Events without rewards are not interesting

  • Hegemon3
    Commander
    Insider

    This is the second event in a row that has no cosmetic rewards. This feels bad, it's a missed opportunity. Not even a title. Surely you have a queue of cosmetics waiting to be released, why not throw one as a reward for the event? It is a thing now? I don't see much point in doing these events, especially if the activities are the same things we've been doing for years. We can dig kegs on the forts, yeey, while every fort already has 15 kegs laying around for years. What's the point?

    We also had no gromany event this year, so the streak on our tankard is broken. What happened with the effort in the event department? I get that the engine is struggling, technical debt is high and you can't fix the performance easily, but not doing proper events, lack of effort here, is shooting your own foot. Underwhelming.

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  • WolfManbush
    Champion

    It's the most skippable event that they have had since I've played the game.

    I've been wondering about the "why?"

    Maybe because it's a reaper event they figure taking criticism from social media regs is easier/better than a larger group flooding in with criticism about a reaper event. Casual/Pve players that don't like higher risk fomo.

    Maybe events have been outsourced to a team that just slaps a bonus gold/rep sticker on everything and calls it good.

    I think just running bonus events back to back to back is counterproductive long term for the economy of participation, but this specific event is kinda just "whatever".

    They will always get some of the fomo chasers, that's just how fomo works to any degree, but I wonder what the overall goal is with an event that is so easy to walk away from.

  • Veronik5682
    Sailor

    I think you guys have to realise I Genuinely believe they are doing the bare minimum in the fact of :
    Keep doing seasons every few months, and survive till the 10 year mark to make the decision to pull the plug on the game once and for all, or keep the slow decline of shutting down servers one by one as long as profit is being made by some sucker in the emporium.

    How is that I came back to this game after almost a years hiatus and it's performing worse then ever DESPITE playerbase being cut in half on the PC side of things? I quickly un-installed after two play sessions last night, sad to say. This event in one word was BORING, saw two ships when I server hopped 4 times and quickly did the gunpowder run, just for me to quit midway without turning them in.
    You'd think an event like this would bring in shenanigans by its nature. I must of been extremely unlucky.

    But looking at the positive: SoT had a really good 7-8? year live service run, but the game just isn't it anymore. Too much neglecting on the serious issues that most hardcore players in this game have been bringing up. It's like they don't listen. No wonder people are leaving in droves.

    Also I began to realize, you know how most games the average skill of the player naturally increases as a whole? SoT is the only game where it doesn't in my opinion, I think this is a direct correlation of appeasing to new players and mega casuals 100% of the time whilst neglecting the actual long term fans/player bases. What happened to the lore btw? With the burning blade, it's like they released it and did nothing with it right after. Odd.

    You even got the biggest content creators in 2024 that have lost partnership/quit or taking a massive step back from the game. I don't see a bright future in 2025 for SoT. 2024 was already bleak and did it's damage.
    mid/late 2023 is when I personally started seeing people just quitting the game more then usual.

    Great a much anticipated season coming out after YEARS of demand... Fishing/Hunting.... yeah ok. Should of been drip fed content and not bundled into a season, 15 seasons later...

    Grogmany held a special place in me since each year I would drink with friends and hop on the game to do its challenges and chill out in Voicechat. This year broke the tradition and a ''ehh dont feel like it'' felt sad.

  • BurnBacon
    Vanguard
    Insider

    This is the second event in a row that has no cosmetic rewards

    It not about the Reward, it about the chaos created by the event.

    I don't see much point in doing these events, especially if the activities are the same things we've been doing for years.

    Rarely if ever, do you see people stocking up Kegs on a ship and sailing with them :P

  • iTz Majman
    Legend
    Insider
    Founder

    Agreed, could've been a remade sail from the old reaper-voyages that they gave out during that time since this event is basically just a copy of those except you have Reaper Emi instead of the mark and FotD is a thing.

    Even getting a belt or something would've made all the difference.

  • Smuntface
    Captain
    Insider

    @veronik5682 said in Events without rewards are not interesting:

    ...you know how most games the average skill of the player naturally increases as a whole? SoT is the only game where it doesn't in my opinion, I think this is a direct correlation of appeasing to new players and mega casuals 100% of the time whilst neglecting the actual long term fans/player bases.

    I think you may be right outside of HG (which is only a small part of the player base).
    Also consider that there are players who avoid combat during solo play, but attack everything that floats in a bigger crew.

    @wolfmanbush said in Events without rewards are not interesting:

    It's the most skippable event that they have had since I've played the game.

