I’ve been playing this game for six years now, and when i started my favorite part of the experience was exploring islands and discovering hidden secrets. The world that was presented was mysterious and whimsical. I loved playing with my friends as we would uncover the story of these islands and, on rare occasions, defending our ship from would be thieves. Nowadays, I’ve grown tired of watching my back all the time. For the past few years pvp has been the focus of the game and although it has introduced some fun gameplay, it also has forced myself and my friends to constantly be on the watch and ultimately play less. It’s nearly impossible to complete any kind of voyage with any other ship in the server. If safer seas was a viable option we’d play on there but we’re all pirate legends so we don’t get much of anything but a chill time in safer seas. With Season 13 nearing its end, I’m not confident I’ll be returning to the game. Pvp has become the core of the game and there’s no other content to be had. I miss doing tall tales and finding cool map updates. Skeleton Camps are nice but too little too late. Hopefully I’m not the only one who feels like the game has become too competitive.
We need more to do than just kill each other
I've never found it "impossible" to complete voyages in High Seas. Sometimes you need to alter your route and pay attention to your surroundings so you know which ships are in the area and what they could possibly be doing there, but that's part of the fun created by unknown variables.
The problem with Tall Tales and "cool map updates" is that they can only be experienced once. You experience them and they are over. You've seen everything they have to offer, and they are no longer "new". It's not possible for any development studio to keep pace with the rate at which players burn through this content.
@d3adst1ck I’m not sure what voyages you’re doing but regardless, i say “nearly impossible,” because for the past two years my crew and i have had to fight off pirates during every voyage. That watching of the horizon 24/7 is there very thing I’ve grown tired of. Lately, there’s always a ship and they are always looking for a fight. I’ve tried to live and let live but it seems alliances are useless, and showing new players things they haven’t seen means nothing. There are still people who haven’t done the original shores of gold tall tales and they’ve been out for 5 years. It seems people don’t care for story updates or pve, but instead prefer pvp over everything else. Back in the first two years, the studio was capable of releasing new and interesting updates every other month, at least. Other than the Burning Blade, a pvp world event, we didn’t get much this season.
@kingkong4th I also play this game for the experience, combat with other ships is always so dramatic.. But yeah, when you have seen it all, it is time to play another game.. I guess..
But Sea of Thieves really is the best looking game out there, with a Rare charm to it !@kingkong4th As long as PVE is easy and repetitive there will be no charm in doing it for experienced players... I overlook the fact that Rare didn't have much experience in storyline missions within SOT when they released Tall Tales, but it's sad that there isn't a memorable fight, the Bosses all have the same attacks and characteristics, only the animation changes.
This added to the fact that the world is not alive, everything is predictable and repetitive if you are an old player, kraken, megs, skeletons, none have unpredictable behavior.
The interaction between players, PVP or not, is the highlight for most players, for me too, despite appreciating the Lore.
The lore has been neglected by the developers... We have to be honest.
Apart from the arrival of Flameheart in season 13 after almost 2 years of waiting, in reality the lore is stuck.
The last great and rather amusing addition to the lore was the mystery of H.. That's saying something.And yes, I too have the impression that Sea of Thieves has become more competitive than it used to be, and that saddens me, because in the end I can say it: this isn't the Sea of Thieves I knew.
With the arrival of season 12 and season 14, I get the impression that this game is becoming a Fornite v.2.
It's not for nothing that I abandoned Sea of Thieves for a while, despite all the love I have for it, but in the meantime what interested me most was the lore. Given that the lore has been neglected, I'm leaving the game.
What you described is the nature of PvPvE game. So far in the last years the only pure PvP update the game has received was HG. Almost everything else was entirely PvE or PvPvE related. While i understand your frustration, if we are being honest having a PvE session in the High Seas is actually quite easy especially if you have been playing for six years. All you have to do is to find a server with few emissaries and no reapers and just spam voyages and forts, while scanning the horizon and selling once you reach grade 5.
I have done a lot of PvE, granted not as much in the last year or so but I can't imagine that interactions have changed all too much, but in the time that I grinded out my commendations there was relatively little PvP. The odd fight or 2 when playing, but there were some days where I went 2-6 hours without fighting anyone. idk how you manage to run into so many people and honestly I am jealous, i love PvP but no was stuck in dead servers
"Lately, there’s always a ship and they are always looking for a fight. I’ve tried to live and let live but it seems alliances are useless, and showing new players things they haven’t seen means nothing. It seems people don’t care for story updates or pve, but instead prefer pvp over everything else".
Yep, that's what this game is evolving into. just get onto a server and fight other players. Pve style players feel like they are not welcome, and PvP players rejoice, because they got what they want, and don't want to accept any changes. It doesn't matter to them how you want to enjoy the game, just don't rock thier PvP boat by asking for changes.@gipperseadog said in We need more to do than just kill each other:
"Lately, there’s always a ship and they are always looking for a fight. I’ve tried to live and let live but it seems alliances are useless, and showing new players things they haven’t seen means nothing. It seems people don’t care for story updates or pve, but instead prefer pvp over everything else".
Yep, that's what this game is evolving into. just get onto a server and fight other players. Pve style players feel like they are not welcome, and PvP players rejoice, because they got what they want, and don't want to accept any changes. It doesn't matter to them how you want to enjoy the game, just don't rock thier PvP boat by asking for changes.Yeeep. It's been like this for years and it's so utterly tiring. A big part of how me and my own group often take multi year long breaks from the game. Heck, we can't even fully enjoy safer seas because of the incredibly petty restrictions that are placed on that mode (such as no captaincy allowed) for no other reason that pleasing the PvP crowd's desire to make even that mode at least a little more unenjoyable. And that's really become a big part of this community, making sure people who don't like or avoid pvp feel unwelcome.
