Guild Progression FAQ

  • Shelley Preston
    Legend
    Rare Employee

    Ahoy Guild Mates!


    With the release of Guilds of Gold in Season 10, it's been awesome to see players forming Guilds and discuss how it all works. There has been some discussion in particular around how to progress your Guild, and how the Guild Emissary works. There is a tutorial in the "Info and Tips" section of the game menu which is worth checking out for more information on everything related to Guilds, but we also have an FAQ below!


    How do I earn Guild Reputation?

    Guild Reputation is earned whenever you cash in Treasure or earn Allegiance.

    You don’t have to hand into the Sovereigns to earn Guild Reputation, you can hand in anywhere including the Reaper's Bones.

    You can earn Guild Reputation from Hourglass Battles as well as Treasure Hunting.


    How do the existing Company Emissaries work when I am on a Guild Ship?

    If you are a Company Emissary, you still earn Bonus Gold and Bonus Company Reputation but will earn no Bonus Guild Reputation.


    How do Guild Emissaries work?
    You can unlock Guild Emissary play at Guild Reputation 15, and activate it at the Sovereigns.

    If you are a Guild Emissary, then you will get bonus Reputation for both the Company and your Guild when you hand in at the Sovereigns. This is a smaller bonus than if you were a Company Emissary.

    Therefore, if you want to progress in a specific Company, their own Emissary is more powerful but you will earn unboosted Guild Reputation. If you are a Guild Emissary, you’ll progress your Guild faster but progress the individual companies more slowly than if you were their Emissary.


    How do Guild Emissaries differ from the Reaper's Bones?
    Guild Emissaries can deliver treasure from all companies and earn a bonus on them all at once. This is similar to the Reaper’s Bones but Reapers only have one cash in location and can be seen on the map at all times, so they offer a higher bonus. As a Guild Emissary when you reach Grade 5 you are marked on the map.


    How do Alliances work in Guilds?
    If you are in an Alliance, you still get 50% of the Gold and Reputation when another crew hands in treasure, but you do not get any Guild Reputation.


    See you on the Seas!
    Shelley "Pressgang" Preston
    Associate Design Director

     

    A NOTE FROM BECKY:


    Pirates!

    We are leaving this thread open so that Shelley can answer any questions you have about the points covered in the original post. We ask that you keep your comments and questions respectful when engaging with this thread.

    Anyone failing to remain respectful will have their comments removed and may be put into a time-out on the Forums. Remember, the team working on this game are real people - treat them as you wish to be treated.

    @beckyfr0st

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  • beckyfr0st
    Marauder
    Rare Employee

    Pirates!

    We are leaving this thread open so that Shelley can answer any questions you have about the points covered in the original post. We ask that you keep your comments and questions respectful when engaging with this thread.

    Anyone failing to remain respectful will have their comments removed and may be put into a time-out on the Forums. Remember, the team working on this game are real people - treat them as you wish to be treated.

    Becky

  • Taaaamas
    Legend
    Boatswain

    Quite in-love with the rewards (clothing) that we see progressing the first 100 levels, before Distinction 1, but is there much of interest in terms of rewards after that, that we could progress towards?

    I've seen there's the ship pieces but that's seems to be a piece every 100 levels (?), but the time between that feels vast. I suppose the ledger stuff would be a motivation between that as well. And that reaper commendation for flags (if that has a reward?)

    Just feels like it has a similar issue to Hourglass's reward progression, albeit probably in a better state, given the ledger.

    Really enjoying it so far,
    Thanks!

  • Super87Ghost
    Master

    @beckyfr0st If you sail with someone who is in another guild in their guild, would you still be able to unlock/progress Guild commendations?

    For instance: if you and your buddy get a grade-5 Guild flag when sailing in the guild where your buddy is member of, but you are not. Will that still grand you a +1 in the 'Unrivalled Emissary of Guilds' commendation for both, or only for your friend? (so is it tied for doing it in your own guilds or is it just for reaching that flag independant for who's guild it is)

  • D3ADST1CK
    Vanguard
    Insider
    Founder

    @super87ghost said in Guild Progression FAQ:

    @beckyfr0st If you sail with someone who is in another guild in their guild, would you still be able to unlock/progress Guild commendations?

    For instance: if you and your buddy get a grade-5 Guild flag when sailing in the guild where your buddy is member of, but you are not. Will that still grand you a +1 in the 'Unrivalled Emissary of Guilds' commendation for both, or only for your friend? (so is it tied for doing it in your own guilds or is it just for reaching that flag independant for who's guild it is)

    I'm pretty sure guild progress is tied to the ship you're on, so whichever guild the ship you're sailing on is pledged to is the one that gets the reputation and progress. This likely also applies to commendations, so if you're not in the guild you probably aren't going to get personal commendation progress.

