5 suggestions... times 17.

I've enjoyed Sea of Thieves a lot so far. Sailing is fun, just on its own, and the quests are enjoyable. I've played for a good number of hours on my own and some with my friends (which is of course reccommended). I don't think I'll regret my purchase of Sea of Thieves as a casual game which I play for a few hours a month.

As it is, I would rate Sea of Thieves 6/10 just as most reviews have. I like sailing, the engine is solid, yet the content is depressingly lacking for a released game that I spent 60 dollars on. However, Rare says they're adding more content, and I'm content to wait patiently for that content, I still have stuff to do. But it's going to run out quickly and I think if SoT is going to succeed, the next content update needs to happen soon, and include A LOT of stuff, so that we can all be re-assured that the updates are really going to satisfy our desire for new things.

As this thread has been made, I'm going to post everything I can think of that would make Sea of Thieves a better game. Because I want Sea of Thieves to be a better game. Now I need to note a few things. First, some of this may already be in the game and I just haven't found it yet. Also, a lot of these are a lot more complicated than the one sentence explanation I give, and warrant some serious discussion. A lot of things are being debated in the community. I just hope that the complications and debates don't prevent Rare from adding the things we need just because it might risk making the game less enjoyable for a few people. Please, add stuff and quick. Finally, these are not all the priorities. We need the meaty ideas added before any of the frivolous interesting or just silly ideas.

Now, here are 5 new things I suggest, for every lacking category in Sea of Thieves. (Generally). Make of these suggestions what you will.

One more thing, I'm convinced there's needs to be a bounty system of some time to reward players who want to fight people, and protect players who don't (because they have no bounty and have no value if they're hunted down). But I didn't include details here because that conversation is too complicated. Not that it appears I care after writing 6 pages of things.

5 New Ocean Threats: (Some of these things will be mentioned in later lists)

• More sea monsters. I'm not going to get specific because you could just make 5 new sea monsters.
• Ghost ships. This would be SO awesome. Patrolling the oceans randomly, hunting down players. Ship PVE to get cool loot or skulls.
• Other weather types, such as hailstorms or fog. Hailstorms drop ice which hurt the players, and fog would obscure the views allowing ships to hide or sneak up on each other.
• Whirlpools which can suck ships down and sink them. Could be escaped with good sailing.
• Tsunamis, giant waves of water which crash over a ship, filling it with water and pushing it off course. The effects can be reduced with a good angle, or the ship could ride the tsunami to travel far very fast.

5 New Activities:

• Fishing. Everyone's said this already. I'll add a detail or two though, this should have a large variety of things which can be found or sold, including different fish types and messages in bottles, etc.
• Tavern mini-games, like card games, (perhaps a collectable card games), dice, or even gambling with in-game currency. Bonus points if you're drunk while you play them.
• Proper instruments, I mean, that you can play your own notes and songs with, for those interested. I would have a lot of fun playing Zelda music on a virtual instrument while in game. The ones right now are just glorified MP3 players.
• Buried treasure. I saw this somewhere else and I like it. You could bury treasure somewhere on an island somewhere and it will increase in value over time. But other people can dig it up if they find it. (Not sure how to actually implement this, but it would be awesome).
• Fireside storytelling. You could of course just do this with your microphone and friends, but maybe a way to record pirate stories and leave them in the world for other people?

5 New Ship Features:

• Ship layout customization. The captain of the ship could arrange the positions of things in the ship, or choose from a larger variety of ship insides. Some stuff could be kept the same like the location of the main map and sails and anchor. Maybe move cannons.
• White flag that can be raised to signify coming in peace. Probably wouldn't work because people would lie too much, but it might let peaceful players identify each other more easily. Worth a try at least. Maybe other types of flags too.
• Customized ship lanterns that match the captain's lantern skin. I would love to use my glowing white Soul lantern on my ship instead of the default orange ones.
• Naming ships, and creating custom insignias or paint. Mark your ship as your own! There should be an actual plaque on the side which says the name of the ship.
• More types of ships. Ships for different sized groups of people. The ability to build larger crews than intended for smaller ships maybe. Different ships which are faster or slower, have more cannons, more or less sails, etcetera.

5 New Ship Customizations: Let me preface this one by saying that yes, I understand that you do not want to add features or upgrades which would give some players unfair advantages over others. That is one thing I really like about this game, it is an even playing field. However, I think that you should add purchasable ship upgrades, each of which is balanced with the others (giving a different bonus), and each ship can only equip a certain number of them. Everyone could start with one default bonus. That way, there is customization, but it is still fair for everybody. You'd need a bunch of these, maybe different ones for different sized ships. Here are a few examples.

