By making 1 small change, you can reduce confusion considerably for users new to the emissary system.

I suggest that when you have no ledger recorded, that it should be showing 'Above Current' for the various cut-offs.

Below is my review and reasoning of this screen.

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#1 - Merchant Alliance

#2 - Gold Hoarders

#3 - Athena Fortune

This is the 3 states that the emissary screen can be in.

Just Starting out.

Note that when you have not yet earned a ledger position (see image 1) that ALL the values shown are the 'top values' This is incredibly bad User Experience, because what users are really interested on this screen is the cut-offs. They haven't started competing yet, they probably aren't interested in competing for 'top spots'.

Things people care about:

1. Do I have the rewards.
2. How much work is it to get the rewards.
3. How much time is left to get the rewards.

Because of the decision to NOT SHOW CUT-OFFS Only point 1 is being addressed to the satisfaction of the user you can infer cutoffs, from the top values of Sailor, Cadet, and Commander, but it's more work to understand, especially when the UI suddenly changes when you have in-progress counts. It also highlights the number 1 value in the world, which isn't a good thing when it's nearly always someone exploiting. This causes significant confusion to the user.

I would suggest that if you haven't earned any value, that it should instead show above current for all tiers, with a 1 for the Sailor rank, in order to keep the UI more consistent.

Some completion.

When part-way through the emissary, like example 2 for gold hoarders, it helpfully changes so that you can see the cut-offs.

My rank in GH is Seafarers, so it's helpfully showing that currently I'm 'safe' to keep my rank, since there's 18 days left, and I'm sitting 166k above Castaway.

It's showing my current value under Seafarer, which is kinda weird, but I guess it makes more sense then leaving it blank, since it's a value between Castaway and Marauder.

under Marauder, and Captain it's showing how much more emissary I need in order to meet the cut-off for those ranks.

This screen is 'ok' for people who are in-progress through the ranking, as they mainly care that

1. Am I safe from falling out.
2. How much to I need to proceed.
3. When does the period end.
4. Is there rewards in the next tier for me to earn, or will I miss out if drop down.

Finished gaining ranks, and currently competing for 'as high as possible'.

If we look at Athena Fortune we can see what 'endgame' looks like.

all categories except Legend are showing Below Current, which is showing Current Value.
This is good, because it helps you feel safe when you see you are reasonably above the cutoff for Guardian.

Current Value is already on the screen, as is our current ledger position, so the utility of having it appear under Legend is limited, but it does match how the menu works when you are normally in progress, and it does keep up the symmetry of the UI.

However, at this point, there's only 3 things the user cares about.

1. Am I safe from the cut-off.
2. Am I earning a reward this month?
3. How far off am I from getting into top 1000, top 2000, etc.

This screen for end-game doesn't satisfy 3 at all, even though this is the point you would start caring about the leaderboards.