What’s everybody’s opinions as the game stands?
I’m happy with the subtle progression and was pleasantly surprised with the recent mermaid event although I’m too busy to ever finish all of the events lol.
I’d still like to see some progression to certain aspects of the game such as voyage variety and definitely some development to weapons, skins, cosmetics etc. but all in all I like what I see. What do y’all think?
Current direction of SoT
To put it VERY simply.
Sea of Thieves is the best game I have played ever. I have never had so much fun playing a game. I've come close in the past with games like War-thunder with my clan, but mostly the games came down to "Its not what you're doing, its whom you're doing it with" - SOT Hits this nail on the head. Perfectly.
I am also very happy with the games direction - I'm only apprehensive about the ease of finding the Cursed Cannonballs. (I want them to be rare...) - Everything else that's upcoming has Capt's Double thumbs up!!
@removeyourpants I'm happy that there is some new content coming to the game. However, me and my crew have stopped playing and we haven't played the game since the Sunken Curse event started. It felt like a cheap attempt at giving the player some form of task, but it didn't have any meaning to it nor a sense of accomplishment when doing it.
So as of lately we are kind of disappointed since the game started to feel more and more repetitive. The mostly awful weekly updates don't really help in this regard, because the last ones have been adding more problems than they've solved (How long are they trying to fix the bug with the unintended direction when launching yourself from the cannon?)
Anyway, we'll be back once the DLC drops and hope that the game will be fun again.^^
@wipe-nd-clean said in Current direction of SoT:
There's a butt load of skins for stuff coming with this update too.
Maybe I’ve been out of the loop. Is there any patch/update notes that I can read up on?
@capt-sharazad said in Current direction of SoT:
To put it VERY simply.
Sea of Thieves is the best game I have played ever. I have never had so much fun playing a game. I've come close in the past with games like War-thunder with my clan, but mostly the games came down to "Its not what you're doing, its whom you're doing it with" - SOT Hits this nail on the head. Perfectly.
I am also very happy with the games direction - I'm only apprehensive about the ease of finding the Cursed Cannonballs. (I want them to be rare...) - Everything else that's upcoming has Capt's Double thumbs up!!
I get the feeling that the cursed cannon balls will be similar to gunpowder barrels, they will be fairly easy to find but you will only find one or two at a time.
They won't be like current cannon balls in that you find dozens in barrels at a time.
So with them being fairly rare you're going to make sure you hit the target or it'll be a huge waste.
@removeyourpants
https://www.seaofthieves.com/forum/topic/68446/cursed-sails-notes?page=1
@shaggy2000 said in Current direction of SoT:
@capt-sharazad said in Current direction of SoT:
To put it VERY simply.
Sea of Thieves is the best game I have played ever. I have never had so much fun playing a game. I've come close in the past with games like War-thunder with my clan, but mostly the games came down to "Its not what you're doing, its whom you're doing it with" - SOT Hits this nail on the head. Perfectly.
I am also very happy with the games direction - I'm only apprehensive about the ease of finding the Cursed Cannonballs. (I want them to be rare...) - Everything else that's upcoming has Capt's Double thumbs up!!
I get the feeling that the cursed cannon balls will be similar to gunpowder barrels, they will be fairly easy to find but you will only find one or two at a time.
They won't be like current cannon balls in that you find dozens in barrels at a time.
So with them being fairly rare you're going to make sure you hit the target or it'll be a huge waste.
I'm hoping so. I would like them a little rare-er than keg's as you can amass a scary amount quickly.
i gave up on sot in may after the 3 hour expansion i hit pirate legend on week 5 of release and there was no content at all for legends. I gave it 2 months and returned today to see still no content for legends!. What are rare doing where is the content that rare prommissed us before release there is nothing here.Sea of theieves has so much potential but rare just seem to take too much time to release content i wonder if i leave it another 6 months will there be any new content for legends.
I think it's a good game, but so far I am quite disappointed with the size of content updates and the effort put into weekly events - we need actual weekly events. Not this one week, no, two weeks, no, nothing this week mess. It's disrespectful to promise a thing and not go through with it.
