At this point I have a hard time trying to figure out what audience would really like Sea of Thieves which is a problem. Don't get me wrong this game has the ability to cater to so many different players, but the way Rare has being going about it has just been detrimental to everyone. Overall the game is in a worst spot right now for all player groups.
PvPvE Players: These players who love the initial dream for SoT a beautiful mix of PvPvE exploring the world, gathering loot, stealing from other players, forming alliances and having all the amazing interactions SoT was once known for are now a thing of the past. HG and server hopping causes servers to be dead for the most part, easy loot and loot turn in gives players no reason to commit to a server they started playing on. Even supplies have become entirely meaningless due to them being EXTREMELY plentiful. There is no reason to stay on a server people just constantly hopping killing any meaningful player interactions.
RP players: More rare of players, but some of the best people to run into when playing the game! I used to love being able join a server and just RP w/ some friends meeting crews and dragging them into our shenanigans. And there are more tools then ever to let us do this, but there are NO players. Nothing is more painful to watch then going into a server and seeing 2 1v1 battles taking place meaning that in about 5 minutes you will be the ONLY ship left on your server as they are both about to hop to their next HG match.
PvP Players: HG is an absolute mess of a mode with some games being fast fun phenomenal experiences and others making you want to uninstall SoT and go play another game. Supplies in this mode are so BEYOND insanely important that the game is required to provide you a way to get them quickly making the game worst for PvPvE players, however they are not even enough. Joining into HG to run into a ship with 10x your supplies capable of taking cannon shots w/ 20% accuracy from a tile away while you're counting your wood is not fun gameplay.
This entire mode is an absolute cluster mess trying to incorporate a competitive PvP mode w/MMR into a random open world while only giving players meaningful rewards through win streaks... Like I'm sorry Rare but whoever made this decision should feel bad this literally combined three incompatible things together showing absolutely 0 foresight.
Competitive PvP w/MMR + random open world ruins the competitive aspect losing due to supplies or some other player interaction feels bad, in addition adding this competitive fixed PvP matches in the open world makes the game worst for players trying to enjoy the world and run into ships trying to do the same.
Competitive PvP w/MMR + win streaks: like do people not understand how MMR works!!?!?! W/ proper working MMR you should only have about a 50% win streak. Problem with this is Rare implements a system that rewards players off of win streaks!?!?! Literally 2 competing systems at play here. And this exists because in Rare's mind MMR can't be a meaningful metric, so we can't reward players based off of MMR, therefore we can't have MMR work properly either because then being higher MMR would be a disadvantage leading to MMR tanking. These 2 systems are FUNDAMENTALLY incompatible.
Random open world + Win streaks: Similar to as stated above having your rewards being tied to randomness feels bad. If anyone has played any competitive game before the main reason people will call it quits is not toxicity or unbalanced gameplay, but losing to stuff out of their control ex: someone going AFK on your team, or some guy deciding to purposefully throw the game. Sea of Thieves decided to make it part of the game! Like what was the thought process here?
This entire game is worst for everyone because Rare is constantly trying to force different player bases together who want to play the game in fundamentally different ways. PvPvE + RP players are not having the chance to have fun meaningful interactions with other crews and experience the open world. PvP players are not getting a fair and fun way to practice and improve at PvP.
All of these modes are required for the game to be great. Players NEED a good way to practice PvP to feel like they have a way of improving after losing in the open world. Players need a fun open world with ships also looking for a fun experience to keep the magic of SoT. The fix is so obvious and simple which is why it hurts... Let players queue for HG OUTSIDE OF OPEN WORLD. If you want to HG in open world defend your loot or try to steal other peoples loot that's amazing that is the best part of HG, but this current system with everyone hopping is the worst it can be.
Funny enough the people who won in the end out of all this is the player base that Rare said they would not support being the pure PvE single player players with safer seas... It's insane to me that Rare decided to cater to this audience and neglect the rest.
