The amount needed to be in the top 25% for the Emissary Ledger Rewards is starting to trend towards ridiculous.

@foambreaker said in The amount needed to be in the top 25% for the Emissary Ledger Rewards is starting to trend towards ridiculous.:

@personalc0ffee I heard they reset those recently, or are going to soon?

It doesn't look like they reset them to me. Reaper in particular is the worst one, by far. The crew and I have 671k Reaper and we are just barely, by like 18k over that top 25% in the final category.

By comparison, Athena only requires around 300k. The other trade companies are sitting around 400k which is OK but pushing to be too high to be obtainable for your average regular player.

Average being, not a sweat, not a try hard, not a pve grinder, or in alliance discords.

That is ridiculous to me and is not easily obtainable for non dedicated and every day players. Having rewards tied to these with this ridiculous time requirements, is not fair to them.

And there's still like 2 weeks to go before the ledger closes.

@foambreaker said in The amount needed to be in the top 25% for the Emissary Ledger Rewards is starting to trend towards ridiculous.:

@personalc0ffee Hopefully they will, when I look at that part of the game it has a "don't bother" feel to it.

Yes, that's an issue and I feel that too.

I feel this needs looked at to be more obtainable for the average player.

@d3adst1ck said in The amount needed to be in the top 25% for the Emissary Ledger Rewards is starting to trend towards ridiculous.:

The Reaper and Athena ones have increased considerably since the release of Season 8, since the Hourglass mode grants a lot of grade 5 flags and a lot of emissary value.

I'm not sure why the main companies would have increased lately. You could generally do one grade 5 flag and a bit to get into the top tier on those before, but now it seems like it takes a few more runs.

Yes, the HG mode is definitely mucking things up. But in my honest opinion these rates are just getting too high to be obtainable for your average player who can't play but a handful of times per week for real life commitments and such.

@foambreaker said in The amount needed to be in the top 25% for the Emissary Ledger Rewards is starting to trend towards ridiculous.:

The other thing about this, and I am not sure I have it all correct, it seems like when you die in the open sea you lose your emissary value, but if you die in HG you don't?

So basically if you don't HG you will never catch up for reapers.

Do I have that right?

You never lose emissary value from loot turned in.

What happens is that as people rise the leaderboard, you get moved around and can be knocked out of that top percentile if you don't watch it.

It's very hard, especially with Reaper to get in that top 25% now and I think they need to look at this, possibly capping it to not move passed like 500k value.

500K emissary value is a pretty big ask, already for your average player.

@lordqulex said in The amount needed to be in the top 25% for the Emissary Ledger Rewards is starting to trend towards ridiculous.:

I remember watching it closely in the past and I determined that 1M is usually enough to consistently earn you the top prize. It was a while since I've looked at it so that may have gone down. I also may have been focused on reapers at the time which is artificially inflated due to alliance servers.

I mean, I hate to say it but to use other words what you're saying is "it's getting harder to rank in the top 25% on the ladder for trading companies" and there can be many reasons for that ranging from more player participation (i.e. a new season), to alliance servers... Being in the first few weeks of a new season usually increases interest, will it get easier in a few weeks?

Normally it is 250-400k basically to sit comfortably in the top 25%.
Now we are seeing amounts up into the 600k's and 500k's for some of the trade companies, especially Reaper.
I think something needs to be done. People have lives outside this game. It can take players nearly an entire sailing session of 2 hours to get like 300k emissary value and that's if you're efficient or don't get robbed.

So if you can sail four hours efficient and un-accosted, you'll rank in the top 25%. That doesn't sound too bad for something that resets every month and gets a new reward every few months... not to me anyway.

Think of the average players here or people who can't play a lot. These rewards used to be quite obtainable with their level of play. They are slowly creeping into the unobtainable for those players.

That is where my concern lies.

@lordqulex said in The amount needed to be in the top 25% for the Emissary Ledger Rewards is starting to trend towards ridiculous.:

@personalc0ffee What would you consider an average player?

Let's assume every person, after responsibilities and obligations (school work, work work, family, et cetera) has one to two hours a night of leisure, not counting weekends. For me, that's usually playing SoT, maybe 60-80% of the time. Even if we assume that's double "average," that means people will have 1-2 hours 2-3 nights a week, four weeks a month (estimate), coming out to 8-24 hours playing a month.

I dunno, I don't really consider myself an above average player. I have a few hours a night just like everyone else, I don't always play Sea of Thieves like everyone else... If you want to be in the top 25% you've got to commit. I don't believe that 4-8 hours a month commitment is unreasonable, not when you've plausibly got 8-24.

The crew and I did Reaper for like 4-6 hours yesterday doing events and voyages and all the things, minus HG, we had a swabbie and we are just barely, about 16-17kish above the 25% for the top rank. We had multiple turn ins at Grade V.

Really to secure your spot you want to be about 50-100k above the final tier. That usually holds you.

We weren't un-accosted, in fact we probably sunk like 12 boats. The crew and I are at around like 671K emissary value.

This is a problem for your average players.

We aren't average.

My one crew mate can maybe get on 1-2 times per week because of his job and responsibility.

