Managing your expectations: Building a better game experience

  • Introduction
    Ahoy once again mateys! It's time to buckle up for another guide on making your game play experience better. In this guide we will be exploring on how to manage your expectations in game.
    Sea of thieves is a world made up of other players. This makes for an exciting journey, and should be treated as such rather than one becoming frustrated. This can be achieved by managing your expectations.

    I am happy for all of my guides to be a community collaboration, if you disagree with me please let me know and I can explain my logic, and if you think I missed anything then comment below and I am happy to add it in.
    My first guide on building a better crew is here:
    https://www.seaofthieves.com/forum/topic/74791/managing-your-crew-mates-as-a-resource-building-a-better-crew

    You are not always in control of your destiny
    Sea of thieves has a fairly unique style of rewards; you are not paid until you have physically returned an item, in both gold and experience. A voyage is listed as "complete", but this only means that you have found/finished all objectives provided within that voyage, it doesn't mean you are yet worthy, or have earned getting paid yet. With other players sailing around, this means that you won't always be in control of how your time will play out.
    You will see a lot of people complain about how someone stole their treasure, but the real fact is, it was never yours until its sold. Getting in to this mentality makes it a lot easier to swallow when someone takes the treasure from the ship you are currently sailing on.

    In sea of thieves, you own nothing
    When you log on to a ship, you are not the captain. No one is the captain. You may find someone with the greatest social skills, charisma, and/or experience stepping up and leading the crew, but they are only the leader as long as everyone follows them.
    Anyone, at any time when in port can change the color of the ship which should be proof that you personally don't own it, even if first on board.
    Other than the clothes, titles, equipment, ship and weapon skins you personally have unlocked, and the items that you personally have in your inventory (aka 5 bananas, 5 planks and 10 cannon balls) everything is everyone's.
    Also as stated above, you don't own treasure until its sold.
    Once you accept the fact that you don't own anything on board the ship you are currently logged on to, the experience becomes a lot less stressful.

    This game is a PvPvE game
    There are often requests for this game to get a PvE mode or a pure PvP mode. If you don't like the game in its current form, then you simply don't like the game. Asking for this to change in a forum thread is fine, but it would be better for you to not hold an expectation of this to change any time soon.

    Preparation is key
    Heading in to a hard area such as Devil's Roar, without preparing for the dangers that exist there, is setting yourself up for frustration. I see a lot of complaints about their ship getting sunk by a volcano for example. Why was a crew member not left on the ship to protect it? Is it because you decided to go in to a hard area solo? Did you not stock up on planks?
    Quite often, areas that are deemed as "annoying", or "hard" are only so because you did not properly prepare and plan your journey.

    Conclusion
    Thanks for reading mateys, if you think there is anything I can add to help people manage their expectations in game, let me know below so I can add it in :)

    Community Additions:

    The following was added by @Xavier-wisde
    Forge your own story
    There seems to be a theme that people want more content or story. As an open world 'sandbox' game, alot of what occurs during the session makes the adventure and the story, rather than following predefined scripts or plots. Games which take you from the start to the end of the game are different to this open world type of game. In several of the developer videos from Joe Neate, he talks about giving players more tools to create their adventures, rather than writing more stories for us to be guided along.
    Forge your own path, write your own stories, enjoy the adventure as it happens, rather than focusing on simply completing your current short term goal.

    Exploration
    The different environments are really interesting to wander round and take a look at. Some of the big islands in particular have all sorts of hidden caves and things to discover. I have enjoyed exploring places like Shark Bait cove and Thief's Haven on many occasions and finding all the different hidden places... Of which there are many for me still to discover.

    Often I'll set little challenges too. Parking a sloop in the middle of Thief's Haven was great fun to do. Navigating storms and rocks too is often fun. Even just trying to lure other crews to their doom as they try to chase me. I predominantly play solo, so when it comes to doing these things, there is no-one else to think about and whether they are having fun and will often increase the challenge as you have to manage everything. Even simply perfecting docking at a pier I have found to be rewarding (with no anchor, and perfectly aligned to be able to jump off and on at ease from the side as if the ship has just spawned).

    Sometimes, I wonder how much of the world is actually seen or explored by those who just grid for pirate legend status.

    Managing your game time: Don't over play
    I keep reading post about people who jump on, spend 2 hours getting all the latest achievements and then having nothing else to do. Why play just for a few commendations? I enjoy doing them, but don't make it the be all and end all of the game. Taking a bit more time to do the commendations and enjoying the sailing is something I often do. Sometimes I just get a few in a session, and often leave ones that are time limited.

    I suppose this all really links back to my original post about making you're own story. I find plenty to do when I jump on though.

