QoL proposal: Sea of Guilds

If you want to make guilds dont restrict them to the top 1%.

It's a social component for the game, it should be open for everyone from the get go.

@talvheet I see where you're coming from, but reaching level 25 takes little to no time, and joining one can last a while, at least until you get off your feet. Perhaps Athena 20 was a bit intense but Pirate Legend has decreased in difficulty to get, and wanted something more for the endgame to unlock and work towards.

@gallerine5582
Example. I have been playing since launch, with one year break.
I dont do athena because it's a boring grind.

Why should I, a long time player be blocked from social content that I find boring to do?

Social component of the game should not be behind any walls.

@talvheet said in QoL proposal: Sea of Guilds:

Example. I have been playing since launch, with one year break.
I dont do athena because it's a boring grind.

Yes I get that, but you only have to be level 25 to join a pre-existing guild, so only 1 person you know has to have Pirate Legend, which isn't even that hard to get anymore

Why should I, a long time player be blocked from social content that I find boring to do?

You're not at all blocked from it, because I've said several times you only need to be ranked 25 in anything to join a guild, and that's simply to discourage people from getting alt accounts for exploits or whatever may come with it, and also so you woul have some time under your belt instead of being a burden just joining the first guild you can and asking for carries through everything

Social component of the game should not be behind any walls.

The difference between a hurdle and a wall is a hurdle is easy to pass, like rank 25, and a wall is a challenge to overcome, like pirate legend (compared to level 25)

It just feels like not much has been read in my response. I get it, you don't want to do athena stuff, that's why I admitted it was going overboard with A20 to create one, but very little is stopping anyone from JOINING one, because who wants a guild leader to know nothing about the game, that's just gonna reflect bad on the leader and might discourage them from doing anything guild related, compared to being a Legend and going "Ok so I have an understanding of what's going on here, I should be capable of doing this now"

Last night I tried to argue in the Pirate Legend chat that inexperienced players should learn how to do voyages faster.

It did not end well because ultimately people play how they like and it wasn't my position as an experienced player to tell other players what they should do and how they should play.

Now in this thread's context, blocking a social component behind a wall because you assume players are not only competent enough to reach Reputation 25 in a pre-existing trading company, reach Pirate Legend, but to also reach Athena's Fortune Reputation 20.

As much as I like to see some post max reputation content, this isn't the strongest way to do it. No one truly has a proper "post-game" plan, but setting up something that only veteran players can start just blocks out a little too much content at once, and invites unnecessary leadership roles. A leader is defined by their actions and knowledge, not by a shiny title they grinded out on an alliance server.

@nex-stargaze said in QoL proposal: Sea of Guilds:

setting up something that only veteran players can start just blocks out a little too much content at once,

The almost 4 years of mostly non-veteran content isn't enough for those players? Keep in mind, they would only need to reach level 25. That isn't even a hard requirement.

Some things I'd change:

• Guild relationships, allow Guilds to either be friendly, neutral, or hostile with each other. Allows more content through Guild rivalries, and also negates the cap in a creative manner, so a larger group can create and ally multiple guilds, but smaller Guilds can also join that alliance to not be left behind. Also creates power struggles with multiple Guild leaders in the alliance.
• PL is a hard enough requirement as it is for Guild leader, especially if it costs gold to set up. I doubt you'll get an overabundance of Guilds lowering the requirements slightly.
• As for members, the Guild should decide member requirements, to cater to their preferred play style (tools not rules).

I rather not have random kids build Guilds.

I rather stick with the Factions and have them Branch into guilds.
Do you Represent..Gold Hoarders....wait a min...
Oh we have Emissary's.

Wouldn't this create almost as many Guilds as there are solo sloopers ? A lot of complaints that the guild achievements can't be reached solo &c ?

I've read this over a couple times now, and it just doesn't do it for me. I think the Emissary System does a lot of this, not that there couldn't be some tweaks to that system that could make it a little closer to a Guild system without strictly enforcing it. To make it feel more like the Emissary system is throwing your lot in with a Faction (at least temporarily) we could do a couple of things that I wouldn't find terrible:

• Reaper Flags will be accepted by Factions so long as you are an Emissary of the Faction (and will payout based on the Emissary Multiplier) to better give incentive to taking on the Reapers
• Reapers will continue to accept all Flags, including Reapers as it is now, and will accept Flags from other Emissary Ships or non-Emissary Ships (these two not granting the Multiplier) keeping Flag collection as the primary focus of the Faction
• Factions could encourage cooperation while at the same time not discouraging betrayal or back stabbing through allowing the Alliance Payout benefit to apply the Emissary Multiplier to Loot the Alliance sells that matches with your Emissary, this could encourage both cross Faction Alliances and same Faction Alliances a little more as well as encourage Alliances to be Emissary to begin with (though Alliance servers would get drastic benefits from this, but I don't think we should always have to account for people cheesing the game when considering what we can do for the broader environment - Rare says they are monitoring all that and if it becomes a big problem they do have options available to solve it)

If that were all done just right, you would get something that feels a little more like a Guild system (just a more SoT session based gameplay twist on it), and I think it might open the door for more types of player interactions to be a little more common (natural smaller Alliances might form a little more often between same Emissary Ships, a small number of encounters with other players might have a slightly better chance of not being immediately hostile even if an Alliance isn't formed, and you'd still have the options of betrayal).