Remove/reset flag when entering portal

  • KAKAROTO9766
    Ship Mate

    Portal hopping gives benefit specifically to 1 faction, making it unfair for every other faction.

    A reaper who is hunting ships spends the time to level up his flag. At the risk of not finding enough/any emissaries when he makes it to level 5. Which is little to no loss, as you can sell everything at the reaper and get more money than any other faction.

    Another emissary does the same thing, at the risk of being hunted down by reapers and losing their hard earned work/loot.

    Now all of the above is fairly balanced if you ask me. But when you introduce portals you give reapers the following unfair benefit:

    • A reaper can level up, sell all his stuff, and then portal hop until he finds a victim, he keeps all his money and his flag.

    • Another emissary suddenly gets a lvl5 reaper in his server with no warning, and even if they are not in the middle of say a vault, and are fully aware of the map, they cannot take advantage of this benefit. They cannot escape the portal because they will lose their loot. And the functionality is POINTLESS to say a gold hoarder. Why would a gold hoarder lvl 5 with no loot server hop? To do PVE in another server? I guess he could if there's too many reapers in his server, but only at that specific time when he has no loot and he is about to do something else.

    You solve this simply by removing the flag same as you remove loot when portal hopping, or resetting it to lvl1. And its 100% equal to every faction.
    Or you could reset it to half (lvl 2.5 or 3 if you are 5).

    I play reaper a lot, and I enjoy it, and I have abused portal hopping, but from a balance standpoint I do recognise it offers MOST (not all) of its advantages to 1 faction only.

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  • BurnBacon
    Vanguard
    Insider

    A reaper can level up, sell all his stuff, and then portal hop until he finds a victim, he keeps all his money and his flag.

    Road works both ways.
    An Emissary of any faction can start up a portal, not use it and still go about doing normal voyages. If a Reaper appears, quickly sale and jump servers to escape.

    If Reapers can use it to Hunt, others can use it to Run.

  • Ghostpaw
    Legend

    @kakaroto9766 I agree. Portal hopping should result in leaving behind an emissary flag to start over on a new server. The emissary system is not simply a rep and gold boosting system. You pointed out some of the emissary system dynamics that are undermined by portal hopping.

  • KAKAROTO9766
    Ship Mate

    @burnbacon said in Remove/reset flag when entering portal:

    A reaper can level up, sell all his stuff, and then portal hop until he finds a victim, he keeps all his money and his flag.

    Road works both ways.
    An Emissary of any faction can start up a portal, not use it and still go about doing normal voyages. If a Reaper appears, quickly sale and jump servers to escape.

    If Reapers can use it to Hunt, others can use it to Run.

    It would be equally fair if you could run away with loot. Would you like that as a reaper?
    As Emissary I would love that.
    As reaper it would be trash because people could run away with loot.

    But the current system is only trash towards non reapers.

  • Xultanis Dragon
    Sailor

    @kakaroto9766

    I think it works until they can rework reapers. Especially if they are leaving Server Alliances in.

    Most players won't fly a flag if a Reaper 5 is on the field or even a reaper 2 or 3. Which means there is never anything to hunt while flying reapers. They sale and leave immediately.

    I think the reaper hop is a good work around until they can rework reapers or at least until they rework emissary.

    Last bit, is that you don't know for sure if the ship you see on the map landed from portal or if it was merged in.

  • Galactic Geek
    Seafarer
    Founder

    I do think you should lose any and all emmisary flags when portal hopping.

  • PapaRug420
    Master

    Retaining your flag is AWESOME!

    Reaper 5's can KILL a server, portal hopping fixes that.

    Also, if you are a merchant 5 and haven't claimed your emissary quest yet, and there is a reaper hanging around, you can portal hop and escape.

    It works for everyone.

    It just needs to be sped up, takes too long as it is to switch servers.

  • KAKAROTO9766
    Ship Mate

    @xultanis-dragon said in Remove/reset flag when entering portal:

    @kakaroto9766

    Most players won't fly a flag if a Reaper 5 is on the field or even a reaper 2 or 3. Which means there is never anything to hunt while flying reapers. They sale and leave immediately.

