Quest Board Reworks

Adding a grade value would make those who don’t bury enough or high value items worthless. Nobody would want to dig them up

Meaning, the whole bonus of someone digging up your treasure and earning renown would fall only to those who bury worth wild treasures…which in itself isn’t fair.

Adding bottle messages sounds cool but I rather problem itself.

You never know if the X is worth the trouble until dug up. And the bottles are area made. (I’ve never picked up one and had to visit DR unless I was in the wilds)

You could post that bottle, with 5 X and someone digs it up. Boom, 5 captains chests.
I say that isn’t worth posting but digging

@burnbacon said in Quest Board Reworks:

Adding a grade value would make those who don’t bury enough or high value items worthless. Nobody would want to dig them up

Meaning, the whole bonus of someone digging up your treasure and earning renown would fall only to those who bury worth wild treasures…which in itself isn’t fair.

Adding bottle messages sounds cool but I rather problem itself.

You never know if the X is worth the trouble until dug up. And the bottles are area made. (I’ve never picked up one and had to visit DR unless I was in the wilds)

You could post that bottle, with 5 X and someone digs it up. Boom, 5 captains chests.
I say that isn’t worth posting but digging

That's a fair argument. However, I do think that something needs to be done to incentivize people to leave more valuable loot behind if player-generated content is going to be successful. I recently did a session where all I did was player-made maps just to see what kind of stuff people were burying, and the results were pretty abysmal. Most maps were worth less than 500 gold, and most of the loot was trinkets and low-tier skulls.

Obviously, the grading system is just an idea, and even as its own idea it needs a lot of polish. Perhaps keep the grade hidden (so, tweaking point #3) so the "buying" player doesn't know what grade of map they're getting? The player that buried the treasure would still be rewarded for burying higher value loot. Another thought would be to only show one gold-graded map on the board, or only allow one gold map in the radial - so you'd be getting more gold from the map, but be doing fewer maps if you're only going after valuable ones. These are just a couple thoughts off the top of my head.

Any ideas?

@super87ghost A doubloon reward would be a good idea, but only if they actually add more things to spend doubloons on. Right now, I'm sitting pretty on like... 1500 doubloons, with nothing to spend it on fast enough. Since most of their new cosmetic additions to the game go straight to the ancient coin shop, doubloons have become mostly meaningless.

But yes, coupled with keeping the values of maps hidden, I think a reward for posting a higher value map would be a good idea. Just unsure of what that reward should be.

Most of the time maps aren't even player maps, the game also auto generates maps and posts them so there is always stuff to find. The game made ones are always kind of garbage as well. You can tell that most of the time it is all game made ones because the game will generate two maps per region. So if you don't see at least 3 maps in a region they are all game made ones.

Game made ones should have a chance at producing good loot to make checking the board in general more worth it. And yes, more incentive needs to be added to making maps. I stand by on also getting some coin for on the current rewards, but having it be Doubloons. Then, start adding items to buy from time to time that cost Doubloons so there is a reason to spend them as well rather than just convert to Gold.

@redeyesith Huh. I wasn't even aware that the game auto-generated maps in the absence of normal maps. I agree that the auto-generated maps should be better if that's the case.

Agreed on the second paragraph. There need to be more rewards than the vague "you get some season rep gain if someone digs up and sells your loot" reward. That's not going to motivate me to bury anything. I can get to level 100 season rep just by playing the game normally. Add more doubloon items and reward doubloons for your maps. Higher doubloon counts for higher value maps.

If the game already generates maps to put on the quest board to make it not seem like dead content, then Rare should have no problem allowing people to add bottle quests and captain's orders to the board.

@jmcafreak I would also like it to be clear it's a player map and not a generated map. Have you seen my name? It's more NPC like than some of the npc names.

Additionally, as the board is not a global thing and is isolated to that specific server, to further encourage people making this content it would be good to simply get the rewards regardless of if another player elects to run your Map or not honestly. As it stands now I believe you get partial for Maps that don't actually get done, but that makes burying loot a big gamble compared to just turning it in.

