"Survivorship bias is a type of sample selection bias that occurs when an individual [or group] mistakes a visible successful subgroup as the entire group"
If you are unfamiliar with the diagram above, the red dots indicate where American Bombers that returned home were hit. The US then reinforced planes in these areas to find less of them coming home.
Why? Where they got hit and returned was not causing critical damage. It was the unseen damage that was downing planes.
Just how is this relevant?
Let me explain: the majority of complaints about this game you hear are not from those who are going to quit playing. No, the 30% being "too much" on Safer is not going to make you quit. Instead, we should be listening to those who have uninstalled or are about to, as indicated in the chart. While, Safer Seas is a step toward avoiding the selection bias described above, I feel like if the devs listen to those complaining the loudest, and with the CM/Mods deflecting critique as they do on Discord; these concerns will go unheard.
Thats a bit of a long way to say:
A lot of questionable gameplay decisions that negatively impact the games Quality of Life are defended by members of the community. Members, who benefit from them advocate for keeping things in a poor state despite driving away far more pirates than they retain.
Starting with the low level issues:
1: Cheating.
Not much to say here. Cheats aren't a vibe, cheats are not cool beans. If you know your irl friend cheats, kick them in the butt till they stop. Cheating will never be solved entirely. Cheating (or perceived cheating) is also the number one drain of players at the current time.
2: Hit Registration.
Okay so maybe this one does echo across the whole of players, but I assure you more people have left the game without a word over hitreg issues (its the reason I never TDM if I can)
Moving to higher levels now:
3: "Endgame" is boring.
Athena's, meant to be the Voyages for "Pirate Legends" has you doing deliveries. Really? Deliveries... easily the most boring voyage type and PLs are expected to do them every Voyage. Quite a fecal reward after having just slogged their way through Merchant Alliance. Update these to give Breath of the Sea voyages or Fort voyges instead. Legendary content for Pirate Legends.
4: Hourglass is just a mess.
"Ha! Ur just mad you lost hyuk hyuk hyuk hyuk." -Offical SoT Discord
Crazy how every single streamer says to fix Hourglass but Discord seems to think its just great. Hourglass is busted but can be fixed readily.
*1: Award no progress for Hourglass losses.
1b: The match is over when its over. No more attacking your opponent after you lose. Everyone gets TPed back to the finding match screen.
2: Even ground: Reset ships between matches. Everyone starts with exactly the same resources, same HP, everything. This also lets you get back into matches faster if you are also automatically sent to the finding match screen.
3: No invasions. The battle is between you and your opponent.
4: Time limit matches to prevent passive play.
5: Grinds are not a challenge.
The most prestigious awards all come from grinding; instead of doing something... prestigious. Change that.
6: Old content is not relevant despite the game having no leveling system.
Old content should remain relevant since there is no power scale. Buff rewards for release voyages and treasures.
7: Portal Hopping is bullpucky: make it better or get rid of it.
As it stands this is esoteric knowledge, borderline exploit territory. (Go start a Tall Tale and then cancel it? Thats exploity) Since the devs intend on keeping this, make it so it can be done from the ship.
8: High Seas Content should be the priority.
This is the part of the game people are introduced to. This is the part of the game people spend the most time in. This is the part of the game that gets the least attention.
9: TDM/Hand to Hand Combat is stale, boring, and simplistic.
I get a lot of hate for this when I point it out, but... jumping around with a blunderbuss isn't fun or engaging for most people. (With less 'moving parts' it also makes it easier to cheat) We need more options in hand to hand.
