It's painfully obvious that the Arena player base is constantly decreasing as a result of the actions and inactions of Rare. Now it takes me up to an hour to load into an Arena match only for the competition to be completely incompetent crews.
The problems are plentiful, and the solutions are nowhere to be found and Rare doesn't seem to care from our point of view.
Problem 1: Combat is Completely Broken & Never Has Been Worse
We have been dealing with game-breaking combat bugs for months and Rare does nothing to even acknowledge this is a problem. I've already made a thread on this a month ago, and it got 60 upvotes and nothing has been done. I know dozens of dedicated, high-quality players who have completely quit. These are the players that make YouTube videos, stream on twitch & mixer, and put the most time into the game. They are quitting because are the ones affected most by clunky, broken combat that basically eliminates any form of a skill gap. This problem is especially frustrating in Arena where PVP action is constant.
At the time I was upset we would have to wait a month for the monthly updates to get any sort of hotfix to these game-breaking bugs, but now a month has gone by and nothing has been done. Why should I keep playing?
https://www.seaofthieves.com/forum/topic/96916/combat-has-never-been-worse-here-s-all-the-bugs
Problem 2: ZERO Motivation After 240 Wins
This problem is SO easily fixed by Rare, and the fact that they haven't shows an large level of incompetence or lack of thought/care. Once you hit 240 wins you can no longer track how many wins you have, you have no statistics on your wins/losses which in most games is enough alone to motivate players to play and improve. Instead, for anything after 240 wins you get absolutely nothing. This problem is so easily fixed. All Rare would need to do at a bare minimum is release 2-3 cosmetics at milestones like 500, 1000 and 2000 wins and it would keep people playing Arena for ages. For a game that is motivated by cosmetics and commodations, Arena is lacking heavily in both. But no, we get unlimited doubloons (free Arena Master) and a pirate emporium where they are going to sell cosmetics that look very similar to the Arena cosmetics to kill any last remaining reason to play Arena and make a quick buck before they seemingly finish driving Arena into the ground.
Also, I shouldn't have to say this, but was this really the right time to add in opt-out?