And content updates so far have a huge focus on adding ambient dangers like the Kraken. Meg first, now an AI ship - but it's nothing that actually addresses the major criticism surrounding the game, which is to add more substance to the gameplay. Make treasure hunting more interesting. Make forts more varied (for some reason all the forts I have ever done were on two of the fort islands). Add actual characters (NPCs) to the game that have a life. Add an ingame economy to the merchants, buy at one place, sell at another. Add new tasks.
The Cursed Sails team had four months - what is known of the update feels very weak regarding its development time. And making last minute changes like with the crow's nest doesn't inspire a lot of confidence.
@removeyourpants I agree 100% my mate. I have even given a suggestion that they could make more events like the gunpowder skeleton cause it made a lot funnier to do OoS assignments than before. A search for animals made of gold or special chests, something to encourage us to do those assignments. You feel me?
@shrek-t-t said in Current direction of SoT:
i gave up on sot in may after the 3 hour expansion i hit pirate legend on week 5 of release and there was no content at all for legends. I gave it 2 months and returned today to see still no content for legends!. What are rare doing where is the content that rare prommissed us before release there is nothing here.Sea of theieves has so much potential but rare just seem to take too much time to release content i wonder if i leave it another 6 months will there be any new content for legends.
I definitely feel you on this. People who awaited this game and purchased upon release have had a really slow pregression with content. This game needs end game work no question. The potential is crazy. There’s a VERY wide spectrum of things that could be tweaked whether game-changing, or minuscule that would make this game so much better I just don’t feel like listing them lol.
@pereraaa said in Current direction of SoT:
@removeyourpants I agree 100% my mate. I have even given a suggestion that they could make more events like the gunpowder skeleton cause it made a lot funnier to do OoS assignments than before. A search for animals made of gold or special chests, something to encourage us to do those assignments. You feel me?
Yeah man there’s a lot of LITTLE things they can do that idk how they haven’t thought to add. Rare needs to take into consideration a lot of these suggestions because this community, more so than other game communities, is wanting to see this game take it to the next level.@x1-two said in Current direction of SoT:
I think it's a good game, but so far I am quite disappointed with the size of content updates and the effort put into weekly events - we need actual weekly events. Not this one week, no, two weeks, no, nothing this week mess. It's disrespectful to promise a thing and not go through with it.
And content updates so far have a huge focus on adding ambient dangers like the Kraken. Meg first, now an AI ship - but it's nothing that actually addresses the major criticism surrounding the game, which is to add more substance to the gameplay. Make treasure hunting more interesting. Make forts more varied (for some reason all the forts I have ever done were on two of the fort islands). Add actual characters (NPCs) to the game that have a life. Add an ingame economy to the merchants, buy at one place, sell at another. Add new tasks.
The Cursed Sails team had four months - what is known of the update feels very weak regarding its development time. And making last minute changes like with the crow's nest doesn't inspire a lot of confidence.
Couldn’t agree more. I was trying to illude to the lack of content with substance when I said voyages where kinda weak, but yes, rare is trying to appease the general population of SoT with cool stuff that looks really dope at first but has no true niche in the gameplay. Not even a reward. Definitely need to revamp there questing development or ppl will stop playing.
@removeyourpants I'm hesitant about the alliance system and a little frustrated with the rate at which content has been added (thought it would be faster) but all in all I'm very pleased with the game. I kind of thought I would stop playing once I hit legend but everyday I think about what I want to do when I get home from work and SoT is usually near the top of the list.
I'm torn but removing my personal hiccups with the game from the equation then I think they are on a pretty solid direction. They are very open to adjust as they go if needed and are really starting to get a rhythm. The events have been amusing and the limited nature of things makes for an exciting experience. So long as they stick to their system I think we will see great improvements over time as they further feel out the direction.
I do worry about the long term reality when it comes to pumping out events so often. How long will it take before they are forced to repeat or make an event so terrible people start raising their voices(more than usual). After this latest event I also question the amount of clutter the world will hold if we have chairs and statues and whatever the future brings lingering around.
On a more personal level I'm a little disheartened. I am limited to playing once a week which makes majority of my time 'event grinding' which in turn makes the events feel like work. While I enjoy the aspect of limited time content I have had to face the reality that my schedule will always make participating in such things more hurried than what is enjoyable. As of now I just participate to what my attention span can hold and then go about messing around. I haven't finished any of the events. I have zero hype for Cursed Sails as I have no clue how my schedule will sync with it.