Pretty much like above 500K is starting to get ridiculous.

@foambreaker said in The amount needed to be in the top 25% for the Emissary Ledger Rewards is starting to trend towards ridiculous.:

@personalc0ffee said in The amount needed to be in the top 25% for the Emissary Ledger Rewards is starting to trend towards ridiculous.:

@foambreaker said in The amount needed to be in the top 25% for the Emissary Ledger Rewards is starting to trend towards ridiculous.:

The other thing about this, and I am not sure I have it all correct, it seems like when you die in the open sea you lose your emissary value, but if you die in HG you don't?

So basically if you don't HG you will never catch up for reapers.

Do I have that right?

You never lose emissary value from loot turned in.

What happens is that as people rise the leaderboard, you get moved around and can be knocked out of that top percentile if you don't watch it.

It's very hard, especially with Reaper to get in that top 25% now and I think they need to look at this, possibly capping it to not move passed like 500k value.

500K emissary value is a pretty big ask, already for your average player.

Not loot turned in, sinking? You lose your value when sunk but not in HG?

You do not lose emissary value.

You can't count loot lost as emissary value lost or you shouldn't. As we know, loot is not ours until we turn it in.

Sinking in HG does not lose emissary value, either.

Emissary value is specific to the leaderboards. You need a certain amount to get into the top 25% which unlocks rewards after a ledger month.

@personalc0ffee I don't see a problem woth these numbers at all. If people want it, they can work for it. This season is 4 months long. Players get 4 months to work on 5 ledgers. All they have to do is pick 1 month to work on the 2 easiest.

Casual players were never meant to be part of the top 25%. I play 2-3 times a week right now. usually for 3-4 hrs at a clip. I haven't even done merchant yet this month. But 3 hrs will get me top ledger. It's that easy.

If people want the rewards they can work for em and compete.

@personalc0ffee You don’t have to do them all at once, you know. If you are strapped for time and you really want to do them all, do a few one month and the others the next. There’s 4 months each season to catch up and the requirements are never more than 2-3 voyages for the respective factions.

@lordqulex said in The amount needed to be in the top 25% for the Emissary Ledger Rewards is starting to trend towards ridiculous.:

@personalc0ffee Yes, average is one standard deviation away from the mean... And you've just calculated what you need to accomplish to be more than one standard deviation above the mean: 4-6 hours dedicated to one emissary of play a month. That means, what, you're average player may dedicate 2-4 hours of game play to an emissary a month?

I doubt that, what's more likely is that your average player doesn't use an emissary because they're afraid of PVP and don't want to show a target. I think that using an emissary already makes you above average, and now you're trying to be in the top 25% of above average players. Is 4-6 hours a month really too much to ask for there?

I mean, you're right, ranking in the top 25% of a ladder is a lot to ask for an "average" player. Are the rewards in the ladder really that good??

Ahhhhhhhh!, maths stuff.

Average players run emissary, yes. They just don't get very far and this creeping total is not making it any easier.

For people with time commitments, responsibilities, lives, and causal play? YES. The ledger was originally created for the top 25% to be easy for people to obtain. I am arguing that's starting to change as the seasons go by and we might want to do something about that. This is why I used the word Starting in the title. It is starting to become a problem.

Also the totals aren't just players like us, they are being manipulated and cheesed from alliance discords and lets not pretend they aren't.

Like I said earlier;

If you aren't a pve grinder, alliance discord user, or a sweat lord you're not being in the top 25% and I just don't find that fair or acceptable to the average player.

It used to be quite possibly to do a casual grind and make it up there, but every season it is getting worse and worse and I feel Rare needs to step in and do something.

You have players who look at this content and immediately say NOPE. There is time and resources spent on developing this content and if players start ignoring it, it's a waste of money.

Need to quit throwing derogatory terms around for people who are doing something better than you are, regardless of context.

Fixed rates would be nice. I mean Reaper's and Athena's emissary values are pushing higher and higher as people work towards the curses more and more. I like the idea behind the system, but I agree, especially for new players. It is completely unobtainable to get to the 25% number if you don't have the confidence to do WE and are below level 20 in the factions. And some like OoS aren't even able to farm a ton without the use of better voyages unlocked at higher levels or WE. Back when I started playing, I sank maybe 8/10 times but managed to get reapers and GH up to the maximum tier pretty easily, without doing any WE or anything. These cosmetics are often seen as noob cosmetics too, because of their ease of being able to be earned. But as the numbers climb, you lock players into waiting all the way past 50 to be able to start getting ship cosmetics for their respective factions. If you're new and only have a few hours a month, it's nearly impossible. I do like the idea that rewards are passed out to top earners, but it might not be sustainable with the more efficient loot collection methods.

@wolfmanbush said in The amount needed to be in the top 25% for the Emissary Ledger Rewards is starting to trend towards ridiculous.:

It's quite unnecessary to have a "keep up all month" approach in a game that is as heavily cheesed as this one, it's just stress for people that aren't cheesing and aren't heavily experienced with lots of time.

If they hit a number they hit it, it's not necessary to fomo it, that just brings down quality of the experience.

