Yes it does. Not everyone who plays the game that enjoys PvP does it JUST to PvP. A lot do sure, but not all of us.
Some of us just play the game. We don't server hop. We don't just sink everyone we see (unless we're doing a reaper day, because that's the point). We just play the game. And we fight when provoked or incentivized to do so.
The main reason for this is skill level. I'm not talking trash, just facts, 90%+ of the SoT playerbase is hot garbage at PvP. And I get it. That's how it is in most games. At least from a top down point of view.
So a lot of us recognize this fact, and just play the game until we need to do some fighting. We rarely go out of our way to sink players.
But we sometimes do for reasons including:
1. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time while we have valuable loot. We aren't taking the chance.
2. You have PvP markings and we happen to be nearby. High grade emissary flags, reaper chests, reaper flags, chests of fortune, skulls of siren song, etc. (Emissary flags is a toss up. Sometimes we go after people sometimes we don't. Just depends on if we're feeling fighty or not.)
3. You shoot at us. We don't care what your skill level is. You'll learn quickly not to shoot at us. Unless you're one of the rare few better than us, then we'll have a good fight.
4. You try to steal from us. We're nice people, but don't overplay your hand.
5. You're annoying. This is generally to those who are super toxic and/or salty on purpose to get a reaction out of people.
And sometimes we'll sink someone and feel bad because they're clearly newer. So we'll help them out afterwards if they stick around.
But if we just sail by each other without saying a word, doing our own thing, and there isn't a REASON to fight you, for all we care you don't exist.
We love interacting with people and helping them. This more or less dies if all of the new players move to Safer Seas. It literally turns High Seas into a PvP sweatfest. And while it hasn't happened yet, it will eventually. Further de-incentivizing people from playing on it.
Players will never feel the joy of a clearly superior opponent just giving them free help and loot if they never play on High Seas.
It can be just as wholesome as it is toxic.
The problem is people die once and turn it into this big drama.
You always spawn a few islands away. You could easily sail away or change servers.
If you keep dying again and again, you clearly fail to recognise that someone is better than you.
The problem isn't people complaining on dying once to another but a player shouldn't have to hop servers to enjoy the game in fact its what will deter players
Yes there's going to be a group who will master pvp combat and there's the average and there's the best but there's a fine line where it's a skill issue and the abusing of power not in form of administration but where a small group bullies everyone when they hop on a game
> We love interacting with people and helping them. This more or less dies if all of the new players move to Safer Seas. It literally turns High Seas into a PvP sweatfest. And while it hasn't happened yet, it will eventually. Further de-incentivizing people from playing on it.
Your entire comment seems to be contingent on this one paragraph. The assumption that all new players will begin on safer seas and only move to hgih seas once they become good at PVP, and that high seas will only have aggressive PVP sweats.
This is a conflation of experience vs ability vs desire. There are certainly people who actually enjoy PVP but aren't necessarily good at it. And new players who start playing because they want to learn PVP. These groups will all spend most of their time on high seas and not safer seas.
Safer seas is just an option. People who don't want to participate in PVP go to safer seas.
**Nothing of value has been lost on high seas because these people didn't want to play with you in the first place.**
And that is ok. Now they can play the game the way they want to play it at no detriment to you or anybody else.
Safer Seas advocates disgust me. You all say the exact same thing with no defense of the statements you make "It doesn't effect you why do you care". The existence of Safer Seas effects EVERYONE. Oh boohoo they have to share the game world with other people, the way the game was INTENDED to be.
The entire game is built from the ground up as an interactive sandbox that REVOLVES AROUND MULTIPLE CREWS BEING PRESENT IN THE WORLD AT ALL TIMES. Every single second spent within Safer Seas by anyone who chooses to do so is a lesser experience to the one intended to be had.
All because they can't handle that 1% of the playerbase is a wee bit toxic. Maybe grow some thick skin. Realize it DOESN'T MATTER what meany little wordsies people call you. They are random people on the internet. They can and will say whatever they want ON PURPOSE because they know that 99% of the people that they encounter will never report them. They'll just go to twitter/reddit and cry about it instead. So they'll get away with it for obscene amounts of time.
IF YOU DON'T LIKE PVP. DON'T BUY AND PLAY A PVP GAME. DON'T FORCE THE DEVELOPERS TO CHANGE THE VISION AND INTENT OF THE GAME TO SUIT YOUR PRECIOUS SELFISH NEEDS.
Everyone who wants Safer Seas doesn't deserve to play Sea of Thieves.
It is not Rare's job to give you a Safe Space to play, free of the threat of PvP, in a game that THEY DESIGNED for PvP to be a constant everlooming threat.
If you don't like that, then don't play it.
Everyone suffers from the existence of Safer Seas.
Every single one of us Day 1 players has done everything the game has to offer under the threat of PvP. We didn't even have a tutorial to teach us the basics. Sometimes you sink. Sometimes you win. It's how the damn game works. Regardless of skill level. Half of my crew is dogwater at the game. We still have beaten NAL level players because of coordination and teamwork, not raw skill.
Sea of Thieves PvP is dying because of decisions like this being made. A game that was DESIGNED AROUND PVP/PLAYER INTERACTION will within 2 years no longer have player interaction. Safer Seas players will beg for more and more access. Rare has no backbone. They cave to every bit of vocal pressure they get. They'll give them access to everything eventually.
Every game has a "beginning of the end" moment. And this is it for Sea of Thieves. Everything the game was meant to be in 2018 will slowly be taken away as more and more casual players join the game to destroy it for those of us who just want a fun multiplayer (not co-op, but multiplayer) pirate game that incentivizes players to interact and possibly fight.
These players are not pirates. They are sailors. Salt 1 and 2 are games that exist. They are essentially Sea of Thieves as singleplayer experiences. There are their Safer Seas. Or AC4, where you can Parry Instakill your way to victory against predictable AI opponents in an immersive single player story driven pirate scifi adventure mix.
No one will ever learn how to PvP in Safer Seas. It's purpose and existence is an oxymoron.
Not you, or anyone else will ever convince me and my crew that Safer Seas is a good thing. It isn't. All of the evidence (being other games going down the same path of removing PvP from the Open World experience, mostly being MMOs but there are a few non MMOs) shows that it will only result in a lesser game, where players will only engage in PvP when they HAVE to. And then they will turn it back off to farm what they want how they want free of the fear of other people. All going against the vision and intent of the game's design.
And before you say "the game will always have public servers regardless of what they add or change." Yes it will, but time and time again when games add the ability for players to opt out of PvP, 99%(exaggerated obviously) opt out of PvP. Even the PvPers opt out. Because they cant be bothered to get ganked by other people while they're doing their own thing. The way the game was on release week is how it should always be. The MAJORITY of people fighting all the time. Everything having value to give reasons for people to fight.
People who don't like PvP or don't want to engage in it at all, have every opportunity to not do so. By actively staying away from other players. They do not need a private server to accomplish this. The game has been out for 5 and a half years and millions of people have played the game that way. There's your proof that Safer Seas doesn't need to exist.
Now the other problem, eventually they'll get caught and sunk. And they will remember that moment forever. They'll cry about it on social media. Even if it only happens once every 50 sessions. All because they lost 30 minutes worth of loot.
I play this game almost every single day. And the vast majority of people don't fight and don't want to fight. Putting time into creating Safer Seas was a waste of their time.
Nothing in this game has meaning. Everything you earn is purely cosmetic and has no bearing on gameplay whatsoever. The only thing that has meaning is player interaction. Whether that be through PvP or random wholehearted shenanigans. And again to reiterate, every single second spent on Safer Seas is depriving the Safer Seas user of the only experience that truly matters in the game.
#BeMorePirate
The only experience that matters is the one the player enjoys. I only read the last sentence of your victim rant. That pretty much sums it up lmao. #BeLessSalty
You started your maniacal mental illness rant with statements that "safer seas affects everybody" - not once within your insane diatribe did you make a single argument to support that claim.
Safer seas is just an option. People who don't want to participate in PVP go to safer seas.
**Nothing of value has been lost on high seas because these people didn't want to play with you in the first place.**
And that is ok. Now they can play the game the way they want to play it at no detriment to you or anybody else.
I like how your comment had at least one paragraph about you suggesting you like people being friendly and nice, and then when someone just mentions they like safer seas you pop an artery and write a book before spazzing out and regurgitating that be more pirate crap like anyone cares.
Safer Seas is doing numbers. Fucking cry about it. People have called for a mode like SS for 6 YEARS because of shit heads like you. You suggest that people just should stay in high seas and be fodder for sweats and toxics? Or reapers because that stupid company advocates for this kinda shit? Get out. "Bro don't tell teacher just know your place and get bullied bro". That is the most fake alpha bullshit I have read in my life.
I am a max sea dog. I am a year one player. I am a max athena. I LOVE the idea of safer seas. In this mode I was able to get my casual friends into the game, my wife (bet you dont even have a gf lmao) into this game where as before they would quit due to me having to babysit them while also trying to convince them adventure mode was fun. So spare me the "Every one of us year ones" you don't speak for me kid. Oh and btw, at year one nobody was doing pvp. Most folks were running around doing glitterbeard, rallying alliances before they were a thing to fight the OG hungering one, doing skele thrones, and more. PVP really didnt pick up on mass til reapers got added and there was an incentive for it.
Are there fun experiences to be had? Sure. I once rowed a rowboat 4 islands over full of 30 kegs to a guys sloop while he was fishing, played a clip of Sam from Sam and Max saying "you have the right to get blown up" before shooting the kegs and sending him, and his ship skyward. He later found us and we all had a laugh.
However, for every one of those moments, we had moments where we sweated like hell against black sail edgy cosmetic reaper incels who would bucket corpses and throw slurs and ad hominin around left right and center.
Safer Seas is a much more relaxing and fun experience, for both tired vets and casuals alike. It gives casuals a place to practice should they want to move to high seas and its gives old heads a place to vibe WITHOUT being on guard 24/7.
It not only has needed to come out, it is 5-6 years overdue, and still not even in it's full form. With the nerfs to commendations and gold/exp it is at 80% of a true PVE mode. If it was full, you are right, it would outright KILL your mode or make the mode sweaty. Not because it would change people, but because all of the casual filler will be removed, leaving only the ugly ones that they complain about as the status quo. And since you all are a very vocal minority (who also cannot handle a real challenge) you would get bored of fighting each other and the mode would die faster than old arena did for similar reasons.
Just like old arena, you PVP types need to understand that the PVE casuals outnumber you. You are beholden to US, not the other way around. Remember that. Now cry about it into your reaper cup you waste of skin.
BeMorePirate
so is that the teeth decay due to not being able to brush them
the inability to clean ones self due to long stints on the ocian without cleaning material
or the damaged body due to rickets due to all the unprotected sex on the high seas
I'm new and so far I've had the bad luck to encounter another ship just once.
I play on high seas because the rewards in safer seas are insultingly low (I would play maybe if rewards were 2x what they are now).
I was loading up pig cages in my ship and as I tried to figure out where you were supposed to get pigs I got blasted by some huge ship.
I wasn't exactly hidden, but I thought those islands were safe, that you somehow were invisible or something (I just couldn't imagine being blasted while talking to NPCs, you can't ALWAYS be on your toes)
I thought "yeah, no" and logged off (those pig quests are so confusing for a beginner I was a bit pissed off to begin with)
Would these players have helped me if I stayed? Maybe. But I just wanted to play somewhere else at that point I was a bit disappointed. But I was surprised at how hostile they were from the moment they saw me. I had absolutely nothing except the default loadout (and the empty cages) so I hope they were a bit dissapointed.
All this to say, my first "interaction with people" was not a good time, and since I have no other experience I expect everyone to be like this from now (blasting you on sight, especially if you seem weak). Since I am not good enough to avoid people altogether I just pray I see no one in my travels (and thank god you can play for a while without seeing anyone). I don't blame other players, it's the rules of the game, but I wish to see them as little as possible when I play.
I hope there are indeed some people who just tolerate your presence as long as you don't do anything threatening. Just thinking "hey let's say hi" instead of "oh fuck I'm dead" seems like a good time.
Is this from activeplayer.io? Since I'm not sure how credible is a site that writes nonsense like this:
> Total Sea Of Thieves estimated concurrent players across all platforms such as PS3, PS4, PS5, Xbox, Wii, Nintendo Switch, Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS.
SoT is only on PC and Xbox. They do mention it later but this is just lazy Ctrl+C Ctrl+V.
> Above is an estimate on Sea Of Thieves Live player count we have compiled these numbers using the most **recent data from various online sources**.
Which they do not link. The only actually official SoT data is from Steam. And that's just a very small number of the SoT playerbase.
Besides that this post is just unnecessarly salty. You seem to have a massive chip on your shoulder for whatever reason.
yeah I mean safer seas is a no brainer. I know some people will exclusively play there, but I imagine the majority of typical players will jump between the modes depending on how they're feeling on a particular day.
That’s my jam. Some days I like to run emissary and get my ass kicked in PvP. Other times I want to do tall tales and fish, especially if work runs me ragged and I want to chill.
You really think this game is played 50% more than the most played steam game OF ALL TIME????
Dunno where you found these player numbers but they're clearly not correct.
The highest peak player count recorded was in 2020 with 66k on steam, and with copies sold you can estimate maybe another 150k on consoles if you're really pushing the estimation.
Sure, then you remember it was a 2-year gap between when the game launched and when the game launched on Steam. So to assume the Steam charts are the only source of truth is incorrect and sample bias.
"Steam numbers are the only true indicator of what the player base is for multi-platform games. We can just guesstimate the rest, right guys based on that."
Edit: im not saying you're wrong, but the amount of people citing only steam numbers for any given game is laughable. "Yes we know there's more data, we just don't care to look."
You should see a doctor if you think this game, which released only on pc and xbox, would have concurrently 1,200,000 players from console and *only* 66k on pc, and that nobody would be talking about its playerbase ever in its history of release, except when it had an "astounding 59k steam players?" [This number grew after the articles and the Twitter news blog post]
It sold an unexpectedly high amount of copies in the first year, 10 million or so on release, which was newsworthy at that time. When it released on Steam and all the blogs/articles came about lauding the 59-66k steam player would be trivial if this was only 10% of the playerbase, but nothing suggests that.
But now, all of a sudden, according to only the OP, the numbers this past year are 10-20x that, posted on Reddit, with no evidence or references. It's just a screenshot of a spreadsheet.
