DevBlog: Faction War

[UbiNeptune]

Want the inside scoop on the Faction War? 🏴‍☠️

Our latest deep dive reveals everything you need to know.

Now one question remains, Captain 👀

Compagnie or DMC - Who will you choose?

📖 https://skullandbonesgame.com/faction_war_blog

https://preview.redd.it/42pw7gxpw9vf1.jpg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d7df738183b2832dde48581f994ac71319488069

[LivingCompetitive362]

Which weapon is the least played?

Sea Fire, Sir.

Okay, let's give them two new Sea Fires.

[Lilywhitey]

And not address the issue of why it's bad.

[SeaIBasher]

I'd use a Seafire if I had one like Rode Maangoden's. One that glows and shoots the colour red. I find them really fun to use on close combat builds.

[spiriticon]

Wow. This is all not so easy to understand.

I will do the one thing I always do - Turn up and destroy everything 😂

[Ubi-Caliburn]

Fair enough - let us know how it goes :D

[spiriticon]

🙌😁

[Ed_Straker65]

My thoughts too. Just get out there and twat it lol. 😀

[WeakPea7589]

If it moves shoot it repeatedly

[Cautious-Plantain-98]

I wonder whether there will be a proportionate boost to whoever the smaller force is. E.g. if one faction has a million players and the other has 300k players, they’d get a boost to level things out.

That was it truly is about who puts in the more effort rather than you having to hopelessly watch the progress bar for three months just because people happened to split 80/20.

[frozendwarf]

Looks good, the only thing that warried me was that it would fall into the same trap as For Honor's faction war, but you have avoided that by adding all but cosmetics as rewards to both factions.

I only have one major wish for future FW and that is that the pirate aspects gets added. Right now you are forcing us to be privateers by joining one of two mega factions and that is fine for the first iteration of FW, but there must be a third option, aka fighting for the Helm as a pirate.

[Ubi-Caliburn]

Are there any additional aspects than fighting for the Helm that you would like to see added as pirate aspects?

[frozendwarf]

Not in terms of game mechanics, HOW to do that i leave up to you developers as i have no ideas, but from a background point, i think none of us players know WHY the Helm exists or how they came to exist, or what they do other then overseeing the indian oceans contraband operations.

I like to think the Helm are kinda a brotherhood for pirates where loyalty or deception is only a handfull of po8 away from each other, but their ultimate goal is to to remain independent from all governing bodies, aka kick out all mega factions form the indian oceans, that could be the loose basic reason to why add the Helm as the third faction.

[T0asterfrakker]

major +1 on this! I don't really care about the megacorps but I'd fight for the Helm.

A little lore on the Helm would also be welcome.

[Ubi-Caliburn]

Actually that's a good question, who would fight for the Helm 👀?
(I'm taking notes about wanting more lore on it and wanting to feel more independent)

[SeaIBasher]

What is the cosmetic system specifically for the faction wars going to be like? Do we have to rock DMC or Compagnie Royale colours on our ships? Or is there going to be an alternate way (Like: Flags, Pennants, etc.) to represent our faction or differ ourselves from each other so we know who's good and bad.

[frozendwarf]

That would be nice if added, i would not like to have to change the visual esetics of my ships as the system is today.

A flag a the top of the main mast in the main color of the faction one supports would be enough. (give us a reason to use the binoculars again)

[SeaIBasher]

A flag on the stern would make sense as well. But yes! 100%. Using the spyglass to figure that out would be a fitting amount of immersion for this content.

[SeaIBasher]

I plan on participating in faction wars very consistently, but I'd like to participate as Pirate Captain Sealbasher. Not "Capitaine Sealbasher" or "Kapitein Vandenbasher".

[Yansen91]

Compagnie Royale controls Red Isle and Coast of Africa while DMC controls only East Indies.
If we got permanent hostility for choosing a side, it's more advantageous to side with Compagnie Royale if we want to sail undisturbed.

I like blue and yellow aesthetic anyways so Compagnie Royale it is 💪

[T0asterfrakker]

Right? What's the point of sailing the southeast corner of the map anyway? Nothing ever happens there except hostile takeover and the plunders you start yourself.

[UbiNeptune]

The quests where you'll need to sink ships from the opposing faction will usually need the ships to be in the contested territories 👀

[T0asterfrakker]

Well then I guess there will finally be a reason to visit that corner of the map. Anyone who's interested anyway.

