There are many many Topics on this, all inevitably locked because this is likely the strongest divide in this player-base even more than weapon balance. so im gonna keep this as simple as possible:
This comes from someone who is old, knee hurting, working too much, 401k plan having old man that returned to this game after doing content and stopped playing after the ashen curse and other items was released. I came back when my son wanted a pirate game to play and I saw safer sea's was now an option. I thought "sure, reduced pay out thats fine. money is whatever anyway" had more than enough of that from my sweaty galleon days anyway. so we played it, was great. eventually tho content runs out, you cant even enjoy half of the new released funtions to the games like ship decoration, captain ships, athena voyages and many other things of increased content. nor can you even become pirate legend (was already athena 20 when I cam back with max rep ranks anyway) but once I got my son to the point of 40 in all. he wanted as ya can expect to do pirate legend content and be the captain of his own ship. so I bit the bullet and said "alright but you are turning chat and mic off when we do high sea's" I am not an overly protective parent I know ya cant fight the wind nor can ya shove over a mountain, they are gonna see and hear all this stuff regardless, I let them play mature games with the caveat of the moment you hear something or see something you dont know, come ask me waht it is and I will be straight up honest with you and explain the repercussions and what it is to you. well the overwhelming amount of absolute toxicity in high sea's....I gotta leave my mic and chat on because not every person you meet is a foaming at the mouth rabid dog, some fish, some need to use the outpost you are at to sell and want peace etc etc. the amount of when my son steers and drives. that I hear insults thrown his way ranging from "oh oh theres a rock there you cant park there slur" and "you drop anchor really loser?" etc etc is...staggering. I bite my own tongue to not set a bad example and glad I told them to turn chat and such off. but as this stands the clean transition into safer sea's to high sea's as a family is simply NOT on the table. combine people with thousands of hours in this game, that has live and breathed it to the point all they care for is PVP, foam at the mouth the moment they see another ship and relentlessly chase it even if it hasnt even got loot yet, trash talk the moment they are within mic range. and do nothing but server hop till they find something they can hound after has lead it to a statement I told my son "I know you will get bored of safer sea's but sorry thats all I can allow you to do. when ya are bored of it we will just switch to another game. your gonna learn thats how it goes with games like this" streamers have breed nothing but a community based around PVP. they even use terms for people who do forts and grade 5 themselves as PVE lords. when I find it pretty hillarious that they would have 0 content and 0 entertainment without the low skill PVE lords. no merchant ships to raid, no forts to steal. no veil quests to tuck on. the reason safer sea's is restricted is high seas NEEDS victims for any form of entertainment for the loud majority. without tho's drawn in by the cool bells and whistles of a customized captain ship, neat quests and events only available in high seas. the streamers, the PVP pirate community sailing with no loot just to "dunk" on a "loaded" PVE lord ship....would have absolutely nothing but throwing slurs and insults to other pirates for a no reward battle that they didnt even enjoy because they was both evenly matched. there is no fair and balanced nature to this. thos good at PVE and doing the games content 9/10 are not even remotely on the same level as someone who does nothing more than pirate around being toxic. so call it get good, call it risk vs reward, call it "well you can do it too" it boils down to safer sea's needs its restrictions removed even if the 30% money gain is still in place because no one is going to "get good" they will play till they are bored of safer sea's. try high sea's. have a miserable time. quit and go play another game. PS5 crossplay is an attempt to bring in more fresh meat to keep the game alive for juuuuuust a bit longer with a fresh influx of players that arnt feed-up enough yet to actually stick around and be constantly "dunked on" but that will eventually fizzle out too. more and more games are going pure PVE and Co-op simply because....most of the players for games. dont enjoy there fun being dictated by someone else. thats my long winded contribution to this topic. im certain there will be contrarians poking holes in it or others trying to get a rise out of me. but im simply stating the truth and going no further than that and saying what alot of other people are thinking. and as I told my son "me and you are not going to put 2 hours of effort in just to be some loaded...juiced NPC to someone else and chased for over an hour." you just cannot mix co-op PVE players who are willing to put effort in twords something. with PVP players who just want the thrill of fighting others. the two will never mix and it WILL breed a toxic divide.
