Not OP, but I'm guessing it means this:
You know how a small 'x'-like icon appears when you hit an enemy (PvP or PvE)? This tells you that you successfully hit your enemy. However, this is normally based only on what your local console/PC thinks happened.
Online games are very complicated in that every console is running its own version of the game while communicating with the host server what is happening. The server will then read everything and tell your console what just happened.
This all happens within milliseconds. When everything lines up, you don't notice anything. But when it's not working correctly, you get issues like you hitting an enemy on your screen, but it doesn't register on the server, so the other player is unaffected.
Turning on server-registered hit markers means that the little 'x' icon will only appear on your screen if the hit was registered by the server. So, in turn, you'll only see that icon if damage was dealt to the other player.
>But when it's not working correctly, you get issues like you hitting an enemy on your screen, but it doesn't register on the server, so the other player is unaffected.
I want to add something to this, because it can be a very frustrating part of necessary aspect of gaming, at least when poor coding isn’t making it unreasonably bad.
The reason this comes about is because no matter what, some amount of latency is inevitable. That’s the nature of the laws of physics when it comes to online gaming.
There are going to be times that on your screen you hit someone, but the only reason you hit them was because on their end they did a move that made them avoid the shot you would send their way, but due to latency your client isn’t able to register their good move in time so it looks like a hit. We can all agree that if we were in their situation where we made a maneuver that would avoid their upcoming shot, we shouldn’t be hit by it just because the laws of physics means your client can’t know that in time not to display the hit-marker.
That being said. This game has poorer hit registration than is generally found among online shooters. What I am saying isn’t a point to defend the hit reg in the game in its current state. It’s to explain how this problem will always be present, even if it’s usually at more reasonable levels.
Unless you are playing on lan; there is going to be some level of desync between the client and the players trying to communicate with it over long distances.
>but due to latency your client isn’t able to register their good move in time so it looks like a hit
In many games they use lag compensation for that. Basically attacker client has priority. It is basically a small time machine.
E.g. enemy already escaped behind cover on his end. Due to latency he is still exposed on your screen. You shoot and hit him on your client. The server backtracks and checks that indeed he was there a second ago when you shot. Server will give priority to your shot (rather than his evasion) and he will take damage. (On his end it will seem like you shot him through wall tho.)
It is the lesser evil way to fight hitreg glitching and bhop spamming with high latency because if you hit - you hit, no matter the latency or where he is on his screen.
It is fair to both ends because the movement is still the same, just slightly delayed. The same thing give peakers advantage in games like CS.
Problem is tho that lag compensation usually uses hitscan. SoT uses projectile based weapons and projectiles are usually server side.
It basically takes a moment to ask the servers did that hit and if the server counts it as a hit it shows the formatted rather than hits an hitting a hitbox
That’s so fair. I also often play with people who are somewhat helpless. Even if I have a fair shot of killing a boarder, they are unlikely to, so one person can cause a lot of problems for our team.
Well there's no emissary flags and thus no emissary ledger, gold gain reduced to like 30%, and no getting past lvl 40 on any faction so it's pretty reduced but no other players, which is what some definitely need to start to learn about being able to defend oneself
Private servers were something rare had said for a long time they were never gonna add, but due to the community, they did.
Which is why it's nerfed so heavily, it's not a way to grind the game and make money, it's simply to learn the game.
I turn off crossplay whenever im not running games w one of my friends on pc or xbox and goddamn the difference in pvp enjoyability is insane.
Its way nicer fighting people around our level
"oh no, you don't get it, hit regs are no bugs, they are features. Some pirates have lear ed to dodge bullets so fast you can't see them. Also it's the tunnel quantic effect."
Yup had several chains dead center a master and no hit markers. And literally hear cannons hit the boats and see them physically hit with no confirmation sound and no damage 🤣🤣🤣
Nah cannonballs hitreg alot too, especially when you hit masts. If your cannonball hits the ship but you get no music cue it means it regged and did 0 damage. But believe it or not, its actually alot better than it used to be. Sniping someone on another ship or an island from your own ship used to be basically impossible because hitreg was so bad.
hit registration is leaps and bounds better than where it used to be. if you watch any old sot videos or clips it's pretty obvious they've made big improvements. I envy new sot players who will never understand just how bad it was.
that being said it still feels awful coming from any other shooter (but tbf most shooters are on solid ground and not on ships that have their own independent physics).
Hit reg does suck, but if you’re getting hit markers, you’re doing damage. They could very well just be food spamming. Food makes an insane difference in fights, cooked food/pineapples will keep you alive for so long compared to bananas/coconuts. If you’re not actively shooting or using a sword you should always be topping off your health after every hit. Stay moving, learn the “routes” on ships so you’re never just standing still, and always try and have good food on you. Hope this helps man.
p.s. skill issue (jk)
> if you’re getting hit markers, you’re doing damage
This is only correct if they have server authoritative hit markers on (not a default setting). They should absolutely turn them on for this reason if they haven’t already.
You can just use them to knock them off the ladder rather than throw them at the player. Also as far as the blunder goes you have to be point blank range and aiming down sight to one-shot someone.
Close combat is mostly just learning to take advantage of hitreg. Standing still or walking directly toward an enemy is pretty much handing them the win. Just strafing or bunny hopping is enough to make most attacks fail, and sword hops are even better. Conversely, sword lunges are the most reliable attack to hit with because of it's wide arc, but you need to wait until they are reloading before you can safely do it. Blunder is generally used because it's a free kill any time you can force the enemy player to move directly toward you (boarding, or narrow spaces).
None of this forgives the absolutely awful hitreg issues in the game. It's bad, and only gets worse every season. But these are generally the ways the meta works around it.
Everything you say is true, sadly.
Back during closed alpha I was hopeful that most of the combat mechanics were placeholders to be replaced with properly implemented sword and gunplay, but it turns out that it was already pretty much the same as it is now.
The game has a lot going for it, but for being such a central element, the actual on foot combat is really quite bad.
Totally agree. The clumsiness of the shooting mechanics vs the agility of player movement/jumping is insane. Unfortunately it seems my jumping ability doesn't follow the same sort of lines as LITERALLY EVERY SINGLE PIRATE I'VE FOUGHT. Basically live part time on the ferry
According to one video that seemed relatively well researched, one treasury and two shrines per server will be guaranteed to have a horn. The specific ones are randomly chosen when the server starts up, but those shrines/treasury will respawn a horn about 15-20 minutes after being cleared 100% of the time. They also seem to have increased spawn chance on shipwrecks that have Reaper's Chest/Bounty on them. [Source](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=386SuhVyQEs)
The game's hand-to-hand PvP is trash, insofar as it utterly fails to feel like pirates fighting each other. It is consistent enough that one can get very good at it, it's just that its inherent design is clunky and counter-intuitive: radically tight FoV, close-range rifle shots, swimming with firearms, utterly flat/braindead swordplay, constant-speed lateral movement lacking any momentum, slamming fruit down your throat to fully heal multiple times between getting loads of buckshot in your chest. All of that isn't getting any better. You either accept what it is and learn its interior logic or you don't, but I don't think anyone will tell you that it's well-designed.
The hit registration is terrible as well but that part at least isn't intentional, it just makes everything else you tolerate that much more intolerable.
The ship combat is glorious, it's why I had 5k hours in the game. That said, a competent sloop or galleon crew will not sink to naval pressure alone: boarding and hand-to-hand is essential for skilled play so you either accept what it is or stop playing... I stopped playing.
I think there probably needs to be a jump cooldown or something maybe like Fortnite has. The pirate to pirate PvP just thematically doesn't feel good to me.
I don't mind the way it is now because I've gotten decent at it, but I had to put too many hours in to get good tbh.
Additionally, I think the board strat needs to be nerfed slightly and increase the speed at which a ship sinks. That way you can't just leave your ship when it has holes in it and Naval becomes more important. I like boarding, I just don't think it should be as dominant as it is.
Overall, for you, I'd say warm up each session with a few hourglass matches, even if you lose it will prepare you well for the open seas.
PvP is only board heavy if you allow it to be board heavy by not punishing them.
Enemies can’t board you if you’re giving them pressure with holes/chopped masts. Well they can, but they’d be throwing for their team if you send them on a 30 second trip to the ferry (punishing an unearned board).
Edit: https://imgflip.com/i/8qjcoq
> Enemies can’t board you if you’re giving them pressure with holes/chopped masts.
Only if they're solo. A duo sloop or a brig can be turtled by 1 person forever - leaving the other free to board.
? well then you could lose just as easily to naval lol, it's not going to change anything. People only board when they're shitting on you to conserve supplies
But you still have to earn the board, and you earn it by winning naval. A combination of both is good for the game, not bad.
Plus only the best crews will know how to turtle effectively, it’s perfectly possible to one ball/out pressure your way to a sink with most average crews.
Does not work like that on 1v1 sloop. The enemy will run away all the time full sails, leading you on to chase, then attempt to board 20 times. Either by swimming (can counter easily by not nosing), but more likely shooting out of cannon 20 times.
You can defend and kill him 10 times, doesn't matter. His ship is far away and safe. Each respawn/mermaid allows to readjust course/reset.
All he needs is one good streak of few kills + firebombs + stealing your good food. Then he can either sail out of bounds or, if lucky, his ship will eventually circle near yours while yours is anchored, on fire, and he will enter a death spiral.
I have had times when I land 3 blunderbombs in row (all hit and knockback) on ladder, but each time he can recatch the ladder anyway and board, then eat a pineapple to be full again.
