Why return old cosmetics? Who does it benefit?

FOMO stuff is lame in my eyes, but Rare seems committed to making the words "time limited" be up for interpretation while continuing to release items labeled as such.

I can tell you who it benefits.
90% of the community.

Coolness and availability are not intrinsically linked. It's all personal taste. There are a few old pieces that I really like how they look and I'd like to use them. I have some time limted stuff myself that I won't use because it's not to my taste. Though I would be in favour of anything that was unlocked by some sort of task to be unlocked in the future by a similar or more difficult task. But in general more customisation options the better.

Really don't like the idea of returning old cosmetics for literally no reason.

Because the current newbie players are upset they cant achieve/unlock them and its Unfair to them because they were around when they were launched.

So. blame mostly on the new players for crying out louder.

@burnbacon

Or perhaps the vast majority of players see cosmetics that they like and are disappointed that they are not available anymore. Now players have something to look forward to and perhaps Rare gets the time needed to fix and improve.

The only ones who are ''crying'' are those that don't want other players to get cosmetics that have been in a vault for almost a decade.

SoT handles its cosmetic progression very poorly. Most of the time, items that should be permanent additions are instead locked behind FOMO events to boost player activity. On top of that, they release fewer cosmetics each season, which only adds salt to the wound. Unfortunately, as you said, it’s one of those situations where you either bring everything back or nothing at all. This should apply to seasons too, in my opinion. Why is participation in a 2–3 hour event worth gatekeeping, but an entire season’s worth of items, including the PL ones, is not? I’d argue that grinding through a full season and reaching PL back when it was much harder is a bigger achievement than completing The Hungering Deep. And honestly, the only truly flex-worthy cosmetics are the gold curses (and even those can be cheesed). At this point, I’d rather see everything made available than have the system be this inconsistent and nitpicky.

@shenlongkazama Rare could just make recolors of those sought after cosmetics as well, but that would take slightly more effort than just re-adding them.

@neon-ic0n

Or how about no lazy recolors and just add cosmetics that are already there. Crazy right.

@shenlongkazama No, it's not crazy, nor is it surprising that Rare would do the option that takes the least effort. We're talking about cosmetics after all...
And the only reason recolors are even disliked is because Rare relies way too heavily on them, and drip-feeds the hell out of them over the course of months, sometimes even years.

Or perhaps the vast majority of players see cosmetics that they like and are disappointed that they are not available anymore.

Name some of these cosmetics; I would bet they're all tattoos/makeup/scars, or from a set which lacks recolors. All things which Rare could fix if they ever added similar alternatives to these items, which again, would take slight effort (so not gonna happen).

---

It's crazy because these devs go hard with the content, but are so cheeks with cosmetics.

@neon-ic0n

I already posted in another thread that one thing the game lacks are maritime themed cosmetics. The vast majority of ship sets are dark/brown colored for some reason.

Who does it help?
Literally everyone who would like to wear the cosmetic who didn't get to play enough during the limited time window it was from.
Which shouldn't be a thing in the first place, you should never miss out on content just because you couldn't or didn't play enough at the right time.

Besides that, the only thing that makes a cosmetic cool is it's visual appearance.
It being something other people have doesn't make it cooler. Rarity is irrelevant.

@the-old-soul800 said in Why return old cosmetics? Who does it benefit?:

Besides that, the only thing that makes a cosmetic cool is it's visual appearance.
It being something other people have doesn't make it cooler. Rarity is irrelevant.

^^ THIS. 100% this. For everyone who argues that recolors should be just as good as the original, no. No they're not. It's entirely a matter or preference.

For example, there are three different palette-swaps of the Kraken set: purple/pink, green/yellow and black/red. There are thousands of people playing and if you took a vote among them you'd find it more-or-less evenly distributed as to which one a person prefers if they felt like wearing it.

If the Inky Kraken (black/red) set was only half-available (clothing and equipment) for purchase and the other half (weapons and ship) completely inaccessible because it was only available for four weeks almost a decade ago only for people that did something like kill ten krakens specifically during July of 2017 is unbelievably stupid and the defense of "it'll make the ten krakens that I killed back in July of 2017 somehow be less meaningful to me retroactively" is quite honestly absurd. I've always been particularly fond of the Forsaken Ashes set; the outfit, capstan, cannons and wheel were the first parts I purchased back when I started. The Scorched FA set is primarily brown (and ugly) and I don't care much for the glowing pink/blue trim on the Seared FA set. The original set is the most aesthetically pleasing for me and neither I nor anyone else should have to settle for all but eight parts of the set and inferior knock-offs because someone else needs to feel special for doing something as simple as visiting all the islands in the Devil's Roar during one specific month back in 2018.

