Just tried Sea of Thieves for the first time on my new Xbox One X (phenomenal console btw) and I can't remember playing a game so staggeringly, catastrophically incompetent before.
It fails on nearly every level.
The good
- it looks gorgeous, the sea and scenery are remarkably pretty... character models not so much
- HDR is some of the best i've seen, the colours are a visual feast
The bad
- the opening does a woeful job explaining just about everything. When I have to look online constantly from the start just to make slight progress it's really bad game design
- quests are implemented in the most obtuse way possible. It goes : Get Quest > return to ship > vote to make quest active > refer to quest treasure map > compare world map for corresponding island. Why not just have a menu screen toggle which quests are active along with their details?
- some islands are so tiny on the map that it makes looking for them slow going and it's not much fun scanning the whole map over and over to find out where you need you to go next
- combat is so laughably dull it makes Skyrim look like a Platinum action game
- sailing a ship on your lonesome is just unenjoyable
- the game kicks you for inactivity after just 10 minutes... even if you're going solo with a closed crew
- the enemies are dumber than bricks and lack variety
- the quests are all exactly the same and really not fun to begin with
- I never saw another soul on the high seas even after a few hours of playtime, which is apparently normal but it really feels like an empty world for a shared, online game
- sailing is boring, Wind Waker and Assassin's Creed do it far better
- my ship sank suddenly, without warning and even if I had noticed I apparently lacked the materials to fix it anyway, the game needed a tutorial badly
The "holy shit is this a joke?"
- There is z e r o progression in the game, no faster ships, no stronger weapons, no base building, no real point to anything you do at all
- The entire game is about getting cosmetics, which could work... if there wasn't such a pitiful amount on offer. I was expecting hundreds of shirts, jackets, hats, hooks and eyepatches by now. This would be embarrassing for launch let alone now after all the updates over a year later.
- the variety in cosmetics is also severely lacking to the point of being insulting, i've read how most players think everyone looks too similar, and then you have things like this
I'd go on, but when the core of a game like this isn't being supported well enough that many of it's players keep asking for new cosmetics or things to do, everything else is small potatoes in comparison.
I know people will say this game is better with friends, and I have no doubt it is, but that's true for anything in life, and even with team mates it doesn't fix the game's fundamental issues, which are still there from day 1.
It can improve though but it needs to right the ship quickly, because right now it feels like i'm playing a game that's still in alpha.
But hey, at least it's still pretty.
It fails on nearly every level.
The good
- it looks gorgeous, the sea and scenery are remarkably pretty... character models not so much
- HDR is some of the best i've seen, the colours are a visual feast
The bad
- the opening does a woeful job explaining just about everything. When I have to look online constantly from the start just to make slight progress it's really bad game design
- quests are implemented in the most obtuse way possible. It goes : Get Quest > return to ship > vote to make quest active > refer to quest treasure map > compare world map for corresponding island. Why not just have a menu screen toggle which quests are active along with their details?
- some islands are so tiny on the map that it makes looking for them slow going and it's not much fun scanning the whole map over and over to find out where you need you to go next
- combat is so laughably dull it makes Skyrim look like a Platinum action game
- sailing a ship on your lonesome is just unenjoyable
- the game kicks you for inactivity after just 10 minutes... even if you're going solo with a closed crew
- the enemies are dumber than bricks and lack variety
- the quests are all exactly the same and really not fun to begin with
- I never saw another soul on the high seas even after a few hours of playtime, which is apparently normal but it really feels like an empty world for a shared, online game
- sailing is boring, Wind Waker and Assassin's Creed do it far better
- my ship sank suddenly, without warning and even if I had noticed I apparently lacked the materials to fix it anyway, the game needed a tutorial badly
The "holy shit is this a joke?"
- There is z e r o progression in the game, no faster ships, no stronger weapons, no base building, no real point to anything you do at all
- The entire game is about getting cosmetics, which could work... if there wasn't such a pitiful amount on offer. I was expecting hundreds of shirts, jackets, hats, hooks and eyepatches by now. This would be embarrassing for launch let alone now after all the updates over a year later.
- the variety in cosmetics is also severely lacking to the point of being insulting, i've read how most players think everyone looks too similar, and then you have things like this
I'd go on, but when the core of a game like this isn't being supported well enough that many of it's players keep asking for new cosmetics or things to do, everything else is small potatoes in comparison.
I know people will say this game is better with friends, and I have no doubt it is, but that's true for anything in life, and even with team mates it doesn't fix the game's fundamental issues, which are still there from day 1.
It can improve though but it needs to right the ship quickly, because right now it feels like i'm playing a game that's still in alpha.
But hey, at least it's still pretty.
