The case against PvE only servers in Sea of Thieves

I would like to submit that PvE-only (or private servers*) would be a bad thing for Rare to do in Sea of Thieves and ultimately lead to the demise of the game.

The reasons against are

1. The game was built from the start as both PvE and PvP together in a shared world. 
2. Players are playing on PvE-only servers that earn gold and rep cheapen the accomplishments of those who play the game with all the game’s threats.
3. Time building and supporting PvE servers removes the Devs from the time where they could be adding new content or fixing bugs 

The game is designed to be PvPvE in a shared world

The game’s description in the MS Store contains this sentence… “Sea of Thieves is a multiplayer, shared-world adventure game…” The keyword here being shared-world. Private/PvE servers close the door on other players turning this shared-world into a private-world.

If we start splitting SoT into separate servers based on individual playstyles, we’d lose a lot of the magic that makes this game great.

The game is PvPvE. It is built on the two pillars of PvE and PvP. If you take one away the game becomes something else. Something less. PvE-only servers would change our favorite pirate game to a Fetch Quest Sailing Simulator game…

…and then the original game no longer exists. We need to have actual pirates in our pirate game.

Let me quote from the official Sea of Thieves website (from the Friend of Foe section):

…you’ll soon encounter other ships and crews as you undertake your voyages. It’s up to you how you interact and what kind of crew you choose to be. Create allies or enemies, be benefactors or betrayers, exchange banter or broadsides — you make the call! Of course, what you can’t know in advance is how other ships’ crews will react upon seeing you…

It’s literally in the description of the game that other players are sailing around in the same waters, and perhaps, they might just shoot you.

It is not safe in the Sea of Thieves. 

But the threat doesn’t come from AI-controlled NPCs. It comes from Blood Thirsty Pirates.

After you’ve played for a bit, none of the AI threats are really a threat anymore. A decently crewed ship will have no trouble fending off a Megalodon or a Kraken.

But even experienced pirates will sometimes run into trouble when a well sailed, well-crewed Brigantine wants your treasure (or even just your lives)

And getting chased — or chasing — is really the heart of the game. Learning to defend and run or sneak up and sink is where the game really becomes like no other.

The Sea of Thieves is neither a single player game nor a casual game. 

The looming threat of that ship on the horizon possibly being a hostile force is a key difference between this game and a couch Co-op.

Just joining a PvE server to grind out your rep/gold without a threat is a casual experience that doesn’t exist (and shouldn’t. We can talk about Alliance/Fleet servers a little farther down.)

PvE / Private servers should not give out gold or rep

In a game where the only progression is cosmetic and commendations, those things become the currency. Those things are the score.

The value of the thing is tied to how difficult it is to acquire. If there's a way to acquire it easily, it's value is reduced.

Pirate Legends that earned their legendary status on PvE servers are not true Legends and the ability for them to acquire the same cosmetics and glory and status while sailing in a completely safe world is a slap in the face to pirates that earned their Purples in the dangerous waters of the open Sea of Thieves.

Almost all pirates have had their ship sunk and loot stolen while climbing the ladder to PL. It’s part of the game. There’s something about the heart-racing flight across the sea while clutching your hard-earned booty as you flee from marauders that makes that Captains Chest worth more than it’s gold you get from the gold hoarders. Even the gut-wrenching feeling when you respawn to your ship during a battle, only to find it new and afloat somewhere else, your old ship sunk, your loot plundered is a bittersweet but a necessary part of the magic of Sea Of Thieves. It’s part of our shared experience. 

Allowing some players to avoid this is akin to letting them boost.

You shouldn’t get the same rewards in a game, if you’re not willing to play the same game.

Players from the early days got to PL before you could buy letters of recommendation. And I can remember hearing grumbles after that was added that it cheapened the PL status.

Alliance and shared rep was not a thing…

Let me quote a grizzled veteran from our discord server:

(insert back in the day voice) I got my legend in May of 2018 when you still got Castaway chests on level 50 missions and you actually had to grind merchant. Because of the time it took you knew your islands, the sand bars, cannon placements. l made PL10 by August. For Athena missions to count you had to deliver animals. God forbid you got sunk and lost your cages and had to start over. You had to turn in the 96 chests. There was no “get Athena rep while not doing an Athena mission”. You couldn’t buy levels, you put in the time and got a good crew to pull all of you through it together.

It IS much easier, now. But it is nothing compared to being able to jump into a PvE / Private server where you could alliance up with 3 or 4 or even 5 other crews also doing Athena missions. And this is happening now via Fleet Servers…

The Devs are busy. Let’s not give them something else to work on.

Seriously, PvE-only servers should be the LAST thing they should work on, let alone then have to worry about supporting said servers.

Bug fixes, more Tall Tales, Captaincy update… literally anything else. Let’s fix and improve the game we all love instead of making a new one. 

Alliance/Fleet servers are just as bad as PvE servers. Perhaps worse.

Take a look at this image:

There’s no way you could put all this down on an island in a real server. The time alone required to put it here is mind-boggling and there’s no way someone wouldn’t come by and see it and then spend the rest of their time trying to steal even a part of it. 

People that build and sail in Alliance/Fleet servers are, imo, as bad as boosters and perhaps, hackers. 

They are abusing game mechanics to make themselves safe. 

I mean the hashtag is #bemorepirate not #besafepirate or #leavemealonepirate

Why not actually be a pirate?

“fair winds and following seas”

*caveat: I’m all for them releasing private servers for content creators for filming or racing or games if you don’t accrue gold or rep.