HOURGLASS NEEDS ATTENTION ASAP

yeah the mode has had no updates since its release over 2 years ago, i have thousands of matches and 6.5k levels and am starting to find hg boring plus it is really starting to die off. I wish they could mix it up and add some more rewards to grind for and change up how the battles take place. tbh i dont think rare wants to put any effort into hg and will most likely not update it.

@ghutar didn't drew list hourglass as something on the list, albeit amongst other priorities

Gotta agree. Hourglass is in a rough state currently. Cheaters are a big pain point that likely won't go away anytime soon, and while I'm glad to see some of the fixes people have asked for (looking at you invisible ships) being addressed, I think the mode needs a facelift. I also know that there are diehard hourglass enjoyers out there that will claim there is nothing wrong, but I just flat out disagree. Their contentedness with the mode as is doesn't negate the fact that the mode needs help.

Simple additions such as even more rewards to pad levels would be a great start. Look at every other PvP game in existence, and you'll see that there is support on multiple fronts; new maps/modes being added, in some cases seasonal progression, prestige, etc - all could benefit hourglass, and bring more people to the mode so it doesn't fizzle out.

At its worst it is one of the most frustrating/irritating game modes I have ever played in a game

Problem is, Its not a Mode. Its a Tool for Pvp finding.

The issue here is that 2 crews can have a very tight battle that goes on for around 40 minutes and the loser of that fight will feel completely deflated having made very little progress during that entire time despite putting up a good fight.

Issue is people use this Tool for the sake of Rep and Reward, when it main focus is just simple: Find PvP and Fight.
Remove the Rewards and Rep.

I'm just trying to finish up these servants grind

So your not in for the PvP, just the rewards. Seems that is the issue with most. What your plan after the Grind is over? Stop playing HG?

Please fix this game mode and don't let it fall to the waste side like Arena.

Unlike Arena, Hourglass wont go anywhere, it a simple design that once again..Players have turn it into something its not.

@capt-greldik

Well said and I think a lot of what you said is valid. Your right the stuff I have mentioned is largely subjective, but I would go to bat to say that my experience which is that of a slightly above average hourglass player is more common than not. I've got I think 100 wins and I'm still working on improving and learning to apply the right amount of pressure which is why my fights tend to go long because I am almost too strict on how I repair. This post wasn't meant to be self-pity at all I was/am generally frustrated at a lot of people and how they choose to play hourglass. I want fair battles that leave me and the other guy having some respect for each other in the end and that is usually not the case. The que system I have mentioned works well when the que times are between 1-2 minutes. When they are in between 2-4 for servants I find that is a really painful time to play hourglass because the algorithm will match me with players above or below my skill level creating an unbalanced fight that either one feels like a waste of time or two, I get the win but it's like okay, I guess. I decided to play hourglass because as a player who has 1600 hours in the game pvp was always something I was afraid to engage in and I wanted to fix that and get the skeleton curse in the progress. The faction I always wanted to represent was reapers bones but for a long time I had just been running from it and decided I'm going to put my foot down and actually become an efficient hourglass player and in a lot of ways hourglass has done that for me. What I want is for the rep system to be rebalanced for people who lose fights I feel like maybe 35% of a win's rep is fair. I don't know what it is right now, but it feels far less than that and it's just discouraging especially because my own fights tend to last awhile because of stalemate situations and my lack of ability to hit cannons consistently.

It's something I've tried to get better at, but it is what it is. Getting third partied in a mode where two players are essentially caged into a circle is just bad game design that circle should be a place that is honored, and a barrier should be placed around the crews that are fighting so open crew burning blades don't interrupt great fights which is not even the purpose of the blade at all. The purpose of it is to sail to camps grind those and engage in pvp from crews that seek them out. It just feels like bullying in a way because I can't do anything against a 3-4 man burning blade. You can say its apart of adventure all you want but no matter how you spin it that is not fair and it's not great game design. Sure, it's funny for someone watching on the sidelines but it's very toxic especially when they hop on my sloop cuss me out call me bad and ruin the integrity of this match I'm having with this other person.

