Make it EASIER to GET BASE CURSE or MORE WAYS to get ALLEGIANCE levels

  • LordQulex
    Captain

    @adara-haze said in Make it EASIER to GET BASE CURSE or MORE WAYS to get ALLEGIANCE levels:

    Użytkownik @lordqulex napisał w Make it EASIER to GET BASE CURSE or MORE WAYS to get ALLEGIANCE levels:

    @adara-haze

    I have been playing hourglass exclusively since S8 released. I am currently 53D and 26S. My W/L ratio bobs between 30-40%.

    If you played for months and your win rate is close to half... this means you play one battle a day... Or even less.

    Again, you do not have that much time in this gamemode... and you simply don't deserve to get the MOST WANTED ITEM IN GAME for basically free.

    Edit: Bro, I literally am playing pvp on demand for like a week... I am 25 at the moment (25 Guardians, 5 Servants). What you are saying simply does not check out math-wise.

    First, since I don't have access to the hideouts yet my stats are based off of what I can see in captaincy which don't include battles on un-captained ships, and don't include battles against same-faction opponents. Admittedly the stats at this point are an approximation.

    Secondly, allegiance requirements are non-linear. It takes more wins to get level 50 than it does level 10.

    Thanks for playing!

  • LordQulex
    Captain

    @valor-omega said in Make it EASIER to GET BASE CURSE or MORE WAYS to get ALLEGIANCE levels:

    @lordqulex Let me ask this, then.

    In your opinion, what's the happy medium, here? How can Rare potentially respect the time of more casual players, while still respecting the hard work that more hard-core players put in?

    Yes, the Ghost/Skeleton curses have been asked for/wanted for ages, I get that. As they are now, you DO need to work for them, but without devaluing the work people have already put in, how can there be a happy medium?

    There have been many threads discussing how to best reward good faith PVP and IMO these are the two ideas:

    • Daily/weekly/monthly deeds that reward hourglass activities like first win and multiple wins (5/10/20). This will encourage people to participate in good faith PVP inside of hourglass.
    • Daily/weekly/monthly deeds that reward hourglass participation, i.e. 5/10/15/20 matches. This will increase player participation in general, which raises the player pool which will increase the odds of people finding fair matches.
    • Rewarding PVP activities such as cannonball hits, masts dropped, holes repaired and food eaten by opposing crew, each up to 5 times per match to encourage good faith PVP activities while preventing farming off of low skill pirates
    • Buying levels in the factions just like how you could buy levels in the trading companies with letters of recommendation. People that want the curses but don't like PVP will just buy their way up to it, just like pirate legend.
    • Rewarding more allegiance for a loss, suggestions range from 1/4 of a win to equal to a wins worth of allegiance. This will respect the players' time investment so that players don't feel punished when the lose those 20-60 minute battles.
  • Dragotech123
    Captain
    Insider
    Founder

    I'd appreciate if people didn't assume I am not grinding. I am, but because losses give so little I can't progress faster as someone good at PvP.
    I'd appreciate if people didn't assume I haven't engaged with the hourglass. XP for each battle is the same regardless if they are quick or they took a long time to complete.
    I'd appreciate if people didn't assume that winning is easy. It takes some time to learn, not everyone learns at the same rate, not everyone passed through the same learning experiences.
    I'd appreciate if people didn't assume that because I lost a match is because I'm not trying to improve and I'm loss farming.
    I'd appreciate if people didn't assume that the time invested for a constant winner is the same for a constant loser.
    I'd appreciate if people didn't assume that the Gold Curse is the equivalent, because tall tales has a constant ammount of time invested regardless of the interest of their participants while PvP is much more unpredictable and can be either too fast or too slow to progress.
    I'd appreciate if people didn't assume I am not trying and I'm not giving everything I got.
    I'd appreciate if people didn't assume that I'm lazy and I want everything handed to me. I am asking to have my time and effort respected.
    I'd appreciate if people didn't assume that winning is enough to solve the problem with losses being poorly rewarded. I can win a few times, but that means someone else lost the match and they are rewarded the little xp. There will always be someone with the insignificant reward. Being on the winning side does not mean the losing side does not exist.