  • Thorumsu
    Master
    Insider

    Will there ever be a way to prevent guildmates from joining you while doing open crew?

    I don't have a problem with my guildmates. I just love the chaotic and organic experience of open crew and I want to do it while sailing for my guild.

    But guildmates can just join your open crew. You can prevent friends from doing this, but as far as I know, there isn't a way to prevent guildmates.

  • Koohl MoFo
    Lord
    Insider

    After grade five in guild emissary is there any ideas of having gilded emissary voyages available to pick up. I think it will go along way to keeping grade five guilds up for a longer period.

    Also if we don't get a voyage at grade five can we get a boat reveal power like the reapers have at grade five?

  • Tesiccl
    Lord
    Insider

    Howdy! So I’m curious, is the reputation gain within the guild at the ideal level for Rare because in some cases it’s felt very slow? Winning a match in Hourglass seems to give a nice amount but selling loot only gives a tiny bit. If you can’t answer that’s fine, I know it’s a bit of a hot topic within the community right now. Thanks.

  • TheElizaBot
    Marauder

    @tesiccl said in Guild Progression FAQ:

    Howdy! So I’m curious, is the reputation gain within the guild at the ideal level for Rare because in some cases it’s felt very slow? Winning a match in Hourglass seems to give a nice amount but selling loot only gives a tiny bit. If you can’t answer that’s fine, I know it’s a bit of a hot topic within the community right now. Thanks.

    I am also wondering this as the levels seem inconsistent, I would like to see some form of guide as to what increases guild rep at what level. Myself and a friend sailed for 4hours and made just shy of a million gold. We barely 1/8th around a lvl and most of that was awarded when we handed in a stolen rag and bone crate to a Sea Post. Also aside from that another guild I belong to (yet to sail for) has reached lvl 40 and has only cashed in 3 million, if guild ship logs are to be trusted. Do the amount of players in your guild/ships pledged change your progression?

    Eliza

  • Magus104
    Marauder
    Insider
    Founder

    And once you hit grade5 everyone can see you on the map to hunt you down. So this is the only emissary that doesn't have a special perk to grade5. You gain some bonus rep and gold for handing in but not as much as a normal emissary would. So no unique voyages to claim or any other perk so once you hit grade5 spam sell and lower flag as there's no reason to take the risk of people hunting you down?

  • Erico360
    Legend
    Insider
    Founder

    It feels really weird that pve is like 1/10 worth compared to hourglass pvp in guild xp. Also a 4 player galleon doing hourglass earns 4x less then 4 solo sloop hg. How does this bring your guild together?😂

  • indubitably1
    Seafarer

    @shelley-preston said in Guild Progression FAQ:

    How do Guild Emissaries differ from the Reaper's Bones?
    Guild Emissaries can deliver treasure from all companies and earn a bonus on them all at once. This is similar to the Reaper’s Bones but Reapers only have one cash in location and can be seen on the map at all times, so they offer a higher bonus. As a Guild Emissary when you reach Grade 5 you are marked on the map.

    Does this mean Guild Emissaries can see other emissaries on the map at Grade 5?

  • TheElizaBot
    Marauder

    @erico360 Erico, we worked this out yesterday! Myself and my guild friend who usually sail together decided to work out how other guilds are farther ahead than we are. We both did a lost shipment voyage solo on two separate boats (at the same time) and our guild rep progressed from 1/2 to well over 3/4 once both of us handed in with Merchant grade 5 flags. We then completed one together on the same boat and received 1/8th of a guild level. So therefore it is more productive as a guild of smaller members to sail separately on two vessels than together.

    The guilds were implemented to get more people working together, to bring another social aspect to SoT - However to level up you need to do the complete opposite. I hope this is an oversight because if that's the case, grinding voyages we have completed for years solo doesn't seem like fun to me. I play this game for entertainment but also for a social interaction with a friend, so we can get up to mischief while 'putting the world to rights'. So in order to achieve the cosmetics/commendations for the Guilds you either stick with a smaller tightknit group of people who have to sail solo (for months) until you get the Guild Emissary. Or you join a larger group and are at the mercy of being kicked out if you aren't active enough, which as a casual player (once/twice a week sails) seems impossible.

