(Before you read, if you're an old salt I'm probably about to annoy you, or a PVP'r or a PVEr... yea this will annoy everyone so I dunno, put another banana on the stove or something)
I've bounced on and off this game for years since it first came out. Absolutely love the gorgeous style, love the lore despite how as a solo slooper that dosen't understand how friends work I'll never see the fabled spangle alright GlitterBeard cave for myself.
As I'm sure you're expecting yes I hate spending 2-3 hours grinding through what still today is a fairly shallow PvE loop, just for some sweary reaper brig freshly signed in to scare my poor cat Giblet half to death over that stupid crying chest thing, why do they even want that? I didn't even want it, Giblet just felt sorry for it.
Thing is, I realised something with Season 9's release. Getting chased over a few rusty goblets, an extremely inconvenient keepsake box with near molten hot lava sticking out of it and a crate of silk left socks was most of the fun!
Trouble is my glorious end game strat is now gone :( The red sea only hungers for my oversized grog gut and not the stash of uneccassarily elaborate teacups I was hiding behind a plant under deck.
It took me damn hours to learn how to read and then worse what I read was a cryptic puzzle about cave drawings and whatever 'North by North East' is. The fun was seeing another sail, my heart would pound, my beard hair stand on end and I'd forget for a minute that I've still never worked out how to sit on the stool once you've got it atop the mast, Pirate Leg end indeed.
So I would run, run like smoke and oakum... If it was merely a few gems aboard I'd crash into the nearest seapost and contemplate how crunchy those must be to eat instead of the fish. However, If I'd remembered to hold the map the right way up and found all the + signs that the worms didn't move 3 paces to the left, you best believe I'm not letting them have it.
If they're going to make the last few hours of moving Giblet off the damn wheel again, again, again... a waste by chain shotting and spawn camping me until the ferry man and I are on a first name basis, then yes I'm going to enjoy watching them fruitlessly tail me across the whole map diagonally keeping just out of arms reach, or sailing around the Roar in circles till everyone gets dizzy. They didn't want a fight, especially now, thats what the hour glass is for, thats what world events are for. No they wanted easy pray that had little chance of besting them the way they wanted to play the game.
SoT will never be the tongue in cheek cartoony PvE Pirate RP game my years younger heart desired, it is its own beautiful chaotic no rules sandbox who am I kidding its a really slow game of PvP Capture the Flag with extra steps, it looks really pretty though.
So I ask, with the endless PvPvE is broken, no its not its an anything can happen sandbox game debate. Why was my anything unfair? There's no progress save the same thing again locked behind pirate leg end, its all just cosmetics. If you wanted my flag, why was me handing it to Davy Jones instead of that green guy who looks like his head got stuck in a barrel so bad the mighty hand of Rare had to take it away, lest it waste the time of players doing the sandbox the right way? What happened to....... Pirate?
Also how do you sit on the damn stool when its atop the mast, I need that extra 3ft vantage point banana!
