That takes me back lol. I've always been eyeing Sea of Thieves, but as a forever solo player, is it something you can play by yourself or do you really need some mates?
Having friends to play with is ideal for survivability. They've definitely made it more playable as a solo sloop, but I just don't find playing the game as much fun alone. Solving the quest puzzles is more fun in a group imo. There is an "open crew" mode where you'll get paired with other random people; I've never done it, but I've heard it can be real hit or miss...mostly miss.
I've got over 200 hours logged according to steam and I've never finished the base storyline. SoT is a PvPvE game, so you'll go into it planning to do one thing, but you have to be ok with having your plans interrupted by other players or random events. You log into SoT to have an adventure, but you don't know what it's going to be.
Yeah, that's kind of the vibe I got. I've watched a few videos of people playing, but my friend group either isn't interested in the game or they just don't game so... Maybe I can convince them
It also seems like most people have a generally bad opinion of the game. Been trying to convince my few gamer friends to give it a shot for ages, but it doesn't look like I'll be playing the game anytime soon :')
I do think there's a very vocal minority that gives it a bad rap. I've had numerous moments with other players while playing this game that I simply can't have anywhere else. It generates very unique and organic interactions with people. There's nothing quite like tucking on someone's boat and lying in wait for the right moment to kill them all and take their booty!
But being PvPvE, it can illicit some pretty strong reactions from people who haven't come to terms with being sunk, and opponents that are being toxic.
There's also the fact that Rare seems to spend more time adding new content to pull in players than actually fixing basic problems. You'll shoot at someone and get a hit registration, many times in a row without them eating (to heal) or dying. There has also been an influx of cheaters lately that they have seemingly yet to address. And it's not subtle, there are videos of people having kegs dropped onto their boat by a flying person 100ft above them, and watching them fly away just before the keg explodes.
Yes it feels very organic, but like most online games I approach it feels intimidating to play without having someone that guides you through it or at least shares your newbieness
Been a while since I played so I suppose things could have changed but I doubt it. You can definitely play it by yourself and likely have a good time but every where you go and everything you do will have that feeling of "designed to be played with multiple people" all over it if that makes sense. The only big downside is you have pretty much no chance against other teams just trying to make things difficult for you. Also piloting a ship is a bit of a pain but yourself but you can just use smaller ships to make it easier.
My big complaint about the game was that it's so multiplayer focused while making it so very hard to coordinate a play-session with friends.
One friend running late? Well, you'll either need to get a ship that's too big for the group until the friend joins (and hope they actually do), or you'll have to end and restart the session to size up the ship.
Someone needs to go suddenly? Same problem but possibly worse (since you've probably got a ship full of stuff and could run into other players as you go to turn in, which could suddenly make sign-off a drag)