  • Valor Omega
    Champion
    Insider

    @lordqulex I actually agree with all but two of those suggestions. The increased allegiance gains based on activities completed in battle would be a really great addition I think. I do not think that levels should be purchasable, though. I think level purchasing is partially why Pirate Legend status has been muddied down, over the years, and would eventually devalue the curses as well.

    If they HAD to add level purchasing, it should be for a very high price, per level, that way it's still tougher to get, maybe like a million gold or something per level. I feel like that would be the only happy medium for level purchasing; high value level for high value curse.

    As for more allegiance per loss, I both agree and disagree. I was happy that they increased the loss EXP gained recently, as it was abysmally low. But I don't agree that the loss EXP should be equal to EXP gained if a crew wins a battle. If players win a battle, their exp gain should be reflective of that win, and vice versa if they lose. I also think that if the previous proposed changes were implemented, players would gain a fair bit of EXP throughout their battles either way, and even if they lose, they still get a good chunk of exp, if they choose to loss farm.

  • LordQulex
    Captain

    @valor-omega

    Yea, it all really depends. They have got to do something about the players experiencing 60-120 minute matches getting a tiny amount of allegiance after losing. That is simply ridiculous. The flip side is also the very quick matches: I've had more than one match where my opponent anchored his ship, sword lunged over, boarded, ferry locked, and sailed me out. Granted it was a four minute match so there's not much to complain about, but it's not always possible to be a good faith participant in PVP if you are that severely outclassed.

    I absolutely would not support giving more than a quarter of a win per loss, but there are some salty people out there that want them equal. I've tried hard to simply say "more allegiance per loss" and not quantify it.

  • Valor Omega
    Champion
    Insider

    @dragotech123 Hey, mate I do understand and feel you. The grind is definitely a slog for sure sometimes, especially if you get trounced - feels demoralizing at times. I think for that reason alone, the end goal of the curses is that much more tantalizing. You work hard to achieve that shiny new curse, and that curse is reflective of your efforts to arrive at that destination - players see that curse and KNOW you're a solid player.

    While I understand that the loss exp gained may not feel sufficient, it's appropriate in the context that some games, with similar PvP goals and milestones don't give ANY exp for loss.

    There are a lot of cool cosmetics that can be earned throughout various ways in SoT, some harder to get than others, and some easier. I personally think that these curses being put behind PvP is cool, because it incentivizes for players to push themselves and work towards a long-term goal. I would also argue that since Arena's closure, there hasn't been any meaningful, long-term goal for players to push for, so it feels good to have something to work for. Personally, something that can be easily obtained isn't as gratifying as something that is obtained through hard work and resilience! I know not everyone shares that belief, but I do encourage everyone to look at it in the scope of a long term, high risk, but high reward scenario.

  • Valor Omega
    Champion
    Insider

    @lordqulex I am pretty confident that once the cross-stamp fix gets pushed to live, that should alleviate match que time issues almost entirely. I believe it was described as looking at a map with quadrants; A1-A10 for example. Players on the A stamp only play with A-stamped players, can't play with B-Z quadrant players. But with the fix, would allow for these battles to occur.

    Regarding good faith PvP, I think so long as people aren't hurling insults or slurs, anything to secure a sink/win is in "good faith" since that's the entire goal - to win. I absolutely agree that issues like spawn camping, bucketing to prevent sinks, etc are in bad faith, when in the normal adventure environment, though. But here, the entire purpose is to win at whatever cost, and again, bar insults slurs, I feel like any piratical act is on the table.

    Yeah, I feel like a quarter of EXP is the max I'd like to see it. If that change were pushed, though, I'd like to see at least 3/4ths of a bar for a win, though. There definitely needs to be a visible difference between win/loss gain exp.

  • Dragotech123
    Captain
    Insider
    Founder

    @valor-omega said in Make it EASIER to GET BASE CURSE or MORE WAYS to get ALLEGIANCE levels:

    @dragotech123 Hey, mate I do understand and feel you. The grind is definitely a slog for sure sometimes, especially if you get trounced - feels demoralizing at times. I think for that reason alone, the end goal of the curses is that much more tantalizing. You work hard to achieve that shiny new curse, and that curse is reflective of your efforts to arrive at that destination - players see that curse and KNOW you're a solid player.

    While I understand that the loss exp gained may not feel sufficient, it's appropriate in the context that some games, with similar PvP goals and milestones don't give ANY exp for loss.

