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Sea of Thieves

What was your reaction to the Beta?

  • Postive

    Votes: 1 50.0%

  • Negative

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Neutral

    Votes: 1 50.0%
  • Total voters
    2
  • Poll closed .
GAZ Vodnik said:
So currently, Salt is the better Sea of Thieves? :cheeky
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Heh heh, the game is really fun though when you get underway. I really enjoy piloting and navigating though I'm still learning it. Calling out commands to raise/lower sails, manning the guns, spotting a ship in the distance and the crazy things that happen in between really makes for an interesting experience.
 
Personally I am of the opinion that this is the best pirate game I have ever played, nay, the best "sailing" game I have ever played.
Oh sure there are other games there with far superior and more realistic sailing physics, but nothing that has ever quite given me the experience of being a "person" onboard a ship rather than in effect "being the ship".
And I dare say the water in this game is absolutely unmatched by any other game to date.
 
After being able to play some odd four or five hours or so entirely soloing, I think I'll put my opinion in here.
I have downloaded the game with the Gamepass-trial to test it out first and started on Wednesday.

Mind you though that I'm only playing alone as I have no friends to play it with (The only one even remotely interested is waiting for more content) and I refuse to play with randoms. So take my opinion with a grain of salt.

Regardless of all my following criticism, I absolutely can't deny that it looks gorgeous. You definitely can see Rare behind it, who put all their love and efforts into it. Although it isn't the same Rare before Nintendo sold them off of course, which is probably why the game's flaws are even more glaring.

Also, I really like the core gameplay, having to manage your ship from supplies, the anchor, sails and steering.
Additionally, I didn't encounter hostile ships yet, though that was likely just luck. Everyone just seemed to mind their own business, though I did cancel my search for treasure when a brigantine came too close for my taste once. But unfortunately, for a new MP-game, it seems to be pretty empty. Always the same (solo-)sloop and galleon, though I have seen the aforementioned brigantine today.

But my main reason why I'm already lacking the motivation to fire it up is... that it fails to motivate me.
The only things you can gain are entirely of cosmetic nature and they are so expensive, that you spend hours gathering treasures and ferrying them back to an outpost to scratch enough pennies together to just being able to buy one of the cheapest cosmetic items. Which gets only worse if you get raided/killed during your voyages, rendering all your efforts moot. And the prices are already lowered during the "Cursed Sails"-event.
Exploration is only rarely rewarded, as valuables outside of quests are extremely rare (And sometimes pay shit when sold). So I don't really bother with searching anymore, which is a shame because the islands are beautifully designed.

And the content? The Megalodon and the skeleton ships are not doable alone anyway (The latter are available only at certain locations during specific server times and are timed), and so you are basically restricted to digging up chests, finding animals (A surprisingly frustrating task due to RNG) and killing skeletons. With more money for clothing as the sole reward. If you don't get murdered on your way back.
Great.

And maybe I'm being unfair here, but I always have to think about other games while playing SoT which do its respective aspects much better.
-Salt not only looks very similar with its artstyle, but plays almost identical, minus the graphics and sailing-physics and offers more content. It actually rewards you for thorough exploration with new gear, ships and items and you'll never know what you'll encounter on a new island in the distance. Oh yeah, and it has an actual storyline.
So if you just want to play alone and be rewarded for your efforts with awesome loot, stick to Salt.
-Next, for epic ship battles, either stay with PotC or Naval Action (The latter also perfectly playable in SP). Or for PvP, Blackwake.

So Sea of Thieves is capable of everything, but does nothing right.

Considering the rather lonely seas and that Skull & Bones is already on the horizon, I doubt that Sea of Thieves will survive that long, if it doesn't introduce PvE-servers to cash on the PvE-crowd, like Naval Action did. Heck, even an SP-option with AI-crewmates could be possible in the future.

TL;DR: Not worth the money. Yet.
 
I have to say, your review is almost exactly what my friend said to me not a week ago. He talked of the empty feeling, the lack of friendly play, the rarity of items making them less than desirable to search for, and of course the cosmetics only approach. I would say that Salt seems to be moving in the right direction. With their patch allowing coop, they have hot all the hot button issues for that game. If it weren't for the lackluster game's art styling I would play it more often but I can bring myself to play with the mid 90's graphics. I was really hoping that SoT was going to be a "knock it out of the park" pirate game to revive the genre. My real concern for it is: if it isn't worth the money yet, when will it be?
 
Captain Murphy said:
I have to say, your review is almost exactly what my friend said to me not a week ago. He talked of the empty feeling, the lack of friendly play, the rarity of items making them less than desirable to search for, and of course the cosmetics only approach. I would say that Salt seems to be moving in the right direction. With their patch allowing coop, they have hot all the hot button issues for that game. If it weren't for the lackluster game's art styling I would play it more often but I can bring myself to play with the mid 90's graphics. I was really hoping that SoT was going to be a "knock it out of the park" pirate game to revive the genre. My real concern for it is: if it isn't worth the money yet, when will it be?
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Salt would be nearly perfect if it had actual sailing-physics and hostile encounters on sea, so that the cannons would actually be useful instead of shooting static targets on islands. As it is now, it's a relaxing exploring-game. Which isn't bad of course, I mean, I have put 64 hours into it since there were always new islands with new treasures and dangers to discover.
Unfortunately, there are no more updates coming and a workshop wasn't implemented. :(

Your last paragraph is... a very good question.
Personally, I would wait until it costs around 20 €. The 70 € (Microsoft-Store) are just an insult for the measly content. You can get it for 30 € on certain key-stores, but only if you are absolutely desperate for a new pirate-game.
Maybe we have luck and Rare will introduce some SP-mode with AI-crewmates, but until that happens, it will likely be already crushed from the upcoming competition. There's already "Atlas" from the Ark-developers coming, which seems to improve on everything SoT has.


