Sea of Thieves versus Deep Rock Galactic

@wilbymagicbear

I don't know why you would compare the two games. Yes they are both co-operative games with up to 4 members and allow crossplay I guess. After that the games visions are very different.

Sea of Thieves sets everyone from day one on exactly the same play field. There are no upgrades, linear progression systems in place or classes and as such might feel for you as less than integral systems that keep expanding with new rewards and extensions. Those things by nature allow for different builds, you have different classes with all different roles etc. While in the sea of thieves, we are not defined by our loadout it is our own abilities and ingame choices that determines the pirate we are. Neither is better than another they are just different approaches to role models.

A game where people pick a role does have the ease of players knowing what they are supposed to be doing in a group... not having 3 helmsman and all steering the boat in different directions or 4 boarders while the ship sinks from a single hole while everyone is in the water. Making it easier without communication and coordination to move forward. Or the fact of having one joint objective... sea of thieves is a sandbox which means the crew can do what they want, but if nobody can agree on a common goal you don't get far. This is one of the most challenging aspects of open crews.

Then it is a shared world experience between the different crews that are cooperating, where how we respond and who we meet makes a difference. Where players are the main determining factor in the game session on the seas be it hostile or friendly. The mission, encounters with the environment are in the deep rock galactic the main factor of a session.

The world, landbased vs the seas. If you had any idea of the complexity of what water physics are you would understand that the accomplishments of Rare are quite impressive and where a lot of the development resources have been spent. It might seem like a small aspect but there thousands of hours to make the seas and the sailing be this fluid.

These are very different games in their core and both have a place. Whether you prefer one or the other is a personal preference. I don't think one is better or worse than the other, as their core experiences are structured in completely different ways as their focus is based on a different perspective and vision.

@wilbymagicbear said in Sea of Thieves versus Deep Rock Galactic:

@mr-dragon-raaar Not so much as a 'change the game' as it a 'If a tiny studio can do this, why can't Rare?'

Read my post, the fact that you respond to the guy commenting on my post, but don't bother taking that into account shows your intent to just be asking for the game to adapt to what you think the vision should be instead of willing to understand the differences between these two games.

Simple answer, it isn't that Rare cannot. It is that Rare has a different perspective on what the game is about; it is their product and therefore their vision is kind of paramount on what the game should be. Rather than what you believe it should be, which is a different type of game and experience.

I love DRG, I have around 100h put into it, but I would never compare it with SOT. Those are just 2 different games entirely.

Besides, I got bored of DRG after those 100h while with SOT, after one year, I keep playing it :)

@wilbymagicbear said in Sea of Thieves versus Deep Rock Galactic:

Sea of Thieves and Deep Rock Galactic are two of my favorite games. Under the surface, they're actually quite similar. Both are Xbox and PC exclusive cooperative social games with a focus on procedural generation and emergent gameplay. However, there are two main differences between the 2. First, Sea of Thieves (SoT) is made by Rare, which has 200 employees, decades of experience, marketing, and the funding of Microsoft. Deep Rock Galactic (DRG) is the first game made by Ghost Ship Games, a team of 18 people. The other difference is that Deep Rock Galactic is a better game by miles. Let's compare the two.

Monsters

For quantity, Deep Rock Galactic has 32 monsters, give or take 4 depending on how you see it. Sea of Thieves has 7-16 (I would argue 12.)

For quality, DRG is once again victorious. The Glyhpids, Macteras, Neyacodites and friends are all aesthetically pleasing, fun to fight, and have great counterplay. SoT’s skeletons feel awful. They are slow, spongy, hitscan slogs, and even the different kinds feel the same. Both SoT and DRG have non-regenerating health. The problem with SoT is that the skeletons are hitscan, so they will automatically damage you while you have to manually regenerate health using consumables. Day 1 game design here: DON'T DO THAT. There are no hitscan enemies in DRG, and every projectile is dogeable or destroyable. Of course, SoT does have sea monsters, all 3 of which are far better than the land faring skeletons. That said, the Megaladon and Kraken are both very simple and are sort of just cannonball sponges. The Skeleton Ship is great, as it can be approached in many different ways. If only every foe was like this.

