Flag found in the Flag Box at the top of the Crow’s Nest to signal to another ship(s) that you wish to form an alliance.
    • To accept an alliance, you must be in one square map grid distance to accept. If you are in range, you can accept the offer by selecting “Accept Alliance” in the Flag Box.
    • Once in an alliance, you can select “Leave Alliance” in the Flag Box at any time to… yep you guessed it, leave the alliance!

    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.

    Important things to note

    • Friendly fire is on - So keep a weathered eye on the direction you’re pointing your weapon!
    • Crew Chat doesn’t extend to the Alliance - This enables crews to talk individually, whether that’s to plan the next voyage or plot the next mutiny…
    • Allied crews show up on your World Map Table - Which equally means rival crews have their alliances show up on their World Map Tables.
    • Voyage Sharing - Allied crews can place voyages down on each other’s voyage voting tables for the crew of that ship to vote on. Great if you ally with a Pirate Legend!
    • Spawn Distance - If a crew in the alliance is sunk, they will have their ship spawn in closer proximity to the rest of the alliance.

    We're looking forward to all your feedback around this feature!

    Want more Cursed Sails goodness?

    Looking For Crew?

    We've got a bunch of places you can visit to seek out like-minded pirates, so sail on over to these official Sea of Thieves hangouts:

    As you participate in this thread, keep to the Pirate Code and the Forum Rules!

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  • a13on
    Captain
    Insider
    Founder

    There has to be a leave timer so you know when somebody wants to leave. All loot collected while in an alliance should count for all of that alliance, no matter who cashes it in.

    Friendly fire needs to be turned off in an alliance and player names should appear in a third color, so you can tell enemies from friends and from your crew.

  • Kzoo Kid
    Marauder
    Insider

    The biggest case of abuse I see at the moment is setting a whole server to alliance and grinding out athena voyages. You can feasibly get 2-3x athena reputation from doing this. I don't have anything against speeding up progression to help new players "catch up", but I think it is important to maintain the integrity of hard-to-reach goals. If not for the reward of exclusivity, I think it is important to be able to gauge the relative skill of other players.

    At first, anyone with PL was generally pretty good at the game. Now, many players have reached PL status without having a firm grasp on the game. I don't want to have to micromanage everything on the ship, but if I don't have any way of knowing roughly how much a player should know, I feel pressured to micromanage or risk sinking/wasting time due to silly mistakes.

  • Gloombeard
    Commander

    @x1-two

    No. This game is about creating interesting social interactions and an uneasy one at that. You're supposed to feel tension when sailing together with other swashbucklers and nefarious pirates - they drink with you right now, they fight with you, but, if the treasure or the insult is great enough - they might betray and murder you.

    Making it so that everyone in an Alliance gets 100 % of loot and reputation value while disabling Friendly Fire and giving the other crew a heads up on that a ship is intending to leave their Alliance is NOT IN ACCORDANCE with said game philosophy and the general theme of piracy. This is the Sea of Thieves, not the Sea of Friends.

    Getting 100 % of what you turn in, and then 50 % Gold and Reputation from what all other crews in an Alliance sell is already very generous. Making this new feature very attractive for people to initiate and maintain as is.

  • A Cranky Eskimo
    Marauder
    Insider
    Founder

    I like the idea of alliances but it should have more options and should utilize the voting system.

    For one being in an alliance shouldn’t magically boost the total loot earned, it should split the total loot value of the loot turned in, with multiple options for the split based on what type of alliance you would vote for.

    You should be able to hire a ship as a defensive escort ship, and the split be 50/50, etc.

    There should be more options than the example above so that crews can customize their alliance to their in game goals.

    There should be repercussions for betrayal of allied crews, and otherwise a short timer to end the alliance peacefully so that if a betrayal occurs without warning it always makes that crew get whatever penalty rare decides. (Spawn/ship timer increase, blocked from sale at outposts for a certain time, players gain a bounty//notoriety etc.

