Genuinely concerned.

@tintintheboy I mean, I get it to an extent. I'm not going to jump on the complete doom and gloom train myself, but this is certainly looking bleak. Of course I hope we will be proven wrong, but how many times have they said "we missed the mark" already?

Best and disliked idea to get your point across as a player. Anyone who really feels this game is in trouble or you dislike how things are going.
Quit.

I’ve seen people claiming they are going to or even stop supporting them. Yet I seen them still playing.

Drop the game and watch there numbers dip and see if that doesn’t change there tune. Other wise, just accept this Rare MO. Promises broken, delays, features scrapped. Happen so often it becoming a bingo game.

Keep playing until it officially closes the doors or drop it now and maybe they end up like HighGuard? But let be real.

Nobody is gonna really stop playing regardless of what happens. You’re gonna keep sailing in and diving for loot. Because there no other game close to SoT that is still enjoyable and exciting. Minus it faults. You’re all still here, and will continue to be until the fateful “SoT servers shutdown” message appears.

Be upset, say what needs to be said. But actions speak louder than words.

@burnbacon See that's where I'm a bit different. I don't ever bluster or bellow, I just wanted to get my thoughts out. I've no intention of quitting or hating on Rare or the devs. I just want to see the game bounce back.

@valor-omega I am a day 1 (and beta) player as well. The Discord community I am in is the ONLY reason I still play this game. I do love the game. Rare has had plenty of opportunities to follow ideas given freely by this community. When this game dies, it will be because Rare make a choice not to listen to the community. We have been vocal, we have given ideas, social media influencers like Falcore and Phuzzy are very involved.

Yet here we are. Server migration...the biggest bug creator of all time, is what they want to introduce more of.

Gods die when no one prays to them.

Bro I just want cosmetics to make sense, and even I am let down massively all the time lol.
Like the one piece of cosmetic news in the new dev update was pertaining to the Fallen Sea Dog set (a set that's been complete for ~6 years and has been requested all the time) finally being added.... as a new time-limited reward.
It should have been added years ago, and really we should be getting entirely new, unseen things at this point. The cosmetic hoarding/drip-feeding is crazy.

I somewhat share your concern also. It feels like the basics slipped and the whole game is suffering as a result.

The last year has felt like updates for the sake of updates, rather than meaningful additions. Looking back at the last 12 months, so much was added that has no staying power, things that don’t truly update the game, just serve to fill some time.

Saying that, I am hopeful. The Dev update seemed to acknowledge this; they are reviewing what to deliver, not just how to deliver it. Probably best to wait for the Community Direct to see what we have in store.

I do fear if they “miss the mark” again, there may not be another mark for them to miss going forward.

~DaveDaChicken21

@marinemike said in Genuinely concerned.:

New grapple gun - nerfed so you can't board with it easily, you can now only use it on very specific parts of the ship.

I mean...that was necessary for balancing purposes.

Heck, I'd take it a step further and say they should be an item radial tool, but shouldn't be able to grapple onto ships at all.

Making a boarding tool was such a terrible idea in a mixed crew size environment. It was basically yet another kick in the groin to solo sloopers.

PVP should be optional, not mandatory. Because you can never just "Chill out" like @heslashthem said because there are sweaty cheaters in every lobby, server hopping until they find a juicy target.

You can chill out...in Safer Seas.

High Seas is PvPvE environment where if you're doing some higher reward stuff being a "juicy target"...it comes with higher risk.

Never thought I'd see the day where even Valor Omega started to have doubts. Sign of the times.

I get how you feel. My friends had lots of hype for Season 14, but then there were monthly problems with the updates and unannounced delays. Two friends stopped playing, the other two keep staying around, mostly because I just love this game, despite it's faults. I probably would have got my Tickets for SOTFest again, but the emptiness from Season 17 made me cautious, and I didn't feel safe enough to invest into a flight with all the problems the game currently has now. I know the SOTFest organizers have nothing to do with the game struggling and it will probably still be a blast, but I can't help but feel discouraged when the game the Fest is centered around is struggling.

About S19:
Personally, I didn't feel too excited about the PvE features. I couldn't imagine what the orb was gonna do and the Kraken sounded like the re-skinned Tall Tale boss, but as a World Event. I know sea monsters create hype, but just like Reaper Forts it sounded like something they wanted to add earlier in a season more appropriate to the theme, but had to squeeze into a different season.

Personally, I would have been fine if they made the whole season HG. I understand not everyone likes Hourglass, but personally, I think they should rather have added new tools designed for HG and then use it for Adventure updates rather than doing something that felt disconnected from actual HG play.

Then I was also surprised they wanted to squeeze the Doubloon reset and new Doubloon events (and event reruns) into the same season.

