Sea of Thieves Review (Just a guy)
(opinion)
I feel like this is the kind of game that's more fun to watch streamers play, not really to play yourself. There's *aspects* of the game I do enjoy, and sometimes I THINK I want to play it, but I'm usually proven wrong.
Most describe this game as a PvPvE game, but it's more accurate to say it's a PvP game with minigames sprinkled within in the form of voyages. You would think doing voyages would be fun, except what most players do is plundering loot, so the only reason voyages are even there are so other players can exploit that newer player that doesn't know any better. But that's not to say most players ONLY target voyagers, as the game is very much "shoot on sight and ask questions never", which results in any and all player encounters resulting in a fight.
But beyond that, the game is just Schizophrenic in its design, as several mechanics and gameplay styles outright clash with eachother, as if there was more of a focus on adding 'more' content to keep players invested instead of thinking about how content meshes with the rest of the game. The game has a very respectable wealth of voyages that have randomized elements, tall tales for a more structured story, and a vast world that's filled with lore, but almost all of it goes unused because of the aformentioned "shoot on sight" nature of the game, so you'll usually be interrupted and forced into defending. You might be tempted to try the Safer Seas for this, and that'll definitely provide a more private experience, but the game still penalizes you for being on there with the reputation caps.
Another problem is actually with the reputations themselves. Since captaincy, the game's been adding more and more 'reputation' meters to level up for a staggering number of unlockables, to the degree you could be working on 3-7 different forms of progression at once. But because so many cosmetics are locked behind the different progressions and commondation achievements, you're left with a bloated to-do list of seemingly arbitrary things you need to do to unlock most cosmetics. You might see something interesting in an in-game store that requires a certain commondation, and then spend a good hour or two searching through more than 600 random commondations in each little category the game offers you, from the factions to bilge rats to tall tales and so on. It's not exactly easy to sift through half of a thousand achievements, a lot of which have very indistinct icons, looking for the one that has the exact name you're looking for. Beyond that, a lot of the commondations are extremely unnecessary, like two different commondations for the same voyage where one is for times starting the voyage and the other is for times finishing it.
Moving on to the PvP itself, it can be a very mixed bag at the best of times, and it usually comes in two forms: Wild encounters and hourglass. If you aren't doing the hourglass matchmaking, you're sailing the map aimlessly hunting down another player, usually a ship that's either way bigger or way smaller than you. If you start the encounter, there's really nothing for you to lose and no reason to be afraid of losing, while the other player usually has a sudden chance of having their entire evening ruined because you got the drop on them. Even if you're unlucky and the other player wins, you're unlikely to have anything but basic supplies on your ship, leaving to the player you attacked wasting their cannonballs, planks, and food for nothing. A number of voyaging players might even scuttle if another ship approaches because they KNOW winning the fight will leave them with nothing but fewer resources to defend themselves from the NEXT time a player wants a piece of them.
You might have fun for your first few matches in hourglass, and that can be a very heavy 'might' at times. How hourglass pvp works for those who don't know is that you're matched up with another ship that has the same ship type and number of players as you (so a 2 person brigg will ALWAYS fight a 2 person brigg). The naval combat in of itself can feel fun, and the reward for succeeding can be good (even if it adds ANOTHER form of progression to the already staggering pile). But this is mostly assuming you have friends who have the same game as you, have the same free time as you, and have the same passion for the game as you do. If you have all of that, you're basically set to go. But if your friend has scheduling conflicts, doesn't like the game, or you just don't have friends that like playing games, you're stuck with what I can confidently say is the most miserable experience the game has to offer. You either have to get lucky with your opponent loss-farming or wanting to roll dice, or you're stuck slogging through a resource game. I do not exaggerate, unless you're willing to spawn-camp your opponent and sail them out of bounds while they're unable to do anything, you HAVE to just throw cannonballs and hope they have less than you, as you usually aren't safe to board since you'll also get holes in your own ship. Some people find this fun, but I just find it exhausting and ultimately unrewarding.
This leads into the point that being a solo-sloop (single player) is a nightmare in the game as a whole. Since you don't have any other players, you need to either sit on your ship and keep a lookout constantly, or cross your fingers and hope you don't get ambushed while you go off to actually play one of the game's voyages. Not to mention that if you're not in hourglass PvP, 9/10 times you'll usually be encountering larger crews than you. There are certainly strategies to put things more in your favor, but it doesn't change the level of focus you need to apply and stress you'll go through to stay above water, especially if the players on your server happen to be either a Reaper or are otherwise actively hunting you down at all times.
I got into the game around season 6, and while it was certainly the point after "shoot on sight" became the norm, I still got the odd non-hostile interaction. Sure, we weren't working towards any objectives, but we were having fun in a sandbox. I even got halfway to getting a group together to do the glitterbeard secret before some of them had to log off. It wasn't "profitable" in in-game currency, it didn't work towards a thousand and one reputation level-ups, but it was fun. And I feel like the game, and by consequence it's playerbase, forgot that that 'fun' was originally the core of the game.
I won't exaggerate and say the game should be "sea of friends" or anything drastic like that, people are allowed to play their games however they want as long as it isn't literally hacking or breaking the game. But I sometimes wish I could've gotten this game at launch, back when there weren't any factions or unlocks, when it was just people on the sea. I've stuck with the game for 10 seasons, with the occasional break from the game when the stress and frustration got to me. But at this point, I think I've seen about everything I wanted from the game. Maybe I'll briefly pick it up in the future, take some friends onto safer seas, but I don't think I'll be playing on high seas ever again. I'm glad that streamers find the game fun, I just wish I could enjoy the game like they did.