This is one hell of a thread Necro, but I was wondering if anyone still played this, or was looking to return/begin?
With an overabundance of time on my hands now, I've been toying with the idea. Last I played they had just introduced rowboats! A whole bunch has been added since then!
Steam: TheBrayster
PSN: TheBrayster_92
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
It's going to come out on steam. Excited to try it
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Lord_AsmodeusgoeticSobriquet:Here is your magical cryptic riddle-tumour: I AM A TIME MACHINERegistered Userregular
My brother's potentially looking to pick up the game, I'm curious, can you still do/redo the big adventure quest things?
Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. - Lincoln
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ObiFettUse the ForceAs You WishRegistered Userregular
My brother's potentially looking to pick up the game, I'm curious, can you still do/redo the big adventure quest things?
All the Tall Tales are replayable as much as you want. In fact, they are implementing a checkpoint system so if you get ganked or have to quit mid-tale, you can come back and finish it.
Any PAers wanna group up at some point hit me up. I think I have my steam ID on my profile here. Xbox Live should be too. I'll double check.
I'm on PST btw
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe
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Lord_AsmodeusgoeticSobriquet:Here is your magical cryptic riddle-tumour: I AM A TIME MACHINERegistered Userregular
In the past I've often done group stuff in SoT through the PA game discord.
Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. - Lincoln
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
edited June 2020
So just how bad is the ganking in this?
Because it's the first multiplayer game in ages my sister has any interest in, but she has absolutely zero taste for combat-heavy/competitive games. By all accounts, the game seems to be another one of these DayZ-style things where the only people that reliably get to have fun are griefers because nobody is even given the option of not dealing with them but it's easy for them to fuck up your fun. And naturally, not griefing and doing the actual game requires actual effort, so trying to play the game for fun sounds like something of a losing proposition.
Ninja Snarl P on
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ObiFettUse the ForceAs You WishRegistered Userregular
edited June 2020
It's hit or miss, really. I've gone entire play sessions where I've sailed by other crews with no issue. And other play sessions where a single crew relentlessly chases me down the second they see me. They've added quite a few mechanics and treasures to the game that appeal directly to PvPers and those players will generally gravitate to those rather than chase down random ships. It's much much less ganky than it was in the early days.
The trick for me is to always Sloop. If someone chases me, I turn my ship into the wind, angle the sails perpendicular to the wind and wait them out. No ship can catch a Sloop sailing into the wind. Most gankers know this and won't waste time chasing for too long.
Always raise the sails and then the anchor after you park. That way you can get going very quickly once you see another ship.
Sell often.
If you are doing Tall Tales, use your megaphone to tell other, potentially hostile, crews so they know that spending the time attacking you will be relatively fruitless. Attacking someone doing a Tall Tale is almost universally frowned upon.
I had a blast. Nabbed a villainous skull bounty when a burning skelly stepped on a geyser and blew itself up. Got into two ship battles, one where we sailed into a storm and capsized our sloop, and the other we just pulled a runner on.
I definitely am excited about jumping on with some PA peeps in the future.
Because it's the first multiplayer game in ages my sister has any interest in, but she has absolutely zero taste for combat-heavy/competitive games. By all accounts, the game seems to be another one of these DayZ-style things where the only people that reliably get to have fun are griefers because nobody is even given the option of not dealing with them but it's easy for them to fuck up your fun. And naturally, not griefing and doing the actual game requires actual effort, so trying to play the game for fun sounds like something of a losing proposition.
Having recently dove back into this, heavy, I'd say: "Not nearly as bad as you'd think. And not as bad as it used to be."
There's a very simple mechanical reason for this: it is entirely possible to play for a couple hours and not see a single other human player. The overall population rises and falls during the week depending on time of day, like literally every other multiplayer game that's not Fortnite, and on top of that individual instance population caps are pretty low (I think they've been gradually lowered in response to complaints).
I'm one of those people who is deeply paranoid of other sailors. Anyone who crews with me has to put up me freaking out every time I see another manned ship because I'm terrified they're going to sink us and rarely get bloodlust on my end. Last time we played, my brigantine ran into another brigantine who, for all their behavior, was completely harmless (the usual friendly chat messages, playing instruments, running around our ship but not touching any of our stuff), and I ended up shouting at my party members not to antagonize them in any way, like when one of them was transferring gunpowder barrels recovered from an island but being chased by a shark (and had previously had "accidents" with said barrels). And now, those friendly idiots had imposed their ship between ours and the islands. "Jesus Christ, this is the Pirate Cuban Missile Crisis and the idiots in the US Navy are playing sea chanties on our deck."
Nothing happened. They just hung out on our ship until we finished all our loot/skull recovery, we hurried launched, and they began firing themselves out of our cannon back in the direction of their ship. So technically, they stole one cannon ball, I suppose?
Unless you're particularly (un)lucky, you probably won't run into that many other manned ships (as oppose to all the other things that can kill you in the sea, particularly for inexperienced crews, like the Kraken, varieties of megalodon, fully-manned ghostship galleons, inescapable storms that will bombard your ship with lightning strikes while all those other things are happening, etc.). And even if you do, there's certainly no guarantee they will automatically be hostile, much less actively seek to gank you.
And if you do, unless you're in a sloop, you can probably outrun them so long as you spot them early. Pursuit is actually quite difficult in this game. And a sloop can just outmanuever them.
To note: They've recently added an entire faction dedicated to player boat sinking/ skeleton ship sinking, but joining it means your ship is visible on the map at all times. So yes, they are out to get you (or maybe just skeletons? I think those count?) but you can play around it. Also some night I never even see a ship come close to me. lots of fols just want to go about doing non-pvp stuff.
Other non-reaper ships can still attack you, of course, but the gameplay loop is very much a "press your luck" situation. If a player ship doesn't kill you, a kraken, megaladon, or a crewmate who left a fish on the grill and set fire to the entire area, will. Cash in relatively often.
