I am playing Sea of Thieves almost from the beginning. New customizations it is nice, but if each of your Arena matches took 15-30 minutes to start, which is half or more then the match, it is just disappointing to the users and doesn't make any sense in playing. I don't believe that you can't fix this issue. There is a lot of rooms with people, you can easily merge them and start the match. So you need to refactor this process, otherwise, I guess you might lose people.
Do you know while we start playing the Arena? Because we stop playing solo game together with @SeaJoeBlack because we have nothing to do there. It became boring. We finish Tall tales(What was the most interesting thing in the game), we bought everything that we wanted. We took all the forts. So I guess most of the people don't really care about new cosmetics. Why I would need new cosmetics if I HAVE NOTHING TO DO IN THE GAME. I think you have a really serious issue in prioritizations. I understand the need for making at least a minimum money flow to stay in business. But all your updates, are the same thing as before with just different locations. Which is really a pity for tue fans. It is like you don't care and do a view of "updates" exist but you don't really update things that are a pain. All update is the same thing. I took a map and a go to the island and I get the chest or fight the skeleton and get the chest to sell it and get the doubloons.
Or wait - doubloons. That is another thing that doesn't make any sense in the game. The same as money. Why I need money - if I have nothing do to with them? What is the purpose of doubloons? What does it give to the users? Special cloth? (Really small amount of choice). That I can change doubloons to the gold? Again, what is the reason of gold if I don't know what to do in the game with it? I bought all the skins that I liked on the ship, all the cloth, and stuff. The new one is not so fascinating so I decided to buy it.
So to the point of what I wrote upper:
- The algorithm for sorting people on Arena and in the solo game has to be refactored. In the Arena, it leads to huge waiting time. In solo, we are on the server with 2 players. Which leads the game to be boring because the last PVP option is not working with only 2 players on the server(For us it is happening a lot of times). From my perspective, this algorithm should work 100%. So there is no situation when it happens like this. If so, send new users to the server with fewer users or do smth else.
- The money. The rewards and balance of the money in the game doesn't make any sense.
- Finish LAST tall tale story which was the toughest one, with the main skeleton at the end - 3000 coins. Seriously? The same price as for the previous one? The last one is the toughest one. It can't be the same amount. and I thought as far as you go further the amount of money should be increased per tale because they becoming more and more complicated, which is logical.
- Arena. Last place - 3000. First place(No matter who much points you earn) - 6000? We kill a lot of ships, took all the treasures and we got only twice more than the guys for the last place?
- Regular game. I don't remember all of the cases. But You have it all the way. We killed sceletons and got a really small amount. The balance between each of the companies also.
- AND THE MAIN ONE. There is nothing interesting left in the game except pvp. Which might be good, but it is not all. Even if you fix an algorithm that will split people correctly - You still have Adventure mode game. What should we do there?
SO. If you now focused on making money on 100% by adding new cosmetics - this is a problem of prioritizations made before. And this is a problem now.(Hope this is not the case).
If not, and you just trying to build a healthy business which is absolutely fine, but I guess your prioritisations should be adjusted.
Main point: You should update the game dramatically to not loose people that are there for a while. Add new islands. Add new items on islands( I am bored to see the same things again and again, it make the game plastic). Don't add the same updates over and over again. Add new mechanics, new ideas. The game is starving without it now. Where are the curses? Some really interesting new stories - which is fully new with not repeating something that I saw in previous tall tales. YOU NEED NEW CONTENT. And by content, I meant not new cloth or a new liver on a ship. New Ideas, new ways of playing the game. Something that will change the way that users are plying the game and make it more excited to play. And because is a pirate game there is so much more to add. Don't stuck in the template of what you are doing all the time. Find something new. Do the brainstorm and add new fascinating ideas so users would have fun to play.
And again focus on real things that matter. Thing more then one time, if this change really affects the way user play? For example - yes fire, is a really good update and adds a lot of additional mechanics and changes the way users plays. BUT again, if I have nothing to do in the game, if there are no new interesting stories or stuff to do, I don't care about the fire. SO be very precise on things you do. Prioritization is key. Don't mess with people or you will lose them.
I love this game! So I really care and want it to better. So I hope you will see it, and really change a lot while it is not too late for you guys! Thanks!