An ocean of information has been given to Sea of Thieves players during this week, and this is mainly because of the new Developer Update. Indeed, there is a huge amount of things to be discussed about it. From water desync fixes to lovely Hourglass upgrades, Production Director Drew Stevens, wearing that well-known bandana, exposed it all. It is a rare update that actually addresses the complaints of the community—almost an exception in today’s gaming world.
The biggest change announced was the improvement of loading times when returning from the Ferry of the Damned (finally!) and the much-dreaded water desync issue fixed, which causes instantaneous moving of the ships, plus most importantly – the first hints of eventual enhancements to Hourglass play. The PvP mode was added with Season Eight but has been plagued by considerable issues ever since the first day.
The Hourglass tweaks have the power to completely switch the mode up. They are thinking about introducing a shrinking circle during the fights to prevent the runners from simply leaving to sail away for 45 minutes straight. The gamer, steel_city_crtv, said it all when he tweeted “thank you!!! I can’t stand another HG match where the only thing going on is for me to chase the enemy for 45 minutes!” That irritation is indeed legitimate—nothing could be worse than running after somebody all over the map while your playtime is running out.
However, the player community has some concerns regarding the change. The user viiraxetv shared “My only concern is very minor regarding the shrinking area during battles, that is depending on how long it takes to do so.” That is a reasonable point—if the area shrinks too fast it could lead to some top notched naval battles being cut short, which is just unfair. There is always an equilibrium between removing exploits and maintaining the core gameplay that makes Sea of Thieves so unique.
There have been numerous exchanges regarding the defending mechanic in the comments under the update post. Many players like DayKahDos have expressed that “Defending is almost entirely used now by the small group of players that want to take advantage of the strong or annoying positions to bait reactions.” The general feeling is that the defensive mechanism of the game will eventually be removed altogether since it is not really being utilized to its full potential and its existence is only facilitating the victory of cheesy tactics.
Furthermore, the update alludes to changes in matchmaking making it possible to set up more evenly-matched fights, which might be a boon for the inexperienced players that want to try out the Hourglass but do not want to get kicked by pros right away. However, symphylsot raised a concern that “It might be fairer for newbies but the experienced players will have fewer queues if they can only choose ‘fair’ fights or something.” This is the classic conundrum of skill-based matchmaking—making it work for the whole range from the lowest to the highest skill levels.
Some gamers are already focused on the long-term. AjoraonTwt remarked that “the big fix would be to change HG comma to include sinks for all factions and not just the opposing one.” Currently, the commendations only consider the sinks of the opposite faction, which is quite absurd as same faction battles happen so frequently.
Nevertheless, the Sea of Thieves community has been mainly positive in their response. HitReg Ethan called it “Absolute W of a video” while Impernal1275 said that “the players who have left the game in the past few years, I think they will soon have the chance to give it a try again.” This is the kind of enthusiasm that Rare needs to lure back players into the Hourglass mode, whose participation has significantly dropped since its initial launch.
Alongside all the praises, there were some negative comments as well. Hoodnewzmedia asked, “Has the team been reduced, because the updates seem to take longer,?” and Bardock696 complained, “gold is practically useless unless you are a brand new player.” These worries are reasonable—the pace of content updates has certainly slowed down, and the economy could do with some tweaking so that the veterans still feel gold is their money.
However, out of all the things that have been said, one can’t help but notice how Rare has been very open about the changes they are planning already at the stage of early development. They are not giving out only the finished features as sneak peeks—they are showing players what they are working on, which in turn creates trust and expectations that are not too high. It is a smart strategy, especially when involving an ardent community that has been waiting for the Hourglass improvements for quite a while.
Perfect timing must have been another factor. With the decline in number of players and intense competition from other live service games, Sea of Thieves has to prove that it can still innovate and is still receptive to community feedback. The Hourglass changes along with the technical fixes are an indication that Rare is listening and is willing to make large adjustments in order to keep the game alive.
Of course, the exact dates for when these changes will be introduced on the live servers have yet to be disclosed. It is highly likely that they will first go through the testing and player feedback in the Insider program. However, the fact that they are being so transparent about their plans is a good omen that we may get to see these improvements sooner rather than later.
The Sea of Thieves team appears to have synchronized their pace with these developer updates, as they are addressing both lifestyle quality issues and significant gameplay mechanics at the same time. If they manage to keep the classic Sea of Thieves charm while fulfilling these commitments, then we could see a huge rise in the participation in the Hourglass mode and the overall commitment of players. For a game like Sea of Thieves that has been around for quite some time, this would be a huge achievement—a definitely thing to look for in the upcoming months on PlayStation and Xbox.