A final note: Most of my pvp-encounters have been pretty fun, and the other players haven't been nasty about it. It can happen though, obviously.
To note: They've recently added an entire faction dedicated to player boat sinking/ skeleton ship sinking, but joining it means your ship is visible on the map at all times. So yes, they are out to get you (or maybe just skeletons? I think those count?) but you can play around it. Also some night I never even see a ship come close to me. lots of fols just want to go about doing non-pvp stuff.
If you mean the Reaper missions, it's worth noting, you'll actually find Reaper chests (you know, the thing you turn in for the rewards) most commonly by seeking out a marked point on the map. Upon recover of the chest, you'll be carrying the mark until you turn it in (which is as worrying as it sounds). But it's entirely possible to do without encountering enough player. In fact, that's the only way I've managed to turn in Reaper chests.
To note: They've recently added an entire faction dedicated to player boat sinking/ skeleton ship sinking, but joining it means your ship is visible on the map at all times. So yes, they are out to get you (or maybe just skeletons? I think those count?) but you can play around it. Also some night I never even see a ship come close to me. lots of fols just want to go about doing non-pvp stuff.
Other non-reaper ships can still attack you, of course, but the gameplay loop is very much a "press your luck" situation. If a player ship doesn't kill you, a kraken, megaladon, or a crewmate who left a fish on the grill and set fire to the entire area, will. Cash in relatively often.
A final note: Most of my pvp-encounters have been pretty fun, and the other players haven't been nasty about it. It can happen though, obviously.
This game does have some great..."emergent gameplay" moments. A friend and I were playing yesterday and we were convinced we had a magical chest that was setting our boat on fire over and over again and desperately tried to offload it while frantically putting out the flames. Even after selling our haul the boat was still catching fire, and my friend was insistent that there must be some other player fucking with us. Then...he remembered that he had started cooking a coconut and completely forgot about it when his doorbell rang and he had to go answer. So...whoops?
Hi guys. Me and a friend are thinking of getting this game on steam. Would like to know what's the download size and if the games network is stable? Are there any desync issues and such?
its been a while since i played but the game was always very stable when i did. any issues were rare enough to be forgettable.
Its definitely been a bit rougher since the Steam launch. Taking much longer to get into a session, and the servers threw up on themselves for a good while the other day (while I was sailing back to outpost to dump off like 10k of treasure, naturally). So that was frustrating.
I just picked this up on Steam. Xbox username is Zul808. I'd love to play with anyone, though my playtimes are often short between kiddos and getting to bed on time for work...
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Lord_AsmodeusgoeticSobriquet:Here is your magical cryptic riddle-tumour: I AM A TIME MACHINERegistered Userregular
Not being a pirate legend yet I don't think I can do the Athena's treasure stuff to get the blighted figurehead thing
Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. - Lincoln
its been a while since i played but the game was always very stable when i did. any issues were rare enough to be forgettable.
Its definitely been a bit rougher since the Steam launch. Taking much longer to get into a session, and the servers threw up on themselves for a good while the other day (while I was sailing back to outpost to dump off like 10k of treasure, naturally). So that was frustrating.
I've never played a cross-platform game with Steam. Nothing in my Steam library is cross-platform (not surprising), and while I have a dozen+ Xbox titles that are, they're all cross-platform with Xbox on Windows 10. Maybe Steam? With Game Pass, it's not like I'd ever know.
I'm almost certain Steam of Thieves is cross-platform, but I'm not sure how that works. Probably like playing Minecraft on the Switch, i.e. you bind an Xbox account?
So, on the subject of being trolled/being pirated, my last outing with the usual crew (two brothers who have only one Xbox console and a Game Pass PC and Game Pass Console subscription between them). Starting out, after loading up on supplies we notice that the Reaper chest marker is actually very close to us--and that a marked fourth (fifth?) level emissary ship is patrolling the area north of it. So we figure since we have nothing of value aboard to risk it.
We're able to grab the reaper chest quickly (it's a different wreck than we encountered previously--the ship is completely submerged, and we actually spent quite a while searching it until we realized that the chest itself is in an compartment only accessible from the outside, and not in the bow accessible from below deck). We turn it in on the Reaper Island (also fairly close), and the emissary ship is hopping from island to island, seemingly minding its own business.
So, a good Friday by and large. It's early so we continue: heading west and further south to an outpost to sell off the remaining loot that we got off the shipwreck (since the Reaper Island is useless for anything else). We run into another Brigantine, this one unmarked with white sails, moored just off the harbor. I am immediately paranoid, as I've previously described, so we actually circle the island to the other side, closer to the actual vendors. After about ten minutes of ferrying chests and trade cargo and valuables off, as a concession to my less-paranoid crewmates, we scope the ship out. I ask that we not troll them and be on good behavior.
I board first. Turns out the Brigantine has only one crewman, who we'll call "Butters" for this story, and he's just standing on the deck, very clearly AFK, while I play the usual friendly "Hello, I'm not here to harass you," pirate instrumental performance. So immediately, the third brother (who is part of our party but not playing, as he doesn't have Game Pass) tells us we can get an achievement for one-shooting an enemy with a blunderbuss from behind. So one of the brothers playing immediately attempts it, and I can't really offer a great reason (his ship is devoid of valuables, he had probably offloaded everything before he went AFK). The brother kills Butters , but not in one-shot. I decide to not be so fussy and agree it's harmless if he's AFK and not carrying any valuables (I didn't say I was a saint), so while my crewmates are firebombing his ship (which doesn't really work well in the rain), I'm a little more subtle: I take a banana from one of his food crates and drop it in his stove. When the rain ends, and the water-level returns to normal, the stove-generated fire will eventually burn the whole ship down. Fruit (or really any food) in an unattended stove: a very slow and very avoidable self-destruct mechanism.