    Allied crews names should change to a different color, possibly each allied crews being slightly different, this would let you see what names aren’t allied.

    I like the ability to see your fleet on the map, allied ships dotted travel lines should be visible too though.

  • LongLiveCayde6
    Marauder
    Insider

    @khaleesibot

    I will say that neither my crew nor I knew the "cashing-in crew" gold difference, but I don't think it will make much of a difference.

    I absolutely LOVE the alliance system! It is an ingenious way to promote teamwork without a heavy threat of treachery. Yes, some crews will undoubtedly break the Alliance and betray their trusting companions, but all crews sailing the Sea of Thieves knows that every interaction should be laced with moderate suspicion. We are pirates, after all.

    Thank you for implementing what I believe is a phenomenal addition to social interactions. I cannot wait to see what comes from it!

  • DAX 3030

    Blue names for alliance members. Alliance should get more than 50% of gold and xp... maybe 75%, but NOT 100%(maybe XP). No friendly sword PVP (not ship fire) to avoid accidental sword hits when in close proximity. “Ancient idol” personal item to have a controlled spawn point for individuals, can be destroyed by non alliance players/AI, this allows mixing crews at distance. Just my thoughts for better incentivizing it. Good job with this update.

  • Captain Nicklas
    Captain
    Insider
    Founder

    I've had a very experience with alliances, it just depends on the kind of people you form an alliance with. Always a gamble!

  • Dazed898
    Master
    Insider

    Alliance turn in needs a nerf bad. If you get the whole server in on it you will get 50% xp and gold on all turn ins boosting people to legend status and athena rep at an insane rate. No more real reason to pvp when you can just get 50% of all they turn in without having to do anything besides raise a flag. I would say reduce it to 25% or 50% of gold and 0% xp.

  • Sour SkuLLz
    Marauder
    Insider

    I think 'Alliances' is the wrong word since it's obvious that it's intention is to screw over other ships, rather than to team up (if it was, you'd have same loot/xp given or friendly fire associated with it). I played for 6 hours yesterday and not a single alliance stood. After you defeat a boss, the other boat 'accidentally' sinks your ship...then 'let me grab your loot so it doesn't sink until your boat gets back' ....then they kill you and take everything, break the alliance and turn it in. Not a bad way to have spent over an hour trying to sink the new Skeleton ships. Or the other experience...they sit and watch the map and see what island's I'm at...and then follow me and sink me right before the outpost so they can get all 100% of the loot...and then broke the Alliance before i respawned.

    Now I get that this is supposed to be part of the "Watch your back" kind of concept. That's all good and dandy - but Alliances don't back stab each other. This type of stuff makes me not want to use this feature, because there's no real use for it. You get less loot, less xp, they see where you are - it's just not worth using when you know they're just gonna turn around and leave the alliance once you're in a spot to be sunk easily.

  • lizalaroo
    Champion
    Insider
    Founder
    Deckhand

    Loved the Alliance. Most of the server was in it and before the AI battle it was nice seeing the Plunder pop-up and gold and rep added to your account. All without you lifting a finger! When we came together we were lucky to have a fabulous bunch of pirates, we didn’t think of breaking the Alliance. Even after we’d won and the gold was handed in we shared resources left just before we logged off. It was brilliant.

  • MrBarryW00D
    Master
    Insider

    Alliance turn in needs to be proximity based to stop the Athena's/voyage abuse. The thought process is great, backstabbing over Skull Fort/Skeleton Ship loot. However what is going to end up happening when these Ships become random spawns is people forming Alliances and doing voyages on their own side of the map and just getting extra gold/reputation with zero risk of betrayal.

  • A Cranky Eskimo
    Marauder
    Insider
    Founder

    Oh yeah I forgot to mention, crews should have to be physically at the outpost together when they turn the loot in for rewards to be shared, so that crews have to hoard the loot and meet back up to gain any benefit. If they change the split to make sense this isn’t as necessary but if they keep it so that alliances in effect duplicate the value of chests by 50% per crew then it really is a good way to make alliances less of a free ride.

