A Thought On Improving Emissary Competition in Sea of Thieves

In Sea of Thieves, we have six emissaries that we can sail under. However, despite being warned that emissaries are a target for enemy players, there’s kinda only really been one faction that’s designed to go around and hunt other emissaries. The Reaper’s Bones reward good gold if you bring them the flags of any other emissary ship, even other Reapers. Sure, there’s now the Hourglass battles between the Servants of the Flame and the Guardians of Fortune, but raising an Athena’s Fortune or Reaper’s Bones flag is optional, and flags are very easily lost due to the guaranteed win/loss system of Hourglass.

But when you get a flag, unless you are a Reaper’s Bones emissary, there’s not really much you can do with it. Sure, if you get some Reaper Flags by defeating Reaper’s Bones/Servants of the Flame in Hourglass as a Guardian of Fortune, then you can turn those into George, the Mysterious Stranger you meet at Outpost taverns. Otherwise, you can’t do anything. In my travels, we’ve hunted down and sunk other emissaries even while we’re not Reapers. Mostly in self-defense. But in order to make the most out of these taken flags, we’d always finish what we’re doing, lower our current flag, then raise a Reaper flag and sell the flags then.

Now, Reapers are designed specifically to hunt other emisssary ships. While they are always marked on the map, at rank 5, they can see other emissaries on the map as well. Unlike other factions though, Reapers are much more risk vs reward, and they can make good money selling flags. Not great money, but good money. Either way, they’re drawn into PvP and sinking ships. On the flip side, any other emissary, except maybe Athena’s Fortune, gets no benefit from fighting a Reaper or sinking them to take their flag. There’s no reason to fight back against what is technically the evil bad guy faction.

I think that should change. I think you should be able to sell stolen emissary flags at different factions. Not any flags, the same way you can with Reapers. At the very least, we should be able to take any stolen Reaper’s Bones flag and sell it to Athena’s Fortune, not just ones won in Hourglass. If anything, it should be a recommendation, since Athena’s Fortune are supposed to be Pirate Legends and also the main good guy faction, and taking out a pesky servant of Flameheart (whether they be actual Servants or normal Reapers) should be a number one goal for them.

I also believe that you should be able to return a flag to a faction for a small reward, assuming you didn’t sink that emissary ship yourself. For example, if you are a Gold Hoarder emissary and you sink a Reaper and they have a bunch of stolen Gold Hoarder flags on board, you should be able to take those flags and give them back to the Gold Hoarders for a small reward. Recycling, if you will. It makes more sense than selling everything, lowering your flag, raising a Reaper flag and then selling the flags to the Reaper’s Bones. It makes even more sense now that you can sell flags to Reaper, the skeleton stuck in a cage at Reaper’s Bones emissary tables at outposts.

At the same time, I think it would actually spur some more… righteous combat. Rather than only engaging a Reaper if they attack you, people have more of a reason to attack Reapers back. Instead of only ever acting in self-defense, you can instead rid the seas of the menace that is the Reaper’s Bones. Because we need more lore-based reasons to attack each other as well. It shouldn’t ONLY be Reapers who initiate combat and intentionally go for other ships!