I want hourglass to be treated like this coliseum mode almost where it's you and the other crew and no shenanigans from outside parties. I want it to be treated with respect and there should be a ranking mode. Arena was a respected mode. If you see other players with sea dog titles or cosmetics theirs a level of respect that I have when I see that because that was a mode that was treated with more honor than hourglass is. On demand pvp is great but the players in hourglass are not indicative of the players that are in adventure. What you're getting better at is sailing in a circle for 15 minutes and keeping angle and whoever does that the best while applying the most pressure wins. In adventure players don't follow those rules and it can be very unpredictable especially with open crews. My whole point is I want hourglass to be a more honorable experience where players can go to have a good time, be competitive, be rewarded fairly, and have the battles there in treated with more integrity. Also, you mention there is no ranked system but there is one that is working behind the scenes keeping track of your skill level and matching you up with players accordingly. You're not just being matched up willy nilly with random jo bob bilge rat. Also, I do think tdmers who have no intention of sinking other players and just do it because they want to tdm should be punished for that and have another mode that allows them to have that on demand tdm. With arena being gone it left this subset of players who still want that experience but choose to do it in hourglass and it's just irritating. I had one guy for 10 minutes straight spawn kills me on my boat as it was anchored with no intention of sinking me just telling me to leave the game. I told him just sink me this is a waste of my time I'm trying to earn the skeleton curse not just randomly tdm for 30 minutes. I don't have the solution for that but there should be penalties for spawn killing players on their ship past a certain limit and I think that can be implemented. If they fix the que, the rep system, add more cosmetics between levels 1-100, crank down on cheaters, penalize spawn campers who are too aggressive with it, and restrict other players from joining the hourglasses that are not in the battle I think it would be a far better game mode that would have a larger player base. If people want to play HG for just the curses that is fine they have that right to do that, but the overall integrity of the experience needs to be fixed.

Hourglass is a horse with a broken leg. It could take us places that are amazing and great, if it doesn’t get put down (and no, I don’t mean removed, I mean ‘killed’ by the community because of its lack of updates). I think as long as there are some amount of consistent updates to the quality of Hourglass (bugs w/ Allegiance, cheaters, etc.) and it gets a bit more polished with, say, some kind of new mode besides the Spinnin’ and Shootin’ Simulator it currently is (maybe TDM mode on a Sea Fort or Large Island?? Or a new fleet-battle kind of mode that requires more coordination cross-ship, maybe?) it could rise from the grave everybody says it’s in. I don’t think it’s as bad as some people say (queue times are NOT more than 10 minutes, even on a bad day, people are just impatient), and if it gets some kind of skill-based matchmaking, it could go places. But I do understand the frustration. I haven’t REALLY played Hourglass lately, more I just hop in, win a battle, lose a battle, and forget about it for a while again, but I know it’s not THAT dead. A few Fight Nights and maybe a few pre-100 cosmetics would go a longer way than Rare seems to give it credit for.

@burnbacon

I started the grind to become better at pvp and get a level of experience I was satisfied with. I'm already satisfied with that experience, and I've felt I've gotten much better than when I was only playing adventure. I have been in 200 plus matches and after I get the curse I will be taking a break from the mode. I didn't start for the curse I mainly played it like I said to get better at pvp and do more things in the game that aligned with captain flameheart. I'm a lore aficionado with SoT and flameheart has always been my favorite character so I had to go into hourglass and prove to myself that I was a worthy servant and reaper. The curse is just a nice bow on all of that. I will continue playing after I finish getting the skeleton curse, but I miss adventure, so I'll be going back to grinding reaper distinctions and enjoying the new season. I would stay playing hourglass if the overall gameplay loop and rewards were better. The issue is the slow tedious drip of cosmetics after you reach level 100. It doesn't incentivize people to keep playing and with any game you need a satisfying reward system that keeps players engaged. If Call Of Duty ran like hourglass it would have lost 90% of its players. You can't keep any pvp gamemode healthy like this. Also, If I was just in it for the rewards why is that an issue? Most people would not play HG if the curses were not on offer because then you would be putting tons of hours into an empty bucket. It doesn't matter how great the pvp is in any game a satisfying rewards system is necessary for player engagement and health of the mode. Hourglass might not go anywhere but players definitely will, and they have. That's why only a fraction of the player base has a pvp curse because hourglass has painfully slow progression especially in later levels. The average player is not going to put up 4 streaks and sell. They might put up 2 and sell but even then, you're looking at 200 wins to get the curse and that is insane for some white bones. Then you have to grind another 100 levels to have a skeleton that's remotely unique to you. The gameplay loop is broken, the rep system is broken, the rewards themselves are lackluster. Hourglass needs attention.

