Two new factions have been added to the Sea of Thieves: Hunter’s Call and Sea Dogs (Arena). These factions follow a similar progression to the original factions in which players may pay gold to the specific faction every five levels and receive a new title and a cosmetic item. However, these new factions do not provide corresponding higher level voyages like the original factions do.
In my opinion, this is a missed opportunity that provides a means of removing some of the frustration that is associated with these new factions. Part 2 is to discuss the Sea Dogs. (Part 1, discussing Hunter’s Call can be found here: https://www.seaofthieves.com/forum/topic/94151/new-faction-progression-part-1-hunter-s-call)
A possible change to the Sea Dog’s faction could be to set up a matchmaking system that takes into account your purchased level with that particular faction. As a player unlocks and purchases a higher level with the Sea Dogs faction, in addition to receiving the new title and cosmetics, the player would be more likely to match up with higher level players. (Obviously when you enter matchmaking with a crew some sort of averaging would need to be applied.) As part of this progression a player’s win/loss ratio could also be applied to the players Sea Dog level to further balance the matchmaking.
An additional change to go along with this could be to have the post match rewards (gold and reputation) increase in a way that corresponds to the Sea Dog faction levels of the players in that match. This could be calculated based on an average of the players' levels in that particular match. This would further encourage players to unlock and purchase the higher faction levels with the Sea Dogs and not purposely try to keep their levels low to exploit the system. Then in addition to the new title and cosmetics, players would also be getting increased rewards for matches. It would also help reward low level players that might get matched in with higher level players by giving them more rewards even though they might not do as well in the match.
Over time, this would provide a better Arena experience because it should make it easier for beginners while at the same time offering more of a challenge for more experienced players. Arena was marketed as being “competitive” and applying a ranking system to matchmaking fits with that.