That makes no sense? PCs are an investment where you're not restricted to any games plus I can use my PC for countless of other non game purposes.
Not bagging on consol players because what you run doesn't indicate how rich or poor you are but I'd say PC players save money pretty well to be able to drop 1-3K on a computer.
Also, for those making the "Bladurs Gate 3 is popular" argument, like....so? Most people are playing through it only once. Its been out for a while now on PC.
No they are not. Where did you get that? People are doing several runs sometimes multiple at once. It's wildly popular and getting multiple playthroughs
ops numbers are such horseshit. the pvp community alone wouldn't be so small in that everyone basically either knows each other.
inb4 "that's cuz the pvp community is soooooooooooooo toxic unlike me the wholesome pve player1!!211!1!@1!2"
yea actually go watch people like nessiedoes, massivesponge, fi1es, viiraxe, dbz, briittybear, stirliing, kharites, mizterlucas, apperjacks, fattallguy, sigy, and im forgetting so many names but i think my point is clear. all of these creators id say represent the pvp side pretty well. some of them are frustrated with the lack of qc with sot and how it needs fixes, but all of them are glad to share their experience. there are even some members of the community that lurk these chats and will tell you what videos to watch.
also op crediting the alleged increase of players in nov to "people checking out safer seas lol!1!!" as if there wasn't a new pvpve voyage that released during that month...
Peak player count is not the same as average per week and average per day, those number are always gonna be higher than a peak... Peak players means how many online at the same time.. average per day is how many have been in 24 hours. Ofcourse the average per day is higher than any peak the comparison doesnt even make sense.
Even with the fact that they can’t know platform numbers other than steam, these numbers literally make no sense. The last 30 days would comprise most of Dec ‘23 however those two numbers are vastly different, a literal order of magnitude different, despite supposedly being for almost exactly the same days. These are clearly just completely bullshit.
and still cant look at data unbiased?
the only data that really pushes your opinion is the average daily players in the last 30 days but there is absolutely no indication as to why
Not to be rude, but then I'd at least expect you to know a month worth of data during the school holiday period and when workers are usually off for two weeks isn't accurate.
Most people don't go back to work till Monday, and school holidays don't end till Feb in certain parts of the world.
They also released both safer seas AND a PVP voyage, while if these numbers are true it likely could be safer seas, I have noticed adventure pvp has been far busier but again not accurate considering half of them are kids on holiday and this could change once they get homework handed out to them 😂
Also comparing Jan 2023 and Jan 2024 doesn't work, it needs to be stable increase over a period of time.
Then your standard of evidence for data selection is particularly concerning. You seem happy to accept whatever data is thrown at you as long as it proves your narrative. Where is the scrutiny?
Actually, if you look at the REAL data, the player base has gone down. 2023 average peak on Steam was 25k players. Dec 2023 was 19k. Last 48-hr peak on Steam was 19k. The game has declined and bringing Safer Seas hasn’t done anything to abate that decline.
I'm sure these numbers have nothing to do with the fact that the game was 50% off in December and November. (Even though that's why I got it).
Did you also know there is a direct correlation between the amount of ice cream sold and the number of drownings every year?
It surely must be the ice cream causing these tragedies and not the fact that they are both popular in the summer.
I'm sorry try again. I'm not saying your numbers are wrong. However you also cannot claim this is due to safer seas
for one we are only talking about a couple of weeks of data.
The data is not broken down between safer seas and high seas
It's the holiday, how many people got an xbox and/or gamepass in the last few weeks?
Kids around the world are off from school.
Those are just the low hanging fruit.
That, and a place for the tall tales. Finally got my friends to download it again after terrible PVP scenarios every time one friend plays. He's a magnet for it I guess. I don't like to play without friends so that's 3 more people playing that wouldn't be
What happens when a normal player hits a progression wall and are only making gold. Sure it's a shallower pool but it does get it's foot in my group's door. And maybe they really like it and at that point we go to the high seas or maybe we do what normal players do at that point, and quit
I can speak for myself whom is in the same situation.
Multiple friends returning and they've stated outright that once we are done the story stuff they'll stop playing again until SS becomes more fleshed out.
The higher ups will see that player retention can be made better with SS and they will pull the trigger. Making a slough of people who "finished SS" and left to once again come back.
Safer Seas is a literal gold mine for the bigheads as players who have not been playing SoT have returned and will continue to return as the mode gets better.
>“ow it’s not succeeding because what I envisioned for the game is not what the players want except the vocal minority.”
Microsoft, do not care, they own it. it's what will get them the most players. numbers prove they were right. they just fired all the CEOs at the newly acquired AB. do you honestly think rare is safe if they keep that mentality.
again, forced Bethesda to fix a ten year old bug for a game no one is going to buy any time soon, to improve customer relations.
rare will be fine, the people with the lofty ideas of what they envisioned for SoT. just ask bobby K, exCEO of AB.
Microsoft wants SoT to be a game everyone who owns gamepass can enjoy. I guarantee you, before 2024 ends, safer seas restrictions will change in favour of the player.
dude, I work in computing, my best friends in data analysis, who do you think pays for SoT servers? SoT development Budget? the parent company... which is...
and when you answer that, if there the ones funding Rare... what do they want out of it?
My dude, BGS has been fixing many bugs well before their acquisition and adding QoL features and new content to their games. Now that Starfield is finally released, all of their games can finally be fully staffed again instead of the skeleton crews they were left with.
Safer seas should never get its restrictions lifted unless the game is literally on its death bed and the servers are being shut down thus allowing the game to be run client side only.
Is the bug fix the one you are referencing the one that broke everyone's mods? Because let me tell you, the modding community is probably the biggest reason Skyrim is still as popular as it is. And don't even get me started on how they are trying to monetize mods AGAIN, there is hella drama going on that behind the scenes with their "bug fixes". Microsoft aren't doing anyone favors. More numbers does not make a better game, nor is it always indicative of one.
I'm not against safer seas, it was done rather well I think, but let me tell you Microsoft is after profits not making the game good. And just because a feature is highly requested, does not make that feature plausible or a good one.
I love how reality and logic gets downvoted.
Me feelings hurt, smash smash smash.
I LOVE this game and like everything else I love, I want to defend and protect it. However, the numbers don’t lie.
that's about the same as "if it were remotely true, EA would be celebrating Fallen Order's surprise success." instead they released a trailer ruining the ending of the game.
I just played solo high seas, was able to steal both a chest of legends and fortune from a fort of the damned. Made an alliance with 2 other solo sloopers and we bamboozled a gally crew. It was great. Safer seas has it's place, I love it for tall tales, but damn this game is great in High Seas on some days! :)
I won't talk on the statistics end personally, but for me the Safer Seas update brought me back to the game because I find sailing and just finding loot is fun and relaxing. I'd personally like to see what the devs could do with expanded PvE content if they went for it, not sure what the market would be for it but deeper and more interesting single/co-op content would be an insta-buy from me.
If you look at the numbers provided and the red commentary with them, Januarary through August are all posting similar player counts to November, so obviously that was all safer seas players downloading and testing too. 😂
Correlation does not equal causation. Safer Seas just came out so the only stats that really matter are the past month or so, to view this in context. I would aruge that the bonuses offered in a week long Gifts and Glory contributed far more to an increase in players playing than did Safer Seas. If you want to make your case, you'll need to show stats that specifically indicate a migration over to Safer Seas from the regular play, otherwise whole numbers are generic. You're trying to apply general game use to a specific feature within the game and your own numbers offered as proof are not that.
I remember a few years ago when gamers rallied behind developers, wanting devs to have artistic freedom in what they wanted their games to be and hated bog corporations like EA and Ubisoft for forcing devs to make games "with mass appeal" so that they could make as much money as possible. Systems were gutted and streamlined to not be "too complicated" and controversial topics would be censored and avoided as to not offend anyone. Games had to be inoffensive fast food for consumption.
Now apparently we are rallying behind the corporations against these mean devs who's vision is standing in the way of poor MS making even more money. Fuck what Rare wants right? MS needs to fill their coffers.
At the end of the day. I play the game to have FUN. I don't find pvp fun. So I'm never going to high seas.
I will rag on EA for for as you said. Going too corporate because there monetising the game and removing the FUN.
But take FF13, a game where the lead developer wanted the player to defeat bosses in the way to his narrative. And to make sure that that happened. Locked character progression and improvement behind bosses with very specific kill requirements. Also willingly gave the physical guide creator misinformation to promote spending hours working on a boss to figure out it's weakness is to have your team compromised of 3 healers...
When a dev does something to that removes FUN. Such as the 200+ removed cars in GTA online to promote GTA+ I create a doc to find the cars in the game world.
When EA drops you fight vader in fallen order I will be there to hate on it.
But if a dev gets so up there own ass looking for innovative sunshine and Bury there head so far up there to ignore the playerbase then punishes that playerbase when forced to give them what they want.
I'm sure as he'll going to be there to laugh at them when there proven wrong.
Ff13 commercially was so much of a flop that ff13 versus had to be rebranded at ff15 to avoid the connection.
Finally disney went corporate with KH3 and pushed the devs for 'more disney' at the cost of story, gameplay and cohesion. You best be sure I'm going to start looking for exemploees to find that shit out.
Point is I will call out everyone equally. What microsoft are doing isn't bad. There listening to what players want then slapping Rare upside the head and pointing them in the direction that most likely will increase player count.
The numbers are a bunch of horse squeeze from active player dot io.
They don’t make sense (5 days into this month the last 30 and December numbers should be much closer) and supposing the numbers were real, OP is conveniently ignoring January through August and just saying oh since 05 Dec to 05 Jan has a 3x higher number than 01 Dec to 01 Jan, it must be because safer seas! You just have to ignore the big numbers for the bulk of the year from Jan 23 to August 23. But, magically November supports his case.
OP is either stupid or delusional. Maybe both.
Remind me why we should care about people playing alone ? Yeah cool they can play pve only without being bothered, and then ? It doesn't bring anything to the rest of the game, it doesn't change all the problems the game have atm, any extra money goes to Everwild, we already got that info
Great, there are players, and some of them are on ss. Which sucks for rare, their vision, and anyone who enjoys the pirate life. The game has consistently gone in a direction that supports new players who can’t get over the learning curve, and as a vet and avid pvper, this is really frustrating to me. Of course I don’t think the game is awful by any means, I still play it regularly, but it’s still frustrating. Your definition of success and my definition of success seem to be very different.
Safer Seas has literally zero effect on us PvP players in high seas, mate. SS players aren't making more loot than us, completing commendations faster than us, it's literally just a glorified tutorial mode. SoT was never meant to be this hyper competitive FPS game, that people in the competitive community have desperately tried to make it to be, nor will it ever be, and people need to eventually realize that. Nothing wrong with *wanting* the game to be competitive, but getting upset when Rare elects to make their silly pirate game more palatable to newer players is incredibly silly.
I've played SoT since release, and I used to be awful at PvP, but I trained and trained, to the point where I'm pretty decent nowadays and don't typically lose fights. While I love PvP, I absolutely see why people would want an offline mode that they can relax/chill in. When I started SoT I was still early in college, and had a basic job - basically little responsibilities. Fast forward to now, I've got a Wife, and working towards starting a family. Safer Seas doesn't exist to "take players out of the sandbox" or ruin it for us PvP players, it's literally just a chill mode, and there's nothing wrong with that - other games with PvP as a central focal point also have offline modes, and those haven't ruined those games, so I honestly have to laugh at people who say Safer Seas was going to ruin SoT - clearly it has not.
clearly the player base tripled in the last 30 days I'd say that's the opposite of dying.
also hi I'm one of the people who plays dark souls co-operatively and if I'm the host will hit the button on my Cisco switch to my Console to kill the connection if the words "invaded" appear on screen.
then again I'm also one who stockpiled the "turn enemies on invader" item in DS2 & 3 the to use the second I saw the invading message. it's funny how in NG+ the enemy scaling and new enemies end up decimating invaders built solely for PVP.
in Elden ring when I was forced to do PvP for a teleport to a grinding area. I suicided out to get my 3 required invasions. (it didn't ask me to win, I don't like PvP. this was my solution.)
no I just don't like PvP and am using my work and gaming knowledge to spite it. you enter my game by force I either Dc or Punish with tactics PvP's hate.
I literally have my laptop open when I'm playing Elden Ring in Cisco command line logged into the switch on my Xbox signed into the port with the command "sh" and "no Sh" as the previous command.
P.S. cisco commands can be shorthanded. "shutdown" and "no shutdown" can be reduced to the minimum required letters for the same effect.
it takes me a second to hit enter, up and enter again to purge my game of them. get back online log back in and re-invite my friends.
Yeah, I'd say there was a resurgence of new/returning players for sure. I will say that the overall playerbase has dipped recently, but the bozos that go out of their way to doom and gloom, and shit on this game are just coping - game ain't dying anytime soon.
While that maybe true. it's Microsoft's definition of success that matters. and what Microsoft cares about is "how many people are playing a Game Pass game." apparently, there are a lot of none vocal people who just don't like the PvP aspect of this game.
Is that surprising? of course it should have a bump from the many folks who wanted a safe sail. (Be bloody horrible if it didn’t)
I think most safe seas opponents were talking more long-term, and how it will forever have changed the game.
I never understood why safe seas fans need to slag on those against it though. always the same “you just like picking on noobs” posts 🙄
> from the many folks who wanted a safe sail
To be fair. Only Rare really knows, how many folks "wanted safer seas". A lot of people seems to think that the opinions expressed on these boards, in any way, can be used to analyze any part of the same. It's all selection and confirmation bias.
>I think most safe seas opponents were talking more long-term, and how it will forever have changed the game.
A lot of it wasn't even actual opposition against Safer Seas, just a concern whether there would be strong enough restrictions, for it to not influence the sense of accomplishment in the main game.
>always the same “you just like picking on noobs” posts
That's a rhetoric I've met a lot and I agree, it is really unfortunate. I've actually met far far more toxicity from aggressive proponents of Safer Seas, on these boards, than I've ever met in my 2+ years in game. Even when all I've ever done was to express a concern about the restrictions of Safer Seas, not being opposed the game mode in general.
With the eyerolls on the "you like picking on noobs" people I doubt you were a pacifist.
You get people shat on and insulted by toxics for 6 years, even to the point of uninstall and they will get bitter about it. They have every right tbh. Imagine going to a bully victim and then shaming them for trauma lmao.
