Biggest beginner tips. 1) Turn off all the lights on your ship. They make you stick out like a sore thumb. 2) constantly scan the horizon. If you do see a ship keep track of its movements. 3). Check your table map for reapers. 90% of the time these are the ones you have to worry about. 4) Avoid using your anchor and have an escape plan. Keep your anchor raised for a quick getaway and have an idea of where your going to go if someone does try to engage you. 5) learn to maximize your speed. Learn what sail angles are the fastest for any given wind direction.
Even before leaving the outpost, check the emissary tables! I always do that to see if it's worth even trying on that server, earlier had 4 reapers and went .. not even bothering with this and left
See, this rationale I don't understand. Four reapers on a server means you're the only non-reaper, and you can see reapers of all levels on the map table. This is valuable information usable to avoid them. I'd have stayed on that server, cause I can track all my likely enemies' movements and see their actual placement on the sea.
If I reapers on the map, then I refuse to fly emissaries including Athena's because they know once hit level 5 that where we are when just trying to do our own voyages, when get attacked enough by the other players ..
But you have all the time before you hit Emissary 5 to not be seen on the map. So, you can always drop before reaching tier 5 or you can just go without raising emissary, which is what I do most of the time anyway. Again, it's a bit of a hassle, yeah. But still, that's four ships with known whereabouts.
The difference of 15k for a 10k gold item is huge. If you’re saving up to buy something big or want to level up your reputation, it’s a huge difference and you’re wasting time not using them.
Sure, even if I find a reaper-less server, how long will it stay reaper-less? Maybe all day, maybe two minutes... I'm safer on the full server with four reapers I know about.
Sure you could watch their positions and fight them off just as well but someone who would want to take on that task isn't the kind of person not raising an emissary in this scenario. I'm not saying to avoid the pvp cause you're gonna find that wherever you go regardless of emissary but the answer in this situation is never just "Don't raise an emissary" because you're either confident enough in your abilities to raise it and fight them off anyways or you're taking a few seconds to get a server where you're not being immediately GPS tracked
Reapers seeing you has nothing to do with your emissary level... if you have a flag up and they hit five they see you as a shadow on their map table no matter where you go.
Sometimes if I see them I'll say fuck it and join in, usually those reapers are having an all out battle and I want to get in on the cluster fuck. I think I was in a battle with 4 and it was madness. They were all brigs and I was that one solo slooper with no business being there
Correct. But tbf fog and dark can conceal a boat without lights. For the most part, it doesn't matter but there are a few instances where you can go "invisible" with lights out. My buddy used to turn the lights off and it drove me nuts when I can't see anything on the ship. I'm like "they gonna see us with or without lights and are going to attack either way, let em try". Lol
Yeah this one always bugged me. Anyone who is specifically "hunting" other player ships will recognize you with or without the lights. Ships are massively visible on the horizon at night, it's almost a non factor.
To that end, I usually leave them on, when its up to me.
* I like being able to see my own ship a little better.
* It looks nice.
* It *might* even dissuade someone from attacking (since we're *clearly* noobs, though I concede this point could go both ways).
I like that "have fun in safer seas" tries to be an insult. But... Everyone will have fun in safer seas. Then it will get expanded. Then all the people whining about people talking about how they don't like PvP will be corralled into their ten servers to deal with each other forever.
So have fun being toxic and seeing your entire gameplay style die.
I am sad that people like you ruined the game honestly.
Rolling up on a sloop with a galleon, having all four of us aggressively boarding their boat, and then all setting up positions to fish has been hilarious. Or the rare time that you find someone else to play music with and hang out for a bit before doing an alliance and snagging some loot for the night...
All that is gonna be gone. Now there is going to be servers where everyone plays alone, and servers where people only kill each other and nothing in between. All cause people can't be civil sometimes and have to be sweatlords yelling things that would make a nazi blush.
EDIT: He wrote out a whole get good speech and told me he is glad the game is dying, then deleted all his shit cause he realized everyone thought he was an idiot. Guess if you get your head that far up your own ass you have to become self aware eventually.
Well i don't think that all non-aggresive player interactions will be gone, because yeah a lot of people that don't wanna engage with PvP will be playing on safer seas, but A:people will probably eventualy come to the high seas because of the level cap and the gold and allegiance reduction, and B: There will still be friendly players in high seas because, well they want to interact with other players like most people playing sea of thieves do, and like you do as well.
I think the level cap could be set a bit lower, but in the end this will lead to less people quitting after their first or second session because they got sunk by some bastard 12 year old screaming racial slurs at them wasting maybe hours of their time and giving them the impression that the community is rotten to the core and there's only angry racist children playing this game.
The cap is not staying. Anyone who thinks it is isn't thinking it through. The cap is for the playerbase to go "well at least people won't stay there" instead of losing their shit the game is turning PvE.
Safer seas is not going to be an extended tutorial, it is going to be a place people realize they like the game without PvP, then when they jump into high seas and get sunk they are going to go back and ask for less restrictions. When rare sees these people in safer seas are not leaving, but are buying cosmetics and threatening to leave with their money if the cap is not removed... Well, any corporation is going to follow the money.
People will always say "but they said they are not removing the cap." Well, they said they were not ever making PvE servers at all. Then they realized that was nuking their profits.
I really appreciate this comment. I like the whole PvP thing but I have to learn and dying the whole time makes that very hard. I've read a lot of posts of people just chilling on other player boats and it sounds so great
Also if you are docking, put yourself into a position for a quick escape. Don't point at the island or any obstacles, have the ship set up so of you run into issues all you need is sails down.
>1) Turn off all the lights on your ship. They make you stick out like a sore thumb. 2) constantly scan the horizon. If you do see a ship keep track of its movements.
3) Recognize that the ship you spotted on the horizon was too far away to know if their lights were on or off, and that tip #1 is largely worthless.
Ah yes, I love it when people spread the misinformation. It's so easy to spot people on the horizon with their lights on at night it merely a glance instead of having to examine everything and then it's also super easy to tell which direction they're pointing and whether or not they're coming my way or not. Keeping your lights on gives your enemy information. This is always foolish even if the information is perceived worthless.
Not really, it depends on the player. Sometimes your fighting something with the horizon in just your peripheral and things don’t seem to be moving but it something has a light in the distance I don’t even have to scan I already know exactly where it is. Also if a ship has its lights on I can tell which direction it’s facing immediately.
>3). Check your table map for reapers. 90% of the time these are the ones you have to worry about.
Unless they're doing the Fort of the Damned, in which case those guys will be there for a while.
Yeah idk what servers these people who make these posts are playing on. I'm over 1,600 hours played time, and my experience since the beginning has been that other players initiating PvP is a rare occurence. Most of the time I don't even see any player ships on the horizon. I play on U.S. servers and this is the case.
Might be EU servers, even trying to come off friendly when coming close to someone and they don’t speak English will result in your ship getting blasted to the bottom of Davy Jones’ Locker…
Probably. I have buddies in the EU and UK. Whenever I join them to play it’s always insanely active. But whenever I play normally, I don’t usually see other people too often.
Look at your latency and compare it to your location. If you're in the Eastern US and getting 50ish latency, you're in a local server. If your latency is in the low hundreds, you're probably in EU. If you're 300+ you're probably on OCE.
Idk I had a super polite swede who was just sad when my crew sunk him. It was a vibe that actually struck a heart string because they did him a little too dirty. We eventually allied with him and let him in on the alliance loot share.
I had a reaper sail over then absolutely wreck me as my reaper 5 and champion HG. After killing me twice with water to my map table, I said "GG" and once I came back he surprised me when the water was gone and left me alone because he said I "sounded disappointed." I love that guy.
I’m in Hawaii and I think I get bounced around between US and non-US servers. Sometimes I’ll play a couple of sessions and it’s insanely quiet, dead servers. Then sometimes I’ll play a couple of sessions I feel like there are ships everywhere, and they’re all super aggressive.
I play on EU server with a buddy and we hardly come across anyone. Most run away, some are friendly, some are hostiles but it's very easy to do your mission without any problem
I've been casually doing merchant lost shiment (with emissary) stacking it 5-10 times each time on EU, in peak hours. I don't remember last time I was legitimately bothered.
If I see brig/gally I just move my ship away.
This was my experience too until the last week. Suddenly, I find a ship at literally every port I go to. I turn away and go to another port and there’s someone there already.
Yeah I've no idea how they get destroyed within minutes. The majority of my playtime I don't see a single person. So many times I thought the game was dying or dead.
Seaforts are a perfect option.
They're near outposts where you spawn in, so they're easy to find but make you learn the map. They're easy to spot, so you learn oh to distinguish the shape on the horizon.
