Balancing Emissaries

  • Making things more of a grind doesn't = fun. Rare has to remember this is special times and although some people will be power leveling through the content, majority of us still work or have life situations everyday. Making a voyage longer then a hour makes many people not want to do emissaries because they may not have the time to get rank 5. You need to both balance the hardcore and the casual and the pvp/pve content of your game.

  • @genuine-heather now you are just being petty and argumentative. I said an athena in the roar could be completed under an hour, you brought up selling and stocking. If selling and stocking up solo, then its around an hour. You are talking about playing with a crew so it is even faster.

    Why are you even arguing over the length of time it takes to complete a roar voyage?

  • @zwaany Of course I’m not going to go to the effort of providing you or any poster here a video of me playing for an hour. How stupid. I say it can be done, you don’t believe it can? Who cares. My point was that it doesn’t take 4+ hours with a crew.

  • @mikethemutinous unfortunately you’ve nerfed the payout for lowering your own flag to the point where it’s not worth the added risk to maintain a grade five for only 5k bonus. Also you should at least receive 50% credit for retrieval and selling of your own flag if sunk as that is a feat in its own to prevent another pirate from stealing your rep. 1 gold coin and no XP is again a poor reward for recovering your own flag.

  • @indiana5tones said in Balancing Emissaries:

    @mikethemutinous unfortunately you’ve nerfed the payout for lowering your own flag to the point where it’s not worth the added risk to maintain a grade five for only 5k bonus. Also you should at least receive 50% credit for retrieval and selling of your own flag if sunk as that is a feat in its own to prevent another pirate from stealing your rep. 1 gold coin and no XP is again a poor reward for recovering your own flag.

    Well you did sunk so you lost your flag. It should stay 0, mostly because people will just raise, scuttle, sell, repeat.

    And not worth the risk? Bro you still get 2.5x multiplier on gold/xp. Which is NUTS.

    @zwaany said in Balancing Emissaries:

    Making things more of a grind doesn't = fun. Rare has to remember this is special times and although some people will be power leveling through the content, majority of us still work or have life situations everyday. Making a voyage longer then a hour makes many people not want to do emissaries because they may not have the time to get rank 5. You need to both balance the hardcore and the casual and the pvp/pve content of your game.

    It is very good doable, played a lot after the nerf. Although leveling reapers is slower, getting Grade V is still very easy.

  • @sonicsonic3 itd be a boring slog in 1 week when you completed everything in the game, and sat waiting for next month's update for 3 weeks. Theyre trying to prolong the end-game, not add a weeks worth of fun content. They arent encouraging you to grind it out constantly and speedrun, they want you to progress as you play normally, making it fun to do skullforts and steal loot again. What is everyone's obsession with immediately getting to endgame. The most fun is playing the content, so why do you want to speed through it so fast?

  • @entspeak You are right about the point of it, but the whole system is flawed. Reaper faction is based around PvP and the minimap thing is a double-edged sword. You can see people and they can see you. But in my experience, 99% of people who have an emissary flag book it upwind when they see a reaper nearby, and ships that don't aren't worth sinking at least in the reward aspect. Flags should be valuable and encourage all factions to try and obtain them. They should be valuable enough to safe for those who defend them, but as well valuable enough to risk sinking for them. The bonus they provide is nice, but should be "bonus" and their value shouldn't be based on the multiplier factor. It doesn't do much IMO other than speeding up the grind. Now, this can be looked at from different angles. On one hand, speeding things up is convenient, on the other, it shortens the content longevity of the update. All in all, as it currently is, it is nothing more than an optional piece of content that doesn't affect the game in any meaningful way.

  • @nidzan2820 I feel like the minimap is the biggest problem. Nobody should be on a minimap, in my opinion. One, it is less immersive, and two, you’re going to have people dropping flags.

    I think it’s good that Reaper’s should be PvP oriented, but I feel like there was a missed opportunity to build on what they did with Skellie Ships.

    I’d love to see the whole minimap thing go away in favor of a musical cue using the spyglass. So, if an emissary is within a certain range, you can hear for what company (my suggestion would be to have it at the distance where actual sail position can be seen vs. the far LOD model). You’d be able to see them from the current render distance, but wouldn’t know for which company. I’d also love to see the ships on tables thing go away.

    Do these two things and you’ll have more Emissaries on the seas, and, therefore, more to hunt for Reapers. You’ll also gain back the naval tactics you lose when you have a minimap giving away your position and direction.

    Imagine seeing a ship on the horizon coming toward you, it gets within range, you look at it through the spyglass and hear some ominous Reaper’s Bones stinger. That’s much more interesting to me than looking down at a map, seeing a Reaper half way across the seas and saying, “Hey guys, let’s wrap it up and turn it in before that Reaper sees us.”

    And, if you want to give Grade V Reapers a bonus, maybe they get something mystical done to their spyglass that not only let’s them know the company, but also the Grade, so they can prioritize targets if they want.

  • @mikethemutinous Really thanks for rebalance. Now i don't need to convince my crew to do additional acitivites. Now we're doing every riddle and every map to gain experience. My voyages are much better now and everyone having fun to play. It was truly one of the best QoL things that we got from you Rare.
    We are more Pirates now.