    There are a lot of cool cosmetics that can be earned throughout various ways in SoT, some harder to get than others, and some easier. I personally think that these curses being put behind PvP is cool, because it incentivizes for players to push themselves and work towards a long-term goal. I would also argue that since Arena's closure, there hasn't been any meaningful, long-term goal for players to push for, so it feels good to have something to work for. Personally, something that can be easily obtained isn't as gratifying as something that is obtained through hard work and resilience! I know not everyone shares that belief, but I do encourage everyone to look at it in the scope of a long term, high risk, but high reward scenario.

    I guess so. Thanks for recognizing how hard can it get.

  • LordQulex
    Captain

    @valor-omega said in Make it EASIER to GET BASE CURSE or MORE WAYS to get ALLEGIANCE levels:

    @lordqulex I am pretty confident that once the cross-stamp fix gets pushed to live, that should alleviate match que time issues almost entirely. I believe it was described as looking at a map with quadrants; A1-A10 for example. Players on the A stamp only play with A-stamped players, can't play with B-Z quadrant players. But with the fix, would allow for these battles to occur.

    Regarding good faith PvP, I think so long as people aren't hurling insults or slurs, anything to secure a sink/win is in "good faith" since that's the entire goal - to win. I absolutely agree that issues like spawn camping, bucketing to prevent sinks, etc are in bad faith, when in the normal adventure environment, though. But here, the entire purpose is to win at whatever cost, and again, bar insults slurs, I feel like any piratical act is on the table.

    Yeah, I feel like a quarter of EXP is the max I'd like to see it. If that change were pushed, though, I'd like to see at least 3/4ths of a bar for a win, though. There definitely needs to be a visible difference between win/loss gain exp.

    Generally speaking, when I say "good faith PVP" I mean "not loss farming." I believe loss farming is a symptom of a poorly designed rules set. If people are really willing to take loss after loss after loss because it generates more allegiance than actually trying, then that's the game's fault not the player's. You need to incentivize players to play how you like, because if you punish them for playing how you don't like they'll simply resent you.

  • Valor Omega
    Champion
    Insider

    @dragotech123 Of course, mate. I know a lot of folk's responses are the usual "git gud", but that doesn't really do anyone any justice. Like..yes, in a matter of speaking getting better is the solution, but the time to arrive there varies person, to person.

    Personally, I'm only in the 30's range of levels, for both Guardians of Athena's Fortune, and Servants of flame. The battles are again, definitely slogs at times, especially when paired against pirates who are much higher level/skill. But for me, I KNOW that when I finally hit 100, and unlock that Ghost Curse, all of that time spent, all of the frustration, and hard work will have finally paid off, and I'll have tangible proof of that. I also just love all the rewards that are unlocked in the meanwhile, both the level-up figureheads, as well as the trinkets and ship customizations, so that also adds fuel to my fire!

  • Valor Omega
    Champion
    Insider

    @lordqulex I think in regards to loss farming, and as bad as it is to say, is just a result of human laziness. Yeah, Rare could probably input ways to resolve it, but at the end of the day, if someone can achieve something with less overall work, they're going to try and do it. Human nature is just inherently lazy at times.

    I remember quite well, when the LSD/TSD grind was still fresh, people also clamored for those to be easily unlocked by PvE means, and I'm thankful Rare didn't bend to those desires, honestly. This resulted in LSD/TSD players/cosmetics still being held in fairly high regard, and treated with respect, and in cases, giving them a large wake, lol. Not many ship cosmetics give off a vibe of "this player is cracked" than TSD, Sea of Champions, or Notorious Arena sails, and now with S8, the Ghost/Skeleton curses.

  • WolfManbush
    Lord

    @valor-omega said in Make it EASIER to GET BASE CURSE or MORE WAYS to get ALLEGIANCE levels:

    @lordqulex I think in regards to loss farming, and as bad as it is to say, is just a result of human laziness. Yeah, Rare could probably input ways to resolve it, but at the end of the day, if someone can achieve something with less overall work, they're going to try and do it. Human nature is just inherently lazy at times.

