So I just started Sea of Thieves and I was in Safer Seas just trying to get my footing in the game. I noticed that the Companies have items you can get after certain ranks and a number of them are locked in Higher Seas, so I went there. It's absolutely infuriating. After about 2 hours of simply fishing for the Hunters and consistently getting sunk by ships run by 3-4 people I said screw it and went back to Safer Seas. You shouldn't be locking cosmetic items for PVE stuff behind the PVP servers. Those people seem to do nothing but hunt down other people even when they've obviously got nothing. Now I saw there's a Company that is a PVP Company so locking those behind Higher Seas makes perfect sense, but for the others it's ridiculous. You also have buying your own ship locked behind Higher Seas. Trying to force people into a PVP mode like this for simple things that are for just doing PVE stuff is, in my opinion, really stupid and a very bad move. I shouldn't be forced to play with people who are just looking to screw with other players just so I can use some cosmetics, or buy my own ship, or I'm sure some other things I haven't seen yet.
Remove The Forced Need To Go Into Higher Seas For Cosmetic Items
The game design and intent for Sea of Thieves is a shared world adventure, and it always will be. Those who wish to play in the confines of Safer Seas will always have the option but we will not bring the rewards and activities in line with those of High Seas when many of the restrictions are in place due to the risk vs reward factor that is inherent in Sea of Thieves - removing any risk means rewards must be balanced accordingly.
Safer Seas will act not only as a safe space for our Tall Tale players but also for families with children who just want to pirate, for people who want to play the game but learn the ropes and it will organically feed into Adventure mode, keeping the player pool there healthy and upskilled as they've learned the mechanics.
This is not only useful for new players but also families and players with accessibility needs - the whole game suddenly becomes available in a way it hasn't before, letting them naturally progress to High Seas and become a Pirate Legend. SoT has grown a huge amount in 5 years and it can be fairly overwhelming.
The borders put in Safer Seas mean that to experience the full depth and breadth of the game you will have to hit the high seas BUT if you're playing with your family you don't have to, you can just enjoy the game and have fun as a family.
