After trying out the new update last night with my normal crewmate, I have to say, it was a blast. Of the 10 fights we did, we had some of the best fights in Sea of Thieves to date. Everyone was just excited to be there, and there was generally some gg's exchanged before the losers got blankscreened away. So before I start my rant, I just wanted to say the new pvp on demand as a whole is amazing, and I can't wait to do more.
However.
The way the rewards and systems of this update interact make me confused.
There is a large emphasis on building as big of a streak as you dare. Cool. Love that. There is also an elo system to match you against people of your own skill. Also cool. Also love that. Together though? They kind of contradict each other.
An elo system to match players of equal skill by design will stomp out the ability to go on streaks. If I can get the 10 streak commendation, I'm clearly not in the right elo ranking. This kind of thing means that should I ever get the two commendations for the 10 streaks, I will never attempt to go past like 4 ever.
In my initial test of the new combat with my friend, we set sail on our sloop and did a total of 10 battles. The main reason we kept going was to try and get the 10 streak commendation early, because of our fear that getting it in the future would be almost impossible. We faced a couple crews of clearly lower skill, but we had a few equal, fair fights.
We managed to get lucky, and win all of them until the 10th. The 10th isn't really important to my story for now. Of the 2-3 really good fights we had, they lasted a while. Good broadsides and good attempts on both sides and nothing really working. Until one really lucky play or mistake. The best example was against our 7th fight where we kept going for about 30-40 minutes until I landed two chains to snap their mast, and then followed by two cannonballs to one ball both of them. It was a lucky play, and had it not happened then, the exact same could've happened to us 5 minutes later.
Connecting back to the streaks thing, this kind of experience will most likely become the norm for my fights as the elo system evens everyone out. Each and every fight will be a toss up and unlike in adventure normally, I don't know if I will win right off the bat. Which I think is a great way to handle it, and the elo system is necessary. It makes for great fights.
But that kind of fighting also ruins the idea of streaks. As I found out the hard way on my 10th game against a Wandering Reaper crew, I too can be on the other end of that kind of play. One snap, two one balls, and a border later, we sunk. That kind of thing I expect will happen a lot more frequently.
My main gripe is not that I sunk and lost the chance at like 280k and a shiny commendation (though that loss did hurt) it's more that the whole streaks thing will become impossible to do with the elo system. My crewmate and I were shocked that the gold increase past 4 sinks stayed at 20k per sink. Besides the 2 commendations, the risk to keep going is not worth it if the rewards don't keep increasing.
As for the rewards, I like all of them, but they aren't really PvP rewards. Sure you have to do PvP to get them, but it's really just a time grind. Anyone can get them regardless of skill level, which is important don't get me wrong, but also kind of lame for a PvP update. If the elo system works properly, I will win just as many games as Fresh Spawn Sally and if we both put in the same amount of hours we will both unlock rewards at the same pace.
I don't want the current rewards to be changed at all, how they work now is fine. I would however like to see skill-based rewards. It's already a ranked mode with an elo system, why not reward it like one? All the elo numbers are there, and it would be pretty simple to set up divisions and give out rewards based on that. Even something as small as a title to show "hey I reached this rank." It doesn't even have to be as selective as other games where the top division is the top 1% of players, it could be something like the emissary system where it's split into sections of 25%.
This may seem like I'm just trying to get extra rewards, which is kind of true, but I also think this will help to prevent the smurfing/throwing epidemic we are going to see. Sea of Thieves as always had a terrible issue with sore losers and egotistical bullies. People will smurf or throw to dunk on other players, or to get the unobtainable commendations for streaks. This kind of system would discourage that as they would miss out on the rewards.
I'd love to hear what others have to think. Do the current cosmetics reflect the skills of their owners? Should there be cosmetics to show the skill of the players in the new Season? Should the gold past 4 sinks continue to go up because the risk of continuing is still increasing? Has anyone managed to get the 10 streak commendations? If so, was do you think it was because you weren't properly placed by the elo system yet? Any other thoughts about the idea of streaks and an elo system together?
