SoT is a good game, how can it be excellent ?

@baron-samedi669 60 ships to a map would be impossible given the server size and the data each ship uses. each one is a massive physics object effected by wind, canonballs, kegs, fire, rain and it has interactable parts. theres a reason why they didnt give skelleton ships an anchor or a wheel you could interact with: its just too much data. i agree server sizes should be larger but turning SOT into an mmo would be disaterous. I also agree that forts should have their own bosses but i doubt that will happen anytime soon. they need to rework arean rn fs. and as much as i hate to admit it forcing sword would help a bit with hit reg issues. microsoft and rare both need to focus their attention on SOT and quickly. especially because they're launching on steam.

@baron-samedi669 alright but 60 players would still be way too many 15 ships at the least and 30 at the most would be insane

pvp ship to ship is great,
all the options you have when engaging is great.
having to use your brain to keep up with everything is great.
however; pvp person to person is comedic.

before anything ambitious like this happens,
i would think they would have to to address the bugs with what they already have first.
and i would hope they would try to create a better combat experience next.

because as far as game content goes. there is no real point in playing.
the adventure of finding loot is magical, however, at the end of the day,
gold only gains you aesthetics and is a non essential luxury.
lots of players have already bought every item in the game and theyre sitting on millions of gold.

so eventually there is nothing left to do but to look for fights,
so its important to make combat as interesting as possible, and as it sits right now,
its very very bland to the point its almost lucky.. it all feels sloppy and unresponsive.

but not to confuse anyone, i like the pvp mechanics.
i think the entire scheme of how it works is fitting.
its the way that the weapons handle, and their balance to the meta that is unsatisfactory.
ESPECIALLY when you factor in lag..

the sword should be the main weapon.
more intricate blocking controls, versatility and stamina on offense.
add in kicks for spacing and punches for stuns, maybe a leg sweep to finisher.
parrying and some sort of counter for each move.
sparks in your face, the sound when they make contact.
not only would it be intense, it would just make the game even more methodical.
jumping around frantically pulling guns out your you know what should just not be a meta.

1 shotgun shot kill = sword is useless.
guns should be a luxury, and ammo should be scarce.
possibly rework the ammo refill to work as a storage.
you have to physically find the ammo in barrels and store it.
reload times should be higher.

i think the size of the map and the players on the map is perfect.
i just think the majority of the time you are playing you are not on a full server,
so it doesnt feel like theres enough ships.

i enjoy the idea of expanding the map and adding a variety of biomes,
and at that point adding to the ship count would certainly be a good idea.

This stopped being a viable conversation for me when the OP started with saying the game is dying and then continued to build a wish list for the game out of it to suit themselves. I wonder what behind the scenes metrics they ran to get them to profess to us that the game is dying and they know how to fix it.

They have no idea what they are talking about other than the game they want to turn this one into.

As I see them, I'll be calling out all the hogwash that gets pulled from thin air in dark places to argue about, for what it is.

@galactic-geek

the pvp is 100% goofy. there is nothing cool or fascinating about it. its as basic as it could possibly be. there is no argument.

the interesting part around combat, comes from the way its set up. inventory limit, resupplying, positioning, coordination, etc - trust me i understand the depth. but there is nothing satisfying about the actual combat sequence.

even killing skeletons is a snooze fest.
we need a more intricate control scheme for the sword.
its similar to skyrim in the sense you just trade damage.

youre comfortable saying that you feel really good about jumping around the ship with someone trying to land two shots on them before they land two shots on you, and thats top tier competitiveness, as good as it gets, give me a break brother.

the high of successfully being a bully pirate can still be achieved, but in a more satisfying manner. thats my entire argument. and the solution in my opinion would be to give swords a bigger move set, creating a more personal, methodical encounter. while keeping the guns completely relevant and rewarding, but making them a utility, and not a double main. its safe to say that the main reason people run a sword is to lunge through water, not because its their first choice weapon.

there is nothing intricate about the blocking mechanics, you just hold LT.
there is no parry move in the game.

you are thinking way to simplistically about stamina because of the poor execution of it so far to even give it a chance.

when i suggest the kick and the punch, it wouldnt be unarmed attacks, it would be variations of the sword attack. a front kick to push people back, and a offhand punch to briefly stun. how that would be too much is hysterical for someone who says I cant keep up.

the visuals and the audio cues of sword fights can be drastically enhanced. just because theres a weakass sound with no relation to a visual doesnt mean "we already have it". think of an attack being blocked and your swords absorb one another and you can visually see the other pirates menacing face pressing down on your sword before you push him off. thats just an example of the immersiveness that could be achieved. by no means is that a polished idea thats perfectly balanced.

yes im suggesting ammo resupplies on the ship are not infinite like ammo crates.
and yes, thats favoring the sword, and that is exactly the point.
guns would still very much remain viable.
it would by no means make combat stagnant,
if more intricate controls were implemented for the sword,
it would just be different.

you are so attached to this meta its admirable to hear you get so defensive over it.
these are very rough ideas, i can understand that there can be a misunderstanding in the perspective.

i believe that you fear the fast pace of the combat would be lost to slow animation dense sword play, but the speed of the action can be preserved as i admire how the system already works, i just think theres adjustments that still need to be made.