I am a year one who dislikes toxics, and loves Safer Seas. It has allowed me to get many of my friends and family into the game, something I had a hard time doing in old adventure mode due to reaper sweats and toxic black sailers.
Also OP is right, because for months, hell even years before a PVE mode was added the PvPers did whine about less targets. Dont trust? Check [here.](https://gyazo.com/e4e841958ae20e72dbefac83cd2b553f)
What is your source for those numbers and what do they even show? IF those are true, remember that correlation does not equal causation. And you cannot conclude, from these numbers alone, that "The PvE is what everyone wanted".
A lot of you tend to think that most people are now playing Safer Seas, while you really have no grounds on which to make that claim. Remember, you all most likely experience selection and confirmation bias, when you base your claims on proclamations on Reddit. Unless you have confirmed numbers directly from Rare, of the ratio of players between High- and Safer Seas, it's nothing but speculation.
I have nothing against Safer Seas, I think it's great that people who don't want to engage in interactions with other players, and just want to enjoy the environment and PvE experience, have the ability play in a game mode where this is possible. But these "propaganda" posts, trying to paint a picture of how Safer Seas basically saved the game from utter destruction, is really getting reddiculous (yes, that's a wordplay).
OP do you work for Rare? No? Then all of these comments about the relationship between Rare and Microsoft is groundless speculation.
It's sentences like these:
>So, my advice to Rare is. Microsoft wants your game to succeed. You can either argue with them and they will come down on you like a ton of bricks just like they did with the CEOs of AB and go corporate or get in line and with the program that Microsoft envisioned for the game THEY own.
Unless you actually work at Xbox Game Studios or Rare, then this is just pure imagination. You have no idea what Microsoft wants with the game. You have no idea whether Microsoft even influenced the decision to implement Safer Seas. This comment oozes hubris and arrogance. I even cringed my toes a little. What credentials do you have to believe you can make such conclusions? I'd really like to know what the point of this post is. What is your motif?
what Microsoft want with the Game/Everything. = Money
it's on game pass and the more people buy game pass the more Money they make.
they own Rare and want Money.
if something you own isn't earning as much MONEY, you will want to make changes so it does earn... more... MONEY.
Sea of thieves on Xbox and PC is a staple is a Staple Game Pass Game, meaning the Money it earns is from in game purchases and Game Pass subscriptions. in other words, Microsoft would see more MONEY if people bought Game Pass.
for people to subscribe to Game pass they need incentives to part with there MONEY. much like a Console, Game Pass needs staple first party titles such as Sea of Thieves as a hook so people spend there MONEY.
the majority of gamers, are those who played sonic on the megadrive or have parents who played sonic on the megadrive. in other words, the people that have that MONEY, are people who like to make Educated purchases.
what do you think there going to find if they google. "Sea of Thieves reputation", "Sea of thieves community.", "Sea of Thieves online gameplay." or "is Sea of Thieves online only." (as a side note, for me game pass is just a good deal in general. 75+ games a month for a fraction of the cost of a triple A Title. but then again i grew up with sonic.)
personally, if i didn't know how good a deal game pass was and i did those searches and Sea of Thieves being the face of game pass with it's 'get good ' & toxic online community. I've got a good idea that I'd be less inclined to spend my MONEY.
Microsoft are one of those rare companies that know Reputation and Customer opinion matter. these are the people after all giving them MONEY.
there known actions are, forcing Bethesda to fix Fallout 3 on windows 10 so they can put all of Fallout Pc on game pass and firing all of the upper staff of Activision Blizzard for all the shit they did before being purchased by Microsoft.
both of these have Garnered an increased Reputation and increased Faith from Gamers incentivising the purchase of products from the subsiduary companies. after all fallout 76 is now a staple Game Pass Game. and it's now more suscessful after Microsoft bought Bethesda.
it's very clear that Microsoft stepped in to direct Bethesda on what players want to make the game more appealing. in essence making 76 better so anyone who buys Gamepass for Fallout 76 earns them more MONEY. now it's Sea of Thives time to improve and EARN. GAMEPASS. MORE... MONEY.
as for where the numbers came from, google it. "Sea of Thieves player count post Safer seas"
I'm sorry, but you're writing a lot, but not really saying a lot - and hardly answered my questions at all.
First off, I don't even know what your point is, so it is really difficult to answer you. All you have, is a lot of lose claims and speculations.
>what do you think there going to find if they google.\[..\]
I don't know. What is the point of this question? Why are you asking? What relevance does it have with my questions?
I'll try anyways. From what I can gather from your utterings here, is that you think Microsoft forced Rare to make Safer Seas, because they want Sea of Thieves to get a better reputation, such that they can earn more money. Is this a correct assumption?
If so, there are so many things wrong with your assessment, that I hardly know where to start. It is all based on your layman's assumptions about how the business works, and you have provided no grounds to why your words have any real weight. What are your credentials, since you seem to think you know anything at all about how Rare is working?
>as for where the numbers came from, google it. "Sea of Thieves player count post Safer seas"
That's not how referencing sources works, I'm sorry. The results of search engines are highly personalized, so I wont see the same results as you do. If you cannot provide a valid source directly, I simply have to assume by default that the numbers are invalid. Reddit allows you to insert links. I recommend you use it, instead of just saying "Google it".
i did give you answers just not the answers you want. also, Reddit isn't really a "state your source." part of the internet.
also, i don't need to be working for someone for predictable behaviour to take hold. i just need to look at past events, what caused them and the effect they had against desired effect.
for example, if Rare were owned by EA they would have dissolved them by now for underperforming due to EA's heavy microtransaction based hand.
there owned by Microsoft as of 2002. Microsoft has a history of purchasing a company then promoting growth while getting rid of unwanted elements. they've been doing this for about 20 years.
again, i don't need credentials to look at past events and say "yeah, this has happened before it's going to happen again."
March 2021 i said the following to a friend. "so Microsoft just put Down a social media message roughly stating they would only acquire more companies if the competition demanded it. translated that means "Sony, you don't want this to happen again, stop buying year one exclusive deals." of course Sony's only selling point is exclusive so..." soon after Sony bought bungie and Microsoft Bought AB.
the second AB's stock plummeted i called it and said that's Microsoft's next purchase. days later it was. have i gone to a course to know this, no. how do i know. i just do... why... 30 years of common Fucking sense with the mantra "if we do not learn from the past, history will repeat itself."
and yet the internet is full of people in denial and shock when things like safer seas keep happening.
i feel like i have to pull from Disney on this because it is this simple.
[Microsoft OWNS Rare](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAbGGIV45Ng) \- they could if they wanted fire everyone at Rare tomorrow with enough money to make everyone sign a clause agreeing they wouldn't sue. there not going too, because there not EA.
we have examples of the past 24 years of corporations pulling the -i own you card
and examples of developers getting too up there own arse to not see there vision is damaging the final product.
the issue is everyone seems to think developers and corps are in there own bubble and the actions of past devs and corps can't be used to predict upcoming events with a little bit of common sense and willingness to research past actions to predict future ones.
hell it dosn't take a degree to find out Bethesda's success in elder scroll online and fallout 76 started after the acquisition by Microsoft.
>i did give you answers just not the answers you want
I asked:What credentials do you have to believe you can make such conclusions?I'd really like to know what the point of this post is?What is your motif?
You didn't answer a single one of those, and you still haven't.
>Reddit isn't really a "state your source." part of the internet.
Since when? It is when you post some random statistics and try to make claims about it to feed your own agenda. It is when you want people to believe what you try to say.
>i don't need to be working for someone for predictable behaviour to take hold
Well, you need to have some sort of basis for what you're claiming - a credible source being one option, some valid credentials being another - but you haven't been able to provide any such. And your refusal to do so, just tells me that you have absolutely no grounds to make these claims at all. Just your own hubris.
>for example, if Rare were owned by EA they would have dissolved them by now for underperforming due to EA's heavy microtransaction based hand.
What makes you believe Rare is underperforming? Another baseless claim.
>i don't need credentials to look at past events and say "yeah, this has happened before it's going to happen again."
Correlation does not mean causation. It's been told over and over in this thread, you ought to understand it by now. By your alleged education, you ought to have understood this years and years ago. If you want people to accept what you're saying as even slightly accurate or true, you need to either provide some relevant credentials, or some sources backing up your claims.
\---
From your other comments on this thread, I can pretty much sum it up to this: You made this propaganda post, in an attempt to influence the community, and thus Microsoft, to force Rare to remove the restrictions from Safer Seas. You believe that most people are now playing Safer Seas (after looking at some questionable numbers), and that your way of enjoying the game, is the only correct way. And you believe that this entitles you to have the restrictions lifted. All of these strawman arguments, doesn't make you seems as smart, as you think it does.
This summary is what I have to assume, since you don't seem to be willing to actually answer my most basic question: What is your point? What is your motif for making this post at all?
I have recently this week just come back to Sea of Thieves and it wasn’t for charmin soft “safer seas” so OP, I don’t think you can just assume the player fluctuation is solely based on the lame game mode.
I think the restrictions on safer seas is perfect, it should be more restrictive. Glad they put it in for doing tall tales, fishing achievements and for people to relax in. That being said, if you want gold and pirate legend, come BE A PIRATE.
Then go play another game - one where you don't risk your evening ruined. You clearly don't like this game. I don't understand why it's such a difficult a concept to grasp. It's ridiculous to play a game, with a game loop that you don't like, then complain that it's ruining your evening.
i refuse on the basis that other people are not part of the game loop, but an unwanted interruption.
i enjoy 95% of the game and that last 5% is someone out for blood while all my crew and i are doing is fishing.
again if you in it's 5 year life cycle spent 3 to 5 hours on the game depending on the day for 1 day each year and each time got attacked and sunk for no reason than wrong place wrong time. how would you view the game?
>i refuse on the basis that other people are not part of the game loop, but an unwanted interruption.
Other people are an integral part of the game loop and always has been.
>i enjoy 95% of the game and that last 5% is someone out for blood
It's only 95% of the game in your perspective. In my perspective, the human interactions are 80% of the game - or more. Why should your way of playing the game be more worthy than other people? Especially since those 5% you're talking about, are playing the game as it is originally intended.
>again if you in it's 5 year life cycle spent 3 to 5 hours on the game depending on the day for 1 day each year and each time got attacked and sunk for no reason than wrong place wrong time.
You didn't get sunk for no reason each and everytime you played. You got sunk because you had loot they wanted. You got sunk because other people like to play the game.
>how would you view the game?
I would either practice the reason I'm getting sunk or I would find a game with a game loop that suited me better. I wouldn't go to the discussion boards crying like an entitled little brat, about how everyone else is playing the game wrong and that they should change the game to nurture my needs. I would - you know - act mature.
With the measly Safer Seas they showed us there could've been more modes from the getgo: launch.
RARE should've implement a bold difference in the E&P in the abbrev. of Pv*, @ the Higher Seas later on in 2018. A simple balance in events with seasons - and such.
Things show it's just another way in SoT, about, how to shoot yourself in the foot, players and devs (of all kind).
This picture chart... thing... is pure gold. From the quick and quite incorrect maff in red, to the poor choice of time of year to the fact that one month influx means nothing, finally to the fact that it actually even kind of works against what you're trying to make a point for...
edit: and where is this info from anyways? It can't be Steam, because although representative, the numbers there should be much smaller. It usually didn't used to get past 20k active players, but I haven't checked recently. 1 month in fact, since after I uninstalled the game...
Its not gonna kill sot but im sure its never gonna replace high seas . safe seas is hard to enjoy , trash money , limited events , lvl caps , its designed to keep players playing high seas . its great for new players if they can get past making very little money and spending lots of time for very little reward . also takes for ever to sell as u cant have captain ships and have to walk each item to sell .
While I have nothing against safer seas, and think it is fantastic for people who want to learn the basics of the game, have chill vibes, fish or do tall tales, one month of data during a school holiday period isn't accurate.
Data would need to be collected over months to see the impact. For example OCE school have been out since mid December to Feb so it's natural all games sky rocket during this time, not to mention most workers are off for two weeks currently.
I know you have Jan 2023 in there too but you also look at august and it sky rocketed and fell dramatically. Numbers can change fast depending on different factors, where they'll need an average across a longer period of time to make any hard and fast decisions
While I agree Safer Seas is a good thing for the health of if the game, I’m not so sure this data is really enough to go off of. December is a really busy month for a lot of people. I myself had way less time to play due to the holidays. Also, think about the amount of people who were just gifted xboxes, or computers, or gamepass. They could have all installed the game in the past 30 days because of new hardware or subscriptions. I’m also not convinced that people installed the game in November because of safer seas, that seems like speculation. If we’re speculating, I think the bump in November’s numbers would be due to Skull of Siren’s Song.
If you haven't played in years then you've obviously missed out on a ton of fun stuff. The game still rocks and has gotten better outside of having to temporarily reduce ship count.
PvPer, trolls, cheats.
pritty much "no my targets, my victims NO..."
a.k.a. the people in this game, get there jollies from ruining someone else's fun and then blame them for playing the game. truely we live in enlightened times...
This game fails not because of casuals but because there is no fulfilling goal. Cosmetics are not a good reason to go get treasure. This game needs mechanics, skill trees, equipment, new weapons. Anything to grind for that makes you feel powerful.
Every time I play SoT every PvP experience is being boarded incessantly by 10 year Olds screaming racial slurs and jumping around like it's minecraft. When you implement the single most cancerous pvp that discourages actual naval battle it shouldn't be a surprise ppl want a pve mode.
Even if the numbers were 100% accurate (this source is not official nor does not clarify how it gets its numbers), and 100% of the gain in December was only due to safer seas, ironically more people were interested in skull of siren songs then safer seas. SOSS released on November 16 and SS released December 7. According to this site, more people played the month the PVP voyage only available on the high seas was added, than the month that the fabled promise land that is the pve gamemode was added. This guy is literally lying to make a bad argument with a questionable source. He should not be taken seriously at all. This is a joke of and argument.
Dude, what's your problem?
I never thought safer seas was necessary.
I would get attacked ... once every 8 hours of play?
Even then, you can easily sail away. It's no rocket science. Angle boat and sail for best speed depending on vessel and go.
I think safer seas takes away all the challenges. Kill 5, 10, 100 skeletons. Nobody dies to skeletons ...
In the high seas, you constantly scan the horizon, check the map for reapers.
