Sea of Thieves is a really strange game I've been struggling to understand.
The game is incredibly simple in almost every single way. Combat involves one of three guns and a sword that has a swing and block function. There's extras such as throwables but at its core it is shoot first or swing first to win. There's no stats to level up, there are no better guns or swords to get; what this means is that someone with 10 minutes of playtime can go up against someone with 1,000 hours of playtime and stand a fair chance of winning, everything is completely balanced across the board. Larger crews have a distinct advantage of being able to man more cannons at once, repair faster, split up tasks, etc. but a skilled two man crew can hold their own in the more agile sloops assuming they have the coordination and supplies to outlast larger crews.
The lack of stats/levelling system for your player also means there are no significant rewards. Everything you work for in this game is cosmetic, new paint jobs for your ship, different looking swords and guns, tattoos, decorated cannons, clothing, etc. If this doesn't sound rewarding enough for you then you may not enjoy the game. That being said most of the fun I have had has come from my experience in the game and not from the rewards earned.
The gameplay loop involves completing missions for factions and levelling them up, some factions ask you to fight AI enemies, one wants you to find hidden treasure, another asks you to engage in PvP, etc. There's a nice variety of ways to grind out the game. If you're cautious you can essentially ignore all other players and do your own thing, however by the nature of the game you will inevitably run into other players. A majority of players seem to avoid confrontation, however those that don't wont be shy about engaging you from the second they spot you, regardless if you have any loot or not. You may have spent two hours completing a quest with your ship now stocked up with chests but you can lose it all to a crew that just logged on. This can be very frustrating if you do missions that require a large amount of effort such as the events, however this is exactly what makes the game unique and keeps you on alert.
The game in general is quite easy but there are strange difficulty spikes here and there. In particular the red-tornado event asks you to take down a skeleton captain who has multiple phases, the first two phases are fine but the third phase gives the enemy 8,000hp and the ability to rain down fireballs from the sky. You'll need to use cannons on your ship to inflict a steady amount of damage but if the fireballs hit your ship you'll be stuck in a loop of putting out fires, repairing and by the time that is done it will get hit by them again. Larger crews won't encounter this problem but as a two man crew it feels unfair.
The community is a mixed bag, as mentioned plenty of players will avoid conflict but like most multiplayer games you'll run into players who have the single aim of trying to ruin your experience. The worst example of this was when a 4 man crew sunk our newly spawned sloop and kept spawnkilling us over and over by camping the tavern. There was no point to this as we had just logged in and had no loot for them to take. We had to scuttle the ship and respawn in a new area of the map. No big deal but a waste of 15 minutes. So far we have had a few very positive encounters, including max level pirates who gave us late game missions to earn easy loot and players who just want to sing sea shanties alongside us.
I have to say that I sincerely dislike PvP in this game though. Any crew that is of a larger size than yours is at a distinct advantage. Ship combat is rarely about who goes down first, it's about who boards first and spawncamps or who runs out of resources first. It feels like a complete and utter waste of time getting into PvP in this. I have had sessions ended because I've been pursued for 20 minutes, got bored and just didn't want to play anymore, the flow of the game just grinds to a halt and I wish there were PvE servers. I get why people think this opinion is wrong but it's not fun encountering other players in a PvP scenario.
There definitely feels like there is a lot of untapped potential in SoT, it's got a fantastic foundation and I hope Rare continues updating it, we've recently gotten the first seasonal update with the most generous season-pass I've ever seen along with the addition of pirate trials that added more content to the game and fleshes out the lore. Around the world there are journals, messages in bottles, named characters, etc. however you're never encouraged to look deeper into this. The game has a real problem with explaining things to player; emissaries play a huge role but I had to learn the ins and out from asking other pirates, I had to look up how to find ashen keys or how to break red mermaid statues.
It wasn't until we started doing higher reward missions that involved carrying 10+ chests, several bounty skulls, crates of tea and silk and an armoury worth of gunpowder from one side of the map to the other that it clicked with me how fun this game can be. The stress of having to coordinate with your crew to avoid conflict or win ship battles is extremely fun and taking 10 minutes to unload every piece of loot is a nice visual indicator of how hard you worked during that mission.
On a final note, it's quite a charming game. My early hours with it included just playing shanties on different instruments, getting drunk until vomiting while playing shanties, launching myself out of cannons, fishing, etc. Little things like that really draw you in and create some memorable moments.
I'd highly recommend SoT, it is at the very least worth trying even if you think it might not be for you, I was very pleasantly surprised. I can't imagine it would be very fun solo however, bring atleast one other person.
Edit 05/09/2021:
It has been interesting to watch this game develop, I can safely this is a game where the devs really care about it. There is a serious level of passion in the updates and their efforts with the community and that alone is worth suggesting the game for.
The Pirates Life update has shown however that the game itself is pretty average in every way possible, having played for a while now I can safely say the following:
- Combat is boring
- Sailing is okay at best
- Factions are bland
- Items aren't varied
- There isn't a whole lot to do in the world
And in a vacuum these are all bad things, however when coupled together in an open world where player interaction is entirely random it leads to some of the most fun you can have. The whole thing starts to unravel with structured, linear missions however, while I appreciate the efforts to try something new this game is made to be a player driven experience and I am excited to see where to go with it.