I have had more fun with this game than any other that I can recall and my experiences have inspired a number of creative hobby projects. It truly is a game that I would love to play more of but sadly...it just doesn't mesh with life in my instance.
I don't blame Rare. More just grumble to myself as a great game lingers just within reach for me to enjoy but far enough to make it irritating at times.
@removeyourpants I think the game is ok.
- Visually I love it.
- Lore is sub par putting it nicely.
- Missions can be fun and amusing, but not enough variety or randomness.
- They substitute long repeating missions in place of real difficulty.
- Time sinks are overly used.
- Cosmetics lack customization, color swap etc
- Character Editor is Random and needs a direct editor
- AI is fairly weak
- Inventory options makes no sense 5 bullets? but I can carry how many cannon balls!
- Unlocks are time limited, without granting doubloons, means unlikely to go back and bother.
- PVP unbalanced (my opinion, not for debate here)
- No penalties for people attacking on sight
- No Safe area to mingle and maybe play liar dice etc
- No Save game states of any kind, make it feel like a round of golf than a continual journey
- No personal ship to name and customize
- No unlockable rewards for improving ship for storage or other non breaking PVP stuff
- Mermaids kinda ugly
- NPC don't have voiced dialog
- Nothing that makes the game a sandbox like base building, no real tools
- No in game notifications for upcoming or current events. Banners are very basic. Should have a more clear focused popup with dates, times and explanation.
Going forward the only way we can judge the direction of the game is Cursed Sales and Forsaken Shores:
- New Boat, Cool always good
- Row boat...manual control...will it work single? Will it feel like a chore? Don't like you don't spawn with one to start with
- Skeleton AI - have to wait and see, love the concept
- Cursed Cannon Balls - Gimmicky, will likely be a love/hate scenario
- Alliance - Could lead to very bad stuff for both PVE and PVP, in principal it is a great idea. But if allowed to abuse...
- Fire/Lava/? - No idea have to wait and see.
- New Missions...won't know till Forgotten Shores...might just be the same old stuff.
I hold out hope things will improve, there is a lot still lacking. Game can be fun but only time will tell how it will remembered.
@dragonsire2016 said in Current direction of SoT:
@removeyourpants I think the game is ok.
- Visually I love it.
- Lore is sub par putting it nicely.
- Missions can be fun and amusing, but not enough variety or randomness.
- They substitute long repeating missions in place of real difficulty.
- Time sinks are overly used.
- Cosmetics lack customization, color swap etc
- Character Editor is Random and needs a direct editor
- AI is fairly weak
- Inventory options makes no sense 5 bullets? but I can carry how many cannon balls!
- Unlocks are time limited, without granting doubloons, means unlikely to go back and bother.
- PVP unbalanced (my opinion, not for debate here)
- No penalties for people attacking on sight
- No Safe area to mingle and maybe play liar dice etc
- No Save game states of any kind, make it feel like a round of golf than a continual journey
- No personal ship to name and customize
- No unlockable rewards for improving ship for storage or other non breaking PVP stuff
- Mermaids kinda ugly
- NPC don't have voiced dialog
- Nothing that makes the game a sandbox like base building, no real tools
- No in game notifications for upcoming or current events. Banners are very basic. Should have a more clear focused popup with dates, times and explanation.
Going forward the only way we can judge the direction of the game is Cursed Sales and Forsaken Shores:
- New Boat, Cool always good
- Row boat...manual control...will it work single? Will it feel like a chore? Don't like you don't spawn with one to start with
- Skeleton AI - have to wait and see, love the concept
- Cursed Cannon Balls - Gimmicky, will likely be a love/hate scenario
- Alliance - Could lead to very bad stuff for both PVE and PVP, in principal it is a great idea. But if allowed to abuse...
- Fire/Lava/? - No idea have to wait and see.
- New Missions...won't know till Forgotten Shores...might just be the same old stuff.
I hold out hope things will improve, there is a lot still lacking. Game can be fun but only time will tell how it will remembered.
Time will tell.
The need for customization on character, weapon, and ship is needed I think it provides a whole new element to the experience.
