Commedations in Season 14

  • TheMetalMan4011
    Ship Mate
    Insider

    Been commendation grinding for a bit now in the new season.
    I have two main concerns, about the hanging of skelly ships and the traps.

    Firstly, I do not really see the point of hanging of the side of the skelly ships. It seems like a novelty, like you can do it, but gain nothing from doing so. It is simply not an effective way to hide from its crew. The AI immediately track down where you are and sends a Blunder Skeleton to shoot you off. Wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the fact it does it instantly unless you have a crewmate killing skellies for you or if you use a combination of Lure Darts and Bone Callers, to distract them.

    What puzzles me is that they made it some disguising makes skellies loose interest in you, you can even walk past them and they dont spot you. You can even go downstairs without risk of being shoot off the ship, so the risk is even lower. So they are a more effective way if you just wanna 'hang out' on a skeleton ship. So why am I hanging from the side, other than commendations?
    Also skeleton ships from skelly fleets dont count for this commendation, what is up with that?

    Secondly, and I do dislike how this keeps coming up in the seasons commendations but once again your progress is halted by other players choices. You need to kill other players in buried traps, meaning you are at an island, and not your ship, meaning you need to anticipate their arrival, their HP and their path when you lay the trap. I just struggle to see a situation like that, where rather then fighting their ship, their swam-point, I would run around the skelly fort we are fighting over and try to trip them up into that. (Add that they need to DIE on top of that, from the minimal damage the trap deals, saw a post that said using a blunder bomb doesnt work)

    But it seems at least doable, with patience and time, the other one is to disarm enemies' traps, which I have no control over, haven't seen an enemy trap thus far, and I've seen a scuffle or two since they were added. So your best bet is to 1, ask another crew to place traps for you to disarm, 2 hope that they have traps for you to disarm.

    What I find the most misleading however, is the wording on the first trap commendation: "Set a trap with a Jigball loaded and make at least two enemies dance."My issue is that it says, 'Enemies', it doesn't say Pirate, it says enemies, so I figured, hey, at least that works with AI enemies! Nope, it does not...
    When most commendations marks a difference between "Another Crew" and "Player ship" (with examples as the cursed balls commendations), I expected Enemies to mean anyone but a crew member.
    So now I need to somehow get 2 other pirates to dance, from a jigball in a trap, and I am annoyed because I've been searching for jigballs for a while now and when I finally set it up, the skeletons doesn't trigger commendation completion. Doing it with enemy pirates then, tt doesn't seem to leave a lot of options for how to complete it. None of which seem natural or inter-flowing of game-play.

    To Summarize, I would suggest the following.

    1. Make hanging from skellyships not so tedious and skeletons can no longer see a player who is hanging off the side.
    2. Make buried traps get progress for AI threats (so they can at least see some use)
    3. Change it so the Jigball Commendation works with AI threats.

    Thank you and good day.

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  • D3ADST1CK
    Vanguard
    Insider
    Founder

    Any commendations that can only progress from outside forces in a non-organic way are the worst.

    I think part of the reason is that they add these tools and expect players to use them, so the commendations should be "easy", but the problem is that they are so situation specific that it's incredibly rare for everything to line up perfectly.

    Take the Horn of Fair Winds ones for example. Knock a player off a harpoon with the horn. Seems reasonable.

    Except that it requires you to have collected a horn first. It also requires you to be in a chase or situation of some kind where the other ship is either not in a position to shoot you to smithereens with cannons or they just don't want to. Then it also requires a player to hit your ship with a harpoon, and instead of reeling their ship closer so they can just jump over they decide to take the dangerous option of tightrope walking across.

    In order to complete stuff like this, most players are probably going to cheese it anyways which kind of asks the question; what is the point in adding it if it's not something that is going to happen organically with any kind of predictable frequency?

    The trap ones are some of the worst for the same reason.

  • WolfManbush
    Legend

    Something they do a lot with commendations is they design them through the eyes of coordinated brig/galleon crews that run out there and do these random objectives to get their screenshots for social media.