    Therefore I have realised Guilds are not for me and I am ignoring this whole update. I will stick to playing how I always have done - to have fun, this isn't a job, it's something to do in my down time.

    Eliza!

  • Shelley Preston
    Legend
    Rare Employee

    @super87ghost said in Guild Progression FAQ:

    @beckyfr0st If you sail with someone who is in another guild in their guild, would you still be able to unlock/progress Guild commendations?

    For instance: if you and your buddy get a grade-5 Guild flag when sailing in the guild where your buddy is member of, but you are not. Will that still grand you a +1 in the 'Unrivalled Emissary of Guilds' commendation for both, or only for your friend? (so is it tied for doing it in your own guilds or is it just for reaching that flag independant for who's guild it is)

    Ahoy! You need to be sailing for a Guild to unlock Guild Commendations. You can unlock them across different Guilds though as long as you meet the criteria - so if you partially progress a commendation in one Guild, you can continue it in another.

  • Shelley Preston
    Legend
    Rare Employee

    @tesiccl said in Guild Progression FAQ:

    Howdy! So I’m curious, is the reputation gain within the guild at the ideal level for Rare because in some cases it’s felt very slow? Winning a match in Hourglass seems to give a nice amount but selling loot only gives a tiny bit. If you can’t answer that’s fine, I know it’s a bit of a hot topic within the community right now. Thanks.

    Ahoy! The intention with the balance for Guild Reputation for Treasure Hunting and Hourglass play is to be equivalent. That means that on average the amount of repuation players earn from either source in an average hours play should be aligned. If you are particularly skilled at one or the other, you may find that one is a faster route for you, which makes sense as you are progressing your Guild based on your best skills.

    That being said, our assumptions for balancing Guild Reputation were based on data for all player averages on earn rates of both types of play before Guilds was launched and in Insider Testing. Now that Guilds is in the hands of many more real players, we will be assessing the most up to date data, looking at the balance and any outliers or changes in gameplay that have emerged and if necessary we will tweak the numbers to achieve the intended balance.

  • Shelley Preston
    Legend
    Rare Employee

    @theelizabot said in Guild Progression FAQ:

    @tesiccl said in Guild Progression FAQ:

    Howdy! So I’m curious, is the reputation gain within the guild at the ideal level for Rare because in some cases it’s felt very slow? Winning a match in Hourglass seems to give a nice amount but selling loot only gives a tiny bit. If you can’t answer that’s fine, I know it’s a bit of a hot topic within the community right now. Thanks.

    I am also wondering this as the levels seem inconsistent, I would like to see some form of guide as to what increases guild rep at what level. Myself and a friend sailed for 4hours and made just shy of a million gold. We barely 1/8th around a lvl and most of that was awarded when we handed in a stolen rag and bone crate to a Sea Post. Also aside from that another guild I belong to (yet to sail for) has reached lvl 40 and has only cashed in 3 million, if guild ship logs are to be trusted. Do the amount of players in your guild/ships pledged change your progression?

    Eliza

    Ahoy! Please see my prior response regarding the balance of Treasure Hunting vs Hourglass (in short, they should be balanced to give the same amount on average).

    Although Gold is a good indicator, a clearer way to think of it is that Guild Reputation is earned when you earn Company Reputation from handing in treasure. Imagine you hand in a Skull to the Order of Souls and they give you some Reputation, then that Reputation also gets applied to your Guild. If you earn some Allegiance, then that Allegiance also gets applied to your Guild. Behind the scenes these values are tweaked before they are applied to your Guild to make sure everything is balanced, but broadly speaking if an item gives you more Company Reputation than another item, it will also give you more Guild Reputation. If an action earns more Allegiance, it will earn more Guild Reputation.

    The amount of Reputation required for each level does not scale with the number of Ships or Guild Members, although of course a bigger Guild will generally progress more quickly as more players are contributing to the amount required to level up.

    The specific numbers that you give there (1/8th Level for 3 Million in Treasure and 40 Levels for 3 Million Treasure) do not sound right, but without more details on exactly how this was earned it is difficult to comment on the specific scenario. However, we are internally assessing data on the earn rates for Guild Reputation to look for issues and outliers and will be tweaking where necessary.

  • Zeyrniyx
    Marauder
    Insider

    @shelley-preston I really hope you'll adjust it, because it's really very long indeed.
    Especially since the distinctions require you to be level 1000. At this speed I can't sleep 🤣
    I'm doing for a solo guild in addition to being in a guild with friends. I've noticed that you can go up faster with more than one person. But there you go. I play more than the guild at level 8 and yet my solo guild is barely at level 2. The main reason? The hourglass. And for me, going back to the hourglass is out of the question.