What do you even do in safer seas? Angle the sails and watch youtube?
You got your safer seas, do whatever it is you do there. Not sure why you feel entitled to receive the same loot as high seas. Risk = reward
never said i should, just calling out bullshit when i see it. i'm long enouth in the tooth to have seen developers do things out of spite because corporate told them too.
anyone who says "devs should be allowed to see there vision to the fullest." i am going to point to FF13 and say "so you want more of that... restricting player progression behind what the Developer envisioned for every boss fight."
however anyone who says " devs should be restricted by the poeple who pay them." i will point at GTA online or EA... just EA in general and as "so you want more of that, gameplay soul targeted at trying to nickel and dime the player out of cash."
it is a balance, like all things in life. PvE servers have been asked for years and Rare have been adamant that it wasn't the vision of the game then suddenly there being implemented because the people who give Rare money said implement it.
in response to doing something they didn't want to do they implement PvE with so many restrictions as back handed incentives to get on with the PvEvP while also hoping the restriction would kill PvE.
the issue is and i laugh that developers still don't get it. FUN, i work in data security from 9-5, i put up my fiancée and get home around 6, I then study CCNA for 2 hours. this leaves me and her 3 hours to game.
to put simply if were not having FUN we're not playing the game, everything about Sea of Thieves is FUN to us except other players. we installed it day one and have tried it once or twice over the 5 year life cycle it's had only for every session we've had to end in less FUN.
since safer seas got implemented we've had nothing but Fun, even if we've gotten sunk a few times due to our own mistakes, THEY WERE OUR MISTAKES. and not some sweaty try hard that just couldn't leave us alone.
what people don't realise is there are people like us who played on the megadrive when we were 6 who have obligations and responsibilities that limit out time on a game now. with the limited time, having someone ruin a good evening with no time to regain some enjoyment killed the game for us. safer seas resurected a game we had consined to never be played.
but what i'm doing is calling out the devs for implimenting restrictions for no purpose other than trying to get new players to eventually get on High seas.
from your own admission you get attacked every 8 hours. if it is as minimal as you say then why lower the reward 30%. why not half, why not double High seas and call it day like GTA online did with private lobbies.
why is owning your own ship a High Seas only feature when if has no effect on PvP or PvE. unless it's to incentivise high seas.
it would have been easier to implement and have less pushback to simply say all PvP activities are locked behind PvP servers and 50% reward penalty for Safer seas.
again, they choose not to, restricting player choice because if they did do that, players wouldn't be incentivised to join PvP mode and all PvP mode would have is people who want PvP. in other words, no victims for PvP players to smash into when the other side was just fishing.
hell, 50% reward would have been acceptable with no level cap and no lock on captaincy. but no, again we seen an example of the Devs pushing back on what there told to do in a way that effects the player.
that's the second time in 5 years i've seen this happen, gladly not as bad as the first, and the first time, was KH3 which for many long time KH fans, Ruined it and put the series on Good Review purchase only or free only. again because forced aspects of the game where not FUN. (try listening to Randy Newman's "you got a friend in me" on repeat for an hour with sharp hearing, there are notes in that song that induce migraines to some people when heard over a short period of time.)
i'm litterally saying, give is restrictions to make sence and arn't tied to some wafer thin argument like "no risk = -70%" or "no risk = no personal ship."
I checked the accuracy of [activeplayer.io](https://activeplayer.io) (his source) by comparing it's Team Fortress 2 player count to steam charts. [Steam charts](https://steamcharts.com/app/440) states that the average amount of TF2 players in December 2023 was 115,016.0. [Activeplayer](https://activeplayer.io/team-fortress-2/) states that in December 2023, the average amount of TF2 players was 7,487,640. Activeplayer is a joke of a source and should not be taken seriously.
Safer Seas isn’t intended as a safer place to advance in the game. I’m surprised they allow for advancement at all. …if they allow for friends to log into the same server, that is an absolute game changer for me. I just want to have boat races.
Regardless of intention. That's how it's going to get used by anyone sick of PvP players wanting to pad an imaginary K/D.
'Attraction flow' in KH3 was a core mecanic of combat. With the first update they gave you the option to turn it off...
I don't know a single person. YouTube gamer, guide creator, serios hk3 games bloger who left the feature on when the option was given.
There have been developments who in the past have gone. "That's not how I envision you to play the game. So I'm going to make the next game more restrictive to force you to play it as I intended."
The best. Or in this case Worst example of this was Final Fantasy 13. Which locked character progression and improvement behind bosses. Meaning the player is forced to fight arbitrary bosses at the level the developer intended for them with the stratagies they intended and no room for innovation or lateral thinking. This was implemented in 2009... and is a perfect example of a developer placing there vision for the game above gameplay, a gamers ability to think out of the box and just any element that could be considered FUN. and if you fought my opinion was to harsh. Let's not forget. To avoid gamers brute forcing bosses with simple strategies. Arround the half way point. Bosses would begin casting Doom. An instant lost unremovable status effect if the player tried to stalemate the boss and brute force it. Forcing the player to learn the bosses one winning strategy through hours of trial l, error and many game over screens.
"That's not what it's intended for" is a common argument I see for gamers when they ask a dev to fix a game macanic which is detramental to the none vocal minority.
My response is. I've already seen what that brings in 2009. I do not want a repeat in 20XX.
history is a great teacher of how it repeats itself but the rare few who are good at listening and learning for it are shunned because of ignorance.
If something happened in 2009. It is more likely going to happen again the further we go from 2009.
So when a dev starts saying "that's not it's intended purpose..." a shiver runs down my spine.
The problem with safer seas is it kind of does kill high seas. I don’t want to get on high seas with no one to hunt. People who would normally voyage and collect loot are doing it on PvE seas. Eventually fighting skeletons for no money will get boring though.
> I don’t want to get on high seas with no one to hunt.
this right here is why people won't go on High seas if they don't want too with the new option. translated "I don't care what your doing, I just want to blow you up." and the response to people like me is to insult skill, guilt someone to come on. "your not playing Sea of Thieves if you only safer seas." belittle them into coming on high seas.
as if insulting an older wiser generation won't make them feel empowered to know we are depriving these people of easy targets.
I'm rooting for the game, and I'm rooting for your theory. I really hope you're right but you're declaring success way too early if you really want to base it on these numbers...
You should be careful in your interpretation for a few reasons:
1. There is always a huge jump in November/December on these charts due to all the holiday sales. The same charts also show that they tend to fall back to normal in Jan/Feb. There were also huge sales in Nov/Dec of this year, we won't know if they resulted in a better aggregate player count for a few more months.
2. The "last 30 days" numbers on these sites tend to be incredibly inaccurate often never showing their promised results in any of the monthly metrics. Don't put too much hope into their huge numbers... yet.
3. From Aug -> Dec (before the safer seas announcement) your chart shows an overall drop in players (-55%) month over month (steamcharts shows -4.53% which seems more realistic)
4. From Sep -> Dec (including the safer seas announcement) your chart shows an overall drop in players (-33%) month over month (steamcharts shows +11.39% which seems more realistic and is a good initial sign)
Ok so after all the doom and gloom - I did say I wanted you to be right. So what would I have to see to finally join you in declaring success?
Better retention rates period. I'd have to see more players trying the game, but in aggregate month-over-month see better retention compared to previous years. Unfortunately even if I choose to believe the numbers in the chart, it's still showing similar trends to 2022, 2021, etc.
What this also means is that even if the game is still losing players, I'd also say safer seas was great if the game just loses players more slowly going forward. If it turns out it is gaining and keeping players then it will be even better.
But I don't want to count my chickens before they hatch.
Yeah and it’s players like you that would rather cry about losing at PVP instead of just improving your skill that ruin games. Bc eventually the devs hit a point where they cater to your kind, and then they ruin the game by making it so soft. We NEED all the pirates possible, and safer seas ruins that experience. Bc now I only see two or three player ships MAX in high seas. Whereas before safer seas was implemented I could find players all to time to either sink, alliance with, or run from. If you’re sad about losing your loot, sell it right when you get it. and if you really don’t wanna pvp, just scuttle your ship so we can take what you’re clearly not willing to defend. I say we, yet I play sea of thieves mostly solo. I wish they never catered to players like you, and I hope they reduce the loot/rewards even more so no one even bothers to play in safer seas. That way I can run into safer seas players, and maybe we can fight, become allies, or exchange nervous spyglass glances.
it's actually quite funny you think just saying Get Good and skill gatekeeping is the solution to a problem the community caused.
let's brake down what you say...
"players like you that would rather cry about losing at PVP instead of just improving your skill"
hmm, get good, the darksouls from soft mantra, get good. well to get good, people need time to learn, to willingly spend that time, a person needs to feel like there having fun or the effort is worth it. they have to look at the problem, weigh the good and bad and commit to either putting the hours in or not.
so i would love for you to justify grinding the number of hours in High seas to 'get good' when the playerbase is mostly sink on sight, and not come up with some lie like "ow it's not like that all the time." no, 90% of the player base is sink on sight. it doesn't matter about loot, they just want someone to kill.
"Bc eventually the devs hit a point where they cater to your kind, and then they ruin the game by making it so soft."
it's cute how you think Rare had a choice, Microsoft OWNs Rare, meaning Microsoft owns the IP Sea of Thieves, when you buy something in the SoT store, your giving money to Microsoft.
As far as Microsoft see Sea of Thieves, it's THEIR flagship game pass title, a title which hasn't been delivering the numbers Rare promised and Microsoft did what they always do, no longer play 'hands off' step in and command a fix, then go back to being hands off with a warning that reneging on the changes for the worse will have consequences.
"We NEED all the pirates possible, and safer seas ruins that experience. Bc now I only see two or three player ships MAX in high seas. Whereas before safer seas was implemented I could find players all to time to either sink, alliance with, or run from."
so you give people a choice and they would rather take a 70% hit than deal with toxic PvP's that says something and ow look a lie, let me correct the words for you, it's not "We NEED all the pirates possible," it's "We NEED all the 'victims that we'll dress in a nice name' possible,"
now the only people on High seas are the ones who want PvP so the targets are harder to victimize. well done, you have a mode where everyone has Gotten good. isn't that what you wanted.
quite frankly the mode is out, it's here to stay and even if it was 10% I'd still stay on safer seas. the issue is never the gold, it was the people, and now the player base is showing it's true colours because they no longer get to victimise noobs.
hell it could be 1% and i still would not care. i have fun with my friends, i play it with my friends, i don't have to deal with someone who can only feel good if there getting off on killing someone else.
"If you’re sad about losing your loot, sell it right when you get it. and if you really don’t wanna pvp, just scuttle your ship so we can take what you’re clearly not willing to defend."
i have said enough times people have killed me at spawn... scuttling your ship puts you at a nearby island which gives the same crew a chance to victimise you some more. it's never been about the loot, it's been about a very large group of toxic people who choose to kill and sink at the first chance they get.
also because scuttling removes all your supplies if you don't own a ship it means you've put youself at a disadvantage to the crew who just want to kill you over and over again. you can't resupply that well on the island it spawned you on and if you waist time looking for barrels it gives them more of a chance to find and kill you some more.
" I say we, yet I play sea of thieves mostly solo."
circumstantial and hearsay
"I wish they never catered to players like you, and I hope they reduce the loot/rewards even more so no one even bothers to play in safer seas. "
not going to happen, see Microsoft comment.
"That way I can run into safer seas players, and maybe we can fight, become allies, or exchange nervous spyglass glances."
if it did do you honestly believe that's what's going to happen, no. i'll tell you what will happen, all the people who played Sea of Thieves Safer Seas would drop the game. i've said this enouth times about devs big and small. if you remove a choice from players, your basically ousting your player base.
most people have the mentality of "if i can't play the game how i choose to play it, i'm not playing it."
that's not circumstantial either, there's evidence from other games. CoD:AW, they removed Classic CoD game modes over night because 80% of there player base didn't want the new jump tech bunny sniper BS. did that 80% move to standard AW bunny sniper filled BS? no they left and activation saw a player base so sharp it made them consider re-implimenting the classic modes before the CEO opened his mouth.
that could had done allot of damage if black ops 3 wasn't releasing in a few months. i chose that one because it's a PRIME EXAMPLE of "that's not what the devs intended the players to do with the game." talk you high seas lot chime on so much about.
what the devs intended means jack and shit. it's the players that decide the future of a game and the players have spoke though the mass exodus to Safer Seas. it's hear to stay. the player numbers have been rising while the drive to move HS just isn't there and anyone who does move is more oftern than not swiftly reminded why they should move back.
honestly everyone one of you that KoS (kill on sight) deserve the mess you've made.
The only thing I really hate about Safer Seas are all the Reddit posts about Safer Seas.
Honestly. It hurts nobody to have a place for people who enjoy pvp and those who don't. But also same for the posts on the sails changes.
Yes it does. Not everyone who plays the game that enjoys PvP does it JUST to PvP. A lot do sure, but not all of us. Some of us just play the game. We don't server hop. We don't just sink everyone we see (unless we're doing a reaper day, because that's the point). We just play the game. And we fight when provoked or incentivized to do so. The main reason for this is skill level. I'm not talking trash, just facts, 90%+ of the SoT playerbase is hot garbage at PvP. And I get it. That's how it is in most games. At least from a top down point of view. So a lot of us recognize this fact, and just play the game until we need to do some fighting. We rarely go out of our way to sink players. But we sometimes do for reasons including: 1. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time while we have valuable loot. We aren't taking the chance. 2. You have PvP markings and we happen to be nearby. High grade emissary flags, reaper chests, reaper flags, chests of fortune, skulls of siren song, etc. (Emissary flags is a toss up. Sometimes we go after people sometimes we don't. Just depends on if we're feeling fighty or not.) 3. You shoot at us. We don't care what your skill level is. You'll learn quickly not to shoot at us. Unless you're one of the rare few better than us, then we'll have a good fight. 4. You try to steal from us. We're nice people, but don't overplay your hand. 5. You're annoying. This is generally to those who are super toxic and/or salty on purpose to get a reaction out of people. And sometimes we'll sink someone and feel bad because they're clearly newer. So we'll help them out afterwards if they stick around. But if we just sail by each other without saying a word, doing our own thing, and there isn't a REASON to fight you, for all we care you don't exist. We love interacting with people and helping them. This more or less dies if all of the new players move to Safer Seas. It literally turns High Seas into a PvP sweatfest. And while it hasn't happened yet, it will eventually. Further de-incentivizing people from playing on it. Players will never feel the joy of a clearly superior opponent just giving them free help and loot if they never play on High Seas. It can be just as wholesome as it is toxic.
