I was going to post about my overall experience with the game as a new player (250 hours)
But realized that all of it can be summarized in one sentence.
This game has incredibly traumatized community.
Everyone always assumes that everyone else is out to get them. Every crew seems to go into "Flight or Fight" mode every time they see sails on the horizon, despite many clearly coming to the game with a very different idea.
It's literally paranoia speedrun simulator.
One can say "well, they are coming as noobs who have no idea how the game works, and other players taught them, one should be vigilant with others pirates around", but it's not true at all.
It is a small fraction of the player base forcing their idea of how the game should be played upon others.
Why small? Because one look at steam achievements tells us everything we need to know about how people prefer to play the game.
Out of all the players that purchased the game, 3.3% got "A Professional Pirate" achievement, so we can consider them actually playing the game. Meanwhile, "A Sunken Century", given for 100 faction ships sunk, was obtained by only 0.3% at the moment, and that is while being a pre-requisite to the most requested cosmetics the game has to offer. So it would seem that only 10% of players have great interest in PvP.
It's PvPvE game, with enough tools for cooperation or interaction outside of combat, but everyone is bludgeoned into the same mindset of "fire first, never ask questions". You can't help anyone, because they will shoot you in the face the moment they see you regardless of how silly that may be, you can't gift anything to anyone, because they always assume you are trying to trick them and social distance like it's year 1350. And by help I don't mean "go in and steal their kill which they might've needed for achievement" or "give help that no one asked for in an attempt claim some loot", no, I mean just selflessly give a hand to a fellow pirate without expecting anything in return. Even simply giving away supplies before ending a session is not possible. Because the other party will always be either outright hostile or flee non-stop no matter how one tries to approach them.
I genuinely question why the chat even exists since in 250 hours I had only a handful of interactions where it was of ANY use. No one heeds any warnings, no one takes no for an answer, no one has decency to reply to any offers, or god-forbid, suffer misery of having a conversation. After a few hours in, people seem to be firmly set in the idea that all out violence is the only answer to everything. Regardless if they have the ability to back up that mindset. I can understand people fighting for loot or just for the love of ruining the day for others even if they have nothing to take. But people choose violence even if it makes no sense in that situation, because they expect others to do the same. And if they don't, it's seen as a sign of weakness, further boosting aggression. Regardless of how actually true that is.
But it doesn't have to be played this way.
And please don't say "Alliance servers exist" we all know how such servers viewed and also have seen more than one vid where some sweatlord would dedicate their entire day to ruining it, with everyone cheering in the comments.
I'm not saying "PvP BAD", or advocating for PvE only servers. Only that PvP should be an option, not certainty. Downgrading a game with such rich possibilities to CS:GO with... "poorly-working" hit reg seems just silly to me, and quite honestly, takes a lot away from the experience.
