Why do people hate SoT, but not Left 4 Dead for the very same reasons?

I just think people who don't like the game just have to be better at it. Some of the fort encounters we have had are priceless... More good than bad, but either way it's about who can be more clever and coming up with different ways to succeed. What makes this game very interesting.

@its-stoobs said in Why do people hate SoT, but not Left 4 Dead for the very same reasons?:

If we were going to compare with every game, Why not CoD, Battlefield, Ghost Recon, The Division, Destiny...
All are repetitive games and loved by many.

I spent hundreds of hours in The Division and Destiny trying to grind weapons or gear... no complaints here.

@therealdestian also, L4D costs... 8 dollars? 12? Don't know what the conversion is up to on your american stores, but i have it priced at about 1/8th the price?

@knifelife said in Why do people hate SoT, but not Left 4 Dead for the very same reasons?:

@therealdestian They have nothing in common, and didnt that game release like 5-8 years ago?

1. In terms of gameplay flow, they're incredibly similar:
   -start in a safe room and load up/start on an outpost and stock up, choosing 2 weapons and gathering healing resources and ammo
   -set out toward the next safe room/set out toward your voyage objective
   -fight your way through the undead to get to the objective while looking for resources
   etc.

Even the PvP aspect is strikingly similar, with enemy players trying to grief/kill you at the last moment before you turn in a chest or drag you out of an elevator before the door closes.

Yeah, one is linear while the other is open world, but the player experiences, in terms of flow, mechanics, and crescendos, line up very closely.

2. What does the time frame have to do with it?

@pilks4k said in Why do people hate SoT, but not Left 4 Dead for the very same reasons?:

Its all in the marketing.

L4D was sold as a team based zombie shooter and well thats what people expected and got also it was cheaper than most games due to what it was.

SOT is being marketed as a large open world adventure game with treasures to be found and sectrets to uncover blabla go read and watch the video's the marketing makes it sound like this grand/epic feature rich game and well what we got was an open world pvp team deathmatch with a few pve fetch quests and forts to unlock cosmetics and its being sold at a premium.

I suppose that makes the most sense of anything.

I didn't follow the hype train so I had no expectations regarding what I might find. All I knew was "Rare", "open world" and "pirates".

I’m very interested in why people say this game “isn’t what Rare promised”

They promised an open world pirate game where you can dig up treasure, fight Skeletons, sail anywhere, and fight other pirates...

Kinda seems like that’s the game I’m playing? I think people are getting confused about what they were promised, and what they assumed was going to be the case?

@knifelife said in Why do people hate SoT, but not Left 4 Dead for the very same reasons?:

They just dont have anything in common in my opinion, its like getting chicken and fish and trying to make an argument that they are the same...

If you want to ignore the purely objective mechanics that both games share (4 player teams, choices between 2 weapons, scavenging for healing resources and ammo, lulls between action crescendos), then okay, sure.

But I maintain that the flow of both games is extremely similar, with the only real difference being that you spend more time travelling in SoT, though L4D also had long lulls where you traversed areas with very few zombies.

Andmin terms of time frame, development has changed tonnes since left for dead came out. So its not really a good comparison.

Do you mean development tools have changed? Because they haven't changed all THAT much and aren't at all relevant to the player experience.

@the-dougalbug said in Why do people hate SoT, but not Left 4 Dead for the very same reasons?:

I’m very interested in why people say this game “isn’t what Rare promised”

They promised an open world pirate game where you can dig up treasure, fight Skeletons, sail anywhere, and fight other pirates...

Kinda seems like that’s the game I’m playing? I think people are getting confused about what they were promised, and what they assumed was going to be the case?

This is why I'm confused as well.

Can anyone link to videos where Rare promised more than this...?

@hiram-mason said in Why do people hate SoT, but not Left 4 Dead for the very same reasons?:

@sir-rhavi That might be the price now, the original release price was $44.99. I just scrolled back through my Steam purchase history, L4D was the first Steam game that I bought waayyy back in 2008.

well, to be fair, he is comparing a 10+ year old game to a current gen one, but fine, STILL 3/4s the price.

There was something fun about L4D in that every time I entered the game and I heard a horde coming, I got goose bumps. Not to mention the rag doll physics, different type of enemies and guns, and PvP that held my attention. L4D did something right, which is getting your blood pumping and excited to shoot at things. Sea of Thieves does not do this, at least for me. It does everything in a very mediocre way and nothing inspires me to log on and do "that" thing.

@hetzau said in Why do people hate SoT, but not Left 4 Dead for the very same reasons?:

There was something fun about L4D in that every time I entered the game and I heard a horde coming, I got goose bumps. Not to mention the rag doll physics, different type of enemies and guns, and PvP that held my attention. L4D did something right, which is getting your blood pumping and excited to shoot at things. Sea of Thieves does not do this, at least for me. It does everything in a very mediocre way and nothing inspires me to log on and do "that" thing.

