Top 10 Ways To Fix Sea of Thieves

Let’s just get this one out of the way… The Kraken is supposed to be one of the most intense fights in the game. After all, this is monstrous, vicious squid we’re dealing with. Unfortunately, our immersion with the world is broken when all we’re fighting is a group of disembodied tentacles. Rare says to think of the Kraken as a “force of nature” instead of a boss, but when we can see the where the tentacles end, it just looks like they couldn’t come up with an actual design. It might be best to make it a boss, but make it a rare boss fight. Make it a special challenge, not a common nuisance.

Can you freakin’ believe it? We’re only a couple of months into the game, and “Sea of Thieves” is already littered with hackers. There’s not even any reason to hack this game! Yeah, there’s a PvP element, but with the stakes so low, why bother hacking the game? Just so you can get more treasure chests? There’s nothing to buy other than cosmetic stuff! You’re basically cheating just to be an ass about it! If there’s anything that SOME titles have proven, it’s that a cheater-littered game doesn’t live long. Seriously, Rare, don’t let us leave because of this, please!

This is one of the more confusing design choices. We understand if the goal was to keep everyone on the same playing field. As nice as that sounds, it’s only an idea that sounds good on paper. When executed, it can make the game boring, at times. If “Sea of Thieves” was to introduce loadouts or character classes, it would be doing a tremendous service to the game’s lifespan. After all, items and characters with differing statistics help serve different playstyles while encouraging players to build new strategies. Maybe one character can load cannons faster while another can spot enemy ships from a greater distance. We’re only spitballing, but “Sea of Thieves” has the potential.

One motto that the game has thrown around is that players create their own stories. Cool philosophy, but that’s no excuse to not let us experience others’ stories. How about create a series of quests where we encounter different memorable characters? In fact Rare, you guys already have a noteworthy pirate worth incorporating, Remember Captain Blackeye, The sorrow drowning pirate captain from Banjo-Tooie? Maybe Sea of Thieves can finally be his return to glory he was dreaming about before his original game was cancelled. There, now we have a classic Rareware 4th wall breaking concept to get started with.

“Sea of Thieves” is primarily a co-op multiplayer experience. Unfortunately, not everyone has friends to play games like this with, and meeting competent strangers online can a problem in and of itself. Of course, there are some players who just want to play by themselves. While you are able to play the game by yourself, the game quickly becomes rather boring on your lone Scooner. You also have to do everything on the ship by yourself which can get overwhelming, and it can get frustrating when a team of players spots you and takes everything. It might benefit the solo players to give them a crew of bots or put them in a separate server.

We get that Rare is trying to give us a complete pirate experience, and adding a brig seems necessary. However, this does not necessarily mean its a good design choice, especially when players can throw each other into the brig. What’s worse is that the only way out is if the other players vote for your freedom, but you’re better off just quitting the game and joining another server. We understand this was put in to punish griefers, but this just opens up the doors for incessant teasing. Why not utilize this as an interrogation tool, something like kidnap important characters to help you find a valuable artifact? That’s something pirates do, yeah?

In-between the battles with hackers and disembodied tentacles, “Sea of Thieves” is lacking in the combat department. If the game throws any enemies at you, it is something you’ve fought a dozen times before. At some point, skeletons, snakes, and sharks become a cinch. We know that pirates, both fictional and historical, faced many other dangers aside from those. Just look at how “Pirates of the Caribbean” got creative with pirate mythology. Also, we wouldn’t mind if Rare threw in some original enemies designs of their own, just like in say … any of their previous games for example. A few variations of the same skeletons isn’t really cutting it.

As much as we like keeping the ship spick and span, we’d like to make a kickass ship with our crew, too. This kind of goes back to what we were saying about keeping players at the same level; it sounds like a good idea, but its not. Don’t get us wrong, the ship battles are exciting! However, because everyone has the same ship, they grow stale rather quickly. If we were able to alter our ships performance stats, it would make the fights more exciting. Either that, or just make more ship models with unique stats that we could purchase with the fat stacks of gold we have. Speaking of which--

We’ve heard of the phrase “you’ve got money to burn”, but with how much gold “Sea of Thieves” gives us, it’s more than we know what to do with. Our only options are cosmetic items for our pirates and weapons. Which sword looks prettier? Which blunderbuss is shinier? Does this Eye of Reach match my eyes? Give us a reason to buy this stuff other than the fact it’s shiny! Let us barter with NPCs to buy better ships. Let us buy weapons with different stats. Jeez, we’d never thought there’d be a day where we’d complain about too much money!

You got three things to do: catch animals, kill skeletons, and find treasure. THAT’S...IT. Repetition sets in extremely fast! We know pirates do more than just hunt for booty. Many of the other entries on this list could quickly solve this problem. Rare, if you’re really going to encourage players to create their own legacy, you need to give them something. Design quests that tell stories. Create characters that can go on adventures with us. You could even have quests end in different ways to add more variety. Given the game’s current state, there’s not much reason for us to come back for another adventure, especially if there are none to be had.