Why I’m Ultimately Fine With Safer Seas’ Drawbacks
Safer Seas in Sea of Thieves comes with a lot of drawbacks. There are no emissary flags, you can’t go higher than level 40 on a faction and you can’t use captained ships or the Sovereigns. The biggest drawback is that all gold is cut back by 70%, meaning whatever you sell will only sell for 30% of its normal value. For example, an Ashen Winds skull sells for 15k on High Seas but sells for 3k on Safer Seas. All gold earned is cut down, including rewards from the season, as well as events. For the Gifts and Glory event, you could get 25k gold just by logging in, but if you do so on Safer Seas, you only got 7.5k. Which was probably an oversight, but it goes alongside all other gold earnings being cut.
Not being able to use the Sovereigns seems like a massive drawback as well, but honestly, on most outposts, all the merchants are pretty close to each other anyway. Sure, it’s less convenient, but it’s not that much less convenient. Plus, there are sweet spots on most islands where you can ram your ship and get to the three important guys. And most of the stuff worth selling goes to Gold Hoarders anyway. Sovereigns are tied to Captaincy, and Captaincy has a lot of commendations tied to it, many of which are related to PvP combat.
The real drawback though is not being able to use Emissary Flags. These can double the gold you earn, but they can mark you on the map and have a LOT of value for Reapers. However, on Safer Seas, where you play on your own, there are no Reapers, no one to stop you leveling your flag up and no one around to take your flag away from you.
But the thing is, all these downsides are honestly pretty fair. After all, there’s no one coming to get you. Ever. You’re completely alone. Well, you and your crew. And because of that, you’re also completely safe.
While newbies will kinda struggle as they learn the basics (isn’t that true for any game?), the average player doesn’t really have much to fear in Sea of Thieves. Sure, a newbie will definitely sink a few times, especially if they are tackling a Skeleton Fleet or a Ghost Fleet on their own. But even a semi-experienced player can deal with a skelly sloop, and Ghost ships only take 3 or 7 hits to destroy. A newer player can simply take ships out slowly rather than charging in head first, from a safe distance. The only other things that can sink your ships are Megs and Krakens, but Krakens are easy to fight (if slow) and you can just sail away from a Megalodon. With no one else to worry about, you can take your time and choose your targets, there’s no fear of being ambushed.
And when you’re off your ship, things are even easier. There’s literally no risk from dying. You just respawn on the ferry and go back to what you’re doing. Killed by a keg skeleton while doing a fort? Doesn’t matter, just respawn and go back to fighting. There is no risk of missing anything or having your ship damaged, unless you’ve parked too close to a volcano in the Roar or get really unlucky in the middle of a skeleton fleet and get one-balled. And even then, unless you’re on a brig, you can actually take a lot of damage on both a sloop and a galleon before sinking becomes a threat.
The biggest threat by far in Sea of Thieves is other people, but they don’t exist in Safer Seas.
Because of this, you can just stack loot endlessly. Stack it until your game crashes even. Nothing in the game can stop you. A semi-competent player on Safer Seas has nothing to fear apart from their own fuck-ups. And the majority of fuck-ups can be recovered from if you have some planks and a bucket on you, which you always should. So go on, stack up 5 Gold Hoarder vaults. Nothing can stop you! Nothing!
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And that’s why there’s a 70% tax on gold earned. Because if there’s no risk, why should there be an equal reward?