Do I think unique (standalone) commemorative items like the Drum of the Deep, the Golden Legendary set, the Wandering Reaper items or the LSD/LSD sets from Arena should be included? No. I don't have them because I didn't take part in the first summoning of the Megalodon, I wasn't a Legend during the first year and I didn't complete the Reaper Runs voyages or complete all the required Arena achievements when they were available. These are commemorative and the stores didn't come out with clothing, equipment, weapons or ship parts to augment them for years and years after the fact (up to the present day). I personally don't think they should be releasing Arena-themed weapon and equipment sets because the ship sets aren't ever going to be made widely available, but then again you can't buy the wheel, capstan and cannons for the ships while being locked out of the remaining pieces either so I'll let that one lie.

The Forsaken Ashes, Wailing Barnacle, Bone Crusher and (IMHO) Mercenary sets that have ALWAYS been mostly available for purchase in the shops (and in some cases are still getting added to, e.g. the Forsaken Ashes expanded weaponry recently added or the Wailing Barnacle pet costumes) should've always been fully available so that people have the option of choice. Those being purchasable again is fair and right.

Every old item that returns to the community that is already owned through sweat and tears should increase veteran pirates dubloons by 600 dubs per item at least!

You take something and you should give something back to the veterans!

HERRING

oh wow I got some replies to this, i thought it'd get buried quick.

To address everyone:

@SweetSandMan

FOMO stuff is lame in my eyes, but Rare seems committed to making the words "time limited" be up for interpretation while continuing to release items labeled as such.

I just find it weird that they choose to add fomo items before resetting doubloons in order to re-add fomo items. It seems like they want to appear like they're listening and re-adding old stuff but still want to continue practices people dislike (such as act 2 being limited) in order to incentivise play during specific time windows so they can say ''hey look we have a stable player count''.

@DerMasterBob

I can tell you who it benefits. 90% of the community.

Not really? You don't lose anything by not having a cosmetic, especially when the cosmetic is from an era before you played, obtained in a way no longer possible, and signifies advancement in the story that occurred before you played. Again something like Mercenary Sails have such an incredibly bland design akin to about 90% of the default outpost stock. A player that looks at all sails without knowing their method to obtain/price would not rate Mercenary Sails any higher than the kind of thing you can buy for 15k gold right now. Its perceived value is in the rarity and scarcity of it. You don't see them often so when you do see them its a ''wow look Mercenary Sails''. You loose this when you re-add them. And all it does for the people that didn't obtain them is bulk out their 5+ pages of sails with one more to not use. I say this as someone who has missed out on a lot of cool old items that I would love to use but understand that I simply just didn't play during that time, they represent an era or activity I did not engage with, as such it is something only used by those that did.

@Fry9889

Coolness and availability are not intrinsically linked. It's all personal taste. There are a few old pieces that I really like how they look and I'd like to use them.

Not always, but often yes. This applies not only to Sea of Thieves but to other games and real life in general. People will spend 100k on a rare coin to put on a shelf or inside a drawer never to be seen, just because its rare and there isn't many of them. They'll even buy an item that is objectively worse than the default equivalent you can get today just because of its rarity. As you say; that doesn't mean all rare stuff is cool, and not all cool stuff is rare, but there is a link.

I have some time limted stuff myself that I won't use because it's not to my taste.

I also have many limited Items I have never used because they just aren't very good; my oldest title is ''Seeker of Reapers Tribute'' from 2019 Festival of Giving and I don't use it because it sounds like a lvl 10 Reaper Reputation title. My go-to titles are the amazing Summer of Sea of Thieves titles such as Drunken Sailor, Dashing Daredevil, Pirate Menace and Legend of the Sun.

Though I would be in favour of anything that was unlocked by some sort of task to be unlocked in the future by a similar or more difficult task.

