Hourglass Fix: Make Defending Worthwhile

I hate diving. Being stuck underwater for an unknown period of time is the worst. Playing defence needs a rework to make it more enticing and rewarding.

Simple solution:

• reduce the loot it takes to max out your treasure grade faction
• increasing allegiance gains from winning with a max treasure grade faction hourglass
• turning in a max treasure grade hourglass rewards more XP than it currently does

Getting more players to play defence is the KEY to keeping s8 alive and will ensure that the player pool is FULL and HEALTHY

Defending has all kinds of advantages, selection of battle area is one, alliances is another.

HG is PvP, you win some you lose some, getting to 5 is hard, as it should be.

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@sweetsandman said in Hourglass Fix: Make Defending Worthwhile:

Defending is the long-term way for Season 8's content to remain active well beyond the current season.

Explain why please, I just don't see how defending matters are all as far as participation goes.

@sweetsandman said in Hourglass Fix: Make Defending Worthwhile:

They definitely need to do something to make defending a more attractive and rewarding mechanic whether you win or lose.

Defending is the long-term way for Season 8's content to remain active well beyond the current season.

Not while the matchmaking engine prioritized matching invaders with invaders. I have literally sailed for hours while defending and never been invaded. Turning in a grade 5 faction treasury without ever having the opportunity to defend give you roughly the allegiance of a win. That's why no one does it: it takes hours to collect enough treasure to faction grade 5, and you never get invaded, so you're better off diving for virtually every reason to play hourglass.

• If you want on demand PVP you don't want to defend because that doesn't get you the PVP you want on demand.
• If you want the added risk of PVP for the added reward of allegiance defending isn't worth it because the 50/50 chance of losing and the pittance of allegiance you'd get are just not worth you time.
• If you are in it for the curses then defending is less efficient than loss farming, so it's not even worth discussing.

Defending needs a serious allegiance boost because it's just not attractive enough for anyone to participate in.

@pithyrumble "I get nothing for a defense loss."

That sounds more like a bug, I had thought def pays the same as diving for a loss?

@sweetsandman said in Hourglass Fix: Make Defending Worthwhile:

@foambreaker said in Hourglass Fix: Make Defending Worthwhile:

@sweetsandman said in Hourglass Fix: Make Defending Worthwhile:

Defending is the long-term way for Season 8's content to remain active well beyond the current season.

Explain why please, I just don't see how defending matters are all as far as participation goes.

Why? The hourglass matchmaking pool is already dwindling to sweats and loss farmers in its inception season. You think it's going to get better when Season 9+ drops?

I love this content and I'd hate for it to go the way of Shrines...or the Quest Board...

If defending was made to be a productive way to level up your factions even if you're rubbish at PvP, it would help the entirety of the community and prevent this content from really struggling to get participants in the coming seasons.

Who I missed that, so this is just a "make it easy to level up post".

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@pithyrumble Then dive, the result is the same, a battle. It's the battle that pays, I mean I hope you are not implying you should get paid for defending even when there is not battle?

I'm sorry, not trying to be difficult but I am just not seeing any advantage to this.

@foambreaker said in Hourglass Fix: Make Defending Worthwhile:

@pithyrumble Then dive, the result is the same, a battle. It's the battle that pays, I mean I hope you are not implying you should get paid for defending even when there is not battle?

I'm sorry, not trying to be difficult but I am just not seeing any advantage to this.

I'm not implying it, I'm overtly stating it.

Sea of Thieves is a risk versus reward game. Keep loot on your ship you risk losing it, turn in at grade five emissary get increased rewards. Same should be the same for hourglass. I'm increasing the risk of collecting treasure by signing up to be invaded, there should be increased rewards for doing so. It's not my fault as the player that Rare coded their match making engine to prioritize matching invaders.

What am I supposed to do, get to faction treasury grade five and then wait to get invaded?? I've played for two hours on more than one occasion and never been invaded. Defending doesn't give nearly enough battles to be called on demand PVP, nor enough allegiance without battles to be worth participating in. Plain and simple. If defending without invasion offered more allegiance, you'd see more people doing it. Then they could change the match making engine to actually engage defenders.

@lordqulex The Q is not 2 hours, but if you spend 2 hours near land then yes you never get a battle. That is on you, not rare, sail to the open sea.

Otherwise it becomes a get over, I spend 2 hours near land "defending" but not really because I know it will never pop, then I get rewarded? That would be a way to get PvP rewards without PvPing.

Also the HG works the same, you can turn in after each battle at streak 1 but not get paid as much, or you can let it build up, for more risk, and get paid more.

