Pirate legends are far more than 1% of the player base

  • Magus104
    Captain
    Insider
    Founder

    As one of the MANY pirate legends I find it depressing that we are being over looked when it comes to content due to an achievement statistic. The Sea of Thieves achievements are based on how many people have played this game since it came out. So there are well over 5 million people who have played this game. But how many people currently play? Rare wont ever reveal these numbers but I think its safe to say 4 million people have quit over the lifetime of the game. Those of us who were around at launch remember how crazy it was but I have seen posts and met many people in game during shrouded spoils who mentioned they had played in the first week of the games release and quit and had just come back so they asked for explanations of all the new stuff in the game..... Just to quit again after going over it all with them.

    Getting Pirate Legend used to take a lot longer. The Athena 10 grind is still pretty long and annoying for those who have yet to achieve it. Point being the most active players in the game are Pirate Legend as it takes so long to achieve the Athena 10 and now these painfully long achievement grinds which is NOT CONTENT. Making us grind the same stuff weve already done to death to be WORTHY of getting 1-2 new skins..... Thats kind of a slap in the face. With the upcoming tall tales it would feel much cooler to have a crated Legend story experience to earn these cosmetics.

    Anyway point is I have not had a single play session of sea of thieves without running into other Pirate Legends. Having watched all the Developer live streams I notice you also haven't been able to get through a session without running into Pirate Legends as well. If we were really only 1% of the player base then why is it not more RARE to encounter us?

    I'm just feeling a bit slighted that rather than getting more content you guys just keep adding more achievements to grind stuff we've already done before those stat trackers existed.

    And the claim we are a very small % of the player base when we are more than likely 20% of the ACTIVE player base kinda hurts. Stop looking at the flawed overall numbers which includes millions of long abandoned pirates and look at who is actually PLAYING your game. While people are still looking forward to hitting Pirate Legend they don't realize how little it truly means and how it isn't going to offer them any new special experience.

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  • Chronodusk
    Commander
    Insider

    @magus104

    The only problems they run into here is that they don't want to make so much legend content that it becomes divisive.

    They could create something awesome that's exclusive to legends, no doubt. But then what you have is all of the legends off doing their own thing away from the non-legends. So now you have two pools of players based on progression.

    So what happens when you make the legend content accessible to all simply by non-legends playing with legends to prevent that divide? Well now you've cheapened the experience and rewards for the legends (i.e, Athenas and the Ghost clothes)

    They need to figure out how to implement something that only legends can have while also still making sure that everyone still feels compelled to play together. They tried to do that with Athenas I think, but it just isn't enough as we are all aware.

    The whole reason they deferred the captaincy thing indefinitely was because the core game needed a lot of attention. Legend content is something they've been behind on from the beginning due to a need to enrich content that's accessible at the ground level.

    Perhaps the Anniversary Update will put them in a good spot to focus on this, and perhaps introduce some short Pirate Legend only Tall Tales series' with legend exclusive rewards.

  • KnifeLife
    Commander
    Insider
    Founder

    Try being a solo slooper as-well, apparently we are also a “minority” and not worth any development time 😂

    My experiences have been quite the opposite personally, and I agree with always seeing PLs also.

  • Nabberwar
    Lord
    Insider

    @chronodusk

    The only problems they run into here is that they don't want to make so much legend content that it becomes divisive.

    They could create something awesome that's exclusive to legends, no doubt. But then what you have is all of the legends off doing their own thing away from the non-legends. So now you have two pools of players based on progression.

    Lets be realistic here, they have a long way before they even remotely run into that problem. I would even add getting PL is also significantly easier to get too, it wouldn't be that long of a time til they get access to this kind of content. Pirate Legends have already been put on the back burner for content for quite a long time. They are long overdue for some content designed for them, and them alone (Looking at you Athena voyages).

  • K1LROYw4sH3R3
    Captain
    Insider

    I personally feel that pirate legend was a mistake in this game. I feel like a big shot at Microsoft said “we love the sandbox open world aspect but... what do you play for? Remember what happened to No Man Sky?” Someone at Rare “uh well you play to become Legend!” Leaves meeting and tells everyone at development “Guys we need to make a legend cave. Also let’s make this big voyage that gives you all the voyages. That’ll keep them busy. Let’s make it take a stupid amount of time to become Legend. I’m sure no one would figure out how to cheese this! We shouldn’t see a legend for months! I’ve done the numbers one person can’t bring in that much loot in the hours it takes to get it. Let’s stretch out play time as much as we can so we can complete the beta.”

    Then we get a Legend in the first week by the player joining crews just before turn in. Good job Rare!

    Anyways I feel you should earn rare and special titles by doing amazing things. When you complete these tasks you gain access to the legend cave. Just having Pirate legend above your head doesn’t mean a thing.

  • Chronodusk
    Commander
    Insider

    @nabberwar

    I agree with you, I was just going over what the likely rationale is for things like Athena voyages and ghost clothing being accessible to all players.

    I mean at this point with cross play opt out and The Arena coming, I don't see a reason why they couldn't make some short Pirate Legend only Tall Tales series'. Especially with Athenas already being there to keep legends and non legends connected.