  • A Cranky Eskimo
    Marauder
    Insider
    Founder

    @dax-3030 said in [Mega Thread] Alliances:

    Blue names for alliance members. Alliance should get more than 50% of gold and xp... maybe 75%, but NOT 100%(maybe XP). No friendly sword PVP (not ship fire) to avoid accidental sword hits when in close proximity. “Ancient idol” personal item to have a controlled spawn point for individuals, can be destroyed by non alliance players/AI, this allows mixing crews at distance. Just my thoughts for better incentivizing it. Good job with this update.

    That sounds like a cool idea, or maybe they could add an emote similar to the make friends one, that allows players to offer to switch crews (and therefore spawn points) when they are in an alliance, but if the alliance ends they would be aligned with their original crew again.

    They should have an emote for dueling among your own crew like this too.

  • el Dunco

    @dazed898 said in [Mega Thread] Alliances:

    No more real reason to pvp when you can just get 50% of all they turn in

    I want 100% ;P

  • Darwynz
    Seafarer
    Founder

    I have been faithfully enjoying this game since closed Alpha. Last night I just finished an Alliances voyage that took a very long few hours. The experience left me sick.

    I and a friend started on our brigantine and we joined a galleon to form an Alliance to battle the skeleton ships. Eventually my friend had to log off before we completed a skeleton ships encounter. We fought two complete rounds of skeleton ships and amassed a ton of loot.

    As soon as we all unloaded the loot from each ship on to the dock at Plunder Outpost, the other group disbanded the Alliance and killed me. I spent all that time and effort fighting in an Alliance only to come away frustrated, angry and with zero loot!

    I was wronged by this toxicity! This is toxic behavior manipulating the Alliance mechanic. Nobody is going to make alliances if they are outnumbered, knowing the other players can simply disband the alliance and kill the outnumbered players to steal all the loot and leave the outnumbered players frustrated.

    I am seriously considering abandoning this game forever, as this behavior is not worth me losing sleep. This is a game and no amount of fun is worth losing sleep over. I know many or most players feel the same way. I could not sleep all night last night as due to this issue. I am very sad to say that I seriously considering uninstalling Sea of Thieves.

    I even attempted to sail back to the outpost to attempt to communicate with them and all I could get out was "cool guys" and "SCREENSHOTS" before they killed me again and sunk my ship. I have screenshots of the offending players killing me.

    I want these players banned, I want you to fix the "Recent players" functionality, I want the total amount of gold I earned on this voyage to compete the skeleton ships voyages, I want all my earned reputation gains and I want you to change the mechanic so that the Alliance cannot be disbanded once loot has been attained!

    [Mod Edit - Callouts on the forums are not allowed.]

    This behavior is wrong and is ruining the game.

  • Bola Satanica

    I should be more risks involved in treachery. Make a time delay for leaving the alliance. If you want to leave, everyone in the alliance should now that you are leaving in X minutes. Must be enough time to give us a chance to chase and sink the rats.

  • Davinrude
    Master
    Insider
    Founder

    "Spawn Distance - If a crew in the alliance is sunk, they will have their ship spawn in closer proximity to the rest of the alliance."

    This is the bad part. I think the spown must be follow the regular spown. Your ship is destroyed? Spown far far far away from your last position.

    If you spown near your alliance where is the challenge when you try to destroy NPC ship? or specially how you can win the battle if you fight vs another alliance? nope, i don't like it.

  • Riareth
    Captain
    Insider
    Founder

    @presentnose5 said in [Mega Thread] Alliances:

    Alliance turn in needs to be proximity based to stop the Athena's/voyage abuse.

    Turn in being proximity based won't stop that kind of abuse, just make it slight more onerous. You can just arrange to meet up at an outpost when it's time to turn in. Unless you have the full server in the alliance, you might even want to have the fleet together when it's time to dig the Athena chests.