Meanwhile, the brother wants to take the ship on a joyride. I don't bother talking him out of it (Butters hasn't respawned because, after all, he is AFK). As we depart the island with two ships and three crew, myself included, two skeleton ghost ships (a galleon and a sloop) spawn on either side of Butters' hijacked ship. Score and a good time. We sink the Skeleton Galleon unexpected fast (setting their deck on fire with throwable fire-bombs probably helped). We lose track of the sloop (being ganged up on by two ships is generally not a great idea, even if they are AI). We pull out at least four bounty skulls of various value, a Marauder's chest, various gems and small valuables, and are generally very happy with ourselves. We also kill a megalodon (hadn't done that in a while). That four-star emissary ship is still island-hopping to our north. I insist we keep our distance and head south to sell the skulls and cargo, after pausing at a trading post to sell all the megaldon meat. One of the brothers (the overaggressive hijacky one) takes a bathroom break, so we pause at an island which myself and the remaining brother raid for supplies (and a new chest). I am not checking the map regularly.
You probably know where this is going.
The emissary ship shows up. I go into full panicked shouting mode. Considering I can see one of their well-dressed crew on the bow of their white-sailed ship staring me down as they bear down on us, this is not a coincidence. We're anchored and our third crewman has just returned.
As I immediately predict, we don't stand a chance. I can barely manage to shoot them as they've mastered the game's most annoying "Twitch and jump everywhere like this is Call of Duty while occasionally stabbing your target", or at least the one with the title "Legendary Pirate" has. We're all killed. We respawn, and make an effort to kill them as their ferrying our loot of skulls and chests away, which also fails. Our ship, which was already under fire, is sunk before the second round of respawns.
"Karma," I suggest. The brothers argue that trolling an AFK player isn't actually "karmic" in any way. I do see Butters just standing in the Flying Dutchman's soul-waiting area, ironically enough, still AFK.
I insist we have no chance of successfully beating them in combat if we want to retaliate (I'm right--more on that later). The aggressive brother as the bloodthirst. This brother goes along, and I consider myself outvoted, so I help with this misguided revenge mission. We immediately towards Plunder Outpost, the nearest settlement to where we were sunk, and track the emissary ship on the map (as we still can).
And then things get...strange. Our vastly superior enemies are close to another another marked emissary ship (that wasn't there before). They're both at the Reaper Island, which is a farther distance than anticipated. I do accept the argument that our only chance at getting revenge is if the emissary ship is wounded by the other one, but it takes so long that the other marker vanishes. Someone won the duel, presumably the guys who kicked our asses.
We rich Reaper Island. They must be there to return a Reaper chest. There's a sign of another wreck, and them. We realized they're actually moored off the island. Time for general quarters/panicking. I end up steering us into the peer, since I'm not getting a heading and can't see past our sails. Whoops. We must be fucked. But the emissary ship crew are scattered. And rather oddly, a bunch of skulls and loot are just arrayed out on the pier I just hit.
Naturally, we assume its ours. Until we realize there are two Tomes of Power. The emissary crew seem to still be by their ship, or elsewhere. I try and turn us around, while my crewmates immediately clear the dock of everything of value (which we eventually realize is substantially more than we were sunk with/robbed of earlier). We beat a hasty retreat once we're unstuck, and it becomes clear that the emissary ship has realized what just happened at about the same time we did: after sinking that other emissary ship, they had salvaged its cargo and placed it on the deck to pick up later. Our (less valuable) cargo is probably still in there ships hold. The fact that we do kill them, once or twice in isolated groups, back on the Reaper Island supports that (even I'm obligated to get off the ship and fire at the sad sack who took up the task of cargo transfer).
I am firmly of the opinion we will not beat them this time either, as far as ships are concerned. The wind is favorable, and we hightail it back to Plunder Outpost. They're on us, but we have a good ldea...until another ship intercepts them.
House Stark. Okay, actually, it's the (respawned and now unmarked) four-star emissary ship they had killed, which we call "House Stark" on account of the distinctive wolf sails. They are clearly in a revenge mood. The better ships fight, and we make our escape. By the time we reach the outpost far to the south, there are no visible emissary markers on the map--and we sell our substantially better haul, including the Tomes of Power.
Only in Sea of Thieves, a game for cowards, bloodthirsty idiots, and trolls. All hail the Pirates of da' North.
And the funny part of the story? I'm the one who got the achievement for the blunderbuss kill. It's the first time I used one in months.
What is happening when I try to select a mid sized ship with randos?
I have never completed a multiplayer mission from cradle to grave. I usually join rando kids doing god knows what without focus and end up quitting.
How do I really get a quality Sea of Pirates experience going?
Cantido on
3DS Friendcode 5413-1311-3767
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BethrynUnhappiness is MandatoryRegistered Userregular
Open crew is like that. The best way to get an open crew to stick around is to just load up your galleon and start heading to the skull fort. Once you're at the fort, people are more likely to stick around (everyone goes into open crew with this expectation of 'amaze me' and then when they aren't amazed they leave after 2 minutes, so you've just gotta stick with it).
The official Sea of Thieves Discord does have an LFG section, as do the Discords of various streamers. Those will get you much better quality teams than Open.
I tend to solo sloop a lot personally; after watching Beardageddon a lot to see just what a sloop is capable of, I realised you can actually sink both the bigger ships if you just play better than them, since a lot of people don't really know how to manoeuvre or fire well.
Just the other day I started chasing down a galleon solo since they were harassing me while I was killing skelly ships. A brigantine saw me chasing and eventually sinking them on the sloop, and dropped by to cheer me on and have a good laugh together. So yeah, don't discount slooping; you can definitely have a lot of fun doing it.
