Commendation Betrayal

  • Dawson Dev
    Insider

    Firstly, I think that there is a massive lack of understanding as to why the commendation rebalancing was so destructive for some who play the game. This is largely because most players don't necessarily see the value in commendations the same way that people who have reached Athena 10 do. It's true that it is a smaller (but ever growing) community of players, but they are still people who very much love the game and should be treated with the same respect and decency as anyone else.

    It's easy for those who are still working towards Pirate Legend or Athena 10 to simply disregard, dismiss, and even belittle those affected by the rebalance because they don't understand how important those commendations were to them. I really want to try to layout the issues with the recent changes and detail why I think that they were very hurtful to many dedicated players.

    Why Commendations Were Important

    Prior to reaching Athena 10, I couldn't have cared less about the commendations. They were boring and insignificant compared to the thrill of reaching Pirate Legend and Athena 10. However, once I had reached these milestones, chipping away at the commendations gave me a reason to keep playing.

    There was freedom to play the game however I wanted. It didn't matter if it was open/closed crews, skull forts, MA, GH, or OoS. It was even great playing with new players since their voyages had a lot of foul skulls and castaway's (which are quite rare at higher levels). They all counted towards the commendations. New content updates would come and go, but progress on the commendations lived on. I felt like I could keep playing for a year and still have commendations to work on. The game felt immortal.

    This feeling of making progress on long-term made playing SoT seem quite meaningful. It was the sole reason that I continued to play for the past 5 months. I have added over a hundred people to my friends list and play with around 20 of them regularly. We all had a similar journey with the game, reaching PL and A10, and then moving on to the commendations.

    The Rebalance Betrayal

    The recent rebalancing has been devastating for us. It has taken that which was most important to us and bastardized it in such a way that it will continue to torment us for as long as we play this game. I've been hearing players on random crews say things like: "Ha! I just unlocked the [some title that use to take 4, 5, or even 10 times more effort to achieve] title and I didn't have to do anything for it!" Which almost makes me feel sick to my stomach. These types of things will continue to happen and are a constant reminder of how Rare betrayed us.

    Betrayal is the only word that I can find that fits the way that I and many others feel. It is only when you believe deeply in something that you become vulnerable to those beliefs being invalidated. It is akin to be cheated and humiliated by someone you placed great faith in. Many of us invested countless hours into working on the goals laid out by Rare with the absolute belief that reaching the finish line would be a meaningful accomplishment and give a rare and prestigious title as a reward. However, after 5 months of Rare letting people pour time and effort into these goals, it has stabbed them all in the back and made them look like fools.

    Why?

    Why would Rare do something that would deeply hurt so many people? I suppose it's possible that they have very little understanding of how people play the game past Pirate Legend and Athena 10. And so, didn't understand how important these commendations were to the more advanced players. The alternative is, of course, that they just thought internally that progress isn't always pretty and that sometimes it has to come at the expense of others. So it's better to do it now than later. I do quite hope that the former is the case, though. Since intentionally humiliating and tormenting people like that is evil.

    The reality of this is that it was completely unnecessary. The commendations mean almost nothing to new players. They have grand goals like working towards Pirate Legend and, later on, Athena 10. Why on earth would they need an incentive to grind out commendations? I thought the commendations were dumb before hitting Pirate Legend and Athena 10 and would have been fine with them being lowered then because I didn't care about them. It was only after reaching Athena 10 that they began to mean something. For these reasons, bastardizing commendations to make them appealing to new players was absolutely the wrong thing to do.

    Aftermath

    All that Rare did with this move was betray and humiliate the people who have played this game since the beginning. New players have so much else going on that they will never see much value in long-term goals that come from commendation progression. The stolen goals and aspirations of the old have little value through the eyes of the young.

    It is truly a travesty that Rare got this so wrong. Did they ever run this by anyone who was Athena 10 to get their thoughts on it? The progression path was perfect: Pirate Legend, Athena 10, commendations. Players at all stages of this path had meaningful goals to work towards, but now, the commendations are mostly finished by the time you get to Athena 10. The game seems to have a life that is more finite now. With a green flash, its previous immortality has turned to dust and been carried away by the wind.