    I remember quite well, when the LSD/TSD grind was still fresh, people also clamored for those to be easily unlocked by PvE means, and I'm thankful Rare didn't bend to those desires, honestly. This resulted in LSD/TSD players/cosmetics still being held in fairly high regard, and treated with respect, and in cases, giving them a large wake, lol. Not many ship cosmetics give off a vibe of "this player is cracked" than TSD, Sea of Champions, or Notorious Arena sails, and now with S8, the Ghost/Skeleton curses.

    Loss farming is far more a form of protest than laziness

    doing something more than everyone else just firing less cannonballs during the process isn't laziness.

    It's not popular content and it's unpleasant for many. They hype it up because it's their big partner collaboration pvp content but there are groups of players feeling left out and unheard.

    It took them 2 months to address true issues and they catered to partners complaining quickly. They patted themselves on the back in their podcast about quickly reacting to feedback but what they quickly reacted to was daytime streaming partners facing stiff competition that they weren't prepared for, the real issues weren't addressed for 2 months

    It's not laziness, it's people speaking with their activity, both by ignoring the content and how they approach the content.

    2 months people got camped for no rep, a malicious act that went on for 2 months against those with no connections and no power to stop it other than quit, while partners were getting catered to because they faced competition for the first time in years.

  • Valor Omega
    Champion
    Insider

    @wolfmanbush I think I would disagree, there, at least partially. I think it DOES stem from laziness. The time spent doing loss farming, could definitely be used trying to hone skills and getting better, but rather than that, some are taking the easier way. Sure, maybe some are doing it to stamp their feet, but I really do believe it's just laziness. Takes less time, effort, and skill to dive, sit there, be sunk, rinse repeat.

    I think it's another instance of content that won't please everyone, but it was definitely needed. After countless PvE centric updates, I think it was definitely high-time for the PvP crowd to get something that they can enjoy. I understand some players feel left out, but that mindset is how the PvP community has felt for months, with all the PvE content they've added before, and afterwards.

    If that's what they want to do, so be it. But I think many would agree that it's obvious how such activities look on the outside. I don't disagree that the hacks, exploits, and glitches needed to be addressed sooner, though.

  • Sir Sniffils
    Seafarer

    @xshirahx said in Make it EASIER to GET BASE CURSE or MORE WAYS to get ALLEGIANCE levels:

    @dragotech123 said in Make it EASIER to GET BASE CURSE or MORE WAYS to get ALLEGIANCE levels:

    Please, Rare, I kindly ask you to increase the ammount of allegiance obtained after a loss to be almost on par with a single win because I believe that it would make losing less frustrating and would keep more player motivated to engage with the hourglass again despite being defeated in battle.

    I'm pretty sure that would encourage a lot of people to just farm losses which isn't what it should be about.

    yeah, make it 1/3 of win maybe?

  • Sir Sniffils
    Seafarer

    @dragotech123 said in Make it EASIER to GET BASE CURSE or MORE WAYS to get ALLEGIANCE levels:

    @xshirahx said in Make it EASIER to GET BASE CURSE or MORE WAYS to get ALLEGIANCE levels:

    @dragotech123 said in Make it EASIER to GET BASE CURSE or MORE WAYS to get ALLEGIANCE levels:

    Please, Rare, I kindly ask you to increase the ammount of allegiance obtained after a loss to be almost on par with a single win because I believe that it would make losing less frustrating and would keep more player motivated to engage with the hourglass again despite being defeated in battle.

    I'm pretty sure that would encourage a lot of people to just farm losses which isn't what it should be about.

    I'm quite sure it may happen, but I still think there are reasons to try and fight. Some of them are noy losing the hourglass value, not losing the streaks, not losing emmisary grades, not losing any loot on board, not losing collected flags, not losing extra supplies, and use the winning multiplier to progress even faster.

    In order to avoid farming losses the game could implement something that could recognize effort and performance instead of giving a flat ammount of allegiance to any kind of loss.

    fair point- they could make loss xp same as win xp due to streaks and stuff like that...

