The future of the game...?

I too drunk to taste that chicken.

@spudeatscrayonz tldnr but I did get to tge bit where you say people who run or red sea are bad players. Bad observation on your part there. Tools not rules

Regarding the Red Sea...I think it needs to be acknowledged that there are 2 forms of "Red Sea'ing" loot. First is taking loot into the red sea and letting your ship sink as it would naturally. This is totally fine and creates a risk/reward element for anyone that would want to try and recover the loot. The Second method is bucketing/repairing in order to defeat the mechanics of the game and clip the loot into an unrecoverable area. That second method, IMO, is an exploit that should be addressed. The first method is a designed mechanic in the game and could allow for some creative/cheeky plays if people got creative.

Regarding the LOTV...I can definitely appreciate that the "Legendary Thief" title has lost its luster...but it lost that long before the LOTV was introduced. Sure, there's plenty of folks that got that title organically before the LOTV, and plenty after it...but the mechanics of the game inherently make that title pretty cheese-able anyways. The LOTV simply introduced a high-risk / high-reward voyage for a faction that was desperately in need of some attention. I could maybe get behind making the Chest of Legends be an RNG piece... sometimes you get one, sometimes you don't and instead you get a couple other high-tier Athena trinkets and/or Athena kegs instead...but to outright force the Chest of Legends back to its origins (FoTD, Athena Voyage, FoF, Incredibly low RNG on TH Run, and Emissary Quests) doesn't fix the mechanics of the game that make the title Cheese-able...it only reduces the likelihood that players would actually go through with the final stage of the voyage. Doing the 1st and 2nd chapter, cancelling, and then doing the 1st and maybe 2nd chapter again is just as fast and way less risky.

Regarding portal hopping... totally agree that it needs to be removed...but I would only support its removal with some other fundamental changes to how the Reapers Bones faction works. I believe that portal hopping is generally bad for the Emissary system and overall health of the game. HOWEVER, I do believe that getting rid of it would need to be accompanied by some other changes to the Emissary system as it pertains to Reapers.

As it stands, it is WAY too easy for players to choose the "safest" server to do their voyaging as an Emissary. People switching servers before setting off when they see a Reaper is why we're at where we're at. It's why portal hopping as a Reaper 5 is totally justified. People complain about Reapers all the time for various reasons...yet when they're trying to do their emissary ledgers, they'll hop as many servers as they have to in order to find one without a Reaper on it. They're perpetuating the problem because it's enabled. Same as Reapers are perpetuating the problem with portal hopping....because it's been enabled. In reality, they're both the problem and neither is healthy for the game.

Here's my idea. I've suggested it before so I'll just copy/paste it with a slight alteration...

-1) Get rid of the little ships on the Reaper emissary table at the outposts.
-2) Crews can only see a Reaper on their map if they are running an Emissary of any kind and are Grade 3 or higher. The logic here is that crews would be invested enough in a server that they'd at least consider continuing with their risk even if they end up seeing a Reaper on their map after they've hit Grade 3. Sure, some people would still immediately sell, lower, and abandon the server, but those are the folks that aren't going to fight anyways. At least with this, their rewards/time would be impacted accordingly.
-3) Grade 5 Reapers can only see ships on their map that are Grade 3 or higher. The logic here is to complement the above rule so that you don't have a tactical advantage on low grade emissaries.
-4) Reapers can only see other Reapers once they've achieved Grade 2 or higher.
-5) Allow broken Reaper's Bones flags to be sold to the other factions for 2x gold (no rep). It's actually silly that this isn't already in the game, but this would certainly help to make it not such an eye-roll when a G5 Gold Hoarder sees that G1 Reaper headed their way knowing that they have no loot and a flag worth ~1200 gold and an inconvenient trip to Reaper's Hideout to sell it (I'm more apt to leave them floating in the water).

All of these things together would make the risk/reward of emissaries on every server way more organic and high stakes.

Now...the only people that would be impacted by these changes would be the hop and pop Reaper hunters, which ironically are what most SOT partners are...but for the betterment of the game and the Emissary system, I feel these changes are appropriate.

@zerrryy ooooooooh yes

@spudeatscrayonz I... Don't see how you wiping the floor with someone is going to "Help make them better players".

If people go to the Red Sea, odds are they are not interested in dealing with you in the first place.

