So it's a day after official release and I already have some pretty strong opinions. Myself and 3 friends were playing yesterday and we found that it was literally impossible to sail within visual range of another ship without being shot at. We also discovered that being stabbed in the back at an outpost while buying clothes is really annoying. I'm in favour of the open PvP aspect of the game, but let's be honest, there should really be somewhere you can be safe and take a breather without getting stabbed.
Here's the thing - I think there's a very simple solution to this problem. I don't know if anyone reading this ever played Ultima Online in the late 90's, but UO had an extraordinarily robust criminal flagging system that I have yet to see any game match. Basically, it worked like this - if you have not recently committed a crime, your character name would be blue. If you have recently committed a crime, it would be grey. Anyone attacking a blue player turns grey, but a grey player is a criminal and can be attacked without penalty. If you kill 5 or more blue players, you are flagged as a murderer and turn red. Red players may be freely attacked by anyone, though it is worth mentioning that even a red player can attack a grey without penalty. Reds were equal parts target for bounty hunters and objects of terror for PvE farmers.
I think this system or something like it would benefit Sea of Thieves immensely. Open PvP is great but it would be great to be able to sail past another 'blue' ship without being automatically shot at. There are other ways to communicate with people, just saying.
Thanks for listening and don't forget this is just one man's opinion, please don't yell at me ok bye