I think changes for exploration is inevitable because of how quickly this game will expand. What do you think of a life boat if your ship gets sunk?
Questing and lore will develop or the game will eventually die. It’s up to rare to make the right steps@dragonsire2016 said in Current direction of SoT:
@removeyourpants I think the game is ok.
- Visually I love it.
- Lore is sub par putting it nicely.
- Missions can be fun and amusing, but not enough variety or randomness.
- They substitute long repeating missions in place of real difficulty.
- Time sinks are overly used.
- Cosmetics lack customization, color swap etc
- Character Editor is Random and needs a direct editor
- AI is fairly weak
- Inventory options makes no sense 5 bullets? but I can carry how many cannon balls!
- Unlocks are time limited, without granting doubloons, means unlikely to go back and bother.
- PVP unbalanced (my opinion, not for debate here)
- No penalties for people attacking on sight
- No Safe area to mingle and maybe play liar dice etc
- No Save game states of any kind, make it feel like a round of golf than a continual journey
- No personal ship to name and customize
- No unlockable rewards for improving ship for storage or other non breaking PVP stuff
- Mermaids kinda ugly
- NPC don't have voiced dialog
- Nothing that makes the game a sandbox like base building, no real tools
- No in game notifications for upcoming or current events. Banners are very basic. Should have a more clear focused popup with dates, times and explanation.
Going forward the only way we can judge the direction of the game is Cursed Sales and Forsaken Shores:
- New Boat, Cool always good
- Row boat...manual control...will it work single? Will it feel like a chore? Don't like you don't spawn with one to start with
- Skeleton AI - have to wait and see, love the concept
- Cursed Cannon Balls - Gimmicky, will likely be a love/hate scenario
- Alliance - Could lead to very bad stuff for both PVE and PVP, in principal it is a great idea. But if allowed to abuse...
- Fire/Lava/? - No idea have to wait and see.
- New Missions...won't know till Forgotten Shores...might just be the same old stuff.
I hold out hope things will improve, there is a lot still lacking. Game can be fun but only time will tell how it will remembered.
And yes visually it’s outstanding
@removeyourpants said in Current direction of SoT:
What do you think of a life boat if your ship gets sunk?
Since ships spawn with minimal stock...it should be the same as a fresh spawn, rowboat should be there. Though to be honest I never understood why we get a free boat, with stocks at all. I would rather have had to earn my boat from the start, and every time it's raised I have to slip the ferryman same coin. Some games implement it as xp debt, so you can still earn money/gold whatever but a percent goes to debt until paid..so you progress just slower. Takes the sting off a bit.
Everything outside of visually just feels rushed and incomplete, and not thought out. I really think another year of developing lore, and mechanics and a better progression system would have made a huge difference. Now it seems like they are piling on new systems to fix the incomplete ones, and hoping they eventual knit together. Using lack luster time limited cosmetics to keep people interested. after 20 versions of the bucket....you think may people will get excited for #21 lol.
Questing and lore will develop or the game will eventually die. It’s up to rare to make the right steps
Here's hoping.
@xcalypt0x said in Current direction of SoT:
@removeyourpants I'm hesitant about the alliance system and a little frustrated with the rate at which content has been added (thought it would be faster) but all in all I'm very pleased with the game. I kind of thought I would stop playing once I hit legend but everyday I think about what I want to do when I get home from work and SoT is usually near the top of the list.
Yeah not too sure about the alliance stuff. I usually play with friends and can’t see myself wanting to pair up with randoms
My opinions are fairly well known.
Rare had it right with xplay then listened to PC players whining that it took forever to aim and upped their sensitivity, breaking the balance they had on launch.I can still see ships clearly off on the horizon as they are much darker than the surrounding environment, making the spyglass useless. Leave the lights on, turn them off it doesn’t matter. The ships are so black in the distance they may as well be neon.
The UI and popup messages need work. A little more transparency would be nice so it is not completely obscuring critical information (is this cannon loaded? Who knows? We’ll have to wait and see!)
The Duke clones felt rushed and reinforced the complaint that NPCs were thrown in as filler with no real purpose. ONE NPC is semidynamic, but for real with such limited options who visits the weapon shops every port call to ever see it?