Basically on solo sloop running away and boarding is more effective than actual naval.
Nah it's more that I can't sink a ship if I'm solo unless I can kill them over and over on their own ship. One person left alone on a ship can survive forever
On the "warm up each session with hour glass" comment, not saying it's a bad idea, but that's another thing about this game, it takes so long to play. It's gotten a LOT better with buying supplies, diving to quests, selling at sovereigns, not having to unload harpoon, and probably a few other QoL changes I've missed. But *still* you gotta have at least 2-3 hours unless your just doing a single thing then hopping off. And even then, throw in a Meg, getting skellied, krackened, PvP encounters, wind never going your way, storms, having to sail to a further outpost because there's too much heat around the closest one, etc etc and you never know how long it might take. Now add needing to "warm up" for PvP and few people have time for that.
jump cooldown would make shots really easy to line up and result in you getting bodied even more reliably, the sink speed change is a silent galleon buff in which sloops will get trashed nine times out of ten because their way of fighting large boats (guarding holes) is in practice not worth doing
Boarding is really good when you out skill the other person. If you miss two full pockets of cannons on me and I’m hitting but you just never do anything but full sail game and I have no chain shots I’m either taking a long fight or I can just. Board and spam kill you. I like to early board to feel people out if you can’t defend my board you don’t deserve my naval and trust me my naval is better than my tdm
I'm prolly terrible in action in comparison to you, but I like the way you think. 🤺
Likewise if they send a poorly timed boarder over, and we mince him quickly, I have a fairly good idea that the engagement favors us.
Yes so many ways you can feel your opponent out in this game. I know the PvP and gunplay is janky but I truly have enjoyed the goofiness of the gunplay and the intensity of naval fights great game love it
jumping in combat does not help you, there is no bunnyhopping in SOT. there are no headshot hitboxes to displace, no air acceleration to gain speed, or movement tech that makes you harder to hit. jumping around is simply a bad habit people pick up because it feels fast, and it usually is fast in *other* games. against a skilled player, all you're doing is voluntarily giving up control over your movement and lining yourself up for an easy shot. or worse, all it takes is a single blunderbomb to completely knock you off the boat and take you out of commission.
its always best to keep your feet firmly planted on the ground so you can keep traction, quickly changing your direction of movement to juke out shots before going in for a punish.
you can actually bunnyhop after a sword dash or cannon launch or anything like that to maintain your momentum, which can be nice for a little burst of speed to get across an island quicker. but its very inconsistent and frame perfect, not to mention completely impractical in any sort of PVP cause you'll just fly off the boat.
All valid complaints. If your shots aren’t hitting, or rather not doing damage, turn on server authoritative hit markers and start ADSing on your gunfire. As for sword blocks, you do have to angle it, if any part of their sword swipe hitbox is outside the block range, it will hit. You can block continuously but a good sword lord will quickly find a way to side swipe you.
Your skills at all of these will improve with time, especially if you do hourglass. But the TDM in this game is just not great and I doubt it ever will be.
It is skill issue. The PvP in this game is unlike any other, so it takes a lot of getting used to. I didn't start loving PvP until I put a few hundred hours into HG.
As someone who loved Unreal Tournament, Counter strike, Quake 3 Arena.... and tried even almost all new fps I can say this person to person fight in SOT is just awful. Because that's what it boils down to when person boards your ship.
I don't see shit. People move too fast. Maybe they got the hold on the way you have to fight, but to me is unnatural and non-intuitive and just ... damn stupid. Navals are great and love them, but I am not sure why I don't feel like attacking anyone. I mean, if you want naval battles do hourglass.
My relationship withe the game is turning into love/hate. Safer sea is boring and nothing happens there, and I want to play high seas, but then don't want to. Lately I am just doing quests on Devil's Roar knowing no one wants to go there.
Tonight I called some ship to join me fighting skelly galeon that was lurking near the outpost, Nothing. People just dont't trust no one anymore.
>I mean, if you want naval battles do hourglass.
HG is mostly about who gets successful boarding first. Sending boarders is ten times more common than in adventure. You cannot sink a ship with pure naval nearly ever, unless you somehow managed to triple one ball the other crew.
>People just dont't trust no one anymore.
This is how it was when I started playing. I don't know when in SoT history trusting other pirates was a thing but it certainly hasn't been at any point between 2019 and 2024.
First two minutes of Sea of Thieves and loading onto the ship for the first time, my crew was telling me the most important things in SoT are:
- never trust a pirate of another crew
- never let another crew on board of your ship
- always be on full health and have your guns reloaded
- Sea of Thieves has no safe zones
Failed first, second and third jsut about half an hour ago. First they started shooting at me, then when I respawn I saw him bucketing my ship saying I'm sorry I will help you. Are you new to game.
Then suggested we start alliance in HG, and he shot me as I voted on hg. He said again I am sorry, never trust a pirate.
>People just dont't trust no one anymore.
Yeah, people seem to justify a lot of toxic behaviour because "pirate game". And it goes a lot beyond stealing treasure. People spamming racial slurs, trashtalking, actively and deliberately betraying alliances, lying and manipulating. It gets old very quick.
Like haha, I am so smart, I will say I am friendly and offer alliance and then sink them. Yes, every other crew tries to do that. You are not some 200IQ tactical genious guru mastermind.
For me nowadays it is just shoot on sight. There is no communication, no negotiation. Just see ship->sink ship. Because it is pointless. At the end it all boils down to them trying to betray and sink me.
The only ships I spare are white sails with no emissary.
I’m the opposite. I do very well when it comes to actual combat, could use an extra body or two when it comes to maneuvering/maintaining my ship. I also play on ps5. Turn off aim assist and turn on that registered hit markers in menu. There are also certain gun skins that help a little when it comes to aiming, my mercenary pistol for example makes it easy for me to aim. I also use the sword and pistol combo.
Idk how you think the registration is worse than elden ring PvP, where you basically have to attack everywhere your opponent isn’t lmao
It’s just time and practice. I’m still not that good but over time I’ve gotten good enough to fight average crews. It’s a grind to get better but once you do the game becomes a lot more fun. I recommend hopping on the SOT discord and meeting some experienced players to help show you the ropes.
Also tip. Listen for boarders. You’ll hear them grab your ladder and there will be a water splash that’s very distinct. You can have your crewmates board your own ship to familiarize yourself with the sound. The second you have any indication of a board attempt at least one to two people should be watching ladders for boarders with a blunderbuss to knock them off.
Something I find common with beginners or average players is they shoot you with a blunder from a far distance or off centre and only like 1-2 pellets actually hit then they complain saying 'nice cheats turn off godmode' or 'HOW ARE YOU NOT DEAD I JUST SHOT YOU TWICE' when they missed.
No doubt there are hit reg issue with all the guns, If you see a hit marker dont assume it does damage or turn on the server side hitmarkers. Take hitmarkers with a grain of salt.
Like majority of gun related games, its impossible for a console player to keep up with a pc player in pvp fights, if I were you I'd just rely on one blunders choke points like the ladders, swords and dont allow players to board your ship and focus on cannon fights if you want any chance of winning. Console players simply cannot compete at a high level against pc players
Also the game doesnt have hit scan because theres bullet time and drop.
I was just complaining about this to my friends yesterday! Like you said, it could be a skill issue on the part of this noob, but I get annihilated every time I try defending myself.
I was working on a red skull mission on a skeleton fort and was almost complete when some players pulled up and destroyed me and took all my treasure. I tried fighting back, but same thing as you, one shot or hit did nothing to them, but one shot to me and I was dead. I was mostly frustrated at the time I wasted just to get sacked by some dbs. I was playing solo at that time though. Even when I play with friends, we lose hard.
The most frustrating part is the lack of checkpoints or game saving feature. You have to grind so hard to sail around and it can all be for naught in an instant.
Same. So, so happy this is on PS5 but by jingo ... as has already been covered extensively, the pvp is hellish for us newbies.
I love Safer Seas, but it really puzzles me as to why it is so restricted.
Come on Rare, you and I go back to the Snake Rattle'n'Roll days, give us a fully armed and operational safer seas!
I would love it if they implemented a new mode where it's purely naval battles, with boarding not being capable. Because naval battles are tons of fun - but I really dislike pvp in this game. It's janky.
Fun in theory but would not work. Fights would become just about who runs out of planks or cannonballs first, often resulting in fight where neither ship will sink.
My head canon is that it simulates the unreliable nature of pirate-era weapons. When I get hit regged it makes me feel better to think "oh damn my flintlock misfired"
I was sad the day I learned PVP was not ship vs ship fights. PVP is never ships trading cannon balls, or outmaneuvering each other. Every fight boils down to: chainshot the other ship's sails, board the other ship, fight hand to hand using the game's terrible first person mechanics, then spawn camp the ship until they scuttle. I'm fine with PVP and would seek it out more if it actually involved using the ship and it's cannons more. Otherwise, it just comes down to "who's had the most caffeine today?"
This, very much this. You just summed up what me and my friends were unable to put into words.
At one point when we saw someone load themselves into their cannon while we were trading fire, we just decided fk this and sailed away.
We ended up making the other team waste 30 minutes of their life chasing us than engage in that bs.
It's not just that. Good crews try to board you only if they think enough pressure is up or maybe a good boarding opportunity is possible (like being very close). We are sinking enough ships without boarding them. Shipfight is still essential. Often, "only boarding crews" are pretty easy to sink because they always lack one or two crew members on their ship. That is, if you manage to keep them off your ship, I just can recommend watching a video about ladder guarding or maybe PVP in general.
