I have played Sea of Thieves for many hours since release, and have made many new friends and crewmates along the way. However, I have also encountered many griefers and cheaters as well. Although I can see that Rare is taking steps to reduce griefing, cheating remains unregulated and unpunished.
In addition, in a game that puts an emphasis on PvP interactions over PvE (an unnaturally large one, in my opinion), I find, as well as other players, that sometimes players may want to avoid conflict and stick to completing bounties to level up their factions and reduce the risk of being set back in the event of being attacked. This is almost not possible and extremely difficult to achieve currently, as the amount of griefers present in the game currently is extremely high. Although still a minority, the odds of matching a crew with the sole intention of ruining your day (and not even going for loot) is frustratingly high. To combat these issues, I am proposing a solution that, theoretically, will require little effort from Rare and could be implemented quickly: peaceful servers. Here's how I see this working.
When you first log into the game and cue up for a lobby/make a lobby, you will be given the option of selecting a peaceful server or normal server. The peaceful server would be identical to your typical SoT server, except your crew will be alone. You will be free to roam the world as you wish without the fear of being griefed or attacked.
A peaceful server, under this definition, may seem boring for many, and I understand. That is why I am proposing this as an opt-in experience. I had the opportuntiy of playing on a 'dead server' a few nights ago. Nobody else spawned into our world after the last galleon left, and we were alone for 6+ hours. Although this may seem boring, I can say that the time I spent during that time grinding was the most fun I had had on this game. I also got the most done during this time, completed many more voyages and completed a skull fort without interference. For the first time since release, I could focus on the game and take in my surroundings and connect with my crew. I want to have this experience again in the future. Peaceful servers for me, at least until Rare implements working anti-cheat systems, anti-griefing systems, and re-evaluates server population density caps, is something I would be looking for in order for me to continue playing this game in the long term. Sea of Thieves has a lot of growth and progress left to be made upon, and this would be a major improvement/feature that could only benefit this game.
What do you think, readers?
EDIT: This blew up way more than I thought it would lol. I would like to thank Rare for commenting under this feed and clarifying some things for me. To those who say this issue was stated before, I apologize, I did not know this was already a discussion, I am new to these forums. Whether you agree or disagree with me, thank you for your responses, they have greatly helped me understand the community and game more :)