The ledger rewards directly conflict with that idea. You must keep them up or you can be bumped down.

I've honestly never liked the idea of the ledger but I want those cosmetics. Even if I'm taking breaks I have to keep an eye on my position in the ledger or I could fall behind on those rewards and end up with a back log and a lot of work ahead of me.

IMO, the ledger is very counter intuitive to the game's founding design.

As Klutch said, you don't have to go for all of them at once but you still have to go for them and my thread is about how difficult it can be for the average player and how it is now starting to creep into the ridiculous territory.

We don't want things locked behind the upper class, so to speak. That's not what this game is about.

That top 25% is moving higher and higher every season and I want to piggy back off what Fysics was saying because I feel it.

I'm not an average player. I"m above average and even I'm starting to feel the grind lately.

These used to be very obtainable with a mild sailing session and turn in.

@personalc0ffee
I dont know about your playtime, but reaper is really fast to get the 600k, because everything can be sold. 2,5 fof should do the job.

@personalc0ffee if you can't sell a bit of loot to get silly ledger rewards maybe you don't deserve the rewards now, try next month

@str3akstim said in The amount needed to be in the top 25% for the Emissary Ledger Rewards is starting to trend towards ridiculous.:

@personalc0ffee if you can't sell a bit of loot to get silly ledger rewards maybe you don't deserve the rewards now, try next month

Hahaha

I have every single ledger reward they have ever put out and when the month is through, I'll have these ones as well.

I'm telling you, the grind is getting worse every season. It's starting to get towards the point you actually need to be dedicated to get these rewards. But that's not why Rare chose the top 25%. They literally told us it was to make it so it wasn't a competitive thing and was obtainable for the average player.

I'm arguing that's now beginning to shift and they might want to keep an eye on that and if need be, step in and fix it.

These ledgers used to be below 500k top tier requirement for most, if not all of the trade companies.

@wolfmanbush said in The amount needed to be in the top 25% for the Emissary Ledger Rewards is starting to trend towards ridiculous.:

@str3akstim said in The amount needed to be in the top 25% for the Emissary Ledger Rewards is starting to trend towards ridiculous.:

@personalc0ffee if you can't sell a bit of loot to get silly ledger rewards maybe you don't deserve the rewards now, try next month

They have built in cheesing into both pve and pvp and over time that has obviously effected the ledgers and effort requirement for the casual player that isn't cheesing with pve and/or pvp.

Your comment applies more to earlier on than it does now.

Alliance servers have grown and people cheesing pvp hauls through coordination has grown which has left people casually playing organically with more of a requirement but not more reward for that effort requirement.

Which is common in this game and why activity has dwindled so often throughout its history.

HG has low participation, people are overestimating how much impact HG is having on the ledgers, it's the increase in cheesing that was showing on the ledger boards long before season 8.

and as the op mentioned it doesn't help when they throw gold cheese events into the mix which throws it off even more as the people struggling to keep up aren't the ones in the gold event alliance servers that others create.

With 6 ships that also has an impact to benefit cheesing for pve and pvp.

Boy howdy have they. You would not believe the events I've seen arranged on discord servers for the special events.

That being said I'm not against that playstyle but if their cheesing is going to start really affecting the ledgers, then something needs to be done.

@personalc0ffee I'd still wait tos ee what the ledgers look like next month. This is the first month with new rewards and that usually has higher values.

It always tapers off as the season progresses. As it stands these rewards will still be current in May, June, and July.

I am confused by this post. Why would an average or below average player who can only commit few hours a week be in top 25%?
I think that it creeping up is great news as it is a sign that seas are more active.

Also I find that it is unfair to write it off as alliance servers inflating the bottom line as alliance servers have always been a thing.

For reapers and athenas values are getting higher mostly due to HG. Ive spent last week doing quite a lot of diving as reapers and I crossed 2 mil in only a few days.

Reaper and athena are higher than usual due to hourglass. I've never had much issue reaching top tier but I get that if you don't have much time it can be frustrating, maybe just focus on a specific faction for each ledger? There's usually big enough gaps between new rewards that you could do that

@d3adst1ck said in The amount needed to be in the top 25% for the Emissary Ledger Rewards is starting to trend towards ridiculous.:

@papatankers2041 said in The amount needed to be in the top 25% for the Emissary Ledger Rewards is starting to trend towards ridiculous.:

I am confused by this post. Why would an average or below average player who can only commit few hours a week be in top 25%?
I think that it creeping up is great news as it is a sign that seas are more active.

Not sure that is what is happening. For Gold Hoarders last month, the cutoff was at position 122,999 with a value of 584,391 emissary value. As of right now, GH top tier is 81,285 with a value of 435,600. Less people on the ledger currently, and the value will still keep climbing. If it gets to the same amount or higher # of people, then there are more people playing the ledgers. If there are less people, but the value is still pretty high than it's more influenced by die hard players taking the higher spots.

Chest of Fortune might have something to do with it.

You can't compare a whole month with half a month without taking the shorter time period in consideration; people might be doing OoS or MA first and start GH this or next week, for example.

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Reaper Chests & Bounties having a new commendation might have something to do with higher Reaper value as well.