  • Zeyrniyx
    Marauder
    Insider

    @zeyrniyx If you'd like an idea:
    It would be to make it so that up to level 15 of a guild's reputation it's fast, then once past that level it slows down. And if I suggest this, it's for emissaries. At this stage, it's almost impossible for most people to see guild emissaries in the seas. It's a shame. But I'll wait and see for a few more weeks.
    By the way: many thanks for this addition. It does me a world of good to see that I'm progressing in a "faction" since I'm max level everywhere.

  • Erico360
    Legend
    Insider
    Founder

    @shelley-preston Its way out of balance though. Like 10x more speed with hg compared to handing in (high level) treasure. Are you planning to balance this out?

  • Shelley Preston
    Legend
    Rare Employee

    @erico360 said in Guild Progression FAQ:

    @shelley-preston Its way out of balance though. Like 10x more speed with hg compared to handing in (high level) treasure. Are you planning to balance this out?

    It does appear that Hourglass is out of balance, we are assessing the most up to date data from everyone who has played Season 10 thus far to ensure we understand exactly what is happening and where the outliers are so that we can make the right fixes/rebalances.

  • Tesiccl
    Lord
    Insider

    @shelley-preston thank you! It’s good to hear that you agree that allegiance gain is out of step with gold being earned for reputation towards our guilds. Look forward to an adjustment soon.

  • Grantsby
    Captain

    @shelley-preston said in Guild Progression FAQ:

    @erico360 said in Guild Progression FAQ:

    @shelley-preston Its way out of balance though. Like 10x more speed with hg compared to handing in (high level) treasure. Are you planning to balance this out?

    It does appear that Hourglass is out of balance, we are assessing the most up to date data from everyone who has played Season 10 thus far to ensure we understand exactly what is happening and where the outliers are so that we can make the right fixes/rebalances.

    When you say "HG is out of balance" It seems more the case that non-HG activities are out of balance. My crew and I did 11 FotD's and 5 world events on a play session and barely got 5 levels of Guild Reputation, and certainly a lot less than winning HG matches for roughly the same amount of time. It really seems like HG progressing the guild reputation feels about right, and it's all the non-HG activities that need to be raised up a bit to match the reputation earned from HG.

  • Erico360
    Legend
    Insider
    Founder

    @shelley-preston said in Guild Progression FAQ:

    @erico360 said in Guild Progression FAQ:

    @shelley-preston Its way out of balance though. Like 10x more speed with hg compared to handing in (high level) treasure. Are you planning to balance this out?

    It does appear that Hourglass is out of balance, we are assessing the most up to date data from everyone who has played Season 10 thus far to ensure we understand exactly what is happening and where the outliers are so that we can make the right fixes/rebalances.

    I agree with Grantsby here. It seems more like pve just needs to be raised :P

  • Wermux
    Captain
    Insider

    Do you guys plan to adress the issue with HG exploits being used as a way to progress guilds in anormous amounts of time?
    There are guilds that reached 3 distinctions already, mostly by abusing hourglass exploits.

  • Grantsby
    Captain

    @wermux said in Guild Progression FAQ:

    Do you guys plan to adress the issue with HG exploits being used as a way to progress guilds in anormous amounts of time?
    There are guilds that reached 3 distinctions already, mostly by abusing hourglass exploits.

    For sure!!! We ran into some cheaters / hackers 48 hours after launch who already had this: Distinction III

  • patchouli4369
    Captain
    Insider

    @shelley-preston said in Guild Progression FAQ:

    @erico360 said in Guild Progression FAQ:

    @shelley-preston Its way out of balance though. Like 10x more speed with hg compared to handing in (high level) treasure. Are you planning to balance this out?

    It does appear that Hourglass is out of balance, we are assessing the most up to date data from everyone who has played Season 10 thus far to ensure we understand exactly what is happening and where the outliers are so that we can make the right fixes/rebalances.

    When you say it's out of balance, do you mean that hourglass should be giving less guild reputation? Or that PvE should be giving more guild reputation?

  • Grantsby
    Captain

    @patchouli4369

    hopefully the latter... as even completing & selling loot from the most lucrative activities - WE & FotD with Guild Emi 5 - gives you next to no progression vs HG.