  • Sir Sniffils
    Seafarer

    @jj-h816 said in Make it EASIER to GET BASE CURSE or MORE WAYS to get ALLEGIANCE levels:

    Season 8 was advertised as a PVP update and rare has stated it multiple times that it is meant to be a PVP update. I’m sorry if some of you don’t personally like PVP and I’m sorry some of you aren’t great at it. In no way should Rare have to cater to your play style if you just enjoy the PVE aspects. All the curses are obtainable in a PVE style fashion it’ll just take you longer. If you choose to loss farm then do it, just don’t ask to be rewarded for doing so. Also stop making PVP players out to be the bad guys here we are excelling at the update that came out as an update for us, this first one in years. We haven’t asked for any of the other curses or ship sets acquired through PVE to be easier to get or needed in anyway. I know you’ve stated that is different because some of you view PVP as stressful, but I personally don’t, I find it engaging and fun. We can all enjoy our own play styles. It’s a game play it as you wish.

    None of us have any problem with there being a PvP update, The problem that many have with it is that these are curses for everyone that not everyone has the skill to obtain.

  • Sir Sniffils
    Seafarer

    @haltzo5045 said in Make it EASIER to GET BASE CURSE or MORE WAYS to get ALLEGIANCE levels:

    @sir-sniffils Hardly disagree, the way it is now, it's alot of grinding, other ways to farm allegiance would mean devalueing the curses. So no, it needs to stay as it is. It's also a way for players to learn how to be better in pvp, i don't want the curses to become available any other way, and earning allegiance should also stay as it is, otherwise me, and people who grinded hard for it, did it for nothing while others could then get it way to easily after making 3000 posts on the forums that it's either too hard, too much of a grind, or they wanna be able to get the curses through pve.

    Something I have suggested before is that already earned levels be multiplied by ex. 1.25 times.
    People who have already made progress can get closer to the 1k curse and the other rewards while still giving everyone (all these people that have been suggesting skeleton and ghost curse) a chance at getting them.

  • Sir Sniffils
    Seafarer

    @valor-omega said in Make it EASIER to GET BASE CURSE or MORE WAYS to get ALLEGIANCE levels:

    @lordqulex Let me ask this, then.

    In your opinion, what's the happy medium, here? How can Rare potentially respect the time of more casual players, while still respecting the hard work that more hard-core players put in?

    Yes, the Ghost/Skeleton curses have been asked for/wanted for ages, I get that. As they are now, you DO need to work for them, but without devaluing the work people have already put in, how can there be a happy medium?

    Here's a solution to this that I have suggested before:
    "Something I have suggested before is that already earned levels be multiplied by ex. 1.25 times.
    People who have already made progress can get closer to the 1k curse and the other rewards while still giving everyone (all these people that have been suggesting skeleton and ghost curse) a chance at getting them."

  • Jon Sea Nah
    Marauder
    Insider

    @sir-sniffils turns out Rare decided I he curses are for obtaining lvl 100 in the new PVP mode…. Everyone can earn them. You can literally do PVE max faction treasure grade, lower HG and repeat. Loss farm if you really want to, but losing shouldn’t get nearly the same rep as a win. Sorry not sorry. Everyone can obtain these the grind just may be longer that other peoples grind.

  • Sir Sniffils
    Seafarer

    @jj-h816 said in Make it EASIER to GET BASE CURSE or MORE WAYS to get ALLEGIANCE levels:

    @sir-sniffils turns out Rare decided I he curses are for obtaining lvl 100 in the new PVP mode…. Everyone can earn them. You can literally do PVE max faction treasure grade, lower HG and repeat. Loss farm if you really want to, but losing shouldn’t get nearly the same rep as a win. Sorry not sorry. Everyone can obtain these the grind just may be longer that other peoples grind.

    *much longer...

  • Jon Sea Nah
    Marauder
    Insider

    @sir-sniffils took me from 2018 til January 1 this year to get gold curse soooooo where do we go from here?

  • Jon Sea Nah
    Marauder
    Insider

    And before everyone starts with the “But that’s different” talk how? How is it different. It’s a game mode I just did not enjoy and I found tedious, boring, and time consuming. Some of you might disagree with me….. which is the point! You like that style of play, I really like PVP and S8 is awesome for it! So if you don’t like it it might take you a long time to achieve the curse. On the other hand if you do like it, the curse will come faster. Let’s stop splitting hairs.

  • LordQulex
    Captain

    @jj-h816 said in Make it EASIER to GET BASE CURSE or MORE WAYS to get ALLEGIANCE levels:

    @sir-sniffils took me from 2018 til January 1 this year to get gold curse soooooo where do we go from here?

