A Biased Opinion on the Seas
The other day, I wrote an article about Safer Seas, the new mode that is coming to Sea of Thieves in December, as part of Season 10. The whole idea behind Safer Seas is that you can sail alone, with a crew, and not be disrupted by anyone. It’s basically a temporary private server for you and your friends. Now, when I wrote this article, I was kinda against the whole idea, fearing that it might suck the life out of playing the normal game mode. I’ve noticed this on other articles as well, and I think I have a biased opinion here.
You see, when I normally play Sea of Thieves, I do one of two things: I either log in on my own and mess with pirate and ship fashion, or I play with a dedicated crew. I’ve tried to play properly solo and I don’t enjoy it, and I won’t touch Open Crews at all because, well, communication is kinda sparse in this game, and Open Crews require a level of patience that I just don’t have. Generally, I play with the same few people, namely Bacxaber and Fox. Occasionally I’ll also play with Metz or CatDude, and a handful of other people. Most of the time though, we play as a brig crew, due to time zones being bastards.
Now, these guys are all very good at Sea of Thieves. Between Metz, Bacxaber and Fox, they have all the curses, including both the Skeleton Curse and the Ghost Curse, which require a HORRIBLE grind via Hourglass. Something I can’t do, mainly because of my slow laptop taking forever for things to load. They even have all the old, now impossible to get Arena gear, which was a PvP game mode that was removed a couple of years ago. The mad lads managed to get every commendation in the space of a few months, which is a very short amount of time in Sea of Thieves.
Me joining their crew kinda makes me a bit biased. After all, I’m sailing with seasoned veterans. So my experiences aren’t the same as everyone else’s experiences. I have only been sunk while spawning in a couple of times. The amount of times that I’ve lost all my loot after hours of play time are a lot lower than most other people, simply because I play with a crew that knows what they’re doing. (And also because we don’t stack loot when we play – once we get to rank 5, we sell our gear and then head out again.)
But the thing is, the only reason Bacxaber, Fox and Metz are insanely good pirates is because they’ve spent the years honing their skills and not running away from fights. We’ve been sunk plenty of times by better crews, and we all learn from those experiences. Sometimes, you just get outplayed, sometimes you lose. And sometimes you run into cheaters who magically spawn 10 kegs inside your ship and instantly blow you up. Although apparently Rare are working on some anti-cheat stuff.
My point is that my opinions on Safer Seas and when to run or fight are biased because I play with a skilled crew, and am a good enough player that I manage to learn and keep up with them. Playing with a strong crew means that the chances of us being sunk just as we spawn, or losing all our loot, and things like that are all a lot, lot lower than the average player. We’re also often aggressor, having destroyed ships for their loot, but we tend to avoid fresh ships if they keep out of our way. We give plenty of warning before we attack. The majority of people though have completely different ways of playing, and probably get sunk more often.
Still, that doesn’t mean my opinions are wrong. They’re different. They’re just not typical of your average Sea of Thieves player. I lean towards being more aggressive and being more into PvP, because I play with an aggressive crew that enjoys PvP. Most people, it seems, just want to sail around and find loot, rather than doing any combat.