What I think the game actually needs is "another new world Event", but voyages or Tall Tales that make the content feel fresh. The game already has so many commendations and voyages many players didn't even complete yet, so new reasons to do them would probably help a lot.
Season 11-14 had a lot of new tools, but I feel a lot of them are under-utilised. I was hoping the Smugglers would give us reasons to sneak, mimic and disguise but unfortunately that hasn't been the case so far. And yes, it should be more than "Mimic the new enemy 9 times because this commendations ays so". It should be stuff like "this enemy assists you now because you mimicked them". Stuff like that.

@fox-gr I agree that I don't like FOMO. But I don't think that alone is killing the game. One of the big controversies around S19 is the doubloon reset and time limited cosmetics coming back to the black market. The bone crusher set was even mentioned by name. Know how those cosmetics were time limited? Year 1. Bilge Rat adventures. Back then, the ONLY way to earn doubloons were commendations. Each content drop introduces BRA commendations. And each set of commendations gave you just enough doubloons to buy the limited cosmetics for that content drop, and often they only lasted a month or s, just like "acts" do now. If you didn't find a crew to sit in those skeleton thrones in the first few days, you probably missed out on ccosmetics. Missed the introduction of gun-powder skellies? Welp, no cosmetics for you! Had a summer vacation with the family when siren statues came out? Too bad, sucks to be you.

Year 1 was monthly bilge-rat-adventure updates. No reaper chests. No ritual skulls. Old Boot Fortress was a thing. Doubloons were commendations and only commendations. And extremely time limited. EVen finishing commendations "later" didn't give you doubloons anymore. Doubloons themselves were time limited. I remember when that changed (around the time the Devil's Roar update dropped) and the controversy was that they wouldn't retroactively go back and give you doubloons for commendations you unlocked late. So if you sat on a skellie throne in May, you got doubloons that maybe you spent and maybe you didn't. But if you sat on one for the first time in July; no doubloons for you. But if you sat on one in November, yay you get doubloons again! People between that change in policy got particularly screwed. Because: FOMO.

And FOMO alone didn't kill the game. The bigger issue is all the stuff around the FOMO. A game that insists on capping safer seas (a decision I agree with, by the way; this is NOT a PvE game), and justifies it by repeating that this is a PvPvE game. Then creates content that keeps players on land, away from other players (or simply getting sunk by them), diving to voyages, and on and on. They basically said "PvPvE" on one hand, and "PvE" content on the other making wolves and sheep in the extremes with no middle. And then built FOMO events on top of that. THAT was new with the last few seasons, and it clearly had a negative impact.

@valor-omega This is what happens when negative feedback is constantly shut down under the guise of "not being constructive". It's not just the inability to deliver working content on time that's the problem here, it's that Rare have made bad decision after bad decision over what content to build, and what to prioritise to maintain game health. Perhaps all those years of telling Rare that they're doing a great job, not holding them accountable, and defending them against the critics has contributed to the state we're in now?

@d3adst1ck I'm specifically talking about Insiders since thats the only forum Rare appear to read and where OP was very active. Negative feedback was heavily moderated at times because it might hurt the devs feelings leaving an echo chamber of positive congratulation. A large majority of people who cared about the game stopped bothering to provide feedback in Insiders because it made no difference, or their messages got deleted. Rare was clear they didn't want it, Insiders was for play testing. Decisions were already made, they didn't want opinions, only bug reports. It's only recently got a bit better again, but the damage was done. They don't read or act on "well-written constructive feedback", so most players who might otherwise be willing to type out an essay on a topic don't bother to waste their time. Positive feedback, on the other hand, was always accepted no matter how vacuous. Whether its deliberate (like it was in Insiders) or not makes no difference - the end result is the same.

Rare ignoring massive negative feedback? As in…”if you don’t agree with what I say. Your wrong?”

Much like how most players act? Especially when wanting to add new stuff or fix something. :p sounds like rare is a typical feedback player here. XD

@burnbacon What on earth is your point? I'm struggling to see one, except to try to provoke. It's an asymmetric relationship. Rare build the game, players don't. The problem is that Rare appears to suffer greatly from confirmation bias. Years of stifling criticism in Insiders, and players like OP shovelling praise for every ill-conceived update have contributed to that.

Ahoy devs & CM and the most important Players,

I'm feeling the same as @Valor-Omega as a day 1 player with more than 20k hours played on the seas, i'm more and more disapointed from the content that devs provide us.

