Please hear me out before you go "Oh its called Sea of Thieves for a reason" or "You don't like PvP". This is also a long post so I would appreciate if you read through it all and hear my reasoning for such an opinion. I also made this post over on the Sea of Thieves reddit here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Seaofthieves/comments/ge1qvm/unpopular_opinion_emissaries_ruined_the_game/
I've been playing Sea of Thieves since it's early Alpha state (I do have the Vanguard Sails and Title) as well as playing since launch. I am a Pirate Legend, so of course, I've engaged in my fair share of PvP and have found it very much enjoyable. I've had some pretty funny encounters with people and of course my fair share of frustrations as well. These are my opinions as someone who has seen this game evolve over its time.
Over the last year, Rare has been adding features to the game that while yes are fun; have slowly begun to make the game more frustrating to play; especially for casual or solo players. Example being, the new damage system with your capstan, sails, and wheel all taking damage, chain shot making it easy to take down sails, fireballs and the new fire system, the blundershot balls, on top of the curse cannonballs have all made it frustrating and overwhelming to manage a sloop by yourself or with a friend while at the same time trying to defend yourself again the person attacking you. It's gotten to a point where whoever fires first, is the one that wins the fight as the other ship has their hands tied up trying to manage to keep their ship afloat. It's gotten to a point where it is too much for a single person to handle.
I've mostly put up with it, tried to learn to adapt to the new mechanics; however; the Emissary system that was recently added has pushed the game over a tipping point where I feel its slowly ruining the game for more casual players. Mainly, the Reaper's Bones. Now; don't get me wrong; I think the Emissary system is a step in the right direction, including the Reaper's Bone emissary; but I feel it was implemented poorly as the Reaper's Bone emissary encourages a more toxic approach to the adventure mode. To quote someone on the Sea of Thieves discord who I had this discussion with, and I find accurate, "Reaper's Bone emissary essentially turned Adventure Mode into the new Arena mode."
First, what Reaper's Bone did get right. Going after other players who have an emissary flag raised for their flag pole to turn in for rep. Great, this is awesome. I think this is balanced and a more organic way to encourage PvP. On top of also giving other emissaries benefits to want to raise their flag and risk that PvP factor. This is the same as the current gameplay loop of collecting loot and risking PvP to have that loot stolen. However, the rep gain for just killing any player is where I have the main issue. This encourages a more toxic, forced approach to PvP. At this point, you're encouraging players to go for blood and kill anyone they see. This removes that "Is that person risk or not" cause now everyone is a risk. It ruins the mysterious nature of the game of seeing another player out on the see.
I've also had personally run into this issue where some players will camp outposts for new players to spawn, just to jump them for rep. Yes; it's not efficient but it's happened to me twice. This is not great of course, especially if someone is new to the game and this suddenly happens to them. This could potentially harm the Sea of Thieves community, stunting growth in player base and possibly chase people away from the game.
One last issue I wanted to bring up regarding Reaper's Bone is Tall Tales. Over the last week or two, I've been trying to do Tall Tales with my girlfriend. I do every possible thing I can to signal to other players that we're not hostile, we have no loot, etc. Throwing up alliance flags, white flags, etc. Still, we are hunted down consistently throughout any of the lobbies we join. Currently, The Reaper's Bone emissary ruins Tall Tales and makes them frustrating to do; considering the amount of time you have to invest in doing those tales and some tales if you are to die with any of the key items on board; you essentially lose that progress and need to start anew. I have enough time in my day to maybe do one tale with my girlfriend and if that gets ruined; then it ruins our day together and I feel like we aren't able to get through the story as we keep getting set back.
In conclusion, I think the emissary system is a step in the right direction in terms of adding new content for veterans of the game to do; but I think it was implemented poorly and has invalidated some parts of the game such as solo slooping and tall tales. It's fair if you disagree with me, but I do hope some changes are made to make both emissaries fun, but also keeping the other aspects of the game fun as well.
