remove the purchaseable supplies limit

@timeo1750 This game is trying to do too many things at once in one open world and tbh it's not working.

Natural play should have people want to stay on a server grow supplies on the server and enjoy the PVEVP experience.

However there is a lot of players who want a full PVP experience, which is fully fair. It feels bad to lose your ship to a crew so beyond drastically better then you that you never had a remote chance to win. SoT NEEDS a pvp mode like HG to exist to allow players a chance to improve at the game in a reasonable fashion. Already most players will NEVER be as good as hand to hand PvP as people who used to TDM in arena in the past since they will never be able to realistically get that level of practice and competition.

Proper training and practice tools in any game makes a major difference in the skill of players, and since SoT had it before they can never take it away without making the game IMPOSSIBLE for new players to actually get good at. Look at league of legends pre practice tool only the highest level pro players could do stuff like insec on Lee Sin or fast combo w/ Riven... Now I expect it in my average gold game.

Now how does this relate to supplies? The main purpose of supplies is to get players straight into fights since Rare knows looting up is time consuming and boring when all you want to do is PvP. Remember they added barrels floating up since players would camp enemy ships to take their supplies just to be able to keep PvPing without having to stop and get supplies again.

In short supplies exist for players to PvP and fast PvP is mandatory for new players to have a chance to improve at the game. The fix is so obvious and simple which is to give players a way to PvP to practice outside of the open world. Mixing forced PvP with what is supposed to be a natural PvPvE world is making BOTH experiences worst.

So, here's my thought on the supply limit: if it were removed, there should be a system where the cost doubles every time you buy. For example, 30 cannonballs might cost 3,500 gold at first, then 7,000, then 14,000, and so on. To keep it fair, the prices would reset to normal after 3 in-game days.

This would also deal with the current issue where some players exploit the system to stock up on way more supplies than normal players, who are stuck with one purchase per outpost. Removing the limit and making it cost more over time would stop the exploiters and make it actually cost them something for trying to hoard supplies.

What do you guys think? Fair trade-off or too harsh?

@uluckyhitreg Won't do anything except make HG worst for players who don't have the gold to spend for supplies. Some players in this game have hundreds of millions at this point with nothing to spend it on and will have no problem getting supplies while others will be fighting w/ scraps. This will lead to potential exploiting of loot being more common (let's not pretend they don't exist they pop up fairly often) + alliance servers as a quick way to get gold to get supplies for PvP.

We just need to remove buying supplies from the open word and move HG to a separate mode. Makes the game better for everyone. Make it so you can still queue into HG for the whole attacking and defending ships things w/ loot which makes you rely on supplies you gathered playing PvPvE while giving players a way to play HG outside of the open world w/ fixed supplies so we can have a working supply economy and an overall healthier PvPvE game

@Nitroxien Having a lot of supplies doesn’t guarantee a win. Last time I was in HG on open crew, we sank a brig with multiple flags from other ships. They clearly knew what they were doing, were good PvP players, and had enough supplies to last days. Yet, they sank within seconds. Meanwhile, we barely had any supplies! People just need to focus on hitting their cannon shots and targeting the right parts of the ship without wasting supplies.

HG will never become a separate mode. Sea of Thieves is a PvPvE game. Arena was removed because less than 2% of players used it. It required its own servers, updates, and developer resources, which was costly and unsustainable. That’s why HG was created—it can run on the main servers without those extra costs. I don’t see them ever making HG a separate mode, no matter how much people complain.

I also doubt they’ll remove the ability to buy supplies. For the past three years, updates have focused on letting players jump into the game quickly without spending 20–30 minutes preparing. Many players have jobs, school, or other responsibilities and don’t have as much time to play as streamers, basement dwellers, or people on days off.

