Alliances are the next 4 man sloop...just say no.

I have to agree. I haven't been active on the forums or the game at all lately but I keep up with the news in the hopes of the game becoming better. When I saw alliances I knew that it was going down the wrong path. This is a topic I can't stay quiet on. I don't see how anybody is excited for this, or how Rare thought it'd be a good idea. Let me paint some pictures of what you can expect a minimum of 60% of the time you play SoT after alliances release:

1: Join or die. You'll join a server and sail around doing whatever. After a while you'll notice a group of ships approaching you. They'll be telling you to either join the alliance or have fun spending the rest of your session evading them. That'll be super fun, right?

2: Betrayal, obviously. What is the point of even keeping an alliance going? Rare said you'll get a cut of the alliances loot. Sounds cools, right? Well what about when you realize that instead of a cut you can take it all when your "teammates" aren't paying attention? You truly believe that isn't going to happen over and over and over again when grouping up with random people you've never met before, in a pirate game? (that'll be one of their favorite things to say after they betray you.)

3: Endless pvp, but not in the way us pvpers asked for. I can already see this happening more often than not. We sink a ship. Quick battle, take their loot and move on. 5-10 minutes later they're back, with another ship. Now we have to fight 2 crews. Lets say we win again. Now they're back 20 minutes later with 3 ships. This is how it's going to be. This can be fun once in a while, but not when it happens endlessly.

But my biggest reason for not liking this is that it's going to force us (yet again) to play the game a certain way. We'll have to either team up and be friendly or worry that the entire server is gonna come after us. I didn't buy this game to make friends, I have friends. I just want to play with the people I crew up with. If I have to join an alliance every time I play just to be left alone I'm just not going to play anymore. I like the makeshift alliances the game currently lets you form, the uneasiness is what makes them so much more fun. I don't want to have to endlessly fight groups of ships because I don't feel like joining them to give them a share of my work because I sure as hell don't need a share of theirs.

This basically only seems like a good idea to 1 type of person, lazy. People who just want the most reward for the least work. They'll join severs and try to get everyone in an alliance so that they can reap the benefits of accelerated exp/gold. Or they just know they can't win fights so they'll join an army. I just really hope that when these come out they let us pick between servers with and without them.

@blatantwalk4260 said in Alliances are the next 4 man sloop...just say no.:

@trickrtreat01 you are aware that some of the ai ship fights will need alliances right. I have already been apart of a 5 ship fleet by buying off other ships from people and putting my own people on them to control lobbys. It already happens its so easy to pay off ships with athenas chests or stronghold loot.

You are aware you had to spend a decent amount of time farming that loot that you are attempting to buy ships with. It's not that easy and not everyone would just take the loot and give up the ship. I know I wouldn't.

@sorenthaz said in Alliances are the next 4 man sloop...just say no.:

@genuine-heather said in Alliances are the next 4 man sloop...just say no.:

Alliances will not “break the game.” How ridiculous.

Some people will cry 'death' at any pro-PvE/cooperation change even though by this point it should be obvious that this game wasn't designed for PvP to be the end-all/be-all, but simply an optional thing to do. And soon there will be a bit more consequence to recklessly attacking anyone you see since they might be part of a bigger alliance.

This sounds like you want people punished for PVPing in a game called Sea of Thieves.
PVP is the best part of the game. The game isn't the issue, it's the PVE only players that are the issue.

@sorenthaz You speak for the majority of SoT players now? Lol.
Sadly though, there are enough people whining about being sunk that Rare probably will cave in and ultimately ruin the game like Blizzard just did with WoW ( go read WoW forums). I am going to enjoy sinking as many ships as I can until Rare sinks their own.

@trickrtreat01 And you do?

Pvp will still happen with alliances, so will Pve. Just the way it happens will change. instead of singular ships you can have alliances vs alliances.

Wait and see my dude. Wait and see.

I am looking forward to the alliances, didn't even give it any negative thought until I read this thread.

My initial thought to alliances is they can also assist with the new Skeleton Ships, for players who might not be able to defeat them on their own. We aren't sure what the difficulty level of these ships will be, so keep this in mind, you may be grateful for alliances when Skelly Galleons have you outnumbered and are decking you with cursed cannonballs!

Let's give it a try!

@admiral-rrrsole

It saves on accidental kills when working with another crew on multi-crew events, skull forts, etc.

I believe we will still be able to kill those in our alliance, so accidental kills will still occur even while in the alliance. It is a great opportunity to do some duels, however.

@fishst1ck I understand that is isn't technically forced but it has huge potential to be forced by people within the server if they want it to be. In other words the game will have a high chance of turning into a join or die type of situation. I prefer to just do my own thing with my crew and the last thing I want is to have to worry about dealing with other crews on top of it because they want a share of my voyages. It's more so the potential to find yourself consistently outnumbered that really turns me off to the idea. I loved the ship battles because winning felt rewarding. But I can almost guarantee that now when someone sinks they'll simply seek out an alliance and come back for you with more crews to back them up. I don't like the sea of friends direction the game seems to be heading. I know to some people this is awesome and for them I'm happy. But I wish we weren't all forced to go down the same path because Rare values stories over good gameplay. I'll wait and see and give it a chance as I have with every update but this one seems to have the most potential to put the final nail in the coffin for me as much as I hate to say it since I've been following this game since 2015. I do hope I'm wrong and they end up not being a big deal but I feel that it'll strongly depend on which server you wind up in more than anything.