Finally, synergy. Do the monsters work together and compliment one another? Can they be used against each other? Both games have this to some degree, but DRG is once again the better. In SoT, the only synergy is how melee skeletons shield both gun skeletons and players, the Megaladon biting Skeleton Ships, and Gunpowder Skeletons betraying their kind. In DRG, the synergy is frankly ridiculous. I've had a Qunaor Shellback knock me near a Bulk Detonator, only for a Mactera Grabber to carry me away, and drop me right beneath a Cave Leech. My teammate shot me free from the leech, only for me to land right next to the aforementioned Bulk Detonator, who promptly turned me into a puddle. This kind of thing happens all the time, and the enemies compliment each other so well that there's genuine strategy in which one you kill first. Goo Bombers and Shockers slow you down so Explodes can run up and do their job. Grabbers carry you off to their buddies. Brood Nexuses and Breeders pump out little guys who distract you while the big ones creep in. Once killed, Praetorians leave an area denying gas behind, but players can ignite it to explode on monsters passing through. Bulk Detonators can and will blow up their allies of you trick them. I could go on for pages, but you get the picture. The synergy in DRG is insane even just among the monsters.

Areas & Environment

Starting off with areas, DRG has 8, versus SoT’s 4. The only difference between 3 of SoT’s areas is simply that they look a little different. The Roar is a decently unique, it has volcanoes that completely stop the action, earthquakes with no counterplay, and some genuinely cool geysers.

In DRG, it's a different story. Every area has at least 3 unique aspects and 2 ores (except the Salt Pits and Crystal Caves) In the Glacial Strata, there's gel platforms, freezing mechanics, steam vents, gel stalactites, Mactera Ice Bombers, Glyphid Frost Praetorians, blizzards, and tidal shifts. The Fungus Bogs have sticky goop, poison plants, and shroom platforms. The Magma Core has lava geysers, earthquakes, and molten ground. Once again, I could go on for pages.

Another interesting thing is how DRG makes the environment a challenge. When you play on high cave complexity, it genuinely feels like the cavern itself is fighting you, with huge cliffs, chasms, crazy pillar formations, dirt blockage, and the like. Of course, DRG also provides you with the tools necessary to traverse it. While this is incomparable with SoT, it's just another thing DRG has that SoT doesn't.

Missions

Sea of Thieves makes a critical mistake. It doesn't understand that the objective itself is not what makes a quest good. It's the challenge along the way. SoT may have cool quests like following a riddle to find a chest, but the interesting bit is only objective deep. The actual doing of the mission is rather dull. DRG, on the other hand, understands the objective is the driving force behind the content, but not the content itself. “Extract 325 morkite” doesn't sound terribly exciting, but the process of doing so is. The extraction of morkite is simply a reason to fight massive swarms in chaotic caves with crazy equipment, not the experience itself.

DRG has 5 kinds of missions to SoT’s 3. Obviously, I just mentioned that the objective itself isn't too important, but DRG still has SoT beat here. The missions in DRG also have 5 modes of difficulty, from the mind numbingly easy hazard 1 to the terrifying hazard 5. In SoT, everyone has the same difficulty: Easy. The importance of customizable difficulty cannot be understated, and the same goes for providing challenge to experienced players.

Equipment

DRG has 24 pieces of equipment, all of which are ultra customizable, unique, and have deep skill gaps. A pair of drills don't seem like they'd be terribly complex or customizable, but I'm still learning neat tricks for them and trying new builds after hundreds of hours of playing Driller. Every gun and tool is like this. There’s also 12 unique grenades, and while they're not nearly as deep or customizable as the equipment, they're certainly better than SoT’s zero.