The S19 announcement with the main feature removed (Kraken , Orb etc) and Doubloons reset are hard to listen.
I can understand that feature haven't been fully dev and need to be postpone , but Doubloons reset won't help players to play more ... A casual player don't have many doubloons , and after the update with the FOMO if the casual won't be availabe for various reseaons (Holidays , Illness or even loose interest to play) this kind of players won't come play (or maybe i'm wrong)

FOMO is great to get time limited items , but don't forget that players have a life and may not be available during this period and can bring even more frustration.
If, FOMO will be use for some event.Please, do a time limited event for severals weeks (4 weeks) so people don't need to plan their IRL availability to play ... cause they IRL is most important than a game.

Why the game is less and less played ?

• The game is time consumming adding more and more commendations that need to be done to get some skins can effrayed new players which has started in 2025/2026 (just for skins) and even when you do reports on insider forum it seems you are not listen (Capitancy update S7 , Reaper commendation S16) but sometimes a nerf is applied and that's great , but you could listen us earlier. Nerfing create frustration when you invest time to do them and get nerf some months later.

• Sot seems to be empty (but Drew already said that this issue will be solved) , but Maybe adding restrictions on dive could help to get a more 'crowed' server too. (Let us dive maybe 2 or 3 times per hour) and For a 'sailling' game , it's not so great that people can take shortcut with dives . (I can understand that Pirates don't have 2 hours to play) but Dives in my opinion has 'kill' the main Gameplay from the game. (Remember how it was before dives) people hop for server but at least server were more crowed.

• Hourglass will be improve soon , but there'll be some lacks :

  • Do you know why people don't have legitely lvl 9999 or even 1000 cause or stoping at level 100/200 cause the leveling takes ages. Maybe, Increase the level gain per win could help people feel that the grind won't take ages .... 1 lvl per win = +/- 750 match (i'm including streaks and flags) , How it was in arena 240 wins and it was great. it took time , but it was achievable.

• With the restriction area it will be great , but 3rd party ships will still be possible ... Why dives are not done on a 'Safer Seas' server ? At least all fight will be fair and with a great stability ( 2 ships only on the server) , but it will cost more money to host.

With the new update comming soon, at least we will loose less time for supplying , rematch and All the community appreciate it , and congrats for that .

• I wish that the game bring back more lore as in the golden age of SOT (2018/2020) , I'll take as exemple the garnisson , they pop from nowhere without any lore , why ?
  At least , give us back some clue as before using tweeter or even books in game.
  Bringing lore can be time consumming, but don't forget that players love Lore. And maybe you're waiting that the GMU enter on the seas. But, without any teasing it frustrate people.(Ok Orb teased , but i wish have more and more frenquently)

• SOT economy need to be fixed for Gold & Doubloons :
  Adding more and more skins , u need gold , Old players have already bought everything and Adding content like stashed help only recent players cause they can get money quickly , but veterans / pvp players will just go sunk them , cause it's even easier to do money.

• My dreamed Feature :
  As solo slooper it's annoying to get a Gally trying to sunk me (even swabbies can do it) if you get oneballed , you're almost done. (even for a veteran player) but i don't care getting sunked , cause i got no loot on my ship , so they'll have only my sups.
  But, take others players in account , a swabbie solo or duo slooper will sunk too , but as they are new to game , they'll lost what they grind and make more frustration.

I wish that we could have not only solo sloop server or duo sloop server but maybe server should be better loadbalanced.
Having just 1 bigger ship than your actual one (and it will be fair for every player)
Pirates playing on Brig, could have the 3 kind of ship (sloop, brigs & Gally)
For people playing only Gally it will be an issue , cause server can't handle 6 gally.

Maybe add a new kind of server on the main screen 'High seas' 'Restrict Ship seas' and Safer seas
But, i don't know if this kind of improvement will be well received by commnity , cause it could will divided more server and maybe feel again empty , but only @Sonicbob could answer us if it's possible or not (we don't know how loadbalander works and even if it's feasible)

With my vision as a player, The actual SOT is not the same game as the Original game (2018/2020), more things are added without knowing why , I'll repeat myself , Remember how was the core in the early years ?
It seems that you are lost and try to give more things in the game which are not really interesting / needed (Seagulls , Jellyfish as exemple and i have more example , but i don't want to cristism the work from devs).

And i won't discuss about megalodon game mecanichs or Shrouded ghost cause how it was implemented , no one can have legitely 5 of them (i don't count people who get invites to kill it, just natural spawn when you are playing) and not everyone is interess to complet all in game commendation , but you should think is it normal that after 8 years no one achieve it ?

I wish that the future will be better , but i'm more and more sceptic and i'm writting this topic without being frustrated or harass etc... I'm giving my vision as a Veteran player (and maybe it's not the good one , cause i've played too much on SOT) but with all my open crew played and discuss that I could have with players , and mainly most of ideas that I received from players .