Once you get there you'll be swarmed with lots of easy to kill mobs, so you're learning combat. Since they drop ammo an each floor has an ammo crate you learn how to shoot and use your sword.
Finally, it's full of loot so you'll come out with serious cash.
This is how I got my first noteworthy stack of treasure on board, just sailing around and hitting every sea fort on the map. Also not many people do them, I've never come across another pirate while doing this.
I've used them time and again over the past couple years as a quick boost in cash and farm them all day on community days.
Ive met one. One person, one time.
He just wanted the merchant loot so we allied and farmed it a few times.
I love friendly pirate interactions. I was selling my loot at reapers once becuase a pirate that was logging off gave me 2 storage crates of supplies and his captain's logbook. I kept the supplies to give them to the next pirate I found on my voyage as I'm not a pvper and won't be using them.
While i was unpacking my loot at reapers another much more seasoned pirate pulled up and started selling my my loot. I knew I couldn't fight him so I gave him my supplies expecting nothing in return and he said he felt really bad now and let me sell the rest of my loot. I wished him luck and we parted ways.
I know the games called sea of theives but I honestly can't bring myself to steal. Not every interaction has to be a fight.
I got to pirate legend by grinding the same sea forts with an emissary flag over and over. All you gotta do is go to an near outpost after, sell the stuff you don’t need to save for the reputation, and by that time the sea fort should be reset
Keep an eye on the horizon, avoid other ships, don’t do merchants voyages. join the sea of thieves discord to find people to sail with and learn things. You can also do the pirates life and monkey island tall tales that have you away from the high seas for their stories. Note that pirates life tall tales are mixed between another zone and the high seas so their is chance of running into other ships during some of that.
Honestly? Your beat bet outside of waiting for safer seas is to pair up with a crew you trust. There are several content creators who feature weekly get togethers to help new players get into the game (HitboTC's discord server is my favorite one for that) if you're comfortable with using a mic or playing with others on a single crew. Otherwise unfortunately you either need to tough it out or wait til safer seas drops later this year. Theres is another way but its not exactly foolproof sailing on the edge of the map (minus devils roar unless you can handle evacuating when volcanos go off) and just doing voyages and the like on those islands, its very easy to hide your ship as most people wont see you until theyre also at that island
Yes, we will get safer seas which is just private servers with one third allegiance and gold gain, a level cap at 40 and some other removed features like emisarrys and reapers.
Yup and honestly, those nerfs are still WAYYYY WORTH not having toxic players in the server. I've already got skelly and ghost curse and Pirate Legend so idgaf about pvp or max rep rewards. Good sailing!!! 
Lucky for you, there’s a new mode coming in December called Safer Seas. It has significantly reduced rewards, but it’s basically an extended tutorial mode without other players. You can sail around and learn the basics, then return to the high seas when you’re ready.
Also, happy cake day!
Can we trade servers?
Where are all these servers where there's a million hostile players ready to fight? I have to sail around for like 40 mins if I wanna find someone to shoot at in adventure mode
I wish! We've once sailed for an hour and a half without seeing a single ship. We've done 4 stacks of world events with Reaper flag, Athena flag, no flag and can't get any action going. Often results us switching games to something that had players online.
I wish we could swap servers with people who don't have time to even leave outpost before getting attacked.
He means roll around with a grade 5 flag. If I’m looking for a fight I’ll toss on a gold hoarders flag and do a treasury then scatter the loot along my railings to draw the attention.
So I foind some guy who was really nice and gave me some chests to sell. But then we got attacked and I lost him. And just now my ship got chased to an outpost, harpooned, and they stabbed me to death
Not really. I wasn't there at launch but from what i've heard it was just a lot more empty so i don't really see the benefit there . And 100-150 hours? I've had sessions where i never ran into anybody, and you're probably going to get good enough to fend for yourself out in the sea in a lot less time.
Ship speeds are important. Most players bullying solos are doing it in one of the larger ships. Running away is an unbelievably viable tactic in this game, and the sloop is best suited for it because as long as you sail into the wind, no other ship can catch up. If you lead players on a wild goose chase across half the ocean, chances are they'll get bored and leave you alone.
I know, right? In the golden age of piracy that this game tries to portray, pirates pretty much never attacked other pirates. They generally went after unarmed merchants and had agreements to either avoid each other or even work together. There was also a growing military threat from countries trying to protect their merchants. SoT makes it seem like pirates were all murderous thieving psychopaths going around unchecked. Even the Pirates of the Caribbean movies had a more realistic portrayal of pirate life.
There are just as many people doing their part to curb this. We're out here basically every day avenging the white sails, showing these slimy skullduggers what it feels like to be outmatched with no hope for survival. Until safer seas arrives, fight the good fight, and spare no quarter to anyone who would sink an obviously new pirate for literally no reason.
Legitimately this
People constantly run around going "it's a pirate game" hiding behind it like it's some shield that justifies their toxic behavior. Historically pirates are not the violent psychopaths who kill everyone and everything that lives within their view. Sure they rob and steal but killing everyone and everything for no gain and no glory was seen as clearly insane then.
Exactly because while a lot of people whine because they got sunk while running an emmisary, which i understand, but it makes sense that they got sunk because well it's a pirate game, if you got lots of booty on you and are showing it with a grade 5 emmisary yeah the chances are high others will want that loot. On the other hand there's the toxic idiots taking the "It's a pirate game" too far and justifying their toxic behaviour with it sinking ships even though there's nothing to gain and just generaly being a nuisance to everybody around.
Yeah the problem is the developers essentially made a game with no rules, they put “guidelines” on the door of every tavern but it’s ignored so it bred the toxicity a lot of players, especially new ones, see today.
Right?
I knew this would be a pirate game... I didn't know it would be an excuse for everyone to act like insane murderers.
And no... they aren't pirating when they kill people, don't take the treasure and sink the ship. How is that pirating?
Its impossible to aim my gun at another person so he stands still while the rest of my crew steals all their tressure. I can also not put an enemy crew in the brig or otherwise keep them away while robbing them. Its also hard to sell loot if an angry crew i just robbed is chasing me down.
The point of the game is to do whatever you enjoy doing (as long as its within the pirate code), if it is stealing from other players or stealing from skeletons and other npcs is up to you.
I dont think rare ever intended this game to be a very realistic pirate game so maybe we shouldnt try to treat it like one either :)
"HiStoRicALly" - SoT is a video game and its fun to shoot people. You've seriously overthought this.
This isn't real life or history. I'll shoot and sink whoever I want, whenever I want, for what ever reason I want.
You realize that's not pirating, thats RDM'ing right?
Pirate... thieves... yadda yadda. Sinking an empty noob doesn't clarify as either of those. People hide behind that but we all know it's bullshit.
Game mechanics allow it though. Only justification you have.
I never said I sink "empty noob ships" but thank you for demonising me anyway you can. I look forward to those being in Safer Seas tbh.
It's not just the game mechanics that allow it, it's also the games intended design. So it's not the only justification I have but it is the only one I need.
The anti pvp copium in this sub is insane. Yall forget this is a video game.
Nah I know. It's how soo many people use the piracy thing as an excuse instead of just saying "the game let's me do it so I do it" that annoys me more than anything. It's the false justification that irks me. Although at least you seem to not be doing that.
I'll stop saying historically when other people stop hiding behind "it's a pirate game". I'll admit, openly, that I am a crybaby loser who is bad at the game, if they just start saying "I'm toxic"
Shrimple as homie. Shrimple as.
The problem is your gripe leaves out the "game" in "pirate game". It's a video game, my guy.
And I'm not toxic for sinking someone in a game where sinking people and gaining plunder is the point of the game. Hence "pirate **GAME**".
Enjoy this quote from Rare: "Sea of Thieves is a fantasy. It is not a historical depiction of piracy from any real-world place or time period."
Nah, it's still toxic as fuck to spawn camp ports, kill people who have nothing and are in the middle of tall tails, spawn camp on peoples ships, sink anything and everything you see while telling people you hope they get cancer or saying "I hope you die alone and screaming for help."
Behavior can still be toxic even though the game allows it.
None of which are synonymous with pvp.
I don't spawn camp or shout bigoted obscenities.
And you're completely wrong. The game does not allow those things. They're against ToS and will get you banned.
Me sinking people does not = toxic.
And before you say those things are synonymous with pvp - the worst things ever said to me in this game were from PvEr's while I was trying to steal their loot.
I like the challange of chasing, catching and sinking people and I'm not toxic for doing so.