Meanwhile, SoT has 15 tools and 4 weapons. This might sound… decent, but the quality is non-existant. All the tools are too situational and simple to provide any real content or mastery. The shovel’s just for digging, the spyglass is just a spyglass, the fishing rod just fishes. There's nothing to work with here. The weapons are okay. The sword is actually quite in depth, though the blunderbuss somewhat negates it. The guns are passable. I really don't have anything to say about them. Hit-reg, double gunning, and the blunderbuss still need work, and that drives the weapons down quite a bit.

Story

In terms of tone, both games are silly, cartoony, teamwork experiences. They have their own settings, SoT being about (or trying to be about) pirates. DRG is about dwarves who fight bugs while mining in space. Unlike SoT, DRG also has a theme; Corporate greed.

SoT doesn't really have a story. They did… something with tall tales, but it all felt rather disconnected and the 8th one was the only tale I walked away from reflecting. Joe Neate’s always on about players making their stories, but SoT somewhat fails at that too. I hate to say it, but your crazy story about stealing fort loot and getting attacked by a Kraken and Skeleton Ship at the same time has happened ten thousand times over. DRG is kind of the same, but because the characters in the game actually speak and have personalities, it's still far more interesting. The Driller yelling at the Scout in the drop pod always gets a chuckle from me.

Both games try to establish camaraderie amongst team members. SoT does this with instruments and grog. DRG does this with salutes, beer, music, and revives. Problem is, SoT falls flat when it comes to creating a sense of union. I don't care about my crew, not unless their my already existing friends. With DRG, I genuinely feel attached to my team, despite the fact they were randoms without mics and often got me killed. Cheering, drinking, dancing, reviving, and kicking barrels with your team just feels so much more genuine and alive than robotically playing Bosun Bill for the 200th time ever could. (DRG even has more music tracks than SoT) Maybe this sense of comradery in DRG comes in part from the teamwork.

Cooperation & Emergence

4 dwarves are more than the sum of their parts. (As opposed to SoT, where 4 pirates are actually less than the sum of their parts.) For a classic example, the Engineer has a platform gun. He or she can shoot a platform beneath a high up ore. The Scout can then use his or her grappling hook to get up there and mine the ore. As individuals, they would have a very hard time getting this ore, but together, it's a walk in the park. This efficiency in teamwork applies to most things in DRG.

DRG is the second most emergent game I've ever played (Spelunky is the first.) The wide array of ultra customizable and powerful equipment, combined with crazy cave formations and horrible alien fauna (and flora) have crazy results that make every mission feel new. Joe Neate always talks a big game about emergence, but SoT doesn't really have a lot of it. If you think 2 ships teaming up when a Kraken shows up is emergence, then you've seen nothing yet.

Conclusion

You might be thinking ‘That's not what SoT is about! You're missing the point of the game!’ You might be right. I'm just comparing what should be the best of the industry to what actually is the best of the industry. But first off, the simple scale of DRG’s accomplishments compared to SoT is ludicrous. Why is a huge studio like Rare able to provide so little compared to a small studio like Ghost Ship Games?

Secondly, what is SoT about? What is the point of the game? It's not about cool voyages, they just recycle the same 3. It's not about awesome PvP, the combat is lackluster and buggy. It's not about teamwork, as it's genuinely more efficient to divide and conquer. It's not about comradery, as they are barely any means to express it. It's not about emergence, as most things have no synergy. It's not about progression, the only thing that changes is numbers. It's not about challenge, as everything has been made as easy as possible. What is Sea of Thieves about?

It's not like this in DRG. The game is about working together and using everything to overcome the environment and monsters. Deep Rock Galactic has a clearly established point. Sea of Thieves does not.

TLDR: Deep Rock Galactic is better than Sea of Thieves is almost every way.

i know this is a comparison but i'll have to do this because this topic is posted in the wrong place @Deckhands

@wilbymagicbear said in Sea of Thieves versus Deep Rock Galactic:

@cotu42 Their core, their asthetic of play, is the same; Social, cooperative, and emergent, or at least that's what Joe Neate's always on about. They appeal to the same things. However, DRG delivers on this asthetic much better, and with far less resources. Open world, closed world, assigned roles, chosen roles, pirates, dwarves, it doesn't matter. They're all mechanics to deliver on the same core.

