Was this really intended for the diving system?

@vectr0ne
This was also possible and done using Tall Tale portals; though that took a bit longer between servers.

@vectr0ne said in Was this really intended for the diving system?:

Something needs to be done. Either make it to where Reaper 5 cant dive or if they dive they cant leave the island or event they dove to for a cooldown period, so the server ships have time to respond.

There is a cooldown period if they don't finish the voyage; it's also supposed to bring you to an island or event where there is no other ship closeby, though that seems to be bugged: We dived for a fort with another ship on the next island over and also dove to an Ashen Lord that was done by another crew.

So again, my question. Was this really how this was designed? Because its not fun for casual PvE players. Other ships and Reapers where always a threat, but you could see them coming, anticipate that reaper who was leveling up their flag and see them coming from all the way across the map. Now they can put up a raid voyage jump in really close and be on you very quickly. And again they have zero intention of actually doing the raid voyage they used to get there, they are abusing the mechanic to jump into a server fully supplied, reaper 5 to prey on unsuspecting emissaries.

A dev posted this on twitter: https://twitter.com/keeyaaaa/status/1751022383228498249

Awesome of Blurbs to notice this mechanic! THIS plus Emissary Quests being lost if you lower your Emissary Flag, improvements to Emissary Quest rewards and the addition of Devils’s Roar Emissary Quests was all designed to reinvigorate Emissary play in SOT

Works bothways. Had a G5 OoS up and an overly friendly brig started heading for me. Quickly chose ashen crew battle on a small island...bye bye!bloopbloopbloop

If they need you to come back to get the loot, just dive yourself to a new server. You lose a vault, but so do they.

They used the raid system to dive in and never intended to do the quest they used to get there, they are abusing the system to hop from server to server with a ship full of supplies specifically to hunt emissaries.

And you know this...How?

Either make it to where Reaper 5 cant dive or if they dive they cant leave the island or event they dove to for a cooldown period, so the server ships have time to respond.

What about other ships?

@super87ghost said in Was this really intended for the diving system?:

I already predicted that within days or weeks you would see topics with either PvE'ers complaining about R5's with their OP ability or reapers complaining about PvE'ers diving away from them....

It only took 4 days.

SoT pirates are some deviously clever rats...

@super87ghost Well, if everyone is doing it, I'd say it's balanced.

@gravesilence272 OP mentioned them waiting for him to come back, presumably because OP had hidden the loot.

I agree about the “just keep an eye on the map table” comments being useless. Nobody wants to constantly check the map table when they are doing PVE. And it’s not a defense against merges or portal hopping/diving. Personally, I’d love to see some announcement sound when either a reaper reaches grade 5, or merges/hops into a server. Something like the Gjallahorn would be sick.

My crew uses portal hoping and diving to facilitate normal server hopping, but I always feel bad when we hop in as a grade 5 reaper a few squares away from an emissary. It definitely doesn’t feel fair, and I’ve always believed that we need a balance for PVE/pvp to coexist.

This update reminds me of the madness that was emissary update.
Reapers should represent a constant threat to emissaries, which I feel was no longer the case.
Getting a grade 5 and selling the loot is now a low risk high reward activity for any half competent player who checks the map every now and then.
This situation makes the "hunting" playstyle extremely frustrating and unrewarding with most if not all players worth sinking already seeing you coming from a mile away and being able to sell before you can do anything about it.
If R5 dives can add an increased risk/overall uncertainty to the emissary experience, I'm all for it.

@guildar9194
The emissary system dates back to a time where you had to find your storage crates on islands and where sovereigns weren't a thing.
The playing field was more even back then, now it's heavely in favor of PVE/Runners who can just sell in a matter of minutes.
If you can guarantee that you will never suffer the consequences of the risk you're willing to take, then there's not much "risk" to speak of right ? SoT has always been about that, the loot isn't yours until you cash it in etc..
R5 Dives only reintroduces the risk in the emissary experience and for those that can't tolerate it just play without emissary.

This whole debacle just cracks me up so much! I was watching a YouTube vid on how reapers can just use the super short treasure dives to jump from server to server hunting emissaries. Dive to a simple treasure map. Hit each of the 2 pieces of treasure once with a shovel, dive again if there’s nothing worth hunting.

All the wide-eyed folks who were like: “Oh gawsh! Diving is going to be so rad! I can get so much treasure! I won’t even have to sail as much in the silly sailing game! I can just teleport around all the time collecting more pixels that I can cash in for imaginary gold so much more efficiently! I’ll be able to play so much less of the game so I can play the game more!”

Average SoT sweat: “Hold my grog…”

“No wait! Not like that!”

Come on Rare, what made you decide to make server hopping even easier than it was and not expect it to affect the game like this?

"Ships don't come out of nowhere" has always been nothing but pithy nonsense from "PvP" players to pretend that sinking unoccupied sloops is skillful. Much like "the game is PvPvE" coming from players who login with no intention to do any of the "vE".