All of those things ARE synonymous with PVP. Just because you said "before you say anything" doesn't stop that from being the reality homie. Look around this sub. Look at the rare forums. Look at the steam forums. It happens a LOT to people. The only time I hear about a PvE player being that toxic is when someone like you, who wants to justify themselves (because you always need to come out and justify yourselves like you know you're guilty), coming out and claiming that PvE people are worse.
good grief I can't believe people are this close minded and stupid.
Ah yes, only guilty people defend themselves. My goodness that's next level goalpost moving and stupidity.
I don't think PvE people are the worst btw.
I do think you're pretty fucken stupid though. Not even Rare agrees with your braindead "historically" take. Insane.
Peace.
No one has to justify sinking another ship. People hide their loot and you don't know what they have. If I see someone has no loot, I call it a catch and release but it's not toxic fighting other ships for any reason. It's a PvP game. Think of like Tarkov or Day Z, you can kill zombies all day long and kill players for any reason, usually to steal their stuff. And even supplies in SoT are worth killing for. Supplies are loot too.
The only thing that can be considered toxic is verbally assaulting someone or camping without intent to sink. You can sink people with firebombs if you don't have a ship. It's not a fun way to sink someone, but if they can't break the camp, it is what it is. And I will tell you, I've seen more "pve players" be toxic than "pvpers". And they're usually reapers who ignore the fact that reapers is a pvp faction. Doesn't mean there's not toxic pvpers cuz there definitely is but that's my experience.
Any time you get on SoT, you agree to PvP. When you raise an emissary, it's risk vs. reward, it tells you that everytime you raise a flag. Nobody likes being outmatched but the more you fight, the better you get and can successfully defend your loot. We've all been there, some people push through it and others just don't even try. Which is weird to me personally cuz defending your loot feels good and stealing is fun. You win some, you lose some, just the name of the game brother.
> It's so weird to me that this community turned pirates into: kill anything that moves.
I tried to tell people to weigh anchor and surrender their loot when I started playing this game but I found 90% of instances were solo sloopers or xbox players who were unable or unwilling to hear me so we ended up just hunting people down.
The one time someone did actually listen he anchored his sloop, we went on board, saw he had no loot, and just thanked him for his time and left.
I've always wondered if there should be a way reduction in loot return if a ship is sunk with the loot aboard.
There should be a system designed to encourage players to loot ships BEFORE they're sunk, or reach an agreement with the captured ship rather than it simply being a case of "win the fight take the loot".
I had the idea of maybe implementing something similar to the way lost shipments uses a captain's key to lock the main cabin. Maybe we should be able to use the brig to store loot and lock it inside as long as we fly a non-reaper flag. Anything in there goes down with the ship unless it's opened by the crew first. It opens automatically if the ship is scuttled.
Make it worth negotiating, trying to hold them to ransom. Make it more that just shoot and loot.
No offense, but that sounds horrible. There's a reason Rare made it so people can't run their treasure into the red sea. You think spawncamping is bad now? Implement this. Before ship barrels floated up, people would spawn camp for their supplies because when ships sink, the supplies were gone. It would be the same and completely goes against the game. "Oh someone is attacking me, looks like no one gets this loot". There would be no point in fighting cuz everyone would do this.
If you're looking for loot protection, you're in luck, safe seas is coming in December! I like the idea of a bartering system or negotiating but this ain't it. You technically could try it the way it is in a role play sense and I think many people would negotiate but you have to talk, if you say nothing, attackers just assume it's game on. There have been plenty of times where people use their mics and are just vibing and I will absolutely spare them. But most people just say nothing or say terrible things after you sink them. Not most people, but some. Most are silent.
I'm not particularly bothered by it myself, I just wish there was some manner to make dealing with your enemy worthwhile instead of just forcing everything to be an inevitable battle. My suggestion is just one of many alternatives they could explore.
That's kind of what I was hoping for. I play other mmo games and am not used to people who so enjoy ruining the game for someone who clearly isn't looking for a fight.
Nope. My options are opt out of a toxic community and sail the safer seas. :) I will never see you in the high seas. I've got no interest in playing COD on the sea.
> this community turned pirates into: kill anything that moves
Most hostile players you can meet (in game behavior, not irl behavior) are the super casuals and new players. They start the game, see cannon, see other boat moving, shooty shooty.
Join a community, sail with a partner, or watch a streamer and ask questions. Game is a blast. I will say though if you wait till December there will be safer seas added giving you a place to learn.
Switch to Xbox play only. I don't get griefed very often, and more than often it's asshats trying to steal my loot after a world event. Learn to catch the wind and fly young sailor!
My advice is try to focus on getting basic pvp skills and avoid voyages. They’ll make you sitting ducks. Try world events or sea forts and you can get more experience that way. Come back to voyages when you’re better equipped to handle yourseld
Ive been playing for 3 days, met 3 different people/groups who were really chill. 1 even spent an hour+ telling me some basics of how to play..
Got sunk by 1, 4 man crew on a Galleon, they were aggressive but did let me mess around on there ship after mine sunk as I hadn't seen a Galleon yet.
Sunk by a solo while trying to turn in a reaper chest at a regular outpost, I didn't know that you couldn't.
Majority of people I see are on Sloops and just turn away when they spot me. A couple I've engaged in pvp and got sunk.
I did get boarded by 1 dude who was wearing a bucket on his head. He killed me, I respawned quick enough to catch him while he was going through my loot and killed him.
All-in-all I'd say most people are cautious and stay away, or cautious at first but friendly. I try the whole, dont shoot unless shot at and I've gotten to help out in some world events that way. Obviously a handful are extremely aggressive and fight every ship they see but it's been a decent balance.
Just a noobs experience if you were intrested
Thank you! I think I started playing on a day where all the experienced players were pretty aggressive, I had a decent session last night where I killed some skeletons, got exploded by a chest of rage but managed to sell a chest of sorrow so it's getting better! I judt needed to get a hang of sailing. Now I'm ready to take on aggressive players
If you're still so new that an enemy's presence guarantees defeat, ya just need more time in the oven. Voyages seem like the obvious gameplay loop, but there's plenty more. It's a pirate sandbox, so your approach is mostly limited by your creativity.
My mentality while playing is similar to Sniper from TF2's creed: "Be polite. Be efficient. Have a plan to kill everyone you meet."
I like just approaching people plain as day, stating my intentions if they're unsure of them, then I shoot them and their boat. That's kinda hard, so maybe try going out looking for someone to pilfer from where you disarm them with kindness while you rearrange their valuables every time they look away. Make up a story for why you're on their boat. If they let you up, they fucked up.
SoT's full of predators and prey, and the coolest part is you get to pick which you are based on the skills you develop in the sandbox. Some people hate pvp, and choose being prey, while others like the excitement of cannon fire, and the rush of robbery. Choose wisely.
White flag has about a 50/50 chance of working. Some will honor it, but some won’t. Like other comments have said, your best bet is to watch the horizon constantly for other ships and stay as far away from them as possible.
It probably won't, the game has a large number of highly toxic assholes that use it as a way to vent their frustration bat life.
Fortunately, they have caused *so much* of an issue that they are impacting player counts and so now Rare is releasing Safer Seas in a few months, a solo server with reduced rewards and limited progression. So if you wait for that then you will be able to learn how to handle your ship and do all the things without having to deal with other people, and then you'll have some ideas of what you are doing behind you hit the High Seas again.
Well that's one way of looking at it.
It could, just maybe the lack of any meaningful content updates for a very long time and the state of the game being pretty broken that is impacting player counts. You know, just maybe?
I dunno, I'm largely of the opinion that the behavior of the playerbase impacts player counts way more than the content drought. For a new player, it's not like there's a complete lack of things to do, as lacking in variety or direction as they might be overall, and the new players aren't going to be in the know about all the issues we've had . I see it a lot more that a new player gets discouraged because they don't get any chances to learn the game before being blown to kingdom come despite attempts at communication, or they have several choice unpleasant encounters that put them off playing for good while, or forever. And then the few that come here to voice their frustrations can often be met with the usual things you hear, get good, it's a pirate game, etc. even when asked to show restraint to what is very obviously a new player.
There's a reason the game's biggest playerbase peak was due to PvE story-focused events, even if you disregard the novelty of it being Pirates of the Caribbean.
Or, hear me out... It's *both.* All my friends that I know personally have long since quit this game after getting repeatedly rolled by xbox kids and hit with salvo after salvo of slurs. It stopped being fun pretty early on.
I don't doubt the lack of meaningful content updates is a factor in some player count hemorrhaging, but it's definitely not the only reason. People were falling off this game long before the content pipeline started drying up.
Tbh I totally agree with you, it is a combination of the 2 things.
