Why Sea of Thieves is Dying:

@mslechtic15 My crew and I have zero issue defeating a grand majority of crews lol - we don’t need to use exploits to win, either.

@mslechtic15 Yes. You’re correct- a PvPvE game, where elements of both are mixed. So not sure why you’re pushing for this PVP over everything else entitlement.

@mslechtic15 Yeah, the game isn’t going to die because it’s “hardcore PvP community” is leaving/left, because they weren’t catered to enough.

Game will be just fine without those people.

@nex-stargaze And that’s fine for other, more competitive games, where those devs allow/celebrate those ideas. Sea of Thieves isn’t this hyper competitive game that sweats desperately want it to be though, and devs don’t need to allow for exploits, so we agree there.

@valor-omega I think he’s just trying to say that Rare doesn’t do anything for the PvP community and that leads to them leaving .

@valor-omega Say what you wanna say, but Sea of thieves is a PvP based game and has a lot of potential in this particular part of the game and because it’s not developed enough it’s leading the players off of the game. It’s simple as that.

@mslechtic15 as an avid PvP’er and someone who enjoys both of what the game has to offer, I feel very catered for. What your hyperbolic concern is the hardcore sweaty gamers who like to hourglass and get into 1v1 fights. You want easily accessible ways of creating TDM’s and toxic encounters that the tiniest minority enjoy. This ultimately leads me back to my original reply; if you want that, go play something else, cause that isn’t this game.

@fellowsot Rare has done plenty for PvP - it just so happens that the harder core PvP community believes it's not good enough for them/up to their standards, or expectations - an issue entirely on them.

It's not Rare's problem that the PvP community expects their game to run/operate similarly to more harder-core FPS titles, and it's especially not Rare's problem that these players expect them to allow for cheesy exploits, animation cancels, etc.

@fellowsot Except it's not. Since inception, SoT was advertised as a PvPvE game - a mix of both. Not primarily one or the other. It's always been known as the cooky cartoon pirate game, and it's no one's problem, but the people who unrealistically push for this game to be something more than it's not, and ever will be.

@musicmee Music spitting facts that people don't want to hear lol.

@mslechtic15 said in Why Sea of Thieves is Dying::

@burnbacon 1. Declining player numbers and dead servers: If the number of active players has significantly decreased over time, and certain game servers are empty or have very few players, this could be a sign that the game is losing popularity. This can be seen in statistics such as the number of players online at any given time, new registrations, or statistics from platforms like Steam Charts or Twitch. Empty or “dead” servers further highlight the lack of active player engagement, making it harder for players to find matches or have enjoyable experiences.
2. Lack of new content or updates: If the developers have stopped regularly adding new features, content, or updates, it could signal that the game has entered a maintenance phase and is no longer actively developed. This can deter players if they feel the game has no future.
3. Community activity and discussions: A drop in active discussions on forums, social media, or other community platforms could indicate that interest in the game is waning. If players stop discussing the game or sharing their experiences, it may be a sign of stagnation.
4. Declining positive reviews: If more and more negative reviews appear on sites like Steam or Metacritic, criticizing the game for various aspects (e.g., poor technical support, lack of content, or gameplay issues), it could be evidence that the game is losing its original appeal.
5. Neglected technical issues: If developers fail to address technical problems such as bugs, lag, or malfunctioning servers, it can drive players away and reduce their willingness to continue playing.

Sorry for the book! The first claim is a lot to unpack.

People always cite declining player numbers as proof of the game dying but the ONLY place we can see actual numbers is on steam which doesnt have the majority of the player numbers, and even on there the numbers really arnt declining.

The only perspective that seems to give that illusion was the time when the game launched on steam where it would have logically had a large spike from people who were waiting for it to go to steam to even try it, and then shortly after with the potc hype tied to the game. After that died down every new season always has a large spike of players booting it then dwindling down as the season goes on, and seasons with QOL focus over content tend to be a bit less popular in play count since they dont offer much.

If most seasons tend to average 35-40k at the start on a minority platform for the game and a season focused on a not very popular faction started with 31k that shows theres still consistency of peaking play counts at season starts, even with an unpopular faction update.

The last year has had a pretty low average on the steam stats, but thats pretty reasonable when most season content the last year has not offered much content, and one literally just streamlined content to be a little more mundane, but as the last year of content went on it pretty much stabilized around an average of 14k people playing on steam a day and rarely dropped below that for months until near the end of the last season.

Servers being dead however is not even a thing. The game automatically fills each server in a region to the max that it can and tries to consolidate players to the same servers in the same regions, so any experienced "dead" servers are either cause you are just not in proximity to wherever people are, or because they are still joining or just left the server you are in (be it from logging out or diving) and it will take a bit to get more people in, and they may not be anywhere near you when they do get in.

Most claims of dead servers citing player numbers always just look at the 2 peaks in the game on steam stats, or are based in anecdote that is contrary to the way the servers actually work and could not actually be the way they claim it. I have seen the same claims for literal years.

@musicmee said in Why Sea of Thieves is Dying::

The game's whole motto has been;

No barriers to entry, day one players can take on a crew that's been saying since day one... No power advantage, just a level playing field for all.

So it's been less about making it easy and more accessible to all.

I do think making things accessible is good, but personally i see making things faster and less diverse doesnt necessarily get the job done all too well since it was already a pretty even battlefield. Theres a lot of good thats come to the game to make things more even footing, like changing the spawn time for ships and especially for solo sloops, as well as hardening the sloop mast, that was a change that makes sense to make things more accessible and imo was a good direction for it, as opposed to how things have been streamlined lately so theres a little less magic and wonder what you will get.

One was an area that felt like it was a little more needed, while some choices lately feel less like they are made out of necessity and more just for generic convenience to remove as much learning curve as possible, which is not always good imo. Learning and growing often makes a game fun, and a little unpredictability in the right place makes things exciting.

@guildar9194 you seem offended man chill i just meant that this game is in my opinion very underdeveloped for the PvP part and because it has great PvP potential. Some people try to give rare suggestions [mod edit]

@guildar9194 I’m pretty sure PvP player are the majority of the actually active playerbase most of the PvE ppl just leaves cuz of frustration or boredom since it’s so repetitive

even if i agreed with all of it...rewarding players that chose to cheat cause they didnt like the updates is beyond pathetic.

@fellowsot said in Why Sea of Thieves is Dying::

@guildar9194 I’m pretty sure PvP player are the majority of the actually active playerbase most of the PvE ppl just leaves cuz of frustration or boredom since it’s so repetitive

And you'd be wrong - low Hourglass population and the fact that Arena failed to even garner 2% of total player gameplay time confirm this.

Just because YOU find the PvE boring does not mean someone more inclined to that style of play does. My time on the seas since launch also disputes that claim, with hundreds of hours of YouTube videos to back that up.

@dlchief58 high seas are almost more dead than hourglass atleast that’s how i feel

@fellowsot said in Why Sea of Thieves is Dying::

@dlchief58 high seas are almost more dead than hourglass atleast that’s how i feel

And again, you'd be wrong. Also that does nothing to support your point by throwing out unsubstantiated claims that have no bearing or relevance to the discussion at hand. Also the game is currently within the top 30 most played games on the Xbox platform (as it has been consistently since year one, never dropping out of the top 40) so there are plenty people playing right now, again disproving your narrative.

@guildar9194 i never said i don’t like PvE i said it get gets boring overtime because it’s too repetitive it’s the same thing all over again that’s the issue for me i like to do it time to time but rarely now because it feels unfulfilling