    I've been wondering about the "why?"

    Nothing to earn. No forced player interaction. No commendations attached.

    If they'd re-created the Reapers Runs from years back? Perhaps purposefully concentrating players in one section of the map? Maybe offered up "wanted" rewards like the Wandering Reapers Hull & Sails for example?

    Any or all of these could have the made the event better.

  • Veronik5682
    Sailor

    @smuntface said

    Nothing to earn. No forced player interaction. No commendations attached.

    If they'd re-created the Reapers Runs from years back? Perhaps purposefully concentrating players in one section of the map? Maybe offered up "wanted" rewards like the Wandering Reapers Hull & Sails for example?

    Any or all of these could have the made the event better.

    100% percent. Remember the shrouded meg event in the adventures that they did shortly after Arena's closure. That was the first and last time I saw frequent and continuous player interactions over a time limited event.

    This event felt like a wasteland in comparison.

  • CaptDirtyOar
    Ship Mate

    Having fun is the main aspect I look for in a game. Not so much rewards.

    The Reaper Keg run is fun, having heaps of kegs onboard made us have to be more careful especailly seeing we wanted to sell them all for the extra coin.

    Then reaching the reapers hide out and seeing a ship already there made it more butt clenching.

  • KlutchxKay
    Champion
    Insider

    @burnbacon And you’re not gonna see nearly as much of that if nobody feels any worthwhile motivation to do so.

  • SweetSandMan
    Legend
    Insider

    An event idea that had so much potential for fun, it was extremely watered down by the fact that there wasn't broad participation by the community.

    And it wasn't just the fact that there were no cosmetic rewards. That really only deterred the experienced players. Casual players on the other hand don't go into 3 different sub-menus to find what's going on when they log in. Events aren't in your face. Events shouldn't be an if-you-know-you-know type of thing. They should be front and center. Remember those little letters we used to get when we woke up in the tavern announcing things like the old Adventures? What happened to those? Perfect use case for them. It should be front and center during the setting sail loading screens. Make it known. Make knowledge of fun stuff in the game be announced in the game. Casual players aren't following the SOT YouTube and Twitter pages. That can't be relied on as the source of information delivery.

  • xMiqGod
    Rogue

    @hegemon3 I made somewhat similar post to this yesterday, I mostly agree to be honest. I was hyped when I heard that this event is returning, and I thought it's going to be something like Wandering Reaper times... But it is what it is.

  • Lem0n Curry
    Vanguard
    Insider

    @sweetsandman said in Events without rewards are not interesting:

    An event idea that had so much potential for fun, it was extremely watered down by the fact that there wasn't broad participation by the community.

    And it wasn't just the fact that there were no cosmetic rewards. That really only deterred the experienced players. Casual players on the other hand don't go into 3 different sub-menus to find what's going on when they log in. Events aren't in your face. Events shouldn't be an if-you-know-you-know type of thing. They should be front and center. Remember those little letters we used to get when we woke up in the tavern announcing things like the old Adventures? What happened to those? Perfect use case for them. It should be front and center during the setting sail loading screens. Make it known. Make knowledge of fun stuff in the game be announced in the game. Casual players aren't following the SOT YouTube and Twitter pages. That can't be relied on as the source of information delivery.

    I agree to some extent; a big yes to not have the limited voyages on the third page and then some more clicking - especially when there is an error and it shows no voyages and you have to go through it 3-10 times for them to appear as I had to do with the daily ones around Christmas.

    There is a chance you'll see the appropiate pop-up when you start the game - perhaps it shows the first time you log in only ? Can't really test that, but I got it a day before yesterday but not now.

    There is a "What's new" section that has the time-limited voyage information front-and-center (well... front-and-top-left), that should have IMHO an indicator that there is actually something new. It takes a lot of clicks to start the game, I doubt many players want to click on that and then exit it again if there isn't something new in game in addition to the many clicks already in place.

  • ThatHappyHat
    Master
    Insider

    @burnbacon First of all yes people do stock up on kegs and sail them around I've had plenty of fights where I just had to shoot the crow's nest to win. Obviously the idea here is for more people to do it and make some chaos but if there's no reason for people to do it then they won't do it and nothing will change at all. This event doesn't add anything new or encourage players to do anything in the slightest.

    I've seen two people doing the event so far, and I sank them both not because of the event, but because they had a reaper's bones emissary up. Aside from that I haven't had any sort of engagement with the event at all because there's simply no reason to.

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