@spudeatscrayonz I'll defend anyone who wants to play their way within the rules and tools of the game. I'll defend pvp to. Some players just don't want to engage in pvp and if their solution is to red sea run then that's perfectly fine.

@qu1etone Agreed. In a game about conniving pirates, who commit all sorts of dastardly deeds, denying loot to a chasing crew is quite honestly the LEAST of the "problems" this game has. There's no honor among thieves, so I find that worrying about people red sea running is quite fruitless. People will play however they want, and trying to gatekeep what is and isn't okay in a sandbox game is silly.

@spudeatscrayonz

A few thoughts I had reading your post:

First, the subject. The future of the game is probably fine. I've been playing since launch and I've heard that the game is dying in these forums and on reddit after every update. And the game is still going strong. Red Dead Online, with the backing of Rockstar and their success and name recognition behind GTA Online, recently annced that RDO is effectively going into maintenance mode. Evolve lasted only a few years. Elite Dangerous has pulled xbox support. When a game is struggling, there tends to be big neon signs. The game still hits top 10 active played games lists. The emissary ranks give us a rough indication of steady growth. The future of the game appears to be healthy.

Rare may be "destroying the game you fell in love with" but that sentence is distinctly different than "destroying the game (period.)" Games as a service have to evolve or the above examples happen; games evolve or die. Fortnite does drastic pivots every few years. Yes, a game you love may become a game you don't love anymore, and that is unfortunate, but a shark that stops swimming dies. You either learn to love the new game (which, if you love the core, should be easier than not), or you move on. The core of Sea of Thieves is unchanged.

Respawn timers: Correlation != causation. Rare fixed a bug in respawn timers. As someone who has played since launch, I can say that ships fought and sunk before the bug was introduced, and will figure out how to do so again. The game was originally balanced around these settings, and the bug likely had a knock-off effect of encouraging certain metas in an unhealthy way and this will re-assert that balance. Time will tell. r Rare will adjust it as they get data.

Which has nothing to do with server stability. There is definitely an issue there, and I've seen a ton of folks here and on Reddit mentioning it since before the respawn timer was fixed. They seem unrelated. I noticed it around adventure 3. Bugs happen. Sometimes particulary gnarly bugs that cause full crashes are tougher to fix. Rare can't exactly kick people out every night for a week to test new builds without truly upsetting the user-base. Patience is a virtue here.

Hit-reg seems to be what its always been. I'm on the outside looking in and have no "special" knowledge, but the volume of complaints in the forums and reddit and discord are pretty steady. Which is to be expected. Rare has talked about hit-reg in their updates and podcasts, and the unique challenges that sea of thieves with moving boats on moving water with moving crew adds to the equation that most first-person-shooters can fake around, and how its a complex issue to solve. I won't even say patience is a virtue on this one; it may never be stellar. But everyone has the same disadvantage there, and it isn't new; certainly not new to someone playing since 2019. This "feels" more like a case of "confirmation bias." You see other problems with the game so hit-reg stands out more in your mind and you feel like its worse, and the other problems convince you that its worse...when it really isn't.

Regarding Rare making the game easier for players who whine, and then the list of things they've introduced to that effect, I'm a bit confused. At launch, players could run. They still can. But now tools like blunderbombs and chainshot, purple CCBs make running harder, not easier. Specifically, you say that playser who run, red sea, or portal away are "scared to engage from fear of losing their loot." But this, on its surface, doesn't make sense. The red sea has been in the game since launch, so Rare didn't "add" that to appease whiners. And running players lose their loot when they red sea it. That as a valid option from Day 1, and still is. Rare hasn't incentivized it any further as a tactic. Running has always been a valid tactic. Drive-by selling has been a legitimate strategy since day 1. The only feature that I can think of that makes this "easier" is the introduction of empty "collector chests" to sell multiple small items on a single drive-by trip. It doesn't make the strategy significantly more effective nor incentivize it. It might have a minor knock-off effect that someone might more successfully sell all their loot before you catch them. But a runner would've run without them. And a stacker still has to sell a ton, and lose a collector's chest with every trip. If they run out of chests, they're drive-by selling small items the old fashioned way. Portals? Those drop the player's loot and a copy of their emissary flag. If their fear is losing loot, they'll lose it portal hopping. So this "feature" does not incentivize running. It does provide a path for an empty ship to leave a server with an aggressive repeat-chasing reaper. Just as it provides the option for a grade-5 reaper to portal-hop to find fresh targets. That's a zero-sum game for both sides. It definitely doesn't make running easier.