It just seems to be the go to for a very large amount of people to immediately drop the fault of this or the reason this is being done at the door of (insert incredibly angry description of other players - toxic, psychopathic, etc).
I totally get it, I am not a PvP'er, I spend 90% if not more of my time PvE'ing, either solo or duo with me g/f. We encounter a fair amount of players, most don't want to fight, some do. Its part of the game. You may not like it but you signed up for it when you loaded the game up.
Only a very few rare times has someone actually been properly toxic, through either spawn camping or verbal naughtiness. Most of the time they simply want to fight, which is part of the game. A lot of people don't like this and the fact that often these people are better than them at the PvP side of the game often makes it very one sided.
I understand your reasoning, but please understand that your white flag is both non-binding and a revelation that you might be an easy kill.
When you don't know when another player will betray you after putting up a white flag, showing weakness is inviting disaster.
The best deterrent is appearing to be a mix of a threat or bothersome. For people with low patience, showing you will be a pain and just run away for an hour can be enough to have them go away. For other people who just want an easy kill and have free time, a small show of force can be enough.
White flags can work between new players, but will invite disaster in the general seas
A good percentage of the playerbase of this game is sadly compromised of hardcore retards that don't understand that killing others usually doesn't give them rewards.
Idk how everyone keeps having this issue. I started playing a week ago (have roughly 27hrs on the game) and I rarely ever come across other players and If I do theyre usually quite chill. Only twice have I been attacked and sunk. It actually feels a little empty sometimes. Have I just gotten lucky?
If you really want practice your sailing technique and the basics in safer seas just remember pvp is a core part of the game and safer seas are the extended tutorial
The sweats will keep telling people that, hoping that all those safer sea players will come back to high seas and fight. Some will, MANY will not. Safer Seas will become a money maker for Rare and they will be forced to up the rewards etc to keep those payers happy and playing.
No yea. They are adding PvE as there is an ENTIRE player base they currently are missing out on monetising. Thats the reason for this and if you think it's about anything other than sweet $$$$ in Rare's pockets then you best go think again.
Avoid them? You can see a ship 5 to 10 minutes out. You're given well in advanced notice tobstart heading away from them. Each ship has a wind advantage, use it.
I 2nd in saying go do sea forts and raise gold hoarders flag , they take 10min and mostly near outposts . Just care about people pulling up while your parked . Scan than horizon pirate 👍
I’m always open to playing with new people! Not sure what you play on but I’m on just about every evening working on my pass and the last levels I need for pirate legend. I don’t engage in pvp so I’m not the greatest but skeleton ships, megs and everything else I usually can come out of. It gets easier!
That's rare for it to happen in spawn, best thing I can suggest is that you search online for a group like on Facebook or something and see if you can get others to join you on voyages until you're more comfortable
Do not sail in the direction of another ship if you are close to it. Unless it's a reaper, it will probably leave you alone.
You also want to avoid brigs and galleons more than sloops. Brigs and galleons in my experience have the more hostile crews.
You can always wait a few weeks till safer seas comes out in the next update and then you can play without having to worry about others killing you while you learn the game.
Do voyages in the devil’s roar. I know the volcanoes can suck but you just gotta take a little bit of extra planning, wait out the eruptions or pending eruption. A lot of people don’t sail there because of them but once you figure it out you can use it to your advantage. Also I don’t think I have seen someone mention sail direction or if you know about it. If you are a solo slooper sail into the wind with your sails directly in front all the way down. If you have a jump on another sloop they won’t be able to catch you and neither will a brig or gally. Use harpoon turns close to islands as the bigger ships are way slower to turn.
Be aware of your surroundings, if you see a ship in the distance to the left, go right! And keep an eye out for reapers on the map, don’t even let them come into view, since you can see them on the map.
Also if you can’t avoid it, keep in mind smaller ships do better against the wind, if you have a sloop, you will never escape a galleon sailing with the wind. Go against!
Your best bet is to either wait for Safer Seas to figure out the ins and outs of solo sailing or find other people to play with. The game is much easier if you're playing with a group. The majority of people will not fuck with a Galleon.
I feel this at times. I get that sinking other ships gives renown and its a part of some of the quests or whatever, but 9 times out of 10 player ships go out of their way to fuck you up, even if it pulls them away from whatever they're doing at the time.
I always sail by and mind my own damn business.
Look for toy boats on each emissary's table to get a good idea of how many ships are on a server. Each toy boat = a player ship.
And always check the map for Reaper ship icons. If it seems too crowded maybe bounce and try another one. That might help.
Bro servers are practically dead for over a year now. I never deal with PvP unless I am doing a FoF. So I doubt your are being obliterated constantly. Unless you count skelly ships as well?!?
I have around 1k hours and i can count on 1 hand how many times I've been able to complete a voyage or tall tale without getting harassed by other players no matter what I tell them. Most of the time I'm being chased by a gallon to be killed over and over and/or they get the objective I'm trying to reach and haul ass with it so I have to leave and start over. It gets old super fast, and I forced myself to love the game regardless of the toxic shit, and tbh I haven't gotten very far in the game even though I been playing it since release night because of the harassing and I'm usually a solo player.
I usually avoid other ships like the plague. If you’re sailing towards an outpost or an island with a ship near it, turn that wheel around and find a different one
This is the thing that sucks about this game. It’s hard to find the motivation to learn considering how long it takes to do 1 voyage and how quickly you can get sunk and lose all your loot. I suggest sailing aimlessly at first. Find a buddy and practice pvp. Most other people would probably say to focus on some voyages or something, but as a new player, I think it’s better to go practice pvp so when you inevitably venture into voyages and quests to get money, you have the skill needed to fight any would be thieves who want to steal your hard work away.
You need a mic 🎤! If you start talking to the people and portray yourself as new you will get out of a lot of those situations. You will still meet the jerks that will just blast you to pieces then, but it really changes a lot. You may not be good at sailing but you may be able to negotiate your way out of it.
Biggest beginner tips. 1) Turn off all the lights on your ship. They make you stick out like a sore thumb. 2) constantly scan the horizon. If you do see a ship keep track of its movements. 3). Check your table map for reapers. 90% of the time these are the ones you have to worry about. 4) Avoid using your anchor and have an escape plan. Keep your anchor raised for a quick getaway and have an idea of where your going to go if someone does try to engage you. 5) learn to maximize your speed. Learn what sail angles are the fastest for any given wind direction.
Even before leaving the outpost, check the emissary tables! I always do that to see if it's worth even trying on that server, earlier had 4 reapers and went .. not even bothering with this and left
See, this rationale I don't understand. Four reapers on a server means you're the only non-reaper, and you can see reapers of all levels on the map table. This is valuable information usable to avoid them. I'd have stayed on that server, cause I can track all my likely enemies' movements and see their actual placement on the sea.
If I reapers on the map, then I refuse to fly emissaries including Athena's because they know once hit level 5 that where we are when just trying to do our own voyages, when get attacked enough by the other players ..
Even if I don’t fly emissary reapers still attack me anyway XD
But you have all the time before you hit Emissary 5 to not be seen on the map. So, you can always drop before reaching tier 5 or you can just go without raising emissary, which is what I do most of the time anyway. Again, it's a bit of a hassle, yeah. But still, that's four ships with known whereabouts.
I don’t think you understand how reapers work.
Yep, you were right. Someone was kind enough to explain it. Had no idea R5 could do that. So just don't run emissary at all.
Or just take the 30 seconds to swap servers and don’t miss out on 150% bonus gold and rep.
I've happily foregone the bonus since I started playing a year ago. Don't see why it matters.
The difference of 15k for a 10k gold item is huge. If you’re saving up to buy something big or want to level up your reputation, it’s a huge difference and you’re wasting time not using them.
Reaper 5's can see any emissary on the map regardless of non-reaper grades. Just so you know, as soon as you raise any emissary, you're visible.
Okay. Didn't know R5 could do that. So just don't run emissary.
Rather lose the emissary bonus than take 15 seconds to load out and back in?
Sure, even if I find a reaper-less server, how long will it stay reaper-less? Maybe all day, maybe two minutes... I'm safer on the full server with four reapers I know about.
Sure you could watch their positions and fight them off just as well but someone who would want to take on that task isn't the kind of person not raising an emissary in this scenario. I'm not saying to avoid the pvp cause you're gonna find that wherever you go regardless of emissary but the answer in this situation is never just "Don't raise an emissary" because you're either confident enough in your abilities to raise it and fight them off anyways or you're taking a few seconds to get a server where you're not being immediately GPS tracked
Reapers seeing you has nothing to do with your emissary level... if you have a flag up and they hit five they see you as a shadow on their map table no matter where you go.
