The Kraken

edited August 2021 in North of Thera

I feel like there should be a happier medium between 'everyone who shows up gets a tentacle' and 'only people who are alive at the end get a tentacle'.


The former was the old paradigm and was stupid, leading to people just suiciding as many ships as they had access to into the kraken nest.


The latter is the current paradigm and is also stupid, because it means you can waste a good hour or two of your life with nothing to show for it, and be out tens of thousands of gold because you need to restock tokens and food on a ship. It disincentives participation.


I can't think of anything off the top of my head, but I hope other people can.

Comments

  • Hmm, maybe one option is to return to giving a tentacle to everyone who shows up, but no longer allow new ships into the whirlpool after X amount of time? Possibly even prevent them from casting off as "the seas are too dangerous to cast off now" or something. You'd get your tentacle for the voyage or just for gold, you can't suicide five ships to get five tentacles. The main downside here is for people who honestly make a mistake near the tail end of it and then lose their chance to get the killing blow on the kraken. It can also result in everyone sinking and the kraken being out and about indefinitely or until it despawns. That's the first thing that comes to mind, anyway.

  • ArchaeonArchaeon Ur mums house lol

    delete ships.



    ez

  • Could it be time spent on the water during the event and/or damage done to the tentacles/kraken? Rewarding intelligent captaincy and skill rather than simply showing up.





    Penwize has cowardly forfeited the challenge to mortal combat issued by Atalkez.
  • edited August 2021

    Not getting a reward if you sink seems pretty in line with everything else in the game, though. You fail, you get nothing. I spent hours doing a voyage the other day and failed at the end because I did the wrong thing and got nothing for that. As much as I want people to participate in things, it seems weird to get a reward for sinking.

    You also get the tentacles you last hit and if you have a group of ships (which seems common) you can divvy up tentacles if one ship last minute sinks and doesn't get one. So it doesn't seem that bad to me.

  • If you die during a foray but someone completes it, you get the reward. If you die during killing something for renown, you get the reward. Do souls in room for a tank detonation or disarm get credit? I feel like it isn't 'failure' if the kraken dies. Your group completed the mission, just like everything else.

    It's most like (imo?) trying to kill an NPC for renown that forces you to auto-embrace. Presumably you were there, you damaged the kraken (and thus contributed to the success). Do you get renown for hitting a seamonster if you sink before it dies? If so, seems like that 'tag' system could just be applied here as well?

  • KresslackKresslack Florida, United States
    edited August 2021

    Last night was my first attempt at fighting the kraken. The whole concept of it pulling ships directly to it from anywhere they are on the ocean seems very strange. Instead I think it would be great if the kraken appeared and people had to actually set out and hunt for it, wherever it might have surfaced. Makes it a bit more engaging and rewarding for those the first to find it, getting a change to defeat it before others can. This also means if you get sunk, you can't just hop on another ship, cast off, and immediately be right back into the action.



  • edited August 2021

    @Kog Not really. Only the person who kills the boss gets the talisman piece and gold. The others get renown, but don't you get renown for kraken even if you sink (if you hit it)? Renown and gold are different things. You also don't get renown for honours mob kills if you're dead afaik.

    I'm not saying you shouldn't get renown for hitting kraken if you sink, though. I was just saying only the ships alive at the end getting tentacles makes sense.

    I like that people can board new ships and come back. It keeps it interesting. But the most reasonable limitation on tentacle distribution seems to be those who were still there at the end.

  • You also get xp for quest completion for clearing the foray even if you didn't get the killing blow


  • What do the tentacles do and how many are currently handed out and to who?

  • edited August 2021

    I believe they are required to trigger the end of the voyage/quest which is where everyone gets their gold. Extras sell for gold too I think. You get one for getting the last hit on tentie monsters, which are spawned proportionately to the # ships in the arena, and one to each ship that's alive when the kraken dies. I'm usually just a weapon/rigging monkey so I could be slightly mistaken but that's the gist

  • An arbitrary amount of people can pull the voyage before the kraken is actually summoned, and anyone who pulls the voyage needs a tentacle coil to complete it, earning THEMSELVES talisman pieces, renown, and gold, and their CREW (anyone on their ship with crew permissions at the moment the quest is pulled) gold and renown (no talisman pieces).


    Only the quest taker needs to turn in the quest, and anyone else following them will get quest completion credit (but not the enhanced rewards from pulling and doing the turn-in).


    Superfluous tentacles (you get one per monster you last hit, and one if you're a surviving ship at the end of the fight) can be sold to the standard sea monster trophy seller.


    While it is a common theme that there are things you can't get credit for even after failing, it is also a theme that you can get credit for things even AFTER failing. There are also matters of respectfulness of player time and the overall player experience-- if there was a middle ground, the hardcore people who come will still come even if they're not happy with the rewards change, while people who wouldn't come because they don't feel their time is respected will possibly now ALSO come.


    And you know what? The more people in the fight, the more fun it is, so why wouldn't we want to incentivize more proper participation, without breaking the mechanics so that cheesing is the most optimal solution?

  • I would suggest, as Atalkez did, to reward tentacles after a ship does X amount of hits on the tentacles as well as the bonus for a ship to get last hit. Since this would greatly increase the amount of tenta-drops I would scale back thd trophy gold and require multiple tentacles to be submitted to complete the quest.

  • KresslackKresslack Florida, United States

    Still not really a fan of how the whole encounter seems to magically transport ships to the location. Sink one ship, hop on another and immediately get right back in, rinse and repeat. Think it should be more of a hunt the kraken on the open oceans type thing, and if you find the location you're free to share that information as you see fit.



  • Someone randomly (and without nary a word) logged off whilst we were mid-foray the other day and got full renown for it because the rest of us soldiered through and finished it. So I do feel like there are discrepancies here. Plus, most of us split the gold evenly at the end of the foray, so it doesn't matter who kills the boss (although XP for landing the killing blow and the talisman piece go to the person who does land the killing blow on the boss).


    I really like the idea of hunting for the kraken, instead of it pulling ships towards it. It means you'd actually have to sail around and follow clues to get to it. It doesn't seem fair that you'd go through the whole hunt and then have nothing to show for it though.

  • edited August 2021

    I think the administration blunted a fair bit with making the salvaging free and I am not sure but I thought I didn't even use any token stores to protect my crew (was still out my buoys but they are pretty cheap). As of now, it is usually pretty rare for the winning side (pirates vs mariners) to not have enough tentacles to give to a tentacle all the captains who sailed one (almost every time the mariners guild win and Greys is present, he personally finishes with 1 extra after making sure all captains have one). I echo @Farrah , if you fail a foray or a raid, you do not get a reward.

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