@look-behind-you

I never said SoT was like CoD or should be, but Call Of Duty has a better reward system for PvP then sot does. CoD has grinds on top of grinds with more cosmetics than there are stars in the sky. Hourglass in Sea Of Thieves has very little cosmetics and that is even more true for the guardian's faction. Servants isn't as bad but the abysmal grind and lack of cosmetics for the skeleton curse do not do hourglass any favors at all. Others in the community have said for a long time that we should be allowed to use our unlocked cosmetics with the skeleton curse. Like this isn't me just making up stuff these are genuine complaints in the community and your reply focused on a very small portion of what I said.

@look-behind-you

That has a pvp mode that is focused on pvp in it.....which is the main purpose of my arguement...shocking

@jpskywalker9332 Like you're just dodging what I'm actually saying disregarding long time community members like this is just baffling to me especially when I want the best for the game have said that for awhile which is the entire reason I'm on the forums. Theirs others here who agree with what I've said as well so don't treat me like I'm just some dumby on the forums because your a moderator.

Your wanting to change the core game into something else. From Pvpve to straight pvp. Not many will agree or want this.
I bought this game solely for PvPvE Online Adventure. Where it can be PvP or PvE, both even at the same time.

Hourglass, is Just Simple: Instant PvP. Tool created to hunt down players who want to do battle. If you take away the rewards, the only people using it would often be...just the ones who wanna do nothing but pvp.
Rewards are just something added to encourage longer term players to keep going.

Back before, Players would spend hours fighting each other on the seas and nobody blinked. But now, if a fight last more than 10min...the game needs changing?

Bottom line. Hourglass isnt a mode, its a Tool. Your in an open world where both pvp and pve roam together and on a flip of a coin can change your simple sailing into survival. Third party ships is not going anywhere, its encouraged.
Rewards are funky and franky laughable. Once majority of players unlock the curses, who left?

I'm just trying to finish up these servants grind

Then what will you do? Quit HG? If your main focus is to end the grind and the behavior of other players is preventing you...need to refocus your goals.
Just Play the game, dont focus on the grind and you be more surprised how faster it levels up.

@look-behind-you

That doesnt excuse the fact two crews specifically que up for pvp. It might take place in the same servers but there's a circle placed around the participants that should have meaning and shouldnt be broken just because some open crew burning blade wants to come and ruin people's session. The defending of mechanics that serve to only anger players really makes me mad in this community. Do you honestly believe people want to come home from work or school after they have stressed all day and worry about the added stress that hourglass provides that doesn't need to be their? Like 2 crews que up to fight each other not the entire server it's not right for other players to come in and break up something that should be sacred. I don't care if it's in the same servers or not the experience should have integrity. Don't call it a mode and call it a tool fine that's whatever but the fact of the matter is that it should have some integrity on the sandbox, and you still have ignored a lot of the valid complaints I had just because I mentioned Call Of Duty. Yes, I know there different but at least players are rewarded properly for their hard-fought wins unlike in hourglass.

@burnbacon
What? I am asking for hourglass to be balanced this has nothing to do with adventure at all I just don't think 3rd partying should be allowed in hourglass thats not me wanting to change the game into something else it's me wanting integrity for hourglass. Being so focused on calling it a tool or not is honestly not relevant here. The devs have designed hourglass for a specific purpose like you said but that does not mean that the implementation of that "tool" or "mode" is perfect. Players wanted another mode like Arena and they couldnt support arena because of the different servers so we have hourglass. Which is a feature in the game that two players use to que up against each other thats the intention. If I knew I would be 3rd partied by a burning blade I would not que up because that is just lunacy. Why are you defending 3-4 man burning blade crews pulling up to sloop hourglass fights and sinking them both and ruining their session. I love Sea Of Thieves but just because it is a pirate game does not mean that every form of chaos should be accepted. There should be a clear line drawn in the game as to what's okay and what's not and that is not okay. SoT being open world and pvevp doesn't make it okay or any less frustrating either. Otherwise, we might as well just allow everything and have no rules instead of being selective about we don't want. The hypocrisy here is almost as bad as the pirate code itself which no one follows.

