Trading, TRADING, Companies.

Rather steal the stuff than trade.

And then we get complaints that the seas are too hostile😩

If I've dug up the merchant faction crate during my gold hoarder voyage, why would I want to find and trade it to another crew when I can just sell it to merchants myself, even while I'm running my GH emissary?
When finding someone else with one of these, why bother trading them mine when I can take theirs and sell both, or make an alliance without bothering to check loot for trading to just get the half value when they sell it themselves?
Nobody's going to trade with this feature.
They'll either just include it in the spam selling at Sovereigns without caring, or hold on to it and change emissary later.
And if you add commendations for trades, nobody's going to bother with that on live servers either. They'll go on alliance servers to stand in a circle with the other ships trading things back and forth, or just leave those commendations ignored forever.

@the-old-soul800

That’s a good point! Sorry, I should have said that the loot is only eligible to hand in if you’re flying Grade V of the appropriate emissary. OP Edited.

E.g the chest will only be available to hand in to the Gold Hoarders/Sovereigns if you're a Grade V Gold Hoarder Emissary.

As for whether people will do it or not—can be applied to so many of the features in sea of thieves. For example, I’ve never completed the Pirates of the Caribbean or Monkey Island tall tales. I have, on the other hand, reached 470 allegiance with SoF. People have different preferences and I’m certain my idea appeals to some portion of players who want more game play options when interacting with crews. As of right now, the only true options are to sink them or alliance. This might actually encourage crews to get together and assess the risk of going to battle for all loot vs diplomacy which still nets them something unique.

@th3-tater

Let's say each Emissary always finds 2 pieces of exclusive loot on their way to Grade V and the loot was 50K each.

Your odds of profit if you're Grade V and you find a different Grade V emissary TLDR:

50K = 1/2 chance
100K = 1/16 chance
0K = 7/16 chance

a 50% chance of getting 50K just by saying howdy ain't bad. That's better than the 50K from the Skull of Siren song and it doesn't require you to really go out of your way. You're doing this because you happen to see another Grade V ship.

Long version:

GH = Gold Hoarders
MA = Merchant Alliance
OS = Order of Souls

So if you're a Gold Hoarder you're going to find either:

• 1 MA loot and 1 OS loot (1/2 chance)
• 2 OS loot (1/4 chance)
• 2 MA loot (1/4 chance)

If you find a Grade V OS on the seas they will have either:

• 1 GH loot and 1 MA loot (1/2 chance)
• 2 GH loot (1/4 chance)
• 2 MA loot (1/4 chance)

So...

• You have 2 MA loot (0 K) (1/4 chance)
• You have 2 OS loot, they have 2 MA loot (0 K ) (1/16 chance)
• You have 2 OS loot, they have 2 GH loot--Jackpot!--(100 K) (1/16 chance)
• You have 2 OS loot, they have 1 GH loot and 1 MA loot (50 K) (1/8 chance)
• You have 1 MA loot and 1 OS loot, they have 2 MA loot (0 K) (1/8 chance)
• You have 1 MA loot and 1 OS loot, they have 2 GH loot (50 K) (1/8 chance)
• You have 1 MA loot and 1 OS loot, they have 1 GH loot and 1 MA loot (50K) (1/4 chance)

@d3adst1ck

Agreed that the current set of commendations are a chore. Why? Because the current gifts are only available in forts—they’re way less common. Then, once you obtain the gift you have to approach another crew and convince them to go out of their way and deliver it to reapers. That’s a big ask.

What I’m suggesting passively gives crews the trading items on their voyages while they grade up.

Knowing that there’s a potential for trade also gives the crew being approached a reason to not flee. While it doesn’t guarantee peace it at least is a realistic option on the table.

@d3adst1ck

I get what you’re saying but I also don’t see how my suggestion ends up being the same or a worse “expansion” of the reaper gifts. It solves a lot of the friction by passively giving players something to trade and all it requires is for two different emissaries to meet up briefly. They don’t have to go to reapers, they don’t have to wait for a skull fort either. How does that not solve the problems you identified earlier?

@d3adst1ck

It takes about 30 extra seconds to add two additional pieces of loot to your ship. Why would you not carry it on board if that’s all it’s going to cost you?

If another grade V emissary sails towards you there’s a 50% chance of making 50k. Sure you can actively try to find someone but you can also not and still there’s a chance that someone will approach you. Why are you claiming that you have to go out of your way when all it takes is two pieces of loot on your ship?

@rare-jumbie said:

don’t see how my suggestion ends up being the same or a worse “expansion” of the reaper gifts... all it requires is for two different emissaries to meet up briefly.

They don't just add things without tying them to commendations. They couldn't simply add "sitting" to the game, they had to add the "go sit here" and "go sit there" commendations. "Zipline here, zipline there."

Your completion of the commendations associated with this (gifts or trades) would require another player, of a different emissary, to meet up with you briefly and also want to cooperate. For some servers, that might be easy, for others, it'd be a big ask.

You have players like me, who don't really bother with commendations. If I see a ship with a decently sized emi sailing my way with an alliance flag up... yoink.