    That's not a valid argument because people who are grinding hourglass are grinding it daily. You can easily do a TT in an hour or two, meaning if you play once a day it will take you 45 days to get the curse. If it took you five years of daily grinding to get the the curse I'd have a TON more sympathy for you, but what it sounds like you're saying is "I did a tall tale once every six weeks and it took me five years to get the gold curse." Yea, yea if you don't want something bad enough to work towards it every day it takes you a while. People complaining about hourglass are grinding it daily and not feeling rewarded.

    This argument is what-about-ism and not apples to apples.

  • LordQulex
    Captain

    @jj-h816

    Not to mention the variability in difficulty of hourglass compared to a tall tale. The difficulty in a tall tale is fixed. The same skeletons spawn in the same places every single time. In hourglass, it is an outlier but entirely statistically possible that due to randomness of SBMM and stamps a person could get to 100 by exclusively facing opponents significantly less skilled than them. Then on the other end of the probability spectrum are those players whom exclusively get matched with players significantly more skilled than themselves. The variability in difficulty is what warrants treating the two differently.

    Not to mention if I really wanted the gold curse now I could simply go trade/beg for checkpoints in the discord, which is something you've advocated for hourglass. ("Just go look on Discord for a crew to sail with, brig matches are much easier than solo slooping.")

  • Jon Sea Nah
    Marauder
    Insider

    @lordqulex I’m going to have my guardian curse done presumably before the season ends based on how much I play it. What I’m getting at is it can be seen as similar. I like HG I play it more and I’m decent at PVP, why should the curse get devalued because someone isn’t as good? What if a player new to the game starts the gold curse, brand spanking new player, no clue how the game mechanics work. It’ll take that person infinitely long to complete the gold curse as it would you. Same thing man I’m sorry it just is. You can try to justify it as not but some people got both curses SUPER fast, they are just excellent at PVP. Some people aren’t great at PVP because they don’t do it or haven’t done it much. At least with S8 you can do smaller bites with TT you have to at least make it to a checkpoint and depending on what’s going on around you that could take more time than you have that play session.

    Getting the Gold Curse is just quicker for you. Same as getting the new curses was just quicker for others. It’s not that it requires infinitely longer, it just requires some people longer. You are trying to make a subjective thing objective.
  • LordQulex
    Captain

    @jj-h816 said in Make it EASIER to GET BASE CURSE or MORE WAYS to get ALLEGIANCE levels:

    @lordqulex I’m going to have my guardian curse done presumably before the season ends based on how much I play it.

    Huzzah, congratulations.

    What I’m getting at is it can be seen as similar.

    No it can't. Hourglass has more variables than tall tales (skill gap, hackers/cheaters, MMR tanking, etc...) and the primary complaint is that the system is rewarding pirates differently based on random happenstance out of any player's control. That is to say, on any given night a pirate's hourglass experience is entirely arbitrary, so the reward system should be based on number of matches and time, and not on wins/streaks because those are essentially determined by the server's RNG.

    I like HG I play it more and I’m decent at PVP, why should the curse get devalued because someone isn’t as good?

    The curse already has no value. People bought levels off ebay from China, they cheesed up to level 1000 on alliance servers, loss farmers already have them and are never touching hourglass again. The very notion that the curses have value is laughable.

    What if a player new to the game starts the gold curse, brand spanking new player, no clue how the game mechanics work. It’ll take that person infinitely long to complete the gold curse as it would you.

    My blunderbuss hits a gold pirate the same as a skeleton or a phantom, why do I care if they want to look like Viserys Targaryen?

    Same thing man I’m sorry it just is. You can try to justify it as not but some people got both curses SUPER fast, they are just excellent at PVP.

    That is patently false. So many people on this thread have said "just because they have the curse doesn't mean they're good." That is absolutely true due to all the exploits, cheats, and cheese.

    That is what I think people are missing the point on here. These are cosmetics. They have no intrinsic value and are not status symbols. They make your pirate look different and have no in-game benefit. The fact that you can only wear one at a time makes the entire ordeal even more hilarious. I think the biggest unspoken reason why people are so concerned about getting them now is because a majority of people still don't have it, and if you wait too long the game mode will be so dead that loss farming will be your only option because the pirates of average skill and below have left. The game mode will die as soon as everyone who wants the curse and doesn't love PVP leave, and we all want to unlock the curses before the sweats are the only people we can pair with.

