It is very important to point out that the Reaper’s Mark is not a PvP flag. It is open to a number of choices of play styles and can be used for several different purposes. So, the Reaper voyage does not on its own equate automatic PvP. However, due to the choices some pirates will make, there is a higher probability of more competitive player interaction.
Just on the content itself this Merc voyage, like the one before it, and the guilded voyage before that is just rehashed, recycled content that has existed for over a year. The only difference is Rare made the objectives closer together and offer a lot more gold. For many this alone will make the reuse of year old content acceptable and satisfying. Truth is it is more of the same. Nothing original or creative. Just like all the recycled content for most of the first year the game has been released.
This recycled content has had a couple purposes. It is all filler while Rare is hopefully working on more truly new, original content. We shall see. Cooking, fishing, pets will be new. The Arena is just recycled content shrunk down in a smaller package with a few new trimmings in the attempt to provoke more PvP in a competitive way in a Battle Royale type flavor.
The Reaper voyage is also a beta test in production to gather metrics for the Arena. A little taste of being a Pioneer and pay doubloons to do. On its own it is extremely lack luster and mindlessly repetitive old content almost everyone has already done over and over for a year now. Without any sort of player interaction it is very boring and ridiculously lame. Rare needs to stop recycling content and rereleasing it as new content.
The game seriously needs more original content. It also desperately needs to become more grounded that there is way more on the Sea of Thieves than just killing other players over and over. This is not a PvP game. Only a game of many choices where that is only just one of them.
