Earlier this morning, I was messaged by RARE NY and they asked me about some feedback for the game, the text below is a copy of what I messaged them back on and I want to make sure that other people see my view on what could be done.
Before you read this further, I want to remind you that the criticisms mentioned below aren't of malicious and rude intent, and are made as suggestions to make the game fun, and make us show our love for the game.
I think some of the commendations are very grindy and tiresome. Having several tiers of grabbing multiple chests of fortune Is crazy and a very tiresome grind, With the progress only being one chest at a time. With that in mind, I believe that the requirements to achieve some of the commendations and their progress towards them should be reduced, allowing everyone to get the rewards. While somewhat still being a challenge
Hourglass rewards (specifically servants skeleton curse cosmetics) shouldn't be locked behind more hourglass, rather some commendations should be more cosmetics to earn in the world of sea of thieves rather than behind hourglass. To implement this, I believe that after the ritual of the flame, some cosmetics or if not all cosmetics locked behind commendations, should be in the world of sea of thieves, because the grind of getting another 200 levels in hourglass after already completing your first 100 is unfair.
flameheart has finally returned and while the burning blade is cool in all, going to skeleton camp to skeleton camp doing the same mechanic gets repetitive and annoying, so maybe you should add some extra things to increase the value of the burning blade. Maybe add some mechanics where you have to hunt down player ships and sink them to get rewards, or you have to sink a fleet of troublesome skeletons that interfere with flamehearts plans
The water textures don't align with the actual physics of the water, resulting in your ship being half above water, half below water, as well as the fact that when a pirate is in water this becomes even more of a issue, with the water textures being higher than the actual game water physics, making player unable to see, while they are swimming.
Hit registration needs to be fixed further please overall.
There has been an issue where when someone buys supplies from the merchant alliance and the shipwright, it won't always guarantee that those supplies will be accessed. For example, if I buy a storage crate from the merchant alliance NPC, and the prompt is there to take it, no matter how many times I press the button, the storage crate won't go into my hands.
The recent rework of the blunderbuss has been made, as a response to the upcoming grappling hook. And after seeing the news of the mechanics of the grappling hook, I think the blunderbuss rework should be revoked, for it is countering a meta that doesn't exist, and is severely unfun to play against at this time.
After the multiple seasons the chest of fortune has hopped from various world events, I believe it should return to the fort of fortune as its name sake suggests for good. It would enforce player attention towards the fort, and make the world event more desirable, for the past few seasons, there has been a severe decline in player attention to the event because it's rewards are no longer sufficient for the work put in, making it obsolete and a waste of time to do without it.
Inconsistent sword registration needs to be fixed. After using the sword as my main weapon for several years now, I have noticed several issues with it's use. For example, there has been many times where I have hit an enemy more than 4 times and they seemingly haven't died and managed to keep fighting without a issue. Another issue is the block inconsistencies. Many times I have witnessed someone blocking sword blows and the sword simply goes right through the block as if they weren't doing so at all, even if the two opposing players are staring right at one another while doing so. Lastly, the sword lunge has many issues such as players being hit multiple times and not being canceled out of the sword lunge animation, as well as players properly hitting enemy players and still being stuck in place as if they did not.
There is a glaring inconsistency at which mermaids will spawn. Many times have I barely jumped off the ship and the mermaid appears in my face as if I have been on the other side of the map, and many times in the heat of combat the mermaid won't spawn no matter how far away from my ship I swim, often leading to the sinking of said ship.
A large issue lies with the art style direction of recent cosmetics in game. I've come to notice a shift in the sort-of-cosmetics that are being added to the game especially in the pirate emporium. We have gotten a plethora of cosmetics that don't fit the overall style of a pirate game, many of the sets in the emporium are glaring outliers (such as the prehistoric set) or the ancient Greece based set. With that in mind, I believe the cosmetics we have been getting should be dialed back into the pirate theme of the game. For example their are many unused cosmetics in the files of the game that aren't used yet which would fit the pirate esthetic perfectly. Especially with reskins of past cosmetics (I'm looking at you thriving wild rose).
Please for the love of God add the shrouded ghost in to the game, I've been sailing the seas for over 4000 hours and I have yet to see a single sighting of this over-glorified fish.
I believe the return of flameheart was kind of a let down, after many many months of waiting for his return, he has finally arrived. While it is cool he has brought his warship with him, it's disappointing that he has been doing little to nothing, which is a let down for the community after many years of being hyped as the villain of the sea of thieves. Simply putting him in a chair and doing less than the pirate lord is a bit of a disappointment.
I believe the tall tales of sea of thieves has lost their ways. The first two batches of tall tales have been a amazing addition to story and gameplay, and after that, while the gameplay has improved, the stories have become irrelevant, with the only tall tale being related to the actual story of the sea of thieves being the heart of fire, and the ones after were collaborations with pieces of media related to pirates. I can only hope the next tall tales will have more relevance and impact to the sea of thieves world, and they stray away from being a glorified collaboration dump.
The wilds needs to be fixed massively, the gray skies, and large rocks make it look boring and lack luster. most people have suggested an icy region to the sea of thieves and I think that would be an interesting idea to make the wilds a frigid wasteland with icebergs and ice that force you to change the way you sail around.
Adding new weather to the sea of thieves would make the game even more interesting, like making a large whirlpool like at the end of "at world end" from pirates of the Caribbean that can form in storms but also disappear at times. Storms should also not always be ever present, they should make storms more immersive and mimic real life scenarios of storms forming. Instead of being ever present, maybe they should appear at random islands or even in entire regions at times. They should also be less punishing as the storm we have currently.
More events like fight nights, ashen expeditions, and gold and glory weekends should be increased, because it's at those times where the game feels the most alive and people actively want to sail the seas and get some cool rewards.
Please fix the banners and tool tips, maybe add a feature that allows players to turn them off entirely, ship banners specifically.
Have a new desirably peace of loot for world events that players can seek, that makes players want to seek out these world events more, one specific for each world event.
Having a big, customizable pirate hideout would be awesome, where you can spend all your money on it, and deck it out with all sorts of cool stuff that would make your friends jealous of you own personal hideout. maybe put a option that you can choose where you want it to be, and it's a private world or island, like a VR chat hub but has its own uses and what not.
add ships that are big loot pinatas that you can chase down, with skeleton merchants that run away from you as you try to grab their stuff. The ship should work like random skeleton captains with skeletons orders, and the loot is what they were ordered to carry with them, like kegs, Athena loot, or anything else. These ships should also be brigs, since we have skeleton sloops and galleons but not skeleton brigantines.
Add a dingy to the game, a one man ship that solo players can use like we saw in Captain Falcore's video. The sloop is a good ship, but It works best with a duo, adding a strictly solo ship would be a good addition to the game. It would also be fun to have them spawn naturally, like a bigger version of the rowboat.
Add a stationary spyglass to the crows nest that is a much better version of the spyglass we use so the crows nest has a actually functional use for the ship.
If you get sank by the same vessel three times, you are merged into a new server to prevent you getting those players who constantly keep coming back and are just a nuisance to your adventures.
Add a new cursed chest that will spawn skeletons on your ship that can cause mayhem onboard, like the bone caller but they don't disappear
Sometimes you leave a Xbox party you can glitch and your mic won't actually work, or it won't register all together. Please fix that.
Lastly, I want to thank you for allowing me to give you feedback on the game, as this is a game I play every day and it's one of the games that I will always remember as a game that impacted me growing up. Thank you for making the pirate life a reality.
- I wrote this whole message, yet I also had my crews input, so alot of the ideas aren't mine entirely as they also added their input as they are more experienced then I am. *