I like the idea of increased rewards for a LOSS if you are stacked with loot when you sunk

Defending as it is right now is essentially pointless. Best way to level up is undoubtedly by diving.

BOTH options should be desirable, the fact one is clearly the superior way of leveling up (the only way really) proves that they need to do SOMETHING to make playing defence worthwhile.

@sweetsandman said in Hourglass Fix: Make Defending Worthwhile:

They definitely need to do something to make defending a more attractive and rewarding mechanic whether you win or lose.

Defending is the long-term way for Season 8's content to remain active well beyond the current season.

Yes! So many people hit level 100 almost exclusively through diving and are immediately like "thank God that's over!" and never dive again, or only sporadically, which negatively effects the mode

Defending (playing the game as normal, essentially, but with a HIGHER risk of being attacked) should be how every experienced player is playing right now, thereby drastically increasing player numbers in matchmaking pools

But I can almost guarantee that the number of players playing defence is far below expectations. If not nearly non existent. It is just not worth it. Much better to dive.

It's too difficult and time consuming to hit max treasure faction rank, which is where it becomes worthwhile in terms of ranking up your allegiance with wins.

@hiradc yes getting to rank 5 without fighting does nothing.

You can cash in your rank 5 hourglass which is equivalent to a loss or thereabouts.

Defending needs some attention to make it a viable way of leveling up. All the focus has been on improving diving (same faction, cross stamp migration etc)

@paparug420 said in Hourglass Fix: Make Defending Worthwhile:

I like the idea of increased rewards for a LOSS if you are stacked with loot when you sunk

Defending as it is right now is essentially pointless. Best way to level up is undoubtedly by diving.

BOTH options should be desirable, the fact one is clearly the superior way of leveling up (the only way really) proves that they need to do SOMETHING to make playing defence worthwhile.

Yes this has been my suggestion. Defending isn't worth it because if you spend an hour collecting treasure, get invaded and sunk, you get the same allegiance as if you had just dove and sailed out of bounds in three minutes. Treasure goblins generators need to be rewarded for their time spend producing treasure for stealers whether the stealers take it or let it sink.

Faction Treasure grade should multiply loss allegiance as well as win allegiance, and Rare needs to deprioritize invaders invading invaders.

@paparug420 said in Hourglass Fix: Make Defending Worthwhile:

@hiradc yes getting to rank 5 without fighting does nothing.

You can cash in your rank 5 hourglass which is equivalent to a loss or thereabouts.

Defending needs some attention to make it a viable way of leveling up. All the focus has been on improving diving (same faction, cross stamp migration etc)

Faction treasury grade five gave me 80% of a win last time I checked, but still, I can go play a dozen matches in that time and I'll surely win one of those.

@foambreaker said in Hourglass Fix: Make Defending Worthwhile:

@lordqulex The Q is not 2 hours, but if you spend 2 hours near land then yes you never get a battle. That is on you, not rare, sail to the open sea.

Otherwise it becomes a get over, I spend 2 hours near land "defending" but not really because I know it will never pop, then I get rewarded? That would be a way to get PvP rewards without PvPing.

Also the HG works the same, you can turn in after each battle at streak 1 but not get paid as much, or you can let it build up, for more risk, and get paid more.

You can absolutely be invaded near an island. I've invaded people near sea forts, near outposts, near rocks, and near islands.

@lordqulex yes, I like it. It's a simple idea and is undoubtedly good for the health of the game mode.

Could also prove to be a nice way of easing newer players into PvP as well by giving them a chance of increased rewards even if they lose

@ardyason said in Hourglass Fix: Make Defending Worthwhile:

@foambreaker
Hum... It may have changed and perhaps I'm mistaken but you can get invaded when you are near land. At least at the beginning of the season it happened to me. Stocking up at a skeleton fort while defending, got invaded by someone, sunk (but that's on me).
Perhaps Rare changed it. But still, the huge problem with defending is that you can sail for 4 hours straight and never get invaded, meanwhile on your map you see Invader vs Invader battle pop up now and then at the edge of the sea...

You are still in the world, anyone can still attack you without diving, they can see you on the map. Especially if you are parked at a fort.

@a10dr4651 said in Hourglass Fix: Make Defending Worthwhile:

plus 1 from me on a boost to defending. It could be the perfect way to break up the diving grind by keeping you engaged with organic content between battles. Higher risk, higher reward, just so long as we have time between battles to acquire some loot. I'd always defend if this was the case.

Did you just imply the Q should be longer so you can get more loot?

That kills it, I am going to start server hopping to find "Hourglass" ships that are really PvE ships collecting loot.