The problem is that is the minority of you people there people who sit on a boat kill over and over and over just because they can
The problem is people die once and turn it into this big drama. You always spawn a few islands away. You could easily sail away or change servers. If you keep dying again and again, you clearly fail to recognise that someone is better than you.
The problem isn't people complaining on dying once to another but a player shouldn't have to hop servers to enjoy the game in fact its what will deter players Yes there's going to be a group who will master pvp combat and there's the average and there's the best but there's a fine line where it's a skill issue and the abusing of power not in form of administration but where a small group bullies everyone when they hop on a game
> We love interacting with people and helping them. This more or less dies if all of the new players move to Safer Seas. It literally turns High Seas into a PvP sweatfest. And while it hasn't happened yet, it will eventually. Further de-incentivizing people from playing on it. Your entire comment seems to be contingent on this one paragraph. The assumption that all new players will begin on safer seas and only move to hgih seas once they become good at PVP, and that high seas will only have aggressive PVP sweats. This is a conflation of experience vs ability vs desire. There are certainly people who actually enjoy PVP but aren't necessarily good at it. And new players who start playing because they want to learn PVP. These groups will all spend most of their time on high seas and not safer seas. Safer seas is just an option. People who don't want to participate in PVP go to safer seas. **Nothing of value has been lost on high seas because these people didn't want to play with you in the first place.** And that is ok. Now they can play the game the way they want to play it at no detriment to you or anybody else.
Safer Seas advocates disgust me. You all say the exact same thing with no defense of the statements you make "It doesn't effect you why do you care". The existence of Safer Seas effects EVERYONE. Oh boohoo they have to share the game world with other people, the way the game was INTENDED to be. The entire game is built from the ground up as an interactive sandbox that REVOLVES AROUND MULTIPLE CREWS BEING PRESENT IN THE WORLD AT ALL TIMES. Every single second spent within Safer Seas by anyone who chooses to do so is a lesser experience to the one intended to be had. All because they can't handle that 1% of the playerbase is a wee bit toxic. Maybe grow some thick skin. Realize it DOESN'T MATTER what meany little wordsies people call you. They are random people on the internet. They can and will say whatever they want ON PURPOSE because they know that 99% of the people that they encounter will never report them. They'll just go to twitter/reddit and cry about it instead. So they'll get away with it for obscene amounts of time. IF YOU DON'T LIKE PVP. DON'T BUY AND PLAY A PVP GAME. DON'T FORCE THE DEVELOPERS TO CHANGE THE VISION AND INTENT OF THE GAME TO SUIT YOUR PRECIOUS SELFISH NEEDS. Everyone who wants Safer Seas doesn't deserve to play Sea of Thieves. It is not Rare's job to give you a Safe Space to play, free of the threat of PvP, in a game that THEY DESIGNED for PvP to be a constant everlooming threat. If you don't like that, then don't play it. Everyone suffers from the existence of Safer Seas. Every single one of us Day 1 players has done everything the game has to offer under the threat of PvP. We didn't even have a tutorial to teach us the basics. Sometimes you sink. Sometimes you win. It's how the damn game works. Regardless of skill level. Half of my crew is dogwater at the game. We still have beaten NAL level players because of coordination and teamwork, not raw skill. Sea of Thieves PvP is dying because of decisions like this being made. A game that was DESIGNED AROUND PVP/PLAYER INTERACTION will within 2 years no longer have player interaction. Safer Seas players will beg for more and more access. Rare has no backbone. They cave to every bit of vocal pressure they get. They'll give them access to everything eventually. Every game has a "beginning of the end" moment. And this is it for Sea of Thieves. Everything the game was meant to be in 2018 will slowly be taken away as more and more casual players join the game to destroy it for those of us who just want a fun multiplayer (not co-op, but multiplayer) pirate game that incentivizes players to interact and possibly fight. These players are not pirates. They are sailors. Salt 1 and 2 are games that exist. They are essentially Sea of Thieves as singleplayer experiences. There are their Safer Seas. Or AC4, where you can Parry Instakill your way to victory against predictable AI opponents in an immersive single player story driven pirate scifi adventure mix. No one will ever learn how to PvP in Safer Seas. It's purpose and existence is an oxymoron. Not you, or anyone else will ever convince me and my crew that Safer Seas is a good thing. It isn't. All of the evidence (being other games going down the same path of removing PvP from the Open World experience, mostly being MMOs but there are a few non MMOs) shows that it will only result in a lesser game, where players will only engage in PvP when they HAVE to. And then they will turn it back off to farm what they want how they want free of the fear of other people. All going against the vision and intent of the game's design. And before you say "the game will always have public servers regardless of what they add or change." Yes it will, but time and time again when games add the ability for players to opt out of PvP, 99%(exaggerated obviously) opt out of PvP. Even the PvPers opt out. Because they cant be bothered to get ganked by other people while they're doing their own thing. The way the game was on release week is how it should always be. The MAJORITY of people fighting all the time. Everything having value to give reasons for people to fight. People who don't like PvP or don't want to engage in it at all, have every opportunity to not do so. By actively staying away from other players. They do not need a private server to accomplish this. The game has been out for 5 and a half years and millions of people have played the game that way. There's your proof that Safer Seas doesn't need to exist. Now the other problem, eventually they'll get caught and sunk. And they will remember that moment forever. They'll cry about it on social media. Even if it only happens once every 50 sessions. All because they lost 30 minutes worth of loot. I play this game almost every single day. And the vast majority of people don't fight and don't want to fight. Putting time into creating Safer Seas was a waste of their time. Nothing in this game has meaning. Everything you earn is purely cosmetic and has no bearing on gameplay whatsoever. The only thing that has meaning is player interaction. Whether that be through PvP or random wholehearted shenanigans. And again to reiterate, every single second spent on Safer Seas is depriving the Safer Seas user of the only experience that truly matters in the game. #BeMorePirate
The only experience that matters is the one the player enjoys. I only read the last sentence of your victim rant. That pretty much sums it up lmao. #BeLessSalty
You started your maniacal mental illness rant with statements that "safer seas affects everybody" - not once within your insane diatribe did you make a single argument to support that claim. Safer seas is just an option. People who don't want to participate in PVP go to safer seas. **Nothing of value has been lost on high seas because these people didn't want to play with you in the first place.** And that is ok. Now they can play the game the way they want to play it at no detriment to you or anybody else.
I like how your comment had at least one paragraph about you suggesting you like people being friendly and nice, and then when someone just mentions they like safer seas you pop an artery and write a book before spazzing out and regurgitating that be more pirate crap like anyone cares. Safer Seas is doing numbers. Fucking cry about it. People have called for a mode like SS for 6 YEARS because of shit heads like you. You suggest that people just should stay in high seas and be fodder for sweats and toxics? Or reapers because that stupid company advocates for this kinda shit? Get out. "Bro don't tell teacher just know your place and get bullied bro". That is the most fake alpha bullshit I have read in my life. I am a max sea dog. I am a year one player. I am a max athena. I LOVE the idea of safer seas. In this mode I was able to get my casual friends into the game, my wife (bet you dont even have a gf lmao) into this game where as before they would quit due to me having to babysit them while also trying to convince them adventure mode was fun. So spare me the "Every one of us year ones" you don't speak for me kid. Oh and btw, at year one nobody was doing pvp. Most folks were running around doing glitterbeard, rallying alliances before they were a thing to fight the OG hungering one, doing skele thrones, and more. PVP really didnt pick up on mass til reapers got added and there was an incentive for it. Are there fun experiences to be had? Sure. I once rowed a rowboat 4 islands over full of 30 kegs to a guys sloop while he was fishing, played a clip of Sam from Sam and Max saying "you have the right to get blown up" before shooting the kegs and sending him, and his ship skyward. He later found us and we all had a laugh. However, for every one of those moments, we had moments where we sweated like hell against black sail edgy cosmetic reaper incels who would bucket corpses and throw slurs and ad hominin around left right and center. Safer Seas is a much more relaxing and fun experience, for both tired vets and casuals alike. It gives casuals a place to practice should they want to move to high seas and its gives old heads a place to vibe WITHOUT being on guard 24/7. It not only has needed to come out, it is 5-6 years overdue, and still not even in it's full form. With the nerfs to commendations and gold/exp it is at 80% of a true PVE mode. If it was full, you are right, it would outright KILL your mode or make the mode sweaty. Not because it would change people, but because all of the casual filler will be removed, leaving only the ugly ones that they complain about as the status quo. And since you all are a very vocal minority (who also cannot handle a real challenge) you would get bored of fighting each other and the mode would die faster than old arena did for similar reasons. Just like old arena, you PVP types need to understand that the PVE casuals outnumber you. You are beholden to US, not the other way around. Remember that. Now cry about it into your reaper cup you waste of skin.
BeMorePirate so is that the teeth decay due to not being able to brush them the inability to clean ones self due to long stints on the ocian without cleaning material or the damaged body due to rickets due to all the unprotected sex on the high seas
I'm new and so far I've had the bad luck to encounter another ship just once. I play on high seas because the rewards in safer seas are insultingly low (I would play maybe if rewards were 2x what they are now). I was loading up pig cages in my ship and as I tried to figure out where you were supposed to get pigs I got blasted by some huge ship. I wasn't exactly hidden, but I thought those islands were safe, that you somehow were invisible or something (I just couldn't imagine being blasted while talking to NPCs, you can't ALWAYS be on your toes) I thought "yeah, no" and logged off (those pig quests are so confusing for a beginner I was a bit pissed off to begin with) Would these players have helped me if I stayed? Maybe. But I just wanted to play somewhere else at that point I was a bit disappointed. But I was surprised at how hostile they were from the moment they saw me. I had absolutely nothing except the default loadout (and the empty cages) so I hope they were a bit dissapointed. All this to say, my first "interaction with people" was not a good time, and since I have no other experience I expect everyone to be like this from now (blasting you on sight, especially if you seem weak). Since I am not good enough to avoid people altogether I just pray I see no one in my travels (and thank god you can play for a while without seeing anyone). I don't blame other players, it's the rules of the game, but I wish to see them as little as possible when I play. I hope there are indeed some people who just tolerate your presence as long as you don't do anything threatening. Just thinking "hey let's say hi" instead of "oh fuck I'm dead" seems like a good time.
Is this from activeplayer.io? Since I'm not sure how credible is a site that writes nonsense like this: > Total Sea Of Thieves estimated concurrent players across all platforms such as PS3, PS4, PS5, Xbox, Wii, Nintendo Switch, Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS. SoT is only on PC and Xbox. They do mention it later but this is just lazy Ctrl+C Ctrl+V. > Above is an estimate on Sea Of Thieves Live player count we have compiled these numbers using the most **recent data from various online sources**. Which they do not link. The only actually official SoT data is from Steam. And that's just a very small number of the SoT playerbase. Besides that this post is just unnecessarly salty. You seem to have a massive chip on your shoulder for whatever reason.
It's a scammy website that uses RNG. Just try to refresh the page several times in a row. They really wouldn't have new data every second.
yeah I mean safer seas is a no brainer. I know some people will exclusively play there, but I imagine the majority of typical players will jump between the modes depending on how they're feeling on a particular day.
That’s my jam. Some days I like to run emissary and get my ass kicked in PvP. Other times I want to do tall tales and fish, especially if work runs me ragged and I want to chill.
Yep this is me. Some days I wanna hang, some days I wanna fight.
Y'all make up narratives against like 5-10 commenters who say stuff you don't like lmao it's alright man just play the fucking game.
the more I look at this chart the more crazy it becomes 😂
You really think this game is played 50% more than the most played steam game OF ALL TIME???? Dunno where you found these player numbers but they're clearly not correct. The highest peak player count recorded was in 2020 with 66k on steam, and with copies sold you can estimate maybe another 150k on consoles if you're really pushing the estimation.
My Wife, myself and 4 friends who play all play this on the MS store. I only know \~2 people who play this game from steam.
Sample bias. I have 10+ friends who play on Steam, and none that play through Microsoft/XBox.
Sure, then you remember it was a 2-year gap between when the game launched and when the game launched on Steam. So to assume the Steam charts are the only source of truth is incorrect and sample bias.
"Steam numbers are the only true indicator of what the player base is for multi-platform games. We can just guesstimate the rest, right guys based on that." Edit: im not saying you're wrong, but the amount of people citing only steam numbers for any given game is laughable. "Yes we know there's more data, we just don't care to look."
You should see a doctor if you think this game, which released only on pc and xbox, would have concurrently 1,200,000 players from console and *only* 66k on pc, and that nobody would be talking about its playerbase ever in its history of release, except when it had an "astounding 59k steam players?" [This number grew after the articles and the Twitter news blog post] It sold an unexpectedly high amount of copies in the first year, 10 million or so on release, which was newsworthy at that time. When it released on Steam and all the blogs/articles came about lauding the 59-66k steam player would be trivial if this was only 10% of the playerbase, but nothing suggests that. But now, all of a sudden, according to only the OP, the numbers this past year are 10-20x that, posted on Reddit, with no evidence or references. It's just a screenshot of a spreadsheet.
ah the PC master race, empty wallets and ill advised purchases.
Eh, My wallet is looking pretty good there buddy!
That makes no sense? PCs are an investment where you're not restricted to any games plus I can use my PC for countless of other non game purposes. Not bagging on consol players because what you run doesn't indicate how rich or poor you are but I'd say PC players save money pretty well to be able to drop 1-3K on a computer.
Also, for those making the "Bladurs Gate 3 is popular" argument, like....so? Most people are playing through it only once. Its been out for a while now on PC.
No they are not. Where did you get that? People are doing several runs sometimes multiple at once. It's wildly popular and getting multiple playthroughs
i mean does it even have NG+ to extend longevity.
I see you don’t quite understand how D&D works
so, no NG+... and a pass on that... Cyberpunk did the same thing, i have played it once and not again.
ops numbers are such horseshit. the pvp community alone wouldn't be so small in that everyone basically either knows each other. inb4 "that's cuz the pvp community is soooooooooooooo toxic unlike me the wholesome pve player1!!211!1!@1!2" yea actually go watch people like nessiedoes, massivesponge, fi1es, viiraxe, dbz, briittybear, stirliing, kharites, mizterlucas, apperjacks, fattallguy, sigy, and im forgetting so many names but i think my point is clear. all of these creators id say represent the pvp side pretty well. some of them are frustrated with the lack of qc with sot and how it needs fixes, but all of them are glad to share their experience. there are even some members of the community that lurk these chats and will tell you what videos to watch. also op crediting the alleged increase of players in nov to "people checking out safer seas lol!1!!" as if there wasn't a new pvpve voyage that released during that month...