They have tried this kind of thing before, even with the example Rare themselves chose with the Drum of the Deep. This was initially obtained by just reading Journals during the Hungering Deep, not actually killing the Hungering One, that awarded a Figurehead. They then had a Hungering Deep Anniversary event to obtain the Drum of the Deep by defeating 3 regular Megalodons during the event. Even if the Drum was obtained from defeating the Hungering One; defeating 3 modern megs is by no means a similar feat. The issue they run into when trying to re-add old items under a similar task is... a lot of the time they just cant really replicate the conditions. Without full on re-adding the entire Hungering Deep event as a permanent thing you can' t re-create those conditions to make it the same, even then again a large part of sot cosmetics is telling the story of your pirate and their accomplishments. Certain things you age your pirate and show all the things you've done without any words, just the stuff you are wearing is enough. Having those Hungering Deep items shows you were there over 7 years ago as the story progressed and introduced Megalodons and Merrick. They were something intended to be a natural progression of the games evolving story that played out in real time unlike talltales. So with that in mind it is just very hard to actually do justice to the idea of re-adding items with a similar unlock when the original unlock doesn't exist in game and heavily relied on the real time story progression from years past. And even then I would massively prefer they at least try to do that rather than the actual ''hey just spend doubloons on it lol'' approach they've gone for.

But in general more customisation options the better.

For sure; but actually look at what they're doing here. They're not making something new, they're just re-adding something old. Even recolouring stuff requires them to go into a program and press the paint bucket tool, this literally is just them drag and drop with an existing asset. They're clearly going to add more old stuff over time to the Black Market even though they could add everything at once. yet again they're just drip feeding when they already have stuff made. The idea of limited cosmetics limiting customization options was appeased by them adding recolours, such as the Fearless and Obsidian Bone Crusher, Seared and Scorched Forsaken Ashes, and the countless Sovereign (mercenary) recolours we have. So with the idea of adding more customization options; them re-adding old stuff is literally the laziest thing they could do. They could make brand new stuff, recolour existing stuff, but they choose to just copy paste existing assets with no changes.

@Ghutar

Tl:DR Answering question - Rare becouse it's cheapest way to push some cosmetics.

Yea prolly

@BurnBacon

Because the current newbie players are upset they cant achieve/unlock them and its Unfair to them because they were around when they were launched. So. blame mostly on the new players for crying out louder.

I don't think its new players, its like a middle band of players that care about it. New Players have 10,000 different things to do and unlock, I cannot imagine they will somehow find out about random pegleg from 6 years ago and be upset they can't get it. Its more the kind of player thats maybe a recent Pirate Legend thats starting to get some good items, recognising the idea of ''hey I should put on all the flexy stuff that I have'' and then realising that due to them only recently picking up the game; they can never flex as hard as people with 7+ years of time limited items, and they for some reason feel entitled to them.

If you look in the replies a few down you'll find a reply from Shadowfox that says ''I'm a new player and I have no idea what these cosmetics are''. This is sort of what I mean; its not the new players upset, its the people a little bit above them.

(Already had this convo with you Shen, but thank you for your reply)

@Gosva5434

SoT handles its cosmetic progression very poorly. Most of the time, items that should be permanent additions are instead locked behind FOMO events to boost player activity. On top of that, they release fewer cosmetics each season, which only adds salt to the wound. Unfortunately, as you said, it’s one of those situations where you either bring everything back or nothing at all. This should apply to seasons too, in my opinion.

I think they do have way too much fomo limited stuff for literally no reason; like they'll run a week event to do ashen messages in a bottle for a random sword and its just like... okay? So I guess you just wanted a cheap way to boost player count without actually making new content and recycling existing mechanics. But I do think there are fomo items do make sense in regards to story progression. The Idea of telling your pirates story through the items you've obtained from the adventures you've been through. Having items that show you were there when something happened in real time is simply a nice memento to have. Especially when its not all items that get this treatment. As I said in my original post in regards to Bone Crusher just 13 out of 39 are limited, meaning you can still obtain so much of these items that were added to represent story progression with the Introduction of Skeleton Ships in Cursed Crews. Only a small amount are actually limited to show you were there for it, and all of those 13 items that are limited have multiple recolours for you to finish off the set with. I really don't think you need all of it as someone fresh to the game that didn't play through 7+ years of story.

Why is participation in a 2–3 hour event worth gatekeeping, but an entire season’s worth of items, including the PL ones, is not?