Arena: Rare decided the value it was bringing to the game didn't justify the time investment to keep it running. Even if they let every new feature cause more bugs in the game, it needed servers. Servers cost money. It was a drain. Players will learn their skills the way we did in year 1. On the seas.

Back to respawn timers. That you brought it up a second time makes me thing this singular issue is what, perhaps subconsciously, is driving your rant. Which, as I said, this was a (relatively) recent bug that plenty of people fought with before it got introduced and did fine at. Sure, you get to learn a new meta. Games evolve. See above.

Removal of arena, redux: Rare gave out stats. Almost nobody was playing it when it was live, BEFORE it went into maintenance mode. If your theory is that it was being used by new players to improve their skills, and its removal has stopped that, I point out that the stats say otherwise. The player who runs/red sea's their loot wasn't playing arena anyways. They either have no interest in learning PvP, or had no interest in the experience Arena offered to learn PvP. A quick search anywhere shows that PvPers have suggested pushing red sea loot back towards the edge of the map to be reclaimed for years. Arena was cancelled at the beginning of Season 6. Clearly players were doing this despite Arena's existence. Its removal doesn't make running easier. Doesn't encourage it more. Doesn't do much of anything considering the amount of interaction it got, by the numbers Rare gave when it was closed.

The latter half of that paragraph went away from Arena and just commented on people not learning, and not trying to fight. As mentioned above, that isn't new behavior. They are entitled to do that if they so choose. Rare has not made it easier to do, and have made it harder with some of the PvP tools introduced in the game. But a player who fundamentally doesn't enjoy PvP can't be forced to fight. The sheer volume of requests for PvE servers is already bad. It'd get monumenally worse if some sort of mechanic prevented running as a valid playstyle. And would likely see a fairly significant portion of the playerbase quit altogether. Which means less loot on the seas, which means the balanced PvEvP players that sink ships for loot would also quit. Leaving Sea of Thieves as a naval battle game. Which is definitely not the game you bought and therefore couldn't be the game you fell in love with. And, for once, I predict, would kill the game. The game needs PvEvP to make it distinct from the myriad of choices gamers have these days.

Instance based events and portals: TWO. TWO tall tales allow instance-based portals. And both cause the player to lose their loot unless they sell first. AND they have to be voted up at an outpost. Players aren't just saying "oh hey, ship is right behind us, lets activate this portal and keep all our loot." That just plain isn't happening.

And again, the second half of that paragraph seems to have gone on a tangent. What "event" is Rare prioritizing above others?? Portals don't prioritize those tall tales. Tall tales that could be done on the existing map were integrated into the existing map (see Pirate's life TT #2, where you dive down, leaving your ship vulnerable to attack.) Only tall tales where the story required a new environment (in both cases, the sea of the damned) were instances introduced. That was a technical limitation of the storytelling they were doing, not a method of "prioritizing" them. Otherwise all 5 TT's in that series would be instanced. And since that series of tall tales were created to tell a single story, it makes even less sense to say that a couple of those chapters got prioritized and others didn't. Portals were about overcoming a technical issue; nothing more, nothing less. And they intentionally designed them so runners didn't get an advantage. THEY LOSE THEIR LOOT.

LOTV: Didn't have a negative knock-on effect at all. In fact, I think this contradicts your earlier points. Legendary Thief has always been cheezable (trading chests was a pretty big complaint when it was introduced with....as I recall....shrouded spoils.) FotD, being a giant skull in the sky, made it easier. FoF made it even easier. Wait until big skull disappears, or tuck the island and try to steal/blow up ship at fort. Veil? Tuck the main fort (rowboat), or wait for event to finish and roll in and attempt to sink. SAME strategies. LotV didn't change anything in this regard.

The diversity of different types of players in this game. You say you LOVE that diversity, but the above seems to say otherwise. Running (and chasing is a form of player interaction. Finding new ways to steal athena chests is an interaction. Removing the athenas chest, disincentivizing LotV steals, removes an incentive for....player interaction.

