Guilds Explained video

I was hoping there was going to be a clear process for those without connections to truly have a better chance at connecting to the community but imo this is largely just a non-alliance-alliance situation where it's heavy coordination for cheesing and still not really something that will connect people that aren't already largely connected.

They can only do so much to try to offer realistic community experiences in a game like this so it is what it is but I see this as more of a bringing alliance server type of mindset to organic servers than really changing much about the situation for people that are wandering around by themselves after their buddies move on to other games.

People have been calling it Captaincy 2.0 but it's pretty much the opposite of what Captaincy was supposed to be, pre-nerfs Captaincy was supposed to be about long form story telling and this is largely just continuing on the nerfs of Captaincy by adding milestones for people to literally not even be on their ship now lol.

I get it, it's where they gotta go with it as the game shifts 5+years in, I just find it unfortunate.

@lem0n-curry said in Guilds Explained video:

@wolfmanbush

I doubt every player knows 23 other players to completely fill their guild. There are plenty of mostly solo players who probably would welcome other active players - and perhaps sail together or prefer to sail alone or with their closer friends.

Problem will be trust - there will be guilds that might kick you out for whatever reason but AFAIK most of the things you've earned while in the Guild you get to keep.

I think it's adding the 4th or 5th way for social cliques to clique in public.

It's gonna be much more difficult to get people attached to this that aren't already socially in the discord servers, twitters/forums/twitch etc

People will still mess with it super super casually but I don't see this doing much for the organic environment. It's likely to be more of a thing for people that take cosmetics seriously and the sot social environment seriously, most aren't involved in either of those things.

Captaincy was much easier to attach to and they completely changed captaincy around in 9 months from lack of participation beyond the casual preference.

Much more difficult to get people attached to coordination and working with others in this game at the organic level.

Casual activity will happen it's substantive community building that I think will continue to struggle in guilds.

Which really isn't much of a criticism from me because as developers they can only realistically do so much and they try to do what they can. It's more just the reality of a environment like this one.

I think I’m going like this update (different role costumes look sick) but what really stood out to me in the video is that
The galleon has two stoves now?!

Biggest problem i see with the guilds so far is the ledger for it...

The current ledgers are available for everybody to get gold tier in. However: not everybody has (a lot of) friends and i think a lot will only have their own crewmembers as friends. They will probably just be a 1 ship guild and therefore it will be very hard for them to get in gold tier for the guild emissary ledger...

Also grieving could be a problem, where a guild leader can invite someone into their guild to grind for the ledger, only to kick them out moments before the ledger closes (and perhaps for a full guild replace them with a friend who isn't very active, so that that friend get the ledger rewards).

I'll have to see how good the bonus is. I'm not in love with the idea of selling to Sovereign even for a ship in a bottle.

I'm wondering if I'll even really use the guild system but that's kind of on me.

@riptide3683 You were right about the GMU too :(

@crowedhunter said in Guilds Explained video:

I'll have to see how good the bonus is. I'm not in love with the idea of selling to Sovereign even for a ship in a bottle.

I'm wondering if I'll even really use the guild system but that's kind of on me.

It's interesting people have been focusing on safer seas as the thing that is changing the game.

I'd say their design for guilds is far closer to fundamentally changing risk/reward in this game than safer seas.

Early development of shared reward through coordinated activity (as a design, not just player created cheesing) is much more of a threat to the organic risk/reward design than highly restricted and controlled safe solo ship activity.

People are concerned about safer seas but imo it'll be the guild design that will significantly change the game in the future as far as risk/reward goes. Likely going to be a situation where the pvp still exists around but people are so rewarded for playing that it leans more into getting rewarded even in loss.

For every one of me there are a lot more that would happily take that to the bank so I'm not gonna act like people wouldn't enjoy it (even though I think it's inconsistent for people to go after safer seas about it) but I do think that's where it's headed.

@wolfmanbush While I agree it is a good way to bolster naturally occurring PVP since it will get higher level players back into the emissary system, there are probably two or three other people like me who won't interact with it at all.

I have a feeling I'm just gonna have to give up on this part of my gameplay or else I'm gonna miss out on the actual game. But making decisions like not going to sovereign is what makes my pirate have character. I'm not gonna reduce that part of the experience.

I was really excited about the guild stuff and I think I was just high on copium when I made this post. Now I'm hungover.

@crowedhunter said in Guilds Explained video:

@wolfmanbush While I agree it is a good way to bolster naturally occurring PVP since it will get higher level players back into the emissary system, there are probably two or three other people like me who won't interact with it at all.