I believe they never really intended to re-add season items, they only did it after everyone begged for the PL curse to be re-added, so they hastily said yea sure and then took literally 8 seasons to actually re-add it. But to apply my idea of story progression being a good reason for it; you can progress Seasonal renown through every action, there's nothing that actually requires you to engage with the new content or story elements; until at least recent seasons with Act structures and Trinkets for completing the Limited Deeds. However It is worth noting that when they first explored the idea of re-adding Season Items on Insiders; they originally intended to re-add all Season items, including those linked to the Season theme itself. This means stuff like Shroudbreaker, Oceans Deep, Sirens Wrath, Blue Horizon, etc. Only due to massive pushback from Insiders did Rare listen and keep these exclusive; that means those that participated in certain seasons have a few items to show off that they were present during that time window. Its not something that shows off a certain activity or being part of story progression; but it is a good general way of giving a date on your pirate in a broader sense.

I’d argue that grinding through a full season and reaching PL back when it was much harder is a bigger achievement than completing The Hungering Deep.

Seasons were never that hard to complete, especially earlier seasons before Rare made the push to convert Sea of Thieves into a 20 minute adventure game to cater to modern kids that cant hold their attention on something. It really wasn't that hard to get renown 100 in 3 full months (or more in a lot of cases due to delays) when your average session was 2+ hours long. And with more modern seasons I generally find myself hitting renown 100 passively just by doing the commendations the new content has to offer, as well as the Act deeds. I'm already Renown 100 this season just from completing all the commendations and Act 1 and 2 Deeds. I wouldn't consider participating in Hungering Deep as an achievement to celebrate your effort, its more of a milestone of your Pirates Journey, something to reflect on and be like ''I was there for that story progression''.

And honestly, the only truly flex-worthy cosmetics are the gold curses (and even those can be cheesed). At this point, I’d rather see everything made available than have the system be this inconsistent and nitpicky.

I'd also rather they be consistent but it really seems like there's no clear goal internally and each different team working on different things just do it completely differently. That's why there's so much inconsistency and doubling back on previously 'locked' decisions. Its a shame but with very little transparency I don't think we're ever gonna get it. They still won't even give a black and white ''what can get me banned'' ruleset so...

@NEON-iC0N

Rare could just make recolors of those sought after cosmetics as well, but that would take slightly more effort than just re-adding them.

Especially when they literally already have lol. Silent Barnacle, Bristling Barnacle, Fearless Bone Crusher, Obsidian Bone Crusher, Scorched Forsaken, Seared Forsaken. etc.

@The-Old-Soul800

Who does it help? Literally everyone who would like to wear the cosmetic who didn't get to play enough during the limited time window it was from.

I don't think this should matter, wanting something you missed out on shouldn't entitle you to it, especially when its a cosmetic with 0 functionality in a game with 10,000 cosmetics. If you can currently get like 9,800 things and miss out on 200 and are upset you can't get those 200, you shouldn't just be entitled to getting them when you still have so much you can get.

Which shouldn't be a thing in the first place, you should never miss out on content just because you couldn't or didn't play enough at the right time.

In regards to the items we're talking about; namely Bone Crusher; You aren't missing out on that content. Cursed Crews effectively just added Skeleton Ships and Fleets; something you can still interact with in a similar way as it was back then, same with Drum of the Deep via Hungering Deep which revolved around Defeating a Megalodon. They functioned differently back then simply because since then they've been reworked into what they are now. You aren't missing out on that, its just something that got changed. Literally take the entire idea of a Doubloon reset; that means once its reset the Doubloon system won't work as it did before, you could then say that ''you're missing out on interacting with doubloons with their old functionality'', not really? The only way this works is if it is objectively worse, ie current Fort of Fortune being objectively worse than Old Fort of Fortune.

Besides that, the only thing that makes a cosmetic cool is it's visual appearance. It being something other people have doesn't make it cooler. Rarity is irrelevant.

That's just not the case. You can want it to be but it just isn't. Rarity has always been part of what makes something cool, just as visual appearance also has. As I said to someone prior this is a concept that precedes Sea of Thieves and video games in general. People will spend 100k on something objectively worse than something you can get today for much cheaper, just because its rare, you can't get it anymore, and there's not many of them. When it comes to Sea of Thieves, showing off hard to obtain and no longer obtainable items has always been a thing, almost everyone has done it. That doesn't mean its the only thing that matters; I have plenty of rare things I don't like so I don't use, and plenty of things I use that are not rare at all, but it absolutely is a factor, always has been, and always will be.