I love SOT , I wish that some of my ideas could be read by devs and could help to bring back SOT back to the golden age.

I wish you the best devs & players , may the future be better.
Lukitch aka the Megalodon Hunter.

@roborob-r66y

I know that previous update were cut like S14 and some feature are missing ...

I could make even more critism about the game , but it's not my aim to just 'trash talk or hard critisism' about our belove game.
Lots of improuvment, must be done to bring back players , but as we are not devs , we don't know what's they are cooking behing scene. And we could be suprise , but with the actual state of the game it's hard to project the future of the game , and i don't wanna say that the game is slowly dying.

But,even if u bring more events , content it won't solve the issue, if the playerbase will leave the game , yes the game will die slowly. Players are doing the content not feature which are added.

I wish that seasons or Planned update will be removed ( devs should take as much as they need to bring us content)

S19 Should be a "QoS" and fix main issue of the game.
I wish have less update with content , but good content that will bring new player or player who left.

As, a Completionist , i can tell u how grinding can takes ages , but what about casual players... To many things to do(commendations) they are lost.
I know if a nerf is done , completionist will cry about that (me first cause i ve invest time) but the game shouldn't take arround 3000/ 5000k+ hours to achieve it. (except the great white) it's not a MMORPG game , and I know MMORPG that take less time to achieve commendations/farm etc...

And the most funny part of SOT is player interraction not only pve/pvp, but there is no event that could give us interrraction with others crew (Shrouded deep , glitterbeard are great exemple but we need for of this kind of content).

I'm not a game dev , but with all my research for merfolkslullaby i know well the game mechanics and some of them are badly implemented.

Why i'm still playing , cause i love the game , i love sot community and i love Open crew and it's only content that i'm playing (except when there is new commendation that i need to grind) ...cause Open crew give me at least some crew interractions and i can give my advices to new players , casual or tryharders.....

But, i'm more and more scare about the future of SOT.

@bellcurve9279

Which interraction ? Most of player destroy other ships which are doing an event , only swabbies will try to come and ask for an alliance (and most of them are getting sunk) ...

I'm tucking for just to play hide & seek so i'm creating the interraction , but pirates hates me for that ... cause i'm loosing their time and they get sunk by Reaper ship or other emissaries. (and if they are toxic , i'll just sunk them too)

Which were the funniest event ? Shrouded and Hungering deep , Adventure 5 (When we need to save merrick, cause dark brethern kidnaped him) cause there was interractions without any event only cooperation was needed.

@roborob-r66y said in Genuinely concerned.:

@bellcurve9279 honestly it always kinda has. year one bilge rat adventures tried to force some friendly play because they saw how most encounters were hostile and they didnt intend their shared world to be 99% hostile. if that was the game they wanted this whole game would have just been arena this pve stuff wouldnt exist. but it feels good to sink and steal other peoples loot. feels better than fighting annoying wave after wave of skeleton and tediously ferrying all the loot back to your ship. now tryhards and sweats can get a thrill out of ruining other peoples hard work by stealing their pve. and it feels amazing. basic bully mentality though. this really is just sea of bullies when we break it all down.

My crew and I were on a lvl 5 reaper galleon one evening, and had just stolen a stacked FotD from players who weren't being observant. We placed all the reaper chests on our bowsprit, and laughed because it looked like a "curtain of fireworks" as we called it. A FoF popped up while we were still getting loot on board. Instead of selling to Reapers, we decided to head over to this FoF. Get this-- we were AGAINST wind, and having to sail thru the thunderstorm, in order to get there, going as slow as possible and getting pelted by the storm.

A sloop was at the FoF doing it. We're still slowly heading in, marked on the map, with a curtain of fireworks on our bow (5 or 6 crates). We come along the sloop, sink them, take the key, and loot the FoF vault. This player then starts being toxic towards us, calling us slurs and all these horrible things, saying it wasn't fair since he "didn't see us coming."

Does this count as us bullying other players? Were we toxic here? Should we have announced to this player that we were closing in, since he failed to see several signs of a large marked ship glowing with loot? If you feel that we're guilty here, what should we do in the future so as not to "bully" other players?

A friend of mine calls me up and tells me to log on because there's a FotD up on his server. I join him on his sloop. We park it at Snake, and swim over. We board this sloop parked there, and hide down below. Player finds my friend and kills him. Boss is dead, and he sees my friend sailing towards him. He takes the key, brings it downstairs and places it right in front of me (where I was hiding) before lowering sails and taking off. I quickly grab the key, jump out the back, my friend harpoons me up. Does this constitute toxic bullying?

We always record our sessions and have quite a number of hilarious clips. We never say anything toxic towards other players, yet we often don't get that same respect back. Just curious here.