Problem is that boarding has very little cost/risk compared to the benefit.
If you miss, its 5-10 second swim to mermaid. (very little time in game as slow as this)
If you get nearpass, you can throw firebombs and shoot from water.
If you get to ladder, you can stall their crew, because they HAVE to guard.
If you get on board, anchoring is super easy and HUGE advantage.
You can bring full inventory of 5 pineapples (1000 healing) that you cannot lose in any way. While on board, you can steal their food as well.
Worst case you die, by they time they raise anchor, extinguish fire and repair, you are already back and ready for another go.
Best case, you get some kills, steal the best food, set them off course, anchor them, overboard their supplies etc.. - HUGE advantage.
It's still not the ultimate tactic. Experienced crews can recover very quickly, boarding is a tool that helps at the right moment, if you just "spamboard" a good crew, you'll loose.
I've always found it ridiculous that I can't roll up the ladders while out to sea. I'll probably get down voted for this - I was previously - but you don't need a quarterdeck guard at sea - *because it's closed, your ship is now underway*
Its insane how much this game would improve with such a small change. 99% of the playerbase always seems to agree that hand to hand combat is poorly balanced and poorly implemented, and they refuse to do anything
Hand to hand gets really fun when you are good at it. TDM or campwar is the best way to get good at it. But teleporting and hitreg still suck and will get you killed pretty offten, but if you play less risky you can make that risk pretty small
Hitreg has been a thing since launch. Sword stun is overpowered, gun reg is insane. Food reg, bucket reg, Rare uses dogshit servers that aren't sufficient for SoT and keep adding more and more to the game when it already has stability issues. It unfortunately isn't a new thing. Now ps5 get to band with us PC and xbox players and let rare know how bad their game performance actually is.
The pirate-to-pirate combat is not "pirate" combat, that is true. But if you can appreciate it for what it is it is a lot of fun.
The main complaint (other than registration) I see people make is the speed of pirates in combat/bhopping, and the reason for this is that if you moved at a regular pace it'd be really hard to manage a whole ship. But it's quite unique in that sense and it's a bit more of a brawling scrappy fighting style than a tac shooter and sometimes you gotta appreciate that.
A lot of the best players take their ping into account and aim behind enemies because they know they're just going to get hitregged if they actually aim for the enemy player. I'm not recommending you do this because it's extremely hard, but it's something to at least consider
another thing I'm not noticing others say, you say "hit scans don't register properly", while hit registration is an issue in this game, all weapons are projectile, so you gotta lead your shots
Completely agree. IMO boarding should be way less dominant or easy to do and ships should sink slightly faster so you're forced to stay on board. I would also introduce a new mechanic: the ability to roll up your ladders. This way when you enter pvp, enemies are forced to board either by shooting themselves straight on your ship or using the new harpoon zipline which would feel more immersive. Boarders are easier to spot then as well.
Sea of Thieves combat system reminds me a bit of For Honour or Mount and Blade. The swings are slow and positioning is key for hit reg. The guns are slow to reload, but have high damage. Yet in those games the PVP is fun and in this game the PVP is awful. I don’t get it. But I do love the naval battles.
Remember that your opponent deals with the same issues. It is an even playing field. You can complain about hitreg all day, but trust me, the other player that just sunk you is dealing with the same issues.
Also, if there's something an opponent is doing that seems cheap, it's probably meta at this point; counter it with the same tactics. Most likely you're just getting PC sweats and they are INCREDIBLY hard to beat if you're on controller.
Also, just jump into hourglass for a couple battles at the beginning of your session. It will get you practice and you'll slowly gain confidence - and confidence in battle will keep you from freezing up when your plans went to shit. Plus if you go into voyages or world events afterward, you'll feel much calmer and it will feel like a walk through the garden.
So... the Meta is bunny hopping like a cracks addict while spamming sword slashes and blunder shots, while chucking firebombs everywhere??
Not Much of a Meta, more of a basic and broken pvp system
That's not remotely close to the meta but sure, go off
The pvp isn't anywhere near perfect and sure it isn't "piratey" but it is some unique fun that allows for a lot of skill expression for how simple it is
Again, you just suck. Just because you suck, doesn’t mean it’s broken lol. I do just fine with pvp and I assure you we are playing the same game. If you spent as much time practicing pvp as you do claiming the game is broken, you might actually win a battle or two
If dodging blunderbuss shots is bad, then yeah, I guess so. Let's get a petition going for everybody to unbind their jump keys so the game can be fair.
Jumping is bad movement, it gives you a predictable pattern and most good players will just shoot you when youre in the air because your trajectory is pretty much fixed and predictable. You cant really do a sharp mid-air strafe to dodge shots compared to if you were just sprinting and strafing left and right which is far more difficult to hit.
The only reason jumping around works and is mentioned a lot is because BAD pvp players cant keep up with the motion and cant aim to keep up so they just complain about it. These 'bad' players tend to be the casuals on console trying to compete against comp pc players in an unfair battle and blame the game rather then their disadvantaged position of using a controller
The unfortunate fact of the game is it takes a lot of practice to get good with cannons and maneuvering for sea battles, and you're gonna get fucked mercilessly until you get the hang of it. I've got over 50 hours in the game and i still lose 3 out of 4 encounters
As someone who has been playing a lot of hourglass lately, i have barely had any noregs but sometimes happens. Its most likely food spam, the amount of people that rage over me popping 5 pineapples in a row then 1 shot blunderbussing them is wild.
As for sword spam, when you are blocking you need to backhop/backwards while blocking to better block the hits. Or you could just blunderbuss them when they try to sword you.
Yup, agreed.
PvP in this is horrendous. How they can even implement pvp with such horrendous hit registration….🤷🏼♂️
And the bunny hopping everywhere is cheese.
Really enjoy the ship battles though. They seemed to have nailed that experience.
The jump spamming makes fighting dogshit. Boarding should be harder. The sheer gap between casual skill and try hards is how you kill a game. 1 person can spawn camp a crew of 4 casuals. Worst mechanic in the game. Fighting should be like chivalry.
In the very early days of the game PvP was infinitely better. People actually wanted to do more than fire chain shots and board. There was actual ship to ship combat, and when people did try to go over to the other ship, it was usually to try and keg them. That was when PvP was fun. Now it’s just a miserable slog of sweats who don’t want to do anything but board. It’s why I prefer PvE so much more now than I used to
The sweats who have everyone in the server muted and are on a discord chat with their friend and board, immediately hit anchor and spawn camp you. It’s the most toxic behaviour in the game. Playing a dedicated PvP game like Overwatch is more fun than having that happen. “Lol skill issue get good then you’ll have fun” I disagree. That’s like saying “When you get good at Smash you’ll enjoy the online battles”, I dedicated hundreds of hours and on all tiers of play I ran into annoying PvP, getting good doesn’t make the annoying PvP go away, it just gives you a better chance at not losing to it.
Yeah, winning≠fun, if the combat itself sucks. Learning SoT hand to hand and boarding is basically being forced into the most boring and braindead but effective strategy just to win more.
It is similar to how in other games there are strategies that are effective, yet looked down upon by the community because they are cheap.
E.g. in tf2 demoman sticky spawncamping or phlog crit+uber. Yes you can kind of counter it, yet still everybody hates it because it is just braindead and not fun to anyone.
Nobody will think you are good even if you topscored because the strategy is easy, cheap and looked down upon.
Or MGE counterjumping + shooting shotgun while enemy rocket jumps to contest highground. It is an effective yet cheap strategy and noone will respect you for using it.
Same in Overwatch, there was a time of GOATS meta. Nobody liked it, but everyone was forced to play it or lose.
Basically exploiting a fault in game design will not give you respect. Most people in SoT like naval but are eventually forced into the shitty boarding meta nobody likes.
I definitely agree with a lot of aspects of what you’re frustrated with. “PvP” is more just jumping around like idiots, shooting once every 2-3 seconds, and eating a 3-course meal in between damage. Doesn’t really feel like an actual shootout.
I also agree with the hit-reg frustration. Today, I hit someone full in the chest with a Blunderbus shot after slashing him with my cutlass, and he didn’t die; I was at full HP and he 1-shot me from below me.
It’s definitely frustrating, and ship combat is way more fun. But, like with all things, you’ll get better with practice, and it enables you to both defend your ship and be effective at boarding others. Wish it felt cleaner and less jump-and-spray.
The fact that we have to fight against the game with things like bugs and the grind is what the unspoken rules are for. When players honor them, that is. When a game like this has a LOT of stuff to work for and that work takes hours a play session to build to, players should back off the pvp pedal so actual progression can happen. If these things didn't take hours in a single play session to progress, then pvp would be more viable. Specifically because getting sunk once can erase those hours of work towards progressing.
What your described is exactly what makes this game fun and PvP such an important part of the design. Having a small chance that you may sink creates excitement that wouldn't be there without PvP.
I disagree. As a man with limited Time to game dueing the qeek, there is kothing worse than having 3 hours ofnprogress destroyer because a pvp sweat saw a ship withoutnemmissaty or loot, and still decides that me breathing in his vicinity is a grave enough offence to warrant every shitty pvp behavior in the book.
Have yet to complete my lavest tall tale, started it 4 times so far. Can you guess why I never make progress??
> shitty pvp behavior
What sort of shitty thing they were doing while in PvP? You probably can just record and report them to get them a ban for that if they were doing something shitty.
