So I usually be talkin like a pirate in these forums but this be a moment where I think it might be gettin in the way of me point and whanot. So gather round crew, it's time fer Hyro to tell you a tale!
What's lacking isn't content, it's player imagination. I realize I'll probably get slammed as a Rare fanboy and all that fun negative stuff that people like to throw around, but hear me out.
Not to humble brag but to give some perspective, I have been fortunate enough to have been playing this game since Alpha. I'm also a Pioneer. I am certainly grateful to have been given such awesome opportunity to be able to play the game as much as I was able to prior to launch. But, here's the perspective part, when I first started playing this game, there weren't skeletons. You couldn't choose a pirate. There were no options for cosmetics. There were no gold hoarders, no merchants, no crazy witch lady seeking souls. No quests, no animals, no messages in bottles, no Kraken, no skull cloud, half as many islands, only galleons, no friends lists, the list goes on and on. But, in less than a year, the game went from a bare bones ocean simulator that happened to have pirates running around in it to what it is now. Droves of new stuff added, and a lot of it only in the last couple months. So yes, I'm using the "more stuff is on the way" excuse because they have a proven track record of doing so with this game.
But to my point on imagination. My most amazing moments during Alpha and Pioneer sessions didn't come in the form of the content provided by Rare. Right now, everyone is super trigger happy, which is to be expected. But once this is out for a bit, the best moments in game aren't designed by Rare but come from player interaction. I played a session one night where I was in a Galleon, took down a Sloop, they came on board asking for parlay. They joined our crew. Found another Galleon, sailed up to them, they were playing instruments and drinking grog. Asked if they'd like to join our boat. They did. Found another Sloop. They joined us. And another Sloop. In total, we had 14 people on one Galleon and sailed around doing everyone's quests, having a blast. Then, we decided to take all 14 people from a Galleon to a Sloop because hilarious!
That's just one example, but the best gaming sessions in this game, for me, didn't come from content Rare added. It came from player interaction. Now, every time new players got added to Alpha they'd be ready to shoot first and talk never. It always happens in this game early on in release builds. But, once people have the game more figured out and are comfortable with it and start actually being social with it as intended by Rare, content doesn't matter. You make your own fun!
It can seem like a monotonous loop of doing the same thing over and over if you're just doing a quest, turning it it, doing a quest, turning it in, and so on. So don't just do the same loop like that over and over again. Try out a skull fort, see if you can survive sailing through a storm, hop into a cannon and see if you can shoot yourself into a cave or nail a called shot (pirate golf with cannons)! Break up the quests with that thing you don't use anymore because adulting killed it - using your imagination! The game has a killer foundation and gives you the tools you need to make your own fun. Use them!
I can totally understand where people are coming from with this game seeming lacking on the surface. And if all you do is quests loops, it does get boring and seem lackluster. But this is a giant sandbox and we're all just kids with our pirate toys playing in the sand. Make your own fun to break up the quest loop! And instead of blasting each other away perhaps try actually interacting with other ships! Rare has always pushed this as a social game and when you play it as such, it's so incredibly good! Sloops with 14 players on it, having one on one sword fights in the tavern after drinking 3 tankards of grog to see if you can actually hit each other (winner gets a chest from the other crew), shooting yourself from the cannon into places you're not meant to be and finding that Rare hid an Easter Egg there, I could go on and on!
The game doesn't lack content, you lack imagination!
Now get back to work ya guppy, Hyro's story hour be over! I'll be seein ya on the seas ya scurvy landlubbers!