So the idea is to expand the number of players per server to 60 players because of the map size....but because you expanded it to 60 players you think the map should be bigger?? Wait....what?!

The ships don't need reworking at all, they are all balanced at the minute, each with their own strengths/Weaknesses and any competent crew can get the best out of them.

I do think you should be able to customise your pirate a bit more.

Whilst a guild system has merits like you have described above, it wouldn't work purely based on the fact that the game isn't designed to get more than 4 friends on the same server.

You have to remember that SoT isn't WoW or Overwatch. It has it's own identity which is quite unique in the gaming world so it doesn't need to follow the roadmaps of these games.

Also, the game isn't dying. I've never seen it so popular and I've been playing on and off since first release. The fact that some well known streamers are coming BACK to it shows that the game is actually growing.

All suggestions should keep in mind the game is bound to the performance of the Xbox One console.
Some of these ideas are neat but one can only hope for them being applied to a Sea of Thieves 2 with a major overhaul and dropped support for the Xbox One which doesn't seem like it will be happening anytime soon with the goal probably being a decade long 'service' across multiple platforms.

@baron-samedi669

It seems like you are seeking to play a different game, you ignore all information provided by the developers and the ideology of the design. Then suggest to change the whole game, to suit you? Maybe you should seek a game that suits you instead? Want vertical progression, ships... etc. I would recommend Last Oasis.

Server sizes are limited by technology and is why the world isn't huge. If you increase both, you maintain the status quo but in a bigger world. Design is not only limited by your imagination.

Progression system based on time; the entire point of horizontal progression is that time spent means nothing. Skill means everything... you don't get the concept.

You claim the game is dying, like people have done for the last 2 years. The fact is simple you are clueless about the games ideology and reason for success and want it to be more like other games you played. The thing is not all games should aim to provides the same options, why the seas will not die as you claim is because they are not providing the same.

Here is some information about servers and more code to run, and what that causes.

Coding is an awesome invention. It permits us to literally 'talk' to computers. However, coding is not easy. There are some coding languages that are really hard to master, and some that are easy. Sea of Thieves has to be coded with a higher level code, as simple HTML couldn't work. That being said, the more code, the more data on a server. This means that there are longer runtimes, and lag is a problem if the connection isn't strong. If the servers had the OP's idea coded into the game, the game would literally become unplayable, as there would be a huge amount of code running at the same time, causing lag, worse hitreg, and other problems.

Sea Of Thieves is a Sandbox game.
Not a MMO or a grinding game.

Everything else I'm cool with, but that server idea. Garbage. You can't separate the player base like that. because then the PVP'ers don't get any loot from people because no one in PVP servers is going to be doing any quests. RP is just stupid. and PVE is overexaggerated. It's a shared world. People need to accept that and move on.

Can we talk seriously about this game ? It's actually dying....

This is the point where I nearly stopped reading.

Over half-a-million pirates have raised the Gold Hoarders emmisary flag since the last update. This ignores all those players that have not raised that flag.

The game goes live on Steam within a week or so.

Sea of Thieves is NOT dying. If you want an example of a pirate games that is dying, consider Puzzle Pirates

Now, I will go back and read what other rubbish le Baron has to spout.

@baron-samedi669 Do you even know how expensive this would be for the devs? It was mentioned during a stream and they said they could never expand it becuase of the expenses.

Did you also want a ship cosmetics set for killing the shrouded ghost? Yohoho

While it would be cool for the Sea of Thieves to cover an area of ocean twice, or more, wide and high; with a corresponding increase in the biomes and number of islands available to us; we will have to wait for Moore's Law to run its course for another couple of years at least so that Rare/Microsoft and us can all upgrade to much more powerful computers and consoles, to provide the grunt to run it all.

It took Rare years to build the world we have today. They would need another couple of years, at least, to build another lot of islands as rich and numerous as those we have today. But, by then, perhaps we will all have the new hardware to run it. That is, of course, if the game doesn't die first, as le Baron suggests it is.

Also consider the whines when an Athena voyage has crews sailing for half an hour (in real time) from the new Ice Station Zebra at "A minus 20" to the new Province of the Golden Dragon at "ZZ-52".