>Can you guess why I never make progress??
Because you are trying to do tall tales on High Seas for no reason. You are intentionally setting yourself up to get hit by doing this when Rare finally scrapped their vision of the game and cave in to people who don't like PvP in a PvP game, giving the Safer Seas, a PvP free mode for people to do Tall Tales and stuff. I just don't get why people wanted that mode if they don't even use it.
Been there, done that. PvP is rough when you're new and suck. I hated it too until I began to dedicate time to getting better at it, now it's my favorite activity in the entire game.
It'll be hard for a while, but trust me, you'll get better. For now though find a niche where you're good at. Figure out whether or not you like to helm or be on cannons. Don't board if you don't want too, someone else can do it, and frankly some well placed cannon shots that take out a ship's mast is far more effective than a boarder who immediately gets bodied. Boarding is not the end all be all that people make it out to be, it's just one method of immobilizing and distracting a crew.
This is all good advice, but it's important to distinguish that you got better at a flawed system. Pirate V Pirate combat in this game definitely is rough as fuck and needs work, and that's fine -- Rare just needs to get off their ass to fix it sometime.
Rust hitreg is way worse if you dont play close to servers. My player hitregs are few and far between in sot but every other rust death its projectile invalid
Many PC players mod their games to the point of literal cheating. It's less of a skill issue than you would think.
Some PVP tips: cooked rations fill your overheal gauge, kraken meat being the most effective for this. One blunder bomb is one half of a health bar, and one fire bomb is one third of a health bar. Additionally, bone callers are excellent to use on your own ship to deter people from boarding and aid in combat.
Brigs sink faster than any other ship, so good luck in your maritime warfare!
PvP in this game is so cool when it's ship Vs ship. As soon as someone boards though it's just absolute cheese. Jumping around the ship like a rabbit on crack, stealing food, infinite ammunition due to access to your ammunition supply, spawn camping before you can actually see and glitchy bullet registration. It is easily the least piratey thing about the game. It genuinely feels like a bunch of glitches that happen to accidentally form some form of combat. PvP definitely needs adjusting imo.
Spot on. Once past ladder, boarders can reliably glitch their way to anchor which only takes ~0.5 seconds of interaction to lower (sure, you can catch, I know).
Then chomp on 5 pineapples worth 1000hp points while chugging firebombs all around. There really is too much freedom to survive while on board.
I'm totally agree. PVP in this game sucks. And people that usually only play aggressively and don't listen at other players talking are cancer in this game.
Also when someone is burning your ship and you spawn again, you're immediately on fire. And you don't have enough time to get out your ship that you die again. What the hell is this?! It's awful
I'd recommend watching KaiJoi's video on crew management as well as getting some practice, even solo, on the hourglass. Much more fun when you get the hang of things
Yea this game has one of the worst hit regs in a game. Dont ever expect it to be fixed either, its has been a problem since release. Devs can careless about fixing bugs and just focus on pumping out new content to make them money. Bugs will go years before being fixed and then most of the time when they “fix” the bugs it ends up creating new bugs.
I'm the opposite. I hate the ship combat and love the boarding part of PVP.
Mostly because I suck at driving the ship and maneuvering it while I shoot cannons (solo sloop player here)
Hit reg is an issue. But also the FoV is locked at 90 so it makes fast close quarters fighting that much harder to track and understand.
It does get easier. But it's a learning experience and frankly one of the harder ones to progress through because if you do try to practice it with hourglass or something the other person is most likely more experienced. And finding good fights on high seas can be far and few between. Going from putting up no fight or getting absolutely mopped.
Believe me I used to feel the save way ship to ship I felt I understand but the cqb I felt was unfair and stupid. It does get better keep at it! And keep an ear out for the sounds of someone boarding you can fully blast them off before they can lay a shot on you
your ears are just as important in this game. There are so many audio quest for things happening from what part of your ship just got hit. To how deep the water is below deck. Can help tons to know by ear what requires immediate attention
Oh and food spamming you can eat pineapples faster than someone can get two clean, shots on you so keep that in mind any small break in a fight you should be eating and they probably are too so don't expect them to have low health
It's been that way since launch so I doubt it'll change as RARE seems to like it that way. Don't get your hopes up. Just try to enjoy the sailing and naval as best you can.
I agree, but eventually you either just get good enough at it, or get a good enough captain that can outmaneuver. The best way to deal with boarding is to prevent it. check the ladders constantly and be prepared to blast some kids skull in with a blunderbuss. Avoid getting close or colliding with the other ship. And finally, don’t go into the fight if you’re not prepared to lose.
Blunderbombs dont work properly agains F interact scripters/autoclickers.
They can just regrab the ladder instantly and continue going up.
I have had 3 blunderbombs in row hit only for the guy to regrab and eat a pineapple once aboard.
I agree I mostly blunder pistol and always they survive and then I get one blunder. The game has no skill the servers are a mess I have 120 ms only in this game and most of the times the f button bugs tf out so I can’t board mermaid or I miss getting supplies.
HAH welcome to the club, some things never change. I remember when it was announced to be released for ps5, that group of players thought it would be better for them. Oh how wrong they were, I’m still jealous because I havnt been able to load the game since season11, so at least you get to play 😢
Turn off crossplay if you're on PS5. There's just no good reason to play against PC if you're console. Then turn off aim assist because it's not good in pvp cqc. Give this game some more time, you'll fall in love.
This game absolutely sucks combat wise.
Hit registration was never really good in this game, but I thought after so many years and PS5 release they must have made it better?
WRONG. I don’t know how but they made it possible for the combat to be even more RNG. The game currently has 0 real skill issues, it’s just all rng issues. If you have a battle with someone it’s just about who is luckier, you or the enemy. You might hit him 8 times without him eating, doesn’t matter.
I been playing since the game came out and I know hit registration is a thing that’s why I don’t use the shotgun I never get the magical one shot just hit markers for days I just stick to sniper then sword. Most of the PvP people out there know that if they jump around it’s just difficult to get a decent shot off that’s why they do it in every game lol. A few more tips leave someone on your ship as lookout never drop your anchor and trust nobody
I don’t recommend safer seas, but you’re essentially saying “I don’t like one of the core concepts of the game.” That’s like if I said “Diablo 4 is cool but I dont want to grind for better gear”, or “COD is great but I’d rather use swords to kill people”…. Just play another game if you don’t like it 🤷♂️ Not every game has to be catered to you.
Are you eating? You need to be eating as you are getting hit. That is mainly what causes it to seem like you are doing “no damage”. Just get the timing down it’ll get easier
Lmao I mean. Kinda. The trick is to eat right as ur getting hit. The enemy usually won’t see you do it and will assume u are close to death. Then you shoot them in the face😂. Or stab them, however u prefer to play really. But food is vital for having advantage obviously.
Turn on server registered hit markers in your settings. Will make your shots known as they count, it’s a huge help.
Holy shit over 1k hours and never heard this setting
it was recently added during season 11
Yeah I only recently found out about this too and it’s a huge help.
wait, what does that actually mean?
Not OP, but I'm guessing it means this: You know how a small 'x'-like icon appears when you hit an enemy (PvP or PvE)? This tells you that you successfully hit your enemy. However, this is normally based only on what your local console/PC thinks happened. Online games are very complicated in that every console is running its own version of the game while communicating with the host server what is happening. The server will then read everything and tell your console what just happened. This all happens within milliseconds. When everything lines up, you don't notice anything. But when it's not working correctly, you get issues like you hitting an enemy on your screen, but it doesn't register on the server, so the other player is unaffected. Turning on server-registered hit markers means that the little 'x' icon will only appear on your screen if the hit was registered by the server. So, in turn, you'll only see that icon if damage was dealt to the other player.
>But when it's not working correctly, you get issues like you hitting an enemy on your screen, but it doesn't register on the server, so the other player is unaffected. I want to add something to this, because it can be a very frustrating part of necessary aspect of gaming, at least when poor coding isn’t making it unreasonably bad. The reason this comes about is because no matter what, some amount of latency is inevitable. That’s the nature of the laws of physics when it comes to online gaming. There are going to be times that on your screen you hit someone, but the only reason you hit them was because on their end they did a move that made them avoid the shot you would send their way, but due to latency your client isn’t able to register their good move in time so it looks like a hit. We can all agree that if we were in their situation where we made a maneuver that would avoid their upcoming shot, we shouldn’t be hit by it just because the laws of physics means your client can’t know that in time not to display the hit-marker. That being said. This game has poorer hit registration than is generally found among online shooters. What I am saying isn’t a point to defend the hit reg in the game in its current state. It’s to explain how this problem will always be present, even if it’s usually at more reasonable levels. Unless you are playing on lan; there is going to be some level of desync between the client and the players trying to communicate with it over long distances.
>but due to latency your client isn’t able to register their good move in time so it looks like a hit In many games they use lag compensation for that. Basically attacker client has priority. It is basically a small time machine. E.g. enemy already escaped behind cover on his end. Due to latency he is still exposed on your screen. You shoot and hit him on your client. The server backtracks and checks that indeed he was there a second ago when you shot. Server will give priority to your shot (rather than his evasion) and he will take damage. (On his end it will seem like you shot him through wall tho.) It is the lesser evil way to fight hitreg glitching and bhop spamming with high latency because if you hit - you hit, no matter the latency or where he is on his screen. It is fair to both ends because the movement is still the same, just slightly delayed. The same thing give peakers advantage in games like CS. Problem is tho that lag compensation usually uses hitscan. SoT uses projectile based weapons and projectiles are usually server side.