Any system will be abused because abuse is the intent. If they wanted actual PvP they'd use hourglass. That so few do speaks to the particular "PvP" community fostered by SoT and the sort of "PvP" that they want. Getting shot at is scary. Using every exploit available to swarm parked sloops with a galleon crew isn't.

I've looked over the patch notes regarding the new "diving system" and I'm legitimately confused. Who asked for this? Definitely not PvE players because most would be playing on Safer Seas and those who aren't never had a problem getting TO the question location (it was doing anything once you were there in which things start getting messy). I can't imagine PvP players asked for it because they don't do PvE to begin with (unless they full on asked for a new means to just drop on top of PvE players, which, even with how eager PvP players are to abuse every mechanic in the game to 'win' Sea of Thieves, seems like a bit of a stretch). PvPvE players have always been a myth, but I'm going to tackle them as well since I know someone's gonna bring them up. They wouldn't ask for it because the argument from the players who claim to be PvPvE is always "Nothing should ever change outside of removing Safer Seas from existence".

So, I'll ask again.. Who is this update for?

@tala-diere
Yep. There's a reason who so many people consider the pvp community to be toxic. Especially when it revolves around going after the weakest target on the board and using every exploit in the game the whole time. And that's not even mentioning the massive cheating/hacks problem, nor the easily accessible and booming RL economy tied to it.

@guildar9194
Stop writing "exploit". Did you not see the X post above? The Lead Designer of the game said that this specific behavior was intended to continue to make reapers a threat to emissaries.
You're also strawmanning, because coming out of a dive that close to other players is very rare. Most of the time, you'll be well out of the range of a dive for another ship.
For the person talking about getting caught doing a vault, they were solo, meaning the time they were allowed to be in that vault has been increased in S11. I think that's a sad scenario, but I'm not going to assume that the attacking ship spawned super close, because you don't know how much time was spent in that vault.
You're coming at this with the perspective that reapers are exploiting so that they can ruin your fun and all that... No. They're trying to level up their Reaper's Bones in the fastest way they can think of, same as everyone else. They allow the emissary system to exist, because without the risk of being sunk by a reaper, the whole emissary system is just a modifier that makes levelling faster. What you're missing is that the whole emissary system was built on the idea of a new loot system with higher risk and higher reward... Just because Reapers has been stale and generally unused for emissary hunting for years, does not mean you are entitled to a loot multiplier now. The whole point of the flag itself is to show reapers how juicy of a target you are, and (in the past) to help keep them away from newer players who don't have access to the flags/want a safer session.

@grumpyw01f said in Was this really intended for the diving system?:

@guildar9194
Stop saying "exploit". Did you not see the X post above? *The Lead Designer of the game said that this specific behavior was intended to continue to make reapers a threat to emissaries.

Ok, so the original gameplay of reapers being visible from L1, allowing emissaries to watch for them and prepare for when they hit L5 has now been replaced with reapers being able to just appear on your server at L5 with no warning. And emissaries can also choose to just dive if they don’t have any treasure worth anything on board.

This really doesn’t sound like an improvement to the gameplay to me from either perspective.

@guildar9194

So, basically, Reapers are now invisible to Emissaries, because they can just R5, then dive to a new server.
So the Lead Designer is basically admitting that the diving system circumvents the risk part of 'risk vs reward' of being a Reaper.

How are they "invisible" just because they can go to a new server? And how is it circumventing the risks of being a Reaper? Other ships can see you earlier than grade 5, and you can only sell at one location, so it's easy to get to them, and they can't run to the nearest outpost, sell, and leave before you get there, if they're not in the vicinity of Reaper's Hideout.
Reapers also get sunk by other Reapers... so in some respects they are at more risk than regular emissaries.
In fact, if you want to do a different kind of session of Athena's Fortune, you're free to do the same server hop tactic and sink Reapers for their flags, and they won't even be able to see you coming on the map, unless they're at grade 5.
If Reapers couldn't hop at all in S11, there would be no risk to other emissaries. They could sell and dive before the Reaper got to grade 5...

@grisch1801

Ok, so the original gameplay of reapers being visible from L1, allowing emissaries to watch for them and prepare for when they hit L5 has now been replaced with reapers being able to just appear on your server at L5 with no warning. And emissaries can also choose to just dive if they don’t have any treasure worth anything on board.

This really doesn’t sound like an improvement to the gameplay to me from either perspective.

Contrary to popular belief, you were never meant to be required to PvE to get to R5. The actual original gameplay of Reapers was to put the flag up and instantly start hunting for other emissaries. You had no idea where they were, and so they had a good chance of getting away if you were too far or they avoided your search pattern. But all ships had instant danger when a reaper started on their server. Especially Athena's Fortune, where getting to grade 5 could take over 2 hours, and your only good voyage locked you in the east region of the ancient isles.