On a side note, I don't care if the collective genius of mankind and the annual budget of the United States went into the water physics. My end user experience is "eh, the water looks nice. That's cool, I guess." If anyone is playing Sea of Theives for the water, I would strongly recommend a moving wallpaper instead.

Actually you missed the core of the seas being about player interaction. This is partially co operation with the crew, but also the ones with the people we meet out on the seas. This is a big difference between these two games. They both have a social aspect to them, yet the seas is about unlimited variety it isn't limited to playing co operative. It also allows for neutral, aggressive, sneaky, betrayals, etc. interactions based on the play style of the people. This is very different from Deep Rock Galactic from a main starting point with it's pure co operation idea.

The mechanics are also not trivial at all. It is what shapes the experience, the characteristic of the game. They are the most important part of any game and where the differences between the games become even more clear. Open world vs closed, objective based vs sandbox, single crew vs multi crew worlds, linear versus horizontal progression, class based system versus equality. These are all choices where the two games differ and that is because they suit themselves more towards the overall goal the game wants to achieve. None are wrong, all of them have their own positives and negatives and which you personally prefer is really just an opinion.

On your side note, it isn't just how it looks. It is how it reacts, plays and interacts with the world. You ask what Rare spent their effort on, cause you are bringing up the fact they are bigger and that is by development of a very complex system. You might not care how complex it is, but it doesn't make it less impressive and in a game where you spend 70% on the water is not a trivial thing either for this game. If they did a bad job on the water and sailing in a pirate game without spending the resources they had on it.... they are able to create this type of game cause they are bigger and have the man power to spend on these things.

In the end they wanted to create a pirate game, which means that we would be on the seas. If they placed us on land or underground it wouldn't be much of a pirate fantasy (also one of the key elements they wanted).

There are tons of games out there and many good ones. Just because they share some aspects at their core doesn't mean they are trying to achieve the exact same thing. This is why their choices in mechanics, world setting, graphical content, scale, player amounts, etc. are different. You state they don't matter, but they actually are the key factor in the way the game plays and what it achieves.

I also enjoy playing Rust, which is also about player interaction. Where player co operation is the best way to survive and make progress, yet this game is also very different from either of the games here.

Games that are multiplayer usually have some type of intention for player collaboration, but it isn't the only aspect of the vision. Sea of Thieves is mainly about the shared world experience, where crews of one to four players are thrown together and the interactions between them is what is at the core. Deep Rock Galactic is a team game where the core is to overcome the challenges with your crew. Similar yet very different, making one not better or worse than another; just two games that both have their own experiences to offer.

Nice long post but to be honest.. who cares? Im here for SoT not a game I have never heard of.

DRG is an amazing game in my current top alongside SOT, but they are way too different to be compared. DRG is a PVE coop game, mix of Left 4 Dead and minecraft, with weapon and character skill progression...

What is the point of this post? What is the point of comparing 2 different games that are not even close to the same. I’m just gunna randomly compare Skyrim and crash bandicoot for no reason. This post is not even beneficial it’s like. 12 paragraph article on how this guy likes deep rock better.

@andyxxpanda1290 As OP said, this is more of a 'If a tiny studio can do this, why can't Rare?' post.

I've played DRG for ~650 hours and Sea of Thieves for 2-3x that amount and yeah, SoT is shallow from a mechanical standpoint, especially when compared to DRG. Sea of Thieves is still my favourite game, but damn I'm convinced that my love for it is simply carried by my fascination with all things pirate.

I'd say it's still fair to compare the two if you're discussing the developers' visions. Sea of Thieves was "open-world pirate game: aesthetics first" (at least after the Unity prototype) and Deep Rock Galactic was "dwarf-space-mining-coop-wave-shooter: mechanics first". It really shows. Rare approached game feel by looks and Ghost Ship approached game feel by making the shoot/synergy do good.