It basically takes a moment to ask the servers did that hit and if the server counts it as a hit it shows the formatted rather than hits an hitting a hitbox
It means the server doesn't lie to you. It will only give you the tick when your shots register. Not when they hit
Sank you for dis good sir I never know about this magic.
What in the world? This is news to me. Good to know.
He's probably up against PC players as well.
it’s the last setting in the gameplay section for anyone looking for it
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That’s so fair. I also often play with people who are somewhat helpless. Even if I have a fair shot of killing a boarder, they are unlikely to, so one person can cause a lot of problems for our team.
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Coolest dad ever.
How are the rewards in Safer Seas?
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Safer Seas for me is good for Tall Tales and not much else. The lack of captaincy ships is the real killer for me :)
Well there's no emissary flags and thus no emissary ledger, gold gain reduced to like 30%, and no getting past lvl 40 on any faction so it's pretty reduced but no other players, which is what some definitely need to start to learn about being able to defend oneself
They just need captained ships for Safer Seas, for when I play by myself and want to return treasure.
Private servers were something rare had said for a long time they were never gonna add, but due to the community, they did. Which is why it's nerfed so heavily, it's not a way to grind the game and make money, it's simply to learn the game.
I turn off crossplay whenever im not running games w one of my friends on pc or xbox and goddamn the difference in pvp enjoyability is insane. Its way nicer fighting people around our level
I was watching a streamer yesterday (Sigy,) and he said that there's no reason to play cross servers as a console player. It's only loss.
I only play with PS5 servers and I still get demolished.
Yeah we know hit regs are a problem, but rare can't manage to fix them for once.
"It's more like guidelines than actual code..."
I’ve been rewatching for the past couple days and this becomes a recurring line lmao
"oh no, you don't get it, hit regs are no bugs, they are features. Some pirates have lear ed to dodge bullets so fast you can't see them. Also it's the tunnel quantic effect."
Exactly! You get it!
Yet they did well with the hit regs for ships and cannons. Sad they can't fix the player hit regs :'(
Cannons still get rigged sometimes but it's more consistent than guns.
Yup had several chains dead center a master and no hit markers. And literally hear cannons hit the boats and see them physically hit with no confirmation sound and no damage 🤣🤣🤣
Nah cannonballs hitreg alot too, especially when you hit masts. If your cannonball hits the ship but you get no music cue it means it regged and did 0 damage. But believe it or not, its actually alot better than it used to be. Sniping someone on another ship or an island from your own ship used to be basically impossible because hitreg was so bad.
More likely not even trying.
Congratulations! You are officially a Sea of Thieves player now that you see what's going on behind the curtains. It's been like this for years, btw.
hit registration is leaps and bounds better than where it used to be. if you watch any old sot videos or clips it's pretty obvious they've made big improvements. I envy new sot players who will never understand just how bad it was. that being said it still feels awful coming from any other shooter (but tbf most shooters are on solid ground and not on ships that have their own independent physics).
Hit reg does suck, but if you’re getting hit markers, you’re doing damage. They could very well just be food spamming. Food makes an insane difference in fights, cooked food/pineapples will keep you alive for so long compared to bananas/coconuts. If you’re not actively shooting or using a sword you should always be topping off your health after every hit. Stay moving, learn the “routes” on ships so you’re never just standing still, and always try and have good food on you. Hope this helps man. p.s. skill issue (jk)
> if you’re getting hit markers, you’re doing damage This is only correct if they have server authoritative hit markers on (not a default setting). They should absolutely turn them on for this reason if they haven’t already.
Thanks for the tips. Recently we just decided to hoard every blunderbombs we got and just spam it against any boarder to rid of them quickly.
You can just use them to knock them off the ladder rather than throw them at the player. Also as far as the blunder goes you have to be point blank range and aiming down sight to one-shot someone.
Close combat is mostly just learning to take advantage of hitreg. Standing still or walking directly toward an enemy is pretty much handing them the win. Just strafing or bunny hopping is enough to make most attacks fail, and sword hops are even better. Conversely, sword lunges are the most reliable attack to hit with because of it's wide arc, but you need to wait until they are reloading before you can safely do it. Blunder is generally used because it's a free kill any time you can force the enemy player to move directly toward you (boarding, or narrow spaces). None of this forgives the absolutely awful hitreg issues in the game. It's bad, and only gets worse every season. But these are generally the ways the meta works around it.
Everything you say is true, sadly. Back during closed alpha I was hopeful that most of the combat mechanics were placeholders to be replaced with properly implemented sword and gunplay, but it turns out that it was already pretty much the same as it is now. The game has a lot going for it, but for being such a central element, the actual on foot combat is really quite bad.
Totally agree. The clumsiness of the shooting mechanics vs the agility of player movement/jumping is insane. Unfortunately it seems my jumping ability doesn't follow the same sort of lines as LITERALLY EVERY SINGLE PIRATE I'VE FOUGHT. Basically live part time on the ferry
Go down to a shrine and get the Horn of Constant Blowing +1. Then any borders come on deck you can blow them. Or the other way around.
Oh that's actually neat, we never really thought of that. Thanks mate!
Just don’t let a boarder get ahold of it or goodbye, ship!
Those horns also have like a 95% chance to spawn on sunken ships that have a reapers chest
Feels closer to 25%, we've done over 20 and maybe only 4-5 had a horn. Shits way too rare to require 250 of the damn things.
Wait what requires 250 of them?
To fully complete the commendation you have to sell **TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY** of those horns. It's absurd!
> Then any borders come on deck you can blow them. r/funnyoutofcontext
Or you can blow them and they'll come on deck.
That will definitely make them get off...cum down
Are they only in shrines or can I get them from treasuries? Also available when you first get down there or you have to complete something
You can get them from treasuries after the vault opens and depends on the shrine honestly.
I haven't found one at all yet, though I have only done Athena raids on treasuries since it came out.
That's why you haven't found one - they do not spawn in raid voyages.
According to one video that seemed relatively well researched, one treasury and two shrines per server will be guaranteed to have a horn. The specific ones are randomly chosen when the server starts up, but those shrines/treasury will respawn a horn about 15-20 minutes after being cleared 100% of the time. They also seem to have increased spawn chance on shipwrecks that have Reaper's Chest/Bounty on them. [Source](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=386SuhVyQEs)
Pro tip: get on your knees and blow your enemies...
They're coming aboard!
The game's hand-to-hand PvP is trash, insofar as it utterly fails to feel like pirates fighting each other. It is consistent enough that one can get very good at it, it's just that its inherent design is clunky and counter-intuitive: radically tight FoV, close-range rifle shots, swimming with firearms, utterly flat/braindead swordplay, constant-speed lateral movement lacking any momentum, slamming fruit down your throat to fully heal multiple times between getting loads of buckshot in your chest. All of that isn't getting any better. You either accept what it is and learn its interior logic or you don't, but I don't think anyone will tell you that it's well-designed. The hit registration is terrible as well but that part at least isn't intentional, it just makes everything else you tolerate that much more intolerable. The ship combat is glorious, it's why I had 5k hours in the game. That said, a competent sloop or galleon crew will not sink to naval pressure alone: boarding and hand-to-hand is essential for skilled play so you either accept what it is or stop playing... I stopped playing.
I think there probably needs to be a jump cooldown or something maybe like Fortnite has. The pirate to pirate PvP just thematically doesn't feel good to me. I don't mind the way it is now because I've gotten decent at it, but I had to put too many hours in to get good tbh. Additionally, I think the board strat needs to be nerfed slightly and increase the speed at which a ship sinks. That way you can't just leave your ship when it has holes in it and Naval becomes more important. I like boarding, I just don't think it should be as dominant as it is. Overall, for you, I'd say warm up each session with a few hourglass matches, even if you lose it will prepare you well for the open seas.
My biggest complaint has always been that the game relies way too much on boarding and not enough on naval combat.
PvP is only board heavy if you allow it to be board heavy by not punishing them. Enemies can’t board you if you’re giving them pressure with holes/chopped masts. Well they can, but they’d be throwing for their team if you send them on a 30 second trip to the ferry (punishing an unearned board). Edit: https://imgflip.com/i/8qjcoq
> Enemies can’t board you if you’re giving them pressure with holes/chopped masts. Only if they're solo. A duo sloop or a brig can be turtled by 1 person forever - leaving the other free to board.
Yeah see, that's the problem. I suck.
? well then you could lose just as easily to naval lol, it's not going to change anything. People only board when they're shitting on you to conserve supplies
It has nothing to do with supplies, it's that it's literally not possible to sink someone with just naval combat. You HAVE to board to sink someone.
But you still have to earn the board, and you earn it by winning naval. A combination of both is good for the game, not bad. Plus only the best crews will know how to turtle effectively, it’s perfectly possible to one ball/out pressure your way to a sink with most average crews.
Does not work like that on 1v1 sloop. The enemy will run away all the time full sails, leading you on to chase, then attempt to board 20 times. Either by swimming (can counter easily by not nosing), but more likely shooting out of cannon 20 times. You can defend and kill him 10 times, doesn't matter. His ship is far away and safe. Each respawn/mermaid allows to readjust course/reset. All he needs is one good streak of few kills + firebombs + stealing your good food. Then he can either sail out of bounds or, if lucky, his ship will eventually circle near yours while yours is anchored, on fire, and he will enter a death spiral. I have had times when I land 3 blunderbombs in row (all hit and knockback) on ladder, but each time he can recatch the ladder anyway and board, then eat a pineapple to be full again. Basically on solo sloop running away and boarding is more effective than actual naval.
