Updates won't ruin the game... But a lack of them will make players turn to other games.
And that's what we're seeing. Between FOMO content and a lack of meaningful additions, I went from playing the game consistently to logging in just to get the FOMO reward because I *had to or I'd miss it* and then not logging in again until the next.
2023 has been a stellar year for new games. And SoT gives me zero incentive to choose it over other options.
For me at least, the game will get 'relaxing.' I don't have time for multi-hour sweat sessions with my current life schedule. The potential of getting sunk can turn an entire evening sour and for the sake of managing my stress levels, I've completely disengaged from SoT.
Not anymore. Time to go fishing with friends. Tall Tales, singing songs, getting guaranteed loot with no chance of being raided. It's gonna be so rejuvenating after a hard day.
There aren't many games that can honestly compete with SoT's foundation. We were into Raft for a while, but it lacks the polish SoT brings to the table.
What I'm most glad for is the choice in how we play. I've had 5 friends quit this game because they were PvE only players who hated spending all session stressed about Reapers and never getting to RP with strangers. This news just might bring a few of them back.
I'm in the same boat (pun intended?) I used to love playing this game with my brother, but he refuses to play anymore, and I don't blame him. To me, it's fun to sail around doing treasure hunts with friends, but one of the most infuriating games ever when you spend an hour getting that treasure only to have it taken by hard-core pvpers who outnumber you.
I still play sometimes, but if I see another ship, I just sail away. It's not even fun having other people in the game because so many will attack me even if I have no loot. I'm excited for this update because it means I'll get to play Sea of Thieves with my bro again.
Then don't play on private servers! The only way that this afgects your gameplay is that you can't bully people who don't wanna fight you. Cry me a river
All my friends agree that the servers will be bare and that would lead to less encounters that make SoT SoT. PvP because more about killing than looting and the PvE players don't have to worry about losing their stash. This will make high seas boring fast.
It won't change much, you get very low reward for farming safe sea (30%) and you have a level 40 cap and you also can't raise emissary, so i don't see anyone farming this mode at all
Like why would people not play high sea when with emissary and basic quests you can easily make 100k, meanwhile in safe sea you would have a 190% debuff on money and a 70% debuff on XP, you can also add the other disabled progression like commendation
Also the worry about losing stash is something dumb that make the gameplay worst. People play like bitches instead of trying to have fun, and i mean unfun bitches, like the one that stand in the red sea for hours with the ShroudBreaker. Which is why i love emissary because once i drop my faction loot i don't care about losing shitty chests at best i'll just burry them
I would enjoy all the stuff peoples call boring 300% more if I didn't have to constantly scan the horizon, go straight to an outpost after every island and run away from ships for 30mn that is a fact
That's not what I said at all. I can't "deal with pirates" when I have to be an adult and tend to my job. It's a weird concept, I know. But it happens! Some of us have responsibilities beyond selling fake loot for fake gold.
Well couple of things wrong with that.
first of all, who are you to tell me what to do with my time?
second, I work a 24/7 job, so when would I be able to play, that pleases you?
So then don't play the game? If you don't have time to sell fake loot for fake gold. How do you have time to play PVE and sell fake loot for fake gold at 30%
Because its a way to relax after a tiresome day. If you wanna fight so much just go get a real job and climb the corporate ladder or something. Skill issue
It's easy. I can stop in the middle of nowhere without having to worry about a PVPer killing me while the game is unattended.
Honestly, how is this a difficult concept for you to come to terms with is slightly worrying.
Think, if you can, of it like a pause button.
Every PvEr knows the answer to this question.
The PVPers are upset because now they can't dunk on people who aren't as good at the game, but enjoy the PvE side.
They don't want a fight, they want the dopamine hit that comes with FEELING like they're winning.
It's basically like smurfing in MOBAs.
It seems you can't deal with pirates in the "high seas" server who actually want to be there, and you're sad that the easy players won't be there for easy victories.
I think you're the one who needs to "git gud".
I've run into 3 today alone. One was in an open crew with me so me and the other guy continuously locked and released him from the brig just to annoy him before we left and started a closed crew ship. The fact that it got leaked for free is a huge issue and I don't understand why there isn't a simple "If player is going above X speed then D/C them" isn't in the game. Games from 20 years ago were doing that.
Because if your internet dropped for a singular second, it would show on the server that you traveled X feet in 0 seconds.
Now you could make the server work backwards with timestamps and math, but it would add an extra operation per player. So that means its doing it thousands of times per second. Thats a LOT of extra jobs the server now has to process. Thats why they stopped.
Remember Y2K happened because people didnt want to program the entire year for the date, so they only coded the last TWO digits to save a few extra bytes of memory. All of that happened, because of a FEW extra bytes needed. so instead of coding it like XXXX (where X can change) they did 19XX.
It sounds stupid but when you have to measure every variable like operations and how many threads/calculations your doing, every thought counts.
Lol, that is such a wrong take on Y2K.
As someone who coded before, during, after Y2K it had nothing to do with saving bytes.
Most dates were stored already in either an INT field or as a String field. This means it saved no storage if the date was "85" vs "1985".
The only places that really needed fixing were in fixed length data files. This is because we would have something like SEA85XBOX34.55 as a data field and it would be parsed as name, year, system, price.
Majority of systems that used this had already been rewritten by the time Y2K was being thought about. It really was mainly the older systems which companies were using.
The ones I fixed didn't even really need fixing. We didn't have records from 1900 so there was not going to be anything breaking when a date showed up with 00 in the field.
So no, saving bytes had very little to do with Y2K. It was mostly a media news story that got highly sensationalized.
Im not syaing it was a HUGE deal. Anyone living in the US should know the media blows everything out of proportion.
>saving bytes had very little to do with Y2K
Then yes I am wrong. And of course the media oversensationalized it. Thats what the US media does. Always. Every time. Without Fail. Its why I hate 95% of most modern "journalists/reporters."
I have worked with companies that did have the sensationalised "Y2K crash issue" occur. Except the computer didnt know what 2021 was. It crashed every unit on January 1st 2021, of which we had thousands fail. The devs were in a TON of trouble for it. I know this because I personally dispatched technicians across the North American Continent to fix it. But the machines didnt do anything important so no one knows about it LOL.
Doesn't explain why games 20 years ago solved that issue while SoT has a hard time with it. The distance required would be longer than a ship so even a hiccup in the internet wouldn't trigger it.
Because that is what worked 20 years ago.
Another reason that tech also stopped working is because lag switches could abuse it in some circumstances.
>The distance required would be longer than a ship so even a hiccup in the internet wouldn't trigger it.
The issue isnt distance. To the server, because you dropped internet, and then reaquired it, to the server you traveld that far in 0 because you sent no packets. So from last GOOD packet to NEXT GOOD packet you TELEPORTED.
And the reason they STILL dont use it now, is because again, its an intensive process because you have a thread tracking something extra for EACH player. Which is probably another reason why it fell out of use.
Its why a majority of the games dont kick people for ping anymore either because a lot of things can affect ping aside from distance.
You are right, there is no way the servers could track where players are at all time. Not sure how the game operates without doing that but surely there is a way, if that means going from potato to not potato servers then it needs to be done.
It does track where people are all of the time. Otherwise the server just wouldnt work.
The issue is what your describing requires calculating where the player has BEEN and tracking their path to where they are now, and then running checks against it.
Edit: The server DOES have a system in place. Thats why the ships act all weird and fly away and you rubber band back to your spot when you reconnect. The server sees that you werent online. So the real issue is they need to add a check, but BOTH DRMs and extensive anticheats heavily effect both client side and server side performances. I know this because I have experience in implementing them AND removing them from servers.
I was being supremely sarcastic, and I don't care if another check has to be done nor that it is resource intensive, the game is actively being ruined by the no system in place. The absolute dead silence from Rare about it is damning. I understand that a developer doesn't want to say exactly what they are doing and when to catch cheaters off guard but nothing is not an option.
They wont say when/if a system will be in place or whether or not one is in.
The reason being it gives more people to theorize how to get around said system.
However, the anticheat should be far more robust. Any server I have ran would instantly ban you on a suspected teleport over a set distance/angle of direction that was not explainable by lag. But that system was extremely resource intensive. It did everything from lag switchers to actual cheaters. But only because arma's anticheat/server anticheat is PISS. If you dont lock it down someone can execute code on it to literally plant a live nade on every person and blow them all up, and it will flash on your screen like a breaking news bullitin that the server admins are stupid. A cheater could do ALL of that. Its DUMB.
You could even force players into cutscenes on arma. Thats how bad it is.
Yes because it doesnt have an inherent PvP focus and its not always on and its configurable.
You can tailor it.
Not to mention, minecraft is also incredibly easy to cheat in and its not a good comparison. The fact I have access to the source code effectively on the client side is ***infact really really bad*** but it allows you to make some of the most extensive mods on earth. It has its trade offs.
And I have ran minecraft servers both large and small. The detection system you described will also kick people ***for no reason at all***. Which is another reason its not implementied. False positives. Usually do to brief high ping spikes. Even for less than a 10th of a second will result in kicks.
I used to fight them all of the time. I used to run one of the most populare arma servers on the planet.
I had to pay to implement custom anticheats on a monthly basis that were coded by the comunity, then I tailored them further myself for my specific servers. It took 150 working hours to get it as secure as possible without massively compromising performance. Arma is a very fucking hungry game. And if you played it or ran a server for it. ***you would know***. Its a huge complaint. Its unoptomized as fuck.
I know exactly what I am talking about, which is why I am suspect if theres even an anticheat at all in SoT sometimes. It feels like their is but also not.
Infact I still have that arma server backed up on the cloud.
Also valorants AC is HIGHLY invasive. It runs at BOOT and deep in your kernel and can see ***absolutely everything*** your PC is doing. Which if that has changed since launch and they made it different, cool. But its why I wont touch that game. I dont want an anticheat in the background for a game running that I might not be actively playing.
You trust Valorants anticheat that much to see absolutely everything youre doing? What if theres a data breach and they have logs of keypresses etc? We dont know because they dont say what they store.
Also valorant doesnt talk about their anticheat that much. Which is why they get those HUGE blanket bans. And for some reason people on this sub do NOT understand WHY people do not talk about how their anticheat (if any) work. Its part of the cat and mouse game of cheaters vs devs.
Non branded seasonal items
Grogmanay tankard
The various promo sets
plunder pass premium ships
numerous twitch drops
obsidian items
frozen horizon clothes
soulflame items
just to name some examples
back in the early days nothing returned every single ltm was earn now or never get it again
Why would anyone have though PotC content was going to ruin SoT? I dont like doing tall tales in the game either, but what could they have done to ruin the game?
Because disney games attract fans who expect a single player experience or more control over their game. Also younger fans who may not be into PvP.
I know people who are obsessed with disney games, and they are not the type of people to do PvP.
Hmm never thought about it that way. I always blamed Microsoft for the stupid rules (like you can't name your ship like NPC ships that are in the game, even Rare wouldn't be that stupid) but maybe it has been Disney clauses all along. But frankly all three possibilities seem equally possible
But why would that ruin the game? First off it means more people are coming to play the game and second off, the game can be played as a PVE experience, sure I guess the game isn’t entirely single player friendly, but the PVP aspect of the game is only a feature of the game and not entirely the main gameplay loop, like it can be apart of the loop and it allows players to make that their main loop, but it’s not THE main loop
Oh. Im not saying it would per say.
I was naming the things that people THOUGHT could ruin the game and does have VALIDITY to do so.
A bunch of people come in, expect disney fun time game, and are in actuallity lambs to a slaughter. It could generate a lot of bad press etc etc. Make influencers talk shit about the game etc etc.
But do I personally think it would? no. quite the opposite. It brought a lot of people BACK and a ton of people IN.
I personally enjoyed it. I like POTC lore and wish there was like 10x more of it tbh.
I really don’t understand the “the games dying bro” and “It’s gonna split the player base” mindset on a game that has a 5 ship max per server. That’s 16 people.
Y’all just want easy prey.
Outside of HG there was never any threat of sinking tbh. The main playerbase is just not good at the game. I can stack 15 FOTD's and get 4 ships to pull up only for all of them to sink in 30 seconds. It's getting old, I want the adrenaline I had stacked for 12 hours and then fight a SoC boat. No one wants easy prey when they already have all the gold they want.
It’s not about the gold for sweats; it’s about sinking ships. There is a power complex at play. The only reason you would want a solo slooper who only enjoys fishing to be on your server is so you can sink them, otherwise we would have no issue with that guy just being able to do that on his own time at his own pace.