Open crew is like that. The best way to get an open crew to stick around is to just load up your galleon and start heading to the skull fort. Once you're at the fort, people are more likely to stick around (everyone goes into open crew with this expectation of 'amaze me' and then when they aren't amazed they leave after 2 minutes, so you've just gotta stick with it).
The official Sea of Thieves Discord does have an LFG section, as do the Discords of various streamers. Those will get you much better quality teams than Open.
I tend to solo sloop a lot personally; after watching Beardageddon a lot to see just what a sloop is capable of, I realised you can actually sink both the bigger ships if you just play better than them, since a lot of people don't really know how to manoeuvre or fire well.
Just the other day I started chasing down a galleon solo since they were harassing me while I was killing skelly ships. A brigantine saw me chasing and eventually sinking them on the sloop, and dropped by to cheer me on and have a good laugh together. So yeah, don't discount slooping; you can definitely have a lot of fun doing it.
Thank you. I'm very unused to forming groups in Discord and favor matchmaking with randos. But the matchmaking in Sea of Thieves is simply not there. I'll use it, I promise!
You can also start with a closed crew boat and load it up then open the crew in the "My Crew" settings. This way you can start whatever mission you want if folks can drop in on YOUR game.
Been playing a fair bit with the family. Mostly fiancé and my son (11). Enjoying the game immensely despite being consistently crushed in any PvP scenario. Mixed feelings on the PvP aspect. On one hand the ship to ship PvP feels 'fair' and PvP isn't terribly common. When we lose in ship to ship PvP I can consistently look back and say 'Ok this is how we can improve."
On the other hand, pirate to pirate PvP (melee and ranged) is mostly frustrating. Win or lose I never feel like I learned much of anything beyond 'constantly jump/move and spam attacks'. It's just over way too fast and typically in an entirely lopsided manner.
Other than that the game is fantastic. I love just sailing around.
So we just encountered our first set of toxic PvPers. We had just reloaded our sloop after turning in a massive hull when I spotted another sloop heading to port flying a pennant I didn't recognize (Reaper after the fact). We decided to just wait to see what they do as we had nothing in our hold and were about to go afk anyway. We didn't prepare at all. I myself was out of ammo and with no inventory. As they get near one guy fires himself at our ship but lands in the water then proceeds to pelt the deck with blunderbombs. As my fiancé panics I figure I'll just fire myself onto their ship with no real plan.
I land in the water next to the ladder and immediately start hearing the other PvPer on comms trash talking. I climb aboard, no idea where he went other than I can hear him spewing forth typical toxic bs. He's basically just watching me from somewhere and going "What are you going to do? Nothing, because you're an idiot." Ok cool. I don't know what I'm going to do actually. I drop their anchor for no particular reason other than I'm next to it. "Our anchor? You dumbass. We're not even moving. God you're so fucking stupid!". So I wander below deck while he's still running his mouth. What do they have right below deck? A gunpowder barrel. So I stand there for a few more seconds while he's going on, pull out my pistol... oh yeah no more shot. Ok cool. Wonder if the cutlass will set it off?
The answer is yes, the cutlass will in fact set off a gunpowder barrel. Last thing I see as my soul rises away is sea-water filling their hold so fast my corpse is submerged by the time I'm sent to the Ferryman.
Funny thing is he was dead silent after I detonated the barrel.
Been playing a fair bit with the family. Mostly fiancé and my son (11). Enjoying the game immensely despite being consistently crushed in any PvP scenario. Mixed feelings on the PvP aspect. On one hand the ship to ship PvP feels 'fair' and PvP isn't terribly common. When we lose in ship to ship PvP I can consistently look back and say 'Ok this is how we can improve."
On the other hand, pirate to pirate PvP (melee and ranged) is mostly frustrating. Win or lose I never feel like I learned much of anything beyond 'constantly jump/move and spam attacks'. It's just over way too fast and typically in an entirely lopsided manner.
Other than that the game is fantastic. I love just sailing around.
The game is player equitable to a fault. Even in Battlefield or Call of Duty, more active players will unlock certain weapon upgrades that less active ones wouldn't. At most, in SoT you'll experience visual jealousy over the clothing, ships, and pets of others. It can certainly be frustrating, in fact the (believable) lack of manual sights and by-definition extremely difficult ballistic artillery work on choppy-ass oceans is going to be frustrating no matter what (hence why most ship-to-ship battles basically happen at point blank range), but it's one of the most balanced and fair multiplayer games ever made due to its simplicity.
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ObiFettUse the ForceAs You WishRegistered Userregular
So we just encountered our first set of toxic PvPers. We had just reloaded our sloop after turning in a massive hull when I spotted another sloop heading to port flying a pennant I didn't recognize (Reaper after the fact). We decided to just wait to see what they do as we had nothing in our hold and were about to go afk anyway. We didn't prepare at all. I myself was out of ammo and with no inventory. As they get near one guy fires himself at our ship but lands in the water then proceeds to pelt the deck with blunderbombs. As my fiancé panics I figure I'll just fire myself onto their ship with no real plan.
I land in the water next to the ladder and immediately start hearing the other PvPer on comms trash talking. I climb aboard, no idea where he went other than I can hear him spewing forth typical toxic bs. He's basically just watching me from somewhere and going "What are you going to do? Nothing, because you're an idiot." Ok cool. I don't know what I'm going to do actually. I drop their anchor for no particular reason other than I'm next to it. "Our anchor? You dumbass. We're not even moving. God you're so fucking stupid!". So I wander below deck while he's still running his mouth. What do they have right below deck? A gunpowder barrel. So I stand there for a few more seconds while he's going on, pull out my pistol... oh yeah no more shot. Ok cool. Wonder if the cutlass will set it off?
The answer is yes, the cutlass will in fact set off a gunpowder barrel. Last thing I see as my soul rises away is sea-water filling their hold so fast my corpse is submerged by the time I'm sent to the Ferryman.