• Triangular sails, allowing ships to sail at a sharper angle to the wind. But it's slower when sailing directly with the wind. This is a real thing, by the way.
• A secret compartment for hiding treasure. Or maybe a locked compartment, so some of your treasure can be kept safe from other pirates.
• A partitioned hull, which slows the time it takes for a ship to take on water and sink.
• A battering ram (this is SO obvious), so that you can run into other ships and they'll take more damage than you. Then climb aboard, steal their treasure and wait for them to sink.
• Lower sales or some sort of shroud which makes it easier to hide from other ships. Either to avoid being hunted or to help sneak up on ships. Right now, even at night with the lanterns off you can see people all the way to the horizon, because the sails contrast with the moonlight.

5 New Types of Islands: I think an important thing to improve in this game is adding more variety and unique resources to certain types of places. Right now, for example, you can find chickens on like, every island, so it doesn't matter which you go to to find them, unless you're near Chicken Island.

• Procedurally generated islands, basically, new maps are generated occasionally with the islands in different places, or even entirely new islands generated from scratch.
• Volcanic islands, which include lava as a threat, loot hidden inside volcanic caves. They could also occasionally erupt and flood the island with lava. Also, lava/flame skeletons.
• Ice islands (not everything needs to be tropical, IMO). One the edges of the map there could be ice islands which have slippery terrain and snow. Also, ice skeletons.
• Coral Reefs, underwater areas to explore with unique resources such as types of fish or special treasure chests.
• Floating Islands, which move around in the ocean. Heck, add a giant turtle island which continually wanders around between islands! That could be really interesting.

5 New Types of Skeletons:

• Flame skeletons, which catch you on fire if you get too close or spread flames onto their surroundings. Can be damaged with water buckets.
• Ice skeletons, which can freeze players. Perhaps damaged by flared lanterns.
• Drowned skeletons, which are found underwater in sunken ships or other places. They will swim to attack the players.
• Collapsed Skeletons, which collapse when killed instead of dying, and will reassemble themselves periodically. Must be blown to bits with a cannon ball or explosive barrel.
• Hoard Skeletons, smaller ones which spawn in large groups. They're not particularly dangerous unless you get surrounded. Cannons are recommended to kill them.

5 New Types of Other Enemies:

• Carnivorous plants. They hide among the regular plants and can damage or poison players. Perhaps some have vines which trap players.
• Some sort of prey bird which will attack ships occasionally in flocks. Like the stymphalian birds in Greek mythology.
• I already mentioned sea monsters that attack ships, but maybe an octopus which follows ships and then attacks players when they jump into the water?
• Giants or Cyclopses. These could be occasionally found on larger islands and taken down on land (or pummeled with ship-side cannons). Often requires a large group to take out because they do massive area damage and throw rocks to sink your ship. I'm thinking of the Odyssey.
• Sirens that cause illusions to lure you into crashing your ship. Maybe they make the rocks invisible, but create lights that you could identify and learn to avoid. Not sure about these, but I'd like to see sirens implemented somehow.

5 New Exploration Challenges:

• Parkour challenges, climbing mountains, or jumping over spiked pits in caves.
• Quicksand on some islands which will cause you to sink in (with whatever you're carrying). Your crew can pull you out.
• Maze-like cave systems, ideally that are procedurally generated. Maybe have symbols that can be used to guide yourself through the maze to find treasure.
• Some sort of story campaign to play through? I know this breaks the open-world/sandbox aspect, but maybe use it as a sort of extended tutorial for brand new players, and gives a bit more lore and backstory.
• Something of value to find close to the edges of the map, so people will risk sailing too far in order to return with something valuable. Don't know if this is even posisble but could be interesting.

5 New Interesting or Mystical Things:

• Activities which depend on the time of day or the weather. Such as unmarked, ghostly islands which only appear at night or during storms. When day comes, the island dissappears and everyone on it falls into the ocean.
• Strange magical relics which do interesting things, or can be sold to the Order of Souls. Such as a charm which summons the Kraken (or a new sea monster), or changes the weather, or spawns a magical fog to hide ships.
• A way to actually sail into the underworld, a portal or something, and sail around where the Ferry of the Damned is. It could be super dangerous, filled with vengful spirits and skeletons, but have really awesome treasure that could be brought back to the land of the living.
• Overarching story riddle. Like, a riddle which is broken into fragments hidden on every island. All the pieces must be collected to unlock some sort of treasure and a title. If you add this, don't tell anybody you did, other than maybe “a few additional easter eggs”. Heck, maybe this already exists, and we just don't know yet.
• Ancient castles with lots of twisting passageways, secret entrances, and of course, hidden treasure. Make a massive place just for exploring, with puzzles and secrets. Maybe have some sort of event which happens at castles.

For these new types of quests, they should be labled so that you can choose which type when you purchase a quest.

5 New Types of Gold Hoarder's Quests:

• Treasure that is buried on active skeleton forts.
• Treasure described in riddles: "buried under the fish totem, on this island", or whatever.
• Treasure which is offshore from the islands, under the water.
• Treasure which punishes the player initially for digging it up. A curse of sorts which the player is aware of before hand and must prepare in order to avoid as they deliver the chest. The cursed chests sort of do this already.
• In the case of having buried player treasure, this could instead be done as a type of quest.

