Balancing Emissaries

I noticed how much hate this update is getting, but I believe this will be a healthy way to further improve the game as a whole. I found that lowering my flag felt like getting coin I didn't deserve, so knowing it takes more hard work to get well deserved profit is a step in the right direction for better gameplay. Good on yah devs!

@helloneighbor49 said in Balancing Emissaries:

Community,
This forum will show us if rare really cares for the players. Looking at the feedback for this change 90% of players hate it. Rare is making this game for themselves now. If they were making it for players, they would not have done this. Personally I thought it was a lot more fun doing Athena before the emissaries change. It also made it so that you did not have to play unhealthy amounts of the game to make progress in the game. Now it will. Rare just ruined an amazing update.

Remember that 90% of the players don't come on the forums. Lots of people are liking this patch / nerfs because it was absolute needed. But you wont hear them here. Lots of SoT discords and friends that play SoT actually like this patch. So no not 90% hate it, just this topic. But thats always the case, lots of complainers on the forums :).

@helloneighbor49

Community,
This forum will show us if rare really cares for the players. Looking at the feedback for this change 90% of players hate it. Rare is making this game for themselves now. If they were making it for players, they would not have done this. Personally I thought it was a lot more fun doing Athena before the emissaries change. It also made it so that you did not have to play unhealthy amounts of the game to make progress in the game. Now it will. Rare just ruined an amazing update.

For your benefit, considering you didn't even read the post. A lot of people, I'd say the overwhelming majority. You have no proof for your claims.

"While we expected that the nuance of the design would take some time to ‘bed in’ as players adjust, it’s still been great to see the overwhelmingly positive reception that the release has had, as well as us starting to see some of the factional stories of co-operation and conflict that we had hoped for."

So will the players that have already reached 75 on RB have their exp reduced accordingly. Just so that they will be an equivalent level to what the treasure sold is worth now? If this is not the case then I think you should remove the changes to give everyone the same opportunity to get to level 75 on RB!

@lm-robin-hood I was thinking the exact same thing (Only being able to do the emissary grade V voyage as long as you have the grade V flag up). Honestly, I intuitively thought this would be the way it worked, but then I found out it wasn't which really surprised me.

The worst thing about making Athena emissary grade progression slower than before, is that it messes up people who were grinding to grade V in a legit way, like myself. I would do an Ashen Athena Voyage to get to grade V. Funnily enough, because you don't get Athena grade progression from non-Athena items, grade progression was VERY slow already. So slow even, that you were forced to do things that have little to do with Athena's Fortune (Skeleton Ships, Kraken, Megalodon, Skeleton Captains). Now, granted, this is kind of the case with other factions as well, but now, with this Athena emissary grade progression nerf, it is even slower. Now, when digging up the Ashen Chest of Legends (which is often after around 1 hour of gameplay), I have to look for additional things to do to become Athena emissary grade V.

If Rare would have just made it so that you NEED a grade V emissary flag to be able to do the grade V voyage, there would have been no loops in the system at all.

To everyone who says the Emissary Ledgers must be reset after this change because they now don't have a chance of getting the top reward:
I think you don't understand the system...
THE LEDGERS RESET EVERY MONTH!
If you have no chance of top positions this month, you'll get a new chance during the next month. I'm pretty sure Rare has specified that the same rewards will be there for about 12 months before they change the rewards, just to give as many players as possible the chance of grinding for them.

@lirnak30 My biggest problem with streamers is how often a handful of them are catered to. Usually being the ones that are so toxic to the game. You know the ones. The guys that server hop just looking for a group to pester, offering no sportsmanship to how the game should be played. The one's that have their squeeky voice pre teens messaging you when you get sunk by their favorite "hero". Why should we see their arrogant presence at lvl 75 or 20 across the board.
Look I get what you're saying about accomplishments taking time. I too was irked that people would now be able to fly through Athena after it took me months to get to 10.
My issue stands with the fact that this update was released knowing very well what the mechanics were. They were then left out just long enough for "their guys" to reap the benefits. Now what do the rest of us get? A longer grind. Further distances to travel. All in all, a greater opportunity for these beloved streamers to find and sink us while hopping servers. It's not like they have anything else to do now that their levels are maxed.

