It's not just a meme...

@gosva5434 said in It's not just a meme...:

Despite the game being centered around cosmetic progression, at some point they decided it was totally fine to stop releasing cool, earnable cosmetics and instead put the majority of them in the Emporium.

This is just not true.
The Dark Brethren shipset is very cool and is available at a very reasonable 20 Reaper Fortresses completion.
The smuggler trinkets are nice and the little ships are very cute.
The game has a TON of cosmetics unlockable for free. If you have unlocked them all and at effective end game - congrats!

The “meme” line didn’t sit right with me either but you can clearly see how annoyed Drew was in the video that yet again he has to sit in front of that camera and apologise that they can’t deliver a small amount of content on time. The delay is necessary but I wish they would just stop boxing themselves into this timed setting, especially now with these acts.

THINGS AREN'T GOING TO PLAN

WE KNOW WE SHOULD DO BETTER

WE MISSED THE MARK

Basically its the same words every season.

But dont you worry and spend Money in emporium,that Is Always going according to Plans.

@pc-monkfish Wow one ship set for 3 entire months, so good of them. Last year for halloween they gave everyone a bucket. The year before they gave a sword. Grogmanay 2020-2023 gave rewards. Even if they gave us the same bucket as last year I wouldn't hate it, at least it would be something. The biggest addition to the gold shop in the last 3 months is the resolute set, which is all the same skin but recoloured. They should have dropped the rainbow of resolution all on the same day because it's literally just recolours. Old SoT would have done that, or at least would have released a resolute alongside several other things.

@pc-monkfish
Ok, so you’re using trinkets as an argument, something the community has said for years they are not a fan of. And while the new ship set is nice, getting a single complete ship cosmetic in a season filled with reskinned content is about as low as the bar can get. If you think it’s normal for the Emporium to get three or four full ship sets every month while we get one unique set per season (if we’re lucky), then I don’t know what to tell you...

Someone should make a list of everything that is "Top Priority" at this point. I think there should be at least 5 things on there...

@pc-monkfish There have been sections of the developer videos where it is JUST emporium. The Act 3 update video had it's longest section be emporium cosmetics. OP is right when he says there's not earnable cosmetics because the next patch is re-released cosmetics from the plunder pass.

@gosva5434 said in It's not just a meme...:

@pc-monkfish
If you think it’s normal for the Emporium to get three or four full ship sets every month while we get one unique set per season (if we’re lucky), then I don’t know what to tell you...

Of course you want more free stuff - economics means you need to pony up and splash some REAL gold, pirate.

I've been playing for 2 years or so and the model is pretty standard - cosmetics in the plunder pass and cosmetics in the season commendation.
The only 'emporium worthy' drop of outpost cosmetics I can recall was the Lucky Hand shipset in that 2 years.

So current drip of cosmetics feels very normal.

@ghutar

The survival of the game depends on the Emporium.
I'm not surprised that from release up till 2020 there was a greater frequency of outpost cosmetics because the bones of the game were being built upon and I imagine there was not that many cosmetics to start with initially.

Seems perfectly natural that as time progresses that outpost cosmetics would slow down and the bulk of the cosmetics would come from Plunder Pass and the Seasonal Commendations, alongside Emporium.

@pc-monkfish Bro, you have to be a plant. You will do anything at all costs to try and convince the majority of the players here to keep saying everything is fine. For someone who has only been playing for two years like you mentioned, you sure try to tell us all who have been here for years and years that we're wrong in our criticisms..

Firstly, the game should not need the Emporium to survive. If they do not have enough money from selling tens of millions of copies, on top of making us pay for Plunder Pass each season, then something is already wrong here. The Emporium should be a tool, not a crutch to rely on for income. They already are trying to be even greedier and charge us for server subscriptions and the new "audio" subscriptions that literally no one wanted or asked for. Same with Pirate Profiles, another thing they want to charge players for that basically zero people have ever wanted. The list goes on...

Secondly, if Rare would focus on actually giving players what they want, even super simple things like outfit saves, fixing HG, better outpost cosmetics released more often, then a lot more players would be playing, thus increasing the amount of players willing to buy plunder passes and maybe a few cosmetics. Instead, it's just broken and false promises month after month, year after year.
Pumping the Emporium full of cosmetics and relying on that to keep the game afloat financially is not what brings players to the game. We came for the gameplay loops, stories, and earnable cosmetics. The last couple years have been rough in all of those categories.