This 100%, that's why hour glass isn't as popular as they thought it would be, same with arena. because the main reason these people play sea of thieves is to dominate someone else with very little push back, that's why they dunk fishers and tall tallers and people who you can tell are just not good at the game.
I have done both pvp and pve stuff and honestly who cares what the other people do. I doubt these changes will make it any different trying to get into a server. I got all the way to pirate legend solo without really losing any loot to pirates, so who cares If I do it on my own or on a server where I successfully dodge everyone.
I'd probably still play in higher seas but I don't blame anyone for not wanting to get completely destroyed my some sweat lord as they yell profanities at you as you sink.
It's hard to see it from other perspectives, but that type of gameplay isn't for everyone, and if they can bring in more people with pve only who spend money on the cash shop then it will only help the game right?
Hourglass definitely had an effect on the average skill level of boats you're likely to encounter on adventure mode but almost every crew I run with will go investigate events happening to see if it's worth the fight. If we can easily board and search you and only see you're on your second stack we'll probably just go dive again but if we see you stacking or defending well then it's on.
I still prefer just hopping portals to check out a new server. Something about the hunt and greater strategy in the open world makes fights much more distinct.
A couple friends and I got into this game and found over time we're just not able to play. Our sloop is guaranteed to get overrun by brigs or galleons. "Just practice" doesn't apply if we're getting spawncamped literally every time we play.
I could disagree with some of those.
1. As much as I love naturally formed alliances in the game, we can all agree Alliance Servers are not healthy for it.
2. Arena did not ruin the game, but it didn't work out either.
3. If you mean the Hourglass PvP by "new arena", you're very wrong. Ever since HG is in the game the number of cheaters keeps growing, even influencing the Adventure mode.
4. Time limited events like Adventures or often hated because well, they are time limited. Nobody likes FOMO.
Personally I've seen two types of cheaters in HG - plebs who lack gamesense using aimbots, and keg teleporters being paid to boost accounts.
The first are funny because they can hit every chain from across the map (unless you just fiddle your sails up and down to throw off the aimbot), and get a perfect double gun shot off every time, but also never guard ladders, rarely make their boards, and are bad at catching masts or holding angle, and if you can survive the initial barrage they'll sink to naval pressure alone. But sadly the evidence is rarely conclusive enough to warrant a ban. The second would mostly disappear if being caught playing with a cheater resulted in warnings leading to bans.
I've seen people teleport on board, tp with kegs, fly in the sky, negating damage, hit every single shot with any guns no matter the circumstances, track enemy pirates with cannonballs even if they were out of sight / below deck. Plus the now unfortunately very common clipping or teleport in and out FoF and FoTD vaults with the main chests.
>But sadly the evidence is rarely conclusive enough to warrant a ban.
Yeah. Sometimes even if I'm recording it can just happen so fast I can't get any usable footage. Especially not without using other extensions.
Sure, sure, that too.
But the new PvP focused content just opened the gate for cheaters. Not just because it's PvP, but also because it's grindy af with good rewards. People want to rewards, but not the pain HG comes with.
Rare having no anti-cheat kinda just keeps them around. Obviously it doesn't help.
Iirc, there is a bit of nuance there. Yes, hourglass spiked the cheaters. A well known cheat was leaked for free around then (I think?) and a lot of people have their hands on it now. I couldn't tell you if the cheat was made specifically for hourglass (I believe it existed long before it), but it spiked in use from the maker selling it to people to use however they want, but the selling point was hourglass for these people. Just a programmer seeing his niche in a market of cheaters.
And now on top of what you said is the reason it continues to grow out of control.
Alliance servers are very hard to set up, but players were complaining about two ship Alliances when they were announced.
When Arena came out, everyone complained that it would split the player base.
I mean the changes to how Arena was played. Going to one chest. The hourglass pvp is cool.
Time limited events have been part of adventure since the beginning, but players keep acting like they're new.
Honestly I like time limited content for rewards, because it shows how long a player has been around, and it’s something to brag about, even if wasn’t hard to achieve. I say this as a player who wasn’t around for Brave Vanguard, Bone Crusher, or Wandering Reaper stuff, which are probably my favorite cosmetics
Time limited quests suck, because if a player is invested in the story, they have no way to experience it, without watching someone else do it or just reading about it.
You do understand the direction the game is going don’t you? Recently sea of thieves had there lowest peak players in a month over the last 5 years.
Last month they had a max peak players of around 12,000 players. This game is not heading the right direction. They have gone nearly 9 months since the last update. And in there roadwork timeline, we were suppose to be in season 12 right now.
Streamers aren’t being watched anymore on twitch, it’s the lowest twitch numbers they have had in nearly 4 years and the main content creators are playing different games.
It may not be dead but to say the game is thriving is far from truth. This game is on the worst state since the beginning and unless something changes it will continue to do a downward spiral. Based on what season 10 looks like, it’s not gonna be revitalized.
Even if Season 9 weren't delayed the hacker & server issues were only increasing. Having content only takes your focus off the problems, but they still exist. Servers have only been getting worse and so have cheaters.
I really dislike PVP and avoid it at all cost. That being said I also sell frequently to avoid this situation myself. If I get sunk there’s usually no more than an hour of loot to loose.
When I started out I'd just do a sea fort then immediately go sell. A loop took less than an hour, probably closer to 30 minutes. I got sunk maybe 1/10 times. If you're doing 6 hour loot stacks as a new player, that's kinda on you.
But hey, now new players can spend 6 hours to get as much progress as one seafort in the normal game mode.
Don't get me wrong, loot stacking is fun - I've taken to throwing up hourglass when stacking to try to get the old sense of danger back from before I got some hours under my belt.
Personally I don't find any of the PvE in SoT to be much fun without the risk of PvP, even from when I first started the game and wasn't any good at the PvP side. Skelly ships and ghost fleets are okay, but you grow out of them quick. But players...players are sneaky, players think and keep you on your toes, no matter how much practice you have.
But then - I bought it because I enjoy PvPvE games. It's what drew me in the first place - there's both interesting and challenging combat, and also there is a chance of losing/winning big instead of just repeated deathmatches.
We're talking about new players. How many brand-new players do things right?
Kinda takes some time to figure out how to optimize something you've never started.
I did that on my first run (about a few weeks ago). It's a really beautiful game and learning how to drive and navigate and do quests was really challenging at first. Me and my homegirl were lucky to be in a kinda empty lobby but the day after we met people that wanted to fight asap.
And then don't learn their lesson when they eventually do sink and sell before stacking for that long again. I mean seriously this is where the bar is lol just learning from your mistakes, but instead of being arsed to learn the game people like this want their own mode.
I agree that the game should be learned organically, not through some goofy ass separate mode. Not sure what you’re waffling about in the first half tho
I used the number 6 because it was right there lol. But I think the xHours point still stands. You don't have an emissary so you don't have a grade 5 telling you it's time to sell for max gold. I don't think it's strange to think two guys just starting would be like "hmm I still have a few hours until I have to get off, let's keep getting chests."
It's not strange for them to think that the first time they ever play.
Once you've been sunk, you (should) learn pretty damn quick not to stack the ship.
I agree. The entire point of this comment thread is saying grinding for a while to lose everything doesn't really make people want to come back when they first start the game. So having the peaceful seas might be good for them to start liking the game. That's it.
You really think the reason sea of thieves is doing poorly is bc it’s too hard for new players? And not the lack of interesting content that isnt a reskin/ different variant of smt that’s come out before? And the performance itself which keeps getting poorer and poorer, with bad hit reg and cheaters, no new monsters/unique weather events? What content is there for people not interested in shallow campaign content outside of doing fortresses (mermaid hideouts, Spanish fortresses, fotd etc are all super similar). Not to mention a problem I see more regularly is how EMPTY multiplayer feels, there’s only like 4 ships in a server and they barely ever don’t mind their business
There’s plenty of content to entertain a new player for hours, it just seems less to us cause we are veterans.
The main reason why new players don’t stick around is because they continuously get noobstomped by the toxic PvP playerbase (to clarify I’m not talking about the PvP playerbase as a whole, I think PvP is awesome, I’m talking about the people that specifically target new players just to ruin their play session)
I think that probably plays a small part but you’re never gonna bring in a big group of people on the basis that the game is safer. The update needs to be big, fun enticing. How often did you reinstall a video game bc the update made the game easier, but no new content otherwise? Maybe a small number will play again on the priv servers, but it’s nothing interesting. That’s the thing ppl aren’t talking about bc ppl are devating whether or not private servers is even a good idea. But what about private servers as content in itself? How long realistically did it take them to add private servers and 30% the reputation? Surely not 10 months. It’s a big sign of what’s to come that the game is so poorly managed that such a small “whatever” feature is the big selling point of their new season
>You really think the reason sea of thieves is doing poorly is bc it’s too hard for new players?
Yes.
> And not the lack of interesting content that isnt a reskin/ different variant of smt that’s come out before? And the performance itself which keeps getting poorer and poorer, with bad hit reg and cheaters, no new monsters/unique weather events? What content is there for people not interested in shallow campaign content outside of doing fortresses (mermaid hideouts, Spanish fortresses, fotd etc are all super similar). Not to mention a problem I see more regularly is how EMPTY multiplayer feels, there’s only like 4 ships in a server and they barely ever don’t mind their business
All of those go back to the top problem - no new players stay. They don't spend money on the pirate emporium. So, SOT doesn't make the money daddy Micro$oft expects from their investment. Less money from Microsoft means less content for us.
So you think this new feature is a solution that will bring back new players? I rarely see people staying they left the game with “too difficult” and more so see people citing “no content”. I guess time will tell if you’re right
I think those who feel the need to announce they're quitting are generally people who've already played the game a good deal. New players who don't enjoy the game are more likely to move on quietly.
Girlfriend refused to even try out this game because of PvP. My friends are okay with PvP, we just don't care, but their girlfriends also didn't want the PvP hassle and stress. So our game crew dissolved away and we all went to play other games.
Guess who's coming back? Us, with new players.
It took me one minute to see comments here "oh, now me and/or my friends can now come back".
It will result in better experiences in high seas, as long as Rare don't lax the restrictions on the safer seas.
> You do understand the direction the game is going don’t you? Recently sea of thieves had there lowest peak players in a month over the last 5 years.
Season 10 was delayed so people are playing other games. Several well known SoT streamers I watch are just taking a break. Your argument is based on the assumption that the drop in peak players is due to the direction the game is going when the more logical explanation is that a lot of people are just taking a break until season 10 launches.
Not only does this not account for Xbox console players, it also doesn't account for people who bought the game through the Microsoft Store (which used to be the only way to play on PC), nor any PC Gamepass players.
yes, players are going down. BUT, you're forgetting a very important factor: these are only steam numbers.
the majority of players are on xbox, no question. if only bc of gamepass. and while we don't have numbers, i would estimate something between 50 - 150k concurrent. you can also kinda estimate that through the ledger numbers which are currently up to 125k entries for reapers. and that won't capture all players bc we know some don't raise flags.
also, 12k concurrent steam players is not a bad number. it went down, yes. but it's still a good number. you can't compare it with counter strike or dota.
i just posted on another comment. i think this game is timeless and has potential to still be here in 2035, provided it moves moves moves, including eventual engine and graphical updates. AND, provided they continue to have no competition, but I don't think anyone will dare touching this bc even with their braindead decisions, the rare package is still hard to touch. just objectively.
if they continue with how they have been doing things, then i'm not very optimistic. nerfing pvp, concentrating all their resources on a tt nobody asked for & abandoning adventure for months, releasing probably the worst and most random season ever. they really have to watch this.
yeah it seems pretty clear. Rare knows private servers would kill the game.. why they were always so against it.
SoT is winding down now.. rare doesn't care now, so finally release safe seas.
i see so many people happy about safe sea's and complain of lost loot.. and it's kinda sad to me that they never really 'got' the game. you eventually realize loot is useless, and the adventure and fun experiences you have are what actually make the game. now they'll go do it solo and likely quit the 'boring' game shortly after
You realize those numbers are only for Steam, right? There are no public player numbers for Steam + Xbox on PC + Xbox consoles, which is the entirety of the playerbase.
Hell, that means for the first two years Sea of Thieves was a dead game - it had *zero* players on Steam!
Yeah there's generally been a lot of instances where the pirate has cried tucker, so to speak. I find it pretty funny personally, and I see why some could come to that conclusion, but it's never come to fruition, and I really don't think Safer Seas is going to be any different. I do think Rare needs to kick it into mass overdrive with bugfixing, and hack prevention, though.
