The Era of the Sundered Tides (Suggestion)

@kianonboard

"I don't see Rare doing this just for a few months as it seems quite pointless to change the place to a whole new biome then get rid of it a few months later, and I'm not sure whether people would be keen if they're trying to grind commendations here lol"

• I get your point , and i agree with it. My proposal is that instead of creating new areas, they can use the map we already have to make major changes, whether temporary or permanent. About the commendations you really touch at the crucial point. I was think about 'Dynamics commendations' since the map will change along the story, we need new commendation mechanics. for example:

Every time a player enter the game, it will loading the current state of the world with

• Islands altered or disappeared
• Faction Controls on Islands
• Temporary events

"What do you mean by this? Because I certainly don't want to become someone else - that's what the mimic dart is for XD"

• The card game was something I came up with while I was trying to organize my ideas here. I didn't put much effort into this idea. But the card tha would change body would not be the appearance but rather the position of the player. It's a silly idea..i know hahaha.

"I agree, FH needs to go in my opinion, though I don't know about the lore too much."

• Yeah buddy, Flameheart lore is taking so long. when him made his appearance at the seabound soul I got goosebumps, especially at the end of the story when Pendragon said "what did we do?". We've continued to follow the Flameheart story ever since, but they started focusing so much on new players that I felt there was a deficit in content for old pirates.

"I get what you mean, but I would not be a fan of this, I don't want this game to become even more RNG with curses in my opinion."

• I understand your opinion! Actually i am very tired at the grinding systems this game has, because everything you make is about gold or reputation. I only want this to change a little bit. With the introduction of this "power-ups" or something more close to ability tree.

@capt-greldik

They can use a pin to show where the island is at the table map or let the players searching for it by themselves.

I envision an island that, while above sea level, will take a certain amount of time to be discovered, and as soon as a player sets foot on it, it will have a 30-minute window (for example) to sink again. Remember that as it sinks, it always changes its location. The loot will be quite varied, and players will need to race against time to collect all the items, or at least the most valuable ones. On this island, they will face enemies, bosses, and traps to get the best treasure.

This is just one of my ideas for this island.

"A new cycle needs to start, you guys need to put an end at Flameheart story or maybe give it a new direction to keep players interested again."
Why? I don't personally see it as stale, I've actually been more engaged than ever this update. Some of your ideas are neat for sure, but not very fleshed out and seem more like things that sound like a good idea but in implementation it gets messy.

"You need to create something that creates uniques experiences. Givin players unique powers during session, like for example some curses that allows players to navigate at the fog but everytime he makes that all his loot decays."

The unique experiences come from the fact that you meet different players, do different things every session. Super powers don't solve this and actually hurt the game because balance is so hard to maintain. A "fog lifting curse" would be something a player could have that would give them a gameplay advantage another player doesn't inherently have. Just because anyone can get the commendation doesn't make it equal. One of the main points of this game is that no matter who you are, the only advantage you can get is based off your skills. No one gets something useful because they got a commendation. Purely for looks.

It sounds like you want to play a different game dressed in SoTs skin and clothes.

"Players need to understand that the story keeps rolling even when they are not online." There are so many pieces of lore that are gone, no one gets to ever SEE again, nevermind experience. Why did flameheart return? Any player who didn't play adventures won't know. Herald of the flame is literally the reason we have Flameheart back. Dark Deception is the reason the Burning Blade is back. So players who didn't get to play for the 2 week period the event was live just have to learn through watching youtube videos instead of playing the game. They want more people to come back to the game, adding the adventures back in would help a lot. The story is VERY hard to understand at this point without watching 12 hours of someone else playing content you don't get to anymore. More people would spend more time playing more of the game if there was more of the game to play. There are gameplay recordings of the removed adventures, and they all have thousands of views. Thousands of people who wanted to know what that content was, because they don't get to anymore. More people than that would have played them if they were still part of the game.

Also gold is pointless, who the hell cares if I can get gold now or later, gold is not a good enough reward compared to a limited time cosmetic.

The "I was there" of this game is my least favourite part of it. There is no reason why over 1000 cosmetics are PERMANENTLY time locked. Dev effort into making them, art and assets that existed for a short while just to be lost to time. Bone crusher set was in an event that celebrated the addition of skeleton ships in the SECOND MONTH of the game being out. 99% of the playerbase had not yet found this game. It bothers me immensely that 80% of that set, and many others, are in the game but missing key parts for literally no reason other than to try to force people to play the game. I was too busy to play the game in 2022-3 when adventures were added. So I'm not allowed to enjoy the story of a game because I wasn't playing it at the right time? Screw that. The fact that they haven't added Herald of the flame, Dark Deception, and Rogues Legacy genuinely annoys me. Why can we start siren song on our ship AND see briggsy as a skeleton lord but not have an explanation for how she went from a skeleton lord that we killed to a phantom who is on our side again with no skeleton curse?

@potatosord

"I don't personally see it as stale, I've actually been more engaged than ever this update. Some of your ideas are neat for sure, but not very fleshed out and seem more like things that sound like a good idea but in implementation it gets messy."

