While Sea of Thieves is a pirate-themed game, it is very rare that I feel piratey. I think the biggest contributor to this feeling is the distinct lack of merchant ships to rob and pillage. Perhaps the closest we've got in this game was the early skeleton forts. An event where you know there's a massive haul, you know where it is, and, if someone got there before you, you know where it is likely to go. Now that forts are more common this doesn't happen often as they are less contested. Cargo runs were a step in the right direction at creating merchant ships as players can now take it upon themselves to pick up some valuable goods and transport them a good distance away. However, not many people actually do cargo runs and most people are cautious enough to constantly drop off loot so when a ship is attacked they are unlikely to have any goods worth fighting for. This is something that I thought the most recent mercenary voyages would fix but they didn't quite reach. Prior mercenary voyages included a "Reaper's" variant that encouraged players to broadcast their location whilst sailing a predictable route. Unfortunately, that didn't happen this time around.
If it wasn't already apparent, I am suggesting the addition of "Reaper's Cargo Runs". A new type of voyage in which players are tasked with transporting very valuable cargo across a large distance whilst letting everyone on the server know what they are doing. The simplest implementation of this would be to give the cargo similar properties of the new Reaper's Chests and guaranteeing that the destination is a good distance away. However, I also feel that there could be more to them than that. Those that start the voyage would have a higher potential payout to encourage people to start the voyage themselves but there would be a limit to how often you could obtain them. Perhaps once an in-game day? Those that want to pirate could have to sell to a different NPC than the original recipient so that it is not a simple matter of camping the turn-in point for a quick and dirty win. An alternative to a reaper's mark is giving all crews a quest that tells them key information such as starting an ending point and maybe even the time started and let players figure out how best to intercept.
Regardless of how this is implemented, I believe the game would greatly benefit from turning a few of us into high profile merchants.