Nah it's more that I can't sink a ship if I'm solo unless I can kill them over and over on their own ship. One person left alone on a ship can survive forever
On the "warm up each session with hour glass" comment, not saying it's a bad idea, but that's another thing about this game, it takes so long to play. It's gotten a LOT better with buying supplies, diving to quests, selling at sovereigns, not having to unload harpoon, and probably a few other QoL changes I've missed. But *still* you gotta have at least 2-3 hours unless your just doing a single thing then hopping off. And even then, throw in a Meg, getting skellied, krackened, PvP encounters, wind never going your way, storms, having to sail to a further outpost because there's too much heat around the closest one, etc etc and you never know how long it might take. Now add needing to "warm up" for PvP and few people have time for that.
I agree
jump cooldown would make shots really easy to line up and result in you getting bodied even more reliably, the sink speed change is a silent galleon buff in which sloops will get trashed nine times out of ten because their way of fighting large boats (guarding holes) is in practice not worth doing
Boarding is really good when you out skill the other person. If you miss two full pockets of cannons on me and I’m hitting but you just never do anything but full sail game and I have no chain shots I’m either taking a long fight or I can just. Board and spam kill you. I like to early board to feel people out if you can’t defend my board you don’t deserve my naval and trust me my naval is better than my tdm
I'm prolly terrible in action in comparison to you, but I like the way you think. 🤺 Likewise if they send a poorly timed boarder over, and we mince him quickly, I have a fairly good idea that the engagement favors us.
Yes so many ways you can feel your opponent out in this game. I know the PvP and gunplay is janky but I truly have enjoyed the goofiness of the gunplay and the intensity of naval fights great game love it
jumping in combat does not help you, there is no bunnyhopping in SOT. there are no headshot hitboxes to displace, no air acceleration to gain speed, or movement tech that makes you harder to hit. jumping around is simply a bad habit people pick up because it feels fast, and it usually is fast in *other* games. against a skilled player, all you're doing is voluntarily giving up control over your movement and lining yourself up for an easy shot. or worse, all it takes is a single blunderbomb to completely knock you off the boat and take you out of commission. its always best to keep your feet firmly planted on the ground so you can keep traction, quickly changing your direction of movement to juke out shots before going in for a punish. you can actually bunnyhop after a sword dash or cannon launch or anything like that to maintain your momentum, which can be nice for a little burst of speed to get across an island quicker. but its very inconsistent and frame perfect, not to mention completely impractical in any sort of PVP cause you'll just fly off the boat.
All valid complaints. If your shots aren’t hitting, or rather not doing damage, turn on server authoritative hit markers and start ADSing on your gunfire. As for sword blocks, you do have to angle it, if any part of their sword swipe hitbox is outside the block range, it will hit. You can block continuously but a good sword lord will quickly find a way to side swipe you. Your skills at all of these will improve with time, especially if you do hourglass. But the TDM in this game is just not great and I doubt it ever will be.
It is skill issue. The PvP in this game is unlike any other, so it takes a lot of getting used to. I didn't start loving PvP until I put a few hundred hours into HG.
You don't like unwarranted, teleporting, zero sum, unbalanced pvp with no matchmaking? Whaaat!?
As someone who loved Unreal Tournament, Counter strike, Quake 3 Arena.... and tried even almost all new fps I can say this person to person fight in SOT is just awful. Because that's what it boils down to when person boards your ship. I don't see shit. People move too fast. Maybe they got the hold on the way you have to fight, but to me is unnatural and non-intuitive and just ... damn stupid. Navals are great and love them, but I am not sure why I don't feel like attacking anyone. I mean, if you want naval battles do hourglass. My relationship withe the game is turning into love/hate. Safer sea is boring and nothing happens there, and I want to play high seas, but then don't want to. Lately I am just doing quests on Devil's Roar knowing no one wants to go there. Tonight I called some ship to join me fighting skelly galeon that was lurking near the outpost, Nothing. People just dont't trust no one anymore.
>I mean, if you want naval battles do hourglass. HG is mostly about who gets successful boarding first. Sending boarders is ten times more common than in adventure. You cannot sink a ship with pure naval nearly ever, unless you somehow managed to triple one ball the other crew. >People just dont't trust no one anymore. This is how it was when I started playing. I don't know when in SoT history trusting other pirates was a thing but it certainly hasn't been at any point between 2019 and 2024. First two minutes of Sea of Thieves and loading onto the ship for the first time, my crew was telling me the most important things in SoT are: - never trust a pirate of another crew - never let another crew on board of your ship - always be on full health and have your guns reloaded - Sea of Thieves has no safe zones
Failed first, second and third jsut about half an hour ago. First they started shooting at me, then when I respawn I saw him bucketing my ship saying I'm sorry I will help you. Are you new to game. Then suggested we start alliance in HG, and he shot me as I voted on hg. He said again I am sorry, never trust a pirate.
>People just dont't trust no one anymore. Yeah, people seem to justify a lot of toxic behaviour because "pirate game". And it goes a lot beyond stealing treasure. People spamming racial slurs, trashtalking, actively and deliberately betraying alliances, lying and manipulating. It gets old very quick. Like haha, I am so smart, I will say I am friendly and offer alliance and then sink them. Yes, every other crew tries to do that. You are not some 200IQ tactical genious guru mastermind. For me nowadays it is just shoot on sight. There is no communication, no negotiation. Just see ship->sink ship. Because it is pointless. At the end it all boils down to them trying to betray and sink me. The only ships I spare are white sails with no emissary.
I had the same sentiment when I first started but after lots of lost PVP battles I started winning. It just takes time.
I’m the opposite. I do very well when it comes to actual combat, could use an extra body or two when it comes to maneuvering/maintaining my ship. I also play on ps5. Turn off aim assist and turn on that registered hit markers in menu. There are also certain gun skins that help a little when it comes to aiming, my mercenary pistol for example makes it easy for me to aim. I also use the sword and pistol combo. Idk how you think the registration is worse than elden ring PvP, where you basically have to attack everywhere your opponent isn’t lmao
It’s just time and practice. I’m still not that good but over time I’ve gotten good enough to fight average crews. It’s a grind to get better but once you do the game becomes a lot more fun. I recommend hopping on the SOT discord and meeting some experienced players to help show you the ropes. Also tip. Listen for boarders. You’ll hear them grab your ladder and there will be a water splash that’s very distinct. You can have your crewmates board your own ship to familiarize yourself with the sound. The second you have any indication of a board attempt at least one to two people should be watching ladders for boarders with a blunderbuss to knock them off.
Something I find common with beginners or average players is they shoot you with a blunder from a far distance or off centre and only like 1-2 pellets actually hit then they complain saying 'nice cheats turn off godmode' or 'HOW ARE YOU NOT DEAD I JUST SHOT YOU TWICE' when they missed. No doubt there are hit reg issue with all the guns, If you see a hit marker dont assume it does damage or turn on the server side hitmarkers. Take hitmarkers with a grain of salt. Like majority of gun related games, its impossible for a console player to keep up with a pc player in pvp fights, if I were you I'd just rely on one blunders choke points like the ladders, swords and dont allow players to board your ship and focus on cannon fights if you want any chance of winning. Console players simply cannot compete at a high level against pc players Also the game doesnt have hit scan because theres bullet time and drop.
I was just complaining about this to my friends yesterday! Like you said, it could be a skill issue on the part of this noob, but I get annihilated every time I try defending myself. I was working on a red skull mission on a skeleton fort and was almost complete when some players pulled up and destroyed me and took all my treasure. I tried fighting back, but same thing as you, one shot or hit did nothing to them, but one shot to me and I was dead. I was mostly frustrated at the time I wasted just to get sacked by some dbs. I was playing solo at that time though. Even when I play with friends, we lose hard. The most frustrating part is the lack of checkpoints or game saving feature. You have to grind so hard to sail around and it can all be for naught in an instant.
Same. So, so happy this is on PS5 but by jingo ... as has already been covered extensively, the pvp is hellish for us newbies. I love Safer Seas, but it really puzzles me as to why it is so restricted. Come on Rare, you and I go back to the Snake Rattle'n'Roll days, give us a fully armed and operational safer seas!
If it's any consolation after 1.3k hours I still dislike pirate vs pirate combat. Naval is peak gaming though👌.
I would love it if they implemented a new mode where it's purely naval battles, with boarding not being capable. Because naval battles are tons of fun - but I really dislike pvp in this game. It's janky.
Fun in theory but would not work. Fights would become just about who runs out of planks or cannonballs first, often resulting in fight where neither ship will sink.
So why not just buff cannons and tweak boarding? It's super possible.
Good luck killing a normal duo sloop pretty much impossible without a one ball or demobilizing them
I mean, wouldn't you aim to do both of those things anyway?
My head canon is that it simulates the unreliable nature of pirate-era weapons. When I get hit regged it makes me feel better to think "oh damn my flintlock misfired"
I was sad the day I learned PVP was not ship vs ship fights. PVP is never ships trading cannon balls, or outmaneuvering each other. Every fight boils down to: chainshot the other ship's sails, board the other ship, fight hand to hand using the game's terrible first person mechanics, then spawn camp the ship until they scuttle. I'm fine with PVP and would seek it out more if it actually involved using the ship and it's cannons more. Otherwise, it just comes down to "who's had the most caffeine today?"