With this idea in mind; recolours of old limited things should be just as good if not better than the existing one. If the design is the same but the colours are different then its very likely a lot of recolours are as cool or cooler than the default one; yet for some reason it seems everyone magically happens to prefer the original ones design every single time. Its very interesting. Take like Bone Crusher with its green and orange recolour, black and red recolour. Wailing Barnacle with its Black recolour and Brown recolour, Forsaken Ashes with its Gold recolour and Purple Recolour. Its so weird that every single time people so happen to like the original more... I'm sure that has nothing to do with its rarity of course.

I'm curious, if they took all the old stuff and made a brand new recolour for all limited items that was now obtainable through this Black Market, would this be okay with you?

@TheGrimPreacher

The original set is the most aesthetically pleasing for me and neither I nor anyone else should have to settle for all but eight parts of the set and inferior knock-offs because someone else needs to feel special for doing something as simple as visiting all the islands in the Devil's Roar during one specific month back in 2018.

Its not about having visited those Islands, its about when you did it and the significance of it. It wasn't ''one specific month back in 2018'' it was when they first added the Devils Roar. It was a mark of story progression and being there when it happened, visiting those brand new places and being part of it. I agree with most of what you say but I do think the core issue is simply just Rare was lazy back in the day (and still are). I also think its stupid that a lot of sets are majority obtainable except a few items that were time limited; and I'd imagine the reason was literally Rare going ''well we should add something limited to commemorate the event, but I also can't be bothered to make something new, so lets just take a few of the Forsaken Ashes set and slap a time limit on them''.

Do I think unique (standalone) commemorative items like the Drum of the Deep, the Golden Legendary set, the Wandering Reaper items or the LSD/LSD sets from Arena should be included? No. I don't have them because I didn't take part in the first summoning of the Megalodon, I wasn't a Legend during the first year and I didn't complete the Reaper Runs voyages or complete all the required Arena achievements when they were available. These are commemorative

This is what makes me think we do actually agree on this. Because these are examples of where Rare didn't take the lazy approach before. I can use your same sentence format to explain why you shouldn't obtain the original Forsaken Ashes stuff; ''I don't have them because I didn't take part in exploring the Devils Roar when it was first uncovered by the Shroud''. The unfortunate truth is as I said; they were just super lazy and instead of making new items as part of this commemoration, they just took parts of Forsaken Ashes and slapped a time limit on them. I'm curious if you were to look at the limited items from Forsaken Ashes under this guise If you still think that in the position we are in; that they should or should not be re-added. Because I'm sure we both agree that in a perfect world they made a unique set instead of using parts of Forsaken Ashes and that this stuff should be limited and Forsaken Ashes can be fully obtainable. With the unfortunate circumstance of how they did it back then, we are either forced to re-add something that was to commemorate taking part of something, or leave a set unfinished, there's no ''good outcome'' here.

@Fred-Fisheye

Rarity may be irrelevant when it comes to personal preferences. But it certainly gives things value. If Da Vinci had drawn hundreds of Mona Lisas, not a single version could be seen in the Louvre. People may not like it, but valuing something by it‘s rarity is certainly part of the human nature. That’s why Rare decided to bring in FOMO in the first place. It’s a predatory business model that takes advantage of humans nature.

Agreed.

@ShadowFox327533

Personally, I couldn't care less about what cosmetics are in the game, and to me, cosmetics does not reflect skill in this game. I also haven't been playing for too long, and don't even know anything about these old cosmetics.

Cosmetics do not reflect skill as you say; what they do is imply experience. I see someone with an item from 6 years ago and I go ''okay they've been here for 6 years they likely know what they're doing'' but its just as likely that they obtained those items 6 years ago, quit the game and only recently came back and have no idea what they're doing. As such its not a black and white skill indicator, it just helps you gauge the potential difficulty of the person you're about to fight. Its something you may want to learn as being able to recognise cosmetics in this game, how they were unlocked and how long ago it was available helps you determine a 'threat level' which can affect how you choose to take an encounter. Its basically the very first thing any good player does when they take a fight; look at the cosmetics and determine the threat.

@REDs-HERRING

Every old item that returns to the community that is already owned through sweat and tears should increase veteran pirates dubloons by 600 dubs per item at least! You take something and you should give something back to the veterans! HERRING

As someone with a lot of items that are likely to be re-added, if I just got doubloons as 'compensation' then I can't really use them on much. If most of the Doubloon items are things I already have then me getting a lot of extra doubloons is kinda worthless I have everything that can be bought with them. I don't really think they need to do much to compensate, they just need to have not done it in the first place.