Funny thing is he was dead silent after I detonated the barrel.
Protip: If you pick up a barrel, you can light the fuse. That way you could've got some distance from the explosion and not died. You can also put out a fuse the same way
AxenMy avatar is Excalibur.Yes, the sword.Registered Userregular
edited June 2020
I usually always fly the Reaper's Mark. I recommend others do to. It makes PvEers steer clear of you and also makes most (but not all) PvPers steer clear of you too because they're often looking for easy PvEers to kill. Granted there is a (seemingly) small population of PvPers who are just looking for a good sea battle and they may well attack you, but generally these people tend to be good sports about it as opposed to your run of the mill griefers. edit- To clarify I was referring to players who fly the Reaper's Mark and also seek out others that are flying the Mark in order to have a good sea battle.
I am by no means good at PvP, if I get attacked I'm probably dead. The Reaper's Mark, in my experience anyway, seems to do the opposite of what its intended goal is.
Axen on
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
I'd probably agree, but the average instance population is so low it's a lot easier just to keep an eye out and immediately avoid a distant ship before they could reasonably respond (unless you're in a sloop and clumsy).
So ive been eyeballing this game for a couple days now, is it worth my time to pick it up and sail around solo?
The game is, by design, unfriendly to the solo experience. You're going to be pretty much stuck on a single ship (the sloop), and even then, ship-to-ship combat is going to be virtually impossible (meaning your canons are basically just there to fire yourself out of and maybe bombard the occasional skeleton standing around by the shore).
It doesn't change the fact that there's beautiful landscape and ambiance to enjoy, and you can still do the lower-end of treasure seeking, soul busting, and cargo delivering quests with (limited) interference, but the game is absolutely structured around a bare minimum of competitive cooperation. You'll basically have no choice but to run if you see any other ship, including those manned by the AI (because damage control, steering, and combat is difficult with two people, and effectively impossible with one), which will be very inconvenient, so long as you're alone.
So ive been eyeballing this game for a couple days now, is it worth my time to pick it up and sail around solo?
The game is, by design, unfriendly to the solo experience. You're going to be pretty much stuck on a single ship (the sloop), and even then, ship-to-ship combat is going to be virtually impossible (meaning your canons are basically just there to fire yourself out of and maybe bombard the occasional skeleton standing around by the shore).
It doesn't change the fact that there's beautiful landscape and ambiance to enjoy, and you can still do the lower-end of treasure seeking, soul busting, and cargo delivering quests with (limited) interference, but the game is absolutely structured around a bare minimum of competitive cooperation. You'll basically have no choice but to run if you see any other ship, including those manned by the AI (because damage control, steering, and combat is difficult with two people, and effectively impossible with one), which will be very inconvenient, so long as you're alone.
The way I describe it is that you can definitely play by yourself (I spent a fair amount of time solo slooping) but that none of the activities in the game scale to the number of players in your party. That means you're doing all of the boat stuff alone (steering, managing the sails, dropping/raising anchor, looking for wrecks/enemies, loading/firing cannons) but also all of the adventure stuff (digging up treasure, delivering goods, finding/fighting skeleton captains). So anything you want to do is going to take 2x-4x as long as it would with more people, and obviously expose you to additional risk while you're doing it.
It's certainly doable, but it's far from optimal and you need to set the right expectations going in. You'd be much better off getting on the official Sea of Thieves discord and finding people to sail with there.
So ive been eyeballing this game for a couple days now, is it worth my time to pick it up and sail around solo?
The game is, by design, unfriendly to the solo experience. You're going to be pretty much stuck on a single ship (the sloop), and even then, ship-to-ship combat is going to be virtually impossible (meaning your canons are basically just there to fire yourself out of and maybe bombard the occasional skeleton standing around by the shore).
It doesn't change the fact that there's beautiful landscape and ambiance to enjoy, and you can still do the lower-end of treasure seeking, soul busting, and cargo delivering quests with (limited) interference, but the game is absolutely structured around a bare minimum of competitive cooperation. You'll basically have no choice but to run if you see any other ship, including those manned by the AI (because damage control, steering, and combat is difficult with two people, and effectively impossible with one), which will be very inconvenient, so long as you're alone.
The way I describe it is that you can definitely play by yourself (I spent a fair amount of time solo slooping) but that none of the activities in the game scale to the number of players in your party. That means you're doing all of the boat stuff alone (steering, managing the sails, dropping/raising anchor, looking for wrecks/enemies, loading/firing cannons) but also all of the adventure stuff (digging up treasure, delivering goods, finding/fighting skeleton captains). So anything you want to do is going to take 2x-4x as long as it would with more people, and obviously expose you to additional risk while you're doing it.
It's certainly doable, but it's far from optimal and you need to set the right expectations going in. You'd be much better off getting on the official Sea of Thieves discord and finding people to sail with there.
Most activities do scale to the size of your boat, though. Skeleton ships are smaller, megaladons have less health, kraken are less difficult, bosses in the Tall Tales have less health, etc.
So ive been eyeballing this game for a couple days now, is it worth my time to pick it up and sail around solo?
The game is, by design, unfriendly to the solo experience. You're going to be pretty much stuck on a single ship (the sloop), and even then, ship-to-ship combat is going to be virtually impossible (meaning your canons are basically just there to fire yourself out of and maybe bombard the occasional skeleton standing around by the shore).
It doesn't change the fact that there's beautiful landscape and ambiance to enjoy, and you can still do the lower-end of treasure seeking, soul busting, and cargo delivering quests with (limited) interference, but the game is absolutely structured around a bare minimum of competitive cooperation. You'll basically have no choice but to run if you see any other ship, including those manned by the AI (because damage control, steering, and combat is difficult with two people, and effectively impossible with one), which will be very inconvenient, so long as you're alone.