5 New Types of Soul's Quests:

• Underwater skeleton captains, their ships sunk a long time ago. Maybe need new types of skeletons for underwater.
• Ghost ship battles. Map gives a route which the ship is patrolling, or a certain location which causes the ship to attack.
• Defending a point from attacking waves of skeletons instead, like defending a fort using the cannons instead of attacking a fort.
• Bust someone out of a skeleton prison. Don't know what this has to do with Order of Souls but... I just stuck it somewhere.
• Sent to fight some sort of giant boss, or to hunt down the Kraken or whatever.

5 New Types of Merchant Quests:

• Have established trade routes. Maybe each map has a route between two distant islands which have much more frequent trade quests between those specific islands. Then, ships which take the most direct path will be a lot more likely to run into each other, and ships on the route will have loot that can be used by anyone to finish the trading quest.
• Protecting the trade companies, from other pirates, or smugglers. Might require hunting down other ships or defending a fort from a raid.
• Smuggling trips. Players must carry goods which make them very distinct targets to other players or skeleton ships, or could be confiscated by NPCs in certain ports. This could work well with a bounty system, which I mentioned elsewhere in this list.
• Whale hunting. Must search for whales and return with barrels of whale oil. There would need to be harpoons. Possibly as a new weapon for other uses also.
• Actually escorting an NPC from one outpost to another, like doing passenger trips. Maybe the NPC would help man cannons while you were travelling.

5 New Types of Treasure Chests:

• Brilliant Chest: Chest which shines a very bright light, making your ship visible from a great distance.
• Mimic: Chest disguised as another ordinary chest, but will occasionally sprout legs and try to jump off the ship.
• Kraken Chest: While on a ship, causes the Kraken to specifically target that ship.
• Damned Chest: See above where I mention the underworld. This chest comes from the underworld, and is actually semi-transparent in the overworld. When in sunlight it can't be touched by anybody. It has to be transported in shadows or at night.
• Lead Chest, which is extremely heavy, slow to carry, or required two people to carry.

5 New Types of Skulls:

• Ghostly Skull: Will periodically summon small groups of skeletons around it, including on your ship. Thus, the skull must be guarded by a ship-mate, or can be used as protection of your other treasures from other crews.
• All-seeing Skull: The eyes of this skull glows when other ships are nearby. Perhaps within sight distance. Obviously useful for keeping lookout, but it's also valuable being sold.
• Explosive Skull, a skull which also functions as an explosive barrel. Perhaps extra powerful.
• Spiked Skull, which damages players over time who carry it.
• Chattering Skull, which makes a chattering noise as it bounces around on the ground. Maybe not particularily game changing, but it would be funny.

5 New Types of Trading Goods:

• Ice blocks, found in icy islands which must be delivered before they melt. If ice islands aren't added, then some other resource that expires over time. An important thing to add variety to this in general is to have resources which are more island specific, so there are limited places you can find them and good traders know the best places. Like ice blocks.
• Water barrels, which must be filled with fresh water from island springs.
• Whale oil, see above, under new merchant quests. But other ocean based resources could be added also, especially when fishing is added. (I'm pretty confident about that one).
• Mining, to get iron for cannon balls. You'd mine with a pick-axe or the shovel inside caves and bring blocks of iron back to the ports.
  Just a larger variety of mundane things that you can find without having a contract. More things like the tea crates. Like, bundles of wood logs. Also, consider making it possible to purchase extra chicken/pig crates with gold.

5 New Quest Companies: Some of these things were included as additions to already existing quest companies listed above. They're viable as new types of quests or entirely new companies. Some of these companies could be hidden, so you can't just find the NPCs without looking carefully first.

• The Smugglers: Their quests would involve transporting valuable, volatile, or otherwise risky contraband. Players carrying contraband would be hunted by other players or skeleton ships trying to get the contraband. Perhaps contraband could include explosive barrels, which are dangerous to carry.
• The Mercenaries: Unlike the Order of Souls which wish the skulls, the Mercenaries just want someone or something dead. Quests might include sinking player ships or killing skeleton or ghost ships.
• The Seafarerers: Company which requests goods from fishing or whaling. These things could be located in specific locations, caught and then delivered to a port.
• The Scholars: These people look for the information of ancient civilizations and technology. They send you on quests to islands where you must gather old books or artifacts hidden in the nooks and crannies of caves or the shorelines. Like a scavenger hunt quest.
• The Explorers: This company rewards you for traveling to new islands, especially dangerous or far places, or magical places. For people who just want to sail around.

That's all I've got for now. These suggestions are of course not perfect. They can be debated. For the purpose of this however, let's all work together on a common goal: making Sea of Thieves a better game, and have solid discussions to figure out how to make that possible.

Happy sailing.