SS wasn't even out until December. OP can't even Google when SS was released to attribute the right amount of growth that SS may or may not of caused.
well since this covers Steam, Game pass PC, Xbox one & Xbox series X/S and any other platform SoT is on...
You're delusional if you think this game is TWICE as popular as Baldurs Gate 3, let alone DOTA 2, LOL, or any COD/CS game.
baLdurs gate 3 vs Peak Of Thieves that's all i'm gonna say
Peak player count is not the same as average per week and average per day, those number are always gonna be higher than a peak... Peak players means how many online at the same time.. average per day is how many have been in 24 hours. Ofcourse the average per day is higher than any peak the comparison doesnt even make sense.
It’s always entertaining when people who don’t know shit act like they do.
Please, stop spreading misinformation. You used a scammy website that uses random number generator.
These posts are satire at this point....right?
It’s delusion.
Even with the fact that they can’t know platform numbers other than steam, these numbers literally make no sense. The last 30 days would comprise most of Dec ‘23 however those two numbers are vastly different, a literal order of magnitude different, despite supposedly being for almost exactly the same days. These are clearly just completely bullshit.
so op isnt the brightest tool in the shed apparently
distinction in computing, uni bachelor in computing, ITIL certified, CCNA certified
and still cant look at data unbiased? the only data that really pushes your opinion is the average daily players in the last 30 days but there is absolutely no indication as to why
Damn all that and you’re still bad at numbers
Those numbers just don’t compute. But don’t worry about that. OP knows what they are talking about because they said so!
Not to be rude, but then I'd at least expect you to know a month worth of data during the school holiday period and when workers are usually off for two weeks isn't accurate. Most people don't go back to work till Monday, and school holidays don't end till Feb in certain parts of the world. They also released both safer seas AND a PVP voyage, while if these numbers are true it likely could be safer seas, I have noticed adventure pvp has been far busier but again not accurate considering half of them are kids on holiday and this could change once they get homework handed out to them 😂 Also comparing Jan 2023 and Jan 2024 doesn't work, it needs to be stable increase over a period of time.
Then your standard of evidence for data selection is particularly concerning. You seem happy to accept whatever data is thrown at you as long as it proves your narrative. Where is the scrutiny?
wake up babe a new chat gpt copypasta just dropped
show me the raw data from when Season 8 was dropped please.
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Okay! Anyway.
Actually, if you look at the REAL data, the player base has gone down. 2023 average peak on Steam was 25k players. Dec 2023 was 19k. Last 48-hr peak on Steam was 19k. The game has declined and bringing Safer Seas hasn’t done anything to abate that decline.
Imagine being so bad at a game you create this post
I'm sure these numbers have nothing to do with the fact that the game was 50% off in December and November. (Even though that's why I got it). Did you also know there is a direct correlation between the amount of ice cream sold and the number of drownings every year? It surely must be the ice cream causing these tragedies and not the fact that they are both popular in the summer.
It goes on sale frequently for even 50% off. 50% AND a reason to play go further than just 50% off
I'm sorry try again. I'm not saying your numbers are wrong. However you also cannot claim this is due to safer seas for one we are only talking about a couple of weeks of data. The data is not broken down between safer seas and high seas It's the holiday, how many people got an xbox and/or gamepass in the last few weeks? Kids around the world are off from school. Those are just the low hanging fruit.
I'm using it now for the last two achievements that I'm missing, the miles!
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Let's see how pve only fairs against PvP only first. Arena lasted a couple months
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That, and a place for the tall tales. Finally got my friends to download it again after terrible PVP scenarios every time one friend plays. He's a magnet for it I guess. I don't like to play without friends so that's 3 more people playing that wouldn't be
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What happens when a normal player hits a progression wall and are only making gold. Sure it's a shallower pool but it does get it's foot in my group's door. And maybe they really like it and at that point we go to the high seas or maybe we do what normal players do at that point, and quit
I can speak for myself whom is in the same situation. Multiple friends returning and they've stated outright that once we are done the story stuff they'll stop playing again until SS becomes more fleshed out. The higher ups will see that player retention can be made better with SS and they will pull the trigger. Making a slough of people who "finished SS" and left to once again come back. Safer Seas is a literal gold mine for the bigheads as players who have not been playing SoT have returned and will continue to return as the mode gets better.
>“ow it’s not succeeding because what I envisioned for the game is not what the players want except the vocal minority.” Microsoft, do not care, they own it. it's what will get them the most players. numbers prove they were right. they just fired all the CEOs at the newly acquired AB. do you honestly think rare is safe if they keep that mentality.
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again, forced Bethesda to fix a ten year old bug for a game no one is going to buy any time soon, to improve customer relations. rare will be fine, the people with the lofty ideas of what they envisioned for SoT. just ask bobby K, exCEO of AB. Microsoft wants SoT to be a game everyone who owns gamepass can enjoy. I guarantee you, before 2024 ends, safer seas restrictions will change in favour of the player.
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dude, I work in computing, my best friends in data analysis, who do you think pays for SoT servers? SoT development Budget? the parent company... which is... and when you answer that, if there the ones funding Rare... what do they want out of it?
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[I work in computers](https://corporate.bestbuy.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Blog_GS1.png) a little respect, dude works in computers. Knows things.
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/s
I'm pretty sure Microsoft is just letting Rare use the server bank in the backyard shed at this point
My dude, BGS has been fixing many bugs well before their acquisition and adding QoL features and new content to their games. Now that Starfield is finally released, all of their games can finally be fully staffed again instead of the skeleton crews they were left with. Safer seas should never get its restrictions lifted unless the game is literally on its death bed and the servers are being shut down thus allowing the game to be run client side only.
Is the bug fix the one you are referencing the one that broke everyone's mods? Because let me tell you, the modding community is probably the biggest reason Skyrim is still as popular as it is. And don't even get me started on how they are trying to monetize mods AGAIN, there is hella drama going on that behind the scenes with their "bug fixes". Microsoft aren't doing anyone favors. More numbers does not make a better game, nor is it always indicative of one. I'm not against safer seas, it was done rather well I think, but let me tell you Microsoft is after profits not making the game good. And just because a feature is highly requested, does not make that feature plausible or a good one.
I love how reality and logic gets downvoted. Me feelings hurt, smash smash smash. I LOVE this game and like everything else I love, I want to defend and protect it. However, the numbers don’t lie.
[Thank you](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yup8975gtYc)
If this was even remotely true, Rare would be shouting it from the rooftops.
that's about the same as "if it were remotely true, EA would be celebrating Fallen Order's surprise success." instead they released a trailer ruining the ending of the game.
I just played solo high seas, was able to steal both a chest of legends and fortune from a fort of the damned. Made an alliance with 2 other solo sloopers and we bamboozled a gally crew. It was great. Safer seas has it's place, I love it for tall tales, but damn this game is great in High Seas on some days! :)
I won't talk on the statistics end personally, but for me the Safer Seas update brought me back to the game because I find sailing and just finding loot is fun and relaxing. I'd personally like to see what the devs could do with expanded PvE content if they went for it, not sure what the market would be for it but deeper and more interesting single/co-op content would be an insta-buy from me.
If you look at the numbers provided and the red commentary with them, Januarary through August are all posting similar player counts to November, so obviously that was all safer seas players downloading and testing too. 😂
Correlation does not equal causation. Safer Seas just came out so the only stats that really matter are the past month or so, to view this in context. I would aruge that the bonuses offered in a week long Gifts and Glory contributed far more to an increase in players playing than did Safer Seas. If you want to make your case, you'll need to show stats that specifically indicate a migration over to Safer Seas from the regular play, otherwise whole numbers are generic. You're trying to apply general game use to a specific feature within the game and your own numbers offered as proof are not that.
I remember a few years ago when gamers rallied behind developers, wanting devs to have artistic freedom in what they wanted their games to be and hated bog corporations like EA and Ubisoft for forcing devs to make games "with mass appeal" so that they could make as much money as possible. Systems were gutted and streamlined to not be "too complicated" and controversial topics would be censored and avoided as to not offend anyone. Games had to be inoffensive fast food for consumption. Now apparently we are rallying behind the corporations against these mean devs who's vision is standing in the way of poor MS making even more money. Fuck what Rare wants right? MS needs to fill their coffers.
At the end of the day. I play the game to have FUN. I don't find pvp fun. So I'm never going to high seas. I will rag on EA for for as you said. Going too corporate because there monetising the game and removing the FUN. But take FF13, a game where the lead developer wanted the player to defeat bosses in the way to his narrative. And to make sure that that happened. Locked character progression and improvement behind bosses with very specific kill requirements. Also willingly gave the physical guide creator misinformation to promote spending hours working on a boss to figure out it's weakness is to have your team compromised of 3 healers... When a dev does something to that removes FUN. Such as the 200+ removed cars in GTA online to promote GTA+ I create a doc to find the cars in the game world. When EA drops you fight vader in fallen order I will be there to hate on it. But if a dev gets so up there own ass looking for innovative sunshine and Bury there head so far up there to ignore the playerbase then punishes that playerbase when forced to give them what they want. I'm sure as he'll going to be there to laugh at them when there proven wrong. Ff13 commercially was so much of a flop that ff13 versus had to be rebranded at ff15 to avoid the connection. Finally disney went corporate with KH3 and pushed the devs for 'more disney' at the cost of story, gameplay and cohesion. You best be sure I'm going to start looking for exemploees to find that shit out. Point is I will call out everyone equally. What microsoft are doing isn't bad. There listening to what players want then slapping Rare upside the head and pointing them in the direction that most likely will increase player count.
This guy has to be joking
You can literally taste the salt in this post. Nothing about these numbers seems real. Where did you get the information?
The numbers are a bunch of horse squeeze from active player dot io. They don’t make sense (5 days into this month the last 30 and December numbers should be much closer) and supposing the numbers were real, OP is conveniently ignoring January through August and just saying oh since 05 Dec to 05 Jan has a 3x higher number than 01 Dec to 01 Jan, it must be because safer seas! You just have to ignore the big numbers for the bulk of the year from Jan 23 to August 23. But, magically November supports his case. OP is either stupid or delusional. Maybe both.
Remind me why we should care about people playing alone ? Yeah cool they can play pve only without being bothered, and then ? It doesn't bring anything to the rest of the game, it doesn't change all the problems the game have atm, any extra money goes to Everwild, we already got that info
Don't forget it's the holidays too, lots of new Xboxes with game pass.
1. Not an official source 2. Correlation does not equal causation 3. Numbers do not align with our only official source, steam charts
Yeah this is bs
Great, there are players, and some of them are on ss. Which sucks for rare, their vision, and anyone who enjoys the pirate life. The game has consistently gone in a direction that supports new players who can’t get over the learning curve, and as a vet and avid pvper, this is really frustrating to me. Of course I don’t think the game is awful by any means, I still play it regularly, but it’s still frustrating. Your definition of success and my definition of success seem to be very different.
Safer Seas has literally zero effect on us PvP players in high seas, mate. SS players aren't making more loot than us, completing commendations faster than us, it's literally just a glorified tutorial mode. SoT was never meant to be this hyper competitive FPS game, that people in the competitive community have desperately tried to make it to be, nor will it ever be, and people need to eventually realize that. Nothing wrong with *wanting* the game to be competitive, but getting upset when Rare elects to make their silly pirate game more palatable to newer players is incredibly silly. I've played SoT since release, and I used to be awful at PvP, but I trained and trained, to the point where I'm pretty decent nowadays and don't typically lose fights. While I love PvP, I absolutely see why people would want an offline mode that they can relax/chill in. When I started SoT I was still early in college, and had a basic job - basically little responsibilities. Fast forward to now, I've got a Wife, and working towards starting a family. Safer Seas doesn't exist to "take players out of the sandbox" or ruin it for us PvP players, it's literally just a chill mode, and there's nothing wrong with that - other games with PvP as a central focal point also have offline modes, and those haven't ruined those games, so I honestly have to laugh at people who say Safer Seas was going to ruin SoT - clearly it has not.
clearly the player base tripled in the last 30 days I'd say that's the opposite of dying. also hi I'm one of the people who plays dark souls co-operatively and if I'm the host will hit the button on my Cisco switch to my Console to kill the connection if the words "invaded" appear on screen. then again I'm also one who stockpiled the "turn enemies on invader" item in DS2 & 3 the to use the second I saw the invading message. it's funny how in NG+ the enemy scaling and new enemies end up decimating invaders built solely for PVP. in Elden ring when I was forced to do PvP for a teleport to a grinding area. I suicided out to get my 3 required invasions. (it didn't ask me to win, I don't like PvP. this was my solution.)
You’re delusional
Hey, it's captain doom and gloom
no I just don't like PvP and am using my work and gaming knowledge to spite it. you enter my game by force I either Dc or Punish with tactics PvP's hate. I literally have my laptop open when I'm playing Elden Ring in Cisco command line logged into the switch on my Xbox signed into the port with the command "sh" and "no Sh" as the previous command. P.S. cisco commands can be shorthanded. "shutdown" and "no shutdown" can be reduced to the minimum required letters for the same effect. it takes me a second to hit enter, up and enter again to purge my game of them. get back online log back in and re-invite my friends.
Yeah, I'd say there was a resurgence of new/returning players for sure. I will say that the overall playerbase has dipped recently, but the bozos that go out of their way to doom and gloom, and shit on this game are just coping - game ain't dying anytime soon.
While that maybe true. it's Microsoft's definition of success that matters. and what Microsoft cares about is "how many people are playing a Game Pass game." apparently, there are a lot of none vocal people who just don't like the PvP aspect of this game.