@mentimjojo My point still stands. The loop of rotating the flag meant gaining that gold much easier and thus cheesing the system to get 46mil on Reapers in the first week.

@helloneighbor49 well its hard to please everyone, I'm used to the long grind and I'm working a lot so only got to play once in the last week for a decent session and as a result missed out on this frenzy of rep and gold going on. Even so I am annoyed it's introduced in the first place, many people spent a serious amount of hours grinding up to buy everything in the game and now you can spam Fort of the damned with 2.5 times gold and xp? Way too much, breaks the economy, you have people that grinded out 900 hours too hit pirate legend 10 and buy everything a year ago but by next month you will have new players at pirate legend 20 with everything bought inside 150 hours, totally pooping on those who put in work before, im glad they changed it and wish that the cap for emmisary gain at grade 5 was 50 percent more gold and rep not 250 percent, its still too op as is let alone before this nerf.

Long time player, first time respondent. I'm not upset that there is "more grind" with this patch, but this patch has me greatly confused what the point of the Emissary system is.

Lower level Emissary Flags are worth more Reputation and Gold compared to their original value, while the Grade IV and Grade V flags have been reduced, as while we still want these to be the most rewarding, they were excessively high given how we’re seeing players play at scale.

I've already had too many chases this update over a Grade I or II flag with no loot on board. Incentivizing more lower level Emissary Flags seems counter-productive to encouraging a longer cat-and-mouse game around Grade V, which I thought was more the goal of this system?

It also seems to sabotaging "organic" alliances. While the other Trading Companies get grade ranks for sinking Reaper's Bones ships (though this isn't well advertised; the "Show More Info" button on the Ledger is not very discoverable), there's no disincentive for "betraying" your own Trading Company. I've had several sinks and attempted sinks by people under the same emissary flag. There's nothing stopping anyone from running to RH for a quick hit of Reaper's Bones reputation on any possible flag they find, so no one wants to ally on random servers and you cannot trust anyone on the horizon again.

While we work with our business intelligence team to double check that the assumptions we’re making in the economy model are reasonable

Just remember: Metrics aren't experiences.

Something that jumps out at me in any modeling that might result in increasing the incentives to selling lower level flags is that you've got two data experiments running side by side and polluting each other's data: the new Revive system directly impacts sink rate and sink time. I have only anecdotes to offer, of course, but difference in PvP effectiveness of the ship sizes has seemed to only have gotten much worse with the Revive system, favoring larger crews. While the game has always favored larger crews, the additional imbalance that Revive brings seems to further to add to the aggravation both in trying to level Reaper's Bones via PvP, and in the aggression stance Reaper's Bones gets perceived as to crews in smaller ships (there's a lot of solo Sloopers in the comments here, but even two-man Sloops and three-man Brigantines still feel extra crushed this update under the boot heels of certain kinds of Galleons; again anecdotally at least). That too seems to have contributed to crews I've been a part of to be more interested in "PvE grinding" for Reaper's Bone reputation/grades simply because PvP feels rather worse for Brigantines and Sloops than it did before this update.

It seems strange to me that you might think you can get useful business analysis data out of running both of these data experiments side-by-side and not expect to have a lot of muddy water. Whether or not the balance tweaks you've decided to make in this patch were the right ones, you should fear a lot of uncertainty in your data models.

Those muddy waters lead to so much of my confusion about the intended impact of the emissary system: it makes "organic" alliances worse to nearly impossible, the revive system has made PvP harder and take a lot more wall clock time, but the Reaper's Bones is working very hard to make PvP more common. Then this update seems only to further increase the risk/reward benefit of getting a flag past Grade 2 to the PvPers. The overall amount of time as a player in PvP has drastically increased, which I respect as partly the goal of this update, but yet the (anecdotal, sure) "quality" of the PvP has drastically decreased as it's generally much longer chases/sieges with the only "loot" on board (and by that I specifically mean flags) which overall feels less valuable to player ranking it (other than it being a giant time sink) than to the player stealing it.

