I recently got the game to play something exciting and cooperative with my children which also requires some coordination such as handling sailing etc.
I think this instance is also probably the best fitting for this sort of game
Currently still in Safer Seas while learning the ropes, especially as the children are still not very good at the controls.
Anyone else playing around here?
Got me a dedicated crew I play with, for the past 3-4 years or so. The game has been stale for us for a while this year, but it seems it's getting better.
PvP problems have been getting better lately, with hitreg fixes and server side hit confirmation, but the community can definitely be toxic sometimes. Most old school players that enjoyed PvP were somewhat pushed out by Rare when they removed Arena and shifted the focus a bit away from fighting to PvE. This led to many players being a bit bitter about the new direction of the game, and being toxic in adventure. Hourglass maybe fixed this a bit, but it is very annoying to sink and have to spend 30 more minutes getting supplies to fight again. This, paired with Rare catering the PvE aspect a lot more lately (plus a really dry 2023 in terms of content) led to many (sort of young) players going in adventure with the intention to troll others.
Safer Seas maybe fixed this, but it also signals to every player now that you can't be that new if you're in High Seas, which made a lot of players I know change their mentality from "see what they're up to" to "shoot them if they approach". Gone are the days when you would see a ship and just approach them and say "hey buddy, need help figuring things out?" haha
Long story short, it is a really nice game that will keep you entertained for thousands of hours. Don't run away from fights, and keep in mind that the booty is not yours until you sell it :D The game has its fair share of bugs, and sometimes you will lose a fight just because of server issues, but don't let that discourage you from playing. If you need any help, I'm sure a lot of us here can try to offer a hand :)
Have fun on the seas!
Interesting. For this sort of game, I always think the big problem is the lack of a matchmaking system. When you lump experienced and inexperienced players in the same server, the latter just start asking for a PvE server where they don't get completely pwned. It takes a specific type of human to be able to just be annihilated with no chance of winning, to get up and try again.
A matchmaking would at least give new people a chance, without having to remove PvP entirely.
They do have some matchmaking, at least for hourglass and really early on in your voyages. But those get disregarded as soon as the player pool in your region dries off. Sea of Thieves has had some player retention issues, and the Steam data suggests that the game has been bleeding players for the past 2-3 years. Of course, there are still players on Gamepass and MS store, but I'm expecting those markets have had the same decline.
My crew and I have been put in fights against streamers, day one players, and other sweats when we were just playing casually. It's fun though, and the feeling you get when you beat those kinds of crews is amazing. However, when you lose, it's really annoying because you can't just hop back into the action (as I mentioned above, 30 mins of resupplying). Rare could have made some really nice game modes like Arena, for example using the Sea Dogs Tavern as a TDM point (i.e., a sort of king of the hill, or capture the flag), 4-5 smaller ships against a bigger crew manning the Black Pearl, and perhaps more to pack in a rotating game mode. That would have solved some of the issues the PvP community is facing, and adventure mode would have been a bit fresher.
Regardless, I wouldn't worry too much about this if you're just starting out. You'll learn lots of things from crews that have been sailing the seas for longer :D If you're having trouble though and you're from Europe, we have a discord of chill people that play during the weekends. We'll gladly give you a hand :)
Ye, I agree Rare is loosing an opportunity here by not creating game-modes which are simpler to jump in and play for PvP for just ship battles. Hell, even a PvP mode which removes shooting players through cannons so that it's pure ship2ship combat will satisfy so many PvPers