Final

Again thank you everyone for your replies, Hopefully you could find your own reply in here; I know its a very long message lol. Thank you for engaging in conversation rather than just a like ''cry more'' reply.

holy frog post

@frogfish12
It still benefits them nonetheless.
But i agree, those items will become worthless.
Sadly rare failed to add any more significant event items after the first 2 years, which is why i couldnt care less if anything returns.
Ive played for 5 years and never got a time limited shipset, so why should those 2 years worth of items get such a special treatment?

@dermasterbob

It still benefits them nonetheless. But i agree, those items will become worthless. Sadly rare failed to add any more significant event items after the first 2 years, which is why i couldnt care less if anything returns. Ive played for 5 years and never got a time limited shipset, so why should those 2 years worth of items get such a special treatment?

It benefits them yes, but it benefits them in the same way that just adding a brand new item does, in the sense that it adds one more item to add to their chest of 10000 items they won't use. As you say doing this removes their 'worth' as such they become the same as everything else. I do not understand why you would take something that is currently cool and make it uncool, when you can just make a new cool thing.

its not just the first 2 years of stuff that is likely going to get this special treatment, it will likely be anything they have introduced that never came back. At the start it will mostly just be stuff that was bought by doubloons, buy I would not be surprised to learn any live event exclusive items will eventually make their way into the black market once they run out of old doubloon stuff. its not like once they run out of old doubloon stuff they're gonna abandon adding new market items again. Re-adding old stuff is a slippery slope.

@magus104

If you think about all the FOMO cosmetics that the rare few of us year 1 players have even compared to the number of people who were around in year 1 and earned them.

Unsure what you mean here. You say year 1 people that have the items vs year 1 people that earned them? Isn't that the same group of people? Did you mean people that have them vs people that dont but also played year 1?

If that is what you mean and your point is like ''it doesn't signify you were year 1 because most year 1 didn't get them'' I do understand that; but also I missed out on quite a lot of limited cosmetics from when I started because I was new, didn't understand the game and didn't know I was going to miss out on something. Of course in retrospect I wish I had noticed these items, but I'm not upset nor do I think I deserve them, nor do I think they should be returned.

Wanting to have unique cosmetics just for the sake of being an early adopter or some kind of loyalty reward for never having quit.

Again confused by what this means, it reads like half a sentence. Like you want to say ''wanting to have unique cosmetics just for the sake of being an early adopter: is (opinion). But it just cuts off and I don't know what you mean to say.

If you meant this to mean you think this is something wrong, that wanting to have a unique item is wrong, I'd again say that I don't want to keep rare things rare to be a like ''sign of early adopter''. As I have said I'm talking about the sentimental value of items that were added to commemorate the story progression, something to say I was there, I took part in it. Reading back on the lore of sea of thieves tells like a story that takes place in the past, but some parts actually played out in game and evolved over time, it wasn't just something we got told. Case in point something like the Introduction of Merrick and the Hungering One, which gave multiple items to commemorate being part of that sot history era. Things like Mercenary, Bone Crusher, Forsaken Ashes, etc also did this. Bone Crusher was something unlocked by being present when Skeletons took to the waves and tried to invade the regions, and you successfully defended them. Forsaken Ashes commemorated those that explored a brand new region after it was uncovered from the shroud.

The issue is that Rare was lazy (shocker) and instead of adding an exclusive standalone item to act as this time piece, they went ''well I cant be bothered to do that so lets take the new set we're adding and make like 10 pieces of it limited lol''. Thats an issue of the past, something we have to accept happened, we can wish they didn't but they did. We are left with two options which is leave the set forever unfinished but add recolours to hopefully lessen the issue, or ruin the items designed to be the trinket to show you were part of sots history. it sucks either way tbh.