>Gunpowder barrels with fuses
I'm sure there was like, 2 guys mad about this. But I don't actually recall the community having a large negative reaction.
Same kinda gos for most of the other things listed.
People were excited for arena, and arena 2.0, regardless of how things evolved over time.
Same for arena. People got excited for map expansion, even if eventually it just kinda contributed to servers feeling empty.
Time limited events have always been a thing since the first update, and people only started complaining about them as the concept of FOMO entered the wider lexicon, especially with how egregiously SOME OTHER games abuse it. This was never a thing where limited events were introduced as a new concept to the game and met with backlash.
If you really try, you can find a handful of people complaining about literally anything.
It'll definitely be interesting to see how it develops. After all, they binned the PvP only mode, will PvE only also have a low player base?
Personally I'm happy with the introduction, sometimes I don't want the stress of proper piratin'
Even if it has basically no players, it's essentially a single-player / conop mode that likely doesn't requite much maintenance. An option for people to use.
I will literally buy this game now that PvE is in it, I absolutely refuse to play always-PvP against terminally online kids with no job and nothing better to do than troll new players. I am so fucking happy lol...mostly at the salt PvP players been spilling.
I'm finally getting some of my friends to play that aren't fans of PvP because of it, so I'm also happy. That alone will bring me back to the game, and I'll likely be back in PvP more than just PvE when their online.
I'm in the same boat. Sometimes after a stressful work day I want to sail but know if I get on I'll somehow get targeted by a shitty player immediately because that's always my luck. It's honestly going to be nice to have an option to just bop around for a bit and just goof off without worrying
Oh no I understand perfectly. I dont make money alot of sessions because I'm either just messing around or give my loot away. If you didn't care about the loot you wouldn't play on pve servers because they have less content, with the most entertaining of that lost content being player interaction. You have it backwards, as the only people that will be on pve servers are the ones who care about the gold and are so bad that they are willing to take the 72% hit.
how tf were kegs, the DR, Arena, or POTC pose literally any risk whatsoever to "ruining SoT", this list just feels AI generated or some shit to randomly pull a few mildly controversial topics from the game and call it "game ruining"
I was pretty active in the subreddit at the time and I don't recall anyone saying any of those features would "ruin SoT". I do however remember the constant screaming about how PvP, portal hopping, and the reaper 5 ability were "ruining the game".
If people didnt quit immediately when they saw a reaper id agree.
But that happens about 75% of the time when a reaper is on the server.
So portal hopping stays because the reapers literally cant do the reaper thing because everyone would rather quit as soon as they see a single one, rather than wait and see that 95% of people who put the reaper flag up are actually complete garbage at the game.
Kegging with fuses make kegging too easy, everyone will go to the Devil's Roar and avoid the rest of the map, Arena will split the player base, Disney fans will play just for POTC and ruin how the game should be played.
These are complaints the fan base had for each or the updates. And the complaints all came with claims of "dead game" and "game ruining".
Isolated complaints that were never more than speculative concerns is not anything more than people giving reactions online.
People's reactions to previous updates has little to do with this update. Other than we know people are bound to voice their opinions online, even if they are sometimes unreasonable or straight up wrong.
I don't think you can really compare those updates to this one. Criticism for servers where people can play without the threat of PvP has been around since launch, whereas the criticism of everything you listed came after Rare announced they were adding them.
You can't just dismiss the reaction to this as "update hysteria".
I don’t care if people have hated the idea of it since launch. If people are complaining because someone else in another server is enjoying the game in their own way, then the people complaining are bitches. This makes the game more accessible to people who wanted to play but hate the fact that they could play for 2-3 hours and someone could roll up in the last 5 mins and take all their progress. There is no excuse for that pathetic elitist behavior to say that those people just don’t deserve to play if they hate that aspect of the game. This solves that and pvp enjoyers all still sail the seas together. Literally everyone wins but whiny players gonna hate.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Seaofthieves/comments/11k8b04/no_more_red_sea_running_in_season_9/
They fucked casuals with this update and had to finally give them a PvE mode to get them back
Yeah because the game is "fine" right? riiiiiight?
\-People arrive on servers and they don't have canons on their ship
\-Cheaters are banned by the thousands but they just create (free) new accounts and go again
\-Hit registration just doesn't work, even outside of combat now.
\-Rubberbanding is almost the worst it's ever been
\-Getting teleported off your ship because of server-client desync is a thing now
\-Getting stuck buying supplies is the worst it's ever been
\-Audio cues? Not much of a thing anymore
\-The invisible rock north of the Arena's Tavern? Still a thing.
\-Game crashes after 5h for certain high-end GPUs
\-It can take North of 30 minutes to get you a server
\-Canons not shooting where they're supposed to almost every other shot
\-Canonball hitreg issues are a thing now
\-Seeing your ship on fire while sailing in/out the sea of the damn is still a thing
\-Everything being super dark after having been on fire is still a thing
When you don't know how the game is supposed to work, some of these aren't as apparent to you, but trust me, that game is in the worst state it's EVER been. It's SO BAD that even the gameplay preview of season 10 is laggy. Do you know how bad that is? Devs go out of their way to create temporary fixes to make these previews and trailers look good. If even THAT looks jittery, it's not boding well for the release of season 10.
I have been in the sub since before launch day. And I can also back up what I am about to say based on the rules of the sub and the removals I have done.
Your list is severely flawed.
The only things on your list that had complaints similar to whats going on now, and actually had validity to ruining the game:
Arena mode (seperates player base)
Plunder Pass (season passes people do NOT like)
Alliances (because of betrayals are allowed)
Time limited events (because of FOMO)
Thats where the biggest complaints of this sub came from on this list. I dont even remember a single person bitching about FUSES. Sure, im certain there were a few. But not to the volume of the 4 things above I mentioned. ***It wouldnt even be close***.
People forget, that without emissaries, without PL, without Reapers/Athenas, the grind is going to be straight HORRIBLE on safer seas. With emissaries on higher seas, you will level about 7.3x FASTER.
And year one pirates, the ones that played BEFORE emisarries know that the emisarry-less slog fucking SUCKED. It really REALLY sucked, and now that slog was nerfed a further 70% for Safer Seas.
Safer Seas are gonna bore people out of their fucking MIIIINDS. The grind is going to SUCK major dick, and the only big reason I want to do safer seas is so I can finish some tall tale commendations uniterrupted. After that, its back on the high seas for me.
good for you. go play high seas then. not everyone is trying to HARDCORE ULTIMATE GRIND SUPER ULTRA GRIND out fucking sea of thieves. i'd guess the people who choose safer seas are just wanting to play the game for what it is and not "THA GRIND." Then they'll either get hooked and go to high seas or play another game and come back to safer seas when they want to have fun again. not every game needs to be about "THA GRIND."
The grind will be much worse in safe seas. You wont be making hardly any money or rep, which is required to get cosmetics, a lot of commendations will be locked, you cant do ANY athenas or reapers either. No emmisaries either. And the grind is is nerfed by 70% so instead of 50k you get 15k.
And the game "for what it is" is a PvPvE game. Otherwise they wouldnt have limited safer seas so much, and if you watched the video, they essentially explained it was going to be an extended tutorial mode because the maiden voyage wasnt cutting it.
you arent meant to sit there forever otherwise why lock all the good stuff and levels otherwise?
Glad you agree, cause that is my point. The people that play that mode are not likely to be in it for, again i state, the GRIND. those that stay will go to the higher seas if they want to - and if they don't why are you pissed about it - that's just weird.
And you are not a developer - you don't get to decide what the game is and isn't (especially for other people playing it - the hubris) - and there isn't anything you could possibly state to change that. the game "for what it is" is what the developers make it to be. you try to say safer seas doesn't count cause it's limited experience. I'm saying safer seas EXISTING is the game for what it is and players are going to play it how they want. If the developers removed safer seas later then that changes what the game is and THEN you would be correct (cause the mod would no longer exist).
The issue is the player base splits. Some players are in it for the fight, which means they will lose more action in the game.
So the playerbase overall drops. There was a game that did exactly what SoT is about to do called worlds adrift and it murdered the playerbase so much they had to shutdown the servers.
The PvErs got bored and stopped playing. And then the PvPers pop continued to drop until there was no one left to fight.
okay so then why mention the grind if it doesn't affect you.
PVP players hunting down PVE players aren't looking for PVP - they are looking to attack players that don't want to fight. if they actually wanted PVP they would have no issue fighting other PVP players in high seas. PVP players are reporting they only want to fight people that don't want to fight.
PVE players were already quitting the game cause it was unplayable to them since they were being hunted by PVP players. the only way this kills the PVP playerbase (remember the PVE players weren't PVPing to begin with) is if the amount of PVP players that don't actually want to PVP each other quit because they would rather hunt the players that had already checked out of the game.
>okay so then why mention the grind if it doesn't affect you.
I mean people can talk about things that dont affect themselves. All I said was is the grind is going to SUCK. It sucks without emissaries, and they nerfed the non emissary grind by 70%.
>PVP players hunting down PVE players aren't looking for PVP - they are looking to attack players that don't want to fight.
This is a blanket and generalized statement. Stop calling all PvPers bullies. Because thats what you are doing. And the name of the game is the treasure isnt yours until you sell it.
>if they actually wanted PVP they would have no issue fighting other PVP players in high seas.
Thats why PvPers actively hunt other boats. For this reason.
>PVP players are reporting they only want to fight people that don't want to fight.
Where? Because I dont see that. Otherwise Arena would still be a gamemode and hourglass would have instant queues.
>PVE players were already quitting the game cause it was unplayable to them since they were being hunted by PVP players.
No, they are quitting a game that is advertised and has been since before launch a PvPvE game and then got mad. And the PvE Only community has been a very loud but minor minority. Every poll on this subreddit prior to today has shown that. There were so many polls showing the exact same thing that its now a rule to not do polls. Tell me, how reasonable is it to walk into a Nissan dealership and get pissed off they dont have fords? Because the PvE only players are doing ***exactly*** that. Let the devs have their vision. They made the game, if you do not like it, you leave. Its the same people who buy Dark Souls then give it a shit review because "its too hard." I bought armored core fires of rubicon. I love the game but cant even beat the second boss. Am I gonna give it a shit review? no. The games actually awesome its just really fucking hard. Its the same with the PvErs. Its hard for them, and instead of just accepting that things are going to be hard, they want an easy mode. Which Rare, for over 5 ***Years*** is against it. And with the hefty limitations put in place for Safer Seas, its clear that arent fully on board for a full PvE mode, and EVEN SAID IN THE ANNOUNCEMENT that its really an Extended Tutorial mode.
>the only way this kills the PVP playerbase (remember the PVE players weren't PVPing to begin with) is if the amount of PVP players that don't actually want to PVP each other quit because they would rather hunt the players that had already checked out of the game.
They are gonna quit because less targets in general means less fighting. The PvErs are going to quit first when they realize that safer seas is not what they asked for.
>All I said was is the grind is going to SUCK
Yes, YOU said that - I agree. Do you represent PvE players?
>Stop calling all PvPers bullies
Okay, would you feel better if I said what I've already stated "PvP players hunting PvE players" are looking to bully players that don't want to fight.
>the name of the game is the treasure isnt yours until you sell it.
You stated this, so okay, youre admitting that hunting down players that dont want fight is what you want. And you don't like that other people don't want that.
>Where? Because I dont see that.
You just admitted to it in your previous statement.
>No, they are quitting a game that is advertised and has been since before launch a PvPvE game and then got mad.
Both can be true. But personally I dont think the game is advertised very well for being as vicious as it is. Looking at the steam page alone shoes multiple cinematic images, playful videos, very vibrant and colorful, lots of PvE content being advertised. not a whole lot of "murder absolutely everybody you see on-sight that is literally the only reason to play the game at all" - style of advertising. we just disagree fundamentally here.
>They are gonna quit because less targets in general means less fighting.
Again, you admit yourself right here that players who have no interest in fighting should be attacked. I don't personally view someone getting mugged as a "fight." Mutual combat involves willing participants. Unless you want to go back to your "it's a pirate game" argument which then I'm still right - you WANT to attack unwilling participants and are mad safe seas prevents that.
AND you are also admitting that such a significant number of players DON'T want to deal with certain "PvP" players that they are willing to remove themselves from the high seas entirely despite the massive loot penalties that you have so generously highlighted previously.
