Sea of Thieves Feedback – From a Former UE4 Developer

  • Hello Rare Team,

    As a game developer with two UE4 titles released on Steam and a longtime Sea of Thieves fan, I wanted to share some quick, implementable suggestions that I believe could improve gameplay and player experience.

    Quick Improvements (Low-Hanging Fruit):

    Treasury Chests Capacity
    Increase item capacity from 3 to 9 or even 12. Additional sockets can quickly be added—even if items visually overlap, it’s an accepted visual tradeoff. This boosts the strategic value of these chests for both storing and stealing loot.

    Buyable Empty Treasure Chests
    Similar to storage crates, let players buy multiple empty chests to save time.

    Trap Usability
    Modify trap collision (e.g., blowpipe darts) to ignore friendly players. This makes them tactically viable. It’s a minor collision preset adjustment.

    Gameplay Suggestions:

    Buyable Rowboats
    Allow players to purchase different rowboat types at the start of a session. Adds utility and consistency.

    Movable Grappling Gun
    Consider adding a portable grappling gun item (ranged utility, rage cannon-style).

    Economy Balance
    Crate pricing (especially for supplies) should scale with player experience. New players often can't afford storage crates, which currently cost more than some entire missions reward.

    Bug Fixes & UX Enhancements:

    Blowpipe Reload Animation
    Animation restarts if player moves—consider making it more forgiving or non-interruptible after a threshold.

    Ship Launch/Physics Glitch
    Cap PhysX forces applied to ships via a wrapper method to improve stability and avoid extreme physics reactions.

    Radial Menu Keybindings
    Let players bind specific items or emotes from radial menus to keys (e.g., a specific dart type or emote on a hotkey) for faster use.

    Hope this was helpful. Thanks for your time and the great work on Sea of Thieves!

    Best regards,
    O.

  • 5
    Posts
    4.7k
    Views
  • Heres something that may interest you, scroll down on this page to very near the bottom, there is a button that may interest you some. Its a bit green and surrounded by pirate characters.

  • Treasury Chests Capacity

    So you just want to carry more small stuff.

    Buyable Empty Treasure Chests
    Similar to storage crates, let players buy multiple empty chests to save time.

    Ah no. And you can get those chests for free from fortresses.

    Modify trap collision (e.g., blowpipe darts) to ignore friendly players

    No no no. Be mindful of where you step and shoot.

    Buyable Rowboats

    No. Unless it was rowboats without attachments. Very high value item that can change the outcome of battle and sneaky tactics.
    Captain ships can already save the ones found. Which is easy to come by.

    Consider adding a portable grappling gun item

    Like the hand held…grapple gun…

    As a game developer with two UE4 titles released on Steam

    I find people who say’s this either untrue or odd thing to boost about. Not needed. And as someone mentioned above.

    “we’re hiring” has always been there. Why not joinv

  • [mod edit]

    Here, let me ask you how long have they been hiring a ''VFX Principal Artist'' for? Can't be more than 2 years right?
    Also curious as to why no one that meet those requirements supposedly hasn't snatched up that job offer in an industry that is currently facing massive layoffs with thousands of people eager to snatch any open role in the industry. Can't be any reason as to why such other studios/ company's leave roles open on purpose with no actual intention in hiring can it? Not saying that's what they are doing but at this point in time, it's a red flag...

    Principal VFX Artist, also requires years of experience and team management, Jimmy and Timmy working on their portfolio for 3 straight years can't walk in RARE HQ and pick the role up either, unfortunate reality.

    So much to say, but let me put it this way so (maybe) you will understand: a VFX artist has little to nothing to do with game optimization, just as a prop game artist generally doesn't have anything to do with character creation, who doesn't have much to do with an environmental/set dressing artist.

    @BurnBacon

    I find people who say’s this either untrue or odd thing to boost about. Not needed. And as someone mentioned above.

    Problem with these claims is that it can mean literally anything, did they work on the most generic game genre and shipped on Steam which completely flopped and the game was full of bugs/inconsistency's?
    Did they piggy back off a hobbyist/ passion game project who played around in UE4 and that was shipped as mess? Maybe.

    Outside of using common UE terms that OP uses, such as 'sockets' yeh I agree with your point that it doesn't amount to much in reality unless proven otherwise.

    I would be impressed if OP went into more detail about soft/hard reference and when to use them in each case scenario, or if the features being said would merit P2P or Client Side and why...

  • Please avoid engaging in personal arguments and derailing the topic of the thread. It is fine to debate the content of the post, and the viewpoints therein, but disrespecting any of your fellow pirates personally is against the pirate code, and our forum rules.

5
Posts
4.7k
Views
1 out of 5