Sea of Thieves Worth a Buy Video Review Reddit
So Much Missed Potential
As I sailed around the sea, dodging islands and fighting the rocking waves, I felt a sense of exploration initially. With so much open bounding main to venture into, there has to be something to it all, I thought to myself. However, every bit the minutes turned into hours, more and more than I became disillusioned with what Sea of Thieves truly is: instead of information technology being this grand pirate risk, it'due south simply an empty pool that requires more than one person to bound in it in order to have some fun. And from that indicate on I couldn't bring myself to play Sea of Thieves by myself anymore. It's moments like that - the realization that what you are doing in the game doesn't really thing that drive home the Sea of Thieves experience: so much missed potential. This is our Sea of Thieves review.
Sea of Thieves is the latest outing past the UK-based studio Rare - the studio who many of usa tin can atribute much of our childhood memories playing their games. Battletoads sticks out for me, but Banjo-Kazooie and Perfect Night filled much of my middle school years as well. Recently, however, the studio was relegated to making games for the now abandoned Microsoft Kinect. So when it was announced at the Electronic Entertainment Expo a few years back that Rare would be making a proper game again, naturally the gaming world got excited.
And at beginning glance, Body of water of Thieves looks like a game many would chomp at the bit to play. My offset experience playing Sea of Thieves was at the Microsoft Media Showcase at E3 2016. Sailing a boat with other media members against the people right beyond from yous was great fun - and it definitely left me wanting more. Yet, each beta and alpha test since then have done the same. The question kept being asked: Ok, the betas are fun, but what exactly do you exercise in Sea of Thieves?
In reality, not a lot.
Sea of Thieves thrives on its shared earth - and it really requires you to be experiencing their sandbox with other people. You lot tin hop into a sloop by yourself, but Rare doesn't put y'all in your own instance - you are notwithstanding pitted against pirate crews of all numbers. More than on this in a flake. Sea of Thieves relies on its players to create their own experiences. Practice you farm for reputation with the Golden Hoarders, or follow a glowing skull in the sky to liberate an outpost? What if you lot're simply looking to canvas the loftier seas, striking at unfortunate players who are just trying to banking company their hulls full of loot? You and your crew tin practise that. Even so, in the terminate the varying play styles get dried and repetition and monotony fix in. Why are you doing these things? Is this really all in that location is to a game that has been hyped for years and promised fans a more than varied experience from the beta tests?
Ocean of Thieves props an emergent gameplay construction as game design, when in reality it's simply a crutch to hibernate what isn't there: an actual storyline or compelling quests.
Progression and questing in Sea of Thieves are just a smattering of fetch quests from the 3 factions: The Golden Hoarders, Merchant Alliance and the Oath of Souls. These voyages very based on the faction every bit well: the Gilded Hoarders have yous do the generic pirate-y thing and dig upward buried treasure; the Oath of Souls requires yous to kill a Skeleton Captain (or a few, depending on the level of quest); and the Merchant Brotherhood has you lot tracking downward pigs and chickens and delivering them to a nearby outpost. While the quests are radiant in nature, there is a chance y'all'll do the same thing twice. I did two Merchant Brotherhood voyages dorsum to back that had me go to the same island, grab the aforementioned animals and head to the same outpost. None of these voyages actually accept y'all...voyage. They accept you lot to islands in the immediate vicinity, meaning your whole Sea of Thieves session could run into you only going to iii nearby islands the entire time you're online. Never did I feel the need to canvass across the map unless it was simply to see what would happen. Never did a quest send me on a compelling mission to uncover something - it's been the same rinse and repeat voyaging that I had washed for 20+ hours at present.
Additionally, going and completing these voyages doesn't actually progress in the game - you lot have to arrive dorsum to the outpost unscathed with your plunder for you to get any credit. This is where the ugly nature of Sea of Thieves' shared world comes into play. Say you're a solo pirate captain who just did a string of three voyages (since y'all can only hold three at a time) and instead of going dorsum and forth you decided to but hoard the loot and sell it all at once. The outpost you lot determine to become to ends up existence camped by a 4-man galleon intent on raiding whatsoever ship that tries to phone call to port. There is simply no manner you can fend off a 4 person ship past yourself, and the iii masted galleon is loads faster than your single mast sloop. Try as y'all might the galleon spots y'all, catches up and kills you. By the time y'all've respawned your send has been sunk, the treasure y'all carried stolen and the galleon sailing away set to strike at another crew. You lot go nil credit for whatever of the work you simply did in the game, pregnant the last 45 minutes to an hr were a complete waste of time.
Games should never experience as though they are wasting your fourth dimension - and Bounding main of Thieves does that with ease thanks to its progression and PVP systems.
There is zip mode for you to play in a private session, keeping marauding pirate groups away from your difficult earned loot. There are no rewards for completing the voyage - everything is tied to you selling the loot, which is asinine considering how easy it is to lose said loot. Instead of rewarding players for their time, Sea of Thieves puts intentional road blocks in the fashion disallowment progress behind poorly implemented systems.
PVP is a nightmare as well, unless you are in a full group. And while information technology can be fun, this actually comes downward to how well coordinated your group is and, simply put, whether or not the crew you're fighting is evenly matched or using a smaller vessel.