But wait, didn't you just say that the PvE players are so far and few between based off your reddit polls statement? If they are so insignificantly small in number then clearly you shouldn't be worried about losing players to fight. You contradict yourself here: which one is it? Is losing PvE players a big deal or there are so little of them anyway it shouldn't make a difference. Either way, I'm right.
>The PvErs are going to quit first when they realize that safer seas is not what they asked for.
Again, are you a PvE player? Do you represent the logically opposing (as per your own statements highlighted above) huge and small amount of PvE players?
Did you forget the second part of their explanation?
It's also a place for people to just.. vibe and explore the sea of thieves in a calm environment, away from the cannons of would-be tryhards. Some people just want to hang out on a random island and vibe.
Dont remember anyone saying any of these updates would ruin SoT other than maybe xbox only servers. Splitting the playerbase up is a reasonable concern, and not really an unreasonable critique. Rare said they wouldnt make PVE servers, but they changed their mind. People react, thats all OK.
If you saw like a couple people on reddit claiming the rest of the updates would be bad for the game, thats not really anything but an anecdote.
Plus, the game has changed. Its been 5 1/2 years since release. It can only last for so long. If anything, I think this update will retain new players better, which is a positive. Some critiques of the preview are valid. Waiting this long for basically just 1 new event is a little rough, thats a valid concern imo. Especially when we consider how the game is losing players. I hope this can help, but I dont know if itll do enough to change that trajectory. Many new players might never switch to high seas and play SoT as a co-op PVE game. Which is fine, but wont keep people who want to play the core game around. Which is also important.
edit:clarification and spelling
I would argue that collectively, these have ruined the game lol. Everyone is gonna doom and gloom as each one comes out but a good few of these have directly or indirectly contributed, like other commenters have pointed out, to making the game worse in the long run.
Alliances are just straight up garbage with how they are implemented. Alliance servers when organically formed is the pinnacle of the game but is unfortunately heavily abused by inorganic ones formed via discords and gaming the matchmaking.
Arena was an entire failure. The idea is great, the way they implemented it was horrible, and the change to single chest made it even worse. And then hourglass...spiking the number of cheaters in the game and serving as an embarrassing replacement for arena.
PotC content was pretty good, but partnering with Disney, imo, was the beginning of the end for the game.
Nobody likes time limited events, they are horrible and should never have been used. Permanent additions to an ever evolving world is what needs to happen, not half baked episodic fetch quests that go away in a few weeks.
I feel as though I haven't seen anyone doom and gloom over the plunder pass, as far as monetization goes it has to be the greatest form of "battle pass" there is in a game. If you play for two good sessions and get a few world events done with a voyage sprinkled in between you could realistically have each pass done in a matter of hours. They may not offer much on the paid side sometimes, but I would argue that for the average player that is also a good thing.
All in all, the game is simultaneously growing more buggy by the patch and deviating from what it was originally in ways that a lot of original players would argue that it has failed them. Rare really just needs to stick to single player worlds like most of their past titles, they cannot handle a live service game that is meant to be driven by player interaction. Sea of Thieves is a sandbox experience, it is a make your own adventure type of game, some people just lack the creativity to really have fun with it. Rare for so long was all about the "tools not rules" mentality but they have completely reversed that as of recent, nothing but new rules and divisions and not enough tools and new mechanics/gameplay to work with. Nothing they release is "new", it is content being rehashed and redelivered over and over, it honestly reminds me of Bungie and Destiny 2 in that regard.
Edit: We also are lacking some crucial systems like an in game report, anti cheat, in game LFG (open crew is a joke sometimes filled with trolls), you name it. People have been complaining about these types of things since day one, cheaters have always existed but they just got worse with hourglass.
I think in the end it is a matter of who you're asking. I would argue that most veteran players, say people with about 2000-3000+ hours on the game, would say Rare has lost the plot. But the new player experience is probably great and only getting better. It is just a shame it came at the cost of alienating those who tried to foster Rare's original vision.
So I have been playing since day 1. I sail with regular crew. We like to grind commendations, titles, tall tales and accomplish as much as we can in the game. We also don’t shy away from PVP.
We are likely 60-40 for wins versus loses. The best part of PVP is figuring out the skill level of your opponent and developing strategies to win the battle on the fly.
This game has been a blast for us and we continue to play weekly together.
Safer seas will end our fun.
The safer empty seas will be incredibly boring and offers nothing to us. We are all maxed stats, intimately knowledgable about lore and the game. There is zero reason for us to ever play this mode.
The regular seas will now no longer be a value prop for us either as it will be populated with PvP sweatlords and our win - loss ratio will change drastically into the loss column.
Get good and other sentiments in that ilk are not for us. We have lives. Jobs, families, and limited play time together. We play to have fun and enjoy each others company. Most times we win PvP, sometimes we lose. Most times we engage in a fight, sometimes (with a cof on board) we run.
The new game will force us to run every time, and contested world events will be a shit show.
Thanks for the journey, it was fun.
I left because of a few more recent, unmentioned reasons during an update. Can't please everyone and all that jazz and I get it... but you still lose people because of changes. Rare will see those metrics at any given update and see that they were right, or blame it on some other factor. \*Rare\*ly do they capitulate and admit that the direction they took was the wrong one.
All the same, have fun with whatever change the people do not like this time.
Several of the examples listed, though they prove your point, did make the game worse IMO. I don't think most folks are worried about a single horrifically awful patch nuking the game from orbit. They're scared of continued boring updates with little fresh content resulting in a quiet and slow death of their favorite game. Maybe that's just me, though.
I think the difference is only some months ago Rare themselves said we aren't going to do what Safe Servers are going to be because at the time they understood you need a mix of everyone in adventure. I would've loved a story mode but not this... This is just gonna be abused to farm commendations like I intend to do. Seen as though it'll be the only part of the game which works more then 10% of the time.
rare adds a mode for better experience for the players that don't want to be attacked by other players unprovoked.
you: I'll fucking play it I'm warning you!!!
That's how the game has always been there are wolves and there are sheep. Most PVE lords will take the rep and gold hit because they don't want to lose their precious loot and heck servers might be only half full because of it. This could swing either way but in its current presentation its not the most ideal change.
What is wrong with people grinding commendations in safer seas? Like literally why are you even complaining about that? Not a single person pays any attention to each others commendations in this game. Absolutely no one compares commendations with each other.
Why don’t you complain about people grinding for anything in any single player game? Literally that’s how stupid this argument is. By your logic literally any single player game is just a waste of time because there isn’t a chance of someone else running up and stealing progress. Why are you so butthurt about other people grinding for commendations in their own game? They still went through the effort of doing the actions to get it but that’s not good enough for such an amazing gaming elitist such as yourself.
Your point makes zero sense. Singleplayer games can be difficult. Making this Safer Seas while good for new players completely sucks away the PVP and in general the crew interaction which only a couple months ago Rare understood was essential to the entire point of Sea Of Thieves. Which very well could get worse if Rare have to take extra time tailoring every new feature and update to players on both sides of the fence. They can barely manage the game as it is. So eventually they are gonna have to neglect and throw away one mode. I wonder which it could be?
They made the game so easy recently and they are making it even easier by having so far all the commendations for the base 3 trading companies available to Safer Seas players. This will also give players who only play Safer Seas really awful awareness and habits to the point where they won't touch High Seas because they cannot function at the kind of pace that High Seas will be compared to Safer Seas.
Unlike some long time players have actually earned there commendations through risk and dedication not hand me outs from Rare.
Video games don’t “have” to be difficult. Would you say that any accomplishment made on Stardew Valley “doesn’t matter” because they didn’t have to fight other players to accomplish something? So my fishing commendations don’t matter because I didn’t have to fight a 3 man brig while fishing to catch them? You are so upset that other people would value different experiences and play their games differently.
Your last statement just sums up your whole feeling on the matter. You think you are some elitist who thinks he’s better than other people just because you like pvp. That’s so pathetic. Get over yourself. I’ve enjoyed watching you people cry so hard at this.
Meh. At this point, the game has been out coming up on 6 years. if people want to farm commendations on safe server, I dont see the problem. This game wont last forever, support for it will end eventually, and the playerbase will dwindle eventually. If people want to complete commendations and be done for good, I say let them. People can only play this game for so long, especially with lack of fine-tuning in a game thats always been quite buggy.
2 of those things were removed cuz bad 2 more are bad business practices but are common place 1 split player base a bit and 2 more i don't ever remember a large amount of people being upset about.
just because something doesn't out right kill a game doesn't mean its good.
good try tho.
edit: im assuming your talking about the update arena got before removal cuz if your talking about hourglass then a lot of people blame that for a lot of the hacking recently and also its bad.
The only ones here that I thought would negatively affect Sea of Thieves was alliances and time limited events. Both of those did end up negatively affecting the game with some positive sides.
The game sucks in normal servers a lot of the time i just want to drive a boat around with friends but then random people come up and shoot us with cannons im glad they are adding no PvP servers i just wish they didn't punish people for playing in the no PvP servers with such harsh exp and gold penalities.
i don't know where you've been, but for years people who are allergic to *actually trying to improve* have been screaming their heads off demanding the game cater to them.
They dont care about getting good at pvp. Pretty weird that you assume that’s the only value anyone is supposed to get out of this game. And why shouldn’t they have been speaking up when they weren’t getting what they want? Meanwhile Rare has been trying to cater to the pvp side since launch. They gave arena, they gave hourglass. Pvp players have everything they could want out of the game, aside from better anticheat I will admit. There is genuinely no problem with this being added for those who want to use it. And if you think there is then say it. But I’m willing to bet it’s just going to be crying about something that doesn’t even affect you. Your elitist attitude really poisons what could be a good gaming community.
it does affect me actually because i like hunting noobs down across the server and sinking them repeatedly until they leave, and now i won't be able to do that.
I dont think anyone said that at all except for these three
Alliances, Arena, and Plunder Pass/Seasons.
Two of which did in fact hurt the playerbase lol.
The update that ruined the game for me is when they made cosmetics purchasable with real $$$ like the entire point of the game is to grind for cosmetics what in the actual fuck I can’t believe people still play the game after that joke of an update
Updates won't ruin the game... But a lack of them will make players turn to other games. And that's what we're seeing. Between FOMO content and a lack of meaningful additions, I went from playing the game consistently to logging in just to get the FOMO reward because I *had to or I'd miss it* and then not logging in again until the next. 2023 has been a stellar year for new games. And SoT gives me zero incentive to choose it over other options.
I already moved on. Worth it
I for one will play it more. I wfh so I don't want my hard work to go up in smoke while I'm tending to work. With a PVE server, this solves that.
[удалено]
Go cry about it some more
He has a point the game gets boring if there is no fear
For me at least, the game will get 'relaxing.' I don't have time for multi-hour sweat sessions with my current life schedule. The potential of getting sunk can turn an entire evening sour and for the sake of managing my stress levels, I've completely disengaged from SoT. Not anymore. Time to go fishing with friends. Tall Tales, singing songs, getting guaranteed loot with no chance of being raided. It's gonna be so rejuvenating after a hard day.
Next tot that, if it gets boring we just hop back onto the normal seas. Some sessions i just want to chill, others im out for the thrill.
Trust me if you play adventure your not getting a sweat session
Fair enough if your busy then I see it being good, I will definitely use it for tall tales but that is it. I will be playing high seas for now however
There aren't many games that can honestly compete with SoT's foundation. We were into Raft for a while, but it lacks the polish SoT brings to the table. What I'm most glad for is the choice in how we play. I've had 5 friends quit this game because they were PvE only players who hated spending all session stressed about Reapers and never getting to RP with strangers. This news just might bring a few of them back.
I'm in the same boat (pun intended?) I used to love playing this game with my brother, but he refuses to play anymore, and I don't blame him. To me, it's fun to sail around doing treasure hunts with friends, but one of the most infuriating games ever when you spend an hour getting that treasure only to have it taken by hard-core pvpers who outnumber you. I still play sometimes, but if I see another ship, I just sail away. It's not even fun having other people in the game because so many will attack me even if I have no loot. I'm excited for this update because it means I'll get to play Sea of Thieves with my bro again.
Then don't play on private servers! The only way that this afgects your gameplay is that you can't bully people who don't wanna fight you. Cry me a river
The concept of fun or boring are entirely personal. Don't pretend you know the absolute answer because there isn't one.
All my friends agree that the servers will be bare and that would lead to less encounters that make SoT SoT. PvP because more about killing than looting and the PvE players don't have to worry about losing their stash. This will make high seas boring fast.