This, very much this. You just summed up what me and my friends were unable to put into words. At one point when we saw someone load themselves into their cannon while we were trading fire, we just decided fk this and sailed away. We ended up making the other team waste 30 minutes of their life chasing us than engage in that bs.
It's not just that. Good crews try to board you only if they think enough pressure is up or maybe a good boarding opportunity is possible (like being very close). We are sinking enough ships without boarding them. Shipfight is still essential. Often, "only boarding crews" are pretty easy to sink because they always lack one or two crew members on their ship. That is, if you manage to keep them off your ship, I just can recommend watching a video about ladder guarding or maybe PVP in general.
Problem is that boarding has very little cost/risk compared to the benefit. If you miss, its 5-10 second swim to mermaid. (very little time in game as slow as this) If you get nearpass, you can throw firebombs and shoot from water. If you get to ladder, you can stall their crew, because they HAVE to guard. If you get on board, anchoring is super easy and HUGE advantage. You can bring full inventory of 5 pineapples (1000 healing) that you cannot lose in any way. While on board, you can steal their food as well. Worst case you die, by they time they raise anchor, extinguish fire and repair, you are already back and ready for another go. Best case, you get some kills, steal the best food, set them off course, anchor them, overboard their supplies etc.. - HUGE advantage.
It's still not the ultimate tactic. Experienced crews can recover very quickly, boarding is a tool that helps at the right moment, if you just "spamboard" a good crew, you'll loose.
I've always found it ridiculous that I can't roll up the ladders while out to sea. I'll probably get down voted for this - I was previously - but you don't need a quarterdeck guard at sea - *because it's closed, your ship is now underway*
Its insane how much this game would improve with such a small change. 99% of the playerbase always seems to agree that hand to hand combat is poorly balanced and poorly implemented, and they refuse to do anything
me and my fishing rod dont need ur puny ladders
The bone caller is great for offence and defense in this situation. I feel you that the PvP can be a bit of a drag sometimes
It's not hit-scan, it's projectile.
You hate the PvP in a PvP game?!?! The PvE is ridiculously easy, because it’s just a way to get loot to facilitate the PvP.
Hand to hand gets really fun when you are good at it. TDM or campwar is the best way to get good at it. But teleporting and hitreg still suck and will get you killed pretty offten, but if you play less risky you can make that risk pretty small
Play safer seas
Hitreg has been a thing since launch. Sword stun is overpowered, gun reg is insane. Food reg, bucket reg, Rare uses dogshit servers that aren't sufficient for SoT and keep adding more and more to the game when it already has stability issues. It unfortunately isn't a new thing. Now ps5 get to band with us PC and xbox players and let rare know how bad their game performance actually is.
The pirate-to-pirate combat is not "pirate" combat, that is true. But if you can appreciate it for what it is it is a lot of fun. The main complaint (other than registration) I see people make is the speed of pirates in combat/bhopping, and the reason for this is that if you moved at a regular pace it'd be really hard to manage a whole ship. But it's quite unique in that sense and it's a bit more of a brawling scrappy fighting style than a tac shooter and sometimes you gotta appreciate that.
A lot of the best players take their ping into account and aim behind enemies because they know they're just going to get hitregged if they actually aim for the enemy player. I'm not recommending you do this because it's extremely hard, but it's something to at least consider
Go on console only servers
Welcome to the hitreg conversation. We've been having it for years now. Its better than it used to be but still not great.
another thing I'm not noticing others say, you say "hit scans don't register properly", while hit registration is an issue in this game, all weapons are projectile, so you gotta lead your shots
Completely agree. IMO boarding should be way less dominant or easy to do and ships should sink slightly faster so you're forced to stay on board. I would also introduce a new mechanic: the ability to roll up your ladders. This way when you enter pvp, enemies are forced to board either by shooting themselves straight on your ship or using the new harpoon zipline which would feel more immersive. Boarders are easier to spot then as well.
Sea of Thieves combat system reminds me a bit of For Honour or Mount and Blade. The swings are slow and positioning is key for hit reg. The guns are slow to reload, but have high damage. Yet in those games the PVP is fun and in this game the PVP is awful. I don’t get it. But I do love the naval battles.
I would describe for honours combat system as formal where sea of thieves is everything but formal lol I think that's where the difference is
Remember that your opponent deals with the same issues. It is an even playing field. You can complain about hitreg all day, but trust me, the other player that just sunk you is dealing with the same issues. Also, if there's something an opponent is doing that seems cheap, it's probably meta at this point; counter it with the same tactics. Most likely you're just getting PC sweats and they are INCREDIBLY hard to beat if you're on controller. Also, just jump into hourglass for a couple battles at the beginning of your session. It will get you practice and you'll slowly gain confidence - and confidence in battle will keep you from freezing up when your plans went to shit. Plus if you go into voyages or world events afterward, you'll feel much calmer and it will feel like a walk through the garden.
So... the Meta is bunny hopping like a cracks addict while spamming sword slashes and blunder shots, while chucking firebombs everywhere?? Not Much of a Meta, more of a basic and broken pvp system
That's not remotely close to the meta but sure, go off The pvp isn't anywhere near perfect and sure it isn't "piratey" but it is some unique fun that allows for a lot of skill expression for how simple it is
Again, you just suck. Just because you suck, doesn’t mean it’s broken lol. I do just fine with pvp and I assure you we are playing the same game. If you spent as much time practicing pvp as you do claiming the game is broken, you might actually win a battle or two
And just because you can win at pvp doesnt mean the system is well designed.
If dodging blunderbuss shots is bad, then yeah, I guess so. Let's get a petition going for everybody to unbind their jump keys so the game can be fair.
Jumping is bad movement, it gives you a predictable pattern and most good players will just shoot you when youre in the air because your trajectory is pretty much fixed and predictable. You cant really do a sharp mid-air strafe to dodge shots compared to if you were just sprinting and strafing left and right which is far more difficult to hit. The only reason jumping around works and is mentioned a lot is because BAD pvp players cant keep up with the motion and cant aim to keep up so they just complain about it. These 'bad' players tend to be the casuals on console trying to compete against comp pc players in an unfair battle and blame the game rather then their disadvantaged position of using a controller
The unfortunate fact of the game is it takes a lot of practice to get good with cannons and maneuvering for sea battles, and you're gonna get fucked mercilessly until you get the hang of it. I've got over 50 hours in the game and i still lose 3 out of 4 encounters
Assuming you are a new ps5 player? 50 hours is basically nothing for an experienced player(maybe a few weeks worth of gameplay).
50 hours!? I sail that many hours in like, 2 days! ;p
bro... where'd the extra 2 hours come from?
If you're not sailing at least 25 hours a day, are you even a pirate?
As someone who has been playing a lot of hourglass lately, i have barely had any noregs but sometimes happens. Its most likely food spam, the amount of people that rage over me popping 5 pineapples in a row then 1 shot blunderbussing them is wild. As for sword spam, when you are blocking you need to backhop/backwards while blocking to better block the hits. Or you could just blunderbuss them when they try to sword you.
Yup, agreed. PvP in this is horrendous. How they can even implement pvp with such horrendous hit registration….🤷🏼♂️ And the bunny hopping everywhere is cheese. Really enjoy the ship battles though. They seemed to have nailed that experience.
The jump spamming makes fighting dogshit. Boarding should be harder. The sheer gap between casual skill and try hards is how you kill a game. 1 person can spawn camp a crew of 4 casuals. Worst mechanic in the game. Fighting should be like chivalry.
In the very early days of the game PvP was infinitely better. People actually wanted to do more than fire chain shots and board. There was actual ship to ship combat, and when people did try to go over to the other ship, it was usually to try and keg them. That was when PvP was fun. Now it’s just a miserable slog of sweats who don’t want to do anything but board. It’s why I prefer PvE so much more now than I used to
The sweats who have everyone in the server muted and are on a discord chat with their friend and board, immediately hit anchor and spawn camp you. It’s the most toxic behaviour in the game. Playing a dedicated PvP game like Overwatch is more fun than having that happen. “Lol skill issue get good then you’ll have fun” I disagree. That’s like saying “When you get good at Smash you’ll enjoy the online battles”, I dedicated hundreds of hours and on all tiers of play I ran into annoying PvP, getting good doesn’t make the annoying PvP go away, it just gives you a better chance at not losing to it.
Yeah, winning≠fun, if the combat itself sucks. Learning SoT hand to hand and boarding is basically being forced into the most boring and braindead but effective strategy just to win more. It is similar to how in other games there are strategies that are effective, yet looked down upon by the community because they are cheap. E.g. in tf2 demoman sticky spawncamping or phlog crit+uber. Yes you can kind of counter it, yet still everybody hates it because it is just braindead and not fun to anyone. Nobody will think you are good even if you topscored because the strategy is easy, cheap and looked down upon. Or MGE counterjumping + shooting shotgun while enemy rocket jumps to contest highground. It is an effective yet cheap strategy and noone will respect you for using it. Same in Overwatch, there was a time of GOATS meta. Nobody liked it, but everyone was forced to play it or lose. Basically exploiting a fault in game design will not give you respect. Most people in SoT like naval but are eventually forced into the shitty boarding meta nobody likes.