I have a feeling I'm just gonna have to give up on this part of my gameplay or else I'm gonna miss out on the actual game. But making decisions like not going to sovereign is what makes my pirate have character. I'm not gonna reduce that part of the experience.

I was really excited about the guild stuff and I think I was just high on copium when I made this post. Now I'm hungover.

I think it'll be a very different experience for different people but that's no different than anything else in SoT.

at an individual level (like in your case) I would just remain realistically optimistic and focus on not only the reward but a compatible path to get there.

Quality of the journey often gets sacrificed to rush it for rewards and people get frustrated about content and the game and other players and all that.

If you make the best out of it and don't let expectations run the show I think you can have fun with it. That's most of the battle, staying consistent and not letting any of the frustrations become the focus.

Worst case scenario is it ends up being eh for you but best case scenario is that you reach a goal for a reward you want and also have the possibility for a guild situation that you enjoy. That's more of an investment than a gamble.

@wolfmanbush I think I'll still get to use guilds for the social aspect of it at least. As much I would have anyway, I should say.

Doesn't take anything away from the game for me to have it available. Not really any different to adding in reaper content to me.

Or I can change my character's history with the GMU. I just hesitate to commit to something like that bc I don't really know anything about the GMU except that they're based on Britain during the piracy stuff and that kind of makes them pretty sketchy imo. At the same time, I'm probably taking that aspect too seriously. But consistency is important, like you said.

@lem0n-curry Oh, so I can totally still get it then. Awesome!

@crowedhunter said in Guilds Explained video:

@wolfmanbush I think I'll still get to use guilds for the social aspect of it at least. As much I would have anyway, I should say.

Doesn't take anything away from the game for me to have it available. Not really any different to adding in reaper content to me.

Or I can change my character's history with the GMU. I just hesitate to commit to something like that bc I don't really know anything about the GMU except that they're based on Britain during the piracy stuff and that kind of makes them pretty sketchy imo. At the same time, I'm probably taking that aspect too seriously. But consistency is important, like you said.

Something that will be interesting to see is if they start using guilds for their cooperation stuff. They've long tried to work cooperation into the environment but it causes a lot of clashing which leads to a lot of negative feedback about the experience/content

Maybe cooperation will become more like community days where guilds are used to reach community goals for rewards.

Less clashing that way while still creating activity and cooperation to some degree. It won't be for everyone but that would be less of a struggle for those without connections than some of the past content that required a lot of server based cooperation.

@pithyrumble basically guilds seems like it will just let us join a ship without having to navigate an a friends list outside of game. not sure how it works on xbox but on pc we would have to open the xbox app then goto the friends list and join them there as where with guilds we could just see who in our guild is playing and join them? but yea another new faction. very few cosmetics season10 doesnt seem to have much to offer. if we think about the new reaper item coming in november its basically just a new reaper chest that slows down your ship. these updates are becoming so infrequent and not holding much content for older players. any new content is great additions for newer players because they get a richer experience but feels like crumbs to me. youtube short showed colored rowboats are coming... cool however imagine trying to sneak around on the sea in a purple or red rowboat lol stand out like a soar thumb. in the recent youtube video we see a 2nd cooking pot.. ironically more excited to be able to cook 2 things at once than anything guild related. the only bonus i see to guilds is if the captain DCs you can still get milestones as long as you are in the guild. though the video didnt go in depth about that being the case it is heavily implied by the fact you can set sail on another members captaincy ship and still progress milestones. milestones dont work if its not a captained ship so..

the real question is if it has a ledger system and it works the same in terms of top 10% or whatever getting rewards is it going to take guild size into account? because a 3 person guild wont be able to compete with a 24 person guild so will never unlock any of the cosmetic rewards

I just want to play solo.

Couldn't care less for guilds, captaincy etc. What a boring year of updates!

@needsmokes said in Guilds Explained video:

I just want to play solo.

Couldn't care less for guilds, captaincy etc. What a boring year of updates!

Captaincy was awesome for solos it was just never given a real chance to succeed as it was designed.

They got rid of years of overviews stats and started everyone at zero and a lot of dedicated players just moved on because of it.

The bugs and struggles of season 7 lead to more leaving as the season went on because "why start over at this point?"

Then the few that stuck around and decided to buy into Captaincy and gave it a chance got wrecked 9 months later when it was completely changed in designed to a short term casual type of thing, as far as grind goes.

Captaincy was great it just showed up very very very late to the party and was never given a real shot.

Guilds are entirely different, Captaincy served everyone even if they weren't into the grind part of Captaincy. Guilds serve significantly less, require more interaction (in an environment that struggles with quality interactions) so it'll probably end up much more of a struggle to catch on than even Captaincy has been.