  • iCtus XXI
    Marauder
    Insider

    @shelley-preston HG is not out of balance. PVE is out of balance. Please consider increasing the reputation gain from PvE activities to the current HG gain. Not the other way around. For several reasons. For one everyone that did HG for guildrep so far will have a major headstart over people that did PVE. Second, the grind is way too long as it is now already. Dont make it any worse than it already is. We dont need another progressionmetric like pre-nerf milestones or HG commendations had/has which are just way too long and kill all joy in the game.

    Repetition breeds apathy. It's not a good gamemechanic philosophy to give people endless grinds that consist of repeating the same thing a hundredthousand times.

    Season 7 and season 8 each doubled the amount of time it takes to "completete" the game. The game didnt become any more interesting because of it or any more fun. It just became a grindfest.

  • indubitably1
    Seafarer

    Do you get more guild rep when turning in treasure with multiple members of the guild present?

    If not, that seems to incentivize playing solo (doing hourglass for example, which is faster for a solo than larger parties) which is counter-intuitive given a new option to join guild members has been added.

  • iCtus XXI
    Marauder
    Insider

    @indubitably1 thats a fantastic point, because you dont. Atm a guild with 24 ships sailing at the same time with "mercenaries" filling the free slots would be most efficient. Which goes directly against the community aspect of guilds and in my opinion is a terrible gamedesign.
    You are basically getting punished if you sail with your guildies and sell loot with them since itll only count for 1. Guildrep should be gained by each individual, meaning a full galley with 4 guildmembers should earn 4x as much as a soloslooper.

    Especially given the fact that worldevents are tailored towards your crewsize since last season. Meaning a sloop finishes a worldevent as fast as a full galley. Basically, sailing on a galley compared to a duosloop is half as efficient in terms of guildrep. This makes no sense.

    Atm since HG is way better than anything else a guild having 24 people do solosloop HG will be most efficient.

    To summarize: the social feature "guilds" forces you to play alone without your friends if you also want to be efficient on the absolutely overtuned grind that is guildrep.

  • Grantsby
    Captain

    @ictus-xxi said in Guild Progression FAQ:

    @indubitably1 thats a fantastic point, because you dont. Atm a guild with 24 ships sailing at the same time with "mercenaries" filling the free slots would be most efficient. Which goes directly against the community aspect of guilds and in my opinion is a terrible gamedesign.
    You are basically getting punished if you sail with your guildies and sell loot with them since itll only count for 1. Guildrep should be gained by each individual, meaning a full galley with 4 guildmembers should earn 4x as much as a soloslooper.

    Especially given the fact that worldevents are tailored towards your crewsize since last season. Meaning a sloop finishes a worldevent as fast as a full galley. Basically, sailing on a galley compared to a duosloop is half as efficient in terms of guildrep. This makes no sense.

    Atm since HG is way better than anything else a guild having 24 people do solosloop HG will be most efficient.

    To summarize: the social feature "guilds" forces you to play alone without your friends if you also want to be efficient on the absolutely overtuned grind that is guildrep.

    I hear you too! While I doubt that they'll give a 4X, 3X or 2X multiplier for sailing with fellow guildmates... Interesting strategy for grinding guild rep... 24 solo sloopers ( or even any size crews, as long as 1 gulidmate is present on the crew) all HG'ing at the same time... oof!!!

    Super effective (presuming you're winning frequently) but not quite the "shared community experience of working together" that I believe they were trying to promote this whole new Emissary as.

  • Reverend Toast
    Commander
    Insider

    @zeyrniyx Would be better for Guild Rank 5 (Which is currently giving a toast message and Guild post saying "Guild Emissary Flag Unlocked") to get the Emissary flag. There really is no reason for it to be level 15 except for it to be in line with 3 of the other 5 trading companies that offer flags.

  • JackieBoomBox
    Master
    Insider

    I've played Guilds almost solidly since the minute the servers opened on 19th and despite much gold and skulls on five flags with loads of Emissary flags in alliances at times on the open servers and our Guild is currently 2 and 3/4 of wheel.

    I haven't seen anything that suggests I've got anything from anyone else in the guild doing things.

    I am currently maxed out on 99% of the game, but after seeing the trailer with the Shrouded Ghost attacking I assumed we would all get the commendation.

    If I am getting general meg/Karen/ghost ship milestones from other people's ship.

    Is it a case of someone else taking your ship out. Does that then mean you lose valuable sailing time not working on your own ship milestones.

    I haven't even seen anything that suggests I've picked up Gold from another Guild members efforts.

    Guilds already feel like way too much of a grind for no added rewards.

    Maybe mine are broken....

    Could you maybe produce a list of Guild advantages. In the same way you produced a list of things Safer Seas didn't do but obviously in reverse for Guilds.

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