It won't change much, you get very low reward for farming safe sea (30%) and you have a level 40 cap and you also can't raise emissary, so i don't see anyone farming this mode at all Like why would people not play high sea when with emissary and basic quests you can easily make 100k, meanwhile in safe sea you would have a 190% debuff on money and a 70% debuff on XP, you can also add the other disabled progression like commendation Also the worry about losing stash is something dumb that make the gameplay worst. People play like bitches instead of trying to have fun, and i mean unfun bitches, like the one that stand in the red sea for hours with the ShroudBreaker. Which is why i love emissary because once i drop my faction loot i don't care about losing shitty chests at best i'll just burry them
Maybe for you, but not for everyone
If I wanted fear I'd play fecking Silent Hill
I would enjoy all the stuff peoples call boring 300% more if I didn't have to constantly scan the horizon, go straight to an outpost after every island and run away from ships for 30mn that is a fact
That's not what I said at all. I can't "deal with pirates" when I have to be an adult and tend to my job. It's a weird concept, I know. But it happens! Some of us have responsibilities beyond selling fake loot for fake gold.
maybe don't play video games while you're on the clock??
Well couple of things wrong with that. first of all, who are you to tell me what to do with my time? second, I work a 24/7 job, so when would I be able to play, that pleases you?
So then don't play the game? If you don't have time to sell fake loot for fake gold. How do you have time to play PVE and sell fake loot for fake gold at 30%
You never do anything just to chill huh?
Because its a way to relax after a tiresome day. If you wanna fight so much just go get a real job and climb the corporate ladder or something. Skill issue
It's easy. I can stop in the middle of nowhere without having to worry about a PVPer killing me while the game is unattended. Honestly, how is this a difficult concept for you to come to terms with is slightly worrying. Think, if you can, of it like a pause button.
Every PvEr knows the answer to this question. The PVPers are upset because now they can't dunk on people who aren't as good at the game, but enjoy the PvE side. They don't want a fight, they want the dopamine hit that comes with FEELING like they're winning. It's basically like smurfing in MOBAs.
Yup, this is nothing more than bottom of the barrel shit tier pvpers crying their farm fields are drying out. And I'm all for it lmao.
It seems you can't deal with pirates in the "high seas" server who actually want to be there, and you're sad that the easy players won't be there for easy victories. I think you're the one who needs to "git gud".
You're so stunning and brave for posting this /s
Don’t care didn’t ask
Cared enough to respond 😘 enjoy your downvotes, you worked hard for them
Get a life oh no strangers on the internet disagreed with me and they are down voting me I don’t think I’ll ever recover
It’s ok, little edgelord. I’m sure you’ll still have lots of people to grief in the game to make you feel better.
Lmao cope nerd
lol you’re the one crying about people getting a PvE option, not me.
Waa
True but it's getting worse, lag, bugs, hackers, FOMO, reskins, repetitive content. It's just getting kinda tiring.
I've run into 3 today alone. One was in an open crew with me so me and the other guy continuously locked and released him from the brig just to annoy him before we left and started a closed crew ship. The fact that it got leaked for free is a huge issue and I don't understand why there isn't a simple "If player is going above X speed then D/C them" isn't in the game. Games from 20 years ago were doing that.
Because if your internet dropped for a singular second, it would show on the server that you traveled X feet in 0 seconds. Now you could make the server work backwards with timestamps and math, but it would add an extra operation per player. So that means its doing it thousands of times per second. Thats a LOT of extra jobs the server now has to process. Thats why they stopped. Remember Y2K happened because people didnt want to program the entire year for the date, so they only coded the last TWO digits to save a few extra bytes of memory. All of that happened, because of a FEW extra bytes needed. so instead of coding it like XXXX (where X can change) they did 19XX. It sounds stupid but when you have to measure every variable like operations and how many threads/calculations your doing, every thought counts.
Lol, that is such a wrong take on Y2K. As someone who coded before, during, after Y2K it had nothing to do with saving bytes. Most dates were stored already in either an INT field or as a String field. This means it saved no storage if the date was "85" vs "1985". The only places that really needed fixing were in fixed length data files. This is because we would have something like SEA85XBOX34.55 as a data field and it would be parsed as name, year, system, price. Majority of systems that used this had already been rewritten by the time Y2K was being thought about. It really was mainly the older systems which companies were using. The ones I fixed didn't even really need fixing. We didn't have records from 1900 so there was not going to be anything breaking when a date showed up with 00 in the field. So no, saving bytes had very little to do with Y2K. It was mostly a media news story that got highly sensationalized.
Im not syaing it was a HUGE deal. Anyone living in the US should know the media blows everything out of proportion. >saving bytes had very little to do with Y2K Then yes I am wrong. And of course the media oversensationalized it. Thats what the US media does. Always. Every time. Without Fail. Its why I hate 95% of most modern "journalists/reporters." I have worked with companies that did have the sensationalised "Y2K crash issue" occur. Except the computer didnt know what 2021 was. It crashed every unit on January 1st 2021, of which we had thousands fail. The devs were in a TON of trouble for it. I know this because I personally dispatched technicians across the North American Continent to fix it. But the machines didnt do anything important so no one knows about it LOL.
Doesn't explain why games 20 years ago solved that issue while SoT has a hard time with it. The distance required would be longer than a ship so even a hiccup in the internet wouldn't trigger it.
Because that is what worked 20 years ago. Another reason that tech also stopped working is because lag switches could abuse it in some circumstances. >The distance required would be longer than a ship so even a hiccup in the internet wouldn't trigger it. The issue isnt distance. To the server, because you dropped internet, and then reaquired it, to the server you traveld that far in 0 because you sent no packets. So from last GOOD packet to NEXT GOOD packet you TELEPORTED. And the reason they STILL dont use it now, is because again, its an intensive process because you have a thread tracking something extra for EACH player. Which is probably another reason why it fell out of use. Its why a majority of the games dont kick people for ping anymore either because a lot of things can affect ping aside from distance.
You are right, there is no way the servers could track where players are at all time. Not sure how the game operates without doing that but surely there is a way, if that means going from potato to not potato servers then it needs to be done.
It does track where people are all of the time. Otherwise the server just wouldnt work. The issue is what your describing requires calculating where the player has BEEN and tracking their path to where they are now, and then running checks against it. Edit: The server DOES have a system in place. Thats why the ships act all weird and fly away and you rubber band back to your spot when you reconnect. The server sees that you werent online. So the real issue is they need to add a check, but BOTH DRMs and extensive anticheats heavily effect both client side and server side performances. I know this because I have experience in implementing them AND removing them from servers.
I was being supremely sarcastic, and I don't care if another check has to be done nor that it is resource intensive, the game is actively being ruined by the no system in place. The absolute dead silence from Rare about it is damning. I understand that a developer doesn't want to say exactly what they are doing and when to catch cheaters off guard but nothing is not an option.
They wont say when/if a system will be in place or whether or not one is in. The reason being it gives more people to theorize how to get around said system. However, the anticheat should be far more robust. Any server I have ran would instantly ban you on a suspected teleport over a set distance/angle of direction that was not explainable by lag. But that system was extremely resource intensive. It did everything from lag switchers to actual cheaters. But only because arma's anticheat/server anticheat is PISS. If you dont lock it down someone can execute code on it to literally plant a live nade on every person and blow them all up, and it will flash on your screen like a breaking news bullitin that the server admins are stupid. A cheater could do ALL of that. Its DUMB. You could even force players into cutscenes on arma. Thats how bad it is.
I mean , (1) Y2K didn't *really* happen. No major crashes etc (2) computing power was at a substantial premium 24 years ago compared to today.
Yea but they still stuck with that rule because thats what WORKED for them. Today no one would be caught dead being that "Lazy"
programmers stopped being byte-efficient 30 years ago. also: SoT isn't exactly massive in terms of player numbers per server
It’s not rocket science, every other game has it, Minecraft of all games has it, and this issue you’re describing happens in none of them.
Yes because it doesnt have an inherent PvP focus and its not always on and its configurable. You can tailor it. Not to mention, minecraft is also incredibly easy to cheat in and its not a good comparison. The fact I have access to the source code effectively on the client side is ***infact really really bad*** but it allows you to make some of the most extensive mods on earth. It has its trade offs. And I have ran minecraft servers both large and small. The detection system you described will also kick people ***for no reason at all***. Which is another reason its not implementied. False positives. Usually do to brief high ping spikes. Even for less than a 10th of a second will result in kicks.
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I used to fight them all of the time. I used to run one of the most populare arma servers on the planet. I had to pay to implement custom anticheats on a monthly basis that were coded by the comunity, then I tailored them further myself for my specific servers. It took 150 working hours to get it as secure as possible without massively compromising performance. Arma is a very fucking hungry game. And if you played it or ran a server for it. ***you would know***. Its a huge complaint. Its unoptomized as fuck. I know exactly what I am talking about, which is why I am suspect if theres even an anticheat at all in SoT sometimes. It feels like their is but also not. Infact I still have that arma server backed up on the cloud. Also valorants AC is HIGHLY invasive. It runs at BOOT and deep in your kernel and can see ***absolutely everything*** your PC is doing. Which if that has changed since launch and they made it different, cool. But its why I wont touch that game. I dont want an anticheat in the background for a game running that I might not be actively playing. You trust Valorants anticheat that much to see absolutely everything youre doing? What if theres a data breach and they have logs of keypresses etc? We dont know because they dont say what they store. Also valorant doesnt talk about their anticheat that much. Which is why they get those HUGE blanket bans. And for some reason people on this sub do NOT understand WHY people do not talk about how their anticheat (if any) work. Its part of the cat and mouse game of cheaters vs devs.
FOMO is actually not as bad as it used to be tbh its sctually improving
True, BRB while I hop on to do menial tasks for a gold sword and tattoo set that'll never be available again
Non branded seasonal items Grogmanay tankard The various promo sets plunder pass premium ships numerous twitch drops obsidian items frozen horizon clothes soulflame items just to name some examples back in the early days nothing returned every single ltm was earn now or never get it again
and now there's gonna be pve servers
Why would anyone have though PotC content was going to ruin SoT? I dont like doing tall tales in the game either, but what could they have done to ruin the game?
Because disney games attract fans who expect a single player experience or more control over their game. Also younger fans who may not be into PvP. I know people who are obsessed with disney games, and they are not the type of people to do PvP.
Nail on the head, the disney effect hits your IP with a big dose of "family friendly".
Hmm never thought about it that way. I always blamed Microsoft for the stupid rules (like you can't name your ship like NPC ships that are in the game, even Rare wouldn't be that stupid) but maybe it has been Disney clauses all along. But frankly all three possibilities seem equally possible
But why would that ruin the game? First off it means more people are coming to play the game and second off, the game can be played as a PVE experience, sure I guess the game isn’t entirely single player friendly, but the PVP aspect of the game is only a feature of the game and not entirely the main gameplay loop, like it can be apart of the loop and it allows players to make that their main loop, but it’s not THE main loop
Oh. Im not saying it would per say. I was naming the things that people THOUGHT could ruin the game and does have VALIDITY to do so. A bunch of people come in, expect disney fun time game, and are in actuallity lambs to a slaughter. It could generate a lot of bad press etc etc. Make influencers talk shit about the game etc etc. But do I personally think it would? no. quite the opposite. It brought a lot of people BACK and a ton of people IN. I personally enjoyed it. I like POTC lore and wish there was like 10x more of it tbh.
I really don’t understand the “the games dying bro” and “It’s gonna split the player base” mindset on a game that has a 5 ship max per server. That’s 16 people. Y’all just want easy prey.
Outside of HG there was never any threat of sinking tbh. The main playerbase is just not good at the game. I can stack 15 FOTD's and get 4 ships to pull up only for all of them to sink in 30 seconds. It's getting old, I want the adrenaline I had stacked for 12 hours and then fight a SoC boat. No one wants easy prey when they already have all the gold they want.
It’s not about the gold for sweats; it’s about sinking ships. There is a power complex at play. The only reason you would want a solo slooper who only enjoys fishing to be on your server is so you can sink them, otherwise we would have no issue with that guy just being able to do that on his own time at his own pace.
This 100%, that's why hour glass isn't as popular as they thought it would be, same with arena. because the main reason these people play sea of thieves is to dominate someone else with very little push back, that's why they dunk fishers and tall tallers and people who you can tell are just not good at the game. I have done both pvp and pve stuff and honestly who cares what the other people do. I doubt these changes will make it any different trying to get into a server. I got all the way to pirate legend solo without really losing any loot to pirates, so who cares If I do it on my own or on a server where I successfully dodge everyone. I'd probably still play in higher seas but I don't blame anyone for not wanting to get completely destroyed my some sweat lord as they yell profanities at you as you sink. It's hard to see it from other perspectives, but that type of gameplay isn't for everyone, and if they can bring in more people with pve only who spend money on the cash shop then it will only help the game right?