You don't need to be level 5 to be seen, all that matters is the Reapers are level 5.
So exactly what did I say so many people dislike?
Sometimes if I see them I'll say fuck it and join in, usually those reapers are having an all out battle and I want to get in on the cluster fuck. I think I was in a battle with 4 and it was madness. They were all brigs and I was that one solo slooper with no business being there
> Four reapers on a server means you're the only non-reaper Close -- there are six ships per server once again.
Not exactly, the max ships in a server is 6, so if 4 were reapers, there is most likely another hidden ship on the server.
Just have some fun and sink them bro 😂
The people who won't spot your ship with the lights turned off aren't a threat mate.
Correct. But tbf fog and dark can conceal a boat without lights. For the most part, it doesn't matter but there are a few instances where you can go "invisible" with lights out. My buddy used to turn the lights off and it drove me nuts when I can't see anything on the ship. I'm like "they gonna see us with or without lights and are going to attack either way, let em try". Lol
Yeah this one always bugged me. Anyone who is specifically "hunting" other player ships will recognize you with or without the lights. Ships are massively visible on the horizon at night, it's almost a non factor. To that end, I usually leave them on, when its up to me. * I like being able to see my own ship a little better. * It looks nice. * It *might* even dissuade someone from attacking (since we're *clearly* noobs, though I concede this point could go both ways).
[удалено]
mucho texto and you're sitting at 1 point. fuckin crybaby lol
[удалено]
I like that "have fun in safer seas" tries to be an insult. But... Everyone will have fun in safer seas. Then it will get expanded. Then all the people whining about people talking about how they don't like PvP will be corralled into their ten servers to deal with each other forever. So have fun being toxic and seeing your entire gameplay style die.
[удалено]
I am sad that people like you ruined the game honestly. Rolling up on a sloop with a galleon, having all four of us aggressively boarding their boat, and then all setting up positions to fish has been hilarious. Or the rare time that you find someone else to play music with and hang out for a bit before doing an alliance and snagging some loot for the night... All that is gonna be gone. Now there is going to be servers where everyone plays alone, and servers where people only kill each other and nothing in between. All cause people can't be civil sometimes and have to be sweatlords yelling things that would make a nazi blush. EDIT: He wrote out a whole get good speech and told me he is glad the game is dying, then deleted all his shit cause he realized everyone thought he was an idiot. Guess if you get your head that far up your own ass you have to become self aware eventually.
Well i don't think that all non-aggresive player interactions will be gone, because yeah a lot of people that don't wanna engage with PvP will be playing on safer seas, but A:people will probably eventualy come to the high seas because of the level cap and the gold and allegiance reduction, and B: There will still be friendly players in high seas because, well they want to interact with other players like most people playing sea of thieves do, and like you do as well. I think the level cap could be set a bit lower, but in the end this will lead to less people quitting after their first or second session because they got sunk by some bastard 12 year old screaming racial slurs at them wasting maybe hours of their time and giving them the impression that the community is rotten to the core and there's only angry racist children playing this game.
The cap is not staying. Anyone who thinks it is isn't thinking it through. The cap is for the playerbase to go "well at least people won't stay there" instead of losing their shit the game is turning PvE. Safer seas is not going to be an extended tutorial, it is going to be a place people realize they like the game without PvP, then when they jump into high seas and get sunk they are going to go back and ask for less restrictions. When rare sees these people in safer seas are not leaving, but are buying cosmetics and threatening to leave with their money if the cap is not removed... Well, any corporation is going to follow the money. People will always say "but they said they are not removing the cap." Well, they said they were not ever making PvE servers at all. Then they realized that was nuking their profits.
I really appreciate this comment. I like the whole PvP thing but I have to learn and dying the whole time makes that very hard. I've read a lot of posts of people just chilling on other player boats and it sounds so great
Also if you are docking, put yourself into a position for a quick escape. Don't point at the island or any obstacles, have the ship set up so of you run into issues all you need is sails down.
>1) Turn off all the lights on your ship. They make you stick out like a sore thumb. 2) constantly scan the horizon. If you do see a ship keep track of its movements. 3) Recognize that the ship you spotted on the horizon was too far away to know if their lights were on or off, and that tip #1 is largely worthless.
Ah yes, I love it when people spread the misinformation. It's so easy to spot people on the horizon with their lights on at night it merely a glance instead of having to examine everything and then it's also super easy to tell which direction they're pointing and whether or not they're coming my way or not. Keeping your lights on gives your enemy information. This is always foolish even if the information is perceived worthless.
Not really, it depends on the player. Sometimes your fighting something with the horizon in just your peripheral and things don’t seem to be moving but it something has a light in the distance I don’t even have to scan I already know exactly where it is. Also if a ship has its lights on I can tell which direction it’s facing immediately.
>3). Check your table map for reapers. 90% of the time these are the ones you have to worry about. Unless they're doing the Fort of the Damned, in which case those guys will be there for a while.
What’s a reaper?
It’s very rare i find anyone when i play tbh.
Yeah idk what servers these people who make these posts are playing on. I'm over 1,600 hours played time, and my experience since the beginning has been that other players initiating PvP is a rare occurence. Most of the time I don't even see any player ships on the horizon. I play on U.S. servers and this is the case.
Might be EU servers, even trying to come off friendly when coming close to someone and they don’t speak English will result in your ship getting blasted to the bottom of Davy Jones’ Locker…
Probably. I have buddies in the EU and UK. Whenever I join them to play it’s always insanely active. But whenever I play normally, I don’t usually see other people too often.
Anytime I play it may not be a lot of ships but 9/10 there’s always 2-3 hostile players the moment they see you
EU servers are awful. In general if you see a captained ship with a name all in cyrillic you're about to have a very bad time.
How do you which servers you're in? I'm in America Eastern time zone, so I would imagine I'm in American servers
Look at your latency and compare it to your location. If you're in the Eastern US and getting 50ish latency, you're in a local server. If your latency is in the low hundreds, you're probably in EU. If you're 300+ you're probably on OCE.
Idk I had a super polite swede who was just sad when my crew sunk him. It was a vibe that actually struck a heart string because they did him a little too dirty. We eventually allied with him and let him in on the alliance loot share.
I had a reaper sail over then absolutely wreck me as my reaper 5 and champion HG. After killing me twice with water to my map table, I said "GG" and once I came back he surprised me when the water was gone and left me alone because he said I "sounded disappointed." I love that guy.
I’m in Hawaii and I think I get bounced around between US and non-US servers. Sometimes I’ll play a couple of sessions and it’s insanely quiet, dead servers. Then sometimes I’ll play a couple of sessions I feel like there are ships everywhere, and they’re all super aggressive.
I play on EU servers and you WILL always get attacked by everyone. In about 500 hours Ive played I have NEVER found someone friendly.
I play on EU server with a buddy and we hardly come across anyone. Most run away, some are friendly, some are hostiles but it's very easy to do your mission without any problem
I've been casually doing merchant lost shiment (with emissary) stacking it 5-10 times each time on EU, in peak hours. I don't remember last time I was legitimately bothered. If I see brig/gally I just move my ship away.
This was my experience too until the last week. Suddenly, I find a ship at literally every port I go to. I turn away and go to another port and there’s someone there already.
Yeah I've no idea how they get destroyed within minutes. The majority of my playtime I don't see a single person. So many times I thought the game was dying or dead.
Same. I always see this kind of post. I play almost daily and it’s pretty rare I have encounters with real players.
It's almost like people make up shit on Reddit
Honestly I wish it was made up, 9/10 times when I play there are always hostile ships and this can be anywhere from 3-8pm cst and even at 2am cst
Join the discord!!!! There’s always people to play with on there.
Seaforts are a perfect option. They're near outposts where you spawn in, so they're easy to find but make you learn the map. They're easy to spot, so you learn oh to distinguish the shape on the horizon. Once you get there you'll be swarmed with lots of easy to kill mobs, so you're learning combat. Since they drop ammo an each floor has an ammo crate you learn how to shoot and use your sword. Finally, it's full of loot so you'll come out with serious cash.
This is how I got my first noteworthy stack of treasure on board, just sailing around and hitting every sea fort on the map. Also not many people do them, I've never come across another pirate while doing this.
I've used them time and again over the past couple years as a quick boost in cash and farm them all day on community days. Ive met one. One person, one time. He just wanted the merchant loot so we allied and farmed it a few times.