The way I describe it is that you can definitely play by yourself (I spent a fair amount of time solo slooping) but that none of the activities in the game scale to the number of players in your party. That means you're doing all of the boat stuff alone (steering, managing the sails, dropping/raising anchor, looking for wrecks/enemies, loading/firing cannons) but also all of the adventure stuff (digging up treasure, delivering goods, finding/fighting skeleton captains). So anything you want to do is going to take 2x-4x as long as it would with more people, and obviously expose you to additional risk while you're doing it.
It's certainly doable, but it's far from optimal and you need to set the right expectations going in. You'd be much better off getting on the official Sea of Thieves discord and finding people to sail with there.
Most activities do scale to the size of your boat, though. Skeleton ships are smaller, megaladons have less health, kraken are less difficult, bosses in the Tall Tales have less health, etc.
While I think this is generally true, you're still being scaled for a two-person adventure, assuming you took a sloop...by yourself.
So ive been eyeballing this game for a couple days now, is it worth my time to pick it up and sail around solo?
The game is, by design, unfriendly to the solo experience. You're going to be pretty much stuck on a single ship (the sloop), and even then, ship-to-ship combat is going to be virtually impossible (meaning your canons are basically just there to fire yourself out of and maybe bombard the occasional skeleton standing around by the shore).
It doesn't change the fact that there's beautiful landscape and ambiance to enjoy, and you can still do the lower-end of treasure seeking, soul busting, and cargo delivering quests with (limited) interference, but the game is absolutely structured around a bare minimum of competitive cooperation. You'll basically have no choice but to run if you see any other ship, including those manned by the AI (because damage control, steering, and combat is difficult with two people, and effectively impossible with one), which will be very inconvenient, so long as you're alone.
The way I describe it is that you can definitely play by yourself (I spent a fair amount of time solo slooping) but that none of the activities in the game scale to the number of players in your party. That means you're doing all of the boat stuff alone (steering, managing the sails, dropping/raising anchor, looking for wrecks/enemies, loading/firing cannons) but also all of the adventure stuff (digging up treasure, delivering goods, finding/fighting skeleton captains). So anything you want to do is going to take 2x-4x as long as it would with more people, and obviously expose you to additional risk while you're doing it.
It's certainly doable, but it's far from optimal and you need to set the right expectations going in. You'd be much better off getting on the official Sea of Thieves discord and finding people to sail with there.
Most activities do scale to the size of your boat, though. Skeleton ships are smaller, megaladons have less health, kraken are less difficult, bosses in the Tall Tales have less health, etc.
While I think this is generally true, you're still being scaled for a two-person adventure, assuming you took a sloop...by yourself.
Very true, but I don't think it takes much time to learn how to solo play.
That said the game shines with even ONE other person. I've played the majority of it solo, but when a friend can hop in (i never play with strangers), it's just way more fun.
So ive been eyeballing this game for a couple days now, is it worth my time to pick it up and sail around solo?
The game is, by design, unfriendly to the solo experience. You're going to be pretty much stuck on a single ship (the sloop), and even then, ship-to-ship combat is going to be virtually impossible (meaning your canons are basically just there to fire yourself out of and maybe bombard the occasional skeleton standing around by the shore).
It doesn't change the fact that there's beautiful landscape and ambiance to enjoy, and you can still do the lower-end of treasure seeking, soul busting, and cargo delivering quests with (limited) interference, but the game is absolutely structured around a bare minimum of competitive cooperation. You'll basically have no choice but to run if you see any other ship, including those manned by the AI (because damage control, steering, and combat is difficult with two people, and effectively impossible with one), which will be very inconvenient, so long as you're alone.
The way I describe it is that you can definitely play by yourself (I spent a fair amount of time solo slooping) but that none of the activities in the game scale to the number of players in your party. That means you're doing all of the boat stuff alone (steering, managing the sails, dropping/raising anchor, looking for wrecks/enemies, loading/firing cannons) but also all of the adventure stuff (digging up treasure, delivering goods, finding/fighting skeleton captains). So anything you want to do is going to take 2x-4x as long as it would with more people, and obviously expose you to additional risk while you're doing it.
It's certainly doable, but it's far from optimal and you need to set the right expectations going in. You'd be much better off getting on the official Sea of Thieves discord and finding people to sail with there.
Most activities do scale to the size of your boat, though. Skeleton ships are smaller, megaladons have less health, kraken are less difficult, bosses in the Tall Tales have less health, etc.
While I think this is generally true, you're still being scaled for a two-person adventure, assuming you took a sloop...by yourself.
Very true, but I don't think it takes much time to learn how to solo play.
That said the game shines with even ONE other person. I've played the majority of it solo, but when a friend can hop in (i never play with strangers), it's just way more fun.
The sailing mechanics are very intuitive, no argument there, but what I meant was that you'll be taking on a two-person, rather than one-person adventure on your own.
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ObiFettUse the ForceAs You WishRegistered Userregular
So ive been eyeballing this game for a couple days now, is it worth my time to pick it up and sail around solo?
The game is, by design, unfriendly to the solo experience. You're going to be pretty much stuck on a single ship (the sloop), and even then, ship-to-ship combat is going to be virtually impossible (meaning your canons are basically just there to fire yourself out of and maybe bombard the occasional skeleton standing around by the shore).
It doesn't change the fact that there's beautiful landscape and ambiance to enjoy, and you can still do the lower-end of treasure seeking, soul busting, and cargo delivering quests with (limited) interference, but the game is absolutely structured around a bare minimum of competitive cooperation. You'll basically have no choice but to run if you see any other ship, including those manned by the AI (because damage control, steering, and combat is difficult with two people, and effectively impossible with one), which will be very inconvenient, so long as you're alone.
