Ahoy everyone,
With a week having passed already since the release of the Ships of Fortune update, I wanted to give you all an update around how the update has landed, along with some detail around the balancing changes we are intending to roll-out today.
The Emissaries feature and the addition of Reaper’s Bones was obviously a big change to how Adventure plays, particularly with the increased focus on the interplay between more PVE focused playstyles and PVP. While we expected that the nuance of the design would take some time to ‘bed in’ as players adjust, it’s still been great to see the overwhelmingly positive reception that the release has had, as well as us starting to see some of the factional stories of co-operation and conflict that we had hoped for. At the same time, there are still some more negative things we’ve observed, such as some misunderstanding with how the feature works, which is really all on us, as well as some balancing issues related to the progression time in Reaper’s Bones and Athena’s Fortune.
Our progression modelling takes into account emergent opportunities, sailing distances and ‘gold per hour’, based on a number of scenarios. Along with this, we’ve also introduced the Emissary multipliers based on the flag, along with the cash-out bonuses when lowering a Grade II flag and above. Essentially, there are a lot of variables to balance against each other, with this being particularly impactful as behavior changes impact all players in the shared world. While we work with our business intelligence team to double check that the assumptions we’re making in the economy model are reasonable, the feedback from Insiders is also absolutely critical, and you’ve seen us make iterative changes to balancing around these new features. That being said, nothing will be as revealing as a release hitting the scale of our week 1 players.
Here are some of the issues we’ve noted and want to address:
Reaper’s Bones Reputation
This is obviously an issue that’s had a lot of discussion as part of Insiders, especially the balance of what loot gives you, versus the Emissary Flags you can claim from sunk ships. Our intention was always that the sole focus of Reaper’s Bones should be sinking Emissaries. Its ties into their lore and the fundamental gameplay we want this company to stand for. However, we had to recognise that having Emissaries around to sink is not a guaranteed thing, and nor should it be. We deliberately didn’t want to migrate players automatically or change the core fabric of how players meet in the world, so therefore had a fall-back where loot could be taken to the Reaper’s Hideout (a single choke-point) for Reputation and Gold. However, even though we’re seeing amazing engagement with the Emissaries feature, players are progressing much faster than we anticipated using loot, especially from the Fort of the Damned.
With this in mind, we are implementing the following:
Standard loot items will now be worth a quarter of their original Reputation value to the Reapers Bones. Gold remains unchanged.
Athena’s loot has been reduced to half their Reputation value to the Reaper’s Bones, ensuring that legendary steals are still perceived as more valuable. Gold remains unchanged.
Ashen Tomes & Keys reduced to half their Reputation value to the Reaper’s Bones. Gold remains unchanged.
Gifts and Rag & Bones Crates reduced to half their Reputation value to the Reaper’s Bones. Gold remains unchanged.
Reaper’s Chests, Box of Wondrous Secrets and Gold Hoarder’s Skull still kept as the most valuable loot items to the Reaper’s Bones.
Lower level Emissary Flags are worth more Reputation and Gold compared to their original value, while the Grade IV and Grade V flags have been reduced, as while we still want these to be the most rewarding, they were excessively high given how we’re seeing players play at scale.
Grade progression for Reaper’s Bones will now take longer if relying on loot items, roughly 25% more effort to reach Grade V and unlock the special ability to reveal Emissaries on the Ship’s Map. However, grade progression from acquiring and handing in Emissary flags has been increased, again increasing the focus on this style of play.
Athena’s Fortune Reputation
The biggest issue to callout with Athena’s Fortune was that we unfortunately introduced a loop where players could progress through Athena’s Fortune grade progression, claim their Grade V quest, lower their flag, and use the quest to get back to Grade V again. This has massively decreased the intended time for players to increase their Reputation level.
While we didn’t want to reduce the value of the Athena’s Fortune Emissary quest, this balancing issue has now been addressed as part of the below:
The grade progression for Athena’s Fortune has been adjusted to ensure that to takes more actions to advance, preventing the Grade V quest loop.
There is a small increase in sailing times for the Emissary quest, which was quite small anyway, requiring players to sail and carry loot further distances.
Emissary Completion Bonuses
After assessing the gold earnt and how players are playing, we’ve decided to lower the Reputation and Gold pay-outs when lowering your Emissary Flag across all companies. While we still want there to be a reasonable bonus for a stint as an Emissary, we want to refocus the progression gains on the intended behaviour of taking on risk and delivering loot.
As with all of the above, we’ll continue to excitedly watch how this plays and be ready to adjust as needed to encourage the intended gameplay focus.
Thanks again for all your feedback and playtime.
Pirates for all Eternity
Mike Chapman
Creative Director
imgur.com