The game is incredibly simple in almost every single way. Combat involves one of three guns and a sword that has a swing and block function. There's extras such as throwables but at its core it is shoot first or swing first to win. There's no stats to level up, there are no better guns or swords to get; what this means is that someone with 10 minutes of playtime can go up against someone with 1,000 hours of playtime and stand a fair chance of winning, everything is completely balanced across the board. Larger crews have a distinct advantage of being able to man more cannons at once, repair faster, split up tasks, etc. but a skilled two man crew can hold their own in the more agile sloops assuming they have the coordination and supplies to outlast larger crews.
The lack of stats/levelling system for your player also means there are no significant rewards. Everything you work for in this game is cosmetic, new paint jobs for your ship, different looking swords and guns, tattoos, decorated cannons, clothing, etc. If this doesn't sound rewarding enough for you then you may not enjoy the game. That being said most of the fun I have had has come from my experience in the game and not from the rewards earned.
The gameplay loop involves completing missions for factions and levelling them up, some factions ask you to fight AI enemies, one wants you to find hidden treasure, another asks you to engage in PvP, etc. There's a nice variety of ways to grind out the game. If you're cautious you can essentially ignore all other players and do your own thing, however by the nature of the game you will inevitably run into other players. A majority of players seem to avoid confrontation, however those that don't wont be shy about engaging you from the second they spot you, regardless if you have any loot or not. You may have spent two hours completing a quest with your ship now stocked up with chests but you can lose it all to a crew that just logged on. This can be very frustrating if you do missions that require a large amount of effort such as the events, however this is exactly what makes the game unique and keeps you on alert.
The game in general is quite easy but there are strange difficulty spikes here and there. In particular the red-tornado event asks you to take down a skeleton captain who has multiple phases, the first two phases are fine but the third phase gives the enemy 8,000hp and the ability to rain down fireballs from the sky. You'll need to use cannons on your ship to inflict a steady amount of damage but if the fireballs hit your ship you'll be stuck in a loop of putting out fires, repairing and by the time that is done it will get hit by them again. Larger crews won't encounter this problem but as a two man crew it feels unfair.
The community is a mixed bag, as mentioned plenty of players will avoid conflict but like most multiplayer games you'll run into players who have the single aim of trying to ruin your experience. The worst example of this was when a 4 man crew sunk our newly spawned sloop and kept spawnkilling us over and over by camping the tavern. There was no point to this as we had just logged in and had no loot for them to take. We had to scuttle the ship and respawn in a new area of the map. No big deal but a waste of 15 minutes. So far we have had a few very positive encounters, including max level pirates who gave us late game missions to earn easy loot and players who just want to sing sea shanties alongside us.
I have to say that I sincerely dislike PvP in this game though. Any crew that is of a larger size than yours is at a distinct advantage. Ship combat is rarely about who goes down first, it's about who boards first and spawncamps or who runs out of resources first. It feels like a complete and utter waste of time getting into PvP in this. I have had sessions ended because I've been pursued for 20 minutes, got bored and just didn't want to play anymore, the flow of the game just grinds to a halt and I wish there were PvE servers. I get why people think this opinion is wrong but it's not fun encountering other players in a PvP scenario.
There definitely feels like there is a lot of untapped potential in SoT, it's got a fantastic foundation and I hope Rare continues updating it, we've recently gotten the first seasonal update with the most generous season-pass I've ever seen along with the addition of pirate trials that added more content to the game and fleshes out the lore. Around the world there are journals, messages in bottles, named characters, etc. however you're never encouraged to look deeper into this. The game has a real problem with explaining things to player; emissaries play a huge role but I had to learn the ins and out from asking other pirates, I had to look up how to find ashen keys or how to break red mermaid statues.
It wasn't until we started doing higher reward missions that involved carrying 10+ chests, several bounty skulls, crates of tea and silk and an armoury worth of gunpowder from one side of the map to the other that it clicked with me how fun this game can be. The stress of having to coordinate with your crew to avoid conflict or win ship battles is extremely fun and taking 10 minutes to unload every piece of loot is a nice visual indicator of how hard you worked during that mission.
On a final note, it's quite a charming game. My early hours with it included just playing shanties on different instruments, getting drunk until vomiting while playing shanties, launching myself out of cannons, fishing, etc. Little things like that really draw you in and create some memorable moments.
I'd highly recommend SoT, it is at the very least worth trying even if you think it might not be for you, I was very pleasantly surprised. I can't imagine it would be very fun solo however, bring atleast one other person.
Edit 05/09/2021:
It has been interesting to watch this game develop, I can safely this is a game where the devs really care about it. There is a serious level of passion in the updates and their efforts with the community and that alone is worth suggesting the game for.
The Pirates Life update has shown however that the game itself is pretty average in every way possible, having played for a while now I can safely say the following:
- Combat is boring
- Sailing is okay at best
- Factions are bland
- Items aren't varied
- There isn't a whole lot to do in the world
And in a vacuum these are all bad things, however when coupled together in an open world where player interaction is entirely random it leads to some of the most fun you can have. The whole thing starts to unravel with structured, linear missions however, while I appreciate the efforts to try something new this game is made to be a player driven experience and I am excited to see where to go with it.