My only real gripe with SoT is that sailing is yawn-inducing if there aren't any other ships around.

I feel like the ocean itself needs more hazards to keep you on your toes, and a kraken attack once in a blue moon doesn't count.

@therealdestian said in Why do people hate SoT, but not Left 4 Dead for the very same reasons?:

@hetzau said in Why do people hate SoT, but not Left 4 Dead for the very same reasons?:

There was something fun about L4D in that every time I entered the game and I heard a horde coming, I got goose bumps. Not to mention the rag doll physics, different type of enemies and guns, and PvP that held my attention. L4D did something right, which is getting your blood pumping and excited to shoot at things. Sea of Thieves does not do this, at least for me. It does everything in a very mediocre way and nothing inspires me to log on and do "that" thing.

My only real gripe with SoT is that sailing is yawn-inducing if there aren't any other ships around.

I feel like the ocean itself needs more hazards to keep you on your toes, and a kraken attack once in a blue moon doesn't count.

Actually I think the sailing is the only thing that they got right. It's relaxing and gives you a much needed break....But from what? That is what I have a problem with. All the activities outside of the sailing aren't exciting, fun, or worth pursuing. Well, maybe skull forts, but even that gets tiresome after a boring melee combat and lack of ways to kill things.

Of all games you could choose to compare SoT to, you choose L4D. SoT you start in a tavern and have access to the open world to do whatever you want. Sail, explore, look for loot, kill players or skeletons.

L4D you start in a panic room and have no time to explore. You are constantly under attack by hordes and special zombies and your main goal is to make it to the end and finish the scenario. How you figure the two are even remotely similar is baffling to me.

As for why people who play L4D didn't get bored, but SoT people did? Content, plain and simple. L4D you have horde, chargers, jockeys, spitters, smokers, tanks, hunters, boomers, witch etc, all randomized in their location and strength based on how well the team does. SoT you have 1 enemy type, skeletons, in very few variations, vine, shadow, regular, gold. If you count players, well, that is 2 I guess? You go pick up loot of different variations and turn it in for monetary value that you get a palette swap as your reward. Yahoo?

Then again, it's about the journey eh? Guess L4D's journey, repetitive as it was, was more thrilling in the long run.

@kashaarafall said in Why do people hate SoT, but not Left 4 Dead for the very same reasons?:

Of all games you could choose to compare SoT to, you choose L4D. SoT you start in a tavern and have access to the open world to do whatever you want. Sail, explore, look for loot, kill players or skeletons.

L4D you start in a panic room and have no time to explore. You are constantly under attack by hordes and special zombies and your main goal is to make it to the end and finish the scenario. How you figure the two are even remotely similar is baffling to me.

I'll refer to the countless youtubers making videos about game design, eager to point out that the size of the world is irrelevant next to what you can actually DO in the world.

Open world or linear, the activities and flow are very similar.

And if the comparison doesn't suit you, there are other games out there that have launched with similar amounts of content and not had people go anywhere near as nuts over it as they did here.

I'm kinda wondering if people didn't fall for too much "autohype" or something...

@therealdestian You said games, but did not mention one, why is that?

@kashaarafall said in Why do people hate SoT, but not Left 4 Dead for the very same reasons?:

@therealdestian You said games, but did not mention one, why is that?

Because I'm not going to prolong an irrelevant side discussion when my question has been mostly answered: open worlds increase expectation, sometimes to unreasonable levels. Also because self-hype happens and while the developer shouldn't NEED to keep it in check, it might've helped. L4D, as Natsu said below, launched without having much more in terms of potential (though L4D2 showed us just how unhappy the fans were to not be getting it as DLC instead).

I've not seen Rare's promotional materials for this game. If they promised more than what's delivered, than that explains it. If they promised what we got and people expected more, then that's just self-hype in action.

@natsu-v2 said in Why do people hate SoT, but not Left 4 Dead for the very same reasons?:

SoT offers only a tenth of a sixteenth of what it could be offering to meet its full potential. At the end of the day I think the argument is more centered around games as a service and how many gamers are against the idea of games being launched in a barren state and being iterated upon.

Then they have no one to blame but themselves because Rare said they'd be releasing this as a game that would be iterated on for years, right?

I agree that SoT could add a whole lot more to it, and it's going to grow over the years, gradually expanding and enhancing the game world.

But if players would've rather waited until they had included every single last addition they possibly could have before launching, we wouldn't have seen SoT released for another 10 years, minimum.

Games often launch with a plan to grow these days. They've been doing that for a while already. Not sure why it comes as a shock to anyone, especially when Rare said this is what they'd do...