    Some hold onto hope that Rare will somehow make this right, but I know better. Just as you can't put toothpaste back in the tube, there is no way to repair the damage done by the rebalance. It has left many of us resentful and cynical. All that Rare has said about this is that next week they're coming out with new goals for Pirate Legends. Well destroying the progress that many of us had over the past five months so that all PLs (new and old) can start at zero again is not going to make us feel any better.

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  • daantjebNL

    Yes they truly have 0 respect for players who were with them from the start.

    Very well written, Rare has lost it, with each patch more betrayal and free handouts and participation prizes for all, as if that has ever made any game more interesting.
    And is a giant middlefinger to people who put in time and effort.
    Completely clueless.

    I have put in maybe 4-5 hours since this abomination was released and haven't touched it since, it sickens me to my core.
    Just need to find another game to fall in love with again.

  • Sgt Paloogoo
    Commander
    Insider

    I think people have over reacted to this latest update.
    Sure it added problems but that's to be expected from an under construction game like SoT.

  • Admiral RRRSole

    @dawson-dev Spot on mate. Thank you.

    As you said only PLs and those at Athena 10 would truly understand and appreciate what these commendations and achievement mean. We have nothing else to play for.

    Hanging around waiting for the next bi-weekly bug fest isn't enough.

    Even before reaching PL status I couldn't care less about anything else, not rep progression or any cosmetics, I even delayed reaching 50/50/50/ for as long as possible whilst still playing the game. Mixing it up with new comers to the game and doing whatever low level voyage / faction they chose. Helping lots of complete strangers complete events such as the megalodon, highchairs and statues even though I had already completed them myself.

    My focus on this game has only ever been about achievements and commendations.
    Lowering the bar on achievements isn't going to bring new comers to the game. However it will see a lot of dedicated players leave.

  • Dawson Dev
    Insider

    @admiral-rrrsole said in Rebalance Betrayal:

    Lowering the bar on achievements isn't going to bring new comers to the game. However it will see a lot of dedicated players leave.

    Yes, exactly. I hope that Rare will realize this.

  • BenderTheBlack
    Marauder
    Insider

    I knew this change was going to [mod edited] a ton of people off. I knew some pirates who sunk incredible amounts of time in the pursuit of commendations. Imo, I find it rather interesting that people played the game this way. Grinding to PL and to Athena 10 both makes sense as they have much more tangible rewards and are promised more later on. Grinding out commendations though seemed like hamster running on a wheel, I mean there's absolutely no point to it other than a [mod edited] title. For me, the end game of SoT is really honing my PvP skills and raiding other ships, pursuing gold like a true pirate. There is a real thrill when you sink another ship and they have hours worth of loot on board.

  • CotU42
    Lord
    Insider

    @dawson-dev I get your feeling, I even made a ticket to RARE about this hallowing out the achievement system.

    The change in and of itself is in my opinion not a bad choice. In the end the accommodations and what they stood for was no longer balanced as originally designed due to the change of loot distribution as one got higher in levels.

    The issue however is that for the pirate legends out there (and especially the ones that hit level 10 Athena's) there was nothing else to really strive for.

    Unless you are like IAmBenderFearMe, where the honing of their PvP skills is enough - but that is not how everyone wants to play.

    For me personally, adjusting the accommodations is a very understandable choice. Though they should start implementing some end-game to also cater to the legendary community and give those ambitious pirates out there something to look forward to (be happy to have a legendary captain on board).

  • Dawson Dev
    Insider

    @cotu42 said in Commendation Betrayal:

    For me personally, adjusting the accommodations is a very understandable choice. Though they should start implementing some end-game to also cater to the legendary community and give those ambitious pirates out there something to look forward to (be happy to have a legendary captain on board).

    I could understand things like the banana crates being cut in half, but almost everything else was reduced by 75-90%. I mean like, why couldn't they have just left the Skull Fort ones at 500? Then they would at least be rare. Now, you pretty much have the vast majority of them by them time you hit Athena 10.

    Joe Neat said today that they were looking into more goals for pirate legends. I just hope that they will include legendary titles for chest and skulls (a Skull Fort one would be nice) that retroactively include our progress from before the rebalance.