    Problem is, that's not how most people play. Most people play sloop organically (which is why people will see way more of these ships/crews than others)

    When playing organically and as smaller crews/solos a lot of the "do these specific non-organic things" are not fun and incredibly more time consuming to set up and achieve than they are for the crews that are gonna post their comms being done within the first 48 hours.

    It's really not necessary to add a couple of those comms per season. It creates more negative engagement than positive, because of the frustrations.

    Something they have long struggled with is creating organic-play comms. This game links cheesing to community at a sacrifice to the organic experience and imo that's been a big problem all along the way.

  • BurnBacon
    Vanguard
    Insider

    I do not really see the point of hanging of the side of the skelly ships. It seems like a novelty, like you can do it, but gain nothing from doing so

    Lure dart the captain, twice. And hide. Other players try the fleet and you can surprise them.

    Also skeleton ships from skelly fleets dont count for this commendation, what is up with that?

    It does. Just slightly bugged. It was only way I finished mine.

    You need to kill other players in buried traps, meaning you are at an island, and not your ship, meaning you need to anticipate their arrival, their HP and their path when you lay the trap. I

    Reaper on map. Reaper hideout doorway with blunderbomb. Snipe them seconds before they step on it.

    So your best bet is to 1, ask another crew to place traps for you to disarm, 2 hope that they have traps for you to disarm.

    Asking pirates for help with commendations. It a beautiful moment.

    Funny not many people complain about the one. Lure dart in you, chased by 5 enemies and play musics. How do you do this when nobody uses the blowpipe xD

  • TheMetalMan4011
    Ship Mate
    Insider

    @d3adst1ck @WolfManbush

    I could not agree more with you. There needs to be better and more organic commendations in the future. It feels like there is a disconnect between the people who design commendations and the players who do them.
    Like if the commendations were things that could like occur, like trapping another pirate on your ship, but they are needlessly specific. But this has been a trend now for the past few seasons and I really needs to stop...

    It's really not necessary to add a couple of those comms per season. It creates more negative engagement than positive, because of the frustrations.

    Again I am in agreement, we didn't always get new commendations which each season, the bilge rat tab is starting to feel bloated as well. There is just so much to catch up on.

    It just feels like every update has to be THE update when to start playing. Where all your progress start to matter. They did it with Captaincy, they did it with Guilds, and they did it with Distinctions...
    But if every update is THE update to start playing, why should I play now, if I still have to do the same old stuff again with new toys in three months?

    Its starting to get exhausting.

  • TheMetalMan4011
    Ship Mate
    Insider

    I do not really see the point of hanging of the side of the skelly ships. It seems like a novelty, like you can do it, but gain nothing from doing so

    Lure dart the captain, twice. And hide. Other players try the fleet and you can surprise them.

    The issue is that it doesn't have an inherit use, and its tedious to grind out.
    Either give it a use, or dont make it tedious.

    Also skeleton ships from skelly fleets dont count for this commendation, what is up with that?

    It does. Just slightly bugged. It was only way I finished mine.

    Well it stopped mid session for my friend, and never worked for me.

    You need to kill other players in buried traps, meaning you are at an island, and not your ship, meaning you need to anticipate their arrival, their HP and their path when you lay the trap. I

    Reaper on map. Reaper hideout doorway with blunderbomb. Snipe them seconds before they step on it.

    Other posts on the forum seems to suggest those killed with blunderbomb doesn't count towards it, as the blunderbomb get the credit for the kill.

    So your best bet is to 1, ask another crew to place traps for you to disarm, 2 hope that they have traps for you to disarm.

    Asking pirates for help with commendations. It a beautiful moment.

    Again, only works as long as you have traps.

    Funny not many people complain about the one. Lure dart in you, chased by 5 enemies and play musics. How do you do this when nobody uses the blowpipe xD

    Funny, that commendation also says "Enemies" but it is pictured with skellies on it. I also KNOW it can be completed with a friendly lure dart and skeletons on a fort. Its how we did ours.
    I guess Rare messed up their wording this time. My three points still stand.