Due to the nature of how you sail a transport in Sea of Thieves, each coiffure member should have a defined role. You'll accept ane person at the helm, steering the ship. Another might exist your lookout man, keeping you from crashing into rocks or other items. 1 member might be in charge of the rigging, keeping the ship moving with the wind, or against it if you're trying to brand a tighter turn on the water. The last crew member is likely taking care of the cannons, making certain they are set to fire at a moments notice. If you are solo, all of those various jobs are being washed by one person - meaning in a burn down fight you're constantly leaving the helm to burn and reload, change the sails, steer the ship then on. It makes PVP untenable. Even with a second coiffure fellow member y'all're still stretched thin, especially if the send starts to take on water. With a total coiffure this is much more manageable. This is why it seems similar a disconnect - and a tad fleck unfair - to those smaller crews being put in sessions with total galleons to debate with. This is especially slow considering there is nowhere in Bounding main of Thieves where yous are safe from harassment if a ship spots yous. Other games, such as The Sectionalization and more mainstream MMOs accept designated areas for PVP. The entire map is the Night Zone in Bounding main of Thieves.
Other games, if they are going to create a no-condom zone PVP map, like GTA Online does, they include the ability to sail in a individual session, away from the hassle of other players. Body of water of Thieves doesn't offer the role player much choice in this regard - its requirement that the game be in a shared globe in order for the gameplay to truly function is the crutch holding the entire feel back.
This is particularly exacerbated by the fact that the combat just isn't well implemented or very fun. You can hack at enemies with your sword, or shoot them with a trusty flintlock weapon (where you can merely concord 5 total bullets - I've made those in real life and can hands fit 20 or and so into a small leather bag). There isn't a whole lot of feedback on the weapons and overall the experience feels floaty and half-baked. At that place is naught really in it to go along you engaged - information technology's hack and slash at information technology's finest.
This isn't to say that Bounding main of Thieves tin't be fun - it can. In the right atmospheric condition the emergent gameplay can provide some incredible moments. One such moment happened when sailing to an outpost that was already being assaulted by a total four man galleon. As my teammate abandoned me to ensure that we had peaceful relations with the other coiffure, I ended up beingness cannoned to death by the skeletons on the island since I couldn't steer and fight back at the same fourth dimension. When I came dorsum to the fight after respawning, a 2d galleon had joined the fray - my buddy helping the crew we had befriended in their valiant defense. Afterwards nearly thirty minutes of back and along cannon fire - many times sinking the enemy vessels only for them to return, we decided to leave, seeking to grind reputation in the end. Nosotros concluded up regretting that decision, leaving the near enjoyable moments we had with Sea of Thieves to return to the monotony of the grind.
In the terminate, the question remains: Why? Why are you grinding all this rep? What is it all for? What can you really practice in Sea of Thieves?
The game seems to focus heavily on buying cosmetics to kit your pirate out. Notwithstanding the gold prices for every little particular are outrageous, especially when each voyage is just bringing you an average of 500-1000 gold a piece. When a new sword (that only looks dissimilar, it's not ameliorate or annihilation) costs upwards of 13K (!) gold, it really makes the grind that much more insufferable. The underpinnings of microtransactions look really credible here - and while we accept to wait and see how Rare volition implement information technology's totally unnecessary merely seemingly required by AAA studio standards golden shop, the way cosmetics work in this game correct now get in rife with microtransaction abuses.
Considering all of the items you buy in Ocean of Thieves are purely corrective (including ship upgrades), in that location is no real sense of bodily progression. Your reputation increases and you look nicer - but what exactly are yous doing all this for?
There is an stop game hub where Pirate Legends (those who reach level 50 with all three factions) can "hang out" and keep Legendary Pirate voyages, merely it seems hardly worth attaining in the end. The complete lack of content in Ocean of Thieves wears thin quickly, making you lot wonder how this game could have been hyped for so long, sold at full price and then released - broken at launch - without actually much to do in the game.
It does help that Sea of Thieves is an incredibly attractive game to look at, and it does run reasonably well on PC and Xbox (though the Xbox 1 X has some hiccups that Rare are patching). The wave simulation, coupled by the immensely beautiful lighting organization makes for an incredibly conceivable globe. The manner the transport sails through the waves is incredible and Rare really should be proud of the work they did on that aspect of the game specially since it takes up the bulk of your time while in the game. The art style lends itself well to the game likewise - though the lack of a true character cosmos system is missed.
At the end of the mean solar day, Rare promised a 1000 pirate chance, but missed the mark on and so much they could have done. Imagine a pirate game with a grand storyline - ane that scratches all the itches that experiences like The Goonies, Pirates of the Caribbean area and more have brought into the mix. Sea of Thieves requires players to create their own stories every single time they log in and props it up as gameplay. But in the end, information technology's a crutch the game can never quite get over. Moments of fun aside, Sea of Thieves isn't a game I'd recommend to anyone in its current form. Rare plans on releasing "gratuitous content" to broaden the launch version down the route, only this is an case where I'd take a "wait and meet" arroyo. As information technology stands right at present, Sea of Thieves is an empty playground of wasted potential that requires too much investment from the player with too little in return.
Source: https://www.mmorpg.com/reviews/so-much-missed-potential-2000106962
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