The factions still have no interplay and serve only as a catalyst for fetch quests. Still. To this day.Multiplayer options are still extremely limited and often require server hops with long load times to manage crew flows.
AI is rudimentary.
The game’s lore is sold separately from the game. Why?
I don’t know who’s idea it was to focus on selling a bunch of peripheral c**p, but pursuing these schlocky revenue streams feels like it is taking resources away from the game.
Weekly/biweekly/okay not biweekly events are largely a wash.
Almost every activity requires a huge time investment but game stability hinders those activities. Not everyone has huge chunks of time to blow just to see it flushed away. Which is a small complaint since progression and gold are largely a joke and that is a much bigger problem. After all this time though people still are not earning rep for voyage completion. This is a huge oversight which undermines the entire voyage system.
Still getting server stability issues, audio bugs, inventory bugs, and clipping issues.
Their support team is laughable and their communications to players need work. The marketing videos/endless vague commercials put out by Joe and Mike don’t cut it.
Issues like these are quickly burning people out and turning them away. This game could be so much more than it is with just a few tweaks.
I still hope to see some of these issues addressed.
ALL THAT SAID
The base is great and you can’t go wrong with the core concept.I do like the game, regardless of how I sound above. My main issue is that so many other people do not. My complaints are all rooted in player retention issues and aggregated from several dozen people who walked away from this game and won’t be coming back. Many of who I convinced to preorder this game.
This feels like a very young and inexperienced team who perhaps bit off a bit more than they could chew, but I think they are learning. Slowly and painfully. It is coming together, but it is blatantly obvious this game needed another year of development. I don’t blame Rare for that at all and I genuinely feel bad for this young eager team who were rushed into launching the game in this state.
Overall I am happy with the game. Each session plays out differently. Some are a cakewalk while others present us with obstacles no matter what we attempt to do.
I do wish they did more within the game with lore and interconnected stories. I had enjoyed exploring the islands to discover deeper mysteries and had hoped there was a larger narrative at work. It appears that direction was abandoned during development. As it is, the NPCs currently have nothing much to add. The stuff with Wanda and Merrick are a small step in the right direction.
Also, there really does need to be more to offer pirate legends for their efforts. I am not suggesting large storylines, enhanced abilities, or restricted zones. On the other hand, they should have access to things such as exclusive songs, unique ship profiles, SOMETHING compelling to inspire other players.
@mrgrim67686 said in Current direction of SoT:
My opinions are fairly well known.
Rare had it right with xplay then listened to PC players whining that it took forever to aim and upped their sensitivity, breaking the balance they had on launch.I can still see ships clearly off on the horizon as they are much darker than the surrounding environment, making the spyglass useless. Leave the lights on, turn them off it doesn’t matter. The ships are so black in the distance they may as well be neon.
The UI and popup messages need work. A little more transparency would be nice so it is not completely obscuring critical information (is this cannon loaded? Who knows? We’ll have to wait and see!)
The Duke clones felt rushed and reinforced the complaint that NPCs were thrown in as filler with no real purpose. ONE NPC is semidynamic, but for real with such limited options who visits the weapon shops every port call to ever see it?
The factions still have no interplay and serve only as a catalyst for fetch quests. Still. To this day.Multiplayer options are still extremely limited and often require server hops with long load times to manage crew flows.
AI is rudimentary.
The game’s lore is sold separately from the game. Why?
I don’t know who’s idea it was to focus on selling a bunch of peripheral c**p, but pursuing these schlocky revenue streams feels like it is taking resources away from the game.
Weekly/biweekly/okay not biweekly events are largely a wash.
Almost every activity requires a huge time investment but game stability hinders those activities. Not everyone has huge chunks of time to blow just to see it flushed away. Which is a small complaint since progression and gold are largely a joke and that is a much bigger problem. After all this time though people still are not earning rep for voyage completion. This is a huge oversight which undermines the entire voyage system.
Still getting server stability issues, audio bugs, inventory bugs, and clipping issues.
Their support team is laughable and their communications to players need work. The marketing videos/endless vague commercials put out by Joe and Mike don’t cut it.
Issues like these are quickly burning people out and turning them away. This game could be so much more than it is with just a few tweaks.