  • SexyJeep
    Marauder
    Insider

    @k1lroyw4sh3r3

    Spot on with your comments. I have had several friends who only got PL by buying all the levels to get there. Yet, when we play, most the time they are playing a shanty while the sails aren't trimmed, trying to sword lunge off the bow during combat and messing it up due to lack of experience, making poor decisions with gunpowder barrel use/placement, wasting cannonballs, etc... Things that scrubs are made of, and yet they have "Pirate Legend" above their head. It makes me sick.

    There are some things that are much harder to deny like sinking 500 skellie ships, sailing 500+ miles on Athena voyages, etc... Even those can be cheesed to a degree, but mostly require a lot of game time/experience.

    I do agree, they need more ways to earn rare titles and cosmetics to have multiple ways to achieve unique things.

  • SwimPlatypus7
    Marauder

    @magus104 said in Pirate legends are far more than 1% of the player base:

    As one of the MANY pirate legends I find it depressing that we are being over looked when it comes to content due to an achievement statistic.

    It's been common after the first 3 or 4 months of the game being out.. Players started to cheese their way to PL by riding on the coat tails of others who already achieved it.

    They did this by doing High level quests with PL buddies and Athena chest runs.

    IMO really does not matter a whole lot, it's just the cheese at the end of the stick for most players and in reality it's an inevitable end point for just about anyone who wants to play Sea of Thieves because everything you do garners you reputation in some degree so over time if you only ever played 1 time a week since launch you would already be PL by now.

  • Therzty
    Marauder

    @magus104 Preach, my friend, preach.

  • Qui3tCool
    Master
    Insider

    Rare plays fast and loose with their numbers and even the truth. They cherry pick what numbers to use claiming numbers spun in a way that tells the story the want.

    Reality is a respectable player base was gone within weeks of launch. Overwhelming players who try this game pass on it after playing for a short time. Game probably has a few hundred thousand players at high tide with content updates. Has a dwindling core community and that is constantly being recycled with waves of new players and a few dozen zealots.

    Rare has been claiming there has been only around 1% Pirate Legends for a very long time. Getting old. Very stale story! Used as a reason/excuse to not grow and expand content for them. In a recent video dev tried to claim the same number, but after stumbling over the answer to the question ended up sloppily saying it is in the single digit percentage. Maybe they do not know. Maybe they do not want us to know.

    It was hilarious when the dev claimed that really there was not that many legends at all. That most players are not. That most of their team was not, like he was not. The host asked the audience how many were Pirate Legends. Was shocked that most of the audience and the team were. Sadly it shows the lack of true transparency and honesty.

    To top it off now Rare says they are not going to focus on the smaller groups at this time, the “minorities”. Seems the PvP crowd with the bigger crews is what only really matters now to them. Said maybe the rest of us will get attention maybe sometime in the future. Truth is Pirate Legends should matter. Solo sailors should matter. Duo sloopers should matter. PvE loving pirates should matter. All pirates should matter and matter now!

  • Therzty
    Marauder

    Big facts @x-Crowheart-x .
    You seriously called Rare out on this one and I fully support that. I think it's more than just lying about numbers and stuff, but as you said, I also think it's about an excuse for not putting out new content.

    I myself am not even pirate legend because I got tired real quick of the lack of content. Rare has admittedly done a bit to improve upon that. But, that does not mean that they have enough to show for it.

    Take, for example, the lore Rare puts out. It's in "story" form so it makes it more juicy and fun, but it's just a cover-up. Rare said in a once-sentence line in short story that all the tribes died out years ago. What that does is exempts them from having to work on another project, despite how much more fun it would make the game. Like, dude, this is a pirate game. Add stuff that makes it pirate-y, don't tell us stories about why you are being lazy.

  • Zaannox
    Castaway

    @chronodusk Easy, tie them to PL Commendations, which don't start tracking any progress for non-Legends until they hit legend. For instance, win 100 Arena matches as a Pirate Legend. Non-Legends can do Arena, but only Legends will be making progress toward the new Legend stuff because it's locked behind a commendation. They can also lock new items behind multiple barriers. My friends and I have been thinking about a way to add Athena Cannons, Capstan, and Wheel to the game in a way that is fun & fair. And we came up with this:
    Athena Cannons: Sink 500 ships in the Arena & Must be Athena 10 to unlock
    Athena Wheel: Turn in 500 Chests in the Arena & Must be Athena 10 to unlock
    Athena Capstan: Slay 1,000 Pirates in the Arena & Must be Athena 10 to unlock

    You add a tracker that everyone can start progressing towards AND add the Athena 10 on the side so that Pirates who aren't Legend can't buy it; BUT can still make progress toward it while doing other things. There are so many things you can do, they just don't do any of them.

  • Zaannox
    Castaway

    @therzty Biggest of facts, lol

  • GrindTony45
    Marauder
    Insider

    We have small discord community that play SoT together.
    Over last yeah there was around 50 active people that played daily, but over time people get their pirate legends, athena 10s
    or commendations they wanted, they just stopped playing.

    At this moment theres only 5 people that play every day, rest of us switched to other game.

    But with upcoming update i believe people come back, there is alot of stuff to do, but still its missing that endgame that would keep people playing for longer time.

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