The Hourglass Changes introduced in Season 19 are an improvement. Good job Rare.
Not exactly worth one entire month of improvement, but at least it's a net positive.
With the rest of this "Season" (3 loosely connected minor updates don't exactly make for a compelling season y'know) looking equally barren,
I think It's high time for Rares upper management to finally get their act together enough to actually decide what they even want to do with Sea of Thieves.
(Hi Mike! I know you probably won't read this but this is for you!)
Seasons:
I think I speak for the majority of the community when saying that the last couple seasons really aren't living up to expectations.
Seasons were already a hard sell back then but at least they came with the promise of frequent, substantial content drops, although not as significant as previous large updates.
Nowadays though we are getting content that would have been embarrassing for a weekly update back in the day, frequently delayed on top of that.
I think RARE should seriously reconsider their seasonal model entirely.
- Make Seasons last longer if necessary
- Implement more old events into new Seasons when they fit the theme
- Decouple Plunder Pass and Emporium from the Seasonal Model
- Have at least one MAJOR thing each season (Maybe Pirate's Life Level of Effort)
Story
Sea of Thieves had a Story. While for the first years you could relive the story whenever you wanted through Tall Tales, most of the Story over the last 5 years has been made completely inaccessible.
This is a serious letdown and I've long since given up hope that the stories I missed will be added as Tall Tales. Making some of these old Adventures open again, even for a limited time, would be pretty nice. And after all, you made them, only for them to collect dust now.
Factions
No new factions please. The introduction of the Smugglers was already unnecessary enough.
Most, if not all of the older factions feel forgotten, as most have not received significant content updates in years.
And no, giving every faction an escalating number of Rings to buy is not a major overhaul.
The World REvolving
When was the last time the world underwent major changes? I'd personally point to New Golden Sands.
I am well aware that there have been a lot of minor developments to areas of the world since then, especially to the Devils Roar lately, but the world still feels almost the same as 5 years ago.
The Tradeoff for Time Limited Stories should have been a majorly changing world, but it also barely changed aside from shuffling a few NPCs around and Duke somehow getting relocated 29 times.
One of my major gripes is that Reapers Hideout is still just a Tent with a large Basement, when there is no reason it shouldn't also be a massive fortress by now.
The things you could be doing with the Islands are limitless. Set up Outposts, Structures, Put some Lava where it doesn't belong, Sea Crawler Dens, Farms, whatever.
The Sea is always Right empty
For being a major trading hub for at least 5 factions the Sea of the Sea of Thieves is still really empty.
No Faction ships (you can rob), no Warships protecting their goods, No Rowboats or NPC Fishers.
Adding literally any of those can't be too hard, no?
Drowning in Gold
Stop releasing nothing but reskinned shipsets that you can buy with gold.
Give me something actually fun I can spend gold on that ISN'T Locked behind doing the same event 25 Times, Backwards.
And stop locking all the good looking cosmetics in the emporium. Or just Make them purchasable with Ancient Coins OR Gold.
IN SUMMARY
So if the rumours are true and the GMU is supposed to be the focus of Season 20 (And 20 is a nice number to do something big), here's what could / should happen:
- Take some more time to make this season a BIG one. Fill the space inbetween by rotating old events, and if it takes really long, just sell another Plunder Pass.
- Bring in the GMU with a Bang. NPC Ships, Outposts on Islands, One MASSIVE new Trading hub for the GMU, new Quests, new Stories.
- Fortify the Reapers Hideout as Flameheart prepares for all out War to claim the Sea of Thieves as his.
- Focus on the Trading companies that give out new missions to sabotage the GMU.
- Potentially add in more Ships,
- definitely add in New Enemies
- and New Events
And most important of all. Don't screw this up. Microsoft is already in a bad mood right now, losing Billions on Copilot and all that.
It would be a shame if Sea of Thieves eventually succumbs to apathy and disinterest.
You can still turn the ship around.
(Why is B*mmer considered a forbidden word)