I still hope to see some of these issues addressed.
ALL THAT SAID
The base is great and you can’t go wrong with the core concept.I do like the game, regardless of how I sound above. My main issue is that so many other people do not. My complaints are all rooted in player retention issues and aggregated from several dozen people who walked away from this game and won’t be coming back. Many of who I convinced to preorder this game.
This feels like a very young and inexperienced team who perhaps bit off a bit more than they could chew, but I think they are learning. Slowly and painfully. It is coming together, but it is blatantly obvious this game needed another year of development. I don’t blame Rare for that at all and I genuinely feel bad for this young eager team who were rushed into launching the game in this state.
I mostly agree. To play devils advocate tho, I think gold and voyage progressions are meant to take a while. This is a time consuming game for a reason. If you could easily farm gold and xp to the point where it becomes too easy then the game has no longevity. Then we would complain about that.
@removeyourpants So, to summarise LOOSLY
Pretty much everyone is relatively happy with the game, but we just want more.
That's not bad at all to be honest. from what I've picked up personally, the majority of players who are unhappy are still happily playing the game, but wanting more. (more to do, see, interact with etc etc)
A rather small amount (less that 20 users I've seen in a Week of being highly active on these boards) are actually dissatisfied are are not currently playing, most of these appear to have legend status and are just waiting for more "legend only" content. I dont personally see this coming, as legend is a status. not a unlock. (Hell if it DOES come. ill be one very happy bunny mind you!)
@mrgrim67686 Some hard truths but truths none-the-less. I have confidence that with player feedback most of these things can be fixed in the future.
I would add that I'm not a fan of cosmetics being tied to real world purchases. That's one area that I'm not so happy with Rare's direction.
Honestly i feel like often our voices are not heard.
This may be because many ideas are conflicting or that they are jyst planned WAY down the line. Either way I've seen countless great ideas on the forums that could have been a better use of dev time.
Brutally honest for me is that I'm waiting to see how the next update goes, if it's as shallow as the hungering deep then i might shelf sea of thieves for a few months and play no man's sky instead, come back when there have been sime more developments.
I enjoy the game but i can't help feeling that a game focused on cosmetic progression with such a limited choice of cosmetic options is somewhat of poor planning. I'm sure it will get there, is just how long.Still, it's the journey not the destination, or so I'm told.
@mrgrim67686 said in Current direction of SoT:
My opinions are fairly well known.
Rare had it right with xplay then listened to PC players whining that it took forever to aim and upped their sensitivity, breaking the balance they had on launch.{and then some stuff I mostly agree with}
Fixing the sensitivity by adding an additional slider was a usability issue and having poor sensitivity didn't do anything to provide any kind of balance, since it could just be circumvented by going into the game options anyways. Trying to make the controls terrible as some kind of balance mechanic is the dumbest option - all players on all platforms should not be inhibited by terrible controls. Instead, you should strive to make controlling your character in the game as simple as possible.
In fact, controllers should be able to fine tune their controls even more so than they currently can so that they can turn quicker at larger angles of deflection on the stick and slower adjustments with small movements (similar to custom joystick calibration back in the day). I'm surprised these kind of options aren't a standard on consoles yet.
The other stuff in your post I agree with. They haven't addressed any of the criticism with the majority of the base game. I guess Forsaken Shores is supposed to touch on the voyage system but we have to wait for details on that to see if it will make any difference at all.
What is kind of weird though is that the last few content updates seem to contain mostly user suggested content that goes completely against their original premise (formal server wide player alliances, all ships on the sea are players - now there are AI ships, etc...). This is fine if they pushed back most of their post release ideas into the Forsaken Shores update providing that update targets a lot of the initial criticism that plagued the game's reviews.
You would think that stuff that was planned out before release would be ready sooner so I do kind of worry that based on the relatively low variety of voyages on release that they basically had no ideas in the pipeline and were relying on their user feedback entirely - even if it went against the original design of the game.
@d3adst1ck
You can dial in the stick sensitivities for the elite controllers, not the stock ones though.
The problem with those is the bumpers start coming loose/falling off after a few months.I agree the inputs on launch were not an optimal workaround, but it was the closest in achieving xplay parity I’d seen. Unfortunately it made the mouse a liability. Trying to aim with EoR was inviting carpal tunnel. Heh.