I understand the complicated balance of the 2.5x gold/rep reward and Ledger ranks in the long term risk calculation, but you can't get that 2.5x gold/rep reward on a sunk flag, and the short term "quick gold" counter-balance was a useful "money figure" on the relative short term risk value for protecting a flag. At 15k it was a risky investment to wager, but at 5k, well I've sailed plenty of 5k chests directly into the Shroud to end a too long PvP chase, and almost all chases right now are too long, because revives seem to be guaranteeing it.

Without "organic" alliances to counter-balance all the PvP, the risk calculation of every ship on the horizon is back from being a curious question of allegiances to 100% "assume hostile". Even and especially for people flying the exact same Emissary flag. That leads to a feeling in the drop of "quality" in overall player interactions, at least for me.

Anyway, I hope that doesn't come out as too much of a rant, I tried to remove a lot of the emotion from a previous draft, but this still seems like too many words. I know it is almost entirely anecdotal and from just one old salt's experiences on the seas, who mostly has grinded/played for years without too much public comment, but I felt like throwing this message into a bottle not in hopes that it might clear up my own confusion, but perhaps my own confusion can help guide you through whatever muddy waters you seem to have encountered in the data seas.

    As inconvenient for me, a solo slooper, the Athena's Fortune Emissary balance is completely justified. Prior to the patch, if I did one Voyage of Legends, claimed my quest, lowered my flag and did it, all of that would give me about three-quarters of a level. However, the flag lowering nerf is rather upsetting, especially for Athena's Fortune, since even A-Tier Ancient Fortune loot under a Grade V flag gives a pitiful amount of rep, and that Emissary Flag lowering bonus is vital to leveling up with any sort of a bearable pace.
    The Reaper's Bones nerf makes perfect sense, but again, is a little tilting for a solo slooper, considering that emissary flags are hard to come by, and I found the rep gain rather reasonable. If it's lore you're worried about, then there's no issue, considering that depriving companies of cargo hurts them as well.

@moskstraumen822 wait why did it do that

@dekeita Yeah, I get the intent mentioned here to break the two big loops: RH to FOTD and back, and Athena Grade V, Claim Emissary Quest, Lower, the Reraise Flag, Work back to Grade V. I just see it as something of a mixed message that this update doesn't address those issues directly and instead continues to tweak things relevant to PvP but not directly related. I don't think the situation is "complicated", just "confusing". There are some suggestions to more directly address the loops mentioned elsewhere in these threads, so I don't need to rehash them or offer my own armchair quarterbacking. Instead, I just wanted to point out that they've only muddled what Mike already admits at the top of his post was already a bit of a mixed message on how this new system worked and what its end goals were to be and how players are "supposed" to react to it.

Speaking of mixed messages:

Im not 100% on this but I believe there is one incentive to band together with other ships of the same company though. In that while their Emmisary bonus doesn't carry over to your alliance cut. Your Emmisary bonus does apply to your cut of alliance shared loot, if you happen to be working for the same company.

This too seems a mixed message. I've heard (and even shared it), but at this point it seems way too much a rumor and/or hearsay. Even you mention that you aren't certain of. In a week since launch I've been among barely two alliances of no more than two ships and none that were representing the same trading company. (No matter which Trading Company I've sailed, and in the last week I sailed them all, all I ever saw was cannonballs from people sailing the same Trading Company.) Alliances just aren't happening right now, in my experience, so I cannot tell you definitively if there is a bonus across alliances, because I've yet to experience it. It's also not something documented in the game, it doesn't appear in the all too brief "Show More Info" dialog nearly hidden on the Ledger pages. It was probably in the Release Notes? I think that's where I would have first heard the rumor of it, but that was a week ago with no anecdotal evidence at least on my side of the seas.