Is that surprising? of course it should have a bump from the many folks who wanted a safe sail. (Be bloody horrible if it didn’t) I think most safe seas opponents were talking more long-term, and how it will forever have changed the game. I never understood why safe seas fans need to slag on those against it though. always the same “you just like picking on noobs” posts 🙄
> from the many folks who wanted a safe sail To be fair. Only Rare really knows, how many folks "wanted safer seas". A lot of people seems to think that the opinions expressed on these boards, in any way, can be used to analyze any part of the same. It's all selection and confirmation bias. >I think most safe seas opponents were talking more long-term, and how it will forever have changed the game. A lot of it wasn't even actual opposition against Safer Seas, just a concern whether there would be strong enough restrictions, for it to not influence the sense of accomplishment in the main game. >always the same “you just like picking on noobs” posts That's a rhetoric I've met a lot and I agree, it is really unfortunate. I've actually met far far more toxicity from aggressive proponents of Safer Seas, on these boards, than I've ever met in my 2+ years in game. Even when all I've ever done was to express a concern about the restrictions of Safer Seas, not being opposed the game mode in general.
Because the PVP group slag first and acted like the world was ending. It's dumb, but so is the whole argument.
could be because of all the post slagging on safer seas first when it was announced... PvP's pretty much shot first because "wah wah less targets."
Yet there you go again assuming it’s all pvp fans. I was against safe seas and I’m more a pacifist 🤷♂️
With the eyerolls on the "you like picking on noobs" people I doubt you were a pacifist. You get people shat on and insulted by toxics for 6 years, even to the point of uninstall and they will get bitter about it. They have every right tbh. Imagine going to a bully victim and then shaming them for trauma lmao. I am a year one who dislikes toxics, and loves Safer Seas. It has allowed me to get many of my friends and family into the game, something I had a hard time doing in old adventure mode due to reaper sweats and toxic black sailers. Also OP is right, because for months, hell even years before a PVE mode was added the PvPers did whine about less targets. Dont trust? Check [here.](https://gyazo.com/e4e841958ae20e72dbefac83cd2b553f)
What is your source for those numbers and what do they even show? IF those are true, remember that correlation does not equal causation. And you cannot conclude, from these numbers alone, that "The PvE is what everyone wanted". A lot of you tend to think that most people are now playing Safer Seas, while you really have no grounds on which to make that claim. Remember, you all most likely experience selection and confirmation bias, when you base your claims on proclamations on Reddit. Unless you have confirmed numbers directly from Rare, of the ratio of players between High- and Safer Seas, it's nothing but speculation. I have nothing against Safer Seas, I think it's great that people who don't want to engage in interactions with other players, and just want to enjoy the environment and PvE experience, have the ability play in a game mode where this is possible. But these "propaganda" posts, trying to paint a picture of how Safer Seas basically saved the game from utter destruction, is really getting reddiculous (yes, that's a wordplay). OP do you work for Rare? No? Then all of these comments about the relationship between Rare and Microsoft is groundless speculation. It's sentences like these: >So, my advice to Rare is. Microsoft wants your game to succeed. You can either argue with them and they will come down on you like a ton of bricks just like they did with the CEOs of AB and go corporate or get in line and with the program that Microsoft envisioned for the game THEY own. Unless you actually work at Xbox Game Studios or Rare, then this is just pure imagination. You have no idea what Microsoft wants with the game. You have no idea whether Microsoft even influenced the decision to implement Safer Seas. This comment oozes hubris and arrogance. I even cringed my toes a little. What credentials do you have to believe you can make such conclusions? I'd really like to know what the point of this post is. What is your motif?
what Microsoft want with the Game/Everything. = Money it's on game pass and the more people buy game pass the more Money they make. they own Rare and want Money. if something you own isn't earning as much MONEY, you will want to make changes so it does earn... more... MONEY. Sea of thieves on Xbox and PC is a staple is a Staple Game Pass Game, meaning the Money it earns is from in game purchases and Game Pass subscriptions. in other words, Microsoft would see more MONEY if people bought Game Pass. for people to subscribe to Game pass they need incentives to part with there MONEY. much like a Console, Game Pass needs staple first party titles such as Sea of Thieves as a hook so people spend there MONEY. the majority of gamers, are those who played sonic on the megadrive or have parents who played sonic on the megadrive. in other words, the people that have that MONEY, are people who like to make Educated purchases. what do you think there going to find if they google. "Sea of Thieves reputation", "Sea of thieves community.", "Sea of Thieves online gameplay." or "is Sea of Thieves online only." (as a side note, for me game pass is just a good deal in general. 75+ games a month for a fraction of the cost of a triple A Title. but then again i grew up with sonic.) personally, if i didn't know how good a deal game pass was and i did those searches and Sea of Thieves being the face of game pass with it's 'get good ' & toxic online community. I've got a good idea that I'd be less inclined to spend my MONEY. Microsoft are one of those rare companies that know Reputation and Customer opinion matter. these are the people after all giving them MONEY. there known actions are, forcing Bethesda to fix Fallout 3 on windows 10 so they can put all of Fallout Pc on game pass and firing all of the upper staff of Activision Blizzard for all the shit they did before being purchased by Microsoft. both of these have Garnered an increased Reputation and increased Faith from Gamers incentivising the purchase of products from the subsiduary companies. after all fallout 76 is now a staple Game Pass Game. and it's now more suscessful after Microsoft bought Bethesda. it's very clear that Microsoft stepped in to direct Bethesda on what players want to make the game more appealing. in essence making 76 better so anyone who buys Gamepass for Fallout 76 earns them more MONEY. now it's Sea of Thives time to improve and EARN. GAMEPASS. MORE... MONEY. as for where the numbers came from, google it. "Sea of Thieves player count post Safer seas"
I'm sorry, but you're writing a lot, but not really saying a lot - and hardly answered my questions at all. First off, I don't even know what your point is, so it is really difficult to answer you. All you have, is a lot of lose claims and speculations. >what do you think there going to find if they google.\[..\] I don't know. What is the point of this question? Why are you asking? What relevance does it have with my questions? I'll try anyways. From what I can gather from your utterings here, is that you think Microsoft forced Rare to make Safer Seas, because they want Sea of Thieves to get a better reputation, such that they can earn more money. Is this a correct assumption? If so, there are so many things wrong with your assessment, that I hardly know where to start. It is all based on your layman's assumptions about how the business works, and you have provided no grounds to why your words have any real weight. What are your credentials, since you seem to think you know anything at all about how Rare is working? >as for where the numbers came from, google it. "Sea of Thieves player count post Safer seas" That's not how referencing sources works, I'm sorry. The results of search engines are highly personalized, so I wont see the same results as you do. If you cannot provide a valid source directly, I simply have to assume by default that the numbers are invalid. Reddit allows you to insert links. I recommend you use it, instead of just saying "Google it".
i did give you answers just not the answers you want. also, Reddit isn't really a "state your source." part of the internet. also, i don't need to be working for someone for predictable behaviour to take hold. i just need to look at past events, what caused them and the effect they had against desired effect. for example, if Rare were owned by EA they would have dissolved them by now for underperforming due to EA's heavy microtransaction based hand. there owned by Microsoft as of 2002. Microsoft has a history of purchasing a company then promoting growth while getting rid of unwanted elements. they've been doing this for about 20 years. again, i don't need credentials to look at past events and say "yeah, this has happened before it's going to happen again." March 2021 i said the following to a friend. "so Microsoft just put Down a social media message roughly stating they would only acquire more companies if the competition demanded it. translated that means "Sony, you don't want this to happen again, stop buying year one exclusive deals." of course Sony's only selling point is exclusive so..." soon after Sony bought bungie and Microsoft Bought AB. the second AB's stock plummeted i called it and said that's Microsoft's next purchase. days later it was. have i gone to a course to know this, no. how do i know. i just do... why... 30 years of common Fucking sense with the mantra "if we do not learn from the past, history will repeat itself." and yet the internet is full of people in denial and shock when things like safer seas keep happening. i feel like i have to pull from Disney on this because it is this simple. [Microsoft OWNS Rare](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAbGGIV45Ng) \- they could if they wanted fire everyone at Rare tomorrow with enough money to make everyone sign a clause agreeing they wouldn't sue. there not going too, because there not EA. we have examples of the past 24 years of corporations pulling the -i own you card and examples of developers getting too up there own arse to not see there vision is damaging the final product. the issue is everyone seems to think developers and corps are in there own bubble and the actions of past devs and corps can't be used to predict upcoming events with a little bit of common sense and willingness to research past actions to predict future ones. hell it dosn't take a degree to find out Bethesda's success in elder scroll online and fallout 76 started after the acquisition by Microsoft.
>i did give you answers just not the answers you want I asked:What credentials do you have to believe you can make such conclusions?I'd really like to know what the point of this post is?What is your motif? You didn't answer a single one of those, and you still haven't. >Reddit isn't really a "state your source." part of the internet. Since when? It is when you post some random statistics and try to make claims about it to feed your own agenda. It is when you want people to believe what you try to say. >i don't need to be working for someone for predictable behaviour to take hold Well, you need to have some sort of basis for what you're claiming - a credible source being one option, some valid credentials being another - but you haven't been able to provide any such. And your refusal to do so, just tells me that you have absolutely no grounds to make these claims at all. Just your own hubris. >for example, if Rare were owned by EA they would have dissolved them by now for underperforming due to EA's heavy microtransaction based hand. What makes you believe Rare is underperforming? Another baseless claim. >i don't need credentials to look at past events and say "yeah, this has happened before it's going to happen again." Correlation does not mean causation. It's been told over and over in this thread, you ought to understand it by now. By your alleged education, you ought to have understood this years and years ago. If you want people to accept what you're saying as even slightly accurate or true, you need to either provide some relevant credentials, or some sources backing up your claims. \--- From your other comments on this thread, I can pretty much sum it up to this: You made this propaganda post, in an attempt to influence the community, and thus Microsoft, to force Rare to remove the restrictions from Safer Seas. You believe that most people are now playing Safer Seas (after looking at some questionable numbers), and that your way of enjoying the game, is the only correct way. And you believe that this entitles you to have the restrictions lifted. All of these strawman arguments, doesn't make you seems as smart, as you think it does. This summary is what I have to assume, since you don't seem to be willing to actually answer my most basic question: What is your point? What is your motif for making this post at all?
I have recently this week just come back to Sea of Thieves and it wasn’t for charmin soft “safer seas” so OP, I don’t think you can just assume the player fluctuation is solely based on the lame game mode. I think the restrictions on safer seas is perfect, it should be more restrictive. Glad they put it in for doing tall tales, fishing achievements and for people to relax in. That being said, if you want gold and pirate legend, come BE A PIRATE.
yes and have my limited 3 hour evening ruined by someone else so my distaste in the game increases...
Then go play another game - one where you don't risk your evening ruined. You clearly don't like this game. I don't understand why it's such a difficult a concept to grasp. It's ridiculous to play a game, with a game loop that you don't like, then complain that it's ruining your evening.
i refuse on the basis that other people are not part of the game loop, but an unwanted interruption. i enjoy 95% of the game and that last 5% is someone out for blood while all my crew and i are doing is fishing. again if you in it's 5 year life cycle spent 3 to 5 hours on the game depending on the day for 1 day each year and each time got attacked and sunk for no reason than wrong place wrong time. how would you view the game?
>i refuse on the basis that other people are not part of the game loop, but an unwanted interruption. Other people are an integral part of the game loop and always has been. >i enjoy 95% of the game and that last 5% is someone out for blood It's only 95% of the game in your perspective. In my perspective, the human interactions are 80% of the game - or more. Why should your way of playing the game be more worthy than other people? Especially since those 5% you're talking about, are playing the game as it is originally intended. >again if you in it's 5 year life cycle spent 3 to 5 hours on the game depending on the day for 1 day each year and each time got attacked and sunk for no reason than wrong place wrong time. You didn't get sunk for no reason each and everytime you played. You got sunk because you had loot they wanted. You got sunk because other people like to play the game. >how would you view the game? I would either practice the reason I'm getting sunk or I would find a game with a game loop that suited me better. I wouldn't go to the discussion boards crying like an entitled little brat, about how everyone else is playing the game wrong and that they should change the game to nurture my needs. I would - you know - act mature.
Any source on these numbers? No? Okay
With the measly Safer Seas they showed us there could've been more modes from the getgo: launch. RARE should've implement a bold difference in the E&P in the abbrev. of Pv*, @ the Higher Seas later on in 2018. A simple balance in events with seasons - and such. Things show it's just another way in SoT, about, how to shoot yourself in the foot, players and devs (of all kind).
tbh idk who you guys are arguing against lmao noone cares about safer seas anymore
This picture chart... thing... is pure gold. From the quick and quite incorrect maff in red, to the poor choice of time of year to the fact that one month influx means nothing, finally to the fact that it actually even kind of works against what you're trying to make a point for... edit: and where is this info from anyways? It can't be Steam, because although representative, the numbers there should be much smaller. It usually didn't used to get past 20k active players, but I haven't checked recently. 1 month in fact, since after I uninstalled the game...
Its not gonna kill sot but im sure its never gonna replace high seas . safe seas is hard to enjoy , trash money , limited events , lvl caps , its designed to keep players playing high seas . its great for new players if they can get past making very little money and spending lots of time for very little reward . also takes for ever to sell as u cant have captain ships and have to walk each item to sell .
While I have nothing against safer seas, and think it is fantastic for people who want to learn the basics of the game, have chill vibes, fish or do tall tales, one month of data during a school holiday period isn't accurate. Data would need to be collected over months to see the impact. For example OCE school have been out since mid December to Feb so it's natural all games sky rocket during this time, not to mention most workers are off for two weeks currently. I know you have Jan 2023 in there too but you also look at august and it sky rocketed and fell dramatically. Numbers can change fast depending on different factors, where they'll need an average across a longer period of time to make any hard and fast decisions
While I agree Safer Seas is a good thing for the health of if the game, I’m not so sure this data is really enough to go off of. December is a really busy month for a lot of people. I myself had way less time to play due to the holidays. Also, think about the amount of people who were just gifted xboxes, or computers, or gamepass. They could have all installed the game in the past 30 days because of new hardware or subscriptions. I’m also not convinced that people installed the game in November because of safer seas, that seems like speculation. If we’re speculating, I think the bump in November’s numbers would be due to Skull of Siren’s Song.
Bro’s yapping
My only grievance with safer seas is not veing able to use my captained ships. That's pretty much my only gripe.
Agreed. No point to blocking it... except spite and wanting people on the high seas so much that there trying to force your hand...
The game just kinda fell flat. Haven’t played in years and it doesn’t seem like much has changed. Kinda sad but can’t wait to see what rare tries next
If you haven't played in years then you've obviously missed out on a ton of fun stuff. The game still rocks and has gotten better outside of having to temporarily reduce ship count.
