Sept Dev Update feedback

@r3vanns better late than never 😇

I can't wait for Athenaware to become a SoT partner. It's not cheats anymore it uhhh..... Accessibility settings... Yeah... that...

@d3adst1ck The casual players keep the game going a hell of a lot more than the hardcores. There are nowhere near as many hardcores. When you sail how many swabby crews do you encounter? I bet its more than the amount of even half skilled crews you encounter.

i just want to know will my long lost premade will make a return he installed a cheat that allowed him to get 3 or 4 old items on his account

@potatosord You might not agree with me but this is a good change for casual players, I often hear new players complaining about how clunky combat is in sot. This puts everyone on an even level without the need to read the ancient book of knowledge to know the correct sequence of button presses to use a gun

Changing FoV settings to match the 10+ year industry standard.

Making the gunplay smoother and consistent so brand new players can shoot as fast as any other player without some wacky sprint tap, crouch tap, delay swap etc.

Somehow you are mad about this.

@rambobrad This is a change that rewards players who took advantage of exploits by making their exploits free, it harms players who have jobs and don't spend a huge portion of their life on this game. It's not about some magical sequence of buttons that make your gun go faster, it's about players who already sweat at the game being rewarded for their sweating by making the gameplay worse for everyone else. Are they going to make eating faster? Are they going to make swapping to food items faster? If not, then this change also ruins food as a concept.

@potatosord You press 1, click then press 2 and click. You don't have to quit your job and play Sea of Thieves 16 hours a day.

@rambobrad Oversimplifying it to the point of leaving out details doesn't strengthen your point...

@potatosord No the update they have in mind will make it exactly that...

They're just adding what PvPers asked for years ago lol. Higher FOV & smoother combat aren't things that only cheaters will appreciate. I'm indifferent about the ban reversals.

I was planning to come back on occasion for TDM Mode Safer Seas Fleets, but a less clunky SoT might bring me back sooner & more frequently.

@theblackbellamy Why not just add funny launch back then? These are things that have always been considered cheats and exploits, and as such, ARE cheats and exploits, but they don't care because they keep adding terrible things to the game expecting players to want them and then "fixing" their issues by making the game worse again.

@potatosord said:

Why not just add funny launch back then? These are things that have always been considered cheats and exploits, and as such, ARE cheats and exploits, but they don't care because they keep adding terrible things to the game expecting players to want them and then "fixing" their issues by making the game worse again.

In general, just because something was traditionally a certain way, doesn't mean it will always be that way. Plenty of things were once historically illegal, and are no longer illegal, because society evolved. This is Rare's game, and they get to decide what is cheating/exploiting, and what isn't.

Higher FOV benefits everyone. Smoother combat while swapping weapons benefits everyone. We'll have to agree to disagree that either would "make the game worse."

Funny launch mostly just benefitted chasing parties over running parties. It was also was way more game breaking (and specs/FPS-prohibitive) than quick-scope ever was. To imply otherwise seems like a huge false equivalence. Rare seems to be making these changes intentionally. They're not just reintroducing every exploit in some slippery slope.

Quickswap... All it means is that exploit cheaters will try to make the switching even faster. Once a cheater, always a cheater. If it feels smoother for the rest of us, fine. But with the TTK lowered so much, maybe they should revert the blunderbuss. I don't use it, but that was the argument for the change. And if I'm going to die so fast to a quickswap, it may as well be a one tap from a blunderbuss... I'd take that over the ridiculous knockback.

The FOV change is... fine. I don't like how the game looks at 110 as the fisheye effect is nauseating and ugly. But 100 seems about right. Each to their own. For most people, it's not going to make you play any better... and will likely impact performance.

But I do agree with the general sentiment that lately it seems Rare are capitulating to cheaters by just giving them everything they cheated to get, and that does send the wrong message, in my opinion.

In general, it feels like Rare are leaning more towards the PvP combat side of things, over the social sandbox, and we'll see how that plays out for the longevity of the game.

it does make people play better sort off, more FOV means you can play lower sens means you can aim better. but watever. im just here to see people cope that .4 seconds is the reason they get sunk. QS has been the scapegoat for the casual community and im rly happy rare has decided to revert the changes and has come up with a better solution that should benefit the whole community. i dont get how people can be mad about this.

The game is deeply unpopular at this point. Steam chart numbers are in the gutter, I am constantly seeing former SoT creators playing different games, to the point I forget they played SoT in the first place, I and 80% of everyone I know quit the game. I think changing it up and actually encouraging and reinforcing the unique PvP this game provides is a good thing. Many many people quit because PvP was considered the "enemy" and treated as such by Rare. If they can make it fun again, or even more fun than it was, the game will likely bounce back quite a bit.

@fysics3037

I would argue a lot of creators left because they found the lack of social interaction since Season 11 boring. Quite a lot of them leaned heavily into interacting with other crews and diving has killed off server investment.

There's also the big shift towards encouraging players to always combat, rather than the game theory that made Sea of Thieves unique for years. There's nothing really special about Sea of Thieves in that regard anymore.

@realstyli I see that, S11 really hurt the game IMO. PvE wasn't ever good and then they just made "PvE on demand" which exposed how boring it was to everyone. Idk about your second point though, the best option was kind of always just to attack people, most just weren't good enough to pull it off successfully. However, I think it is harder to set up alliances and play alongside other players because of the server migration in this game. So another L from S11.

@fysics3037

And they also standardised the loot in Season 11, so everything became super predictable. There's no excitement even finishing that PvE because 9/10 you know exactly what loot you'll get.

When you think about what's popular now, it's events/voyages where they have random drops and a chance of scoring big: Mega Stash Forts, Voyage of Luck, Pop-Up Plunder, etc... Whether it's a good thing or a bad thing in gaming, the dopamine hit of a surprise is real.

Going back to game theory, a lot of players are drawn to those strategic and psychological interactions. There's a rush to be had from the tension over whether to trust or betray. True, it was often better to betray, but not always and there were events built around co-operation with the option to betray at the end (The Hungering Deep, for example). And they were often the most fondly-remembered.

But that was when server investment was high, crews would stay together on the same server for hours, and the same dilemma doesn't exist now since Season 11. Now, it's almost always more beneficial to just sink everyone.

@realstyli yep. I think S11 was not what the game needed at the moment, and it's lasting impact has been mostly negative.

I don't understand what the problem is. FOV to you might look ugly but to many it looks and feels miles better. It was a cheat but should've just been added back in 2020. In terms of QS, it's a cheat now but was also in the gamr basically since release, having many changes along the way, and the form it's being added back in we had for around 4 years. We know how it played and will play out and during its time, most people's problem with it was it was an exploit. Now it isn't an exploit as the original method now provides 0 advantage.

Oh and the unbans. People who deserve to be banned are staying banned, but many many many players, especially years ago around 2020, were banned for very questionable reasons. It's been nearly 6 years since then. Why not give then a second chance, especially seeing as a lot should've never been banned on the first place.