@uluckyhitreg The argument that supplies are not required to win battles is such an awful one. Magnus Carlsen does not need his eyes, queen, rooks, or bishops to beat me in chess... Supplies give a MASSIVE advantage and it's not really debatable... Like I'm definitely not bad at the game (bit washed at this point tbh), but not good enough to beat NAL champs back when HG dropped, but we did simply by abusing our supplies diff staying and staying at max range. Literally sunk them by them running out of wood least deserved victory ever lol (did help to be fair their TDM skills were not the best compared to my crews who at the time did nothing but TDM in arena).

The PvPvE mode of SoT, the main reason I play the game to be clear, has been RUINED by HG. I can go stack FOTD and afk for an hour without feeling in any danger. Nothing hurts more then seeing in your server 2 1v1 HG battles. This constant server hopping that exists in Sea of Thieves now is resulting in servers being desolate and boring. Long gone are the fun days of seeing organic gameplay and having meaningful and fun player interactions. Long gone are the days of 2 crews organically meeting setting up fake alliances and trying to backstab the other with the other crew coming back for revenge. Long gone are the days of seeing multiple ships meet up for world events or try to take down the server reaper then run with the shares of the loot they got.

Forcing a rigid fixed competitive PvP mode w/ an MMR system into what is supposed to be an open world filled w/ exploration deceit and adventure has done nothing but make both modes worst.

The whole server argument is so insane since we have safer seas... Literally just a server for you, same as the real ones. Just do the exact same thing for HG and problem solved. Rare already showed they can disable world events in safer seas so no problem for HG either. The system ALL exists already just implement it for HG as well.

Also to be clear the statement Rare gave is not 2% of the playerbase played arena... It was 2% of player time was spent in arena. Many people who loved arena had even more hours in high seas (myself included). Let's stop acting like HG being part of the open world is making it more popular or better incorporating it into the game. It's as different to high seas as arena was with the only difference being it is making high seas SO MUCH worst for the players who actually want to play the actual game!

Here is the thing with supplies though, you don't need that many for anything else then PvP. When I want to go an enjoy the game in a PvEvP way even if I am raising reapers doing world event I don't spend time supplying since I know I will get tones by just playing the game. The only time I actually get supplies is when I am going into HG.

In short HG is hurting the natural open world SoT experience ruining both the supplies economy and causing servers to be dead with there not being a good reason to not just let players queue HG outside of high seas in an identical way that safer seas exist.

@nitroxien Players were server hopping long before HG was added, so blaming HG for that doesn’t make sense. The same goes for being over-supplied—this was already happening well before HG came along. Sure, buying supplies has made it more common, but there have always been plenty of other ways to stock up without spending gold.

For example, players could (and still can) use A Pirate’s Life Tall Tales to gather a ton of supplies quickly. On top of that, if you find or buy a storage crate, you can take it with you while doing treasure-digging or diving quests. Every island you visit fills up your crate. For Skeleton Fleet dives event, you don’t even need to finish the event—just grab the storage crates and bring them back to your ship. Cancel the quest, head to the nearest outpost, and resupply while waiting for the cooldown to dive again.

There are so many ways to gather supplies that it’s just wrong to say HG is the sole cause of this. Supplies have always been easy to get if you know what you’re doing.

As for Safer Seas, it’s not the same as Arena. Safer Seas has a real purpose: it gives new players a chance to learn the game without the pressure of PvPvE. Over time, these players are more likely to move to the High Seas servers, which helps the game grow.

Arena and standalone HG servers don’t offer the same kind of benefits. They mostly attract a small, highly competitive group of players who then complain about low participation. If HG were isolated, it would likely end up with the same problems Arena had: low engagement, dwindling numbers, and eventually being removed.

it's time for everyone to be on an equal footing

Remove the whole thing. Nobody buys supplies.

Supply caps per ship and revamp the storage capacity of storage crates.

Simple solution that would generally improve the game.

The mechanics are already there. They introduced those "fill radials" in ship barrels and storage crates in like Season 8 or 9...and then never did anything with them.

I do wonder if supplies especially crates have a major impact on server performance and if so many were not purchasable that may help with lag to some degree ?