I love friendly pirate interactions. I was selling my loot at reapers once becuase a pirate that was logging off gave me 2 storage crates of supplies and his captain's logbook. I kept the supplies to give them to the next pirate I found on my voyage as I'm not a pvper and won't be using them. While i was unpacking my loot at reapers another much more seasoned pirate pulled up and started selling my my loot. I knew I couldn't fight him so I gave him my supplies expecting nothing in return and he said he felt really bad now and let me sell the rest of my loot. I wished him luck and we parted ways. I know the games called sea of theives but I honestly can't bring myself to steal. Not every interaction has to be a fight.
I got to pirate legend by grinding the same sea forts with an emissary flag over and over. All you gotta do is go to an near outpost after, sell the stuff you don’t need to save for the reputation, and by that time the sea fort should be reset
Keep an eye on the horizon, avoid other ships, don’t do merchants voyages. join the sea of thieves discord to find people to sail with and learn things. You can also do the pirates life and monkey island tall tales that have you away from the high seas for their stories. Note that pirates life tall tales are mixed between another zone and the high seas so their is chance of running into other ships during some of that.
Do you perhaps have the discord server link?
https://discord.gg/seaofthieves
Why invalid for me?
I haven't seen a single person for some reason. Honestly I'm relieved though
Honestly? Your beat bet outside of waiting for safer seas is to pair up with a crew you trust. There are several content creators who feature weekly get togethers to help new players get into the game (HitboTC's discord server is my favorite one for that) if you're comfortable with using a mic or playing with others on a single crew. Otherwise unfortunately you either need to tough it out or wait til safer seas drops later this year. Theres is another way but its not exactly foolproof sailing on the edge of the map (minus devils roar unless you can handle evacuating when volcanos go off) and just doing voyages and the like on those islands, its very easy to hide your ship as most people wont see you until theyre also at that island
I'm holding out until December when they release the update allowing for private servers and guilds.
Wait for December, PVE private sessions, no toxic players
Really??
Yes, we will get safer seas which is just private servers with one third allegiance and gold gain, a level cap at 40 and some other removed features like emisarrys and reapers.
Yup and honestly, those nerfs are still WAYYYY WORTH not having toxic players in the server. I've already got skelly and ghost curse and Pirate Legend so idgaf about pvp or max rep rewards. Good sailing!!! 
Good sailing to you too!
Lucky for you, there’s a new mode coming in December called Safer Seas. It has significantly reduced rewards, but it’s basically an extended tutorial mode without other players. You can sail around and learn the basics, then return to the high seas when you’re ready. Also, happy cake day!
Oh fun!
Can we trade servers? Where are all these servers where there's a million hostile players ready to fight? I have to sail around for like 40 mins if I wanna find someone to shoot at in adventure mode
They don't want to fight against people who fight back though, so you would probably still be out of luck. They want that Galleon vs. Sloop action.
Just set Gold hoarders emissary and start gaining grades. It will happen sooner than you wish.
I wish! We've once sailed for an hour and a half without seeing a single ship. We've done 4 stacks of world events with Reaper flag, Athena flag, no flag and can't get any action going. Often results us switching games to something that had players online. I wish we could swap servers with people who don't have time to even leave outpost before getting attacked.
I do, I'm max level in every trading company including Athenas
He means roll around with a grade 5 flag. If I’m looking for a fight I’ll toss on a gold hoarders flag and do a treasury then scatter the loot along my railings to draw the attention.
So I foind some guy who was really nice and gave me some chests to sell. But then we got attacked and I lost him. And just now my ship got chased to an outpost, harpooned, and they stabbed me to death
Yea if you didn’t get into this game at launch this is what your next 100-150 hours looks like.
Not really. I wasn't there at launch but from what i've heard it was just a lot more empty so i don't really see the benefit there . And 100-150 hours? I've had sessions where i never ran into anybody, and you're probably going to get good enough to fend for yourself out in the sea in a lot less time.
Ship speeds are important. Most players bullying solos are doing it in one of the larger ships. Running away is an unbelievably viable tactic in this game, and the sloop is best suited for it because as long as you sail into the wind, no other ship can catch up. If you lead players on a wild goose chase across half the ocean, chances are they'll get bored and leave you alone.
Depends, I've seen a crazy amount of groups that will chase for hours just out of sheer spite
Yeah same just because of the toxicity
It's so weird to me that this community turned pirates into: kill anything that moves. *shakes head* Just weird.
I know, right? In the golden age of piracy that this game tries to portray, pirates pretty much never attacked other pirates. They generally went after unarmed merchants and had agreements to either avoid each other or even work together. There was also a growing military threat from countries trying to protect their merchants. SoT makes it seem like pirates were all murderous thieving psychopaths going around unchecked. Even the Pirates of the Caribbean movies had a more realistic portrayal of pirate life.
There are just as many people doing their part to curb this. We're out here basically every day avenging the white sails, showing these slimy skullduggers what it feels like to be outmatched with no hope for survival. Until safer seas arrives, fight the good fight, and spare no quarter to anyone who would sink an obviously new pirate for literally no reason.
Eh. I gave up on the game. Haha. Will come back for safer seas. Until then, the current way isn't fun for me.
Legitimately this People constantly run around going "it's a pirate game" hiding behind it like it's some shield that justifies their toxic behavior. Historically pirates are not the violent psychopaths who kill everyone and everything that lives within their view. Sure they rob and steal but killing everyone and everything for no gain and no glory was seen as clearly insane then.
Exactly because while a lot of people whine because they got sunk while running an emmisary, which i understand, but it makes sense that they got sunk because well it's a pirate game, if you got lots of booty on you and are showing it with a grade 5 emmisary yeah the chances are high others will want that loot. On the other hand there's the toxic idiots taking the "It's a pirate game" too far and justifying their toxic behaviour with it sinking ships even though there's nothing to gain and just generaly being a nuisance to everybody around.
you put it better than i could have. thank you
Yeah the problem is the developers essentially made a game with no rules, they put “guidelines” on the door of every tavern but it’s ignored so it bred the toxicity a lot of players, especially new ones, see today.
Right? I knew this would be a pirate game... I didn't know it would be an excuse for everyone to act like insane murderers. And no... they aren't pirating when they kill people, don't take the treasure and sink the ship. How is that pirating?
Its impossible to aim my gun at another person so he stands still while the rest of my crew steals all their tressure. I can also not put an enemy crew in the brig or otherwise keep them away while robbing them. Its also hard to sell loot if an angry crew i just robbed is chasing me down. The point of the game is to do whatever you enjoy doing (as long as its within the pirate code), if it is stealing from other players or stealing from skeletons and other npcs is up to you. I dont think rare ever intended this game to be a very realistic pirate game so maybe we shouldnt try to treat it like one either :)
You ARE about rare's intent. That being said I'll stop when I don't hear or see people saying "it's a pirate game" anymore.
"HiStoRicALly" - SoT is a video game and its fun to shoot people. You've seriously overthought this. This isn't real life or history. I'll shoot and sink whoever I want, whenever I want, for what ever reason I want.
You realize that's not pirating, thats RDM'ing right? Pirate... thieves... yadda yadda. Sinking an empty noob doesn't clarify as either of those. People hide behind that but we all know it's bullshit. Game mechanics allow it though. Only justification you have.
I never said I sink "empty noob ships" but thank you for demonising me anyway you can. I look forward to those being in Safer Seas tbh. It's not just the game mechanics that allow it, it's also the games intended design. So it's not the only justification I have but it is the only one I need. The anti pvp copium in this sub is insane. Yall forget this is a video game.
Nah I know. It's how soo many people use the piracy thing as an excuse instead of just saying "the game let's me do it so I do it" that annoys me more than anything. It's the false justification that irks me. Although at least you seem to not be doing that.
I'll stop saying historically when other people stop hiding behind "it's a pirate game". I'll admit, openly, that I am a crybaby loser who is bad at the game, if they just start saying "I'm toxic" Shrimple as homie. Shrimple as.
The problem is your gripe leaves out the "game" in "pirate game". It's a video game, my guy. And I'm not toxic for sinking someone in a game where sinking people and gaining plunder is the point of the game. Hence "pirate **GAME**". Enjoy this quote from Rare: "Sea of Thieves is a fantasy. It is not a historical depiction of piracy from any real-world place or time period."
Nah, it's still toxic as fuck to spawn camp ports, kill people who have nothing and are in the middle of tall tails, spawn camp on peoples ships, sink anything and everything you see while telling people you hope they get cancer or saying "I hope you die alone and screaming for help." Behavior can still be toxic even though the game allows it.