    The fact the players already have level 1000 in both factions before good faith participants have 100 in even one faction is proof positive the system is broken and unfair, and that makes the curses mean absolutely nothing. You don't know if someone wearing them bought them or earned them or cheated for them. Anyone who still thinks the curses mean something are simply gatekeeping.

  • Jon Sea Nah
    Marauder
    Insider

    @lordqulex I’m not gatekeeping I’m simply saying you shouldn’t already have it in your vanity chest simply because you want it. Go loss farm it up. Go do whatever you’d like, but insinuating that you want it so it should just be is a hard no for me.

  • LordQulex
    Captain

    @jj-h816

    What if a player new to the game starts the gold curse, brand spanking new player, no clue how the game mechanics work. It’ll take that person infinitely long to complete the gold curse as it would you.

    I misread this and addressed it incorrectly, I apologize. Yes, someone who is brand new to the game has a steep learning curve and will take a while to gain the skill to earn the gold curse. The exact same can be said about hourglass, true. But still, once someone obtains the skill to complete the tall tales, it is a constant time to do so. Two people of the exact same MMR can have vastly different experiences in hourglass because of region, stamp, and a RNG. That makes hourglass a non-equivalent progression and remarkably unfair for people not in NA and EU.

  • LordQulex
    Captain

    @jj-h816 said in Make it EASIER to GET BASE CURSE or MORE WAYS to get ALLEGIANCE levels:

    @lordqulex I’m not gatekeeping I’m simply saying you shouldn’t already have it in your vanity chest simply because you want it. Go loss farm it up. Go do whatever you’d like, but insinuating that you want it so it should just be is a hard no for me.

    I've never once said I want it for free, I've always said I want to earn it through good faith PVP. The trouble is that good faith PVP is not rewarded as much as bad faith exploitation. That's what I'm suggesting fixes for.

  • Jon Sea Nah
    Marauder
    Insider

    @lordqulex I have been Rared sooooo many times doing such benign tasks in this game, I’m sure you can say the same. It’s just how it goes man. I had random lightening blow my boat up, ya I may have had a keg or 3 in a rowboat for some shenanigans to be had but I wasn’t IN the storm, Rare just knew my intentions and kaboom. Yes in HG mode you can meet up with mega sweats, farmers, noobs, all of the things.

    I’ve had random skelegalleons decide they hate my face while doing a tall tale. A random skele shooting my ship from a cannon tower doing an adventure. I’ve burned my boat down because I forgot food on the stove. Toss this in with rando crews coming at you while tall tale’n and you have yourself sea of thieves. It’s never quite what or how you expected it to go. Kinda par for the course in this game. I died countless times to the stupid traps on tall tale 9. I am not great at platforming in this game

  • LordQulex
    Captain

    @jj-h816 said in Make it EASIER to GET BASE CURSE or MORE WAYS to get ALLEGIANCE levels:

    @lordqulex I have been Rared sooooo many times doing such benign tasks in this game, I’m sure you can say the same. It’s just how it goes man. I had random lightening blow my boat up, ya I may have had a keg or 3 in a rowboat for some shenanigans to be had but I wasn’t IN the storm, Rare just knew my intentions and kaboom. Yes in HG mode you can meet up with mega sweats, farmers, noobs, all of the things.

    I’ve had random skelegalleons decide they hate my face while doing a tall tale. A random skele shooting my ship from a cannon tower doing an adventure. I’ve burned my boat down because I forgot food on the stove. Toss this in with rando crews coming at you while tall tale’n and you have yourself sea of thieves. It’s never quite what or how you expected it to go. Kinda par for the course in this game. I died countless times to the stupid traps on tall tale 9. I am not great at platforming in this game

    I've been kegged in HG. I've been megged in HG. I've been krakened in HG. I've been invaded by a skeleton, sailed into a skeleton fleet, and struck by lightning in a storm in HG. I've been shot at by skeleton cannons, lit on fire, and third partied, all in HG.