  • el Dunco

    @daantjebnl said in Commendation Betrayal:

    it sickens me to my core.

    alt text

  • NickFragz

    It's no doubt frustrating for those who were grinding this out. However, I think something is lost on this whole thing that somehow sinking ALL of your gaming time in a game simply on a grind somehow = skilled Achievements or accomplishments. With all due respect, nothing is taken away from your accomplishments. At the end of the day the grind was only EVER of value to you personally. Nobody trying to grind it out at the same level cares about you grinding it out and nobody just playing the game to play the game or doesn't care about stuff like that in general cares about the work YOU put in. That's the thing about Achievements etc. in general. Hardly anybody cares about you or what you've done, your GS, what hard games you've done or what your completion % is. It's really about self fulfillment and always has been. Here and there maybe somebody tips their hat to your accomplishments and that feels good. That's what though, people who could be counted on 1 hand? So if the fulfillment of this is now lost on you, there are plenty of people who are actually relieved because this game was a complete avoid for most of the Achievement hunting community based on the time sink. It's always a risk to do things at the highest and hardest level to say you did it because at the end of the day that stuff is subject to change at any time.

    Just to use my WoW experience as example, as an old school player, I had a very prestigious list of things I did when the game was actually hard and coordinated. I'm talking Vanilla / BC era. Only handfuls of people had done some things I had done at the time and it made me feel like a beast, some of that was skill based however. You couldn't just "grind" it out or be carried. Now ask yourself if you care whatsoever about things I did which were exponentially more difficult than grinding away at this time sink? No, I would wager you could care less to your very core. If I hop on that game now and try to talk to people about what I did back when it was hard I know the response is "who cares man". That was then, this is now. So it only ever provided me with memories and fulfillment, I had a good time back then and that's what matters. I also don't play the game because it's way too easy now. If that's the case with you and Sea of Thieves then so be it, but take the self importance out of it like they have somehow spit on you. Nobody likes elitists, you know what I mean? Anywho, just my thoughts and experience. No ill will intended.

  • entspeak
    Captain
    Insider

    The problem is that, for some strange reason, the Devs didn't seem to realize that this was all that was left for A10s. They should've left them as is, introduced the new PL commendations and then rebalanced. There would still be a bit of an uproar - much as there is for being able to buy levels with doobloons, but, at least A10s would have something to strive for in the game until Rare deigns to give PLs more content and the 'game can begin.'

  • NickFragz

    @bran-the-ent Not a bad idea, but at the same there is always a group of people who are upset about the ever changing "end game" of MMORPGs. They could add a bunch to do at max level and people will knock it out in a blink of an eye, then complain. Somebody will always be posting the developers ruined the game, they are done, I quit and so on after every patch. Just the name of the game.

  • poopdeckmcgee

    Well said my brother... This change to the commendations is a slap in the face to the most dedicated players. From a company that touts how much they care about "Player Input" THEY NEVER ASKED the opinion's of ATHENA's 10 PIRATE LEGENDS what we thought about lowering all of the commendation goals we had left. And IF Rare does care as much as they say they do then they NEED to apologize and change it back to the way it was. This change will not bring new players into the game but it will take veteran players out of the game. I feel betrayed and have not played the game since this change was made.

  • entspeak
    Captain
    Insider

    @nickfragz Well, except that last bit is what the devs stated from the get go... the game was really supposed to begin once you become a Legend - which is why people drove themselves toward that goal, but that's proven to be the opposite of true and the steps taken recently aren't helping. So, it's understandable to feel betrayed.

  • NickFragz

    @bran-the-ent I'm not familiar, if that's the case then sure it stings a little more. However going after it from the start one would know there was very limited stuff to do in the first place at max. Grinding collect X amount quests is not end game content in the first place in my opinion, especially just repainted as some other reputation so now you have 2 or 3 to do. It's all the same, no substance. So relying on that is shaky ground from go and people already made that choice so I wouldn't personally feel betrayed for having made a somewhat bad decision to sink that time. People had to know it was a bad decision, but actively chose that life anyways.

  • m1sterpunch
    Master
    Insider

    Sadly the "Commendation grind" was the only real endgame SoT had after Athena 10. They can redeem themselves by having the previously level 5 commendations become level 10 "Legendary" commendations with fancier titles.

