Thoughts on current game state?

I've been playing for 5 days and defeated FOTD 5 times already and it doesn't feel epic anymore, so I'm going to give you my two cents.

Negative aspects of the game:

1. No progression
   While being tied to game-philosphy, it is easy to lose motivation without progression. All you can buy is skins. A rather difficult issue, as it is tied to the game philosophy.

2. Gold is worthless
   Gold is the main resource of the game, and it is worthless. You can only buy skins (and flags for 20k). Why not add a price to tall-tales? After all there is no reason for the mysterious stranger to give you the fabled book from the pirate legend himself. But for a "small" donation he would be willing to share his information.
   Many pirates want cosmetics to be repairable, but doing such a thing is not easy and requires craftsmanship. Sadly, the lady at the outpost has better things to do than to repair strangers ships for nothing.

3. Repetitiveness
   It's skeleton time, all the time! Add ghouls, vampires, sirens, jelly-fish, turtles, dolphins, crabs. Pick up some ancient creatures and make them (mini) bosses. Hydras, Moby D*ck, giant crabs, giant turtles, cyclopses.

4. Lacking PVP
   The best PVP interaction you can get in this game is grouping up with another crew and not knowing wether you can trust them or not. Add bounties to players that kill or sink ships often.
   (Opinions differ on this subject, but having more ships/players on one server would be nice IMHO.)

5. Spawnkilling
   Getting killed right after spawning is just unfair and frustraiting. Gives us at least a second of protection after spawning.

Now what is great about this game:

1. Social interaction
   Most of my encounters with other players were at least sportsmanship-like or great. Playing a song together as my crewmate places his first ritual skull on for FOTD made it a special moment for everyone.

2. Equality
   Everyone is equal upon the waves, (mostly) only skill matters.

3. Great Artstyle
   I like it.

4. "Random" things to do
   There are lots of actions that aren't needed. Dancing, singing, fishing, puking and getting drunk. Nice.

5. Ferry of the Damned
   The Ferry is kind of special in this game, as it connects to the "living world" via flames. I really like that.

This game is designed to provide you with the tools to make your own fun. Progression, loot, skeletons, ghost ships, skelly ships, megaladon's, krakens, and etc are all things to add elements of surprise to what you have decided to do.

Nothing beats a three way naval battle that gets interrupted by two skelly ships and a kraken.

I think if you're a new player or a casual gamer this game is at an awesome stage of its existence

For me specifically

I still have unfinished business to tend to before I can retire

I think the current state is awesome.

I wouldn’t change a thing.

But hell, I like pirate games. I’ve been playing Sid Myers since I had a Commodore 64!

Would have played Black Flag but I couldn’t Stand the dude jumping on everything like a damn spider monkey and the camera angle
Didn’t work for me. (In Ship to Ship).

The updates are fine. There's nothing overly terrible about them, it's just that they don't have any lasting appeal. At this point, the only reason I'd do a vault is for either a new player or to get the commendations done. However, the problem arises when all of the content isn't exiting or interesting after a week. The Ashen Lords were an interesting gimmick, but I didn't have any drive to complete them because a) they were too difficult to do myself b) nobody I played with wanted to do them either. There have been improvements in the game since I've been playing, which was three days to the year now. The most important and long lasting stuff in this game were the things that just sit in the background. Sure, vaults are flashy, but the firebomb has made quite an impact on the game since its release. When Fate of the Damned is done, it won't have added much to the overall Sea of Thieves experience. I want small things that would continue to add to the game for years to come, instead of one big flashy thing that nobody would use after the update is over.
Another thing that I believe the developers should consider is making bimonthly updates. This sounds like a terrible thing, but Rare is approaching that timeline already. This way, the developers would have more time to work on large, quality updates instead of one thing a month. I know the devs promised a year of monthly content updates, and they've already done that. How about they slow down, work hard, and make some big updates that people won't complain about after a week? If need be, they could have a sub-update in the middle, filled with challenges associated with the new content or something. Or they could make us fish 500 ruby splashtails, for 250 ancient coins or something.
Also, can you believe they don't have bread in the game? Hardtack was a necessity to pirates on the high seas, and was somewhat edible. Why not have it in the game? It wouldn't be good, but it would be cheap and easy to have. I can't have my pirate actually get his vitamin C by eating fruits all the time, right?
Of course, I'm not a game developer. I don't know anything about how to make this game. I'm just saying what I've been thinking. I'm ready to see how I'm wrong in response to my essay.

This game has become a major fail and myself and family/friends have abandoned ship! Even more so with the announcement of private lobby/server coming in near future won’t have progression! While some millennial minded gamers (and developers) feel that “no risk, no reward” is a core value of the game, they are losing the player base of folks who dont have the time to sit in mommy’s basement and play for hours to only get yanked/grieved! Not by “professional” pvpers but by troll kids with no life. Most grown folks don’t have that kinda time on hand to waste. Not ones with families and real jobs who want to plunder and experience the game casually!

To implement this it would be simple....

Make private server progression separated from online mode (current adventure mode). Literate creates for offline/private server/invite only session would only have progression locked to that pirate profile! It would separate from the current version now! Simple enough right?

Maybe perhaps make a PvP sea mode only and a PvE sea mode only. Simple enough right?

Bottom line, people (grown folks) would love to play this game without the toxic gamer generations that are starting to hatch!! I know I speak for many out there who have come home from work or played on there free time, spent a great deal of time working on commendations or time sensitive events and have encountered kids who who continue to grieve you!! Kill you, keep your boat afloat, kill you when you spawn in, kill you again when you spawn in... keep killing you when you spawn in... now you lost hours of work, loot, any form of progression... gone! That sorta gameplay is not tolerable! And for the devs to think that’s ok and that’s part of the game is flat out a joke!! Hence why I and many of my family and friends quit playing this garbage!! Terrible dev team and waste of time this game is!!

The funny thing is they don’t realize the money they are losing out on! Many of us have talked about the fact we would spend money in emporium for the cosmetics if we could just play invite only with friends!

It’s a shame to see such a good game go to waste due to poor bloody leadership and development!

@doomscorp they are killing their game slowly, especially with announcing private servers only for community events for tubers. They would make some much more revenue adding a invite only/private session to the game!!

Many people will come back to the game and therefore increasing chances for them to spend money to decorate their ship and pirate, I myself would be one of them.

The devs need to get off the high horse about the whole “no risk, no reward” mentality. Game is fun, they need to accommodate for all player base types.... not just the griefing toxic millennials! These newer generation of gamers are poisonous to the gaming community, trolls don’t just exist in Sea of Thieves, they are everywhere!