Long post incoming...
Generally speaking, I think it's good. As others have said, the game could have used more time in development, but I think they've done a good job of listening to feedback. The addition of skeleton ships and a new ship, which were not planned prior to feedback is promising.
I haven't played a whole lot lately. Mostly because my friends who I was playing with haven't been playing. I expect they'll hop back in for Cursed Sails.
Bilge Rat Adventures
I played through the skeleton thrones and gunpowder event, both of which I thoroughly enjoyed. I liked the idea of the mermaid statues on paper, but that particular event turned out to be underwhelming for me. Not a big deal.It does, however, feel like these are side activities that should be available permanently (I know they still exist in the world, but you can't earn doubloons). I'm not sure what would feel more appropriate as bi-weekly events. I realize this is vague "feedback", so take it with a grain of salt.
Voyages
Variety is the biggest issue here. Kudos to Rare for incorporating reputation gains into the Bilge Rat Adventures.Gold Hoarders: Riddles need serious improvements. This is unfortunate because I genuinely enjoy the riddle voyages, but they just aren't worth the time invested. Treasure maps are fine.
Merchant Alliance: Needs to be reworked. This is probably the one area where I feel that Rare has seemingly ignored the player-base (I'm sure they've gathered data on it and had discussions about it).
Order of Souls: Generally fine, and was particularly fun when the gunpowder skeleton frequency was turned up.
Lore
We want more in-game lore, and not JUST centered around the campaigns. They've mentioned this a few times in videos and such, so hopefully we see this improve.A longer, multi-session quest that is available every 5-10 reputation levels with each faction would be awesome. Let us learn more about the trading companies and characters that way.
PvP
This is probably the trickiest part. The game will suffer if everyone is just bloodthirsty. The game will suffer if no one engages in PvP.Right now, there is no real risk/reward for PvP. Generally speaking, a crew with a treasure haul worth taking is going to have no interest in engaging in PvP. A crew that sets out looking for PvP is, in most cases, going to off-load any treasure they have before looking for a fight.
Honestly, I don't know what the fix is here. Maybe something like a multiplier for treasure values on your ship when you kill/sink other crews? Bloodsoaked Captains Chest, etc.
Cosmetics
Seeing steady improvements here. Keep them coming. Still waiting for more customization of the ship outside of sails/hull/figurehead. I expect that was part of ship captaincy which got put on the back burner, in which case, I wouldn't have it anyway since I'm not legend.World
The world still feels fairly empty. I'd like to see more sea life. I'd like to have more reason to explore islands and reefs (this kind of goes back to the lore section). More treasure spawns on islands.Each region feels unique in aesthetic only. Forsaken Shores is supposed to be very different, both visually and from a gameplay perspective, which is something I would like to see extended to all regions eventually.
AI and NPC's
AI could be improved. It's not terrible, it's just not all that convincing.I would love to have voice acting to go along with all the dialogue from NPC's.
I would also like more enemy variety. Rare seems aware of this, and noted that we will eventually be seeing other enemies (Merfolk, no doubt).
Mechanics
Combat feels a little clunky. This might be partly a latency issue. The fact that it takes almost a full second from the time you press attack, to the time the sword actually swings, just doesn't feel good. It would only take some minor timing/animation adjustments to greatly improve the feel IMO.I think cursed cannonballs are going to be great for ship battles. I'm hoping that they make sinking ships without boarding more viable. As it stands, boarding a ship is almost a requirement.
The ammo situation is kind of weird. I see what they were going for, and it makes sense on paper, but all it really did was encourage most hardcore PvP players to carry 2 guns instead of a sword.
Technical
The fact that there are stability issues when there are a lot items in the world seems to point to fundamental software architecture issues.Draw distance needs improving.
TL;DR
I realize this is a long post, and goes a little more in depth than general game direction. I enjoy the game. As others have said, the design foundation is solid, but there are a lot of things that could be improved. I think Rare is doing a good job of listening to feedback, and is generally quite good at communicating. I've been gaming for a very long time, and I can't think of many developers who have been as transparent and responsive.
10 out of 47
