Notoriety Rework
Instead of notoriety being player-based it should be area-based, meaning that when you commit a crime your notoriety in that area would increase (it should probably increase faster than it does now) making grand navy members spawn, increasing their strength the more notoriety you have (like it does now) and increasing the area of notoriety (see image). In addition to this, the higher your notoriety in the area, the more exp, galleons and loot you would get for committing crimes (and maybe bad rep quests?) at the risk of getting killed and being imprisoned, making it a high-risk/high-reward system and overall making it actually fun and giving the player a reason to have a negative rep.
With this system, to clear your notoriety, instead of essentially being a paywall, you would have to escape from the navy and get far away from the place where you committed the crime, making your notoriety decrease the further you go, and when very far away, your notoriety in the area you committed the crime would slowly decrease over time. You could still pay to instantly remove any notoriety you have but it wouldn’t be MANDATORY if you have a high enough notoriety AND it also would allow you to actually keep the few galleons you made if you are skilled enough to escape.
Here is a rough example of how it could look like in the map:
Probably should add a button to toggle the notoriety area view.
Area calculation details
This is how it COULD be calculated (but it could also be changed to something simpler)
First it should calculate an area around the center of the town where you committed the crime where it would have the highest notoriety. Then it would calculate an area around the ISLAND where you committed the crime (if the island is small enough then it should skip this step since the town area would cover all of the island anyways). Next, it should calculate an area around the island of the crime and the neighbouring islands, and lastly a LARGE area around the place of the crime with the lowest notoriety.
All of this are in decreasing order of notoriety, and should scale with the amount of notoriety the player has.
If you commit a crime while you have high notoriety in another area, then it should probably increase A LOT faster than it normally would if you didn’t have any notoriety at all. Also, the notoriety SHOULD save so you couldn’t just leave the game and get loot without any risk whatsoever (also shouldn’t decrease while not in-game).
It could also be a topic on the Agora news (I know it kinda already is but this should be slightly different), telling players that the navy is searching around (insert rough approximation of area).
Reason to add/change
As we all know, being a bad rep player sucks as it only has downsides currently, aside from the “haha, city go boom” and clicking a button to plunder a castaway to get 2 FUCKING GALLEONS , with this system it would at least give you an incentive to be a bad rep and make it actually worth the trouble and a little bit more fun.
There are tons of other changes that SHOULD be added to make being bad rep actually interesting and fun since as of right now it only punishes you by giving you AT MOST the same (or usually worse) treatment as a good rep. But anyways, I hope that my 2 cents actually makes it a little bit more interesting and fair.
TL;DR
bad rep sucks (skill issue)