Is it enough online players?

Don't forget it's the Christmas time not everyone can commit to playing video games especially one like sea of thieves were you need to invest in alot of time to get things done, I'm a big player of the game but havnt played in a little over a week which is the longest I've gone without playing for like 6 months 😂 make the most of it and do the skullforts and ship clouds if it's a quiet server, you'll find unwanted attention soon enough, goodluck!

@ufc-wolverin3 said in Is it enough online players?:

Don't forget it's the Christmas time not everyone can commit to playing video games especially one like sea of thieves were you need to invest in alot of time to get things done, I'm a big player of the game but havnt played in a little over a week which is the longest I've gone without playing for like 6 months 😂 make the most of it and do the skullforts and ship clouds if it's a quiet server, you'll find unwanted attention soon enough, goodluck!

Yup... what he said. :)

@pilksuk It has been 6 ships, max 24 players since at least launch. Not sure what it was before then. I have been on servers on many occasions where all 6 ships are in one small area of the map. Making for some fun adventures.

As for player base size, the only ones that truly know how many players there are that are still active are Rare and Microsoft. Since Microsoft is continuing to invest in SoT fairly heavily, I believe there is a much larger player base than you give them credit for. Microsoft has been around long enough to not continue investing in bad products or money losing products. I will say, I have not been on a server where I felt it was completely empty in many, many months. Perhaps I just play during a time of day that is good for the game.

Just to add in Aswell, there's a streamer called summit1g, heard him Talking about how huge his following has started to rise since playing sot and he was surprised how big the fanbase for the game actually was, I myself only just got twitch to watch certain streamers not too long ago so I'm sure there's alot of players in the game who also don't use twitch either so judging from some of the numbers of viewers he rakes in playing the game it seems the game is still very popular

@xxmelleswedenxx said in Is it enough online players?:

Hi, I bought the game yesterday, and i have been playing it for like 6 hours already. I didn't even see another crew or pirate or anything, I saw some skeleton ships, but nothing else. I joined a new lobby 2 times but still didn't see anyone. Is it enough players for this big map???

Be careful what you wish for!

Since day 1 the game servers are supposed to handle 6 ships max (whatever the size)

But there was also a condition Rare wanted to respect when it comes to player encounters: they wanted a 15 min play session in the seas until people could naturally "meet up"

So there is an important relation between Server capacity - Map Size - Quests.

It was fine until Devil's Roar came in. Since the map size increased and new quest types appeared I expected the server capacity to increase accordingly to allow the 15min encounter condition to happen... therefore increasing the max number of crews per server.

But it didn't happen.

@xultanis-dragon said in Is it enough online players?:

@xxmelleswedenxx The servers are at most allowed 6 players, 1 for each outpost they say.

What you will see mostly is 3 to 4 players as people leave and join. The servers fill using certain rules. Now the map is very large. Some players are still in the forsaken shores because the rep and money you get is double what you get on the other 3 regions.

Next, again the map is huge. Unless you actively going round and round you more than likely won't see a ship. Most players at this point have an area they frequent and stay in there. By buying quests and canceling those that make them travel too far out of their comfort zone. No one likes the wilds which is why you will find a few people who actually do it because its empty and safe.

Another is that its holiday season. You will get people in the server with you because of the way SoT servers propagate but the population might be 2 to 3 ships instead of the 3 to 4.

EDIT Even with a population of 200, you will still get full servers because of the way the servers populate. The game will send players to already available servers first and reach an optimum level according to their preset algorithm for populating servers than open a new one.

Case in point

20 players -

Server 1 opens - Fills with 3 to 5 depending on ship sizes

Server 1 is now full according to algorithm so now Server 2 opens

Server 2 opens - Fills with 3 to 5 depending on ship size

Etc etc

So even with a low population you will never be in a dead server unless you are doing it intentionally.

EDIT PART 2 Also yes there is a vibrant and large community, and even though we are at each others throats, we are many and we love SoT.

I think you meant to say "ships" instead of "players," because saying the servers are limited to six people is bull.

@nofears-fun Needs to get bumped to 13 ships per server.

@pilksuk said in Is it enough online players?:

@goedecke-michel said in Is it enough online players?:

It is. There are up to six ships on a map whith seven outposts. Unless the others do fort/ship raids, you'll meet them. You may miss the days you thought to be alone on see of thieves, either way.

When did they update to 6? last I heard it was still 4 ships due to the 16 players max per instance limit from what I remember someone asked about solo sloops and could there be 16 in an instance and the answer was basically no as the system will balance it to 4 ships as the ships are designed with teams in mind not solo players.

They increased the Server Limit from 4 Ships (4 - 16 Players) to 6 Ships (6 - 24 Players) either during or shortly post Launch following Feedback from the Pioneers (Beta Testers).

What has never really been explained, is why it is a Ship as opposed to a Player Cap.
The Player Cap is merely a consequence that all of the Ships can potentially (although highly unlikely) be Galleons with 4 Player Crews.

Originally I thought this limitation was due to how they were handling Ship Physics and Networking,. being quite taxing on the Servers... which also to a degree explained why they omitted Skeleton (NPC) Ships, constantly pushing the idea of "Every Ship you see is a Player Ship" but that appears not to be true, as well Cursed Sails and Spoiled Shores both added Skeleton Fleet Events and Skeleton Marauder Ships respectively.

It seems like the Server and Networking is capable of handling (at least) 50 Persistent / Active Entities at any given time... which is about the same as Elite Dangerous., which utilises instanced servers to provide an MMO-Like Experience due to seamless Migration.

Honestly that's how I originally thought Sea of Thieves was going to work as well... so that in essence when Ships sail beyond the "3-6 Mile Horizon", with a Background Matchmaking System that would transition said Ships & Crew to a new Instance.

Thus meaning that everyone would Technically be in Instanced Servers., but from a more Practical Standpoint be constantly meeting new Ships / Crews... with the Balance of Transition occurring based upon various Matchmaking and Playstyle Metrics.

Say for example High Skill Players would more consistently not only find themselves matched against similar Players but that it would be far more Common., while Low Skill Players instead would be Matched with less "Gunboat Diplomacy" Players.
In essence as the Skill of Player Improved / Decreased they would always come across Players that are a "Challenge" to them and keep the Oceans feeling Populated... as opposed to each Instance being somewhat Prescribed Lobbies with very little Matchmaking (if any) occurring.

This wouldn't be an easy shift from how things are now, as it requires different Network Infrastructure., but still it'd actually resolve a lot of problems as well as give some excellent Automated Options in regards to handling Hacker / Cheating Players; whom will never be prevented (and it's not Platform Dependant, they're not ALL on PC as is the common misconception of Xbox Players) but instead they just get matched with others who are cheating.

It'd also work well with how there are people who oft ask for PVP / PVE Only Servers., as well if Behaviour Determined the Matchmaking and Types of Players you'd come across... then the experience itself would self-cater and segment without a physical (or rather obvious) segmentation of the Community into "PVP / Pro Players over here... and PVE / Casual Players over there" making two distinct games (:coughArenacough:) that essentially Rare would have to cater for.

It would also better Utilise the Servers... that is to say you could potentially have between 4-6 Ships per "Instance" Region on the Map as opposed to for the Whole Map.
Even more notable is that should you be grieved, then escaping visual range (assuming that is the 'Transition' Trigger) would result in you matchmaking with new Crews to Interact with., instead of Sessions of Several Hours of a Crew Constantly tracking you down and Harassing you because you're easy prey to them.

I dunno, that all just seems like a Common Sense approach., but guess Rare themselves decided otherwise.