@okamiknux
I've made this copy/paste in order to FULLY explain in GREAT detail as to why adding a PvE only server is a bad thing. I put some tips somewhere in the middle to help you in your Sea of Thieves endeavor, and if you want to skip the reasoning for why a PvE server won't be implemented, after the copy/paste I answer your arguments and questions directly to try and help you understand things better. I know you think SOT sucks and you don't want to play anymore, and if you don't want to that's fine. But if you do want to keep playing I want to try and help you so that you have fun in the game and don't always hate whenever you play.
Let's say you want to stack the FOTD 10 times, that will take you around 8 hours to do if you're quick. Would you rather go into a server where:
(1) You could be tucked on
(2) You could have your loot be stolen
(3) You waste 8 hours of work because a pirate boarded your ship
(4) You're always under constant threat that you could die
OR, would you rather be in a server where you are safe from all of those problems, and don't have to worry about some pirate stealing your loot?
90% of players will take the second option, because there is no reason to put yourself in a situation where bad things could happen when you could alternatively be completely safe from other players. I'm not saying, "90% of players wants PvE only servers," I'm saying that if they were added, 90% of players would play them. Just like if they added an invincibility potion, EVERYONE would use it, does that mean that it should be added or that people want it? No, but since it's in the game people are going to use it.
The problem with this is because 90% of players who do PVE missions will go to this private server, who's left on the normal servers? People who want to steal loot, but there's no loot to be stolen because everyone is off in fairyland completely safe from any problems that would arise. So all the PvPers leave the game, not to even mention that the most popular streamers have built their career by stealing loot. Pace22 would immediately leave the game because there's nothing left to steal, and many more streamers would leave, as well as most of their viewers, which means that SOT no longer has an internet presence. Now that all the news has gotten out that Sea of Thieves has a SEVERE drop in their playerbase, all of these articles will come out online saying things like,
"Sea of thieves is a bad game," and "Sea of Thieves doesn't care about it's playerbase."
So now that there is all of this stigma around SOT there will be no new players because there are only bad reviews. So people who want to buy Sea of Thieves won't, because there are all of these videos and articles saying that it's a bad game. So Sea of Thieves will no longer be getting an influx of new players, which also means that Rare won't make any money from people buying the game.
What do you do once you've reached 75/75/75/20? By that point you'll have all of the cosmetics, and with the emissary system you can easily get the highest level in a 2-3 months. People will get bored because they're not working towards anything, they already have everything in the game and the highest level in the game, what now? Most players who are max level would normally turn to stealing loot so they don't get bored, but because of PVE only servers that's not a thing anymore. Eventually all of those people will leave because there's no point for them to play anymore, so the only people who play SOT are a few hundred people who didn't get max level and only play Sea of Thieves for 2 hours a week.
Most PvPers who play adventure mode don't play it because they want PvP and ship vs ship battles, if they wanted that they would go to arena. People play adventure because they like stealing loot, so you can't just get rid of the loot.
That's why adding PVE only servers are bad, the PvPers will leave, all of the streamers will leave, people will get bored, the internet starts hating on SOT, and then you have a dead game. Not to even mention the fact that the developers themselves have said many times that they want this game to be one where people of all ideologies can play together. The PVPers, PVEers and the RPers can all be in the same server together, and they will do everything they can to keep that in the game:
Developers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_yrN70591Q&feature=youtu.be&t=3578
Developers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_yrN70591Q&feature=youtu.be&t=3681
As the developers said, the path to pirate legend involves the threat that you could be fought by other players. That's why they aren't going to add a PvE only server, as they believe and the majority of players believe that the path to pirate legend includes the fear of being fought by another pirate and losing your loot. There is no reason to pander to the couple thousand people who want PVE only servers, when you have hundreds of thousands of players who have bought and actively play the game because of the PVP factor. It doesn't make sense to change the game for a few, when the vast majority don't want that. Since most people fall into the category of PvPvEers, that would mean that if you remove the PvP aspect of the game, most of the playerbase would leave.
People are always upset that in a PVP game, which has PVP in it, which is advertised as having PVP, a game that has always had PVP since the beginning of it's existence, a game that YOU bought knowing full well it had PVP, has PVP.
People who think PVP doesn't belong in Sea of Thieves and complain that PVP is, "toxic," are the same type of people to play Minecraft and complain there are no guns.
If you've made it this far into the post then you're at least willing to hear reasons as to why things are the way they are, and because of that I'm going to give you some solutions to help in your voyages. Let's move past the whole idea of, "I want a PVE server," and accept that it will never happen, so that we can find solutions to make your time on Sea of Thieves better.