And yea, just Rep and Renown doesn't quite cut it as noted above. As you mention many players can just get to 100 Renown by the end of a Season from normal play (and clearly those who can't aren't trying to make it up via this system as it is almost always just server maps with junk loot always which just discourages people from even looking at the board, and now you have a feedback loop to the death of the content). Further, if you have maxed out the Faction Reputations, you're basically left with zero reason now to actually participate outside of Commendations (cause you at least get Gold for cashing them in yourself). Those Commendations only require you to post something a few times before they are all done, so even the Comm chasers will burn out the system in no time flat.

If I were to really dive into a revamp on the system, I would provide the Doubloons in ratio to the Gold/Doubloon value of the stuff buried. I would add more Commendations around it as well and consider it a Bilge Rat thing (making adventures outside of the Factions is sort of their thing). On top of X Mark Maps it would be good to have variety, so loot lost to Sea could automatically generate Shipwreck Voyages and Loot that is left to despawn on Islands could generate Treasure Vaults. These could replace the standard auto generated X Mark Maps as it would be more difficult to properly assign this to a particular player. That would make X Mark Maps blatantly obvious as truly placed by Players whereas the other ones are "loot preservation systems" that the game uses for cleanup purposes. Maybe even add a pseudo "bounty" system where you can place a "bounty" on the memory of a player you encountered where instead of a Skeleton Captain you would get a Phantom who looks like the player in question with their name on the bounty paper that has some updated AI to make a more challenging fight - could let people sort of take out their frustrations from encounters without tons of complication that other bounty system ideas run into.

In that way you have a system that provides some actual variety in the type of content you're gonna go engage with - and everything player initiated is explicitly clear while the autogenerated things have a chance for more varied loot. Of course all of those ideas aren't concrete of well baked, but they address facets of the system that I think could really stand for an overhaul. I just feel like there is a lot of potential in the system that is very untapped as of yet.

@captain-coel Ooh that's a good idea. And yeah. With some of the names I see around, it's sometimes hard to determine what's a real name and what's a game-generated name. Having a way to know whether the map comes from the auto-generated pool or from an actual player would be nice.

@redeyesith said in Quest Board Reworks:

Additionally, as the board is not a global thing and is isolated to that specific server, to further encourage people making this content it would be good to simply get the rewards regardless of if another player elects to run your Map or not honestly. As it stands now I believe you get partial for Maps that don't actually get done, but that makes burying loot a big gamble compared to just turning it in.

Oh it's even worse if it's isolated to a specific server. I figured it would be global. There's no reason it shouldn't be, in my opinion. If that's the way it has to be, then the rewards definitely need to be given for posting the map regardless of whether someone picks it up, as you say.

And yea, just Rep and Renown doesn't quite cut it as noted above. As you mention many players can just get to 100 Renown by the end of a Season from normal play (and clearly those who can't aren't trying to make it up via this system as it is almost always just server maps with junk loot always which just discourages people from even looking at the board, and now you have a feedback loop to the death of the content). Further, if you have maxed out the Faction Reputations, you're basically left with zero reason now to actually participate outside of Commendations (cause you at least get Gold for cashing them in yourself). Those Commendations only require you to post something a few times before they are all done, so even the Comm chasers will burn out the system in no time flat.

This is an excellent point that I hope someone at Rare reads. The combination of poor or no integration into existing game systems, player-generated content being server locked, auto-generated content being pure garbage, lack of incentive to post/look at the board, and improper rewards, just pushes the system down. It all feeds into each other, with each individual problem making the others worse.

If I were to really dive into a revamp on the system, I would provide the Doubloons in ratio to the Gold/Doubloon value of the stuff buried. I would add more Commendations around it as well and consider it a Bilge Rat thing (making adventures outside of the Factions is sort of their thing).