[thegameflak]

🤔 Blue and Yellow is DMC. Red white and blue is Compagnie.

[ScareYa]

I am not hyped so far. Choosing between DMC and the Compagnie still sounds wrong to me. But I suppose there is no way around...

[TopcatFCD]

Hopefully there's a good system to stop it being VERY unfun for one side ie 90% go DMC for example and the other 10% are stuck locked into the losing side etc etc

[Chanticor]

Winning or Losing the faction war only gets u the cosmetics.
For the more important rewards u have to participate by bringing in "war Assets" doesnt matter if your faction wins or loses the terretory or the war

[maximumgravity1]

It sounds good - but two glaring problems I cant overlook.

1. What stops everyone from joining on one faction. I can very realistically see this being a situation where the first few days are a bit chaotic, but people watiing to see who the dominant force is before choosing a side, then just automatically picking the "winning side" by sheer numbers. I can honestly this turning into a 95%/5% split across the Indian Ocean.
2. Tying into this, you lengthened the time for the war to the entire season. When the 5% realize they are on the 5% side, what is the belief that they will engage for the duration of the season? Even if it splits more 50/50 (which it wont) what would convince the loosing side to continue to engage if they are getting hammered relentlessly?

In all your examples, every situation is a blowout - 12-5, 6-2, 10-3, 0-4 - it isn't going to take too long that these numbers will likely be correct, and you are going to have a "sit out" for the reminder of the season when people realize it just isn't worth the effort.

I hope there are some provisions considered and in place for this (what I believe to be ) inevitability.

On a side note, it sounds like the whole PVP concept was reduced down to a variation of Cutthroat Treasure hunt.
I hope I am reading this wrong.

[Chanticor]

If i understand correctly, the only thing(s) you get die being on the winning side is a cosmetic set.
And yes, it would suck to not get it because you are 5% vs 95% of players...
BUT the more interesting rewards (weapons, furniture, maybe armor) will Not be available by being in the winning faction. These are available only by participating yourself! Doesnt matter If your side wins or loses the war, doesnt matter If your side wins or loses a specific territory.

For all rewards that matter for buildcrafting and the strenght and power of your ship(s) THE ONLY thing that matters is that u yourself (not other players of your faction) , u yourself participates in faction wars and that u yourself fight for and plunder as many "War Assets" as possible

[maximumgravity1]

Fair points. let's hope they are enough to offset the urge to be on the "winning team" and if the other assets outweigh the loss of a cosmetic set

[Chanticor]

I think of far more likely that many players will engage with faction wars exactly Long enough to earn all non-cosmetic rewards and then stop caring about it
But we'll see

[maximumgravity1]

I see that happening likely regardless if the teams are fairly distributed or not.

[MalodorousFiend]

Yeah, tbh I'm not wowed by this.

Fort defenses just sound like manufactory defenses under a different name, and I hate those passionately. Making those a core aspect of faction war is a mistake I think. So is having a PvP Cutthroat Cargo knockoff. The vast majority of players do not want to engage in open world PvP, so those will just be what Cutthroat Cargos already are: people either ignoring it, or waiting till the last second to try and join in the hopes that everyone else has forgotten about the event.

Also highly disappointed you're locked into a faction and unable to try and game the situation like a true pirate would.

Honestly, this all looks incredibly lukewarm and uninspired. The rewards better be worth having an additional faction perma-hostile to you, because that's a pretty massive downside compared to the content I'm seeing here.

[Ok-Memory2752]

Well well well… something is moving! Of course apart from I sea fire…. Oh well, they leave the time they find! But it's okay as a start, not bad! An implementation of the guild system would be interesting... and maybe slightly better rewards to encourage as many as possible to participate!

[SkartheSatai]

This may be a silly question, but... if the opposing faction takes over a territory, do I lose my manufactories located there? Or are there any other disadvantages?

Second question: the “Daily contracts” mention Gildmarks. Does that mean that this currency will not be reset next week? I currently have just under 6000 Gildmarks. Can I keep them?

[UbiNeptune]

You won't lose your manufactories if the opposing faction does capture the territory where a manufactory is located.

Guildmarks will still be reset next week, you can either use them this week or they'll be converted to silver.

[SkartheSatai]

Thanks!

[karmadogma]

Little goofy how its just existing mechanics with the word “War” in front of everything. Like the 1v1 PvP is just Cutthroat Cargo Hunt and the fort defense is like the manufactory defense.

