Hi everyone,
Ahead of tomorrow’s launch of Season One, I wanted to share some behind-the-scenes thinking around one of the changes to Arena that is arriving at the same time, namely the removal of the ability to use text or voice chat with other crews within Arena.
The key goal here is to create a more welcoming multiplayer experience within Arena.
In a given month, just over half of toxicity reports that hit our Customer Service team come from the Arena, despite Arena accounting for around 3% of overall playtime in Sea of Thieves. A significant amount of these reports are of players abusing the ability to communicate directly with other crews.
To improve the Arena experience and make it a more welcoming one for all players, we made the decision to remove the ability to communicate with other crews, both within the Sea Dogs Tavern, and within the Arena mode itself. Players will still be able to use non-verbal comms, emotes etc so there are options for communication with other crews, but limited to options provided by the game itself, removing the ability for players to abuse the manual text & voice options. You will still be able to communicate via text or voice within your own crew.
We feel this is a necessary step for Arena to promote more positive play and create a more welcoming experience. It’s part of a wider conversation we’ve been having on the team around how we create tools and features that reduce exposure to toxicity and promote positive social play, which we will be sharing more on down the line when we have more to show & tell about in that space.
Players that choose to harass or abuse other players within Sea of Thieves have no place on the seas, and we encourage everyone to use the tools available on our website to report any instances of this.
I hope everyone understands the reasoning behind this change, and we are looking forward to Arena being a more welcoming space for anyone that chooses to play in it.
Thanks,
Joe “Three Sheets” Neate