Athena Emissary Leveling

It really doesnt need to be easier...

@omnipotence13

I’m not trying to say easier, although that is what my suggested changes would do.

It just feels like doing a full Athena shouldn’t level you less than a thieves haven run.

Currently the record for solo Athena speed runs is an hour twenty, that means to get to level 5 you would have to put in 3 hours of work if you didn’t want to do the thieves haven run

@cosmicglitch you can't boost up to 5 by doing thieves haven run so whole topic can be closed.

@avecrux
We should play, because you definitely can.

Also I guess that wouldn’t even be the point because even if you “can’t” you still get closer than a full Athena would get you.

I got to 4 and a half with a full Athena and that was because I sank 2 megs and fought several emergent skellys, on a thieves haven run you get 4 and a half naturally and all the way to 5 if you get the powder keg that spawns.

If I didn’t get the random encounters on my full Athena I probably would have leveled to 3 where a thieves haven run can get you to 5 if you do it right.

Just seems unbalanced

@cosmicglitch everything needs additional activities now. Additionaly emissary quests also need side activities to reach lvl5

@cosmicglitch I hope you know when bringing up points like this, they will most likely do the opposite of what you hoped at make athena runs give you lower emissary rank by the end instead of buffing the regular voyage to give you more.

Right now they are trying to slow athena gains down and any way you find to still make it work for you should be kept quiet or at least make a better argument and not bring up the last hope we have for leveling athena from 10-20 in less than a year for the 1-2hr session people.

I don’t find it fair that athenas was the only emissary (except reapers bones oc) that was nerfed, and now you can complete a whole massive athenas voyage that doesn’t even get you level 5. But if you spend 50 doubloons on a thieves haven run then you do! Where’s the logic.

@kommodoreyenser
People keep talking about the grade system and the leveling system as if they are linked, they arnt

Let’s say Rare did something crazy and made it so if you found 1 piece of loot you got a grade 5 flag they could still nerf the experience from turning in loot so it doesn’t level you up as fast.

They feel like the same thing because of the multiplier but there is a balance that could be found here

@schwammlgott
That’s actually a pretty fair take but I think the idea of a thieves haven run and the actuality of one is different. I never run into any issue doing a thieves haven run I didn’t do them when they came out so maybe there was more traffic originally but anymore it seems pretty quiet.

It would be neat if they updated the island every month but that’s a whole other topic I suppose “kraken falls run” has a ring to it

@schwammlgott said in Athena Emissary Leveling:

@cosmicglitch sagte in Athena Emissary Leveling:

@schwammlgott
That’s actually a pretty fair take but I think the idea of a thieves haven run and the actuality of one is different. I never run into any issue doing a thieves haven run I didn’t do them when they came out so maybe there was more traffic originally but anymore it seems pretty quiet.

It would be neat if they updated the island every month but that’s a whole other topic I suppose “kraken falls run” has a ring to it

A second one of them with krakens fall, or old faithful, yes would be nice...
It's not that much going on on thieves haven, maybe you got lucky and no reaper emissary was there/realized you're doing athena...
When I go for reapers I'd check, if someone does athena emissary, because they are most likely doing athena run...easy to find this way

I don’t know how to cherry pick quotes but the whole “they are most likely doing Athena run” thing is the problem, why is it that doing an event run from 2 months ago is the most efficient way to play as an Athena emissary? Right now the emissary stuff for Athena is skewed towards leveling as opposed to play experience.

It changes what Athena voyages have been for so long now, if there are bigger changes around the corner to make regular Athena voyages obsolete then I guess it’s fine but right now with the way things are balanced it just makes it so there is no reason to do them at all.

Edit: also it makes it to easy to be a reaper like you said when playing as a reaper it’s worth paying attention to thieves haven because that’s where the emissaries are when (I feel) they shouldn’t be swarming that area in the first place

I agree with the OP. When you consider the time you are on the seas, an Athena Voyage is still more dangerous, and comes with less reward. This doesn't feel right. Simply upping the minor legendary treasures you get would fix the issue.

@ryi51986 said in Athena Emissary Leveling:

@cosmicglitch I have to tell you that me and my friend have been trying to complete a Theives Haven run for two weeks after successfully completing one on emissary and cashing in for about 150k. It is WAY harder now.

I would say if you do Thieves Haven on emissary, which in my opinion is the best way to level Athena Emissary right now, you are lucky if no one bothers you. The addition of Emissary in general is encouraging of combat because the largest reward is holding on to what you have until the end to cash in but it is a ton of risk right now. If you have a flag up with 5 levels, whether you have something or not, it's worth someone investigating. We have lost so much over our past four sessions. I'm talking probably over 100k worth of loot. Now, we need to up our combat skills a bit, but that is a different story. With the addition of Emissary, the flow and difficultly of the game changed.

Idk I have a friend that’s A20 because he just grinded thieves haven runs and I made it to A15 (don’t wanna grind it) just from helping him out.

I recognize the danger in it, if any boat is at thieves haven it’s worth checking out the island because it’s probably a Athena Em.

I love the emissary stuff, it’s my favorite update yet. It just feels like the thieves haven run is quicker than a normal Athena and that makes normal Athena’s basically worthless under the new system.

@ryi51986 said in Athena Emissary Leveling:

@cosmicglitch I totally agree. I am on the side that Theives Haven run is the quicker option because many times, you do make it to level five by the end. Me and my friend are going to do a voyage tonight and see where we end up. But I think that if you have to do a lot of side stuff to get to level 5, it is likely not the quickest way. Maybe we are having bad luck but I think people are literally making an evening out of just waiting for people at plunder. Which, not a bad strategy, if that is your thing. In general, we are fighting off people left and right recently, it seems. Eventually, we run out of luck.

You can get to 5 every time if you get the Athena keg that spawns with a skelly attached to it so keep an eye out for that one when your digging, good luck!