play with more than 4 players

This would cause a severe imbalance to the game. Allowing players to flood servers with multiple ships in order to form organized fleets would give them a severe advantage over other ships on the server. The same goes for a galleon. You have to understand that these ships are specifically designed for their maximum player count. Therefore adding any more players to those ships would give them an unfair advantage.

Hopefully one day Rare will be able to increase the amount of ships per server and add in a larger ship type that holds more players. Until then, I'm confident we won't see an increase players per ship.

@swimplatypus7 Of course there are ways to balance the game for it but the current system works just fine as it is. I understand wanting to play with more friends and I'd love to do that myself but only if they add larger ships that were designed from the ground up to house that many players. They shouldn't restructure current mechanics in order to add one or two more people to the galleon.

As for getting more people onto the server, yes of course that's possible as well. Most people who have been playing for a while now can do exactly or at least know how to do exactly what you're talking about. That's not the point though. Right now it's an effort that players have to put forth in order to get more ships onto the same server, as minimal as it is it's a effort none the less.

I also need to make my voice heard. I play with a regular crew of 4. Every Sunday night, and sometimes other days in the week when we can sort our lives out (we're all working Dads) we get together and sail a galleon. These days though, we've got several more guys who want to sail with us - and we can't do it.

I know it's possible to travel the seas and find a pirate willing to give up their ship, but they seem to be few and far between these days. I understand the logic behind this decision in the context of when it was made - long before the game was live, and Rare were busily figuring out how best to matchmake and populate servers - but the situation now is, I think, different to what they anticipated then.

I think it should work like this: let a bunch of people (limit it to say 10 or 12 - make it half a server, for the sake of argument) join a lobby together. Let them then form crews. We'd like to sail with 6 regularly - give us the option of a galleon and a brigantine, or 2 brigantines, or 3 sloops. Limit the ships we can have by all means - but give us some choice. Then spawn us in. Drop us at different outposts if that's easiest, but default us into an alliance. Let us form up, and do what we want to do.

At the moment, the game actively prevents us from playing together - and the change above is pretty much the only thing I think Sea of Thieves really needs. Additional content is all well and good - but this removes a big barrier for some of us.

Cheers all!
Cap'n Pharoah - Pioneer/Founder/Pirate Legend

@hynieth I can see the point but - matchmaking is currently based on 16 people, so a bigger ship means fewer ships per server. Then, there's the effort to actually build the model for a new ship, and the changes to the world to accommodate it if it's considerably larger. Introducing a larger ship type sounds like a LOT of work in comparison to my suggestion above.

I'd be happy if my suggestion was a half way house and bigger ships eventually came in too though! I just want to be able to play with all the people I know who want to play.

@octopus-lime OK, I may have the number of people incorrect - but the bigger ship meaning fewer ships per server point still stands.

I too want to add my piece of eight into this topic.

Allowing players to join other friend's games but on different ships and crews will only IMPROVE the player experience imo.