    I disagree with that, what you say is just an opinion and not a fact. Although for sure devs could track emissary flags raised while reapers are on the map to see if that is an issue.
    Personally I fly whatever flag regardless of who is around. I like conflict and I dont mind if a reaper tries to come get my loot.

    What I AM careful about with a lvl 5 reaper is vaults. I will be really careful with going in to a vault if there is a lvl 5 reaper. Or will not go in to it at all.

    When I reaper and I make it to lvl 5 reaper I ALMOST always find 1-3 emissaries online. When you consider that servers tend to have something like 5-6 ships tops, that is a lot. Very rarely do I see no emissaries.

    If you want to see 5+ emissaries on the table then your complaint is about amount of ships in a server, not how reapers work.

    I think the reaper hop is a good work around until they can rework reapers or at least until they rework emissary.

    Even if this was an issue, you dont fix one broken thing by breaking other. Portal hopping is extremely abusable. You can level up, server hop, kill all emissaries there and server hop again.

    You can kill all the emissaries of multiple servers having leveled up 1 flag.

  • Schwammlgott
    Champion

    @burnbacon sagte in Remove/reset flag when entering portal:

    A reaper can level up, sell all his stuff, and then portal hop until he finds a victim, he keeps all his money and his flag.

    Road works both ways.
    An Emissary of any faction can start up a portal, not use it and still go about doing normal voyages. If a Reaper appears, quickly sale and jump servers to escape.

    If Reapers can use it to Hunt, others can use it to Run.

    Sure, "quickly" selling all and then portal hop...until you realize, you've lost your gilded voyage/emissary voyage by doing that...doesn't seem fair to me, that a reaper can keep his emissary bonus (seeing all emissarys), and other emissarys lose theyr emissary bonus (voyage)

  • Schwammlgott
    Champion

    The emissary flag should be like every other piece of treasure...fall into the water when using a portal

  • DrizKillz
    Commander
    Insider

    NOTHING worth gold should be allowed, copy/paste'd, through the portal. Period.

  • KAKAROTO9766
    Ship Mate

    @schwammlgott

    That is one solution yes.

    They let you keep your flag so you do not lose your progress, but drop loot so people dont serverhop to escape a fight.

    So if you dont let people use it to escape a fight, why let people looking for fights use it for that?

    The intention was likely never serverhopping, but rather to allow them to develop new talltales in completely separate/different worlds. Serverhopping is just an abuse of that functionality.

  • Kashmero
    Lord
    Insider

    @kakaroto9766 Yeah it was never the intention to use it for server hopping.

    But it has become just that, and it therefore needs some balancing.

    I'd be fine with emissaries losing 1 grade of your flag per portal hop.

    Reaper 5 goes to 4, so they have to spend time getting back to 5 on the new server, giving emissaries on the server time to react.

  • Galactic Geek
    Seafarer
    Founder

    Pirates need to just become more accustomed to Reapers on a server, and either deal with them, or learn how to avoid them (without server hopping).

  • DrizKillz
    Commander
    Insider

    @galactic-geek Then they should just let people go with loot too & just leave a 'copy' behind.

  • ajm123
    Legend
    Insider
    Founder

    Technically reapers don't get anything to they sell the loot like everyone else and are hunted equally if not more then anyone in the game.

    Reapers need to find and steal the loot sell it all while the entire server knows they are coming

    Add the fact people server hop as reapers and hunt reapers it's a clean wash as far as I'm concerned as far as keeping flags

  • KAKAROTO9766
    Ship Mate

    @galactic-geek said in Remove/reset flag when entering portal:

    Pirates need to just become more accustomed to Reapers on a server, and either deal with them, or learn how to avoid them (without server hopping).

    "Lets allow reapers to abuse serverhopping, and keep it so emissaries cant server hop to escape because they lose their loot"...that sounds smart...not

  • D3ADST1CK
    Vanguard
    Insider
    Founder

    The way the Reaper is set up to work is broken in the first place. Being visible and being able to see every other emissary at Grade 5 is the reason that servers empty out. If that didn't happen, no one would care about using the portals and there would be less reason to use them as a Reaper.

    Reaper's Bones needs to be reworked to prevent other ships from not flying flags or just leaving the server. They have a disproportionate advantage to using the portals compared to the other trading companies which should be fixed if they aren't going to do anything about the faction itself, but that isn't fixing the root issue.