After two weeks of playing, I think I have seen enough of this game.
My positive points still stand.
But the negatives only increased.

Community-wise, it's not that bloodthirsty as often claimed on the forums. Most will leave you happily alone and even those who are out to rob you, are pretty civil if you just surrender and don't put up a fight. If you are lucky and choose your words wisely, they might let you go unscathed, without taking anything.
On the other hand, the lacking content also means that you might encounter those pirate legends, who are pretty much done with the game and find their only enjoyment in actively hunting down players. They will simply blow your ship up, kill you and then spawncamp to prevent you from fighting back, without giving you a chance to resolve it peacefully. Bonus points if they aren't even interested in stealing your loot, but only in being assholes for the sake of ruining your day.
Fun.

While the gold horder-quests (X marks the spot) are the most enjoyable of the bunch, the riddles the game gives you are hit-and-miss. Most are easy enough (Find a landmark and then do X steps in Y direction to find the chest), but those who require to play music on a different, often more obscure landmark first are absolute hell for me. For the sole reason that more often than not, they demand to play music in a very specific spot sometimes. Since the game doesn't even bother explaining to you that finding the respective landmark and playing music isn't enough. Some comments on reddit claim that you additionally have to play the correct tune for it. Which is it? By trying them out, of course!
I'm not against riddles and I have no problem investing some time in figuring it out. But given that you have to be constantly on the lookout for players with hostile intents, solving riddles only becomes incredibly stressful.
Fun.

After being blown to pieces yesterday for no reason and getting stuck on a riddle again since I couldn't find the apparently pixel-sized spot to stand on, I quitted for good.

Final verdict from me: Still not worth its price currently.
 
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GAZ Vodnik said:
Salt would be nearly perfect if it had actual sailing-physics and hostile encounters on sea, so that the cannons would actually be useful instead of shooting static targets on islands. As it is now, it's a relaxing exploring-game. Which isn't bad of course, I mean, I have put 64 hours into it since there were always new islands with new treasures and dangers to discover.
Unfortunately, there are no more updates coming and a workshop wasn't implemented. :(
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I have had Salt, probably from the earliest releases. It has definitely grown over the past years. I am still not quite sure what the cannons really are good for, as I have yet to hit someone for more than a couple damage. That is a LOT of work to go through just to do like 10-12 damage.
GAZ Vodnik said:
Personally, I would wait until it costs around 20 €. The 70 € (Microsoft-Store) are just an insult for the measly content.
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Holy crap that is expensive!
GAZ Vodnik said:
After being blown to pieces yesterday for no reason and getting stuck on a riddle again since I couldn't find the apparently pixel-sized spot to stand on, I quitted for good.

Final verdict from me: Still not worth its price currently.
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I imagine they could fix the pixel hunting pretty easily, but you will never fix the multiplayer aspect unless there are true PVE servers, and from what I have read they are NOT going to do them. At least with PVE you get the good of multiplayer randomized encountering and coop play but without the constant griefers, like you mentioned of players just looking to make someone else miserable.

I really had high hopes for this game. Guess I will just go back to working on my own games, lol.
 
4 Months and counting and I'm still playing this game and have achieved Pirate Legend!(max levels in the 3 core factions)
I really love that this is a game that lets me play whenever I want, without feeling that I have fallen behind everyone else and have to grind my ass off to gain stats and gear to compete.
Although I will say it is a game that is best enjoyed with friends or a clan/fleet, and sailing Solo can be a downright gutwrenching experience in the beginning. But stick with it long enough and you hopefully start to learn from your experiences and go from being the hunted to being the hunter.
Multiplayer and the interaction between players is the core focus on the game and is what makes it so incredibly enjoyable and memorable. And I absolutely love how much freedom the game gives with no arbitrary rules or game mechanics telling me what I can or cannot do and actually lets me be a real pirate.
Like a couple of weeks ago when I joined an alliance with another ship to take on the new treasure laden NPC Skeleton Ships they added to the game, only to double-cross them at the end and take all the treasure for myself!

KQhMIFd.jpg


For me it's probably the best money I've spent on a game in years, measured solely by the fact that I keep playing it and not just play through it once and then leave it on a proverbial shelf to gather dust.
And to be fair, it really isn't that expensive. Adjusting for inflation, Quake 3 Arena, cost even more when it was released back in 99, and I'd argue that game didn't even have half as much content as Sea of Thieves offer.

But if the grind and progression is your driving force rather than enjoying just playing a game for the sake of playing it, then you will absolutely be bitterly disappointed.
 
Of course, in that case, the game isn't for me. Which is why I'm glad to not having paid for it.

Nonetheless, I find it very disappointing to see that four (five?) years of development only brings us a barebones-game... with awesome water.
 
Barebones? I suppose that is a matter of opinion and what you realistically expect from a multiplayer game.
Just like SoT one could argue that Overwatch is a barebones game as well, and yet it's currently one of the most popular games in the world.
 
That's exactly why I don't play MP-only-PvP-titles. ;)

Regarding Overwatch, I can only make assumptions for its popularity:
It's a pure and dedicated PvP-title, that offers quick matches in different game modes, maps and with different heroes to chose from and also has a competitive scene. Being developed by Blizzard likely helped greatly boosting its population. Not sure if it has different guns for each character, like Team Fortress 2.
 
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Now the veterans seem to kick up a fuss over Rare's decision to tone the commendations down.

I don't know, are they really just playing for the sake of playing it? Or indeed for some kind of progression?
 
As soon as a game allows my fun to be destroyed by a single other player, I am out.
 
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