I'm coming at this from the perspective of someone who wishes to share guild experiences with an online community I've built, rather than what Rare has described Safer Seas as being a good fit for (i.e. family members). So I just want to convey that I think you have something here and you can build on it. But the official copy about this mode seems to say: this isn't exactly for you.
I'm really not interested in the debate about risk versus reward, nor am I interested in the opinion of PVP players who do not touch any of SoT's other content, as they do not face the risk versus rewards aspect of the game themselves as they need only jump on a ship with their crew and there's no prospect of losing hours and hours of progress.
What I want to speak about is how I think Safer Seas could be rebranded/ reassessed as a means for a larger number of players who all want to share a server to engage in the entire breadth of SoT's content (pvp included) but without one key aspect of the current High Seas experience, and that's random strangers.
Today we saw queues for players trying to get into Safer Seas servers for a maximum of four players! But if I was able to invite in more players then that's multiples of four all otherwise trying to get into their own games - instead playing together with me. I think this makes more sense personally and I would certainly feel way more comfortable engaging in PVP with players I actually know, and I would love to see that as an option in the future along with an increased player count. Perhaps with an ability even to invite another guild to play with you to spark some friendly rivalry.
I also think (and I concede there's some bias here as I'm thinking about my community) guilds and captaincy HAVE to make their way to Safer Seas. Not having multiple crews in one guild populating a server, all working towards common goals and milestones is such an incredible missed opportunity. The 30% cap needs to be lifted completely.
NOW, it's not my job to come up with solutions for the High Seas. There are plenty of Seasonal events Rare can think of, I'm sure, to encourage players onto the High Seas to encounter strangers and have that uncertainty about what's on the horizon. As for me, I remember back in the beta and the early stage of SoT where you could actually communicate and have a laugh with other players. I really really enjoyed that aspect of the game. It was a social thing as well. It was never too hostile.
The game today does not resemble what it once was and I know I'm not the only person who now wishes to avoid the current type of interactions you find in the High Seas altogether.
So my plea to Rare is to seize this opportunity with some gusto and stop fretting about how upset some players are going to be, to stop dragging your heels about this and make Safer Seas (I think you should change the name) as fun as it can be.
