Sea of Thieves has been letting our pirate dreams come true for a little over two weeks now, and the game’s already seen some hefty updates aimed at bringing server issues in line. With the big tech stuff out of the way, Rare are now focusing on changes to gameplay and overall experience, which they’ve detailed in a developer update.
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Matchmaking sees some particularly notable changes, and crews will be able to choose to go invite-only. Not only does that mean no matching with strangers when you want to play with people you know, it also means hapless solo players won’t get thrown into the brig for matching into other peoples’ games, and your crew can man sloops or galleons regardless of the party size.
On that front, Rare are also making changes to matchmaking so that players who do want to hook up with strangers can actually communicate with them. Matchmaking will soon prioritize bringing mic-using players together, and the developers are investigating an option to let players filter potential crewmates by language.
Spawn-killing has been another big problem, with nefarious crews camping out on deck to take out players again and again as they respawn. In the short term, Rare are trying to make the scuttle option more obvious so players know they have an out when their ship is lost. They’re looking at more long-term griefing solutions, but that’s “a slightly more complex change” that needs more investigation. An update has already doubled the distance at which ships respawn, ensuring you’re not locked into battle with the same reincarnating enemy galleons.
Then there’s the cheating, a problem which has made the rounds recently and has been especially notable due to Sea of Thieves’ platform-agnostic cross-play. Rare say they have a “zero tolerance approach” to cheating including permanent account bans, but the “number of people we are currently investigating who show suspicious behaviour make up an extremely small portion of our player base.”
Beyond the “top experience fixes,” Rare say they’ll detail what they have planned for future content updates starting next week. “We are currently in the midst of adjusting our roadmap based on feedback we have received since launch, with a ton of planning meetings continuing through this week. We plan to release a video next week updating everyone on how we plan to evolve Sea of Thieves moving forward.”