Rare’s announcement that it will be reducing the number of ships on Sea of Thieves servers from six to five has left players divided, with some fans praising the decision while others think the developer is making a mistake. With a variety of pros and cons on each side, the seemingly small update has caused a lot of waves. With any live-service game, it’s inevitable that a developer will seek to switch things up from time to time, keeping the core gameplay fresh and exciting. Sometimes it can make a misstep, but only time will tell whether the update to the server sizes was a good choice or a poor one.
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More Open Seas
While some fans are less-than-happy about the decision to change the number of ships in the Sea of Thieves servers, others welcome the update. Some players choose to play an even more solitary experience, preferring to shun potential crewmates and sail the waters of Sea of Thieves solo. While other gamers enjoy the more social aspects of the game, they’ve still praised the update as it means that encountering another pirate ship will become less likely. This will decrease the number of encounters that escalate to combat, which see player crews exchanging cannon fire across the open seas and potentially risking the destruction of their ship.
For groups of gamers that would prefer to avoid constant combat, one fewer ship on their horizon also means that they can focus on the more exploratory aspects of Sea of Thieves, like finding the Coral Fortress or checking out the new treasure map-laden quest board added with the slew of Season 5 updates.
Without an additional crew sailing about a player’s server, there is also less competition for treasure and resources, in addition to a lower risk of running into a potentially antagonistic ship. With slightly less crowded waters, players don’t have to feel as on-edge and enjoy more features of the game as they navigate the environments and seek out their own adventures in Sea of Thieves.
Fewer Pirates To Play With
On the other hand, there are also fans of Sea of Thieves that would prefer the server size to include six ships, or in some cases, even more per server. There are players that love the aspects of PvP in Sea of Thieves, and think it’s a feature that should be made more prominent. With more ships about, the chance to run into an opposing crew is increased, and players will have the chance to wage war against enemy ships far more frequently. Some players have even complained that they have trouble finding any other ships at all, let alone ones that are eager to engage in a sea-based skirmish.
With map expansions and additional areas added, encounters are becoming few and far between as it is. With player density down across various regions, there are some fans calling for not only the ship cap to be increased, but also the cap on the number of pirates that can roam around Sea of Thieves servers. Even with hotspots appearing like ghost ships to try to corral players together, the smaller server sizes make these meetings far less likely.
However, although the number of ships is decreasing, the number of pirates per server in Sea of Thieves is remaining the same. By keeping the maximum number of pirates at sixteen, Rare is hoping to address imbalance issues in crew sizes. There is also a balance to be found with server size and performance, and in order to make the playing experience of Sea of Thieves as optimal for players as possible, some sacrifices might need to be made in other areas.
Sea of Thieves is out now for PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
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