@look-behind-you

Again, you won't directly acknowledge the other stuff I've mentioned and I'm fully aware of that. Other people are fine to disagree I just don't like being treated as less just because you have a higher position in the forums then I do. I don't mind the back and forth I can do this all day but it's just your tone towards me is wild. I mentioned Call Of Duty and you just went off the rails focusing on that instead of the valid points I was bringing up ironic because you shut down posts on here that incite negativity in the forums yet how you communicate on here does the same thing. I've seen it with other moderators too you guys shut out your community on here and insiders just because some of us want stuff for the game that doesn't exactly align with Rares intention of the game. Just feels like their immune to criticism and when someone likes me try to criticize stuff in the game I meant with responses from moderators that more or less equate to thats the game get over it. That doesnt do anything for the discussion your just shutting down people and standing on your high horse.

@jpskywalker9332 you're right it is very frustrating to have long drawn out battles and end up with such little xp. If you plan on going beyond curses at all I'd say mentality towards this could play a big part.

Outside of solo fights where them being long drawn out can often just be due to runners trying to bait you into giving up a long fight usually means relatively balanced fight that could have potentially gone either way. Win or lose what you gain here if you choose to focus is experience. Think about what you could have done differently, what mistakes did you make (that are within your control, I don't mean well if I hit every shot as that is something that only comes with practice. Decision making is a huge part of fights).

My concern is if loss xp was increased, loss farmers would become a bigger issue. And as someone who actually enjoys the fights this would kill hourglass more.
Likewise if something were implemented where rep increase went up over time...then you may get more people running just to draw out xp. Or mutual farmers sat idle, there's lots of negative knock on effects that could come from tweaking this xp.
I think it should be less streak reliant so it's not as frustrating for people with lower win rates.

@hiradc

Yeah, that's my issue is hourglass heavily favors those that can reliably go on those long streaks. Those are the players that get gold bones and all of the cooler cosmetics meanwhile I'm lucky enough to get a 2 every once in a while, because I end up throwing fights I should win and it's just tough. I've been playing a lot recently to finish up servants and I only need 17 levels to go and right now I'm satisfied if I just get a level a day because it does take me awhile because I have a habit of just throwing fights, I had won but I'm relying on a win and lowering because I don't have confidence in my own abilities to get a 2 streak consistently so it's a slog of a grind. This takes away hours of my day everyday by my own choice, but I put other games and stuff on the back burner to grind hourglass so it's very disheartening seeing that xp on a loss, win or lose I feel like you should still want to keep fighting which I do most of the time. Sometimes though like I mentioned after a 30-minute fight of chasing a sloop down one corner of the map to another only to get 3rd partied by a burning blade is an issue I see popup. It might be funny on the other end seeing the burning blade come in and sink your opponent and I have been on that end as well but still that's a fight I only lost because of the burning blade the other guy spent the rest of the match running not trying to fight wasting about 30 minutes of both of our time. The fact the game allows that even is what frustrated me the most and the mentality of the other guy to just do that to someone just leaves me with a very bad taste in my mouth about the mode. As a solo in 2018 I had a similar feeling that I was wasting my time because back then you had way less options to grind towards pirate legend, but I didn't make excuses I grinded all the way to pirate legend with no emissary completely solo because I loved the game and saw the vision of what it could be and for the most part it has surprised me in good ways but hourglass is one of those things that I'm surprised at how bad the implementation is to it. It feels like another seasonal feature just tossed in and left to rot and then you gotta pray and hope multiple seasons later it gets addressed while people on forums make excuses for it. Something has to change in the community, and we cannot be okay with features like hourglass just tossed in as is and then not updated for years. I love a good hourglass fight and it sucks how less common those can be. I had a fight with another sloop, and he thanked me for the battle because of the back-and-forth nature of hourglass. That in my opinion is the magic of hourglass where you have these back-and-forth fights and anyone could have won. Unfortunately, it seems the player base is not what it needs to be so that is the common experience theirs too many archetypes of hourglass players. Which people can play how they want just not in way that dumbs down the experience or exposes the weaknesses of it. There is currently no penalty for a tdmer that decides to spawn camp someone for 10 minutes and not try and sink them at all just bc they want some tdm. They would rather sit and ruin someone's time that just wants to play hourglass and that is sad. I don't know how they would fix that but I am positive rewards and reputation can be adjusted to make it more balanced for those of us that like adventure and hourglass.

@ghutar what you're addressing is market-driven adaptation.

Fun fact: bubble wrap was originally released as wall paper lol. It failed in that market (obviously). But when consumers started using it for packaging material instead, the company pivoted their marketing strategy, and the product saw success.