• The point of my post isn't to have it be followed from start to finish without changing anything. The main idea is that the game needs updates that slightly change the gameplay. In my opinion, Sea of Thieves has remained stagnant for quite some time.

"The unique experiences come from the fact that you meet different players..."
-I don't disagree with you. The superpowers I mentioned were just examples of how you could change the entire way of interacting in the game. I understand the difficulty of giving players abilities without them becoming an absurd advantage over an opponent, but it was one of the ways I could think of to solve the problem of the game always feeling like more of the same.

There's not just one way to solve this; they could make the factions truly influence the map. They could create factions that would function as a skill tree for your own pirate, where you could choose the one you like best, and it would give you certain boosts in the match, etc.

Interacting with other players in Sea of Thieves is truly extraordinary because you never know what's going to happen, but the game's environment doesn't allow you to have fun without these encounters (my opinion). I've been playing for so long that I basically know all the riddles, I know how to find the chests easily, skeleton forts... I can't stand doing them anymore.

" There are so many pieces of lore that are gone, no one gets to ever SEE again, nevermind experience..."

• My idea for live events is to keep the story moving throughout a season. I don't want them to ruin the way we play the stories (Shores of Gold and Flameheart). For me, they work well. If I could change anything about how they're done, I would definitely change the way commendations are done, so you don't have to repeat the same story five times or leave journals in places where they could be modified in the future.

The live events would be small fragments of the story that would take place across the map. I really like using the Battle for Golden Sands here. The idea for this event was very good, but in practice, it wasn't that exciting. There were never pirates in Golden Sands to prevent the Flame Servants from blowing up the barrels there. To solve this, I thought of servers dedicated to these events that would function like minigames, showing in real time who is winning or losing.

Another example I like to use is Season 13... I think. Where they introduced the Hourglass and the battle between the Servants of the Flame and the Guardians of Athena. That season was very exciting; it seemed like things were getting back on track, but since then, we haven't seen any story progression.

As for players who won't be able to experience some of these events, unfortunately, the story must continue even if not everyone is present. I repeat, I include myself in that group of players. I couldn't participate in some limited-time events, but I saw a summary of what happened within the game that the devs created. I know it's not the same, but it kept me tuned to the next story.

"There is no reason why over 1000 cosmetics are PERMANENTLY time locked..."

• Regarding your last comment, I truly understand your frustration, but I believe that many other games you play probably have items locked because you didn't play during a certain event or because you didn't complete the quests in time. And I ask you, why does it have to be different in Sea of Thieves?

I would have loved to have gotten the Curse of Athena's Ghost, but apparently I'm not good enough to have won 100 battles, haha. But it's okay, I know I still have time to get it, but if it had been a limited-time event, I would definitely have put in more effort to get it.
See how this lack of truly limited-time events (with exclusive rewards that don't easily return) drastically reduces the sense of urgency, engagement, and personal value that players attribute to progress.
This breaks the loop for players who could log in weekly.
Another point is that when everyone can have everything all the time, items lose emotional and symbolic value.
We also know that Sea of Thieves doesn't have one of the largest communities, and these events would energize entire communities. Discords are buzzing, guides and videos are being created, and community outreach is being organized.

My entire argument is built on everything I've already discussed here, and in my view, Rare, for fear of excluding casual players, avoids outright bans. But there are balanced ways to create scarcity and exclusivity without generating extreme frustration.

@onstageleech16 I missed most of the 1000 time locked cosmetics because I wasn't playing the game. I had no way to know they were going to time limit things, INCLUDING LORE, while I had no connection to the game. I'm not asking for specific things relating to achievements, there are partial sets that have no reason to be partial. If you really think its better to have things happen when they happen and never be available again, then you are much closer to the cause of why this game is dying. Super powers won't fix things, it'll ruin them worse, and you don't actually like this game, so you want it destroyed. You literally could not have made worse suggestions, especially relating to "keeping the game fresh"

@potatosord

From what I see, you don't agree with some of my ideas, and that's completely acceptable. However, I dare disagree with you when you said that I'm one of the people who's killing the game; after all, what I brought here were just suggestions :). I'm trying to do the opposite of what you think.

@onstageleech16 The things you suggest are things that would make the player experience worse. That would kill the game. Those are direct A-B connections. Nothing you brought up would keep the game fresh, it would either change the game at its core, making it essentially a different game, or it would be a feature no one would interact with. Here's a suggestion: Any player named Potatosord should be given a million gold any time they log on and have a boat that can only get Tier 1 holes. Just a suggestion guys don't get mad at me, it won't affect balance!

@potatosord

Interpretation doesn't seem to be your strong point.
As I said before, these suggestions are just suggestions. My real intention was to comment on a flawed system that's been in the game for a while now and is ruining my experience, and perhaps that of other players. I understand that you don't agree with them, but just because you disagree doesn't mean they're not good ideas.

@onstageleech16 Commenting on a flawed system and giving suggestions for the sake of giving suggestions without giving real suggestions of value is just whining. Giving a suggestion for the sake of giving a suggestion make the suggestion meaningless.