Since the launch of season 9 last week, I've played for approximately 10 hours in that time I've reached level 100 season renown. Doing the Spanish forts and selling at outposts gave anything from 3 to 5 levels of renown for every fort and selling everything at outposts before moving on to the next fort. I know the core idea of the game is to gain treasure and sell it because of that I don't expect it to reward you with such massive amounts of renown. I'd have expected world events or other such challenges to reward higher renown, instead, a single world event offers less renown than selling treasure which to me feels wrong as a lot more effort goes into completing the event.
Season renown far to high for selling treasure
I don't think it has anything to do with buying the plunder pass - I got to level 75 before I decided to buy the pass for the cosmetics.
My play style is a solo or duo sloop doing the Spanish forts - any season before season 8 and renown was ok but you had to work for it, a 2-hour play session resulting in 2-3 levels of renown. Season 8 onwards same method of play, 25 levels of renown in 2 hours. Another example 2 grog barrels, 2 weeping chests, and two blue gems sold at Ancient Outpost Soverigns - renown 1.5 levels gained by selling only, renown gained for locating the items less than 1/4 of level.
Renown needs to be fixed it's way too easy to max out very early in a season
I dont think that the act of completing world events is intended to be the big part seeing you also gain renown for selling that events loot.
As well im not sure that they designed the renown system with people spending 10 hours at a time doing just ghost forts so much as a mix of activities. As it stands the fastest way to rank up is to go to crooked masts with a chicken coop and snake basket and just capture then kill over and over.
My point here is that the renown awarded is unbalanced in favour of anything that is sold, not in how you get it.
You do a skelly fort or fort of fortune - you kill multiple waves of skeletons - you get 1-2 levels of renown, you sell the loot from the event, and you get 5-6 levels of renown Surely the renown should be based on what you killed, and not what you sold.
Example of what I mean - new Legendary Cursed Chest voyage - gives you 5 cursed chests - renown for doing the voyage is hardly noticeable - renown for selling 5 chests 1.5 levels of renown. Surely you should be rewarded renown for finding the chests, not selling them.
It's the same if you find some random treasure on an island, negligible renown for putting it on your ship, but way to much when selling it.
Prior to season 8, loot sold gave about 0.5 level of renown maximum, since season 8 it has been possible to gain massive amounts of renown from selling loot, effectively a x10 multiplier!
Thing is, OP is right, renown earning has been slightly tweaked/boosted with season 8 by favoring even more the results of casual play (ie loot sold and basic actions accomplished) vs the way said loot has been earned.
(And the fact that renown is pretty much worthless once you've finished the pass means that a lot of the work that went into the daily/weekly/season trials, for instance, is pretty much a waste. Gold/doubloons rewards beyond lvl 100 would be the way to go to fix that issue, but Rare's been asked so many times without any result, so I think they just don't see that as a priority.)
That said, it really depends on what you're doing during your playtime. Since selling loot is quite a good way to earn Renown, doing a handful of sea forts or treasuries per session, last season, easily got me to 100 in less than a week of semi-casual playtime.
This season, so far, I've only been grinding Reaper's chests and bounties + selling those shipwreck's fishes + doing a couple of WE that happened to be on my way : I've been gaining much "less" renown (I think i'm around lvl 50 or so, which is still a lot for only three or four evenings sessions, but is less than the 25 lvls I was gaining per day last season).
Season 9 has become a "soft reboot"
D1 if you will and it grants everyone a huge handicap in experience gained. All the massive changes to the game are for newer players and fresh players who suffered in the past. Season 9 is to get new players into the game and show them, hey you can earn all these cool things stick around.
4 out of 12