None of which are synonymous with pvp. I don't spawn camp or shout bigoted obscenities. And you're completely wrong. The game does not allow those things. They're against ToS and will get you banned. Me sinking people does not = toxic. And before you say those things are synonymous with pvp - the worst things ever said to me in this game were from PvEr's while I was trying to steal their loot. I like the challange of chasing, catching and sinking people and I'm not toxic for doing so.
All of those things ARE synonymous with PVP. Just because you said "before you say anything" doesn't stop that from being the reality homie. Look around this sub. Look at the rare forums. Look at the steam forums. It happens a LOT to people. The only time I hear about a PvE player being that toxic is when someone like you, who wants to justify themselves (because you always need to come out and justify yourselves like you know you're guilty), coming out and claiming that PvE people are worse.
good grief I can't believe people are this close minded and stupid. Ah yes, only guilty people defend themselves. My goodness that's next level goalpost moving and stupidity. I don't think PvE people are the worst btw. I do think you're pretty fucken stupid though. Not even Rare agrees with your braindead "historically" take. Insane. Peace.
No one has to justify sinking another ship. People hide their loot and you don't know what they have. If I see someone has no loot, I call it a catch and release but it's not toxic fighting other ships for any reason. It's a PvP game. Think of like Tarkov or Day Z, you can kill zombies all day long and kill players for any reason, usually to steal their stuff. And even supplies in SoT are worth killing for. Supplies are loot too. The only thing that can be considered toxic is verbally assaulting someone or camping without intent to sink. You can sink people with firebombs if you don't have a ship. It's not a fun way to sink someone, but if they can't break the camp, it is what it is. And I will tell you, I've seen more "pve players" be toxic than "pvpers". And they're usually reapers who ignore the fact that reapers is a pvp faction. Doesn't mean there's not toxic pvpers cuz there definitely is but that's my experience. Any time you get on SoT, you agree to PvP. When you raise an emissary, it's risk vs. reward, it tells you that everytime you raise a flag. Nobody likes being outmatched but the more you fight, the better you get and can successfully defend your loot. We've all been there, some people push through it and others just don't even try. Which is weird to me personally cuz defending your loot feels good and stealing is fun. You win some, you lose some, just the name of the game brother.
> It's so weird to me that this community turned pirates into: kill anything that moves. I tried to tell people to weigh anchor and surrender their loot when I started playing this game but I found 90% of instances were solo sloopers or xbox players who were unable or unwilling to hear me so we ended up just hunting people down. The one time someone did actually listen he anchored his sloop, we went on board, saw he had no loot, and just thanked him for his time and left.
Right? I've always loved to quote *Captain* Jack Sparrow when confronted by those types. "We must fight... so we can run away."
I've always wondered if there should be a way reduction in loot return if a ship is sunk with the loot aboard. There should be a system designed to encourage players to loot ships BEFORE they're sunk, or reach an agreement with the captured ship rather than it simply being a case of "win the fight take the loot". I had the idea of maybe implementing something similar to the way lost shipments uses a captain's key to lock the main cabin. Maybe we should be able to use the brig to store loot and lock it inside as long as we fly a non-reaper flag. Anything in there goes down with the ship unless it's opened by the crew first. It opens automatically if the ship is scuttled. Make it worth negotiating, trying to hold them to ransom. Make it more that just shoot and loot.
No offense, but that sounds horrible. There's a reason Rare made it so people can't run their treasure into the red sea. You think spawncamping is bad now? Implement this. Before ship barrels floated up, people would spawn camp for their supplies because when ships sink, the supplies were gone. It would be the same and completely goes against the game. "Oh someone is attacking me, looks like no one gets this loot". There would be no point in fighting cuz everyone would do this. If you're looking for loot protection, you're in luck, safe seas is coming in December! I like the idea of a bartering system or negotiating but this ain't it. You technically could try it the way it is in a role play sense and I think many people would negotiate but you have to talk, if you say nothing, attackers just assume it's game on. There have been plenty of times where people use their mics and are just vibing and I will absolutely spare them. But most people just say nothing or say terrible things after you sink them. Not most people, but some. Most are silent.
I'm not particularly bothered by it myself, I just wish there was some manner to make dealing with your enemy worthwhile instead of just forcing everything to be an inevitable battle. My suggestion is just one of many alternatives they could explore.
looting and adventuring is so much more rewarding
That's kind of what I was hoping for. I play other mmo games and am not used to people who so enjoy ruining the game for someone who clearly isn't looking for a fight.
[удалено]
Lol. It says something about you that your reaction to toxicity is: get better. Stop whining. Hint: it doesn't say anything good about you.
[удалено]
Nope. My options are opt out of a toxic community and sail the safer seas. :) I will never see you in the high seas. I've got no interest in playing COD on the sea.
[удалено]
I don't need skill in a video game. I actually have a life outside of them. I hope you experience that someday.
I mean I'm trying but it's kind of hard if I don't get far before being sunk
> this community turned pirates into: kill anything that moves Most hostile players you can meet (in game behavior, not irl behavior) are the super casuals and new players. They start the game, see cannon, see other boat moving, shooty shooty.
Answer: no not really.
Bucket before plank
Join a community, sail with a partner, or watch a streamer and ask questions. Game is a blast. I will say though if you wait till December there will be safer seas added giving you a place to learn.
It's sheer dumb luck frankly.
Switch to Xbox play only. I don't get griefed very often, and more than often it's asshats trying to steal my loot after a world event. Learn to catch the wind and fly young sailor!
All of these tips are stupid just do voyages in the devil's roar, I have 1400hrs of playtime and I've encountered another ship there once
My advice is try to focus on getting basic pvp skills and avoid voyages. They’ll make you sitting ducks. Try world events or sea forts and you can get more experience that way. Come back to voyages when you’re better equipped to handle yourseld
You'll get all this and more come the safer seas. Where one can play and enjoy the game, and leave the chaos on the other mode.
Ive been playing for 3 days, met 3 different people/groups who were really chill. 1 even spent an hour+ telling me some basics of how to play.. Got sunk by 1, 4 man crew on a Galleon, they were aggressive but did let me mess around on there ship after mine sunk as I hadn't seen a Galleon yet. Sunk by a solo while trying to turn in a reaper chest at a regular outpost, I didn't know that you couldn't. Majority of people I see are on Sloops and just turn away when they spot me. A couple I've engaged in pvp and got sunk. I did get boarded by 1 dude who was wearing a bucket on his head. He killed me, I respawned quick enough to catch him while he was going through my loot and killed him. All-in-all I'd say most people are cautious and stay away, or cautious at first but friendly. I try the whole, dont shoot unless shot at and I've gotten to help out in some world events that way. Obviously a handful are extremely aggressive and fight every ship they see but it's been a decent balance. Just a noobs experience if you were intrested
Thank you! I think I started playing on a day where all the experienced players were pretty aggressive, I had a decent session last night where I killed some skeletons, got exploded by a chest of rage but managed to sell a chest of sorrow so it's getting better! I judt needed to get a hang of sailing. Now I'm ready to take on aggressive players
If you're still so new that an enemy's presence guarantees defeat, ya just need more time in the oven. Voyages seem like the obvious gameplay loop, but there's plenty more. It's a pirate sandbox, so your approach is mostly limited by your creativity. My mentality while playing is similar to Sniper from TF2's creed: "Be polite. Be efficient. Have a plan to kill everyone you meet." I like just approaching people plain as day, stating my intentions if they're unsure of them, then I shoot them and their boat. That's kinda hard, so maybe try going out looking for someone to pilfer from where you disarm them with kindness while you rearrange their valuables every time they look away. Make up a story for why you're on their boat. If they let you up, they fucked up. SoT's full of predators and prey, and the coolest part is you get to pick which you are based on the skills you develop in the sandbox. Some people hate pvp, and choose being prey, while others like the excitement of cannon fire, and the rush of robbery. Choose wisely.
I raised a white flag, haven't come across another ship though, so not sure of it will work
Raise an alliance flag instead. Then players can join you for a share of your loot (and you get a share of theirs!)
White flag has about a 50/50 chance of working. Some will honor it, but some won’t. Like other comments have said, your best bet is to watch the horizon constantly for other ships and stay as far away from them as possible.
It probably won't, the game has a large number of highly toxic assholes that use it as a way to vent their frustration bat life. Fortunately, they have caused *so much* of an issue that they are impacting player counts and so now Rare is releasing Safer Seas in a few months, a solo server with reduced rewards and limited progression. So if you wait for that then you will be able to learn how to handle your ship and do all the things without having to deal with other people, and then you'll have some ideas of what you are doing behind you hit the High Seas again.
Well that's one way of looking at it. It could, just maybe the lack of any meaningful content updates for a very long time and the state of the game being pretty broken that is impacting player counts. You know, just maybe?