Yes, emissaries always had imminent danger when a competent, PvP-oriented Reaper joined their server. As time went on, both sides got more and more tools and options.

And with those 'tools and options', that original playstyle has not just now been replaced. Tall tale hopping existed long before S11 and took ~6 minutes once you entered the portal. The downside is that you were usually far away from targets and they could do the same to you before you got there. Just like now!

If you're worried about danger from Reapers, there's a simple solution - do the same thing!
Focus on short quests that you can dive to over and over again so you're never on any server for long.

If you want more loot that you can get from that, you're buying right into the risk vs. reward system, as intended.

I think this update provides non-reapers with better options, which is a good thing, because it makes players want to get loot more, but also makes juicier and juicier targets for the Reapers, so that they can go back to being a real danger again. The balance is good imo.

@grumpyw01f

I really don’t have much of an issue with PvP. It’s a PvP game. Reapers and Emissaries are a system to promote PvP. I get that and I’m fine with that.

My issue is that making server hopping even more accessible seems contrary to what the game presents up front. You seem to be presented with a relatively closed system where your session will likely include seeing the same ships more than once, building up rivalries and allies organically. Which sounds like an awesome idea.

Instead, we had something that seems very much like an exploit, since it was a side effect of taking on a specific piece of content (tall tales) in order to move around in and out of different systems at will. Instead of removing that ability, Rare has made it MORE easy to achieve, but without actually making it something the game announces to you.

So either put a big fat button on the ship that says “Switch to new server” or remove the ability to server hop at will. Right now it’s just a disjointed mess. People are confused as to whether it’s an exploit or not. New people don’t know anything about it. Some people refuse to use it thinking it’s dishonorable. Some people see it as intended gameplay.

All in all, right now, it’s just a mess.

@guildar9194

people on that new server can't see them until they appear. So, to their new target, they were literally invisible because they did not exist on the server until a few seconds ago.

Then we should call all ships ghosts because they can disappear at any time?

And how is it circumventing the risks of being a Reaper?

Because part of the risk of being a Reaper is that you are visible to everyone, even at Grade 1.
Only now Reapers can dive to a new server, functionally appearing as a new player at Grade 5.
May as well just give them G5 from the start .

You failed to explain how they aren't at risk anymore. You're visible from the moment you put that flag up. Reapers still have to grind to grade 5, just like the other emissaries. Just because you can move to another server at 5 does not mean you are at less risk. It's easier to get to servers with emissaries, yeah, but it's also easier to lose them.

If Reapers couldn't hop at all in S11, there would be no risk to other emissaries. They could sell and dive before the Reaper got to grade 5...

That's part of the risk of being a Reaper. And the Reward is getting their flag if you catch them.

How do you know where they are if you had to grind to R5 for every server? You'd have to spend time getting to grade 5 or hope you spawn near one... Diving would allow every single ship to be able to leave the server well before you are a threat to them. Your idea would functionally kill Reaper's Bones as a PvP faction and remove the intended risk of playing as an emissary, also killing the emissary system.

Same as previous seasons; Emissaries could see a Reaper leveling up, and decide to sell, lower, and log out.

In the original emissary update, other ships could not change servers and keep their flag grade, so they were functionally stuck on the same server while you graded up or searched for them. If they decided to move server, they would lose whatever time they spent and get much less rewards than if they continued on.
Your idea to give all emissaries except for Reapers server mobility removes most of the risk from emissary play. Selling at grade 3 isn't that big of a deal if you continue where you left off in the next server. Your idea is short-sighted. Maybe you should go to Safer Seas if you want to be left alone.

Never thought I'd see someone say 'Reapers should have teleporting invisibility powers! It's unfair if they can't just appear next to people who have no way to see them before they magically appear 1-2 squares away!'
What a horrible take.

The horrible thing here is how intentionally ignorant you are as to what I have written so far. Your idea of an argument is engineering a take that I never had, and then calling it and my statements horrible. That's laughably bad.
I've explained why this tactic exists, why it has been endorsed by Rare, the history of the battle between emissaries, the options both sides have, and even given tips on how to avoid Reapers. But, no, you can't see any of that, all you can see is the belief that all Reapers are surfacing 1-2 squares away. No, they're not, you got careless and sunk.

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@Guildar9194 and @Grisch1801

People are confused as to whether it’s an exploit or not.

A quick reminder, anything endorsed by the Lead Designer of a game is an intended mechanic.

Maybe you don't like the idea, but it's not something worth demonizing players over. I've seen a lot of positive reception for this update from both PvE and PvP-oriented players alike, because everybody got something to freshen up the experience. Yeah, heavy diving is a departure from the original game, but 1) the emissary system was getting quite stale before, 2) players needed new ways to play to make things more exciting, and 3) you can still play in the old ways if you want to. You'll find that a lot of other players are only utilizing the diving mechanic to start voyages, and they don't leave their server unless they have to. Again, everyone's got something that's better in S11.