  • WolfManbush
    Legend

    @themetalman4011 said in Commedations in Season 14:

    @d3adst1ck @WolfManbush

    I could not agree more with you. There needs to be better and more organic commendations in the future. It feels like there is a disconnect between the people who design commendations and the players who do them.
    Like if the commendations were things that could like occur, like trapping another pirate on your ship, but they are needlessly specific. But this has been a trend now for the past few seasons and I really needs to stop...

    It's really not necessary to add a couple of those comms per season. It creates more negative engagement than positive, because of the frustrations.

    Again I am in agreement, we didn't always get new commendations which each season, the bilge rat tab is starting to feel bloated as well. There is just so much to catch up on.

    It just feels like every update has to be THE update when to start playing. Where all your progress start to matter. They did it with Captaincy, they did it with Guilds, and they did it with Distinctions...
    But if every update is THE update to start playing, why should I play now, if I still have to do the same old stuff again with new toys in three months?

    Its starting to get exhausting.

    I think there are a lot of different factors involved but one of them is that I think they don't have a connection with people that play organically in an underdog style.

    Most of their partners are not playing organically and their focus is on creating their own content with their own preferences. Not prioritizing the organic experience. It's a lot of quick action and contrived scenarios, or just stacking the deck to win all the time.

    Social media is all contrived stuff. People chasing rewards in some way or another or just saying the same stuff their favorite content creators say. Or they are just trying to get what they don't like in combat nerfed.

    Forums have more organic-play feedback but it's still just a few people making posts, not a lot of influence one way or the other.

    They said they want to get away from "systems" and lean into "fun" but the comms are just creating more systems of linear play and unfun metas. Then people take off for 2 months out of the season, rinse/repeat.

  • TheMetalMan4011
    Ship Mate
    Insider

    @wolfmanbush

    They said they want to get away from "systems" and lean into "fun" but the comms are just creating more systems of linear play and unfun metas. Then people take off for 2 months out of the season, rinse/repeat.

    Agreed, these "systems" need to stop.
    It doesn't work with Reaper's gifts, so why do they keep trying?

    Either remove it or make it something simple, like just trapping a player in a trap you placed (not having a BURIED trap KILL, another pirate).

  • WolfManbush
    Legend

    @themetalman4011 said in Commedations in Season 14:

    @wolfmanbush

    They said they want to get away from "systems" and lean into "fun" but the comms are just creating more systems of linear play and unfun metas. Then people take off for 2 months out of the season, rinse/repeat.

    Agreed, these "systems" need to stop.
    It doesn't work with Reaper's gifts, so why do they keep trying?

    Either remove it or make it something simple, like just trapping a player in a trap you placed (not having a BURIED trap KILL, another pirate).

    I think they are set in their ways on some of this stuff.

    Something that would help a lot is embracing "or" in requirements.

    They used to do this back in the day when they started improving events and then they kinda abandoned it.

    Set a trap with a jigball and make 2 enemies dance OR set 100 traps.

    Give people the option for freedom of play and organic play.

    As it is, people are only getting trap comms in one of two ways. They are either cheesing it with friends. Or they do what I do and spend the first few days really gettin' out there and getting some encounters in while people are willing to work together in an organic encounter. I play more than most and I have a lot of experience so it's more realistic for me.

    after a week+ either people have stuff done or they've abandoned the season and it's just people that are real nervous or only wanna sink people.

  • Felix Ashur
    Seafarer
    Insider

    Hilariously enough, despite the dev and general community hatred for Alliance servers, contrived and extremely circumstantial commendations making up the vast majority of the season's commendation list like these actually encourages the creation and use of alliance servers as said places are some of the only ways to consistently get said commendations. You'd think that if said servers were such a big problem, they would stop making them more appealing with stuff like this. But instead, they just keep giving people more reasons to use them and more reasons to cheese commendations. Really, much like a lot of previous design decisions, it feels like the current design of commendations tends to reward inorganic play and playstyles that go partially (or even sometimes fully) against the much lauded "vision" that keeps being brought up by the devs as the reasons why they make things the way they do.