@ghutar said in It's not just a meme...:

@pc-monkfish xD²

Like seriously I liked SoT and I still enjoy to se sail from time to time but just nope.

If it was possible to maintain gold shop and emporium on quite similar level of pace back then it should be possible now when shoveling more and more paid options.

It is ridiculous because gold shop was and should be is base of in-game economy without new stuff there gold is worthless so are treasures.

Now you say about commendations but they are as I say lackey way to circumnavigation around broken economy.

Yup. Sitting on 25,5 mil currently with nothing else to spend it on.

If only they added 1 emporium quality cosmetic set per season, for 2-3mil a piece, it would def help both as a gold sink, and an incentive to keep piling up gold during a season for the next one.

Honestly, a long time ago I absolutely stopped caring about loot in general, whether I'll lose it or not. Gold is almost worthless, I absolutely agree with you. They keep ramping up gold rewards, with nothing actually worthy of spending it on.

They wanna farm engagement, yet they provide barely anything to incentivize that.

People asked for purchasable rowboats as a goldsink - never got em.
People asked for better and pricier in-game cosmetics - never got em.
People asked for gold to doubloon conversions - never got em.
There are tons of people playing with pets - nothing stops them from creating a few 10-20mil gold variants.

And I could go on and on. I've seen many times all of the above being suggested on the forum.

---

What's also funny to me - when we talk strictly about Emporium, you've got thousands of PvE lords crying about skeleton cosmetics being tied to HG for months, yet there are like what, 5 in total skeleton based skins in the Emp (Warsmith Dark & Blue, Spinal, Krampus, LeChuck)?

Idk if I forgot some, but anyways... make some new ones and add them to the Emp (don't touch HG ones though, they need to stay exclusive to HG).

PvE lords would be losing their mind over them, and probably a good portion of the regular playerbase. Ez slam dunk. Recolored Skeleton Captain (the one that drops a map) as a skin would go brrr. Just one of the many possible options to earn some decent Emp cash.

Don't get me wrong, my point is not to see more stuff added to the Emp (new skeleton cosmetics in this example). My point is - for something that's supposed be their main game (Emporium), even there they manage not to give people anything special or what they want. 😂 Tragicomical.

@thamb0 said in It's not just a meme...:

@pc-monkfish Bro, you have to be a plant. You will do anything at all costs to try and convince the majority of the players here to keep saying everything is fine. For someone who has only been playing for two years like you mentioned, you sure try to tell us all who have been here for years and years that we're wrong in our criticisms..

Firstly, the game should not need the Emporium to survive. If they do not have enough money from selling tens of millions of copies,

Selling tens of millions ? Aren't most of the 40 or 50 million people using game-pass ?

on top of making us pay for Plunder Pass each season,

You mean the Plunder Pass that costs as much as the amount of Ancient Coins as you'll receive per Season if you buy one ?
Also, they're not making you pay - you can play the game without and you get free stuff as well as you gain the 100 levels.

then something is already wrong here. The Emporium should be a tool, not a crutch to rely on for income. They already are trying to be even greedier and charge us for server subscriptions and the new "audio" subscriptions that literally no one wanted or asked for.

AFAIK you pay the audio firm, or do you think they'll work for free ?

Custom Server subscriptions are optional, not everyone will be using them.

Same with Pirate Profiles, another thing they want to charge players for that basically zero people have ever wanted. The list goes on...

Don't buy them if you don't want to use Pirate Profiles.
If the salesfigures of them are lower than they expected, I'm sure they'll come to a conclusion that they should change something or add a variant, if that would fit the way they see the game.

Secondly, if Rare would focus on actually giving players what they want, even super simple things like outfit saves, fixing HG, better outpost cosmetics released more often, then a lot more players would be playing, thus increasing the amount of players willing to buy plunder passes and maybe a few cosmetics. Instead, it's just broken and false promises month after month, year after year.
Pumping the Emporium full of cosmetics and relying on that to keep the game afloat financially is not what brings players to the game. We came for the gameplay loops, stories, and earnable cosmetics. The last couple years have been rough in all of those categories.

