Guild Progression FAQ

Everything that is coming out of these discussions seems so complicated I have a headache.
Why is HG out of sync if it's getting the better rep, please Rare stop this mind numbingly boring rep building approach to rince repeat hundreds of times till you get to numbers that have most players burnt out of the game.
Please please just do the quality of life issues, allow progression at a more normal rate and just let us enjoy the game.
This endless grind is not quality game play. For a few pieces of cosmetics that we rarely put on the boat.
I don't know who is worse, you guys for thinking this makes quality gameplay or us for falling for it and then chasing it.

Players do chase and when they've grinded themselves into the ground, they disappear into other games until you introduce more grind.

The base players who love the world and the PvE, get mowed over by those chasing the grind and then get empty servers for months on end.

Yet the core base seem to love the social interaction above all else. A balance of feeling achievement is always welcome but not a grind.

I have played the hourglass on a guild ship and I have to say it’s not as overpowering as people claim. The problem is that everything else is severely lacking. I have done merchant alliance shipwreck voyages and by comparison I can see why people think that the hourglass is too strong.

I get that Rare wants to reward PvP but PvE needs some love with the guilds too. Can we look at and adjust the PvE content? At least make the world events count for something.

@coffeelight5545 ye you are right. Both methods to grind guildrep are undertuned. PvE is just even worse. The endless grinds need to stop. Sea of thieves is not runescape.

Its a sandbox adventure game, where each session should be an individual and exciting experience. You shouldn’t be forced to repeat the same session hundreds of times to complete a task.

Guildrep should be so easy, that you can even progress it at a good rate if you do variety content. It should be something you progress together with your friendgroup naturally and without stress.

Else this whole system is doomed to become a pool for toxicity. People will start kicking their friends from their guilds cause they dont „pull their weight“. Guilds will end up dividing people instead of bringing them together like they should.

Is there a way to view one singular players contribution to the guild?

Guilds are great! I love them so, but I would really love to have a better way of seeing which members of the guild are the contributors and which members are the leaches of the guild. I wouldn't usually care, but we have a waitlist and it isn't fair to them. Are there any plans to provide Guild Leaders better tools for moderating their guild?

I'd be interested to hear something official from the team on why sailing with guildmates nets the same guild rep as sailing solo. Unless this is just a bug, it seems like an odd design choice for a social system like guilds to incentivize splitting up crews for efficiency's sake.

I get that the system is tied to ships, and not necessarily guild members.....but surely there's some way for the game to recognize if there are multiple members of the guild on a pledged ship and adjust the rep gain accordingly?

It doesn't even have to be a straight doubling, tripling, or quadrupling of the rep. Just a bonus of some type to acknowledge that the guild is merrily working together.

@shelley-preston said in Guild Progression FAQ:

@tesiccl said in Guild Progression FAQ:

Howdy! So I’m curious, is the reputation gain within the guild at the ideal level for Rare because in some cases it’s felt very slow? Winning a match in Hourglass seems to give a nice amount but selling loot only gives a tiny bit. If you can’t answer that’s fine, I know it’s a bit of a hot topic within the community right now. Thanks.

Ahoy! The intention with the balance for Guild Reputation for Treasure Hunting and Hourglass play is to be equivalent. That means that on average the amount of repuation players earn from either source in an average hours play should be aligned. If you are particularly skilled at one or the other, you may find that one is a faster route for you, which makes sense as you are progressing your Guild based on your best skills.

That being said, our assumptions for balancing Guild Reputation were based on data for all player averages on earn rates of both types of play before Guilds was launched and in Insider Testing. Now that Guilds is in the hands of many more real players, we will be assessing the most up to date data, looking at the balance and any outliers or changes in gameplay that have emerged and if necessary we will tweak the numbers to achieve the intended balance.

3.5 Million of gold earned. Multiple Fotds, at least one FoF, Fleet event, random treasure and we barely hit 3 guild levels, the other 2 came from few Hourglass fights. Guilds = PVP. You do Fotd, sell it and you gain as much xp or less, than you would get XP for the Hourglass faction when you lose.

I'm having an issue with guilds, I have one of my own but a friend of mine created one and invited me to it. So have a couple of other friends of ours that are in both his and my guilds. My guild invite into his guild doesn't come up and he nor anyone in his guild can send me an invite because it says invite pending on their side. Are there any work around for this or has anyone else experienced this?

@sobadpirate Just to add 1 thing to it cause I agree with everything you say except that - guilds shouldnt necessarily be hard to progress. It should be a social experience that is in its progression forgiving enough that a guild can consist of all kinds of players with all kinds of playstyles and still eventually "reach" it's destination (that being 10x lvl 100). Making it super hard like it is now - and on top of that giving the guildfounder and a selected group of members the right to straight up boot people out if they dont pull their weight is an extremely antisocial setup, bound to lead to frustration and disharmony and maybe even destroyed friendships.

Incase any of the gamedesigners is reading this and thinking why is this guy complaining in the faq channel, he must be complaining cause he doesnt like grinding very much - this couldnt be further from the truth. Prior to season 10 I had "completed" the game in terms of commendations, only missing out the 3 shrouded ghost related ones. I love the grind and I also at times enjoy what others would preceive as dull and repetitive. However my friends do not all share this with me. They get bored or annoyed if they have to do the same task 500 times. And then they just stop playing the game and do something else. Also for me sea of thieves stops being this exciting and eventful game if Im "trapped" in endless grinds that get more and more rediculous every season, when at the same time no new tools are added to the sandbox.