The way I describe it is that you can definitely play by yourself (I spent a fair amount of time solo slooping) but that none of the activities in the game scale to the number of players in your party. That means you're doing all of the boat stuff alone (steering, managing the sails, dropping/raising anchor, looking for wrecks/enemies, loading/firing cannons) but also all of the adventure stuff (digging up treasure, delivering goods, finding/fighting skeleton captains). So anything you want to do is going to take 2x-4x as long as it would with more people, and obviously expose you to additional risk while you're doing it.
It's certainly doable, but it's far from optimal and you need to set the right expectations going in. You'd be much better off getting on the official Sea of Thieves discord and finding people to sail with there.
Most activities do scale to the size of your boat, though. Skeleton ships are smaller, megaladons have less health, kraken are less difficult, bosses in the Tall Tales have less health, etc.
Even the amount of digs needed to pull up treasure scales based on the boat size
I know it's odd but when I'm solo playing, unless I REALLLLY want a specific company, I tend to just sail to the nearest island to see what i find. They almost all just have stuff lying around, or treasure maps to find, or I get attacked by a meg.
so as someone who's not played the game in a long while i found this to be a pretty good rundown on the state of the game currently. doesn't cover everything, but hits all the major points.
also, having been playing again the last couple of days it seems like they've increased the number of voyages you'll find as pick ups in the work considerably. and increasing the gleam of bits of treasure is a nice quality of life upgrade, especially on chests you started digging up. much easier to find those again after getting mobbed by skeletons.
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With an overabundance of time on my hands now, I've been toying with the idea. Last I played they had just introduced rowboats! A whole bunch has been added since then!
PSN: TheBrayster_92
All the Tall Tales are replayable as much as you want. In fact, they are implementing a checkpoint system so if you get ganked or have to quit mid-tale, you can come back and finish it.
Any PAers wanna group up at some point hit me up. I think I have my steam ID on my profile here. Xbox Live should be too. I'll double check.
I'm on PST btw
Because it's the first multiplayer game in ages my sister has any interest in, but she has absolutely zero taste for combat-heavy/competitive games. By all accounts, the game seems to be another one of these DayZ-style things where the only people that reliably get to have fun are griefers because nobody is even given the option of not dealing with them but it's easy for them to fuck up your fun. And naturally, not griefing and doing the actual game requires actual effort, so trying to play the game for fun sounds like something of a losing proposition.
The trick for me is to always Sloop. If someone chases me, I turn my ship into the wind, angle the sails perpendicular to the wind and wait them out. No ship can catch a Sloop sailing into the wind. Most gankers know this and won't waste time chasing for too long.
Always raise the sails and then the anchor after you park. That way you can get going very quickly once you see another ship.
Sell often.
If you are doing Tall Tales, use your megaphone to tell other, potentially hostile, crews so they know that spending the time attacking you will be relatively fruitless. Attacking someone doing a Tall Tale is almost universally frowned upon.
Sell often.
I had a blast. Nabbed a villainous skull bounty when a burning skelly stepped on a geyser and blew itself up. Got into two ship battles, one where we sailed into a storm and capsized our sloop, and the other we just pulled a runner on.
I definitely am excited about jumping on with some PA peeps in the future.
Having recently dove back into this, heavy, I'd say: "Not nearly as bad as you'd think. And not as bad as it used to be."
There's a very simple mechanical reason for this: it is entirely possible to play for a couple hours and not see a single other human player. The overall population rises and falls during the week depending on time of day, like literally every other multiplayer game that's not Fortnite, and on top of that individual instance population caps are pretty low (I think they've been gradually lowered in response to complaints).
I'm one of those people who is deeply paranoid of other sailors. Anyone who crews with me has to put up me freaking out every time I see another manned ship because I'm terrified they're going to sink us and rarely get bloodlust on my end. Last time we played, my brigantine ran into another brigantine who, for all their behavior, was completely harmless (the usual friendly chat messages, playing instruments, running around our ship but not touching any of our stuff), and I ended up shouting at my party members not to antagonize them in any way, like when one of them was transferring gunpowder barrels recovered from an island but being chased by a shark (and had previously had "accidents" with said barrels). And now, those friendly idiots had imposed their ship between ours and the islands. "Jesus Christ, this is the Pirate Cuban Missile Crisis and the idiots in the US Navy are playing sea chanties on our deck."
Nothing happened. They just hung out on our ship until we finished all our loot/skull recovery, we hurried launched, and they began firing themselves out of our cannon back in the direction of their ship. So technically, they stole one cannon ball, I suppose?
Unless you're particularly (un)lucky, you probably won't run into that many other manned ships (as oppose to all the other things that can kill you in the sea, particularly for inexperienced crews, like the Kraken, varieties of megalodon, fully-manned ghostship galleons, inescapable storms that will bombard your ship with lightning strikes while all those other things are happening, etc.). And even if you do, there's certainly no guarantee they will automatically be hostile, much less actively seek to gank you.
And if you do, unless you're in a sloop, you can probably outrun them so long as you spot them early. Pursuit is actually quite difficult in this game. And a sloop can just outmanuever them.
Other non-reaper ships can still attack you, of course, but the gameplay loop is very much a "press your luck" situation. If a player ship doesn't kill you, a kraken, megaladon, or a crewmate who left a fish on the grill and set fire to the entire area, will. Cash in relatively often.
A final note: Most of my pvp-encounters have been pretty fun, and the other players haven't been nasty about it. It can happen though, obviously.
Steam ID: Obos Vent: Obos
If you mean the Reaper missions, it's worth noting, you'll actually find Reaper chests (you know, the thing you turn in for the rewards) most commonly by seeking out a marked point on the map. Upon recover of the chest, you'll be carrying the mark until you turn it in (which is as worrying as it sounds). But it's entirely possible to do without encountering enough player. In fact, that's the only way I've managed to turn in Reaper chests.