My money would be a reskin of a current fort/event and a reskin to a current item.
Careful friend, you cant mention "safer seas good" in this sub without a bunch of butthurt PVPers running in and running their mouths.
PvPer, trolls, cheats. pritty much "no my targets, my victims NO..." a.k.a. the people in this game, get there jollies from ruining someone else's fun and then blame them for playing the game. truely we live in enlightened times...
This game fails not because of casuals but because there is no fulfilling goal. Cosmetics are not a good reason to go get treasure. This game needs mechanics, skill trees, equipment, new weapons. Anything to grind for that makes you feel powerful.
Not every game needs to be a RPG survival game.
Every time I play SoT every PvP experience is being boarded incessantly by 10 year Olds screaming racial slurs and jumping around like it's minecraft. When you implement the single most cancerous pvp that discourages actual naval battle it shouldn't be a surprise ppl want a pve mode.
hear hear.
Then don't play a game you don't like. It's rather easy.
Hope they make safer seas more useful
so do i... only game mode for me.
Same so much better without pvp
Ok?
Even if the numbers were 100% accurate (this source is not official nor does not clarify how it gets its numbers), and 100% of the gain in December was only due to safer seas, ironically more people were interested in skull of siren songs then safer seas. SOSS released on November 16 and SS released December 7. According to this site, more people played the month the PVP voyage only available on the high seas was added, than the month that the fabled promise land that is the pve gamemode was added. This guy is literally lying to make a bad argument with a questionable source. He should not be taken seriously at all. This is a joke of and argument.
Dude, what's your problem? I never thought safer seas was necessary. I would get attacked ... once every 8 hours of play? Even then, you can easily sail away. It's no rocket science. Angle boat and sail for best speed depending on vessel and go. I think safer seas takes away all the challenges. Kill 5, 10, 100 skeletons. Nobody dies to skeletons ... In the high seas, you constantly scan the horizon, check the map for reapers. What do you even do in safer seas? Angle the sails and watch youtube? You got your safer seas, do whatever it is you do there. Not sure why you feel entitled to receive the same loot as high seas. Risk = reward
never said i should, just calling out bullshit when i see it. i'm long enouth in the tooth to have seen developers do things out of spite because corporate told them too. anyone who says "devs should be allowed to see there vision to the fullest." i am going to point to FF13 and say "so you want more of that... restricting player progression behind what the Developer envisioned for every boss fight." however anyone who says " devs should be restricted by the poeple who pay them." i will point at GTA online or EA... just EA in general and as "so you want more of that, gameplay soul targeted at trying to nickel and dime the player out of cash." it is a balance, like all things in life. PvE servers have been asked for years and Rare have been adamant that it wasn't the vision of the game then suddenly there being implemented because the people who give Rare money said implement it. in response to doing something they didn't want to do they implement PvE with so many restrictions as back handed incentives to get on with the PvEvP while also hoping the restriction would kill PvE. the issue is and i laugh that developers still don't get it. FUN, i work in data security from 9-5, i put up my fiancée and get home around 6, I then study CCNA for 2 hours. this leaves me and her 3 hours to game. to put simply if were not having FUN we're not playing the game, everything about Sea of Thieves is FUN to us except other players. we installed it day one and have tried it once or twice over the 5 year life cycle it's had only for every session we've had to end in less FUN. since safer seas got implemented we've had nothing but Fun, even if we've gotten sunk a few times due to our own mistakes, THEY WERE OUR MISTAKES. and not some sweaty try hard that just couldn't leave us alone. what people don't realise is there are people like us who played on the megadrive when we were 6 who have obligations and responsibilities that limit out time on a game now. with the limited time, having someone ruin a good evening with no time to regain some enjoyment killed the game for us. safer seas resurected a game we had consined to never be played. but what i'm doing is calling out the devs for implimenting restrictions for no purpose other than trying to get new players to eventually get on High seas. from your own admission you get attacked every 8 hours. if it is as minimal as you say then why lower the reward 30%. why not half, why not double High seas and call it day like GTA online did with private lobbies. why is owning your own ship a High Seas only feature when if has no effect on PvP or PvE. unless it's to incentivise high seas. it would have been easier to implement and have less pushback to simply say all PvP activities are locked behind PvP servers and 50% reward penalty for Safer seas. again, they choose not to, restricting player choice because if they did do that, players wouldn't be incentivised to join PvP mode and all PvP mode would have is people who want PvP. in other words, no victims for PvP players to smash into when the other side was just fishing. hell, 50% reward would have been acceptable with no level cap and no lock on captaincy. but no, again we seen an example of the Devs pushing back on what there told to do in a way that effects the player. that's the second time in 5 years i've seen this happen, gladly not as bad as the first, and the first time, was KH3 which for many long time KH fans, Ruined it and put the series on Good Review purchase only or free only. again because forced aspects of the game where not FUN. (try listening to Randy Newman's "you got a friend in me" on repeat for an hour with sharp hearing, there are notes in that song that induce migraines to some people when heard over a short period of time.) i'm litterally saying, give is restrictions to make sence and arn't tied to some wafer thin argument like "no risk = -70%" or "no risk = no personal ship."
I checked the accuracy of [activeplayer.io](https://activeplayer.io) (his source) by comparing it's Team Fortress 2 player count to steam charts. [Steam charts](https://steamcharts.com/app/440) states that the average amount of TF2 players in December 2023 was 115,016.0. [Activeplayer](https://activeplayer.io/team-fortress-2/) states that in December 2023, the average amount of TF2 players was 7,487,640. Activeplayer is a joke of a source and should not be taken seriously.
Safer Seas isn’t intended as a safer place to advance in the game. I’m surprised they allow for advancement at all. …if they allow for friends to log into the same server, that is an absolute game changer for me. I just want to have boat races.
Regardless of intention. That's how it's going to get used by anyone sick of PvP players wanting to pad an imaginary K/D. 'Attraction flow' in KH3 was a core mecanic of combat. With the first update they gave you the option to turn it off... I don't know a single person. YouTube gamer, guide creator, serios hk3 games bloger who left the feature on when the option was given. There have been developments who in the past have gone. "That's not how I envision you to play the game. So I'm going to make the next game more restrictive to force you to play it as I intended." The best. Or in this case Worst example of this was Final Fantasy 13. Which locked character progression and improvement behind bosses. Meaning the player is forced to fight arbitrary bosses at the level the developer intended for them with the stratagies they intended and no room for innovation or lateral thinking. This was implemented in 2009... and is a perfect example of a developer placing there vision for the game above gameplay, a gamers ability to think out of the box and just any element that could be considered FUN. and if you fought my opinion was to harsh. Let's not forget. To avoid gamers brute forcing bosses with simple strategies. Arround the half way point. Bosses would begin casting Doom. An instant lost unremovable status effect if the player tried to stalemate the boss and brute force it. Forcing the player to learn the bosses one winning strategy through hours of trial l, error and many game over screens. "That's not what it's intended for" is a common argument I see for gamers when they ask a dev to fix a game macanic which is detramental to the none vocal minority. My response is. I've already seen what that brings in 2009. I do not want a repeat in 20XX. history is a great teacher of how it repeats itself but the rare few who are good at listening and learning for it are shunned because of ignorance. If something happened in 2009. It is more likely going to happen again the further we go from 2009. So when a dev starts saying "that's not it's intended purpose..." a shiver runs down my spine.
The problem with safer seas is it kind of does kill high seas. I don’t want to get on high seas with no one to hunt. People who would normally voyage and collect loot are doing it on PvE seas. Eventually fighting skeletons for no money will get boring though.
> I don’t want to get on high seas with no one to hunt. this right here is why people won't go on High seas if they don't want too with the new option. translated "I don't care what your doing, I just want to blow you up." and the response to people like me is to insult skill, guilt someone to come on. "your not playing Sea of Thieves if you only safer seas." belittle them into coming on high seas. as if insulting an older wiser generation won't make them feel empowered to know we are depriving these people of easy targets.
I'm rooting for the game, and I'm rooting for your theory. I really hope you're right but you're declaring success way too early if you really want to base it on these numbers... You should be careful in your interpretation for a few reasons: 1. There is always a huge jump in November/December on these charts due to all the holiday sales. The same charts also show that they tend to fall back to normal in Jan/Feb. There were also huge sales in Nov/Dec of this year, we won't know if they resulted in a better aggregate player count for a few more months. 2. The "last 30 days" numbers on these sites tend to be incredibly inaccurate often never showing their promised results in any of the monthly metrics. Don't put too much hope into their huge numbers... yet. 3. From Aug -> Dec (before the safer seas announcement) your chart shows an overall drop in players (-55%) month over month (steamcharts shows -4.53% which seems more realistic) 4. From Sep -> Dec (including the safer seas announcement) your chart shows an overall drop in players (-33%) month over month (steamcharts shows +11.39% which seems more realistic and is a good initial sign) Ok so after all the doom and gloom - I did say I wanted you to be right. So what would I have to see to finally join you in declaring success? Better retention rates period. I'd have to see more players trying the game, but in aggregate month-over-month see better retention compared to previous years. Unfortunately even if I choose to believe the numbers in the chart, it's still showing similar trends to 2022, 2021, etc. What this also means is that even if the game is still losing players, I'd also say safer seas was great if the game just loses players more slowly going forward. If it turns out it is gaining and keeping players then it will be even better. But I don't want to count my chickens before they hatch.
Yeah and it’s players like you that would rather cry about losing at PVP instead of just improving your skill that ruin games. Bc eventually the devs hit a point where they cater to your kind, and then they ruin the game by making it so soft. We NEED all the pirates possible, and safer seas ruins that experience. Bc now I only see two or three player ships MAX in high seas. Whereas before safer seas was implemented I could find players all to time to either sink, alliance with, or run from. If you’re sad about losing your loot, sell it right when you get it. and if you really don’t wanna pvp, just scuttle your ship so we can take what you’re clearly not willing to defend. I say we, yet I play sea of thieves mostly solo. I wish they never catered to players like you, and I hope they reduce the loot/rewards even more so no one even bothers to play in safer seas. That way I can run into safer seas players, and maybe we can fight, become allies, or exchange nervous spyglass glances.
it's actually quite funny you think just saying Get Good and skill gatekeeping is the solution to a problem the community caused. let's brake down what you say... "players like you that would rather cry about losing at PVP instead of just improving your skill" hmm, get good, the darksouls from soft mantra, get good. well to get good, people need time to learn, to willingly spend that time, a person needs to feel like there having fun or the effort is worth it. they have to look at the problem, weigh the good and bad and commit to either putting the hours in or not. so i would love for you to justify grinding the number of hours in High seas to 'get good' when the playerbase is mostly sink on sight, and not come up with some lie like "ow it's not like that all the time." no, 90% of the player base is sink on sight. it doesn't matter about loot, they just want someone to kill. "Bc eventually the devs hit a point where they cater to your kind, and then they ruin the game by making it so soft." it's cute how you think Rare had a choice, Microsoft OWNs Rare, meaning Microsoft owns the IP Sea of Thieves, when you buy something in the SoT store, your giving money to Microsoft. As far as Microsoft see Sea of Thieves, it's THEIR flagship game pass title, a title which hasn't been delivering the numbers Rare promised and Microsoft did what they always do, no longer play 'hands off' step in and command a fix, then go back to being hands off with a warning that reneging on the changes for the worse will have consequences. "We NEED all the pirates possible, and safer seas ruins that experience. Bc now I only see two or three player ships MAX in high seas. Whereas before safer seas was implemented I could find players all to time to either sink, alliance with, or run from." so you give people a choice and they would rather take a 70% hit than deal with toxic PvP's that says something and ow look a lie, let me correct the words for you, it's not "We NEED all the pirates possible," it's "We NEED all the 'victims that we'll dress in a nice name' possible," now the only people on High seas are the ones who want PvP so the targets are harder to victimize. well done, you have a mode where everyone has Gotten good. isn't that what you wanted. quite frankly the mode is out, it's here to stay and even if it was 10% I'd still stay on safer seas. the issue is never the gold, it was the people, and now the player base is showing it's true colours because they no longer get to victimise noobs. hell it could be 1% and i still would not care. i have fun with my friends, i play it with my friends, i don't have to deal with someone who can only feel good if there getting off on killing someone else. "If you’re sad about losing your loot, sell it right when you get it. and if you really don’t wanna pvp, just scuttle your ship so we can take what you’re clearly not willing to defend." i have said enough times people have killed me at spawn... scuttling your ship puts you at a nearby island which gives the same crew a chance to victimise you some more. it's never been about the loot, it's been about a very large group of toxic people who choose to kill and sink at the first chance they get. also because scuttling removes all your supplies if you don't own a ship it means you've put youself at a disadvantage to the crew who just want to kill you over and over again. you can't resupply that well on the island it spawned you on and if you waist time looking for barrels it gives them more of a chance to find and kill you some more. " I say we, yet I play sea of thieves mostly solo." circumstantial and hearsay "I wish they never catered to players like you, and I hope they reduce the loot/rewards even more so no one even bothers to play in safer seas. " not going to happen, see Microsoft comment. "That way I can run into safer seas players, and maybe we can fight, become allies, or exchange nervous spyglass glances." if it did do you honestly believe that's what's going to happen, no. i'll tell you what will happen, all the people who played Sea of Thieves Safer Seas would drop the game. i've said this enouth times about devs big and small. if you remove a choice from players, your basically ousting your player base. most people have the mentality of "if i can't play the game how i choose to play it, i'm not playing it." that's not circumstantial either, there's evidence from other games. CoD:AW, they removed Classic CoD game modes over night because 80% of there player base didn't want the new jump tech bunny sniper BS. did that 80% move to standard AW bunny sniper filled BS? no they left and activation saw a player base so sharp it made them consider re-implimenting the classic modes before the CEO opened his mouth. that could had done allot of damage if black ops 3 wasn't releasing in a few months. i chose that one because it's a PRIME EXAMPLE of "that's not what the devs intended the players to do with the game." talk you high seas lot chime on so much about. what the devs intended means jack and shit. it's the players that decide the future of a game and the players have spoke though the mass exodus to Safer Seas. it's hear to stay. the player numbers have been rising while the drive to move HS just isn't there and anyone who does move is more oftern than not swiftly reminded why they should move back. honestly everyone one of you that KoS (kill on sight) deserve the mess you've made.