  • Vincent XIII
    Marauder
    Insider

    I don't know where to report this but during the Cursed Sails I am seeing a lot of servers not spawning in the skeletons but you can still sink them for loot. I know some of you may get mad at me for reporting this but no freeloading pirates here!

  • Tichozpytec
    Captain
    Insider

    @vincent-xiii You can report it here https://support.seaofthieves.com/hc/en-gb/requests/new

  • Riareth
    Captain
    Insider
    Founder

    @bola-satanica said in [Mega Thread] Alliances:

    I should be more risks involved in treachery. Make a time delay for leaving the alliance. If you want to leave, everyone in the alliance should now that you are leaving in X minutes. Must be enough time to give us a chance to chase and sink the rats.

    My initial thoughts were, nahh, this is not needed and difficult to get straight. But the more I think about it, the more it makes sense to reduce trolling.

    • Make it a long delay (30 minutes? or the duration of the alliance, whichever is smaller)
    • Show the mutineers ship on the ex allies world maps with a skull and bones icon, but don't show the allies on the mutineers map.
    • No companies can buy from the mutineers during that period.

    They could still hide the loot somewhere before triggering the mutiny, but at least it would make them waste some time and give the alliance some chance of getting loot back.

    I'm not sure if this would make alliances too sticky, too stable.

  • Ubersnail Prime
    Master
    Insider

    I really enjoy the Alliance system.

    I didn't think I would, but it's good. The "rewards" for being in an alliance are too much and aren't that big deal to leave over, but the incentive to "betray" is also not too big. Ultimately, it just facilitates the behaviors we were doing or able to do anyone, but better. It's almost just an interface upgrade that allows you to codify your intent.

    One thing I would add: it would be nice if the name plates of people in your alliance were a different color. That way, when a jamoke climbs on your yacht, you can tell if he part of the alliance, or someone new. I can't remember all the names!

  • Ubersnail Prime
    Master
    Insider

    @darwynz said in [Mega Thread] Alliances:

    [Mod Edit - Callouts on the forums are not allowed.]

    This behavior is wrong and is ruining the game.

    Glad a mod caught this. It's against the code. Don't follow your enemies to the forums. Keep it to the seas, dude. Kill 'em first next time.

  • MrBarryW00D
    Master
    Insider

    @riareth said in [Mega Thread] Alliances:

    @presentnose5 said in [Mega Thread] Alliances:

    Alliance turn in needs to be proximity based to stop the Athena's/voyage abuse.

    Turn in being proximity based won't stop that kind of abuse, just make it slight more onerous. You can just arrange to meet up at an outpost when it's time to turn in. Unless you have the full server in the alliance, you might even want to have the fleet together when it's time to dig the Athena chests.

    Correct, but when you factor in that not every crew finishes at the same time and having to travel to meet up it makes the Alliance less efficient. It also re-introduces the possibility of betrayal which is exactly what Rare intends with the Alliances.

  • Kenji Salk
    Commander
    Rare Employee

    @baldmunkee said in [Mega Thread] Alliances:

    @darwynz said in [Mega Thread] Alliances:

    [Mod Edit - Callouts on the forums are not allowed.]

    This behavior is wrong and is ruining the game.

    Glad a mod caught this. It's against the code. Don't follow your enemies to the forums. Keep it to the seas, dude. Kill 'em first next time.

    Yeah, a reminder to everyone: Posting gamertags or screenshots of conversations in order to name and shame community members is not allowed on the Forums. If you are having trouble with a player in the game, you can report them to Xbox Live here or submit a support ticket to Rare Player Support. And don't spam the post to its own thread, as well. It's a good way to catch a temp ban.

  • CaptainRon023
    Commander
    Insider
    Founder

    I'm okay with the system in place so far but I feel like the aesthetic of the ship with the alliance pennant flag is ruined.

    The flag systems as of now is a mess, not only did it took away the customization option that the old pennants offered to match the main flag, but the main flag was also replace with the pennant LFG flag in order to give other players a clear visual cues that the ship is looking to form an Alliance. And once an alliance is formed, you have a pennant underneath the main flag which doesn't look right at all.