  • KAKAROTO9766
    Ship Mate

    Experienced youtuber/twitcher talking about serverhopping:

    https://youtu.be/oG580fcgOwo?t=577

    There's more in other parts of the video, but this is a fairly good example

    Earlier in the video he suggested a solution to serverhopping would be to charge you to serverhop. Sell a quest that costs 15k and when you use it you serverhop.

    And I think thats another good option/solution.

  • ajm123
    Legend
    Insider
    Founder

    @kakaroto9766 I wouldn't be against paying to hop but the issue is you don't find ships 75% if not 85% of the time. Which equates to around 10 min per hop so you can. Easily spend 1 hour and not find anything.

    I've done it every day since it became a feature around 4 hours a day at night mostly.

    What I think should be done.... Coming from a person who rarely does pve is some sort of way to acknowledge the reaper entering the server.

  • Galactic Geek
    Seafarer
    Founder

    @kakaroto9766 said in Remove/reset flag when entering portal:

    @galactic-geek said in Remove/reset flag when entering portal:

    Pirates need to just become more accustomed to Reapers on a server, and either deal with them, or learn how to avoid them (without server hopping).

    "Lets allow reapers to abuse serverhopping, and keep it so emissaries cant server hop to escape because they lose their loot"...that sounds smart...not

    You're making in incorrect assumption - I don't think anyone, Reaper, other emmisary, or otherwise, should be able to take anything through the portals except for supplies (not loot, not flags, not even supply crates). Period.

    To be clear, the only thing you take with you besides the aforementioned supplies is your ship, your crew, and your voyages.

  • Dr Orchamedes
    Master

    @kakaroto9766 even though I have participated in this activity as reaper 5... I absolutely agree it should remove the emissary. I love the idea of portal hopping, but yeah, it should 100% remove the flags.

  • Frogfish12
    Lord
    Insider

    It Definitely needs balancing but the concept in itself isn't disastrous when it comes to how Reapers can use it. The point of Reaper 5 is being able to see Emissaries, if there are no Emissaries, then you get no value. If a player is looking to run Emissary and sees they loaded into a lobby with a Reaper 5 (or maybe not even only 5, just a reaper in general) they will most likely just leave the lobby and go find a new server to start on. This means that its usually pretty Rare to get to grade 5 reaper and still consistently find players to and sink that are Emissaried once you've hit grade 5. The Reason Portal hopping can be good is because it means that the Reaper isn't 'stuck' in their lobby as they can go find a new lobby to invade.

    Pros:

    • Reapers can do more at Grade 5 as they don't have to work their way back up to 5, by which most emissaries have already finished and left, or just disconnected when they saw a Reaper. (Can be a con as Reapers get to bypass having to Level their flag up on each lobby)
    • All Emissaries can dodge the lobby and maintain the flag, such as an Athena Grade 4 Emissary saving themselves so that they can go to a new lobby, buy a new voyage and get to grade 5.

    Cons:

    • The Negatives of Portal Hopping are much less Severe against a Reaper, when Hopping Server via Portal you lose your Voyage, Reapers don't work on voyages, so they don't get that loss. If you're emissary and portal hop, you need to start your voyage again.
    • The point of seeing a Reaper from level 1 to level 5 is that you can see when a Reaper starts on your lobby and you can watch as they level up to know when you are safe from a Level 5 hunting you and how much time you have until they reach that level. If Level 5s just Pop into your lobby immediately, then it sort of defeats that point. Yes you could get merged into a Reaper lobby naturally, but being able to force it will mean it happens much more often.

    In my Opinion, the Cons outweigh the Pros, But I think there could be a way to balance it without just flat out removing it.

  • FAST 420
    Legend
    Insider
    Founder

    Hmmm ok if this is removed I'll just clean out all other ships on the server drop anchor server merge with the same effect. Loot and level 5 flag included.

  • OndrejBakan
    Ship Mate

    Wait, you don't lose your emissary flag while portal hopping? That's strange, I was chasing an Athena emissary sloop and they entered the portal, leaving their Athena flag behind in the sea, with the loot.

  • wsurftvveeds
    Master
    Insider

    I think I said this in another thread, but I know for a fact that rare employees themselves use reaper 5 server hopping (I've fought them!). As such I can't really see anything changing with it tbh.