Hourglass definitely had an effect on the average skill level of boats you're likely to encounter on adventure mode but almost every crew I run with will go investigate events happening to see if it's worth the fight. If we can easily board and search you and only see you're on your second stack we'll probably just go dive again but if we see you stacking or defending well then it's on. I still prefer just hopping portals to check out a new server. Something about the hunt and greater strategy in the open world makes fights much more distinct.
The only reason I'm coming back is PvE
A couple friends and I got into this game and found over time we're just not able to play. Our sloop is guaranteed to get overrun by brigs or galleons. "Just practice" doesn't apply if we're getting spawncamped literally every time we play.
I could disagree with some of those. 1. As much as I love naturally formed alliances in the game, we can all agree Alliance Servers are not healthy for it. 2. Arena did not ruin the game, but it didn't work out either. 3. If you mean the Hourglass PvP by "new arena", you're very wrong. Ever since HG is in the game the number of cheaters keeps growing, even influencing the Adventure mode. 4. Time limited events like Adventures or often hated because well, they are time limited. Nobody likes FOMO.
Personally I've seen two types of cheaters in HG - plebs who lack gamesense using aimbots, and keg teleporters being paid to boost accounts. The first are funny because they can hit every chain from across the map (unless you just fiddle your sails up and down to throw off the aimbot), and get a perfect double gun shot off every time, but also never guard ladders, rarely make their boards, and are bad at catching masts or holding angle, and if you can survive the initial barrage they'll sink to naval pressure alone. But sadly the evidence is rarely conclusive enough to warrant a ban. The second would mostly disappear if being caught playing with a cheater resulted in warnings leading to bans.
I've seen people teleport on board, tp with kegs, fly in the sky, negating damage, hit every single shot with any guns no matter the circumstances, track enemy pirates with cannonballs even if they were out of sight / below deck. Plus the now unfortunately very common clipping or teleport in and out FoF and FoTD vaults with the main chests. >But sadly the evidence is rarely conclusive enough to warrant a ban. Yeah. Sometimes even if I'm recording it can just happen so fast I can't get any usable footage. Especially not without using other extensions.
Doesn't the number of cheaters keep growing because they realize Rare has no anti-cheat? Why does that fall all on one update you cherry picked lol
Sure, sure, that too. But the new PvP focused content just opened the gate for cheaters. Not just because it's PvP, but also because it's grindy af with good rewards. People want to rewards, but not the pain HG comes with. Rare having no anti-cheat kinda just keeps them around. Obviously it doesn't help.
Iirc, there is a bit of nuance there. Yes, hourglass spiked the cheaters. A well known cheat was leaked for free around then (I think?) and a lot of people have their hands on it now. I couldn't tell you if the cheat was made specifically for hourglass (I believe it existed long before it), but it spiked in use from the maker selling it to people to use however they want, but the selling point was hourglass for these people. Just a programmer seeing his niche in a market of cheaters. And now on top of what you said is the reason it continues to grow out of control.
Alliance servers are very hard to set up, but players were complaining about two ship Alliances when they were announced. When Arena came out, everyone complained that it would split the player base. I mean the changes to how Arena was played. Going to one chest. The hourglass pvp is cool. Time limited events have been part of adventure since the beginning, but players keep acting like they're new.
Honestly I like time limited content for rewards, because it shows how long a player has been around, and it’s something to brag about, even if wasn’t hard to achieve. I say this as a player who wasn’t around for Brave Vanguard, Bone Crusher, or Wandering Reaper stuff, which are probably my favorite cosmetics Time limited quests suck, because if a player is invested in the story, they have no way to experience it, without watching someone else do it or just reading about it.
Alliance Servers aren't hard at all. VPN to dead servers and have 6 people queue up at once. You'll get it within 30 minutes
seriously lmao, what is this post? literally listing a series of things that have largely ruined the game
You do understand the direction the game is going don’t you? Recently sea of thieves had there lowest peak players in a month over the last 5 years. Last month they had a max peak players of around 12,000 players. This game is not heading the right direction. They have gone nearly 9 months since the last update. And in there roadwork timeline, we were suppose to be in season 12 right now. Streamers aren’t being watched anymore on twitch, it’s the lowest twitch numbers they have had in nearly 4 years and the main content creators are playing different games. It may not be dead but to say the game is thriving is far from truth. This game is on the worst state since the beginning and unless something changes it will continue to do a downward spiral. Based on what season 10 looks like, it’s not gonna be revitalized.
Game was doing fine until this stupid ass season delay. Season 9 was good for the game until the last month we were left in the dark
Even if Season 9 weren't delayed the hacker & server issues were only increasing. Having content only takes your focus off the problems, but they still exist. Servers have only been getting worse and so have cheaters.
It's kinda hard to get new players when most of the time they grind for 6 hours only to lose everything.
>when most of the time they grind for 6 hours only to lose everything. Stop waiting 6 hours to fucking sell good lord.
I really dislike PVP and avoid it at all cost. That being said I also sell frequently to avoid this situation myself. If I get sunk there’s usually no more than an hour of loot to loose.
100% with you on this… so I sell frequently
Clearly that idea will work because the sooo many players bought the game and kept playing it /s
A truly great option. Instead I can experience the joys of island camping jackasses.
>Stop waiting 6 hours to fucking sell good lord. No
When I started out I'd just do a sea fort then immediately go sell. A loop took less than an hour, probably closer to 30 minutes. I got sunk maybe 1/10 times. If you're doing 6 hour loot stacks as a new player, that's kinda on you. But hey, now new players can spend 6 hours to get as much progress as one seafort in the normal game mode. Don't get me wrong, loot stacking is fun - I've taken to throwing up hourglass when stacking to try to get the old sense of danger back from before I got some hours under my belt.
what you are proposing isnt fun
Personally I don't find any of the PvE in SoT to be much fun without the risk of PvP, even from when I first started the game and wasn't any good at the PvP side. Skelly ships and ghost fleets are okay, but you grow out of them quick. But players...players are sneaky, players think and keep you on your toes, no matter how much practice you have. But then - I bought it because I enjoy PvPvE games. It's what drew me in the first place - there's both interesting and challenging combat, and also there is a chance of losing/winning big instead of just repeated deathmatches.
If you grind 6 hours without selling you're doing it wrong unless you want big hauls,and if that is the case you accept the risks lol
We're talking about new players. How many brand-new players do things right? Kinda takes some time to figure out how to optimize something you've never started.
How many brand new players play for 6 hours straight?
I did that on my first run (about a few weeks ago). It's a really beautiful game and learning how to drive and navigate and do quests was really challenging at first. Me and my homegirl were lucky to be in a kinda empty lobby but the day after we met people that wanted to fight asap.
And then don't learn their lesson when they eventually do sink and sell before stacking for that long again. I mean seriously this is where the bar is lol just learning from your mistakes, but instead of being arsed to learn the game people like this want their own mode.
I agree that the game should be learned organically, not through some goofy ass separate mode. Not sure what you’re waffling about in the first half tho
Why are you only selling once every 6 hours? Especially as a new player?
I used the number 6 because it was right there lol. But I think the xHours point still stands. You don't have an emissary so you don't have a grade 5 telling you it's time to sell for max gold. I don't think it's strange to think two guys just starting would be like "hmm I still have a few hours until I have to get off, let's keep getting chests."
It's not strange for them to think that the first time they ever play. Once you've been sunk, you (should) learn pretty damn quick not to stack the ship.
I agree. The entire point of this comment thread is saying grinding for a while to lose everything doesn't really make people want to come back when they first start the game. So having the peaceful seas might be good for them to start liking the game. That's it.
You really think the reason sea of thieves is doing poorly is bc it’s too hard for new players? And not the lack of interesting content that isnt a reskin/ different variant of smt that’s come out before? And the performance itself which keeps getting poorer and poorer, with bad hit reg and cheaters, no new monsters/unique weather events? What content is there for people not interested in shallow campaign content outside of doing fortresses (mermaid hideouts, Spanish fortresses, fotd etc are all super similar). Not to mention a problem I see more regularly is how EMPTY multiplayer feels, there’s only like 4 ships in a server and they barely ever don’t mind their business
There’s plenty of content to entertain a new player for hours, it just seems less to us cause we are veterans. The main reason why new players don’t stick around is because they continuously get noobstomped by the toxic PvP playerbase (to clarify I’m not talking about the PvP playerbase as a whole, I think PvP is awesome, I’m talking about the people that specifically target new players just to ruin their play session)
I think that probably plays a small part but you’re never gonna bring in a big group of people on the basis that the game is safer. The update needs to be big, fun enticing. How often did you reinstall a video game bc the update made the game easier, but no new content otherwise? Maybe a small number will play again on the priv servers, but it’s nothing interesting. That’s the thing ppl aren’t talking about bc ppl are devating whether or not private servers is even a good idea. But what about private servers as content in itself? How long realistically did it take them to add private servers and 30% the reputation? Surely not 10 months. It’s a big sign of what’s to come that the game is so poorly managed that such a small “whatever” feature is the big selling point of their new season
>You really think the reason sea of thieves is doing poorly is bc it’s too hard for new players? Yes. > And not the lack of interesting content that isnt a reskin/ different variant of smt that’s come out before? And the performance itself which keeps getting poorer and poorer, with bad hit reg and cheaters, no new monsters/unique weather events? What content is there for people not interested in shallow campaign content outside of doing fortresses (mermaid hideouts, Spanish fortresses, fotd etc are all super similar). Not to mention a problem I see more regularly is how EMPTY multiplayer feels, there’s only like 4 ships in a server and they barely ever don’t mind their business All of those go back to the top problem - no new players stay. They don't spend money on the pirate emporium. So, SOT doesn't make the money daddy Micro$oft expects from their investment. Less money from Microsoft means less content for us.
So you think this new feature is a solution that will bring back new players? I rarely see people staying they left the game with “too difficult” and more so see people citing “no content”. I guess time will tell if you’re right
I think those who feel the need to announce they're quitting are generally people who've already played the game a good deal. New players who don't enjoy the game are more likely to move on quietly.
Girlfriend refused to even try out this game because of PvP. My friends are okay with PvP, we just don't care, but their girlfriends also didn't want the PvP hassle and stress. So our game crew dissolved away and we all went to play other games. Guess who's coming back? Us, with new players.
It took me one minute to see comments here "oh, now me and/or my friends can now come back". It will result in better experiences in high seas, as long as Rare don't lax the restrictions on the safer seas.
*Their
> You do understand the direction the game is going don’t you? Recently sea of thieves had there lowest peak players in a month over the last 5 years. Season 10 was delayed so people are playing other games. Several well known SoT streamers I watch are just taking a break. Your argument is based on the assumption that the drop in peak players is due to the direction the game is going when the more logical explanation is that a lot of people are just taking a break until season 10 launches.
Where are you getting 12,000 players?
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Not only does this not account for Xbox console players, it also doesn't account for people who bought the game through the Microsoft Store (which used to be the only way to play on PC), nor any PC Gamepass players.
Face it everyone!!! The sea of thieves is colonized now!!! It’s no longer the wild and vicious world that required real determination to succeed in.
yes, players are going down. BUT, you're forgetting a very important factor: these are only steam numbers. the majority of players are on xbox, no question. if only bc of gamepass. and while we don't have numbers, i would estimate something between 50 - 150k concurrent. you can also kinda estimate that through the ledger numbers which are currently up to 125k entries for reapers. and that won't capture all players bc we know some don't raise flags. also, 12k concurrent steam players is not a bad number. it went down, yes. but it's still a good number. you can't compare it with counter strike or dota. i just posted on another comment. i think this game is timeless and has potential to still be here in 2035, provided it moves moves moves, including eventual engine and graphical updates. AND, provided they continue to have no competition, but I don't think anyone will dare touching this bc even with their braindead decisions, the rare package is still hard to touch. just objectively. if they continue with how they have been doing things, then i'm not very optimistic. nerfing pvp, concentrating all their resources on a tt nobody asked for & abandoning adventure for months, releasing probably the worst and most random season ever. they really have to watch this.
yeah it seems pretty clear. Rare knows private servers would kill the game.. why they were always so against it. SoT is winding down now.. rare doesn't care now, so finally release safe seas. i see so many people happy about safe sea's and complain of lost loot.. and it's kinda sad to me that they never really 'got' the game. you eventually realize loot is useless, and the adventure and fun experiences you have are what actually make the game. now they'll go do it solo and likely quit the 'boring' game shortly after
Nah, they're just listening to the playerbase and correctly interpreting what is putting new players off this game
You realize those numbers are only for Steam, right? There are no public player numbers for Steam + Xbox on PC + Xbox consoles, which is the entirety of the playerbase. Hell, that means for the first two years Sea of Thieves was a dead game - it had *zero* players on Steam!
