Sea of Thieves!

I think it was the Eurogamer preview which said it was great to play a game where there wasn’t the loot grind.

I agree, it’s nice to have a game that is different, plenty of loot grind games out there and I enjoy them as much as the next person but there is no need to make every game the same. Personally I get fed up with games where you can’t keep up with the loot grind and normally stop playing anyways as you are so far behind the curve. You could add some cosmetic loot that is rare to allow for a greater range of looks but doesn’t affect the game play side of it. Sure you may lose some players or sales but it’s nice to be a little different.

I watched a streamer this morning who was level 20 with the gold diggers. At level 20 the chests leak water and flood your ship, sometimes. That’s it!

I guess the question is does Microsoft want this game to survive? If so they need to appeal to the things that keep gamers coming back. Put something in the chests worth chasing. Make the skeletons drop loot. Make a faction that has us sink AI ships and steal their loot. Make loot, period.

In the beta my crew saw a bunch of barrels floating in the ocean and we were excited. Turns out it was all just wood planks and bananas. Same shit we find on the islands, which we already had hundreds of. We found a sunken ship. We dove in and found a barnacle crusted chest, and lugged it back to town expecting a unique, special reward and got… 150 gold.

This is a game about piracy with nothing worth fighting over, questing for, or stealing. It just increments a counter. It has a giant open world with nothing in it.

Well, I suppose this is the center of it right here. It’s kind of a circular argument, though, and fixated on one particular type of player.

“They should make the progression like these other successful games because that’s what people want”. Ignoring all the other players who don’t want that progression or loot model, but there haven’t been any games that cater to them, because ‘that’s not what people want’.

I’m certainly curious to see how this evolves. I think it’s intended to be much, much less hardcore, and that they actively don’t want Peele to obsess over the loot grind. If you want that, go play Dark Zones in The Division?

Speaking of cosmetics, if anyone is interested:

Played for about 4 hours after 10 pst in a 4 man galleon. Made about 24,000 gold (mostly from two skelli forts) and got to about 15 rep in all 3 factions.

We sank lots of ships, same galleon came at us a few times at one fort before giving up. Fought off the kraken twice which was fun.

Had a lot of fun with some random folks. Only annoying thing was to keep reminding people to empty their stocks before going ashore so we could keep the ship supplied.

Yeah, I get folks’ complaints about the lack of loot chase, but I think those people are pretty much doomed to disappointment because that’s just not this game. If you’re not into sailing and piracy on the high seas for its own pleasure, may as well move along. Hell, I’ve got Division, Destiny 2 and Diablo (hey, I never noticed those were all “D” games before) for loot chasing, I don’t need another one.

After watching more of a stream of the game, heres some extra 2 cents:

This game needs pets. A monkey and parrot.

Those will be available soon.

I picked this up on Windows 10 and was playing a bit last night (never played any of the beta events) and found it very enjoyable.

ATM only playing solo on a sloop to acquaint myself with the various systems but having a lot of fun scurrying to and form the various stations, adjusting the sails, dropping anchor in the middle of nowhere and climbing up on the crows nest and surveying the surroundings. Love navigating via sight and compass and the water effects are amazing. The sound design is absolutely incredible, probably the most immersive I have ever experienced in a game.

I know most people despise loot crates/chests in general, but this is a game that literally should have them.
It would be great to dig up a chest and be able to open it and find some random and cool cosmetic item.
Bringing the unopened chest back to the merchant and then getting X dollars is merely okay. A treasure chest needs to be opened. That’s a treasure chest’s raison d’etre. Occasionally there has to be something really cool inside.

I wouldn’t want the chests to contain items that make a character more powerful, or be purchasable with real money via micro-transactions, just an occasional cool and rare cosmetic item for the character or the ship.

Who ever thought that there would be a pirate game where you can’t open a treasure chest?

Anyway, having a great time with the game so far, and I do hope that they can add things that will help
the the games longevity.

