Rare isn’t completely oblivious to the griefing going on in Sea of Thieves, even if it probably hoped gamers wouldn’t notice so damn much of it. A blog post from Executive Producer Joe Neate explains that it’s attacking griefplay from multiple angles.
- Insta-brig abuse will be stymied by management tools that give players the power over whether they are open to matchmaking in the first place. Matchmaker filtering by mic status and language will also be possible.
- Rare is changing ship respawn view distance so the ship that sunk you can’t immediately find you and do it again and again.
- And the studio is pushing players toward scuttling in the event that their ship is taken over and they’re repeatedly murdered by the invaders. “We’ll assess this before taking further steps,” Rare says. “We are also considering options around moving ships to other world instances if they are caught in a griefing situation.”
What would have been even better is if Rare had listened to alpha players (or any griefplay observers from the last couple of decades) and fixed it before launch, but we’ll take it.
One thing Rare isn’t letting up on is cheating: The studio says it’s identified a small number of people who are showing “suspicious behavior” who will be banned under its zero-tolerance approach to exploits.
As for the future of the game:
“We hear and understand that people are keen to understand what our plans are for updating Sea of Thieves, beyond the top experience fixes. 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. We totally understand that people want to see this ASAP, but the critical thing here is to have the right plan that allows Sea of Thieves to grow in the right way.”
