This is the opinion of a gamer that managed to get the skeleton curse in sea of thieves, so I know what I'm talking about :
The key gameplay of sea of thieves was to launch a game and to not know what it would be like. Sailing to this unknowed server was literally what made the game what it is currently : unpredictable ! You could either have a peaceful server were you just do some missions alone or with your friends, or you could end up 5 hours later fighting against the same Italian ship because it now became personal haha. You could find a cool crew to sail with and discover treasure with or do some forts together, to end up betraying/being betrayed. You see, sea of thieves made its popularity due to the communication between players, its key element was in fact sociability.
Now Its just ruinning a huuuge part of the game, to the profit of casual gamers that just wants to play for like 30 minutes. The diving system would be a great option FOR THE SAFER SEAS, not for the high seas because, think about it. You want players to be able to immediately go to the gaming part, without the "annoying" sailing part (quoted because I actually enjoy sailing, its a PIRATE GAME btw, stop literally avoiding the "sailing to adventure" part). So now whenever you find a boat sailing the seas you have a larger chance of finding them with loot ... suuuure. First, it will scare them away, people without loot are genuiely more open to discussion than people with, so less sociability. It will also DECREASE the amount of players sailing around the map, decrease the amount of strategies (if you infiltrate a boat that is diving, WHAT WILL HAPPEN ???). It also makes them able to save their ressources like canonballs, planks and food (including cooked food for the hunters call). Now don't go and tell me "YeAh BuT u CaNt DiVe If A sHiP iS nEarBy" because if you see an emissary 5 reaper on the map heading towards you and he is like 2 islands away, you can easily just dive and keep all your ship's storage away from them. Now if you actually can dive just like the hourglass pvp and get to keep your emissary flag it will be even more op, making players dive everytime they see a potential enemy ship that could endenger their ressources or their emissary level. At this point, you're just making the game easier, and easier, and easier. This just, doesn't feel like Sea of Thieves anymore ... It's just like Sea of Lazyness.
All these things make me realise rare is adding stuff that we did not even asked for. Instead of fixing the actual bug (shady graphics, teleporting under boat, loot disapearing, cheaters). And the only content we asked for was like, bigger map, more players in lobbies, better optimisation for certain ports, (that are honestly poorly optimised, my rtx3060 cant run port merrick in at least legendary without being under 50 fps) and overall some more content like maybe a new boat ?
Now don't get me wrong, the content beside the diving part is actually amazing, the voyage menu looks insane, all rep to lvl 100 is finally here, GRINDING IS BACK HEHEHEHAW (I love pain) and all the quality of life improvement is awesome ... But please don't add the diving system ... at least not in the High Seas.

