Server hopping reapers...

@pithyrumble 2 very wrong ideas

@red0demon0 im been respectful belive me

@kommodoreyenser said in Server hopping reapers...:

Emissary voyages are worthless for all but athena anyway. You can get more loot faster in other manners for all 3 factions.

That's just not true. The only one that currently has a "worthless" emissary quest is merchant because you can actually make more loot faster doing a lost shipment voyage than delivering the 20 units of cargo...but even then, I wouldn't call it worthless, it's still going to net you 35k gold (700x2.5x20) with minimal effort.

For GH, Getting 20 Captains Chests with easy digs with the islands all being really close..can usually finish a GH emissary quest in ~20 minutes. Even a Gold Key Vault doesn't touch that in a time vs reward comparison.

Same with OOS, 20 Villaneous Skulls at small islands where the waves all have keg skellies...you can fly through an OOS emissary voyage. Again, the time vs reward comparison heavily favors the emissary voyage to any other OOS voyage type.

And that's my gripe with it...Reaper gets to keep getting as many of their effective emissary quests as they want on as many servers as they want until they've had their fill...yet I can't hop through a portal as a Grade 5 GH and claim a new emissary quest. Either make it fair, or get rid of it.

@sweetsandman said in Server hopping reapers...:

@kommodoreyenser said in Server hopping reapers...:

Emissary voyages are worthless for all but athena anyway. You can get more loot faster in other manners for all 3 factions.

That's just not true. The only one that currently has a "worthless" emissary quest is merchant because you can actually make more loot faster doing a lost shipment voyage than delivering the 20 units of cargo...but even then, I wouldn't call it worthless, it's still going to net you 35k gold (700x2.5x20) with minimal effort.

For GH, Getting 20 Captains Chests with easy digs with the islands all being really close..can usually finish a GH emissary quest in ~20 minutes. Even a Gold Key Vault doesn't touch that in a time vs reward comparison.

Same with OOS, 20 Villaneous Skulls at small islands where the waves all have keg skellies...you can fly through an OOS emissary voyage. Again, the time vs reward comparison heavily favors the emissary voyage to any other OOS voyage type.

And that's my gripe with it...Reaper gets to keep getting as many of their effective emissary quests as they want on as many servers as they want until they've had their fill...yet I can't hop through a portal as a Grade 5 GH and claim a new emissary quest. Either make it fair, or get rid of it.

Merchant, lost voyage solo, 20 minutes, 100k gold with a grade 5 flag, every-single-time.

Gold Hoarder, this is debatable but unless you stack grade 5 maps to get multiple digs at the same island, I doubt it will clear more than a gold vault given the time to find a key is extremely short most times, keys can also be stacked to potentially get the same vault twice as well. (captains are 800-1k without bonus, you get at least 5 in a gold vault plus a 2,500 chest, plenty of marauders as well as small items too, time to complete a vault and load even as a solo for me is 5 minutes or less) I have never had a dig stop take less than 3 minutes anymore due to the mobs and quick dig being removed, let alone digging 5 chests at one island unless you are tapping them which defeats the point.

OoS, there isn't much that's more profitable per time than doing ghost fleets (unless you are absolutely new at naval) outside of maybe the ashen captain bounties (geysers are our friend) Idc how many kegs there are, five 1k gold skulls per island stop is trash these days comparatively. Plus again dealing with emergent island mobs.

If you check the map and see a reaper 5, use the portal THEN claim your emissary quest. If you have one merge in the middle of your grade 5 voyage, then finish it up (you yourself said it would only take 20 minutes, if you are in the middle of it, it takes 5-10 minutes just to traverse the map WITH wind)

Reapers have a disadvantage of being seen on the map the entire time they rank from 1-5. That is their downside, anyone can (and will, 75% of the time recently in my experience) hop to their sever and attempt to jump them with no emissary flag up of their own. The other disadvantage is other emissary ships know a reaper just got raised, so they have about 20 minutes to finish what they are doing and get to an outpost to sell. This negates the risk in the risk/reward function of emissary play. I would love to see the numbers before/after the portals became a thing. I am sure it would show an increase of grade 3-4 flags getting turned in versus before being mostly 1s or 5s.

If you can think of something better to balance out the faction, I am sure everyone is all ears. My best guess is to removing visibility on both sides and replace it with something different that people won't complain is such an advantage. Perhaps delayed notation of where an emissary ship was last seen and only give a new note to the radial every 10 minutes. This of course would need the reaper removed from the map until at least 5 or have it's mark also delayed or general area for balance.

In my experience as a Reaper, servers don't empty at all when you start - not even when you reach R5. The last time we found out that there were 4 emissaries besides us on the server. Next thing that happened another one appeared.