  • entspeak
    Captain
    Insider

    @nickfragz No. Look, it's cool to have your opinion, but you seem fairly misinformed. There was no information about what occurred when you became a Legend until someone became a Legend and it was revealed that there was nothing there except for more grind doing the same thing again for Athena voyages. Folks were a bit upset then, but stuck with it. Then they hit A10 and there was nothing left to do but commendations. And now... well... here we are.

    They say that they haven't focused on PL content because the majority of players aren't PL, but... this means basically, for now, the game ends at A10. And it was the devs who told players the game would begin at PL. So, as I said, a sense of betrayal is completely understandable.

  • Dawson Dev
    Insider

    @nickfragz thank you for your comments, but I feel that you might have missed some key points in my post. After hitting Athena 10 it's not like we started to (or at least I didn't) "grind" commendation the same way we did to PL and A10. I just played the game, freely, doing whatever I wanted; not grinding anything.

    The commendations gave me a reason to keep playing because it added meaning to treasure, skull forts, or voyages beyond just the gold. When I would open up a fort vault I was excited to see a foul skull or castaway because they are quite rare at higher levels. Even though I have 4 million gold, I would go to great lengths to ensure that no treasure was left behind or stolen from me. I wouldn't have had that same care for treasure if its worth in gold was all that I was concerned with. For example: I did a skull fort today, loaded up the ship, then was about to start heading to an outpost when I saw a forgotten trinket shining on the beach. I dropped sails and left it there. It had little value to me (just a few hundred gold). However, I would never have left it behind if I still needed it for a commendation. So little things that were once important to me have almost completely lost their value.

    It's similar to how one cares for treasure before reaching PL. Not only is it worth gold, but also rep; which is representative of incremental progress towards grand long-term goals. In the case of Athena 10s, the only thing they had left that added meaning to playing the game was the commendations, which has now been brutalized by the rebalance.

    If you still can't put yourselves in our shoes, imagine this: you worked hard to get your levels to 49/49/49, but then Rare put out a patch that "rebalances" the requirements for Pirate Legend to 25/25/25. You get on the next day and find that there are a ton of people now that are PL. You hear newer players say things like "I just made it to Pirate Legend and I didn't even have to do anything!" How do you think that would make you feel?

  • Trickrrrtreat
    Insider

    This is not just about Athena 10 players. It's about players going for other achievements too. My Skull Fort clears were wiped out. It is sickening. And seeing people in this thread flippantly dismissing it is sad.

  • Dawson Dev
    Insider

    @trickrtreat01 said in Commendation Betrayal:

    My Skull Fort clears were wiped out. It is sickening. And seeing people in this thread flippantly dismissing it is sad.

    Yeah and Rare doesn't even let you keep your actual count. I use to have over 350, now it just says 120. All of our progress was just annihilated.

    Honestly, doing a ton of Skull Forts after hitting Athena 10 was the most fun that I had in the entire game. Now however, Forts are scarce (thanks to the skelly ships) and usually uncontested. Leaving you to do the waves without any fun; being slaughtered by skelly firing squads when trying to get a banana from the new barrel UI is just maddening. It really seems like the game is staring to wind down for me. It's sad, really.

  • CardShark 360
    Commander
    Insider

    @iambenderfearme I have moderated your post as it goes against the Forum Rules.

    Obscene and Vulgar Language
    Swearing is not permitted on the Forums and a profanity filter is in place to block it. Attempts to bypass the profanity filter will result in a temporary ban from the Forums and a final warning. If the action continues, a permanent ban from the Forums will be issued.

    Please read and abide by the forums rules going forward.

    Thanks!

  • Trickrrrtreat
    Insider

    @dawson-dev said in Commendation Betrayal:

    @trickrtreat01 said in Commendation Betrayal:

    My Skull Fort clears were wiped out. It is sickening. And seeing people in this thread flippantly dismissing it is sad.

    Yeah and Rare doesn't even let you keep your actual count. I use to have over 350, now it just says 120. All of our progress was just annihilated.

    Honestly, doing a ton of Skull Forts after hitting Athena 10 was the most fun that I had in the entire game. Now however, Forts are scarce (thanks to the skelly ships) and usually uncontested. Leaving you to do the waves without any fun; being slaughtered by skelly firing squads when trying to get a banana from the new barrel UI is just maddening. It really seems like the game is staring to wind down for me. It's sad, really.

