Ahoy there fellow Pirates!
So, I'd like to try something here and I hope to keep it up for future updates as well. I want to write a quick review of the current new content with both positive and constructive points based on my own experience, my crew's experience as well as what I hear from other people over here on the forum.
To what purpose, you might wonder. Well I hope that it encourages a healthy discussion about the things that are and aren't there. I see a lot of topics that go: "You should have done this. I thought of that in 10 minutes, you should be able to." As well as: "X is stupid, you should do Y because I think Z". It's not all doom and gloom, but it's not all as great and pretty either. That's all fine, that means there is room for improvement and I hope to shed a little light on that based on my own opinion :).
The following might contain a few minor spoilers. Ye have been warned.
So let's get on with it.
The Skeleton Thrones (review)
Skeleton Thrones Event – The Skeleton Thrones are the latest addition to the world of Sea of Thieves. These thrones require a good sense of discovery to find, and for some an even steadier aim to reach. There are 5 small Thrones and 5 large Thrones, the small requiring just one pirate to sit on, but the larger requiring pirates to be sat on it from more than one crew. Look high, look low, and look within…
Riddles
The above is the Skeleton Thrones description found in the patch notes for 1.1.2. When I first read the description, I got quite excited. Personally, I like riddles and solving things. I very much liked doing the Gold Hoarder riddles back in early test session, the beta and eventually the release. Of course, as with most things, the novelty wore off but, more importantly, I started to recognize the different riddles and landmarks that riddles refer to. The Skeleton Thrones hints give away just enough for you to have to do a little guess work. So having a new type of 'riddle' was a nice change of pace.
Exploration
Some of the thrones were easier to find, some were a bit harder and one required a bit of an explorer's heart. This particular one was quite easy for me and my regular first mate, @MR-SHATANGO. Despite being easy, because we randomly discovered it during one of our first explorations of the sea, it was great to find out that they had included this hidden area into the content of the game. All in all, finding out where to go was a little more challenging than during the Hungering Deep and that's great!
Cannoneering
I consider myself to be very skilled at the cannons. I'm usually the guy people ask to aim them onto an island or a ship, the latter isn't quite possible at full speed at the moment due to the cannon glitch, while I'm also the guy on the helm. It's great, to be honest, but man some of these thrones were actually a little hard to get to. Not because of the area you'd have to shoot in, but the nuances with which you have to hit your mark. A tiny bit down might work, but then your ship rocks on the waves and now you're way under. A tiny bit up might work, but now your ship goes up and you're way over. It was a great way to get a bit more skilled at distance and altitude aim, hopefully that will be usefull in the future. By the way, here's me gloating that I hit my first throne on my first shot (I had a great time waiting for my crew).
Doubloons
I spend a good amount of my teenage years playing a game called Puzzle Pirates. We had two currencies: Pieces of Eight (PoE) and Doubloons. Imagine my excitement when Doubloons made their entrance to Sea of Thieves.
The idea behind the Doubloons system is a good one. Alternative ways to play the game outside of trading companies while still being able to earn gold and reputation for said trading companies. Being able to buy special, time-limited, items with the Doubloons is very cool. The one downside I can see is that a lot of Pirate Legends are sitting on a pile of cash they aren't using and now they can't even use it to buy these things. Maybe we should be able to buy Doubloons with gold, seeing as we are able to buy gold with Doubloons. Even if the trade isn't exactly fair.
Uneasy alliances
Having two titles to be earned is a great way of pushing ahead and obtaining them all. I do feel, however, that master and hero should be the other way around. Somehow I feel 'Hero' seems higher than master. Now, about having to work together with a different crew like we had to with Hungering Deep... Personally, I think that's great. I like the feeling of that uneasy alliance you sometimes get. Other times the alliance feels pure and great. I understand why the need to work together could ruin it for a lot of players. We've done the entire thing on the first day, like we did with the Hungering Deep, and even we had to deal with a Galleon and a Sloop that were trying to ruin things for us and the crew we were with. We took them down, because we weren't letting them take this from us, but not everyone is able to do that for one reason or another.
Griefing
This griefing behaviour actually gets worse as the event goes on, as we've witnessed during the Hungering Deep. There is crews out there that will be very willing to help, I know because we are that crew. We've helped over a dozen of other crews get their Hungering Deep kill and we won't hesitate to help other crews with the Skeleton Thrones if they would ask us. However, this is not the case for a lot of other crews. The reason, in my opinion, comes down to re-playability. There is no incentive to do these things again once you have done it and that discourages helping out the ones that still need to do it. I feel this could be an easy fix by letting people earn a doubloon or two for helping out the pirates in need.
(The solo sloop we helped out a little. Yeah, I know, this is a solo throne but I didn't have a photo of a different one)
I know there's been suggestions to allow the creation of fleet alliances or temporary PvE zones, but I feel that the uneasy alliance is part of what makes doing this so much fun. The other crew might stab you in the back, or the other way around, or they might not. I'd love to have fleets in the game, but only if the reason for them is a good one. This, in my opinion, isn't a good reason to have fleets yet.
Cheating
Okay, this is more of a pet peeve. We found a Galleon to do the multi-crew Skeleton Thrones with us. Once we reached Smuggler's Bay we noticed they just ran for a rock behind it and started shooting. We were confused, the riddle clearly said Smuggler's Bay. They were indeed shooting themselves at the throne that wasn't exactly on the Bay, but near it. Like the riddle siad. We thought that was a little fishy, so we asked if they found it before or are using hints / tips from other players. Unfortunately, the latter was the case. Personally I consider it to be cheating, but to each their own. Part of the fun is figuring out where everything is, so I was a little disappointed to find out they were using hints. We sunk their ship and created a new session to do the other thrones we still needed with a different crew (sorry to whomever we sunk, no hard feelings).
New outfits
I could be wrong, but are some of the items in this photo new / unreleased? Either way, the dress and the silver sovereign outfit look great!
Bilge Rats
Okay, now... what's going on here Rare? Why are the Bilge Rats on the first page and not the second? I understand, from an active moment point of view, that their card is upfront. It helps with finding it and navigating to it. However, it just gets in the way and ruins me seeing my GH, OoS and MA levels in one overview. I think that, once completed, the card should be moved to the back or we should be able to move the cards around and put them in an order we prefer.
New currency update panel
I like it, well done. Nothing else to say, it's just a notable mention haha.
Okay, well that's it. I'm sure there is more I could say about this, but these are the most important bits I suppose. It's a first for me, writing about an update like this. I plan to do it more often, hopefully for each content update, so we can open up a healthy discussion.
So, now that you've heard my thoughts, what are some of yours? I've already seen both praising and bashing going around the different topics, so I'm asking you to stay as civil as you can here!
Smooth sailin' to ye,
Murkrage