  • @mikethemutinous

    I'm here shooting myself in the foot (not the pegleg one ofcourse)
    The athena loophole is still available after patch!

  • @weakdexx doesn't you found some questes, destroy some ship or skelly captains through you emissary grade V voyage?

  • Is something going to be done about people quitting to keep people from getting their flag? I had 3 ships in a row do it last night cause people have caught on to the fact that you screw the other crew out of the flag if you all quit. Reaper's pretty much needs flags to be profitable/worth doing and it's kinda pointless to even be them right now since people are doing this.

  • @siberian-fenris said in Balancing Emissaries:

    Is something going to be done about people quitting to keep people from getting their flag? I had 3 ships in a row do it last night cause people have caught on to the fact that you screw the other crew out of the flag if you all quit. Reaper's pretty much needs flags to be profitable/worth doing and it's kinda pointless to even be them right now since people are doing this.

    Reaper's is now mostly a dead faction. People just raise the flag at the hideout, turn in, and then lower the flag. Between people being able to quit out and take their flag with them on top of the loot nerf, there really isn't a reason to play as them right now.

  • @avecrux sagte in Balancing Emissaries:

    @mikethemutinous Really thanks for rebalance. Now i don't need to convince my crew to do additional acitivites. Now we're doing every riddle and every map to gain experience. My voyages are much better now and everyone having fun to play. It was truly one of the best QoL things that we got from you Rare.
    We are more Pirates now.

    i fully understand you and can only agree, although or especially because i hit 20 the morning of the patch.

  • @bugaboo-bill This reminds me of the chuckle I had when @alactar said he was totally in support of the nerf on the day he maxed out all of the factions. I mean, he meant it... one of the reasons he did what he did was to point out how broken the system was (in addition to being first), but it definitely made me chuckle. I know he has alts that will have to do the grind to progress.

  • @entspeak

    I can swear you we didnt know it was not intended to do the loop, we found it a little bit silly and easy, but we welcomed it as we dont like to grind, at least i do not.
    But with every update i'm a little bit hyped and when all of my crew are playing i for sure hop in and enjoy the new content, trying things out. So we had a week of much play, like when the Tales came out, we also "grinded" it, na we didnt grind it, we were just hyped and hooked and had fun.
    When we played the last week we had lots of PvP and it is like allways the salt in the soup, i mostly like it as long as it keeps playful and about fun and not owning and trashtalking.
    After the patch i was the only one who got to A20 already so i played with some of my crew and we did it like ever, plus an Athena. And it was not that much slower and still fun and more loot :)
    We normally do the Megs and Skeleton Ships anyway. Ok not all Megs, but i love it that they now have incentive to do so during a journey to level up the emissary flag.
    If you play with me, i do all detours and i'd even run completely across Tribute Peek for a foul skull.
    To me there is no thinking of efficiency when i play the game, i do not speedrun!
    For Athena we all needed lots of these legendary stuff to get our shipset complete, so we had no choice than to do Legendary Thieves Havens and Bonus Quests as you get that stuff only there.
    Have it as possible Message in a Bottle Loot i can guarantee you we'd also do Messages in a Bottle.
    2 Month ago i loved to roam around and search for Ashen Guardians and Ashen Keymasters only! And i did that when i had all tomes already collected.
    I very much like to sail around do whatever comes across, sail with the wind and see what it has for me today!
    These were the best and better adventures than heading for any specifif goal!
    To me SoT is a pirate adventure playground!
    All the Levels are uneccassary to me and as i always say i would play it without any of that and i would even prefer it this way, but i know the community would then exist of 150 people and the game would never have been developed this way :-/

    fortunateley i have many mates who all need and want to do it and now we do every meg and skeleton ship what comes across - i like it very much!!!

    sidenote: Once we killed the Shrouded Ghost on a Cargo Detour during an Athena journey.
    Dont game the system, play the game instead ;)

    good winds to all of you
    ~Bill

    p.s.: when rare took away my individual gold curse i was upset, when they would reset my Athena rep i wouldnt mind, i would play further anyway!
    But i have to agree i like my new cutlass the best! :)

  • @bugaboo-bill I did the loop. Nobody knew it wasn't intended, but it did feel broken. I didn't do it to 20 Athena because I wanted to try something else And, for the record, DR Athena's appear not to be the best way to level up Athena or any other faction as an emissary - the reward is simply not worth the added risk on top of the Roar being turned up to 11 and the geysers no longer even pretending to appear random but just popping up under virtually every dig. Because of the amount of gems you get compared to Athena loot, it takes more than one DR Athena to rank up to Grade V (unless you get some good emergent activity). I think one might be better off doing the Old World loop.

  • @entspeak

    we also tried DR and even thought we would get a DR Bonus emissary, unfortunateley not.

  • @bugaboo-bill Yep. I love the roar, but I don’t think I’ll be doing DR Athenas much anymore.

  • Athena grade 5 is a pain to hit with regular Athena quests now. We turned in two Athena chests and a few random Athena items and only hit grade 4. We played for hours and did not hit grade 5. I hear Thieves haven run works better but come on.