    I would love to sit down face to face with one of the devs so he/she could explain to me why people with less time in the game were more important than people who have spent countless hours working towards something only to have it ripped away.

  • David Chhh
    Marauder
    Insider

    I can wait to see the legend commendation.
    Sell X legendary chest
    Earn x gold from legendary quest
    Complete x Athena's voyages
    ...
    So much fun incomming.

  • Goedecke Michel
    Marauder

    @dawson-dev We know that prices change by time. Buy a 4K UHD TV today and pay a price, drop by a few weeks later and find out it's half the price now. Is that fraud? By no means. You decided in due time to buy the goods at the price offered.

  • Crimsonraziel
    Master
    Insider

    @trickrtreat01 said in Commendation Betrayal:

    I would love to sit down face to face with one of the devs so he/she could explain to me why people with less time in the game were more important than people who have spent countless hours working towards something only to have it ripped away.

    Because it's not about how much time you spent in the game but about playing regularly and the willingness to spend money on Gamepass (and microtransactions at one point in future). Because of that one hardcore gamer isn't more important than one casual gamer. The latter come in numbers and SoT is generally a more casual game. Still wondering why they are catering towards casuals?

  • NickFragz

    @dawson-dev I can put myself in your shoes easily as I have been there before many times with other games. As I previously highlighted. This is not something new to Sea of Thieves specifically. Essentially every MMORPG game out there at some point has a point where the peak was highest and hardest, then is lopped off by developers. As I stated in my past experience with WoW, the game used to be incredibly difficult by comparison to what you see now. Single digit %s of people were doing end game content at certain points and then later they lift hard requirements you already did. Difficult roads one may have taken are now traveled widely by everyone, it's commonplace in this type of game. It's just simply a mentality problem. Again, your grind and your journey was only ever important to you in the first place. The studio (Rare) are not going to have this game commit suicide so they can please 2% of the player base. The money train has the other 98% of players on it.

  • entspeak
    Captain
    Insider

    @nickfragz Wow. So, holding off on changing the commendations until they released PL specific commendations would have been suicide for Rare? On what planet, exactly - does the one you're thinking of have the same physics? It's amazing the level of condescension from someone who has already exhibited quite a lot of ignorance on this particular issue with this particular game. Your faulty comparisons to other games fall flat. Did the devs in WoW tell you that the game really begins when you're doing this endgame content? No? Then what are you on about? The devs made a statement about Pirate Legend and it hasn't proven to be true and they have made the matter worse by removing the only achievements left for A10's to strive for in the lacking Legend world. Full stop - WoW be damned.

    As I've said before, I get why they want to rebalance these particular commendations - they weren't intended to be end-game content. But, they could've waited because it was the only thing left for some of the most dedicated players in the game. They could've paid attention to the fact that rebalancing without giving something as a replacement for Legends was flipping the bird to a dedicated part of the playerbase.

    There have been many types of complaints on these forums, on Reddit, on Twitter... you know the type I have seen the least of?... 'the commendations are impossible to achieve.' I actually can't recall seeing any, and I'm very active in these forums.

    So, this appears to have been a solution without a problem... and that's the issue. There was little if not no reason to do this right now.

  • Zaden Excalibur

    The commendations were horribly unbalanced. You're lying if you thought 1000 banana crates on schedule wasn't utter cancer. It wasn't a "commendation", it was complete RNG. Same for foul skulls and castaway's chests once you get to a higher level. I have no idea why people feel such a sense of achievement for getting these. It's a monotonous grind because the game has too little content.

    The idea of "It gave PL's an incentive to keep playing" is ridiculous. Just keep making some ridiculous number tick up? I'll tell you what sickens me to my core: Seeing that the banana crate commendation was 1000. That's not a game. That's a grind.

  • InboundBomb
    Commander
    Insider

    @nickfragz
    Unfortunately sooner or later the 98% is going to reach that 2% with nothing to do as well. I’m sorry but there needs to be a carrot for us to strive for. As for legendary accommodations are not as legendary as Rare wants them to be because everyone can get them on these BR adventures. We would like something just for those PL.

  • ALGARAM
    Master
    Insider

    @personalc0ffee @dawson-dev I Hope people realize they new commendations that are coming for pirate legends is exactly that for pirate legends to turn in Athena chests, which LVL 10 Athena players will not be doing, SO in turn still nothing for the PL Athena 10. I see all these post about the new comms coming i really hope people truly understand what is coming!!