If that would be true, then no-one would buy Emporium items, if the emporium sales were bad, I guess they would have stopped with it by now ... why pay for a team that put out paid for items if it wouldn't cover the costs ? The effort of that team would then be better used in creating non-Emporium items.

Interesting discussion.

I was only addressing the OP's vexatious claim 'at some point they decided it was totally fine to stop releasing cool, earnable cosmetics' which is even more wrong in the same season that the Dark Brethren ship set FOR FREE and the Rare Anniversary set in the Plunder Pass was released, which are both highly desirable.
Same old talking points coming up about the game.

We can boil it down to 'I want more free stuff(on top of the stuff I already get via the current model)'.

A wee tip for you - start farming MS Reward Points if you are desperate for some of that sweet, sweet Emporium honey. You can easily get 3000+ Ancient Coins a Season.

@pc-monkfish
My friend either you are living under a rock or you are ignoring every argument on purpose. SoT is not a f2p game, and it has cosmetic progression. This means that everything you do ingame translates to cosmetics. And your argument is that we got 1 good ship set for free? Do you know how paid live service games work? Not only we are not getting cosmetics, but almost no or reskinned content and performance is terrible. This is an objective observation not purely my opinion. It has nothing to do with me wanting more free stuff. Again this is a PAID live service game, updates are not free because the devs do it out of the kindness of their heart. It keeps their game running, allows them to release a season pass, attracts new players (that buy the game), and people have more incentive to buy stuff at the emporium. The emporium shouldn't hinder nor replace the main reward system SoT has chosen for its main gameplay loop. You have seen this come up multiple times in this post, gold is literally useless since there are no unique cosmetics to spend it on (i don't count recolors as content), commendations rarely unlock anything, and when they do it's a meh title or some trinkets. No new guns, incomplete sets, the list goes on. Why would anyone play, when nothing they do in the sandbox matters? One could argue because the game is fun, and that would be the case if they actually released good content but even then without a good reward system it all becomes pointless. And on top of that they expect that the same scripted apology video is enough, without doing the bare minimum. The only thing vexatious is you sucking up to Rare...

@gosva5434 said in It's not just a meme...:

@pc-monkfish
Not only we are not getting cosmetics, but almost no or reskinned content and performance is terrible. This is an objective observation not purely my opinion.

We clearly ARE getting cosmetics - I am bored of detailing how the current model works so you can read below. As a result it IS NOT objective observation and IS your opinion.

Again this is a PAID live service game, updates are not free because the devs do it out of the kindness of their heart.

You are not obliged to pay for a Plunder Pass so updates CAN be free. Gamers initial outlay would be the price of game or GamePass. Plunder Pass purchase gives cosmetics, contradicting your 'objective observation' again.

commendations rarely unlock anything, and when they do it's a meh title or some trinkets. No new guns, incomplete sets, the list goes on.

Again this is false. I have already sung the praises of the Dark Brethren Shipset this Season and in the previous Reaper Season you could unlock a very nice Reaper set of equipment and weapons. New guns ACHIEVED. Burning Blade Season had full set unlocks - weapons and ships. Hunters Call unlocks etc etc etc.
Cosmetic unlocks EVERY Season behind commendations.

The only thing vexatious is you sucking up to Rare...

Rare won't read this so this is just man shouts at clouds territory. The gamer sense of entitlement gets a bit tiresome.

@pc-monkfish
I don't think we will ever agree on this unfortunately, but I'll leave saying this. There are games out there without cosmetic progression that put SoT to shame. If you think that it is okay for Rare to give us fake apologies, while in the meantime not even releasing something as trivial as a make up cosmetic for Halloween, and the game is fine because the give us a ship set every season, you do you buddy. This is something that the majority of the community, including everyone from casual players to content creators, has been very vocal about. But you know best. At least we got the Dark Brethren Shipset this season!

@gosva5434 said in It's not just a meme...:

@pc-monkfish
At least we got the Dark Brethren Shipset this season!

We did? But you definitively stated we get no cosmetics and commendations only unlock trinkets and titles.

GGs Brother!

o7