Sea of Thieves Hates Thieves

@entspeak Agreed.

This has been a problem in this game since the beginning. Rare could have done so many things to actively incentivize hoarding loot or to make certain loot actually dangerous. For instance, why Rare does not have loot aboard a ship increase in value the longer it remains aboard is beyond me. This injects a codified risk-reward system into the game. The more treasure I have, the more money I can make, but the more I can lose. Instead this system doesn't exist at all.

You can see the same missed opportunity with Athena's chests. The current meta for Athena voyages is get the chest and run to the outpost, even if nobody is near you. There is no sense of danger as the outpost is usually very close to you and usually there are not people right near you while you are grabbing the chest. Even when you do grab it those people have no real knowledge whether you dug one up or not. What should happen is that you should have to turn the Athena chest in at a designated outpost (the furthest one from your current location) and everyone in the map should be alerted to the fact that a crew just unearthed the most prize treasure in the game. This would inject some excitement into Athena voyages. Not knowing if there will be hunters out in the sea coming for your newly acquired loot.

If you don't like having to go to the furthest outpost, you could alter it to make it so the further the outpost is that you turn in at, the more exp/loot you gain. You took the risk, you reaped the reward. Hell, sinking somebody with it on your boat should be rewarded too.

None of these risk/reward profiles exist in the game, however. There is almost no risk in this game as it currently stands, especially with the garbage alliance meta. I want to feel like danger is around every turn. I want to use these risk-reward profiles to create new exciting ways to play the game. If I could dig up an athena chest and use it as bait to lure somebody to me so I can take their stuff, that would be awesome.

Unfortunately, I can't. I instead have to stalk a person for hours to steal their athena, or hope that some crew hoards more than 2 chests on their boat at a time. None of that is fun for either party.

I generally try to stay out of these topics either way. People complaining about being robbed all the time or the exact opposite complaining that everyone just runs away and never wants to fight.

I don’t have an opinion on who’s right or wrong as I’ve been on both sides plenty of times.

I am however wondering, isn’t the next update (in like one week) pretty much addressing both sides?

The Arena is suppose to big ship battles of everyone robbing and fighting each other and clamoring over the same treasure.

Then adventure mode is suppose to be more story driven, you and your crew set out to solve some mystery or lore. As well as all the hunting and fishing kinda stuff being (in my opinion) a lot more of a chill laid back experience compared to sailing around trying to find chests of gold or take down skeleton crews.

Again, not saying either side is right or wrong, just seems like both sides of the argument are getting MOSTLY what they are asking for. Just gotta give it another week.

@wilbymagicbear said in Sea of Thieves Hates Thieves:

I find it amusing that a game about pirates discourages piracy so much. You'd think, considering that thievery is a central theme of the game, that thievery would be the best, or at least a practical way of procuring gold.

This is not the case. In fact, I'd say thievery is the second worst way of obtaining wealth, beat out only by repeatedly doing initiation voyages. But why is thievery so impractical? Surely it's easier to take someone else's loot than to work for your own!

1. The biggest issue facing thieves is the lack of ships. Supposedly, there's supposed to be 6 ships per server, but I think it's 3. Other ships are so hard to find! To anecdote, I logged on the other day in hopes of finding some treasure seekers to pilfer from. Upon circumnavigating the entire world over the course of 50 minutes, I found 1 ship, a solo sloop crewed by 1 AFK sailor with an initiation voyages down parked at an outpost. Thrilling pirate exploits, indeed.

2. The Runaway Meta: Mind you, even if you do find a ship with any treasure onboard, 9 times out of 10 they will run away as if their life depended on it. They have seemingly infinite time, and will sail away, dropping off loot at outposts they pass, and there is NOTHING you can do to stop them. After an hour of this edge-of-seat pursuit, they'll slowly sink into the deep, having sold every last piece and having left the game. If you're lucky, sometimes they leave a singular Seafarer's chest to taunt you! The Runaway meta is absolute, there is no way to counter it, and everyone does it.

3. No one has any treasure. Assuming you happen upon a ship unawares, you can actually steal something! Trouble is, they very rarely have anything if value. Perhaps you'll knick a hateful skull if you're lucky, but most of the time these ships won't even have a voyage down, they just sail around for no reason with no loot. It doesn't help that the game encourages pirates to sell at every opportunity. The only reason any ship ever hoards treasure is to take a reddit pic or just for thrill. But trust me, ships that hoard loot are the same ships that pioneered the runaway meta.

I don't know why Rare punishes thievery so much. You'd think they'd encourage it, but the game is seemingly designed to incentivize never stealing. As it is, a pirate that steals is one poor pirate, and a pirate that runs is fat with gold. To Rare, please fix these issues so stealing can be practical. To treasure seekers, please try hoarding all that loot, and actaully fight the people who attack you. And to my fellow thieves, good luck! Happy stealing!

1. The other ships also sail around....Consider the possibility that by the time you are in 1 region, the other ship(s) have moved on to other locations. We all know not to stay in one area too long unless we intend on laying a trap.

2. Seafarer's? Those pirates are generous! I'd leave empty cages or a castaway for you XD

3. Ye can't get rich by just letting treasure sit on a ship. You need to cash it in...a little tip. Check the island. Some pirates offload and hide loot if they know they will be away from their ship for a period of time.

Rare doesn't punish thievery. I have stolen countless items (and I'm talking about captain's chests, cursed chests and even a stronghold item or two) from others, and have been robbed myself as well.

@wilbymagicbear and this is why they are introducting the arena.. to cater for the annoying [mod removed] like you.

@wilbymagicbear I guess it would not feel as evil in the arena, you have a point there :D

The attacker has no loot so there is no reason to fight back there is nothing to win so we just ignore pvp pirates

@wilbymagicbear
Its really going to be a whole list worse on the flight issue when the Tall Tales are released. A lot of voyages are going to be ruined due to loss of items on players ships which will cause more flights from players for a while.