  • dlCHIEF58
    Champion
    Insider

    @ondrejbakan said in Remove/reset flag when entering portal:

    Wait, you don't lose your emissary flag while portal hopping? That's strange, I was chasing an Athena emissary sloop and they entered the portal, leaving their Athena flag behind in the sea, with the loot.

    That is because a duplicate drops, which is whack too. Person living keeps their flag and a duplicate drops in their wake.

  • KAKAROTO9766
    Ship Mate

    @galactic-geek said in Remove/reset flag when entering portal:

    To be clear, the only thing you take with you besides the aforementioned supplies is your ship, your crew, and your voyages.

    Well that is not the case right now. You take your flag, and that gives an advantage particularly to reapers. Thats the whole subject of the post.

  • KAKAROTO9766
    Ship Mate

    @frogfish12 said in Remove/reset flag when entering portal:

    It Definitely needs balancing but the concept in itself isn't disastrous when it comes to how Reapers can use it. The point of Reaper 5 is being able to see Emissaries, if there are no Emissaries, then you get no value.

    Its not the ONLY point. You can also sell EVERYTHING at the reaper for 2.5 the price. While other factions only sell some of the stuff at 2.5 and everything else at 1.0.

    Nothing is guaranteed for anyone, leveling up reaper to 5 is a risk as well as anything else. You might or not get emissaries, emissaries might outplay you and might lower the flag before you make it to 5. You are assuming that making it to level 5 should guarantee you get prey, and it shouldnt.

    In my Opinion, the Cons outweigh the Pros, But I think there could be a way to balance it without just flat out removing it.

    Well ideas I or other people have suggested that I like:

    • Sell a reaper voyage that costs gold and which server hops you. Maybe add a notification to the server that a new hunter has arrived.
    • Keep things as they are, but halve the level of the flag when you serverhop or lower the flag by 1 level
  • KAKAROTO9766
    Ship Mate

    @fast-420 said in Remove/reset flag when entering portal:

    Hmmm ok if this is removed I'll just clean out all other ships on the server drop anchor server merge with the same effect. Loot and level 5 flag included.

    Knock yourself out, in that case its not abusing a system that was not designed for such thing, in this case you are doing a server merge naturally, and most important of all you have to WORK FOR IT. Not just sail in to a green light and out.

    You might appear in another server with 0 emissaries, and you will have to sail the entire map to find people, sink 4-5 ships, hope they ALL quit after you sink them to do another merge.

    Instead of just going back in to the green portal and out again

  • Frogfish12
    Lord
    Insider

    @kakaroto9766 I think either of those would work well, if not both together. If they only Portal through at grade 3-4 then they don't immediately get to scope out the lobby for emissaries and then turn right back into the portal if its empty.

    Reaper 5 doesn't guarantee prey but getting grade 5 of the other faction does guarantee you loot through a voyage, which is the point of those companies. With Reaper 5 Power you're supposed to get the loot via fighting Emissaries which is why you're shown them. But getting Reaper 5 actively negates the amount of Emissaries on the lobby because they just leave beforehand. That's why I think Portals are at least a good way for Reapers to get some use out of their Emissary Power. I think lowering their grade when portal hopping is a good choice because it removes the point of emissary requiring you to re-build your grade on each lobby to gain your power. So Hopping at 3-4 means they retain some of it but still have to work a bit to get it back up.

  • Frogfish12
    Lord
    Insider

    Also as @wsurftvveeds mentioned, Me and Him encountered a Rare Employee on the Seas, they were hopping through Portals as Grade 5 Reaper looking for Emissaries to fight. So just because its 'not intended' doesn't mean Rare won't use it themselves, or even adopt the feature similar to Sword Lunge Jumping.

  • Galactic Geek
    Seafarer
    Founder

    @kakaroto9766 said in Remove/reset flag when entering portal:

    @galactic-geek said in Remove/reset flag when entering portal:

    To be clear, the only thing you take with you besides the aforementioned supplies is your ship, your crew, and your voyages.

    Well that is not the case right now. You take your flag, and that gives an advantage particularly to reapers. Thats the whole subject of the post.

    I know. What I mentioned was a suggestion. Thanks for noticing! 🙄

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