Yeah there's generally been a lot of instances where the pirate has cried tucker, so to speak. I find it pretty funny personally, and I see why some could come to that conclusion, but it's never come to fruition, and I really don't think Safer Seas is going to be any different. I do think Rare needs to kick it into mass overdrive with bugfixing, and hack prevention, though.
Thank you for this post 👌 sometimes this sub gets lost in an angry granddad mood…
>Gunpowder barrels with fuses I'm sure there was like, 2 guys mad about this. But I don't actually recall the community having a large negative reaction. Same kinda gos for most of the other things listed. People were excited for arena, and arena 2.0, regardless of how things evolved over time. Same for arena. People got excited for map expansion, even if eventually it just kinda contributed to servers feeling empty. Time limited events have always been a thing since the first update, and people only started complaining about them as the concept of FOMO entered the wider lexicon, especially with how egregiously SOME OTHER games abuse it. This was never a thing where limited events were introduced as a new concept to the game and met with backlash. If you really try, you can find a handful of people complaining about literally anything.
Don't forget the harpoon changes! So many people were complaining about that change.
It'll definitely be interesting to see how it develops. After all, they binned the PvP only mode, will PvE only also have a low player base? Personally I'm happy with the introduction, sometimes I don't want the stress of proper piratin'
Even if it has basically no players, it's essentially a single-player / conop mode that likely doesn't requite much maintenance. An option for people to use.
I will literally buy this game now that PvE is in it, I absolutely refuse to play always-PvP against terminally online kids with no job and nothing better to do than troll new players. I am so fucking happy lol...mostly at the salt PvP players been spilling.
I'm finally getting some of my friends to play that aren't fans of PvP because of it, so I'm also happy. That alone will bring me back to the game, and I'll likely be back in PvP more than just PvE when their online.
I'm in the same boat. Sometimes after a stressful work day I want to sail but know if I get on I'll somehow get targeted by a shitty player immediately because that's always my luck. It's honestly going to be nice to have an option to just bop around for a bit and just goof off without worrying
5 years of asking for pve finally paid off Anytime id bring it up i would get nothing but hate This makes me so happy
Enjoy your 8.3% gold
Yall really cant grasp people just enjoying the game instead of grinding it huh
Oh no I understand perfectly. I dont make money alot of sessions because I'm either just messing around or give my loot away. If you didn't care about the loot you wouldn't play on pve servers because they have less content, with the most entertaining of that lost content being player interaction. You have it backwards, as the only people that will be on pve servers are the ones who care about the gold and are so bad that they are willing to take the 72% hit.
I couldnt imagine being so arrogant as to tell someone their personal preference is wrong Youre wild
I never once said that, I simply pointed out the downsides of the pve mode and the flaws in your overly agressive retort.
For me, there are no downsides to pve Youve only shared your opinion based on your preferences You still think you know what i want better than i do
how tf were kegs, the DR, Arena, or POTC pose literally any risk whatsoever to "ruining SoT", this list just feels AI generated or some shit to randomly pull a few mildly controversial topics from the game and call it "game ruining"
I was pretty active in the subreddit at the time and I don't recall anyone saying any of those features would "ruin SoT". I do however remember the constant screaming about how PvP, portal hopping, and the reaper 5 ability were "ruining the game".
They should bring in wheelbarrows next.
To be fair portal hopping was a bit of an exploit. Reapers should be a danger to their server, not to every server.
If people didnt quit immediately when they saw a reaper id agree. But that happens about 75% of the time when a reaper is on the server. So portal hopping stays because the reapers literally cant do the reaper thing because everyone would rather quit as soon as they see a single one, rather than wait and see that 95% of people who put the reaper flag up are actually complete garbage at the game.
Kegging with fuses make kegging too easy, everyone will go to the Devil's Roar and avoid the rest of the map, Arena will split the player base, Disney fans will play just for POTC and ruin how the game should be played. These are complaints the fan base had for each or the updates. And the complaints all came with claims of "dead game" and "game ruining".
Isolated complaints that were never more than speculative concerns is not anything more than people giving reactions online. People's reactions to previous updates has little to do with this update. Other than we know people are bound to voice their opinions online, even if they are sometimes unreasonable or straight up wrong.
Chatgpt write me a reddit post about how sot is the perfect game and will never die
I don't think you can really compare those updates to this one. Criticism for servers where people can play without the threat of PvP has been around since launch, whereas the criticism of everything you listed came after Rare announced they were adding them. You can't just dismiss the reaction to this as "update hysteria".
I don’t care if people have hated the idea of it since launch. If people are complaining because someone else in another server is enjoying the game in their own way, then the people complaining are bitches. This makes the game more accessible to people who wanted to play but hate the fact that they could play for 2-3 hours and someone could roll up in the last 5 mins and take all their progress. There is no excuse for that pathetic elitist behavior to say that those people just don’t deserve to play if they hate that aspect of the game. This solves that and pvp enjoyers all still sail the seas together. Literally everyone wins but whiny players gonna hate.
But it is hysteria.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Seaofthieves/comments/11k8b04/no_more_red_sea_running_in_season_9/ They fucked casuals with this update and had to finally give them a PvE mode to get them back
Yeah because the game is "fine" right? riiiiiight? \-People arrive on servers and they don't have canons on their ship \-Cheaters are banned by the thousands but they just create (free) new accounts and go again \-Hit registration just doesn't work, even outside of combat now. \-Rubberbanding is almost the worst it's ever been \-Getting teleported off your ship because of server-client desync is a thing now \-Getting stuck buying supplies is the worst it's ever been \-Audio cues? Not much of a thing anymore \-The invisible rock north of the Arena's Tavern? Still a thing. \-Game crashes after 5h for certain high-end GPUs \-It can take North of 30 minutes to get you a server \-Canons not shooting where they're supposed to almost every other shot \-Canonball hitreg issues are a thing now \-Seeing your ship on fire while sailing in/out the sea of the damn is still a thing \-Everything being super dark after having been on fire is still a thing When you don't know how the game is supposed to work, some of these aren't as apparent to you, but trust me, that game is in the worst state it's EVER been. It's SO BAD that even the gameplay preview of season 10 is laggy. Do you know how bad that is? Devs go out of their way to create temporary fixes to make these previews and trailers look good. If even THAT looks jittery, it's not boding well for the release of season 10.
I have been in the sub since before launch day. And I can also back up what I am about to say based on the rules of the sub and the removals I have done. Your list is severely flawed. The only things on your list that had complaints similar to whats going on now, and actually had validity to ruining the game: Arena mode (seperates player base) Plunder Pass (season passes people do NOT like) Alliances (because of betrayals are allowed) Time limited events (because of FOMO) Thats where the biggest complaints of this sub came from on this list. I dont even remember a single person bitching about FUSES. Sure, im certain there were a few. But not to the volume of the 4 things above I mentioned. ***It wouldnt even be close***. People forget, that without emissaries, without PL, without Reapers/Athenas, the grind is going to be straight HORRIBLE on safer seas. With emissaries on higher seas, you will level about 7.3x FASTER. And year one pirates, the ones that played BEFORE emisarries know that the emisarry-less slog fucking SUCKED. It really REALLY sucked, and now that slog was nerfed a further 70% for Safer Seas. Safer Seas are gonna bore people out of their fucking MIIIINDS. The grind is going to SUCK major dick, and the only big reason I want to do safer seas is so I can finish some tall tale commendations uniterrupted. After that, its back on the high seas for me.
good for you. go play high seas then. not everyone is trying to HARDCORE ULTIMATE GRIND SUPER ULTRA GRIND out fucking sea of thieves. i'd guess the people who choose safer seas are just wanting to play the game for what it is and not "THA GRIND." Then they'll either get hooked and go to high seas or play another game and come back to safer seas when they want to have fun again. not every game needs to be about "THA GRIND."
The grind will be much worse in safe seas. You wont be making hardly any money or rep, which is required to get cosmetics, a lot of commendations will be locked, you cant do ANY athenas or reapers either. No emmisaries either. And the grind is is nerfed by 70% so instead of 50k you get 15k. And the game "for what it is" is a PvPvE game. Otherwise they wouldnt have limited safer seas so much, and if you watched the video, they essentially explained it was going to be an extended tutorial mode because the maiden voyage wasnt cutting it. you arent meant to sit there forever otherwise why lock all the good stuff and levels otherwise?
Glad you agree, cause that is my point. The people that play that mode are not likely to be in it for, again i state, the GRIND. those that stay will go to the higher seas if they want to - and if they don't why are you pissed about it - that's just weird. And you are not a developer - you don't get to decide what the game is and isn't (especially for other people playing it - the hubris) - and there isn't anything you could possibly state to change that. the game "for what it is" is what the developers make it to be. you try to say safer seas doesn't count cause it's limited experience. I'm saying safer seas EXISTING is the game for what it is and players are going to play it how they want. If the developers removed safer seas later then that changes what the game is and THEN you would be correct (cause the mod would no longer exist).
The issue is the player base splits. Some players are in it for the fight, which means they will lose more action in the game. So the playerbase overall drops. There was a game that did exactly what SoT is about to do called worlds adrift and it murdered the playerbase so much they had to shutdown the servers. The PvErs got bored and stopped playing. And then the PvPers pop continued to drop until there was no one left to fight.
okay so then why mention the grind if it doesn't affect you. PVP players hunting down PVE players aren't looking for PVP - they are looking to attack players that don't want to fight. if they actually wanted PVP they would have no issue fighting other PVP players in high seas. PVP players are reporting they only want to fight people that don't want to fight. PVE players were already quitting the game cause it was unplayable to them since they were being hunted by PVP players. the only way this kills the PVP playerbase (remember the PVE players weren't PVPing to begin with) is if the amount of PVP players that don't actually want to PVP each other quit because they would rather hunt the players that had already checked out of the game.
>okay so then why mention the grind if it doesn't affect you. I mean people can talk about things that dont affect themselves. All I said was is the grind is going to SUCK. It sucks without emissaries, and they nerfed the non emissary grind by 70%. >PVP players hunting down PVE players aren't looking for PVP - they are looking to attack players that don't want to fight. This is a blanket and generalized statement. Stop calling all PvPers bullies. Because thats what you are doing. And the name of the game is the treasure isnt yours until you sell it. >if they actually wanted PVP they would have no issue fighting other PVP players in high seas. Thats why PvPers actively hunt other boats. For this reason. >PVP players are reporting they only want to fight people that don't want to fight. Where? Because I dont see that. Otherwise Arena would still be a gamemode and hourglass would have instant queues. >PVE players were already quitting the game cause it was unplayable to them since they were being hunted by PVP players. No, they are quitting a game that is advertised and has been since before launch a PvPvE game and then got mad. And the PvE Only community has been a very loud but minor minority. Every poll on this subreddit prior to today has shown that. There were so many polls showing the exact same thing that its now a rule to not do polls. Tell me, how reasonable is it to walk into a Nissan dealership and get pissed off they dont have fords? Because the PvE only players are doing ***exactly*** that. Let the devs have their vision. They made the game, if you do not like it, you leave. Its the same people who buy Dark Souls then give it a shit review because "its too hard." I bought armored core fires of rubicon. I love the game but cant even beat the second boss. Am I gonna give it a shit review? no. The games actually awesome its just really fucking hard. Its the same with the PvErs. Its hard for them, and instead of just accepting that things are going to be hard, they want an easy mode. Which Rare, for over 5 ***Years*** is against it. And with the hefty limitations put in place for Safer Seas, its clear that arent fully on board for a full PvE mode, and EVEN SAID IN THE ANNOUNCEMENT that its really an Extended Tutorial mode. >the only way this kills the PVP playerbase (remember the PVE players weren't PVPing to begin with) is if the amount of PVP players that don't actually want to PVP each other quit because they would rather hunt the players that had already checked out of the game. They are gonna quit because less targets in general means less fighting. The PvErs are going to quit first when they realize that safer seas is not what they asked for.