    (we even carried one Athena chest and all the other loot for the whole Athena quest until we got second Athena chest).

    I say keep the loop people enjoyed it. Or at least make it so you can hit grade 5 from one regular Athena mission and make the grade 5 mission only get ya up to 3 or 4 in emissary.

    How many hours are we expected to play this in a day to get the grade 5 mission? Or is our only choice to run thieves haven runs?

  • Yeah I have now been playing the new update a for a little while now, and I can confidently say the "Loop" they were trying to prevent, was not addressed. Honest opinion?

    They should revert the patch (go back to the values they had before), but instead make it so; IF you put down your Emissary Flag you LOSE the Emissary G-V voyage. Heck if you SINK you should lose it. (Like how if you fail a Tall Tale before its done the Voyage disappears.

    As its stands now, a standard Athena does not even give you Grade V - if your lucky with RNG (due to those stupid gems being added to the voyages) you might get high grade 3- maybe 4. Devils Roar is a bit easier but the risk is no longer worth the reward, again due to the RNG of certain items and the increased PVE of the Area, on TOP of the risk of Reapers.

    The issue with Runs (even if they do get you to Grade V a lot easier) is the DB investment of the voyage. Plus it Takes longer to do Athena Run on smaller ships. So if you sink, you not only lose the Loot you might had obtained, you lose all your emissary progress and your out 50db due to the predictability of knowing that an Athena Run always forced ships to hang out on one of the biggest islands in the game. (Lets face it, reaper or not, if you see a ship going back and forth between Thieves Haven, you know what there doing. Its not a mystery)

  • What about the server crashes before the patch

  • @avecrux said in Balancing Emissaries:

    @weakdexx doesn't you found some questes, destroy some ship or skelly captains through you emissary grade V voyage?

    It depends. If it is a "good" grade V voyage u will hit grade V again, mainly depends on what u find in collector chest and or how many athena items u hit on X marks the spot maps. If its on the low side than yes u need to kill a captain and do his map (emergent maps from captains also add grading) if its on the higher side u be grade V when u dig up the Athena Chest. Don't forget grade V voyages are 2 chapters. Doing chapter 1 almost gets u there, than the athena map + Keg makes u Grade 5 again. Rinse n repeat

  • @weakdexx i found that pure athena emissary voyage without killing any skelleton/ashen guardian/keymaster/additional activities in the general gives you 4 and 9/10 of xp.

    With gold hoarder emissary voyage is the same.

  • @mikethemutinous

    The good way to counter the athena loophole would be that u need to keep your flag up. This way if u take it down the quest dissappear. This prevents the loophole all together and makes the grade 5 flags in game.

  • it would be necessary to think of making alliances impossible for the emissaries ...in order to avoid false classification due to PVE server.

  • hi mr pirate guys

  • @captainjack3174

    alt text

  • @zwaany I figured I’d let the update sit for a week to see how I felt about the nerf, especially the reapers bones one. Athena was fine, however the general lowering of flags and reapers nerf was overly steep. Like I expected maybe half? That sounds more fair and plausible but to half it again (a quarter) was over the top. After a week of trying not to think about it, it just feels like a boring, monotonous grind compared to the fun fresh feel it has initially.

    I think there is still work to do but yeah, especially on servers where it’s annoying to find people to sink and loot it’s blatantly obvious how pestering the progress is and the result at the end.

    Buff the grade V flags to 10 000 and change the reapers progress to half instead of a quarter. Some people have outright hated the nerf and that’s ok you can’t appease everyone. But it was really dragged into the dirt in the process.

  • @buccanerd I disagree. Lowering the level 5 flag of any emissary was a guaranteed 15,000 gold and now it is 5,000 gold. That's a hefty nerf especially for solo sloops or duo sloop players just trying to grind rank. Lowering a flag with the original payout could almost fill a whole xp circle and now its back to a grindy mess. I've been playing almost everyday since the update went live and I can say that pre-fix I was comfortably and enjoyably getting through the ranks. Now its neither of those things. Please revert for those of us you don't do skull forts and fort of the damned on loop.

  • @kylefromva exactly. I use this for merchant alliance. It is a grind for any level above 40 for me. Barely any rep.

  • @mrclutchyking06 Sounds strange since 50-75 was a breeze for me and other than gold and rep for lowering a grade 5 flag being reduced, nothing else has been changed for gold hoarders, merchant, OoS since the emissary update.

  • i believe reapers bones is ruining this game. super easy sinve the accept litterally every trinket in the game, and half the time its some solo slooper whos running all day, or a bunch of legendary sea dogs trying to troll. i have yet to experience any interaction with this faction that wasnt toxic, and more and more are joining reaper ranks. there is too much incentive to go off and pve for reaper loot turn ins. the sheer ammount of toxic behavior makes most players quit server if a reaper is present simply brcause we cant be bothered by someone who will know our whereabouts 1000% of the time. we need to stop broadcasting every ship to the goons of this game, it just invites toxic people to be more toxic. especially at fotd

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