The first thing you can do would be to play with other people, I don't know your experience in the game but having more people is always better as you can keep 1 person in your crows nest as a lookout for incoming ships. Using the official Sea of Thieves discord, you can easily find likeminded people who are more than willing to play with you. The discord has over 160,000 players, and there are constantly requests to join people's crews, or people asking for players to join their crew. Discord link: https://discord.gg/seaofthieves
Now that you have some people to play with, ALWAYS keep someone as a watchguard, if you have 4 people on your crew, you can easily send one of you to stand watch in the crows nest and have the rest of you do the voyage. Another thing to keep in mind, there may be tuckers on your boat, people who park their boat behind a rock or an island, then take the 3 minute swim over to your boat. So always make sure that whenever you leave the island you were just at, have at least 1 person check around your ship for tuckers. I'm not going to bore you with every single tuck spot in the game, but in general equip a sword and slash the ship. The cannons, masts, wheel, sides of the ship, barrels, etc. Anywhere where someone could hide some of their body inside something, sword that area. If you hit them, they will stand up and there will be a sound effect letting you know that you hit something.
Whenever you load into a game, check the emissary tables next to the respective trading companies. If you see a tiny ship on the emissary table it means that someone is on your server doing that emissary, so if you see 4 people doing quests you may want to consider leaving that server as there are many people active. Always check the reaper's bones quest table, if there is a tiny ship on the emissary table or a reaper's marked ship on the map, leave the game as that ship has a high chance of trying to attack you and steal your loot. Try to minimize the risks before you even start your voyages.
Those are some of the tips I can give you, hopefully these will help you in your voyages to come. I understand that it can be annoying when pirates come over and take all of your loot, but the sooner you can accept that it's a part of the game, the sooner you can improve and become better at avoiding those situations. Who knows, you might become a PvPer yourself.
At the end of the day whether you want to add PvE servers or not, the developers themselves have said multiple times that they don't want to separate players into different servers. They want this game to be one where players of all groups, PvPers, PvErs, and RPers can all be in the same server together. The only thing that can change the developers vision for the game is if the community comes together and says that they want something different. That isn't happening, and they still have a very strong community in favor of PvPvE, so there's no point in trying to do something that could backfire into something very deadly.
The only way that SOT will add a PvE only server, is if a majority of the community says that they want PVE only servers, until that happens, a PVE only server will never be added. When you are the owner of a video game, you have to do what the majority of people want or you risk killing your game, and right now the majority of people do not want PvE only servers, so they aren't going to add them.
This game was MADE and is a game for PvPvErs, not for PvErs or people who just want to do missions and voyages without any threat whatsoever, the sooner you accept that this game was BUILT for PvPvE, then sooner you will be able to have fun in the game. If you don't like that fact then you can leave, as this will never change and if the only way that you will be happy playing SOT is by having a PvE only server, leave, because they are never going to add it.
I played 3 days this week, with 3-4 hour grinds to get to level 5 merchant emissary. And without fail all 3 days, when I finally get the emissary quests at the end, I get attacked and sunk by reaper faction or simply bored players.
The longer you take on a voyage the more chances you have of getting attacked and sunk, I would suggest doing your voyages faster. Make sure you are always in max wind, when I go into random crews in the SOT discord it amazes me the amount of people who just stand at the bow and forget that sails and wind exist. Always being max wind will save you well over 30 minutes depending on how far you have to sail.
The second day I made it to lvl 5 and was instantly targetted by a lvl 5 reaper ship. OK, bad luck. Turned in my flag before being able to do the lvl 5 quests again... Kind of disheartening, but fine.
If your goal is just to get the level 5 emissary I would suggest to keep running away (stay in max wind) And jump off of your boat to try to board and anchor them. If you get their anchor down once they lose 30 seconds if it's a galleon because it takes forever for them to get back to max wind cause their acceleration is slow. And if you can't board them no matter what, I would suggest cannoning off to the outpost and grabbing the quest, your boat doesn't need to be near you in order to grab the level 5 quest, only to lower the flag.
The third day, I sat in a port for 20 minutes watching another reaper lvl 5 on the map until they logged. So I begin the lvl 5 emissary quests and out of nowhere a PL galleon shows up and sinks me as soon as I take the voyage and start loading up, not allowing me to complete the quests that would actually give me good reputation xp... We begged in text and voice chat to be left alone, we flew the alliance flag... we did everything we could to try and explain how we simply didn't want to do this AGAIN... No response: Not a word, just blew our ship to smithereens and killed us...