We only had time to sink one though (we think the last one that appeared sunk at least the two at the FoF).

We don't know if we should count ourselves lucky that there are emissaries to sink on our server or that we should feel insulted as not being considered a large enough threat …

@kommodoreyenser That's more a problem with the Reaper faction's implementation as a whole. It shouldn't be a justification for the portal hopping.

I've proposed this in other threads and I think it would balance the risk/reward of emissaries more appropriately for ALL the factions.

I propose the following:

• Reapers, at Grade 5, can ONLY see other emissaries that are Grade 2 or higher. They cannot see Grade 1 emissaries on their map.
• Conversely, All other ships cannot see Reapers unless they are running an emissary and are Grade 2 or higher.
• They would also need to eliminate the little ships on the Reaper table at the outposts that indicate the number of Reaper emissaries on a server. They can be on the table at Reapers Hideout, but not at the outposts. This just encourages PvE players to hop servers and raise emissary on a "safer" server.
• And finally, allow players to sell broken flags of Reapers to other factions.

The only players impacted in this model are the server hopping reaper hunting sweat lords. They would have to raise emissary and actually DO something on a server before they get to go hunt Reapers with a tracking device.

@d3adst1ck Eh. I think you're underestimating the power of greed. I'd venture to guess there's a large subset of players that would get to Grade 2 after a chapter of their voyage, see a Grade 3 Reaper on their map, and continue on trying to complete their objective(s) before the Reaper gets to Grade 5. It becomes a risk/reward race. Additionally, if they get to Grade 5 and sell all their loot, it would encourage more players to go after the Reaper and shoot their shot since they would be able to sell that broken Reaper flag if they emerge victorious.

@d3adst1ck I agree with that completely. That said, I think you would need to really do an overhaul to the Reaper faction rewards if they were not on the map. Certainly the Grade 5 reward of visibility to other emissaries would need to be removed. It would quickly become a very OP faction if Reaper could grind whatever they want with no risk of people knowing their exact location. You'd probably have to decrease the emissary bonus.

@d3adst1ck said in Server hopping reapers...:

They've already sort of done this with the reduced grade increases from non-stolen loot. Just apply this same functionality to the cash value - less gold for non-stolen loot. You'd still be able to progress in the Reaper trading company if there is no one to steal from but there'd be less benefit in doing so and the company would be geared more towards hunting players rather than an easy method of selling everything.

Unfortunately, I think you'd see a lot of people take issue with that because of how the "stolen" mechanic works in this game. If we're running Reaper and we roll up on a crew that has the Ashen Winds event nearly complete and we wipe them out and get the last couple shots in on the boss, that won't count as stolen.

I mean the intention is good and I wish that was how the Reaper faction worked...but I think the "stolen" gray areas are what would make a lot of folks more salty.

@d3adst1ck That won't really change any mindsets regarding that, because at the end of the day: you sell there for easy money and easy turn ins of any loot you want.

There really isn't a way to "fix" Reaper's Bones into being this "PvP-only" bound faction in adventure without completely inconveniencing those that love to simply fly the flag for a better profit in everything. Cause I'd rather have 2x worth of profit at Reaper's hideout with a Grade IV-V flag over the primary profit of a certain loot type at the outpost.

@sweetsandman said in Server hopping reapers...:

@kommodoreyenser That's more a problem with the Reaper faction's implementation as a whole. It shouldn't be a justification for the portal hopping.

I've proposed this in other threads and I think it would balance the risk/reward of emissaries more appropriately for ALL the factions.

I propose the following:

• Reapers, at Grade 5, can ONLY see other emissaries that are Grade 2 or higher. They cannot see Grade 1 emissaries on their map.
• Conversely, All other ships cannot see Reapers unless they are running an emissary and are Grade 2 or higher.
• They would also need to eliminate the little ships on the Reaper table at the outposts that indicate the number of Reaper emissaries on a server. They can be on the table at Reapers Hideout, but not at the outposts. This just encourages PvE players to hop servers and raise emissary on a "safer" server.
• And finally, allow players to sell broken flags of Reapers to other factions.

The only players impacted in this model are the server hopping reaper hunting sweat lords. They would have to raise emissary and actually DO something on a server before they get to go hunt Reapers with a tracking device.

@d3adst1ck already covered it mostly. Also this will do nothing to prevent server hopping reaper hunters. They will simply raise reapers, buy and load the supply crates, and be grade 2 so they can see where the reaper is.

The system all functions together right now, so just removing portals and leaving things as-is doesn't really work as a solution anymore. Any fix needs to address both sides of the game.