In one paragraph you talk about how FoF was chaotic and "gauranteed fun" and how now FoF's and FotD's are rarely active. That's the nature of this game; cult of the new. LotV didn't kill those things, they were less active before LotV. People did them. Got their commendations, and moved on to newer content. You want Rare to stop constantly adding, adding, adding, but if they did then people would stop playing. And you lose that player interaction you seek. Example, even before FoF, you rarely saw an FotD. If rare stopped "adding, adding, adding" then they wouldn't have added the FoF, and you wouldn't have experiened that chaotic gauranteed fun. Now the FoF is old news. Its still there. It still sees some activity (stole one last week!), so it offers a more "diverse" way to get player interaction (cooperation, not just PvP.) But new content means that players who otherwise would get bored and move on to other games will instead engage with the new content.

Adventure 3 required player interaction to complete. May not have been your cup of tea...but....diversity of players. The fight over Golden Sands may have been a gameplay loop for some, but was very interactive for others. I personally sniped more than my fair share of "incoming" rowboats before they reached the shores of GS, and while more difficult, intercepted a few smuggled goods before they reached cannon cove. On the flip side, I got chased for trying to run cargo for Merrick almost every play session, and often led to harrowing escapes and battles. New content created to encourage player interaction. The announced captaincy update? The announcement trailer certainly hints at some features that are targeting player interaction over captained ships. That's just the end of Season 5 and Season 6, off the top of my head. All content encouraging player interaction of different types.

A small aside; unless you have access to the source code, I think its a stretch to say that this content is taking up space on a server. Are they making servers more buggy? Sometimes. As any new feature can. But even if they focused on the types of updates you want...which I'm still a little confused on the definition of, bugs can happen. Take the aforementioned FoF, that you raved about. I remember that launch. And the keys getting stuck in places unheard of before because ashen lords had never been on forts before. Even a relatively minor tweak to existing mechanics (forts, with ashen lords) added new bugs. Oh, and the servers crashed then too, fixed about 6 weeks later.

So back to seeing your post as a rant. There is a subset of players that "cry and moan" (your words) aobut sinking, and have since launch. As a game gets more popular, there will be more people like that. The ratio seems about the same (players in here posting about the lack of PvP, like yourself), and the players requesting PvE servers. But the game is more popular, and people will post what they want, so you'll see more of it. And if you participate in the forums, you'll get exposed to more of it. That isn't a sign of the game changing. Its simply a sign of the game growing so both sides get more of their mutual vocal minorities.

P.S. Pirate legend curse was never pitches as exclusive. When season first launched, Rare was very clear about what season pass items would be exclusive to season 1, and pirate legend curse was never on that list. Don't be sad when it comes back. Nobody made a promise like that, so it can't be a broken promise.

Was gonna point out so many problems with this post and correct them. But after realizing it to much reading and they never get to the point. Just leave this two cents.

Only problem with SoT is the player themselves who have a problem with something trivial

Such as runners, Red Sea or portal hopping.
Does it affect your game to a degree you can do anything? No? Okie move on.

@spudeatscrayonz Mate, I didn't say you, specifically. But there ARE plenty of players in the community that do.

I understand the point your trying to make, and I understand that you're trying to encourage people to play in different ways, which is totally chill. However, fact of the matter is that some simply don't want to do that. Your proposition is falling on deaf ears, unfortunately. Your heart is in the right spot, but I don't think you realize how little some players care about PvP, and no amount of positive reinforcement is going to change their mind. It's not worth the effort trying to convince people that don't wish to be convinced.

@sweetsandman

I like some of those ideas and I think they're interesting. The hopping isn't too much of a problem and just helps keep the game flowing. I do like the idea of restricting vision to make sure people are invested. The issue is that the Reapers Bones are a faction that want to PVP, that's why it marks you on the map.

I like the idea of selling a Reapers Flag to a the emissary you're currently flying is an excellent idea, even offer more than what the Reapers Bones would offer, this would counter the fact that Reapers can sell everything for huge profit + it's like a, "Look, we defended your shipments from pesky pirate attack". It also means that other emissaries do have a huge prize to gain when it comes to defending your ship, as opposed to gaining next to nothing if a fresh Reaper comes up.

We need to encourage the fact that the game is a PVP sandbox with PVE elements.

In terms of the Instance based events, do you mean like Tall Tales? Because I'm 100% for players being locked in their own server to complete the story missions, you don't gain any rep or treasure and as a pesky pirate, I don't want to hunt down someone just doing a story mission for the lorem there's literally nothing to gain.