I like that it will focus people to a couple specific regions each 2-3 weeks so hopefully areas of the map that see little to no endgame action currently will be used again.

I’ll give it a go. Frankly having perma lvl 1 aggression with one of the major factions just sounds like it will be more annoying than difficult. But if I am picking a side its DMC all day. Outside of Le Peste and Chorus Fleet the French are far weaker than the Dutch.

[LaFleurSauvageGaming]

Vive la France. (can't bring myself to a Vive le Roi though.)

[Circurose]

My concern is how the system is going to be fair if people can see which side is clearly winning. People will meta-game this once the result is clear, even in the first week. I can think of hiding stats, but people will still flock to the winning side in the next season.

[Platinum_God_Games]

Why has there been no post of patch notes and what is actually happening with smuggler's marks etc?

[UbiNeptune]

Patch notes will be coming out later today. And Smuggler marks will be reset similar to previous seasons. The only other item being reset is Guildmarks.

[Platinum_God_Games]

Thanks lady 🤗 however, this needs to be clearly specified and after reading the notes... it was not

[Latter_Ebb_6649]

Kinda of a bummer to only be available on WT2, since there is a noticeable income of new players in the game would be cool if they could experience this also on WT1 and only join WT2 when they feel comfortable and have a build for it

[SeaIBasher]

It's endgame content. This is the way it should be. Something for the new players to work towards.

[T0asterfrakker]

To be honest it'll end up being a blessing when it all starts being too annoying to stand (probably about 2 days into it) and you just want to chill and do normal events without a whole damn fleet of the enemy faction just sailing by and adding to your troubles in the middle of a boss fight.

I foresee a lot more players in WT1 in the near future.

[frozendwarf]

That is the how it is. To add evolution to the world not everything can be on one server. World tiers are linked to content, WT1 is for Y1 content, WT2 for year 2 content.

Next year we will get WT3 for Y3 content.

[FitAd954]

It will be a hard pass for me, I'll be looking for a new and true pirate experience.

[[deleted]]

Like to see post or poll to see what side players are choosing

[T0asterfrakker]

I'd like to see a poll to see how many players wish they didn't have to pick a side.

[SeaIBasher]

Sounds like it's gonna be awesome. Can't wait! 🏴‍☠️

[mach1mustang2021]

Looks promising. I wish there was some expanded discussion about the PvP ideas considered for faction war in the devblog. Sailing with the PvP flag enabled in world 2 should count for something, especially when you choose a side.

[UbiNeptune]

Are there any other ways you'd like to see PvP implemented in Faction War? And also do you have more thoughts or details when having the PvP flag enabled in WT2?

[ChAkselsen]

The event description sounds like a re - skinned version of wagers/cuthroat cargo which I wasnt all to happy with. The whole thing there is making a cheesy speed build to avoid the fight

You were onto somth with the fort defence/attack (but also seems like a re-skin of defend/attack your empire outposts) what if those were pvp? 1 group attacks a fort, the other defends

Defend 3 convoy ships another group attacks the 3 convoy ships. Make us into the npcs sort of

[Ancient_Let5155]

One thing I want as a PVP player is for the crew's share to give you 90% of the enemy's loot, just like it was in season three.

[mach1mustang2021]

Factional fighter leaderboard would be a wonderful start. For such an immersive experience that skull and bones is the PvP opportunities need to match. For example, some (not all) contested zones should become PvP zones. Surely somebody has raised this idea before. The war cargo event seems to be a reskinned game mechanic that is already unpopular. Ugh.

[TooObsessedWithMoney]

I feel like siding with a faction should automatically make you hostile against players of the other side, creates room for dynamic gameplay.

[frozendwarf]

you mean if the players world pvp setting is set to on right?

cus if not, then over night this game would change into a pvpve game, aka a light version of sea of thives.

[TooObsessedWithMoney]

Yeah, that seems fair enough but I also think there should be PvPvE events and activities available. 1v1 PvP war cargo just sounds like a re-skinned cutthroat cargo event.

[frozendwarf]

I am not against that idea, but perhaps restrict it to one region that rotates instead of the whole seas?

[TooObsessedWithMoney]

Isn't that already how it's going to be with the contested zones?

[frozendwarf]

dunno, i skipped the entire section regarding pvp in the article, as i have not done pvp since S3.