I am really glad this isn’t another game with color rarities, a tacked on progression system, or Destiny-like experience. That market is well catered to already.

Listening to the Giant Bomb guys in the car this afternoon and they seemed to like what this game could be, but it sounds like it’s just the same handful of quests over and over again without any meaningful progression or PvE content? I haven’t been following this thread, are they accurate? I know a lot of times these guys get talking about a game I have been enjoying and it drives me crazy when they get basic facts wrong…

It’s a PvP pirating sandbox with a reputation system leading to a special status and missions, bounty based pve, mini pve raids likely to turn into PvP fights afterwards, cosmetic progression.

So their description sounds fair. What Rare has designed is not a game about vertical progression, but rather emergent sandbox/PvP gameplay.

If you scroll back up a bit, you will see it works for some and not at all for others.

Launch day status update:

There is no progression besides better…hats etc. that’s the problem.

Im trying to figure out why it took Rare years to make this game. it’s just paper thin in depth and content.

But yea it has a fun whimsical look, and that water…

In the “if this is such an important part of your game, why didn’t you do it right?” category, why can’t I preview all these whimsical hats and beards and whatnot on my pirate when I’m browsing in the shop?

Also, when selecting your pirate in the beginning, setting aside whether the random generation is wise at all (debatable, but I’m not totally against it), there should at least be a toggle for man or woman. And again, a closer preview, spin the pirate around, that would be helpful when you’re committing to your pirate look for life.

Just spin the pirate wheel a few times, you will get a mix of male and female avatars.

In other news…

Wow this game is divisive. The glowing Eurogamer article is above. Here is another view:

We also seem to be divided on this board.

I am firmly in the “it’s a wacky PvP sandbox with a strong theme, meant to be picked up and played in small doses.” I love the lack of vertical progression and the limited PvE, because it keeps the focus on the real content - other players.

Others have a different view. :-)

to enjoy this game fully solo, you really have to forget a bunch of stuff games have ingrained in you for decades. This will be impossible for some people to do unfortunately. Basically you are playing because the world itself entertains you and the things you do are entertaining, not to get something. This also means when the tide turns (pun intended) and you lose everything you were doing, it really doesn’t matter as much. You can still enjoy a defeat almost as much as a victory.

I honestly don’t think people know how to play a game for the gameplay itself and not for the ‘stuff’ you get and earn along the way.

I will definitely concede though that land combat feels like they missed the boat.

Sure. I understand the idea is to present you with a fun mix of possibilities without making the player waste time fiddling with a bunch of sliders.

The male/female part seems like something they could’ve included a choice for without compromising their goal of providing randomized pirates though. For some people it won’t matter at all, but this game is built heavily around voice communication, and while I’m not taking it so far as to adopt a goofy accent and start saying “yarrrr” into my mic, I do know I don’t want a female avatar with my voice. I think that’s a valid distinction from other cosmetic concerns; I’m not asking for a filter to only show me tall or short or skinny or fat pirates. That’s a slippery slope right back into full customization.

I spent 20 minutes randomizing pirates until I decided on the right one for me, and it might have cut my time in half if I could’ve limited each new lot of randomized characters to men. So instead of wasting time tweaking ear size and eyebrow angle, I’m wasting time refreshing for pirates I like when half of them are immediately ruled out.

It’s a very minor complaint, but like the lack of a preview for the cosmetic items you can purchase, it seems like a weird omission when they’re so particular about the experience they want to present.

The idea that you cannot customize your avatar for a game that focuses on cosmetic rewards… is bizarre.

“We always knew we wanted a way to get cool characters in the game without having a million sliders and toggles. A way for everyone to be able to have a cool character that represents themselves even if they’ve got no artistic skill… And I think we’ve come up with a good system.”

I don’t know if they found the right balance, but here they are explaining the goal. My complaint was that even if you’re convinced their “infinite pirate generator” random characters are the way to go, a male/female option would be a welcome bit of polish.