I barely see human Galleons when I play either, but I think it's simply because there are not huge pools of 4 friends wanting to play together at the same time anymore. And playing as a crew of 4 in Open Crew is just not something that 9 out of 10 people would want to gamble on lol. 😬😅
Yes, the game is more quiet than it used to be. Yes, I play late at night sometimes and can go 2 hours without seeing a single human ship on the horizon anywhere, even when sailing all over the place and getting reapers chests and turning them in.
But, there's a bigger picture going on here. The fact that Sea of Thieves is getting quieter and the servers seem more dead, isn't necessarily due to Rare being 100% at fault or things in Sea of Thieves messing up its own game and pushing players away.
I'd say two things on this.
One, the vast majority of gamers don't usually sit on one game for months and months, or years and years. Yes, some do. Many of the people devoted to these forums that have been playing since launch do. I started Sea of Thieves in March 2018 and I'm still playing it. But in terms of all gamers worldwide on PC or Xbox, most don't. There are thousands upon thousands of games out there with more being released every single day. So most will try a game like Sea of Thieves, and even if they like it, they'll still be starting a new game next week and liking that one too. And maybe 2 other new games the following week. Many people have Game Pass, which tempts you with 200+ games just waiting to be installed and played. People don't usually stay that committed to one game, especially years after launch. Most people have moved on long before then to other games. This is just my personal observation as a whole towards any one game, not just Sea of Thieves.
My second thing ties into the first thing. In the past month, I've seen so many people saying how the servers are dead and how this game is dying. Streamers like Pace have to constantly server-hop just to find people to fight, to make it fun for their viewers. Rare is trying so hard to keep it fun and active, pushing more player interaction for PvP every time you turn around, looking at changes to Arena as people complain about really long lobby wait times because Arena is fairly dead, etc. But I look at outside influences too. There are other reasons that Sea of Thieves seems so quiet in the last month, just for an example. Gears 5 released. Borderlands 3 released. The new Plants vs Zombies released. And many more. My own Sea of Thieves playtime has been pretty dramatically reduced the past couple weeks as I'm playing Borderlands 3 and the new Plants vs Zombies every evening when I used to play Sea of Thieves. A couple of weeks ago, I took over a week off from Sea of Thieves to play A Plague Tale: Innocence. This past week, I've taken 3 or 4 days away from playing Sea of Thieves to play Sea of Solitude. I don't play Gears of War, but everyone on my friend's list that used to play Sea of Thieves sometimes is now only showing "Gears 5" or "Borderlands 3" next to their Gamertag every day when they're online.
I still like Sea of Thieves, and I visit these forums here almost every day. I keep up with my weekly Insiders playtime when it comes open. I watch the new Developer updates by Joe Neate every week on YouTube. Sometimes I look up videos by Pace or Hitbotc or Captain Falcore because it's fun to watch. But I haven't played Sea of Thieves that much lately at all, if I'm being honest. Why? Simple. Because: Other games.🤔🤷♀️😌💜
It's very hard for a Developer to keep people playing their game for months and months and months, when there is just so much competition out there. People simply drift to other games sometimes. There are currently about 3200 games on the Xbox One Store, with more released every single day. There are dozens of free to play games and over 200 on Game Pass. There are sales every week with handfuls of games going for a couple of dollars. This is just the gaming industry as it is, which Rare has no control over. So, gamers' attention spans get shorter and shorter, and they want to try new things, or play what their friends are playing. For Sea of Thieves, this eventually leads to dead servers, people complaining about 45 minute waits to get into an Arena match, and human Galleons in Adventure mode becoming more and more rare.
Sadly, it is what it is. All we can do, and all Rare can do, is try to adapt and keep up with adding new content to keep those that are playing happy. And maybe, to attract new players. This is just my own personal thoughts regarding all of the criticism that Sea of Thieves is getting regarding dead servers, things like this (too many sloops and solo players), etc. Personally, I'm neutral in all of this. 🤷♀️💜Yes, I see the dead servers and how much quieter the game is now compared to long ago, but I also look at outside forces like all of the other games out there to play, and big AAA releases lately which also pull attention away from this game. There's not much to be done about it; it is what it is. I think this is how Sea of Thieves is going to be now, and will continue to be. Unfortunately, seeing more sloops and fewer Galleons on the seas may be something we just have to adapt to. 🌊💜