That is apart of the game and will happen from time to time. You did a good job waiting for the level 5 reapers to leave the game before setting sail, but as for another ship coming in and sinking you, it's possible that #1 they had you muted, and #2 they had loot to sell and they thought you were a threat, so they made sure you were removed from the situation. All of the outposts are on the edge of the map, so you are far away from danger and can almost always see them coming. Just cannon straight up and take a 360 look around to see if you can find any ships coming towards you. If you want to be extra safe don't just look for reapers emissary's, look for all other emissary flags too and if there are 3+ emissaries on that server then the server is really populated and you should find a new server.
OK, this sucks. I'm not doing merchant emissary because it's a fun thing to do. The quests are super boring fetch quests. I literally just want to get to lvl 50 and be done with it.
Steal it. If it's boring to do fetch quests then start stealing other player's treasure. I promise you it will be fun AND you don't have to worry about losing loot because, well, it's not your loot to begin with.
The last time I quit the game was because my friends and I did Fort of the Damned only to be swarmed by players once we completed it who killed, sunk us and took everything. I know it's a part of the game, but the pvp is completely out of control. It is so difficult to get any end-game PVE content done...
Absolutely it is difficult to get end-game PvE content done, but you also get over 70,000 gold (assuming you get 2 bounty's) And you can get even more if you have a reaper's flag. It's high risk high reward, as it should be. FotD's are always difficult to do because there's always 1 tuccer around somewhere, when you do the FotD, look for mermaids. Just do a swim around the waters and look for a rowboat or a mermaid, then you'll know there's a tuccer and you can try to find them. Also, blow up kegs. I can't stress this enough BLOW UP THE MEGA KEGS. Tuccers have 1 way and 1 way only to kill you, blowing you up with mega kegs (yes they COULD ram your ship into an island, but I'm not counting that as you get maybe 1 hole and sink in 3 minutes) If you blow up kegs you lose 20,000 gold, but get to keep 50,000 of it. Trust me, it's worth it to blow up kegs to make sure that you don't die. High risk high reward.
And now I'm reading that when we finally do get private servers we won't even be able to do PVE content for rep or gold... WHY?!
The lengthy cop paste I put above.
Make turning in a lvl 5 flag worth a substantial amount of rep. Right now turning in the lvl 5 is pretty pathetic. So you grind to get there, and then you get engaged by reapers bc you're a high value flag, and so you turn in the flag to at least get SOMETHING, but it's almost worthless. This sucks. It's insult to the injury of not being able to do the emissary quests because you are targetted for PVP.
The reward is the level 5 emissary quest, the flag is just a bonus. And the level 5 flag gives you a nice amount of reputation
.Make private servers PVE with rep and gold. Just give PVE players what they want... Please. A lot of players don't care about PVP at all and just want to play the game with their friends and enjoy the world and lore. Why is this such a problem?
Copy/Paste above.
Athena leveling got nerfed since I last played. I ran some Athena quests with my PL friend on the first day back and it took us 3 (non-ashen) voyages to get to lvl 5 and then we had to turn in because we were targetted by reapers. Almost no return for our time-investment because again, the lvl 5 flag being turned in was essentially worthless.
The athena quest never got nerfed, it actually got buffed since you can now dig up athena trinkets and get athena skulls from the captains, however if you are trying to get level 5 emissary do the thieves haven runs because you ONLY get athena loot and gems, so it's much faster to level up the emissary that way.
I love the game, and I like that PVP is a part of it, but 3 out of 4 days that I've spent my WHOLE AFTERNOON playing have been totally wasted by players with nothing better to do than ruin someone else's day.
It's apart of the game, and you can easily see someone coming so make sure that you run away before that happens. Sell often, it shouldn't take you 3 hours to get a level 5 emissary, even as a solo. Just min/max stuff to get it done faster.
This is especially frustrating when I play very differently from people like that. The same day, as we were leveling our flag we came across a new player in over his head trying to take on one of Ashenhearts liutenants. We tried to help him, though it was fruitless. Just trying to channel my inner Mr Rogers... unlike everyone else it seems.
If you're trying to get your point across don't insult people by taking the moral highground. Because what you're essentially saying is this: ANYONE who PvPs other players and doesn't help them is just a toxic player.
This does not motivate me to keep trying, in fact I'm so turned off by all of it I think I'm going to shelve the game again until things are different.
Well, the game will never be different in the way that you want it, so if you want to shelve it forever, do so. But when you get the itch to play it again, take my advice and you'll have more fun than you are now.
Longest paragraph I've made in a while.