  • Stundorn
    Castaway
    Insider
    Founder

    @inboundbomb sagte in Commendation Betrayal:

    @nickfragz
    Unfortunately sooner or later the 98% is going to reach that 2% with nothing to do as well. I’m sorry but there needs to be a carrot for us to strive for. As for legendary accommodations are not as legendary as Rare wants them to be because everyone can get them on these BR adventures. We would like something just for those PL.

    Thats a problem only for people not playing a game, but striving for achievements and working a game.
    Players play for the fun that matters itself, not for achievements or commendations.
    Allways sounds as if addicted gamers (not players) don't get their drugs and start craving if there's nothing more to accomplish or to achieve and "strive for".
    Makes me sad, because a lot of games are only about this.
    Tons of timesink to get to X and "achieve" something.
    I worked for is a term i often read and i thought we are here playing a game. Or sorry i just take it that serious.

    Thank god Rare has not implemented vertical progression and level bs, but created a real game, what we don't have that much.

  • Dark Henrik 22
    Vanguard
    Insider
    Founder

    @inboundbomb You mean like legendary bilge rat commendations that are only accessible for pirate legends with their own exclusive rewards?

  • MrBobRoss87
    Marauder

    Im not pirate legend (44, 43, 42) and had half of an athena 1. I didnt have any fully completed commendations exept the earn 150,000 coins on all 3 factions. Ive had the game since day 1 and have played a fair bit but not out and out the become pirate legend. I dont server hop for skull forts. Ive enjoyed the game and have been happy just cruising around chipping away at things. I was proud of the commendations i had earnt and those that i had started to earn. HOWEVER.... I cant help but feel a little bit let down by the fact that these commendations are now coming in thick and fast with little to no effort being put in. Yes people are struggling to become pirate legend and achieve all commendations, but dont penalise those who have put the extra effort in that i have not. Yes it benefits me, but i like to pay my own way. Im not a charity case. If two friends left school and one became a millionnaire through hard work and had a lovely house, whilst the other guy sat at home on the doll, would it be fair if the doll seeker complained his friend lived in a big house so he should too. He wouldnt have a peg leg to stand on. So in conclusion, this scurvy bilge rat agrees with you pirate legends at athena 10 that this is commendation betrayal.

  • fluidsc
    Master
    Insider

    I knew reading the original post in here that before the end I would see "Why do people think grinding something out makes them good at the game?"

    It is not about being good at the game geniuses. It is about having absolutely nothing to do now in game. None of use were "grinding" commendations out, but we had achieved vastly more than those of you demanding they be reduced or whining about how little time you have to play.

    Here is a tip, if you have only minutes to play every day, this is NOT the game for you. There is almost nothing you can do in this game that takes under an hour and a lot of things take HOURS to complete. I am sorry if you don't have time to do the things you want to do in the game...but maybe time-management is your issue and not the design of the game.

    http://elderfuthark.com/commendations.png

    I have barely played this game in a little over a month-and-a-half. The only time I have put into it is getting the commendations before the time for earning doubloons is up. Now that is being removed as best I can tell (as per a developer post on Reddit).

    This game is nothing but a hot mess at this point. If you don't see that, you were probably a big part of the problem. I hope that one day you do reach end-game... so you can see what it is like. When you have to spend 3 hours to finish a legendary quest... and have to do them over and over again to get to Athena 10. Of course, most of you are getting your Athena rep halfway (or more) completed before you ever even get to Pirate Legend.

    This type of change to the game comes directly from complaints that things take too long. It has led to doubloons-for-levels and commendation gimping all because you lack discipline and patience.

    You all keep talking about how "pirate legend means nothing" yet you can't get it done and complain about how long things take. That is the irony in this whole situation.

  • CaptainQuoth
    Master
    Insider

    Maybe im the only one in this boat but I found the commendations really bland...okay you managed to dig up 1000 of this one chest that you have to cheese the voyages for because you are too high of level to get them naturally anymore.It really doesnt say anything other than you managed to play the game longer than others.

    What they need is commendations that are actually impressive and not the result of grinding and cheesing.

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