Joining Same Server with More Than 1 Crew

they need as much random organic (non contrived) activity as they can get for the game to be close to the vision and intent of the environment.

There is a growing list of contradictions that have been added/enabled over time that are counter productive but currently the goal is still to maintain a random environment where people can cheese/coordinate outside of features (in theory)

Now that organic activity is back to a stable place right now (will see how it goes in the next couple of months) there really is no reason for them to sacrifice more of that vision with features like this, imo

@wolfmanbush

If the vision / intent of the game environment is to emulate pirate era fantasy seafaring then by all means coordinated fleets belonging to the same group would be part of that environment. Take the most famous example, Pirates of the Caribbean (literally also in this game). There are armadas in the series that the main characters must interact with, form alliances against, and defend themselves from. Creating fleets has been a mechanic since year 1, but only for Alliances between online strangers.

I think your belief that game activity should be 'random' doesn't make a whole lot of sense either, otherwise Alliances and Commendations related to inter-crew cooperation wouldn't be part of the game as they require coordinated effort between multiple crews.

'Organic' or 'contrived' gameplay is a completely subjective criteria unique to each individual player, as well as 'strong' or 'weak' alliances. What is an objective fact is that for 4 years players have been asking for the ability to play with more than 3 additional friends while adventuring.

The bottom line is that as long as Alliances are a mechanic within the game, there's no reason they can't include Alliances between existing friendships. It doesn't make sense to exclude a feature if the exclusion of that feature actively drives players away from the game. Ultimately the goal of any video game is player engagement.

If Rare's worry is that PvP will become unbalanced, then they should at least offer the ability to have a closed server (god knows there are plenty of empty servers) or a PvE mode (another request by players for multiple years). By not offering some compromise like this, Rare is implying (whether intentionally or not) that large groups of friends are not welcome.

@littlepeoplesng said in Joining Same Server with More Than 1 Crew:

'Organic' or 'contrived' gameplay is a completely subjective criteria unique to each individual player

not really in risk/reward design which is what the game's foundation is

friends on 1 boat makes sense in that design, stacking servers with fleets does not, it doesn't make sense for combat, risk/reward, or random adventure with the limitations the game has and the population the game has.

Significantly higher game population mixed with more boats per server could create some wiggle room for offering 2 ship alliance feature but the game is unlikely to ever see significant population increase or server size increase especially 5 years in. Servers struggle with 6 ships to a very noticeable degree, to the point where they are making sacrifices to other features just to keep it around.