A new progressionmetric that goes up very slowly and gives barely any rewards is no new content. It might keep the playerbase buisy but not because they are entertained, but because humans like finishing things and being "done" with stuff and therefor they trap themselves in grinds that are in essence just a lazy substitute for actual new content in the game.

One last issue I got with both guilds and HG that somewhat tie into what I already laid out: Sea of thievs as a sandbox game ofc always had some decently long grinds. 100 veils, generous gifts, 1000 captains killed for OOS or 100 vaults. But they werent too bad but something you could slowly chip away from and eventually finish them. With HG we suddenly have a linear progression from 1-9999. 1 singular grind that is as long as literally finishing all the small little grinds that made up the game prior. this is not a "sandbox" of grinds anymore. It's a sandbox of pve grinds and one looooooong linear PvP progression that can only be progressed if basically do the exact same thing for hundreds of sessions. A sandbox game should incentivice you to do something different every time. Tl;DR: HG, guilds (and pre nerf milestones) are grinds that have no place in a sandboxgame and make the game terribly monotonous.
However an easy fix for that would be: Make guildprogression 3x easer and instead of working on new progressionbars that players can fill, bring some actual new sandboxfeatures instead.

@puppyypowerr said in Guild Progression FAQ:

I'm having an issue with guilds, I have one of my own but a friend of mine created one and invited me to it. So have a couple of other friends of ours that are in both his and my guilds. My guild invite into his guild doesn't come up and he nor anyone in his guild can send me an invite because it says invite pending on their side. Are there any work around for this or has anyone else experienced this?

Get on one ship and use the Guild invite emote.

@riptide3683 said in Guild Progression FAQ:

@lem0n-curry I created a guild and can't seem to find the emote. Does it just appear in your chest or what? How do I choose which of the 3 Guilds I'm in to use the emote for?

Open the emote circle - there will be an option for Guild emotes.

You should do this on a ship pledged to the guild you want them to invite on.

I'm in a couple of moderately sized Guilds (15 and 12 members) and we're current at roughly 8.3 and 3.2. Not everyone is active and one of them (you can guess which) has had one person doing a fair bit of Hourglass. At the rate we are currently going, the first will hit Distinction 10 in over 2 years, and the second in about 6 years.

But it's felt like a grind and I can't say it's enjoyable or has lead to any real increase in social activity, outside of a few posts on Discord. It has felt very lacking in the social aspects, and that's mainly down to no incentive to sail together, when we are far more productive in sailing separately. I've been a solo slooper for a very long time now, and I was kind of hoping for Guilds to shake that up, but it hasn't.

I definitely think the reputation balance needs addressing (the sweet spot, IMO, is somewhere between where Hourglass is now and where PvE is), but also there needs to be some kind of bonus for sailing together, even if that's just +25% for each crewmate. It would go along way to encouraging players to join Guilds and sail together - which is the point of the whole game.

@d3adst1ck thanks Deadstick, I'm wondering now why Rare just don't make it easy for friends just to jump on 6 boats and be in the same server.
That grind we all understand.

It's boring after a while but it does mean Pirate groups attract new members who help them out with the grind.

It's not an ideal way to play the game. I've found my balance and there are days I thoroughly enjoy a good naval battle, but equally I have days when I'm one step ahead in fleeing.

It's the quality of life issues that spoil this game right now.
I love HG but it lags so bad I can't even put a cannon ball in the cannon.
I X button everything I don't want X

The quality of the game is pants.
The two camps of PvE and PvP are as far apart as they've always been.

The bedrock foundation of this game has been bad since day one and we've had good periods and not so good.

Dare I say it's time for Sea of Thieves 2. The house feels like it needs to be rebuilt, relocated and a team of foundation experts need to be given the time to get the plan right.

@riptide3683 @ I just had a person leave a guild I'm in because she is in a guild doing something that had them go from 10-15 in the spit of an eye.
Something around the cheesing of HG maybe. Can you blame people, I love HG but I can't load a cannon ball for love nor gold, the game is so broken.

"Guild Reputation is earned whenever you cash in Treasure or earn Allegiance.

You don’t have to hand into the Sovereigns to earn Guild Reputation, you can hand in anywhere including the Reaper's Bones."

Delivering Cargo (silk, rum, plants) to their intended destination does NOT increase Guild progress.

However delivering them to Reapers does!

This seems like an oversight. It eliminates 1/3 of the Merchant Voyage types. I spent the weekend collecting cargo and delivering them all to Reapers instead of their intended destination to level up my Guild.

Is there a breakdown of the xp required for each level? Ex: is the xp needed for level 2 the same as 90? The same as 190?

Im kinda late to this post so idk if this will get answered. but does selling when your with more guild members grant more guild xp? or is it a set amount per crew? like, if im sailing on my own in a sloop and i sell all my items. would it be the same xp to my guild then if i invited someone who is also in the guild to sell with me?

Ahoy,

I have a question about Guilds and haven't really been able to ask a question.

If you are part a Guild and they were to remove you part way through a month, would you no longer be eligible for the rewards tier they reach, even if you contributed to said score. It's a theoretical question, I just wondered what safeguards (if at all there are any) for scenarios like that.

Thank Ye

Hijack