@D3ADST1CK

I don’t know. I never leave behind rag and bone crates because they’re usually on the way to where I’m going anyway. If they’re not, I still carry them in case I’m going in the other direction later. I can’t answer for others.

You didn’t answer my question, though.

@d3adst1ck

Well, raid voyages for example have all of their loot in close proximity. That would definitely be less than 30 seconds for two pieces of loot.

As for the other voyage types, the only real outlier would be a traditional x-marks-the-spot on a large island. You'll go to the X, dig once, and decide whether or not to continue digging.

In general, definitely less than 30 seconds for two pieces of loot. I'm not being disingenuous.

Honestly, if it's not your cup of tea then it is what it is. There's a lot of features in SoT that I haven't really participated in. Mainly the tall tales and general PvE content, yet I've never advocated against them.

But for me, I would like to have reasons for approaching another crew and for them to think I'm not only coming to sink them or form a boring alliance.

@theblackbellamy

I don't understand your point though.

Are you saying that the commendations are useless because they're difficult to do? I mean, I just threw the idea of commendations there because that's what Rare tends to do and that it might encourage people to participate in it.

I legitimately just want to change some of the dynamic between emissaries on the seas instead of it always being fight or flight.

@rare-jumbie said:

I legitimately just want to change some of the dynamic between emissaries on the seas instead of it always being fight or flight.

I get that. The thing is, we already have options to incentivize cooperation instead of fight or flight. The alliance system is one with only benefits and no drawbacks. Both crews turn in what they have and get 50% of their ally's cut without taking away from them. That's a pretty decent incentive already.

The issue is that not everyone wants to ally. And even with this special loot (or the existing reaper gifts) not everyone wants to trade or give gifts.

I don't understand your point though.

Are you saying that the commendations are useless because they're difficult to do? I mean, I just threw the idea of commendations there because that's what Rare tends to do and that it might encourage people to participate in it.

I'm saying the mechanic/loot itself would be useless after a majority of the active playerbase completes it (which is why gift commendations are so difficult for newer players to complete now, the point deadstick was making). And it would be useless to the portion of the playerbase that isn't really interested in trading or gifting loot, just for the sake of completing commendations.

To the players who are completionists, this wouldn't be useless, but it could be annoying, as their completion would depend on other people's cooperation.

This is one of those things that people would probably do for half a season; and then trading or gifting would become less and less common over time, until we eventually have forum posts going, "why cant I find players to trade with?"

@theblackbellamy

I understand the apprehension and appreciate the response.

I think we can agree though that Sea of Thieves has a bunch of different types of players. In general, we all like the core mechanic. As for the individual features, I think preference differs but for sure some features see less use than others, particularly the PvE only ones like GH Vaults and Siren Shrines.

Yet, the developers spent resources on it.

On the other hand, I think a feature like this is more likely to see continued use simply because of the fact that it's so passive. Despite what @D3ADST1CK was saying, I really think it's relatively minute investment to put two extra pieces of loot on your ship after completing a raid voyage or treasury, or gh vault.

And then it opens up a reason to approach another emissary carrying loot. Obviously not everyone is going to like it but for players like me I'd be doing it pretty often. You also get a chance to be like do you have x loot on board? and actually make conversation with other crews. You might get a chance to hop onto their boat and see what they've been up to.

It also gives you a reason to check the map tables again at the beginning of a session. Oh there's already a Gold Hoarder, and Merchant Alliance on the map? I'll do OOS instead.

I think people underestimate how fun it is to strike up conversation with another crew in game and this sort of facilitates that.

As for Alliances, you're right that there is almost no risk involved—unless they're both doing the same world event—, but there's also no need for communication between crews either which can be boring.

I've wanted actual trading in the game going as a far as an unarmed trading ship (no cannons) being added to the game with positives and negatives to go with using one.

Commendations for using one, protecting one as part of an alliance and sinking them etc.

Positives for using one for example could be a limited NPC crew that waters the plants without the need to flood your ship, dry store area for cloth, safe storage for the bottles, feed the animals and maybe auto load/unload but have it interruptible or timed so you can't crash into an outpost while being chased and instantly unload/sell. NPC crew could plank as well, angle sails, put out fires etc. They could die and need to be replenished at a cost in the outposts (go into the tavern and recruit crew via a new NPC), they could be upgraded via commendations to increase numbers perhaps, health, arm them with a cutlass etc . Of course more gold and rep for taking the risk and going unarmed in this ship.

Obvious negative it's unarmed. Speed wise I dunno not so slow that it's utterly pointless to use it though.

@burnbacon said in Trading, TRADING, Companies.:

Rather steal the stuff than trade.

Absolutely!

@superlonghurst

I'm surprised that there isn't more talk about it considering that there's always complaints about the seas being too rough. Trading in any form, including the way that you're suggesting might help with that--seeing another ship without cannons might cause the other team to be friendly. Based on the responses here though it's less popular than I thought it would be. I am curious how other players would address our tendency towards immediate combat or immediate running on the seas or whether they even think it's an issue.