@kauh6805
Sea of Thieves is a Sandbox, it doesn't end when you cap all the companies, do all the Tall Tales or buy all cosmetics, the game ends when you stop having fun or have no more intrinsic motivation to play the game. It's like Minecraft: sure, when you kill the Ender Dragon you get the credits, but you can still build and explore as much as you please.
I think there's an issue in the current gaming market: many players see games as products to consume, they download a game, ask it to give them an overall goal and then they go to the next game as soon as they reach that goal. Maybe it is because the high quantity of games and the accessibility (game pass etc...) we have today, I don't know, I guess it's subjective but I don't think games should be played like that, people will enjoy them less and will easily burnout.
I personally think people should play the game because they enjoy doing so, I often take a break from it as I've many many hours, but I still come back as I like to go around doing World Events as a Reaper, hunt emissaries and interact with other players. To me getting gold to earn cosmetics was never the point, I also had people contact me after I sunk them asking why I need money if I have the Dark Adventurer sails lol, can't someone be playing the game just for fun? I genuinely enjoy naval fights and World Events, do I have to need money in order to gave fun? I understand that some people need a reason to play like something to spend golds on or a leader board to be first in, etc... but games can't last forever in that sense. I too enjoy giving myself my own goals like capping all the companies, getting all the top 25% rewards from ledgers and buy all the PL shop cosmetics, but at the end of the day the end goal of a sandbox game is to have your own fun, for me it's naval combat and interacting with other crews, if you need a reason to play and can't log in for the sake of fun because you are not enjoying the game enough maybe it's time to play something else that you enjoy more :)