    It was explained to me that this was an easy decision to make sure all players from a distance can see if a person is in an alliance or not and whether or not the crew is looking for more.

    So I wanna suggest an alternative solution to in hopes to restore the old flag system on the mast(s) and create not only a new one, but also an even better, clearer, and bigger alliance flag system to complement the ship in a way that the aesthetic of the ship is still retained.

    alt text

    So ships had a giant flag on the back of their boat, this could be used for the new alliance flag system. And instead of giving the actual Alliance flag a pennant shape, use a regular flag shape so that it's clear whose in whose alliance. And the LFG pennant flag and still show up below the Alliance Flag which indicates you're still looking for more. From a distance, this should remain clear.

    alt text

    Sorry for my drawing, just trying to illustrate the point.

    From a distance, you'll be able to distinguish if

    1. A crew is looking for an alliance
    2. Part of an alliance
    3. Part of an alliance already and looking for more.

    Plus, since these alliance flags are bigger... it'll be easier to see what alliance they are currently in as the pennant flags are really small and hard to tell who is it apart of unless you go below deck and check your map with the current system as of now. But I can imagine if there's an alliance battle going on with all the ships being on top of each other, the pennant flags aren't gonna be enough as friendly fire is on.

  • Gloog
    Master
    Founder

    @lizalaroo said in [Mega Thread] Alliances:

    Loved the Alliance. Most of the server was in it and before the AI battle it was nice seeing the Plunder pop-up and gold and rep added to your account. All without you lifting a finger!

    Wow, what a great mechanic. eyeroll

  • Zyrkal
    Captain
    Insider

    @captainron023 There is already a way to see if the crew is :

    • Looking for an alliance
      There is a white and red pennant flag at the main mast (completly at the top)
    • Part of an alliance
      All masts have a colored pennant flag (at the lower part of the flags pole)
    • Part of an alliance already and looking for more.
      all masts have a colored pennents flag (at the bottom part) and the main mast have 2 pennent (one bottom and colored and an other at the top white and red)
  • Cpt Amphibious

    2 brigs and a galleon fighting skelly ships for 1 and a half hour we couldn't finish. the waves take too long, i was expecting 4 ships and a boss ship, not like 9 ships. omg we had to give up after a long session because we ran out of supplies and time. we found better loot on ship wrecks around the map than we did fighting the skeletons, what a waste...

  • CaptainRon023
    Commander
    Insider
    Founder

    @Zyrkal

    Wasn't what I was talking about but thank you.

  • UrihamRayne
    Commander
    Insider
    Founder

    @khaleesibot said in [Mega Thread] Alliances:

    • Spawn Distance - If a crew in the alliance is sunk, they will have their ship spawn in closer proximity to the rest of the alliance.

    Who said that was remotely allowed? Most of the time a ship sinks is due to PVP, and if the entire alliance is fighting over some objective like the recently introduced skelleton ships, we will have this endless unending wave of goons returning to the point of interest with very little time to stabilize control, this is just like the forts on the release, where the respawn distance was one island away from the fort, you basically couldn't finish a single wave without having to do some persistent resinking, we managed back then but it wasn't optimal, we fought for further respawn distances from even before the game even released but here we are making the same mistake. I don't know why am I even trying to give constructive feedback if it gets drowned by the dozen other "muh pve servers" posts, really frustrating stuff.

  • DAX 3030

    More time between them spawning again. The fact there is two more ships before the loot floats is ridiculous

  • Supa
    Master
    Insider
    Founder

    @urihamrayne The only person bringing up PVE servers here is you. Full stop.

    If you are breaking the alliance to steal loot and don't want ships re-spawning next to you you have a couple options: A) Break the alliance formally first. It's a super easy mechanic to use. B) Just don't turn on your allies. or C) Don't join alliances.

    I'm not sure how any of this is complex at all.

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