Also Rare adds random fomo items all the time that do not have any sentimentality to them, such as Season Community Day stuff, refined gold items, captains week items, ashen expedition items, the list goes on and on and on. There is much more reason to return these 'random' items that hold no value other than 'its a rare item', as they have re-added quite a few of these items already. I would much rather these items be re-added than anything tied to story.

like what most people are saying its not fair to new players who miss out on cool stuff... exclusivity while it may make a few people feel special for a time it doesn't really benefit the game or community to have a bunch of assets clog up storage space if less than half the community get to access it or even get to see it in-game for that matter, I think this is a good compromise as most returning cosmetics aren't cheap neither often requiring multiple plunder pass worth's of doubloons to buy 1 item that may or may not be part of a full on set. That way everyone and their mother still wont have it, But its still obtainable to new and or returning players who are willing to grind for it as opposed to the people who just got it for being present during a specific season or event. The only exclusives I can see as reasonably staying exclusive is like pre-order and anniversary items but not things for other in-game events and seasons

@ractk00n

like what most people are saying its not fair to new players who miss out on cool stuff

What makes it cool? Like for example Mercenary Sails which are a plain white sail with a plain basic red design. No texturing no shiny foil, just the most generic sail you can find 100 similar items of in the outpost shop. There is nothing visually unique about it, its cool, and you consider it cool; because its rare. Its a ''wow look mercenary sails''. You don't go ''wow look ocean crawler sails''. I just right now looked in my Sails inventory and found over 50 sails that are a single colour blank background with a single colour design with no texturing or enhanced detail; these sails span from very early additions to stuff literally added in the most recent update to the game. old stuff are only cool because of their age and how they were obtained.

There are cool limited stuff, ie custom textured or modelled items, but these all exist to give players who participated in SoTs evolving story a time piece to remember what they did. They were there when x happened, it wasnt just a story. To a new player they can read up on all past SoT lore and it just sounds like a story, but a lot of those plot threads were actual things real players experienced in real time as it was added to the game. And they added things to commemorate these world changes for those players who did it.

Bone Crusher items were locked behind defending the Regions as Skeletons first took to the waves with their Skeleton Ships, and you successfully fought against Multiple different Skeleton Fleets in different map locations than you can now. It saw the introduction of the Warsmith who evolved from being a generic Daggertooth Outpost NPC to being a fleshed out important antagonist. You weren't there for that, neither was I; so you don't have one of the items obtained when that happened. However, most of the items they added during this time are still available to this day, only a small portion of them were made limited. 13 of the 39 Bone Crusher Items are limited, the other 26 are still obtainable; and there are also Fearless Bone Crusher and Obsidian Bone Crusher recolours available through other means for you to surely get your fill of Bone Crusher items; which all except the figurehead are generally not what most would consider a 'cool' set visually. I could say this explaination too for Mercenary Set; which was obtained by participating in the Bilge Rats faction and interacting with Duke prior to him turning evil, as yes he used to be a good guy, I remember him as a good guy, I remember talking to him in the Tavern. Forsaken Ashes was obtained by exploring the brand new devils roar region as it was uncovered from within the shroud, something that has only ever happened once and has never happened again since that time, exploring a new island let alone a new region is something you cant do anymore until they add a new one. And again with both Mercenary and Forsaken Ashes, a majority of the set is still available to this day, with multiple recolours (Mercenary has like 10+ recolours).

it doesn't really benefit the game or community to have a bunch of assets clog up storage space if less than half the community get to access it or even get to see it in-game for that matter

Having cosmetic assets in the game does not like break server space or anything if that's what you're suggesting, however there is plenty that does do that; such as the dozens of completely abandoned bits of content that nobody ever uses such as Shrines and Treasuries, a bunch of voyages nobody ever does; etc.

I think this is a good compromise as most returning cosmetics aren't cheap neither often requiring multiple plunder pass worth's of doubloons to buy 1 item that may or may not be part of a full on set.

Unsure where you are getting this from as they have not explained how doubloons are going to be obtained going forwards, how much we will get or how expensive the items will be. If you are basing it off of returning Seasonal items in the current doubloon economy; this is irrelevant as this is not going to be a good reflection moving forwards. Likewise regardless; no I don't think thats a good reflection unless the Bilge Rat Weekender (the way to get doubloons moving forwards) is a way of them re-adding old events such as the Hungering Deep, as such you participate in those old events to obtain the respective rewards. I do not believe this will be the case, I imagine it will be something completely different with no association to the items they are adding, so no I do not think buying via doubloons is a good compromise for returning items designed to be a commemoration of participating in SoTs ever evolving Story.

as opposed to the people who just got it for being present during a specific season or event.