  • WolfManbush
    Legend

    @felix-ashur said in Commedations in Season 14:

    Hilariously enough, despite the dev and general community hatred for Alliance servers, contrived and extremely circumstantial commendations making up the vast majority of the season's commendation list like these actually encourages the creation and use of alliance servers as said places are some of the only ways to consistently get said commendations. You'd think that if said servers were such a big problem, they would stop making them more appealing with stuff like this. But instead, they just keep giving people more reasons to use them and more reasons to cheese commendations. Really, much like a lot of previous design decisions, it feels like the current design of commendations tends to reward inorganic play and playstyles that go partially (or even sometimes fully) against the much lauded "vision" that keeps being brought up by the devs as the reasons why they make things the way they do.

    Imo it boils down to big boat bias and/or being known in the community bias.

    The big boat bias is everything being pretty free in adventure. If it's an experienced crew the wins are free and they have the power of numbers and combat to get boats to work with them more often.

    The being known bias is when a content creator or someone known by their status in the community has perks during encounters. Some players are more likely to work with known people, this is seen literally every day in SoT content creation. Also, people see each other so often on these servers that it's regs running into regs a lot.

    It's showed up in how the comms are designed for a long time. Organic experiences without social/power advantages are very different than what some of these comms are designed for.

  • TheMetalMan4011
    Ship Mate
    Insider

    @felix-ashur said in Commedations in Season 14:

    Hilariously enough, despite the dev and general community hatred for Alliance servers, contrived and extremely circumstantial commendations making up the vast majority of the season's commendation list like these actually encourages the creation and use of alliance servers as said places are some of the only ways to consistently get said commendations. You'd think that if said servers were such a big problem, they would stop making them more appealing with stuff like this. But instead, they just keep giving people more reasons to use them and more reasons to cheese commendations. Really, much like a lot of previous design decisions, it feels like the current design of commendations tends to reward inorganic play and playstyles that go partially (or even sometimes fully) against the much lauded "vision" that keeps being brought up by the devs as the reasons why they make things the way they do.

    You're right, that is hilarious.

  • HiradC
    Commander
    Insider

    I'm pretty sure the hang commendation progressed for me from skelly fleet ships. It just wasn't instantly updating in game, checking reputation here seems to be more accurate.

  • TheMetalMan4011
    Ship Mate
    Insider
    1. Change it so the Jigball Commendation works with AI threats.

    It appears this has been addressed, and it should now work on AI threats.
    So thats something at least.

  • TheMetalMan4011
    Ship Mate
    Insider

    @themetalman4011 said in Commedations in Season 14:

    1. Change it so the Jigball Commendation works with AI threats.

    It appears this has been addressed, and it should now work on AI threats.
    So thats something at least.

    Nevermind, just tried it on high season my main account, we were on a Brig, neither me or my crewmates got the commendation from making 2 skelecaptains and 2 normal skeletons dance from a trap with a jigball.
    So color me confused

  • Super87Ghost
    Captain

    @themetalman4011 It doesn't even work with enemy pirates at this moment, that commendation is still very much bugged (wich Rare acknowledged, since on the 19th they updated it is still not working properly and they are working on it).

  • SweetSandMan
    Lord
    Insider

    @themetalman4011

    For the trap ones, I agree...creating commendations that almost exclusively need to be cheesed (ie "hey you wanna come die to each other's traps a bunch of times?"..or "hey you wanna come disarm each other's traps a bunch of times?") for completion is just silly. No way either of those commendations happens organically in the life of this game.

    @burnbacon said in Commedations in Season 14:

    Funny not many people complain about the one. Lure dart in you, chased by 5 enemies and play musics. How do you do this when nobody uses the blowpipe xD

    1). Throw down an OOS voyage and head to the island
    2). Have your crewmate shoot you with a lure dart when there's 5+ skellies
    3). Run from said skellies and play a shanty
    4). Profit

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