Absolutely. Better rewards, more commendations, and more integration into existing things. Perhaps even unique commendations for burying high value loot (chests of legends, rage, sorrow, etc) and subsequently posting it to the Quest Board. The reason it would need to be posted to give those specific commendations is that otherwise a player could just bury it and then dig it back up themselves. I got my commendation for burying loot by literally burying and digging up the same item over and over again - so there needs to be a "confirmation" of burial, which would be posting the map to the Quest Board.

On top of X Mark Maps it would be good to have variety

More variety is good. I wouldn't be opposed to seeing clue scrolls, bounty scrolls, or even map types that are unique to the quest board.

Loot lost to Sea could automatically generate Shipwreck Voyages and Loot that is left to despawn on Islands could generate Treasure Vaults.

I'm not so sure about the vault idea. It would have too much potential for overlapping vaults on maps since there's a limited number of islands that have vaults. It would potentially allow a player to get three vaults for the same island and therefore have to waste their time leaving and coming back to let the vault reseal.

The shipwreck idea has potential. Put all lost player loot (loot that players interacted with that ended up despawning without being sold) from a server in a single pool. Generate a map pointing to the coordinates of a shipwreck that contains loot selected from that pool. Have a minimum value for the loot collection on the ship. When a player picks up the map, the shipwreck spawns, and the map will point them to its general whereabouts, and perhaps even the whereabouts of a key (it could be hidden on the ship similar to the Shipwreck Graveyard, or a nearby island).

In order to hit the minimum value of loot, random loot would be added from a weighted loot table. It would always prioritize player loot, of course, but in absence of player loot, it would add worthwhile loot from the table.

These could replace the standard auto generated X Mark Maps as it would be more difficult to properly assign this to a particular player. That would make X Mark Maps blatantly obvious as truly placed by Players whereas the other ones are "loot preservation systems" that the game uses for cleanup purposes.

Well, if the player is also given the ability to post Captain's Orders and Bottle Quests, it wouldn't quite make the distinction clear. So perhaps

Maybe even add a pseudo "bounty" system where you can place a "bounty" on the memory of a player you encountered where instead of a Skeleton Captain you would get a Phantom who looks like the player in question with their name on the bounty paper that has some updated AI to make a more challenging fight - could let people sort of take out their frustrations from encounters without tons of complication that other bounty system ideas run into.

Oh please yes. Maybe not even necessarily with the name of the player specifically. But an auto-assigned name that pulls from a new pool of names (so not a skeleton captain name or one of the "streamer mode" names - something unique and cool). Simply looking like the player would be enough. It may be tough, though, since I don't think there are phantom versions of all the pirates/clothing. Sure, there are the "dead" versions you see on the Ferry, but they're not quite the same.

In that way you have a system that provides some actual variety in the type of content you're gonna go engage with - and everything player initiated is explicitly clear while the autogenerated things have a chance for more varied loot. Of course all of those ideas aren't concrete of well baked, but they address facets of the system that I think could really stand for an overhaul. I just feel like there is a lot of potential in the system that is very untapped as of yet.

I agree. A lot of things could be overhauled in the Quest Board system. Adding unique map types to the quest board that you can't get anywhere else would also give yet another reason for players to check the board. Not only would there be a chance for good loot, but there would also now be unique adventures to go on.

So as it stands, here's the list of ideas for an overhaul:

• More incentive to post to the Quest Board - better rewards, more commendations (with more variety of commendations), etc. Change the reward from rep/renown to gold/doubloons proportional to the value buried. Sure, renown/rep can stay, but it's not enough of a motivator.
• Grading system for the maps on the board based on value, with incentive to bury/post higher grade maps. The player checking the board doesn't necessarily need to know the grade.
• Doubloon reward for posting the map, based on the value of the treasure buried (or the grade of the map). Obtain a share of the gold value of the treasure - either upon posting, or upon a player selling the treasure - based on the map grade. Example: Bronze maps reward 5% of the burial value, Silver maps reward 10%, and Gold maps reward 15%. These numbers could be adjusted (I would like to see 10, 15, and 25% shares).
• Allow posting non-voyage maps (bottles, captains orders, etc). This one might be tricky since someone could just post them without the other crewmembers wanting it to happen.
• A system to distinguish between truly player-generated content, game-generated content, and game content posted by a player (bottle maps, etc)
• Potential unique map types, such as shipwreck charts or some other map type, found only on the quest board - give further reason and incentive to check the board.
• Player-generated content is kept to the server until it is posted to the quest board, at which point it enters a global pool of player-generated maps.