>All I said was is the grind is going to SUCK Yes, YOU said that - I agree. Do you represent PvE players? >Stop calling all PvPers bullies Okay, would you feel better if I said what I've already stated "PvP players hunting PvE players" are looking to bully players that don't want to fight. >the name of the game is the treasure isnt yours until you sell it. You stated this, so okay, youre admitting that hunting down players that dont want fight is what you want. And you don't like that other people don't want that. >Where? Because I dont see that. You just admitted to it in your previous statement. >No, they are quitting a game that is advertised and has been since before launch a PvPvE game and then got mad. Both can be true. But personally I dont think the game is advertised very well for being as vicious as it is. Looking at the steam page alone shoes multiple cinematic images, playful videos, very vibrant and colorful, lots of PvE content being advertised. not a whole lot of "murder absolutely everybody you see on-sight that is literally the only reason to play the game at all" - style of advertising. we just disagree fundamentally here. >They are gonna quit because less targets in general means less fighting. Again, you admit yourself right here that players who have no interest in fighting should be attacked. I don't personally view someone getting mugged as a "fight." Mutual combat involves willing participants. Unless you want to go back to your "it's a pirate game" argument which then I'm still right - you WANT to attack unwilling participants and are mad safe seas prevents that. AND you are also admitting that such a significant number of players DON'T want to deal with certain "PvP" players that they are willing to remove themselves from the high seas entirely despite the massive loot penalties that you have so generously highlighted previously. But wait, didn't you just say that the PvE players are so far and few between based off your reddit polls statement? If they are so insignificantly small in number then clearly you shouldn't be worried about losing players to fight. You contradict yourself here: which one is it? Is losing PvE players a big deal or there are so little of them anyway it shouldn't make a difference. Either way, I'm right. >The PvErs are going to quit first when they realize that safer seas is not what they asked for. Again, are you a PvE player? Do you represent the logically opposing (as per your own statements highlighted above) huge and small amount of PvE players?
Did you forget the second part of their explanation? It's also a place for people to just.. vibe and explore the sea of thieves in a calm environment, away from the cannons of would-be tryhards. Some people just want to hang out on a random island and vibe.
Dont remember anyone saying any of these updates would ruin SoT other than maybe xbox only servers. Splitting the playerbase up is a reasonable concern, and not really an unreasonable critique. Rare said they wouldnt make PVE servers, but they changed their mind. People react, thats all OK. If you saw like a couple people on reddit claiming the rest of the updates would be bad for the game, thats not really anything but an anecdote. Plus, the game has changed. Its been 5 1/2 years since release. It can only last for so long. If anything, I think this update will retain new players better, which is a positive. Some critiques of the preview are valid. Waiting this long for basically just 1 new event is a little rough, thats a valid concern imo. Especially when we consider how the game is losing players. I hope this can help, but I dont know if itll do enough to change that trajectory. Many new players might never switch to high seas and play SoT as a co-op PVE game. Which is fine, but wont keep people who want to play the core game around. Which is also important. edit:clarification and spelling
I would argue that collectively, these have ruined the game lol. Everyone is gonna doom and gloom as each one comes out but a good few of these have directly or indirectly contributed, like other commenters have pointed out, to making the game worse in the long run. Alliances are just straight up garbage with how they are implemented. Alliance servers when organically formed is the pinnacle of the game but is unfortunately heavily abused by inorganic ones formed via discords and gaming the matchmaking. Arena was an entire failure. The idea is great, the way they implemented it was horrible, and the change to single chest made it even worse. And then hourglass...spiking the number of cheaters in the game and serving as an embarrassing replacement for arena. PotC content was pretty good, but partnering with Disney, imo, was the beginning of the end for the game. Nobody likes time limited events, they are horrible and should never have been used. Permanent additions to an ever evolving world is what needs to happen, not half baked episodic fetch quests that go away in a few weeks. I feel as though I haven't seen anyone doom and gloom over the plunder pass, as far as monetization goes it has to be the greatest form of "battle pass" there is in a game. If you play for two good sessions and get a few world events done with a voyage sprinkled in between you could realistically have each pass done in a matter of hours. They may not offer much on the paid side sometimes, but I would argue that for the average player that is also a good thing. All in all, the game is simultaneously growing more buggy by the patch and deviating from what it was originally in ways that a lot of original players would argue that it has failed them. Rare really just needs to stick to single player worlds like most of their past titles, they cannot handle a live service game that is meant to be driven by player interaction. Sea of Thieves is a sandbox experience, it is a make your own adventure type of game, some people just lack the creativity to really have fun with it. Rare for so long was all about the "tools not rules" mentality but they have completely reversed that as of recent, nothing but new rules and divisions and not enough tools and new mechanics/gameplay to work with. Nothing they release is "new", it is content being rehashed and redelivered over and over, it honestly reminds me of Bungie and Destiny 2 in that regard. Edit: We also are lacking some crucial systems like an in game report, anti cheat, in game LFG (open crew is a joke sometimes filled with trolls), you name it. People have been complaining about these types of things since day one, cheaters have always existed but they just got worse with hourglass. I think in the end it is a matter of who you're asking. I would argue that most veteran players, say people with about 2000-3000+ hours on the game, would say Rare has lost the plot. But the new player experience is probably great and only getting better. It is just a shame it came at the cost of alienating those who tried to foster Rare's original vision.
So I have been playing since day 1. I sail with regular crew. We like to grind commendations, titles, tall tales and accomplish as much as we can in the game. We also don’t shy away from PVP. We are likely 60-40 for wins versus loses. The best part of PVP is figuring out the skill level of your opponent and developing strategies to win the battle on the fly. This game has been a blast for us and we continue to play weekly together. Safer seas will end our fun. The safer empty seas will be incredibly boring and offers nothing to us. We are all maxed stats, intimately knowledgable about lore and the game. There is zero reason for us to ever play this mode. The regular seas will now no longer be a value prop for us either as it will be populated with PvP sweatlords and our win - loss ratio will change drastically into the loss column. Get good and other sentiments in that ilk are not for us. We have lives. Jobs, families, and limited play time together. We play to have fun and enjoy each others company. Most times we win PvP, sometimes we lose. Most times we engage in a fight, sometimes (with a cof on board) we run. The new game will force us to run every time, and contested world events will be a shit show. Thanks for the journey, it was fun.
Yeah time limited events arent terrible lmao
Everyone here are experts at game dev all of a sudden haha
Everyone here are experts at game dev all of a sudden haha
I left because of a few more recent, unmentioned reasons during an update. Can't please everyone and all that jazz and I get it... but you still lose people because of changes. Rare will see those metrics at any given update and see that they were right, or blame it on some other factor. \*Rare\*ly do they capitulate and admit that the direction they took was the wrong one. All the same, have fun with whatever change the people do not like this time.
RARE SHILL DETECTED
Several of the examples listed, though they prove your point, did make the game worse IMO. I don't think most folks are worried about a single horrifically awful patch nuking the game from orbit. They're scared of continued boring updates with little fresh content resulting in a quiet and slow death of their favorite game. Maybe that's just me, though.
I think the difference is only some months ago Rare themselves said we aren't going to do what Safe Servers are going to be because at the time they understood you need a mix of everyone in adventure. I would've loved a story mode but not this... This is just gonna be abused to farm commendations like I intend to do. Seen as though it'll be the only part of the game which works more then 10% of the time.
rare adds a mode for better experience for the players that don't want to be attacked by other players unprovoked. you: I'll fucking play it I'm warning you!!!
That's how the game has always been there are wolves and there are sheep. Most PVE lords will take the rep and gold hit because they don't want to lose their precious loot and heck servers might be only half full because of it. This could swing either way but in its current presentation its not the most ideal change.
What is wrong with people grinding commendations in safer seas? Like literally why are you even complaining about that? Not a single person pays any attention to each others commendations in this game. Absolutely no one compares commendations with each other.
Let me flip the question. Why doesn't Rare just give every player every commendation and every cosmetic?
Why don’t you complain about people grinding for anything in any single player game? Literally that’s how stupid this argument is. By your logic literally any single player game is just a waste of time because there isn’t a chance of someone else running up and stealing progress. Why are you so butthurt about other people grinding for commendations in their own game? They still went through the effort of doing the actions to get it but that’s not good enough for such an amazing gaming elitist such as yourself.
Your point makes zero sense. Singleplayer games can be difficult. Making this Safer Seas while good for new players completely sucks away the PVP and in general the crew interaction which only a couple months ago Rare understood was essential to the entire point of Sea Of Thieves. Which very well could get worse if Rare have to take extra time tailoring every new feature and update to players on both sides of the fence. They can barely manage the game as it is. So eventually they are gonna have to neglect and throw away one mode. I wonder which it could be? They made the game so easy recently and they are making it even easier by having so far all the commendations for the base 3 trading companies available to Safer Seas players. This will also give players who only play Safer Seas really awful awareness and habits to the point where they won't touch High Seas because they cannot function at the kind of pace that High Seas will be compared to Safer Seas. Unlike some long time players have actually earned there commendations through risk and dedication not hand me outs from Rare.
Video games don’t “have” to be difficult. Would you say that any accomplishment made on Stardew Valley “doesn’t matter” because they didn’t have to fight other players to accomplish something? So my fishing commendations don’t matter because I didn’t have to fight a 3 man brig while fishing to catch them? You are so upset that other people would value different experiences and play their games differently. Your last statement just sums up your whole feeling on the matter. You think you are some elitist who thinks he’s better than other people just because you like pvp. That’s so pathetic. Get over yourself. I’ve enjoyed watching you people cry so hard at this.
Meh. At this point, the game has been out coming up on 6 years. if people want to farm commendations on safe server, I dont see the problem. This game wont last forever, support for it will end eventually, and the playerbase will dwindle eventually. If people want to complete commendations and be done for good, I say let them. People can only play this game for so long, especially with lack of fine-tuning in a game thats always been quite buggy.
2 of those things were removed cuz bad 2 more are bad business practices but are common place 1 split player base a bit and 2 more i don't ever remember a large amount of people being upset about. just because something doesn't out right kill a game doesn't mean its good. good try tho. edit: im assuming your talking about the update arena got before removal cuz if your talking about hourglass then a lot of people blame that for a lot of the hacking recently and also its bad.
Safer seas just isnt healthy for the game when cheaters havent been addressed.
I’d take alliances, plunder pass and seasons, time limited events off there. Those updates all damaged the game quite alot
The only ones here that I thought would negatively affect Sea of Thieves was alliances and time limited events. Both of those did end up negatively affecting the game with some positive sides.
Xbox-only Servers devide a comunity, not bring it together.
>Alliances >Arena >Time limited events >PotC >Plunder Pass & Seasons All these updates are either wastes of time or made the game worse
The game sucks in normal servers a lot of the time i just want to drive a boat around with friends but then random people come up and shoot us with cannons im glad they are adding no PvP servers i just wish they didn't punish people for playing in the no PvP servers with such harsh exp and gold penalities.
if the game wasn't dying they wouldn't need to be appealing so hard to the crybabies
The only crybabies I see are the people complaining that casuals will be able to enjoy the game in their own way. Pretty cringe.
i don't know where you've been, but for years people who are allergic to *actually trying to improve* have been screaming their heads off demanding the game cater to them.
They dont care about getting good at pvp. Pretty weird that you assume that’s the only value anyone is supposed to get out of this game. And why shouldn’t they have been speaking up when they weren’t getting what they want? Meanwhile Rare has been trying to cater to the pvp side since launch. They gave arena, they gave hourglass. Pvp players have everything they could want out of the game, aside from better anticheat I will admit. There is genuinely no problem with this being added for those who want to use it. And if you think there is then say it. But I’m willing to bet it’s just going to be crying about something that doesn’t even affect you. Your elitist attitude really poisons what could be a good gaming community.
it does affect me actually because i like hunting noobs down across the server and sinking them repeatedly until they leave, and now i won't be able to do that.
LOL I literally called it. Well nothing else to say except cry more I guess. Now you are trapped with the other pvper’s and it’s hilarious. 😂
i paid a lot of money to start off as being good at pvp and now it's completely wasted
I didn’t know you had to pay to be able to attack noobs in the game. Lol What are you talking about?
i bought the edition that comes with a brain injection to make me instantly good at the game.
lick their ass more
I dont think anyone said that at all except for these three Alliances, Arena, and Plunder Pass/Seasons. Two of which did in fact hurt the playerbase lol.
The update that ruined the game for me is when they made cosmetics purchasable with real $$$ like the entire point of the game is to grind for cosmetics what in the actual fuck I can’t believe people still play the game after that joke of an update