An incentive is great and all, but it's a situation that feels like there's some sort of missing disincentive. Why wouldn't you at least drop in your trading company's rank for attacking a ship of the same trading company? That's not very sporting for your trading company if their own ships are attacking each other. It's great there is a carrot, but some carrots need sticks to get the message across and leave it a bit less mixed/muddied. I realize balancing all that is tough, but hoping on "eventually players might realize they get a bonus for teaming up" seems silly in an update mostly about a new PvP faction. Mike is right it will take some time for some new behaviors to "settle in" and the initial rush to get new trading company ranks may even out the PvP long term, it's just that the way this patch is at least described here and in its Release Notes. As much as you might want to you can't always fix stupid with carrots, sometimes you need the sticks.

5K for a Grade 5 emissary flag still seems like way to little personally. I think it'd be better like this.

• Grade 5: 10,000
• Grade 4: 7,500
• Grade 3: 5,000
• Grade 2: 2,500

stop trying to get people to spend more time on your game by making things take a long amount of time you should focus more on making the game fun instead of long. sure grinding a while and getting that satisfying feeling of accomplishment when you're done is nice and all but it seems that's all your game is. instead of getting players to play cause its fun you add something that will take a lot of time to achieve and how you do that is first you add a new voyage or tall tale then you just put a commendation saying do it 5 times then you go on from there like do it 20 times with this or that. that's all your game is even after you do all that work what do you get for it? cosmetics all you ever get is cosmetics the only time i ever have fun in this game is p.v.p and the tall tales (tall tales are only fun the first time you try them and even with the different routes you can take in the heart of fire tall tale they have zero effect on the story it's just different obstacles which are mostly all just re-skinned stuff from other tall tales) p.v.p is only fun when its challenging but with this new sword update that kinda went down the drain how is spamming a button challenging?

@takuboto when should we expect the fix/update for the reaper bones PL problem?

I’m just going to say it. It’s complete BS you increased all the companies reps. But yet it’s still 10 times easier to reach PL than it was for those of us that have played since launch. And then to give us loyal, since launch players, a slap in the face. Not only did you not increase the requirements to become PL so it would at least be close to as hard as it used to be. But you nerf the reapers bones and athenas that we were all enjoying. My grade 5 Athena flag moved a hair and a half when we voted it down tonight. After running two thieves voyages. And we only got 5k for it. Seriously? Y’all are really making it hard to defend this game when others talk so bad about it. 😒

Does stolen loot change these values at all?

@dutchdeadschot
Having grade five and all the treasure from that faction voyage on your boat. Having to unload 20 plus chests. Then lower you're flag before someone comes to take you down. Always having one eye on the horizon. For the relief of lowering that flag for 15k. Thinking should I do another , is the server hot now.?
This was my new solo experience and it was electric.
This is still my game play loop. Yet that 5k at the end is like a kick in my solo stern.
Maybe the reward should reflect the number of crew members on a ship
Love the update.

@djlowlancer said in Balancing Emissaries:

The worst thing about making Athena emissary grade progression slower than before, is that it messes up people who were grinding to grade V in a legit way, like myself. I would do an Ashen Athena Voyage to get to grade V.

This is my concern exactly.

My crew and I never exploited the Emissary Voyage like some apparently have. We were running regular Athena's voyages. An Ashen Athena's voyage can take us up to 4 hours (allowing for stocking up, selling, and any distractions along the way). After all that (assuming we make Grade V) the Emissary "bonus" voyage will take about another hour. That's about as much time as any of us (who have actual lives) can handle in a single session. So when Rare shows up and says, "well some people were naughty, so we're punishing everyone and making the whole process take even longer," that doesn't go over well with me.

I don't know why they couldn't have simply fixed the problem another way, rather than just stacking on more time. Ugh.

I can solo sloop an athena in the roar in under an hour. If it takes your whole crew 4 hours, you were always gonna be slow at getting to athena 20, with or without the nerf. This isn’t anything against how you play, we clearly play very differently and that’s the beauty of the sandbox.

No one did anything wrong, no one cheated the system by playing faster than you. Rare went back and adjusted values based on data, they miscalculated during development.