Good grief. Alliances won’t change all that much. People who are inclined to ally with other ships already do so. They will now simply have a game mechanic to make such an alliance work much better. The more aggressive PvP people will still attack on sight. This certainly won’t “break the game.” It will change the dynamic and make ship-to-ship interaction more challenging and intriguing.

This is the kind of change this game really needs. I think it will make PvP more interesting and meaningful. Is that ship approaching to attack, or do they want something else? It will make pirating more exciting and realistic. Real pirates had to contend with multiple ships (alliances) too. You’ll have to pick your targets carefully. Tactics like flying false colors, then hoisting the Jolly Roger as you close for the kill will be more effective since crews will be less likely to assume every ship is hostile. Want to take on a fleet of allied ships? Either wait until one strays from the pack, or form your own pirate fleet. The possibilities are limitless.

This can only make things better.

@blatantwalk4260 said in Alliances are the next 4 man sloop...just say no.:

@trickrtreat01 actually its the animosity constantly created by the pvp community that resulted in this. You took a casual social game and made it into a competitive hardcore pvp game that rare had to go and correct how the game was functioning. So now the pvp only group is complaining that rare is making the game the way it was meant to be. I keep hearing from the pvpers im not here to make friends but that is a key part of what this game was meant to do. Not every encounter is mean to be pvp so they made it to where there are benefits for not just mindlessly blasting away at people every moment you see a ship.

Not every encounter IS pvp now. People GREATLY exaggerated and still do exaggerate just how often they are attacked. The only time I even keep a look out now is at a Skull Fort.

Alliances are an over reaction to exaggeration.

@blatantwalk4260 said in Alliances are the next 4 man sloop...just say no.:

@trickrtreat01 I havent had and issues setting it up yet I had one person refuse the deal so se kept sinking them for not accepting. I get what youre trying to say that it could be used to control sessions and such but I cant wait to be able to get my crew set up online and start handing out athenas to my fleet.

Because this won't ruin the game....

I disagree, I think alliances will bring new adventures and stop the hours of waisted time fighting over a skull fort, I just hope we can still betray each other at any moment!

Personally I don't care if you think they are a bad idea. In the golden age of piracy, fleets were a thing. Get over it. If you think they'll be overpowered, just try flying the alliance offer flag or run (or scuttle), the latter of which you PVPrs have been telling us to do. For months I've seen PVPrs bash the PVErs, well this is our ultimatum. We PVErs may sail in fleets if we so wish, you can't stop us, and should you try, know that you shall be met with barrages of cannons, the likes of which you have not seen before.

I don't think it will be a problem. You still have to approach each other and actually form an alliance by communicating. I don't think we will end up with everyone sailing around in an alliance, i just think it will be something that adds to the game because there will be more possibilities to consider before approaching/attacking someone.

We don't know yet though. We'll have to wait and see exactly how this feature will work! I'm just hoping it's well thought through :)

I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but the alliance system sounds incredibly unhealthy to me. At the end of the video it is mentioned that it is possible to have 6 ships in an alliance. Under this system, it seems like the most efficient way to play the game is to to form an alliance with every ship on the server. If this is the case, the community will quickly latch onto this, turning this into a PvE game instead of the beautiful, organic PvE/PvP game it currently is. (Uneasy) alliances already exist in-game, and they are awesome.

If games are supposed to be a series of interesting choices, the alliance system doesn’t seem like a choice at all. It seems like the ‘right’ way to play the game. The designer in the video even says “it is in your best interest to join an alliance” because you earn MORE rewards. Tell me why I shouldn’t join one? Because I want to PvP and make the game harder for myself? Why should I fight someone at a skull fort after this system is implemented? Maybe I would get more treasure in the short term, but I would much rather befriend that crew and have them make passive money for me my entire play session, and not be my mortal enemy on the server.

A big part of this game is reaching pirate legend. By joining an alliance, you are making it EASIER (removing potentially hostile players from the server) and FASTER (more gold income) to do so. Of course I’m going to join one, even though I don’t want to.

And this is just the most basic problem I can envision, I can imagine a lot more potential problems, such as:

• Server domination by some alliances.
• No PvP at forts. Join the alliance or die.
• AFK crews leeching off other non-AFK crews in an alliance.
• Empty servers. Seeing ships less frequently because they’re all in an alliance on the same part of the map.
• How do you betray someone? You have to go to your crow's nest and switch your flag out? Seems way too mechanics-driven and to go against the intuitive nature/spirit of the game.
• Less excitement and uncertainty when encountering a ship in the world. They’re probably going to want to form an alliance, be in an alliance with others, or already be in an alliance with you.
• Less gameplay choice due to additions to the game that encourage/require alliances, starting off with skeleton ships (apparently).
• Less ship battles, which is easily one of the best parts of the game.
• Less opportunities to use cool tools like cursed cannonballs and gunpowder barrels. I collect these cool cursed cannonballs from this skelly ship, but now I have no one to use them against because I needed to be in an alliance to take down the skelly ship in the first place.
• TOO much map knowledge. I can see my allies on all these various islands so I know these islands are (likely) safe and I'm rarely surprised.