Are Things Better Now?

Do you miss Sea Of Thieves Arena?
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It's been nearly three years since the closure of Sea Of Thieves's Arena Mode, which allowed for competitive PvP between players across multiple ships and crews in segmented maps away from the general Adventure. It's since been replaced by Sea Of Thieves Hourglass. But are things actually better?
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[Clown_the_Clown]

Hourglass is going to end up just like Arena because they keep failing to address the core issues with Hourglass, and instead just band-aid it with Gold and Glory.

[thebeardedgrower]

Because Arena had its own dedicated servers and rare didn't want to keep paying for that when only 2% of people used it. Hourglass runs on the same servers as the main game, so they can keep it even if most people don't play it

[netherwarrior]

I am honestly sad I didn’t play it more. I got to like level 10 then stopped due to the long queue times but decided to try it again after the announcement of its closure. With quick load times, it was actually really fun and I managed to get to level 30. It definitely had potential, but I see why they shut it down.

[nxbility]

I really liked this gamemode, but I don't miss it. Sea of Thieves is known for it's adventure aspect, so I understand why stuff like arena or hourglass aren't used much.

[ManoKury]

I dream of massive multi-ship battles, areas of the map where players can interact with PvP turned off, and guilds taking over forts as a long-term prize. A proper skill tree would make progression feel meaningful and rewarding. This game has so much untapped potential to be even more exciting and immersive.

Sadly, the slow pace of updates, lack of substantial content, and absence of real progression systems make it hard to stay engaged. It’s such a shame to see Rare struggle to fully deliver on the promise of this incredible game and its passionate community.

[OneMorWin]

The issue with HG is they prevent you from being able to match with different server “stamps”. That’s literally the only issue. After 5 minutes of no matching, the matchmaking should expand. The majority of players would prefer a guaranteed match with some lag than to wait for 30-40 minutes.

[mwinzi]

One of the major reasons is because Arena matches used their own separate servers where as in Hourglass uses already existing live servers.

So Arena were an extra server cost that does not exist with Hourglass, the downside to that is that hourglass takes up spot on regular servers which makes them feel more deserted.

[benrinehart]

I play a lot of hourglass, never got to play arena. I wish we still had it. I’d be playing it pretty regularly

[StingRaeSings]

I’ve had such a hard time with HG fights during this G&G week, I feel like it was truly a waste of time. I’m glad others had better experiences but for me, it was a lot of time spent waiting in queues, fighting toxicity or cheaters, third parties hijacking, and players forcing long TDM sessions when you want to just grind out levels, not sit in the same fight for an hour. 😅 I think that if better executed, Arena could serve a purpose and it would be nice to bring it back (after they’ve fixed the HG experience of course) but unfortunately, it’s nearly impossible to escape the toxicity. These kinds id interactions do tend to attract a certain type of people…

[caydeofspaydes]

If they kill hourglass next they gotta at least keep the curses. Even if it means just rank 75 with Athena’s/Reapers.

[PrincessofErised]

That is not how it went down. RARE stopped servicing it. They stopped because it was too much trouble. First, it was filled with hackers almost every round and the complaints to Rare were overwhelming. Second, it was so toxic they first tried stopping voice, then eventually text chat. People were constantly being kicked out because it was not updated, the wait for start times was terrible. Even with a FULL room, the match would not start. This was NEVER on the players because they played and loved it, despite the flaws. Rare threw in the towel and stopped updating it. So it literally became unplayable. Because of no update, you literally could not even get in the lobby. It was at this point that Rare said, well, no one is playing it. Really? It was their fault, not the player base. Truth is, they stopped the mode because it took up too much of their time and they were about to launch The Pirate Life and needed all hands for that.

[ConnioJudah]

The only thing about Hourglass I dislike is that there isn’t a way to balance it if the other player did the merchant blunderbomb glitch and stacked 1000’s of resources

[SCPSecurityGuard-Gamma]

New idea, a 3v3/6v6 with a balanced variety of ships (equal sloops, galleons, and brigantines). You could pick how many of each you want such as 4 galleons and two sloppd. It forms an alliance automatically, and it could have a team leader that makes 100% profit, while everyone else gets 50-75%, or it could have everyone get 100%

[jerryhuff]

Play that so much and one day I got on and they took it away such a shame

[tomrich]

I really really want arena back, maybe a ship for each faction this time with more earn-able rewards. Would be a way to get the PvP curses but in an actual fun way

[michaelorourke]

I have been sailing as Servents of the Flame for Gold and Glory waiting on someone to invade as I rack up miles sailed for the Commendations, I have only seen a few fights a day while just picking up small loot to turn into Reapers Hideout. It is 50/50 for other Servents or Guardians. Feels like the mode is having match making issues or low player count. Either way they need to do something to really invigorate the mode before it completely fails!

[Belphegorplays]

it’d be cool if they would add game modes to hour glass

[TheDiamondMelon]

Ho! This takes me back! Arena was genuinely fun...for abour 4 months, then it was the constant spawn-camping and sweaty, toxic, venomous speech from mostly angry European players. Honestly it was a fantastic and exhilarating gamemode and toxic behavior doesnt usually urk me, but when a toxic sub-category of players overtake something, its destined to be stained, forever.

[Kittari]

It's important to remember that part of the decision to close it was made because, according to Rare, Arena players were THE main source of toxicity in the game (again, according to rare), partially due to streamer drama. HG is just as, if not more in some cases, toxic than Arena

[shouldntgivename]

Arena took more money to run than hourglass does now because its entirely separate servers. Its not totally any of the points you said. Hourglass can stay around because it doesn't cost anything extra.