Again the issue is its not just a random event or login reward; I'm talking specifically about items that were designed to be commemorative of participating in SoTs story progression over the years. There are plenty of random one off log in reward items, week long events with no theme or story tie in; that I would be fine with being returned via the Doubloon system; and this should hopefully appease those that genuinely think they deserve things they didn't earn; but they should no be returning things that had a very good reason to be locked in the first place.

The only exclusives I can see as reasonably staying exclusive is like pre-order and anniversary items but not things for other in-game events and seasons

This is bizarre because Anniversary Items are just random items that got added with no story purpose, no hard method to obtain; and were literally just a ''I was here'' item that shows nothing else. Likewise you then say but not things for other in-game events and seasons. You are aware that the very items I am arguing to not return, and you are arguing should return; are items obtained from in-game events... right? Like the Bone Crusher stuff was from participating in the Cursed Sails event, Mercenary from participating in the Mercenary Voyages event, Forsaken Ashes during the Forsaken Shores event. You are arguing your own point with this line. Likewise Season Items already have been re-added on a set timer with the exception of a few items which I also do hope stay limited.

To me, old/rare/time limited items should stay unavailable because they represent the history of the player.

Like many online games, cosmetics are the crux of this game.
Level up factions? cosmetics.
Complete tall tales? cosmetics.
Participate in events? (community day, seasons, daily log ins, actual events) cosmetics.
etc.

I can understand wanting to obtain the unobtainable due to rarity/time gate, but if everything was obtainable the same way it wouldn't have the same sentiment.

The reasoning of its "Cool" is subjective, take the launch crew eor as an example, without rarity it's literally just a bottle wrapped around a rifle, I could pick at least 30 other better looking eor over it.
Context gives cosmetics life, without context it could be seen as just another island/emporium restock and lose its "value" in the eyes of people

From the beginning there has been time limited cosmetics and to this day there still is.
Seasons, acts, twitch drops, live events, what time would it be appropriate to re-release these items if they are "fomo"? A day after the event? a week? a month? a year?
Do you think they should re-add the adventure memento items as they were a part of the story?

I could write more but @Fred-Fisheye probably said it better than I could

@guildar9194

So from what I could take away from this; A few people want retired cosmetics to stay retired so they can say 'I have (x) and you don't!'?

unsure where you are taking this away from. nobody has said this. You're arguing a point nobody has made yet.

No one except the kinds of people who need to feel superior for having something someone else lacks.

Again, nobody has said this. nobody has said its a haha i have something you dont, you are arguing ghosts

Feel free to ignore those people, Rare. That mindset of 'It's valuable because I have it and you don't' is incredibly petty and toxic.

you've already ignored us yourself because you havent actually read anything you just disagree with the idea and guess what our reasons are, then you call us toxic and petty?

@guildar9194

So from what I could take away from this; A few people want retired cosmetics to stay retired so they can say 'I have (x) and you don't!'?

That is not what anyone has said, no one has said they wanted to "jingle keys" in front of people, it's to preserve their history, did you bother to read anyone's point?

Who does it harm if they brings cosmetics back?
Answer: No one except the kinds of people who need to feel superior for having something someone else lacks.

Potentially everyone in the future based on how they go about this, it all depends on what is brought back.
Will they bring back recent event rewards/items? If so when? what about the recent community goal with the double barrel pistol reward that failed? Will we get that at a later date or is it just gone?
We still don't have all older season items, some items have been added slowly but not all at this time.

Feel free to ignore those people, Rare. That mindset of 'It's valuable because I have it and you don't' is incredibly petty and toxic.

Ah yes the classic ignore these people rare, cool.

TLDR: Feel free to ignore those people, Rare. That mindset of 'It's petty and toxic is incredibly petty and toxic.

@guildar9194

You must acknowledge that the opposite is true as well, and that many wish for these items to return solely because they are "rare." Both of these types of players are two sides of the same coin. They just want to flex for the sake of it, and have no regard for the intrinsic value of the cosmetics.

It's literally impossible to please both of these groups simultaneously, however it's quite easy to please players that don't fall into either of these incredibly niche categories (which is the vast majority btw). All they have to do is actually make reasonable alternatives to these 'rare' cosmetics, whether it be via recolors or otherwise.

But that would take effort, so instead we'll get random items cherry picked from past events, ensuring everyone is disappointed.

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A perfect example is the Wailing Barnacle set. It has two complete recolors, and even one of the Resolute ship sets is very similar. You never see anyone ask for this to return anymore, I wonder why?