I've been playing Sea of Thieves for months. Long enough to be a Pirate Legend. I'm aware that doesn't mean much, but at least it should convey that I'm past the newbie stage.
There are so many things to do in this game that are fun: Tall Tales, fishing, quest riddles, hunting bounties, PvP, fighting skeleton ships, events, vault runs, etc... This game is great in terms of having endless things to do. If you get bored of one thing, try another.
Often I find myself solo slooping so I can do stuff that others don't want to: fishing, searching wrecks, riddle quests. These are all low profit activities which it seems most team players are not looking for. But all these activities are spoiled by PvP. You want to fish off a wreck for a while? Forget it. You will be chased off by another set of players within 10 mins. You want to park at an island to try to figure out a riddle quest? Forget it. Another player will sink your empty ship as you try to figure out the clues. You want to do a Tall Tale? Forget it. Another player going to completely disrupt your tale to try to sink your loot-less ship.
I get it, the game is called "Sea of Thieves". It's about killing other pirates and taking their stuff. But why do players feel the need to attack and kill players who don't have any stuff and who have no interest in fighting? "Good job on beating that ship that didn't fight back. I hope you enjoy your loot of 5 fish."
Don't get me wrong, the PvP in the game is great. I definitely enjoy it. But I enjoy it when that's what I want to do. The problem with the game is that's all you can do. The other activities in the game that are awesome are unplayable due to PvP. Sure, you can run if another set of players comes along. I've gotten good enough at running that it is rare for someone to catch me if I care to avoid them. But I don't want to spend my time constantly on the look out and constantly running. I actually want to do the activity that I was planning and looking forward to.
This game is completely busted unless you just want to PvP. The developers shouldn't bother with any game features accept for PvP. The rest of the game is unplayable. Considering PvP is not my most preferred activity, I'm going to have to call it quits on this game. It's really too bad since the game has so much to offer that's not PvP. I could have been playing the non-PvP elements of this game for years. But my limited game time is too valuable to spend on PvP when PvP is not what I want to do all the time. Maybe I'll log in every once in a while for some PvP, but the rest of the game is dead to me. RIP.
Too bad the hardcore PvP player base and the devs are dead set against anything that would allow players to not PvP. It really is a shame. You'd think someone would be able to think of a way to let players who want to have a non-PvP session do that. I would think having a mechanism to do this would benefit the game overall by attracting more players. With the current state of the game being 100% PvP oriented, the barrier for entry to new players is way too high for the game to sustain itself long term.