    In mathematics they call that a "constant." These constants are present in both hourglass and adventure mode. They make both harder. You know what you do with constants on both sides of an equation in logic problems? You cancel them out. They make no difference to the solution. Tall Tales having the same constants as hourglass still doesn't equate the two.

    Face it, there are variables facing pirates in hourglass that simply aren't present in tall tales. You will never be able to equate the gold curse to the HG curses. They're simply not the same beast.

  • Jon Sea Nah
    Marauder
    Insider

    @lordqulex they are all the same variables. Unless you cite them cheating on pc servers then it’s all the same. Skilled pirates are in HG just like they are in adventure mode. The world doesn’t magically become so much harder just because you decided to opt in to HG

  • Jolly Ol Yep
    Marauder
    Insider

    @valor-omega a dit dans Make it EASIER to GET BASE CURSE or MORE WAYS to get ALLEGIANCE levels :

    @wolfmanbush I think I would disagree, there, at least partially. I think it DOES stem from laziness. [...] Takes less time, effort, and skill to dive, sit there, be sunk, rinse repeat.

    Doesn't take less time at all. They sit underwater like all of us. And their games' length is the same for their opponent. As far as time is concerned, a 50% winrate will get you further faster than loss farming.

    Let's say it's both : protest and lazyness.

    But you know what drive people lazy ? Boring, repetitive processes that you have to do so many times that it becomes actually WORTH, in time investment, to automatize.

    We humans even made jobs with that in mind. Our brains are made like that. Automating, optimizing. We are literally made for this. This made us evolve from monkeys.

    Give the curses after 20 WINS and NOONE would be loss farming (Don't quote me on that, this is just an example, I'm not advocating for this either).

    My point is : farming/grinding in a video game is already a controversial topic in any random game. Farming/grinding anything in a game is BORING and will drive people to automate it/do it brainlessly as a side activity. Farming games KNOW that, farming usually provide you with means to farm FASTER (better pickaxes or dinosaurs or whatever..)

    Now OK SoT community is "kinda" OK with the farming nature of the game, and you can't really give players advantages in farm speed, that would contradict the "same tools" rule.

    But that doesn't make the grind less boring. The 95th vault or veil IS gonna feel exhausting and pointless. The 4th encounter with the Gold Hoarder IS painful and tiring.

    Now picture s8 if you lose more than 50% of your games. This is a grind, for starters, therefore at one point it becomes boring. Now on top of that this is a grind you're not even sure to progress into. You don't know how long it'll take, how difficult it'll be, how tension inducing.
    You can't really do streaks with your winrate so you waste even more time gong to the OP everytime to squeeze in every lasst grain of allegiance you're able to earn.
    2 months in, still waiting for the "players'" update (after the "streamers' one"), you stand gladly at lvl 95 and soon you'll have your first curse. You invested hundreds of hours. hundreds more than good PvPers, but you really want the curses.
    You already saw 2 lvl-1000 curse users though, the first stomped you as expected, (you're still hoping for the matchmaking to be fixed with cross stamp matches), the second proposed a dice roll and explained to you he cheesed it in alliances. You easily sink him, just to make sure he said the truth. Then you got your first curse and Rare announces that half your commendations won't work....

    Anyone would feel discouraged and maybe - and rightly so - shocked by this hardcore, survival-like, unforgiving mode that lies in a game that focuses on casual play in its trailers.

  • LordQulex
    Captain

    @jj-h816 said in Make it EASIER to GET BASE CURSE or MORE WAYS to get ALLEGIANCE levels:

    @lordqulex they are all the same variables. Unless you cite them cheating on pc servers then it’s all the same. Skilled pirates are in HG just like they are in adventure mode. The world doesn’t magically become so much harder just because you decided to opt in to HG

    So, you're saying that skilled pirates in HG are as easy to defeat as a skelegalleon? The players are the primary variable in hourglass. Admittedly, mostly because SBMM is gabusted, but the entire point of this conversation is that the difficulty in hourglass is variable, and the difficulty of PVE is constant. It the variable difficulty and static reward that is being challenged here.

  • Ghutar
    Lord
    Insider
    Founder

    If we are allready at page 20+ of our feelings about grind i must say that leveling up (mostly on solo sloop) to 105 GoA was easier for me than push myself to do TT again.

    Maybe its about time commitment. I must made it up to checkpoint and HG fight is mostly much faster.

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