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  • @eelporridge

    Most things stated seem pretty much common sense really except for one thing.

    Rare gave the game solo option, true everyone wants to help Rare and say its the hard option. That said, the partnering up that Rare wanted doesn't work without outside assistance - A Major Failure of the game as provided if this was Rare's intent. If on the otherhand and as the marketting indicates 'solo' is provided it should be practical anywhere, including the new areas,
    not that I have seen Devils Roar.

  • This game is a PvPvE game
    There are often requests for this game to get a PvE mode or a pure PvP mode. If you don't like the game in its current form, then you simply don't like the game. Asking for this to change in a forum thread is fine, but it would be better for you to not hold an expectation of this to change any time soon.

    Thank you.

  • @stratcat51
    You would be surprised how much most of this isn't common sense for a lot of the forum community. All of my points raised have been in response to common themes and posts made here.

    Going off the example I provided, just because rare gave you a solo option, it doesn't mean that it is always the right choice. Going in to DR alone will more times often than not end in disaster due to the volcanoes. You are free to go there alone, but when you sink that's because you didn't take the most valuable resource: crew members.

    You will also notice that there is no actual solo ship. The smallest available is a 2 man ship, which are you choosing to sail on solo. That is a big difference.

  • alt text

  • How about something about making your own adventures?

    There seems to be a theme that people want more content or story. As an open world 'sandbox' game, alot of what occurs during the session makes the adventure and the story, rather than following predefined scripts or plots. Games which take you from the start to the end of the game are different to this open world type of game. In several of the developer videos from Joe Neate, he talks about giving players more tools to create their adventures, rather than writing more stories for us to be guided along.

  • @xavier-wisde

    That's great, thanks for the addition, I have added to the OP.

  • @eelporridge there is no end goal ;). It’s the lie that people believe to keep leveling up and expecting more “endgame” stuff. Once you’re PL, you just got your “I’m a pirate” badge and your free will from voyages. That’s where the story truly begins XD.

  • @weststormborn
    That's true for the greater picture, my last statement there was more in regards to short term goals such as "finishing the voyage".

    If you want to do a proper paragraph about how there is no end goal to supplement that last paragraph, I would love to add it to the OP.

    Edit: I changed that last statement to be more accurate.

  • @eelporridge nah I’m not that great at making a well written paragraph. If you make one with what I said you could just mention I clued in XD

    Edit: very accurate statement I’d say

  • @eelporridge

    It amazes me how people really don't think about the controls and why they are there, so I know what you mean.

    Fair comment on Sloop being duo crew or solo. Would just like to get things better balanced for pvp side so family crew feel like playing again. The value of shared family fun would be worth it for me.

  • @rayzback are you sure? some egotistical chap said

  • @weststormborn

    Since the Devil’s Roar opened up, the whereabouts of our world’s center is quite debatable. It very well might be rotating around you?? :)

  • All that you've said is 10000% true. People should read this post. Also, this should be in the pirate code or something similar. Nice work matey!

  • What about something on just exploring too. The different environments are really interesting to wander round and take a look at. Some of the big islands in particular have all sorts of hidden caves and things to discover. I have enjoyed exploring places like Shark Bait cove and Thief's Haven on many occasions and finding all the different hidden places... Of which there are many for me still to discover.

    Often I'll set little challenges too. Parking a sloop in the middle of Thief's Haven was great fun to do. Navigating storms and rocks too is often fun. Even just trying to lure other crews to their doom as they try to chase me. I predominantly play solo, so when it comes to doing these things, there is no-one else to think about and whether they are having fun and will often increase the challenge as you have to manage everything. Even simply perfecting docking at a pier I have found to be rewarding (with no anchor, and perfectly aligned to be able to jump off and on at ease from the side as if the ship has just spawned).

    Sometimes, I wonder how much of the world is actually seen or explored by those who just grid for pirate legend status.

    Maybe another thing could be 'don't over play the game. I keep reading post about people who jump on, spend 2 hours getting all the latest achievements and then having nothing else to do. Why play just for a few commendations? I enjoy doing them, but don't make it the be all and end all of the game. Taking a bit more time to do the commendations and enjoying the sailing is something I often do. Sometimes I just get a few in a session, and often leave ones that are time limited.

    I suppose this all really links back to my original post about making you're own story. I find plenty to do when I jump on though.

  • @eelporridge what one owns nothing? I'm like George today

  • @rayzback if I put myself in the right area it will XD

  • @xavier-wisde
    Thanks for that, sorry for the delay, was busy over the weekend. Have added to OP.

    @closinghare208 said in Managing your expectations: Building a better game experience:

    @eelporridge what one owns nothing?

    Everyone.

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