First of all, I want to say that the Tall Tales are something I've wanted for a while. A storyline quest is a great addition to the game and something I was excited for. However, there is one large problem, and it's very dangerous for Sea of Thieves and is something that needs to be said and discussed.
Sea of Thieves is different in many ways from most games. But most importantly, it's unrelenting loot-stealing PVP is one of the most adrenaline pumping, exciting PVP styles I've ever played. Not only is it exciting for the PVPer, but the PVEr has to be a real pirate, always on high alert watching for any threat on the horizon. The risk involved in carrying loot on your ship is what makes the game fun. You all know how good it feels to escape to an outpost and sell that glorious Athena chest or Skull fort loot without getting sunk. Without PVP, it would be a cake walk, and all of that excitement would be minimal.
Unfortunately, Tall Tales does not have any loot, and all of that excitement is gone. Instead, pirates complete entire hour+ long quests and get rewarded directly with cosmetics - rather than loot to purchase cosmetics. This means there is no incentive for an enemy ship to sink someone on a tall tale other than to simply be toxic.
What this means for the short term is that there is literally NO loot in the game. Today, you can sink 20 ships and get absolutely nothing but random PVE loot. What we can expect for the future is every time a new Tall Tale is added, for the remainder of that week or month, there will be little to no loot in the Sea of Thieves. This is detrimental to one of the most important aspects of Sea of Thieves. It is undeniably especially bad in the short term before people resume other quests again. Just to give an idea of how bad this is, I've sunk 20+ ships and I only got a mermaids gem, marauders and a few skulls to show for it.
Let's talk about the long run. I believe in the long run, this is still a major issue. Sure, people will go back to doing regular quests and skull forts for loot, but there will always be people still doing their tall tales. Consider this a major nerf to the amount of loot available to steal in each server. Just think of how long these Reaper quests took. It was months of seeing Reapers sail around the map, and I don't really think everyone completed them upon their removal. People will not stop doing story-line quests until they complete them all, and that could take months for some of the more casual or new players. Additionally, why wouldn't Sea of Thieves continue to make more Tall Tales when they are arguably some of the most fun and interesting quests in the game and so popular amongst the community? This will become a larger and larger problem with each addition of a new quest.
Also, before you say "Play Arena", that's really a non-argument. Sure, arena is great for PVPers like myself and it's fun to get competitive. I really enjoy Arena a lot. With that said, I will never get the same satisfaction or adrenaline rush as stealing a skull fort or Athena chest, it just isn't comparable. These two types of gameplay styles are completely different. I enjoy the sneak plays, the strategy and the skill involved in a heist. It's not easy to pull off, and is entirely different than sinking ships in Arena. To me, it seems sea of thieves attempted to separate PVPers and PVErs with this update, similar to what Fortnite did recently and that is why this is a problem.
This is dangerous for many reasons, and it reminds me of when RuneScape (an old MMORPG) removed a player's loot from dropping and replaced it with pre-defined drops from the game. The sales plummeted and the game died for years until they realized their mistake and fixed it. Even still, it was too late and the game never returned to its pre-PVP-loot-nerf glory.
Now, this isn't all bad news. Rare can easily fix this and still keep the same cosmetic rewards. Instead of just unlocking it for free on completion of the quest, when you complete the quest, it becomes available for purchase in gold, and a pile of loot is unlocked for the quester. This does two things. It brings the loot back into the game and it incentivizes PVPers to be strategic and allow questers to complete the quest and unlock their cosmetics for purchase before attempting a heist. Otherwise, like we are seeing now, PVPers will just sink people on tall tales for no gain, and more or less just to grief the quester. With the current system, in a PVP scenario, both ships are left unhappy.
Let me know what you think, and give an unbiased opinion of my view of this. I think that there is no reason not to incorporate loot into these tall tales. It makes them more worthwhile and exciting to do for the PVEr, and doesn't ruin the game for PVPers who enjoy the hunt and heist that Sea of Thieves brings.