Yet, somehow, no one seems to notice that the times the game gets a boost in playerbase are always the lore/pve updates, not the pvp focused ones. [mod edited]@felix-ashur Your post has been edited as it goes against the Forum Rules and Pirate Code.
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@felix-ashur It might seem that way if you try to play SOT only as pve but this is a pvepvp game, concentrating only in one aspect of the game it means missing on the big picture.
Now in my opinion the devs are doing their best to keep the game interesting and competitive so try to enjoy the game for what it is. With all the changes happening in MS lately we are lucky to still have SOT.
PvP has not been the focus of the game for the last few years. Captaincy was not pvp focused, the pvp overhaul was not a pvp focus, the new weapons and harpoon changes are not exclusive to pvp, guilds came with a pvp voyage that fell off. In fact if you look at the last 2 years, the only 2 pvp focused updates were this season, and season 8, that leaves 4 pretty long seasons between all of them that offered non pvp focused content.
If you look back even further, before s8 and until season 2, every other season was not remotely focused on pvp, only 1 offered the cannon row boats which is just a tool that you have to find that is 3 out of 10 seasons actually focused on seasons. Before the season system, you have to go all the way back to 2019 before you find a pvp focused update with them adding the fotd and fire as a weapon.
TLDR: PVP is not even remotely the core focus of the game, and the fairly low quantity of primarily pvp focused updates is proof of that, being only 5 updates over 5 years having pvp as a core focus (excluding the siren song since that died in a month).
@goldsmen
If captaincy is not pvp focused then why on the seven seas is it not allowed in Safer Seas? Isn't that the place where all pvp related stuff is disabled?@felix-ashur said in We need more to do than just kill each other:
@goldsmen
If captaincy is not pvp focused then why on the seven seas is it not allowed in Safer Seas? Isn't that the place where all pvp related stuff is disabled?Captaincy literally changes nothing about pvp, and even came in long before safer seas was added with literally no affect to how pvp worked. It is not allowed on safer seas because it is one of the features used to entice people to play on high seas because sot is not supposed to be exclusively a pve game, but a pvpve game. As well by rares own words, safer seas was a sort of extended tutorial, not the full game.
If you look at all the bad reviews on steam and other sites regarding Sea Of Thieves over a year ago, they were pretty consistently about this topic. The aggressive PVP. Especially new players were constantly bringing up how aggressive the PVP players are and how they can’t even play the game they bought. Safer Seas was definitely a response to this.
I’d say you’re right, we just need to increase the benefits to alliances or something like that. Something that encourages more than just PVP action. The PVP action doesn’t need to leave, it makes the game good sometimes too. But the game might need more incentives to do other things besides going after other players all the time.
If you have been playing for six years and still can't complete a single voyage due to the presence of other ships in a server, then you are doing a lot of things wrong. SoT is an amazing game despite many of it's problems and part of it is due to the PvPvE nature of the game. There is no reason to start another PvP vs PvE debate however i do understand that this game attracts a very toxic crowd of players. While PvP is extremely fun imo, all it takes is to run into that one person that will trash talk, curse at you, cheat, etc, to ruin an otherwise good experience. I also understand that the large skill disparity between the players in the sandbox, sometimes make for a bad experience as well. I do disagree heavily though with your claim that PvP is the main focus of the game. Apart from arena and hg all other updates have either been QoL or PvE sandbox related.
I've spent so much time proactively seeking PvP the last few years that I've kind of tried switching to sneaky stuff and engagement with other crews as opposed to blunt hostility. It's highly entertaining. Not as exhilarating as a quality fight over some loot, but has certainly brought some good memories and has been both entertaining and satisfying.
We need new stuff to do..not just different ways of doing the same stuff, or different rewards for doing the same stuff.
The core faction voyages have been largely unchanged for a LONG time. Lost Shipments, Vaults, and the Legend of the Veil were the last significant updates we got to the core faction voyage types that were actually something new to do and not just a new way to do the same thing.
More faction voyage types, please. Something new and unique...not just a reskin of existing.
Get more people out voyaging again and you'll naturally see more engagement. Some will be hostile...most will not be.
I think it would be cool if all the rewards and curses are made available to every play style, not just specific ones.
For example Athena's Blessing. You can only get that through PVP, which is basically forcing the players into it, instead of giving them the freedom of choice by offering another way to raise allegiance.
For solo players, that's a nightmarish grind as it comes. If you don't like PVP, achieving it is basically impossible.
Lore wise, it also doesn't make sense. We fight off a literal ghost fleet in the Legend of the Veil, but still haven't fought for the freedom of the Sea of Thieves? Gee thanks, Ramsey.
There's more to allegiance or a war than just engaging the enemy. Supply runs, intelligence gathering, all that could be easily added as quests for players to complete and thus gather allegiance. Hell, if need be fight off Reaper NPC ships. Two/three NPC ships vs one ship at the same time should be a fair, worthy fight. Heck, force the players to board them and take something from them that would otherwise be lost if the ship gets sunk.
Yes, I know the servers aren't exactly the stablest thing on earth, but they're also sadly very empty. And if Rare doesn't come up with a post-EOL plan for the game (server kit, rental servers), then his game will disappear into nothingness sooner rather than later.And while we're at it, the economy and prices of the cosmetics could use some fixing, too, in those regards (2000 dubloons for Belle's hat? Seriously?)