Kind of had a new thought regarding the quest board.

These boards appear on the Seaposts in addition to outposts. So what if, as an additional unique map type (all in efforts to get people to check the boards), there are now Hunter's Call bounties on the board? People have been requesting Hunter's Call bounties/voyages for some time. This would provide a good middle ground (Merrick doesn't seem the type to send you on epic voyages, but he'd definitely share the location of a Megalodon).

Here are two ideas (obviously rough drafts, and could use some polish):

• A map showing the location of a megalodon or potentially even a kraken. Going out and killing it grants immediate Hunter's Call rep, and then you can sell the meat as well for more if you want.
• New creature types on islands. Perhaps you get a notice about a particularly large boar (or some other non-monster animal, such as a bear) on one of the islands. Your crew has to go out, fight it, and bring back a trophy. The animal types could be unique to these missions and would grant unique commendations and rewards.

These quests could be either available on all Quest Boards, or perhaps even only on the Seapost boards (giving pirates more reason to visit the seaposts). Obviously the fruits of these map types (meat, or in the second case, trophies) would bring players back to the seaposts as well.

Really, I just want to see the Quest Board succeed. It pains me that it's dead content with no real motivation for the community to make it active again.

@d3adst1ck said in Quest Board Reworks:

I think they should just not waste any more time on this feature. Players wanted to bury treasure for the longest time, it finally gets added and surprise! No one wants to do it.

I think one of the reasons nobody wants to do it is that the implementation was a half-baked system that offered no significant rewards for burying treasure. It relied on other players digging it up and selling it, and all you get is a little rep and some renown - all of which is more reliably and easily obtained by directly selling. It lost its novelty. There are still players who bury treasure, but with the way the system works, it's rare for their maps to be picked up and used by another crew. Right now the best way to ensure another crew actually gets the maps you've made is to just leave the map bundle on the dock.

Time to move on to other ideas. You can't make this feature that much better without encroaching on regular voyages, and the loop of getting treasure and bringing it back to sell, which is what the game is built around.

If the validity of an idea is based on whether it would encroach on voyages, then world events and sea forts should be scrapped entirely. Voyages are pointless when you can get more loot and rep from a world event or a sea fort. Sure, new players will do voyages for a while, but as soon as a more fun and more profitable option presents itself, they'll take it. As for the loop of getting treasure and bringing it back to sell, sure. Burying treasure isn't selling treasure, I'll grant you that. Believe it or not, that's part of the reason behind some of the suggested changes.

The ideas presented in this thread are improvements that wouldn't make other forms of play less valid or profitable. They are things that would flesh out the system and give people reason to participate in it. Things such as more worthwhile rewards (doubloons for posting maps, based on value, and a share of the gold value). The ability to discern between game-generated content and player-generated content. Submitted maps being made global rather than locked to the server. One or two unique map types that, while less valuable than voyages, are far more valuable than two bronze trinkets buried on a random island.

@d3adst1ck I was more pointing out that encroaching on voyages isn't really a reason not to implement something, but you'd be correct - people abandoned the board because it has such minimal value that it may as well be nothing. Clearly voyages have their place, still. But the board has no place right now. I don't think it needs to be more valuable to contribute than to sell the treasure, but it needs to be worth more than the current value: nothing.

This is part of why I'd want to offer gold/doubloon rewards based on the value buried. The idea obviously needs to be refined to prevent abuse (perhaps adding a daily cap to the number of maps that get doubloon rewards, and/or a minimum value to obtain the reward). But any value would be better than the current reward.