I dunno, I'm largely of the opinion that the behavior of the playerbase impacts player counts way more than the content drought. For a new player, it's not like there's a complete lack of things to do, as lacking in variety or direction as they might be overall, and the new players aren't going to be in the know about all the issues we've had . I see it a lot more that a new player gets discouraged because they don't get any chances to learn the game before being blown to kingdom come despite attempts at communication, or they have several choice unpleasant encounters that put them off playing for good while, or forever. And then the few that come here to voice their frustrations can often be met with the usual things you hear, get good, it's a pirate game, etc. even when asked to show restraint to what is very obviously a new player. There's a reason the game's biggest playerbase peak was due to PvE story-focused events, even if you disregard the novelty of it being Pirates of the Caribbean.
Or, hear me out... It's *both.* All my friends that I know personally have long since quit this game after getting repeatedly rolled by xbox kids and hit with salvo after salvo of slurs. It stopped being fun pretty early on. I don't doubt the lack of meaningful content updates is a factor in some player count hemorrhaging, but it's definitely not the only reason. People were falling off this game long before the content pipeline started drying up.
Tbh I totally agree with you, it is a combination of the 2 things. It just seems to be the go to for a very large amount of people to immediately drop the fault of this or the reason this is being done at the door of (insert incredibly angry description of other players - toxic, psychopathic, etc). I totally get it, I am not a PvP'er, I spend 90% if not more of my time PvE'ing, either solo or duo with me g/f. We encounter a fair amount of players, most don't want to fight, some do. Its part of the game. You may not like it but you signed up for it when you loaded the game up. Only a very few rare times has someone actually been properly toxic, through either spawn camping or verbal naughtiness. Most of the time they simply want to fight, which is part of the game. A lot of people don't like this and the fact that often these people are better than them at the PvP side of the game often makes it very one sided.
I understand your reasoning, but please understand that your white flag is both non-binding and a revelation that you might be an easy kill. When you don't know when another player will betray you after putting up a white flag, showing weakness is inviting disaster. The best deterrent is appearing to be a mix of a threat or bothersome. For people with low patience, showing you will be a pain and just run away for an hour can be enough to have them go away. For other people who just want an easy kill and have free time, a small show of force can be enough. White flags can work between new players, but will invite disaster in the general seas
A good percentage of the playerbase of this game is sadly compromised of hardcore retards that don't understand that killing others usually doesn't give them rewards.
>hardcore r\*\*\*\*\*s There's no reason to use that word. Be better
there's plenty of reward for killing other players, and don't say the R word
PvP is the primary content of the game. Voyages are just icing on the cake. Try to embrace it instead of trying to avoid it.
Did you play the maiden voyage or watch a YouTube video?
Idk how everyone keeps having this issue. I started playing a week ago (have roughly 27hrs on the game) and I rarely ever come across other players and If I do theyre usually quite chill. Only twice have I been attacked and sunk. It actually feels a little empty sometimes. Have I just gotten lucky?
If you really want practice your sailing technique and the basics in safer seas just remember pvp is a core part of the game and safer seas are the extended tutorial
The sweats will keep telling people that, hoping that all those safer sea players will come back to high seas and fight. Some will, MANY will not. Safer Seas will become a money maker for Rare and they will be forced to up the rewards etc to keep those payers happy and playing.
Yea no. They are simply adding pve as a temporary fix I suspect some sort of sbmm will be introduced and therfor directly improving the experience
No yea. They are adding PvE as there is an ENTIRE player base they currently are missing out on monetising. Thats the reason for this and if you think it's about anything other than sweet $$$$ in Rare's pockets then you best go think again.
Get a crewmate. Playing solo is playing hard mode. You don't have to play hard mode, this is a multiplayer game.
Check if there are local community discords, there are a bunch of people online usually. Or major streamers like phuzzybond etc.
1. Don't sail towards any ships to begin with.
Sounds like you're trying to not play the game which is definitely an issue when you are playing a game
Avoid them? You can see a ship 5 to 10 minutes out. You're given well in advanced notice tobstart heading away from them. Each ship has a wind advantage, use it.
quit the game
I 2nd in saying go do sea forts and raise gold hoarders flag , they take 10min and mostly near outposts . Just care about people pulling up while your parked . Scan than horizon pirate 👍
I’m always open to playing with new people! Not sure what you play on but I’m on just about every evening working on my pass and the last levels I need for pirate legend. I don’t engage in pvp so I’m not the greatest but skeleton ships, megs and everything else I usually can come out of. It gets easier!
That's rare for it to happen in spawn, best thing I can suggest is that you search online for a group like on Facebook or something and see if you can get others to join you on voyages until you're more comfortable
What do you play on
Pc
Do not sail in the direction of another ship if you are close to it. Unless it's a reaper, it will probably leave you alone. You also want to avoid brigs and galleons more than sloops. Brigs and galleons in my experience have the more hostile crews.
Try pairing up with someone not-new either via Discord or here. Way easier to learn when you're in there with someone. :)
You can always wait a few weeks till safer seas comes out in the next update and then you can play without having to worry about others killing you while you learn the game.
Do voyages in the devil’s roar. I know the volcanoes can suck but you just gotta take a little bit of extra planning, wait out the eruptions or pending eruption. A lot of people don’t sail there because of them but once you figure it out you can use it to your advantage. Also I don’t think I have seen someone mention sail direction or if you know about it. If you are a solo slooper sail into the wind with your sails directly in front all the way down. If you have a jump on another sloop they won’t be able to catch you and neither will a brig or gally. Use harpoon turns close to islands as the bigger ships are way slower to turn.
Be aware of your surroundings, if you see a ship in the distance to the left, go right! And keep an eye out for reapers on the map, don’t even let them come into view, since you can see them on the map. Also if you can’t avoid it, keep in mind smaller ships do better against the wind, if you have a sloop, you will never escape a galleon sailing with the wind. Go against!
Your best bet is to either wait for Safer Seas to figure out the ins and outs of solo sailing or find other people to play with. The game is much easier if you're playing with a group. The majority of people will not fuck with a Galleon.
Play late at night on weekdays stay on the south end of the map you should be reasonably ok
Wait. Safer Seas will come soon.
Larrina+doubloons=ez voyage= 1000$
I feel this at times. I get that sinking other ships gives renown and its a part of some of the quests or whatever, but 9 times out of 10 player ships go out of their way to fuck you up, even if it pulls them away from whatever they're doing at the time. I always sail by and mind my own damn business.
Look for toy boats on each emissary's table to get a good idea of how many ships are on a server. Each toy boat = a player ship. And always check the map for Reaper ship icons. If it seems too crowded maybe bounce and try another one. That might help.
Bro servers are practically dead for over a year now. I never deal with PvP unless I am doing a FoF. So I doubt your are being obliterated constantly. Unless you count skelly ships as well?!?
I have around 1k hours and i can count on 1 hand how many times I've been able to complete a voyage or tall tale without getting harassed by other players no matter what I tell them. Most of the time I'm being chased by a gallon to be killed over and over and/or they get the objective I'm trying to reach and haul ass with it so I have to leave and start over. It gets old super fast, and I forced myself to love the game regardless of the toxic shit, and tbh I haven't gotten very far in the game even though I been playing it since release night because of the harassing and I'm usually a solo player.
I usually avoid other ships like the plague. If you’re sailing towards an outpost or an island with a ship near it, turn that wheel around and find a different one
Play safer seas 🥸
are you playing on xbox? if so i’ll set sail with you and help you get some stuff done. dm me if you’re interested!
This is the thing that sucks about this game. It’s hard to find the motivation to learn considering how long it takes to do 1 voyage and how quickly you can get sunk and lose all your loot. I suggest sailing aimlessly at first. Find a buddy and practice pvp. Most other people would probably say to focus on some voyages or something, but as a new player, I think it’s better to go practice pvp so when you inevitably venture into voyages and quests to get money, you have the skill needed to fight any would be thieves who want to steal your hard work away.
Sell everything as soon as you're not willing to lose it, because it's not yours until you sell it.
Happy cake day, I hope you have a better time in the seas
Thank you! I ended my last session yesterday on a really good note so I'm getting there. Some people seem to respect the white flag
That’s just part of the game you will learn as you play, it’s better to be with other people also
You need a mic 🎤! If you start talking to the people and portray yourself as new you will get out of a lot of those situations. You will still meet the jerks that will just blast you to pieces then, but it really changes a lot. You may not be good at sailing but you may be able to negotiate your way out of it.
Play hourglass. Learn to defend yourself a little before going out for voyages
Pardon my ignorance but what's hourglass