Alliance Servers

@sweetsandman said in Alliance Servers:

@valor-omega

I think we're missing some of the big picture stuff with regard to how manufactured alliance servers impact the rest of the game. I've said it before, I'll say it again...

Remember that Emissary Ledger event long ago that rewarded the top X number of players in each faction? Yeah...can't do that anymore because it was discovered very quickly that people were achieving insane numbers using manufactured alliance servers.

Remember that high risk high reward mechanic called Merchant Commodities? Ya know, the book that just collects dust next to the Merchant rep? Yeah...Those got nerf'd to oblivion because manufactured alliance servers were racking up ungodly amounts of gold. The top emissary ledgers before the nerfs were comically high for Merchant Alliance.

And worst of all, no other higher risk/higher reward mechanics can realistically be introduced because manufactured alliance servers eliminate the risk completely. They literally are why we can't have nice things.

I don't care if someone cheeses a commendation, there's no shortage of ways to cheese things in SOT. But the fact that they can prevent unique new content from being brought to the game, or have content nerf'd to oblivion. That's where it's a real problem.

Which a simple solution is to nerf alliances.

You make a server alliance, you are giving yourself protection so you can PvE farm or whatever. That is going to cost you gold not increase it. 5 ship server, gold split 5 ways including how it helps the emissary ledger.

This is the best solution because organic alliances are usually pretty fun or exciting due to people helping each other or the risk of betrayal.

This would solve a lot of alliance servers because the people in there are only concerned with max gold with zero threats. They would either back stab each other to sell the gold themselves, not have alliances going so they can maximize profit individually, or keep the alliance going and have less gold payout.

It is a win win and I'm surprised Rare has not fixed it yet.

@schwammlgott said in Alliance Servers:

@capthitreg sagte in Alliance Servers:

Being found in an alliance server should be a bannable offense.

They worked for it. Most of them need hours to get on the same server, so let them be.
Now with the 16 player restriction it's even harder for them to start one...

I doubt they worked for it; it's a group of people who create them, pass them on and the rest of the discord profits.

@schwammlgott a friend of mine suggested an idea before of the 50% earned is always 50%, if you are in an alliance with 1 ship then you get 50%, 2 you get 25% from both, 3 you get 17% and so on. As for my example, he may be an outlier, but I have found that in general alliance server players are significantly worse at the game than they should be at both pvp and pve and they have much less game knollage

@capthitreg said in Alliance Servers:

Being found in an alliance server should be a bannable offense.

[mod edit]

If you are a true pirate you strive for whatever brings you the most profit, if a server alliance works together to accumulate maximum profit it is thus a profitable investment...

Server alliances have served me very well as a solo slooper, I have stolen 6 athena chests in 2 hrs with a grade 5 athena flag by using their blind trust to my advantage...

@capthitreg said in Alliance Servers:

Being found in an alliance server should be a bannable offense.

Suggesting this idea should be a bannable offense!

I don’t force other players to play this game my way and I ask others to respect my play style.

@capthitreg not if it means getting less loot out of it then you would have... your no pirate if it's not the loot your after, if bloodshed is the one thing you seek your merely a terrorist with a hat...

@capthitreg then by all means fight! But chose your battles wisely, if you play your cards right you can end up with all of the loot using the art of deception.

I joined that server alliance and gained their trust so that when I told them to put all of the athena chests on my ship for emissary grade, the last thing they thought I would do was to sail away.. and before I knew it 6 athena chests were sold

@klon3dx I understand your opinion but I disagree, it sucks but i don't think it should be band. I've come to realize that "Sea of Thieves" doesent just mean your a pirate go steal stuff and don't be friends... "Sea of Thieves means" means your a pirate.. do whatever the heck you want. Obviously that doesent mean be racist and use hacks but rather play the game how YOU want to play it, not how people tell you to play it.

And if they found a way to cheese the game by utilizing the mechanics given to us then why should we care? We could all do the exact same thing when given enough time and a discord server.

@klon3dx well I suppose I don't fully understand the issue, I clearly haven't done as much research into it as you have but if the game is being played in a way that rare doesent want it to there should be some kind of warning or bannable offense.

I think Alliances themselves could maybe use some changes. It makes sense to me to form an alliance to take on a FOTD or FOF, PVP against a formidable threat, etc. However forming an alliance and just going on your own way, being at opposite ends of the map and still benefitting from the other crew's work... meh. It's not a huge deal, but I would rather it have more to do with ships sailing together rather than just using the alliance feature to profit without much player interaction. Alliances, in my mind, are meant to increase player interaction more than "I go this way, you go that way, we both get money."

As for Alliance servers, I don't really care. I don't see them as a problem. I know what I "earned", and I don't really care if someone in an Alliance server has the DA stuff because they cheesed their way to it. It all depends on situations what's "fair" anyway. I managed to get Pirate Legend during the Community Day bonus, so does that make me less of a Pirate Legend? Probably to some. To some, however, anyone getting Pirate Legend after the Emissary system began had it "too easy" and aren't "real" Legends, anyway.

And I mean, I've soloed FOF before because no one came to interfere, and got all the loot and rep. Empty servers have led to stacking fortresses, voyages, etc when no one bothered me so it was easy. So is that unfair? Or a bit of circumstance? Heck, I can only really get on to play maybe 4 hours per week and play mostly solo due to the sporadic nature I get to play and short session times, so for anyone with a good and frequent crew that get to play tens of hours per week, they have an advantage over me in that sense too, so...what? Some people are able to go from 0 to Pirate Legend in a few days for various reasons and it took me 4 years. Does that cheapen my experience? No! I don't really care. If that's how they want to play, as long as they aren't technically cheating, then let them play that way. We all only have a finite amount of time to play games, and it makes sense to let people play how they enjoy, as long as they aren't actually harming other people's play sessions.

I'm not sure about that, but if one player chooses not to join the rest of the server, having the whole server track and hunt down that one player should be considered a witch hunt, which is against the code of conduct, and therefore should be rooms for a ban or consequence

@klon3dx Except it IS a sandbox game, and has been described as such by Rare since the beginning. A sandbox title doesn't have to have building elements like Terraria or Minecraft. The true essence of a sandbox game is the freedom of player choice, and one's ability to use the tools given to them to play in whichever way they'd like - this is the case for SoT. Quite clearly, Rare doesn't much care about alliance servers, as if they did, they would have cracked down on them by now - but they haven't.

It isn't as if players in alliance servers don't do work, either. They still have to do world events, voyages, etc to gain that loot. Emissary ledger isn't rewarded either for other crews within an alliance, only the crew that turns in. So basically, you have people getting unnecessarily upset at how others in a completely unrelated session choose to play their sandbox pirate game. The same result (doing a bunch of voyages/world events) can be done without PvP on a quiet server. Is that a problem as well?