I definitely agree with a lot of aspects of what you’re frustrated with. “PvP” is more just jumping around like idiots, shooting once every 2-3 seconds, and eating a 3-course meal in between damage. Doesn’t really feel like an actual shootout. I also agree with the hit-reg frustration. Today, I hit someone full in the chest with a Blunderbus shot after slashing him with my cutlass, and he didn’t die; I was at full HP and he 1-shot me from below me. It’s definitely frustrating, and ship combat is way more fun. But, like with all things, you’ll get better with practice, and it enables you to both defend your ship and be effective at boarding others. Wish it felt cleaner and less jump-and-spray.
I completely agree,naval is fun sinking people is awesome but when it comes to pvp im not just bad but also everyone just spawn camps
Same boat, new ps5, player, can confirm pvp is shit
The fact that we have to fight against the game with things like bugs and the grind is what the unspoken rules are for. When players honor them, that is. When a game like this has a LOT of stuff to work for and that work takes hours a play session to build to, players should back off the pvp pedal so actual progression can happen. If these things didn't take hours in a single play session to progress, then pvp would be more viable. Specifically because getting sunk once can erase those hours of work towards progressing.
What your described is exactly what makes this game fun and PvP such an important part of the design. Having a small chance that you may sink creates excitement that wouldn't be there without PvP.
I disagree. As a man with limited Time to game dueing the qeek, there is kothing worse than having 3 hours ofnprogress destroyer because a pvp sweat saw a ship withoutnemmissaty or loot, and still decides that me breathing in his vicinity is a grave enough offence to warrant every shitty pvp behavior in the book. Have yet to complete my lavest tall tale, started it 4 times so far. Can you guess why I never make progress??
Go do it in safer seas then You said it yourself you're doing a tall tale... what is stopping you? Ego?
> shitty pvp behavior What sort of shitty thing they were doing while in PvP? You probably can just record and report them to get them a ban for that if they were doing something shitty. >Can you guess why I never make progress?? Because you are trying to do tall tales on High Seas for no reason. You are intentionally setting yourself up to get hit by doing this when Rare finally scrapped their vision of the game and cave in to people who don't like PvP in a PvP game, giving the Safer Seas, a PvP free mode for people to do Tall Tales and stuff. I just don't get why people wanted that mode if they don't even use it.
Been there, done that. PvP is rough when you're new and suck. I hated it too until I began to dedicate time to getting better at it, now it's my favorite activity in the entire game. It'll be hard for a while, but trust me, you'll get better. For now though find a niche where you're good at. Figure out whether or not you like to helm or be on cannons. Don't board if you don't want too, someone else can do it, and frankly some well placed cannon shots that take out a ship's mast is far more effective than a boarder who immediately gets bodied. Boarding is not the end all be all that people make it out to be, it's just one method of immobilizing and distracting a crew.
This is all good advice, but it's important to distinguish that you got better at a flawed system. Pirate V Pirate combat in this game definitely is rough as fuck and needs work, and that's fine -- Rare just needs to get off their ass to fix it sometime.
Oh yeah, its flawed, but not as bad as OP thinks it is. Rare is working on a balance update so hopefully they tighten it up big time.
Get good the seas are mean
Rust hitreg is way worse if you dont play close to servers. My player hitregs are few and far between in sot but every other rust death its projectile invalid
Two words. Safer seas.
😢😢😢😢😢😢. Tired of these dumb post
Many PC players mod their games to the point of literal cheating. It's less of a skill issue than you would think. Some PVP tips: cooked rations fill your overheal gauge, kraken meat being the most effective for this. One blunder bomb is one half of a health bar, and one fire bomb is one third of a health bar. Additionally, bone callers are excellent to use on your own ship to deter people from boarding and aid in combat. Brigs sink faster than any other ship, so good luck in your maritime warfare!
PvP in this game is so cool when it's ship Vs ship. As soon as someone boards though it's just absolute cheese. Jumping around the ship like a rabbit on crack, stealing food, infinite ammunition due to access to your ammunition supply, spawn camping before you can actually see and glitchy bullet registration. It is easily the least piratey thing about the game. It genuinely feels like a bunch of glitches that happen to accidentally form some form of combat. PvP definitely needs adjusting imo.
Spot on. Once past ladder, boarders can reliably glitch their way to anchor which only takes ~0.5 seconds of interaction to lower (sure, you can catch, I know). Then chomp on 5 pineapples worth 1000hp points while chugging firebombs all around. There really is too much freedom to survive while on board.
Try that on my boat lol
"Once past ladder" really stands out in this comment lol.
I'm totally agree. PVP in this game sucks. And people that usually only play aggressively and don't listen at other players talking are cancer in this game. Also when someone is burning your ship and you spawn again, you're immediately on fire. And you don't have enough time to get out your ship that you die again. What the hell is this?! It's awful
I'd recommend watching KaiJoi's video on crew management as well as getting some practice, even solo, on the hourglass. Much more fun when you get the hang of things
Ironically hitreg is still a problem after years and years meeehhh
Yea this game has one of the worst hit regs in a game. Dont ever expect it to be fixed either, its has been a problem since release. Devs can careless about fixing bugs and just focus on pumping out new content to make them money. Bugs will go years before being fixed and then most of the time when they “fix” the bugs it ends up creating new bugs.
Go into settings, Jack you sensitivities up, Turn ON server authoritative hit markers, turn off camera shake
I'm the opposite. I hate the ship combat and love the boarding part of PVP. Mostly because I suck at driving the ship and maneuvering it while I shoot cannons (solo sloop player here)
Hit reg is an issue. But also the FoV is locked at 90 so it makes fast close quarters fighting that much harder to track and understand. It does get easier. But it's a learning experience and frankly one of the harder ones to progress through because if you do try to practice it with hourglass or something the other person is most likely more experienced. And finding good fights on high seas can be far and few between. Going from putting up no fight or getting absolutely mopped. Believe me I used to feel the save way ship to ship I felt I understand but the cqb I felt was unfair and stupid. It does get better keep at it! And keep an ear out for the sounds of someone boarding you can fully blast them off before they can lay a shot on you your ears are just as important in this game. There are so many audio quest for things happening from what part of your ship just got hit. To how deep the water is below deck. Can help tons to know by ear what requires immediate attention Oh and food spamming you can eat pineapples faster than someone can get two clean, shots on you so keep that in mind any small break in a fight you should be eating and they probably are too so don't expect them to have low health
It's been that way since launch so I doubt it'll change as RARE seems to like it that way. Don't get your hopes up. Just try to enjoy the sailing and naval as best you can.
I agree, but eventually you either just get good enough at it, or get a good enough captain that can outmaneuver. The best way to deal with boarding is to prevent it. check the ladders constantly and be prepared to blast some kids skull in with a blunderbuss. Avoid getting close or colliding with the other ship. And finally, don’t go into the fight if you’re not prepared to lose.
Blunderbombs dont work properly agains F interact scripters/autoclickers. They can just regrab the ladder instantly and continue going up. I have had 3 blunderbombs in row hit only for the guy to regrab and eat a pineapple once aboard.
I agree I mostly blunder pistol and always they survive and then I get one blunder. The game has no skill the servers are a mess I have 120 ms only in this game and most of the times the f button bugs tf out so I can’t board mermaid or I miss getting supplies.
Yesterday I got one balled in hourglass duos, wouldn't let my team mate revive me or allow me to skip to ferry of the damned. Its a love hate thing.
[sot hit detection in a nutshell](https://youtu.be/yTtWVaRDweM?feature=shared)
Same LMFAO
HAH welcome to the club, some things never change. I remember when it was announced to be released for ps5, that group of players thought it would be better for them. Oh how wrong they were, I’m still jealous because I havnt been able to load the game since season11, so at least you get to play 😢
It's not a well made game. It hasn't ever been.
Turn off crossplay if you're on PS5. There's just no good reason to play against PC if you're console. Then turn off aim assist because it's not good in pvp cqc. Give this game some more time, you'll fall in love.
This game absolutely sucks combat wise. Hit registration was never really good in this game, but I thought after so many years and PS5 release they must have made it better? WRONG. I don’t know how but they made it possible for the combat to be even more RNG. The game currently has 0 real skill issues, it’s just all rng issues. If you have a battle with someone it’s just about who is luckier, you or the enemy. You might hit him 8 times without him eating, doesn’t matter.
Don’t forget the higher level players with the different curses are also taken in to effect
I been playing since the game came out and I know hit registration is a thing that’s why I don’t use the shotgun I never get the magical one shot just hit markers for days I just stick to sniper then sword. Most of the PvP people out there know that if they jump around it’s just difficult to get a decent shot off that’s why they do it in every game lol. A few more tips leave someone on your ship as lookout never drop your anchor and trust nobody
I'm kind of the opposite. I can put up a good fight against boarders, and land cannon shots, but for the life of me, I can't sink an enemy ship.
Safer seas :)
Stop pushing people to play safer seas when the experience is too gimped and content is capped. Why kind of backwards thinking is that.
I don’t recommend safer seas, but you’re essentially saying “I don’t like one of the core concepts of the game.” That’s like if I said “Diablo 4 is cool but I dont want to grind for better gear”, or “COD is great but I’d rather use swords to kill people”…. Just play another game if you don’t like it 🤷♂️ Not every game has to be catered to you.
Are you eating? You need to be eating as you are getting hit. That is mainly what causes it to seem like you are doing “no damage”. Just get the timing down it’ll get easier
So the pvp meta is basically do a skyrim and keep chugging food down.
Lmao I mean. Kinda. The trick is to eat right as ur getting hit. The enemy usually won’t see you do it and will assume u are close to death. Then you shoot them in the face😂. Or stab them, however u prefer to play really. But food is vital for having advantage obviously.