This game does have some great..."emergent gameplay" moments. A friend and I were playing yesterday and we were convinced we had a magical chest that was setting our boat on fire over and over again and desperately tried to offload it while frantically putting out the flames. Even after selling our haul the boat was still catching fire, and my friend was insistent that there must be some other player fucking with us. Then...he remembered that he had started cooking a coconut and completely forgot about it when his doorbell rang and he had to go answer. So...whoops?
Its definitely been a bit rougher since the Steam launch. Taking much longer to get into a session, and the servers threw up on themselves for a good while the other day (while I was sailing back to outpost to dump off like 10k of treasure, naturally). So that was frustrating.
I've never played a cross-platform game with Steam. Nothing in my Steam library is cross-platform (not surprising), and while I have a dozen+ Xbox titles that are, they're all cross-platform with Xbox on Windows 10. Maybe Steam? With Game Pass, it's not like I'd ever know.
I'm almost certain Steam of Thieves is cross-platform, but I'm not sure how that works. Probably like playing Minecraft on the Switch, i.e. you bind an Xbox account?
So, on the subject of being trolled/being pirated, my last outing with the usual crew (two brothers who have only one Xbox console and a Game Pass PC and Game Pass Console subscription between them). Starting out, after loading up on supplies we notice that the Reaper chest marker is actually very close to us--and that a marked fourth (fifth?) level emissary ship is patrolling the area north of it. So we figure since we have nothing of value aboard to risk it.
We're able to grab the reaper chest quickly (it's a different wreck than we encountered previously--the ship is completely submerged, and we actually spent quite a while searching it until we realized that the chest itself is in an compartment only accessible from the outside, and not in the bow accessible from below deck). We turn it in on the Reaper Island (also fairly close), and the emissary ship is hopping from island to island, seemingly minding its own business.
So, a good Friday by and large. It's early so we continue: heading west and further south to an outpost to sell off the remaining loot that we got off the shipwreck (since the Reaper Island is useless for anything else). We run into another Brigantine, this one unmarked with white sails, moored just off the harbor. I am immediately paranoid, as I've previously described, so we actually circle the island to the other side, closer to the actual vendors. After about ten minutes of ferrying chests and trade cargo and valuables off, as a concession to my less-paranoid crewmates, we scope the ship out. I ask that we not troll them and be on good behavior.
I board first. Turns out the Brigantine has only one crewman, who we'll call "Butters" for this story, and he's just standing on the deck, very clearly AFK, while I play the usual friendly "Hello, I'm not here to harass you," pirate instrumental performance. So immediately, the third brother (who is part of our party but not playing, as he doesn't have Game Pass) tells us we can get an achievement for one-shooting an enemy with a blunderbuss from behind. So one of the brothers playing immediately attempts it, and I can't really offer a great reason (his ship is devoid of valuables, he had probably offloaded everything before he went AFK). The brother kills Butters , but not in one-shot. I decide to not be so fussy and agree it's harmless if he's AFK and not carrying any valuables (I didn't say I was a saint), so while my crewmates are firebombing his ship (which doesn't really work well in the rain), I'm a little more subtle: I take a banana from one of his food crates and drop it in his stove. When the rain ends, and the water-level returns to normal, the stove-generated fire will eventually burn the whole ship down. Fruit (or really any food) in an unattended stove: a very slow and very avoidable self-destruct mechanism.
Meanwhile, the brother wants to take the ship on a joyride. I don't bother talking him out of it (Butters hasn't respawned because, after all, he is AFK). As we depart the island with two ships and three crew, myself included, two skeleton ghost ships (a galleon and a sloop) spawn on either side of Butters' hijacked ship. Score and a good time. We sink the Skeleton Galleon unexpected fast (setting their deck on fire with throwable fire-bombs probably helped). We lose track of the sloop (being ganged up on by two ships is generally not a great idea, even if they are AI). We pull out at least four bounty skulls of various value, a Marauder's chest, various gems and small valuables, and are generally very happy with ourselves. We also kill a megalodon (hadn't done that in a while). That four-star emissary ship is still island-hopping to our north. I insist we keep our distance and head south to sell the skulls and cargo, after pausing at a trading post to sell all the megaldon meat. One of the brothers (the overaggressive hijacky one) takes a bathroom break, so we pause at an island which myself and the remaining brother raid for supplies (and a new chest). I am not checking the map regularly.
You probably know where this is going.
The emissary ship shows up. I go into full panicked shouting mode. Considering I can see one of their well-dressed crew on the bow of their white-sailed ship staring me down as they bear down on us, this is not a coincidence. We're anchored and our third crewman has just returned.
As I immediately predict, we don't stand a chance. I can barely manage to shoot them as they've mastered the game's most annoying "Twitch and jump everywhere like this is Call of Duty while occasionally stabbing your target", or at least the one with the title "Legendary Pirate" has. We're all killed. We respawn, and make an effort to kill them as their ferrying our loot of skulls and chests away, which also fails. Our ship, which was already under fire, is sunk before the second round of respawns.
"Karma," I suggest. The brothers argue that trolling an AFK player isn't actually "karmic" in any way. I do see Butters just standing in the Flying Dutchman's soul-waiting area, ironically enough, still AFK.
I insist we have no chance of successfully beating them in combat if we want to retaliate (I'm right--more on that later). The aggressive brother as the bloodthirst. This brother goes along, and I consider myself outvoted, so I help with this misguided revenge mission. We immediately towards Plunder Outpost, the nearest settlement to where we were sunk, and track the emissary ship on the map (as we still can).
And then things get...strange. Our vastly superior enemies are close to another another marked emissary ship (that wasn't there before). They're both at the Reaper Island, which is a farther distance than anticipated. I do accept the argument that our only chance at getting revenge is if the emissary ship is wounded by the other one, but it takes so long that the other marker vanishes. Someone won the duel, presumably the guys who kicked our asses.
We rich Reaper Island. They must be there to return a Reaper chest. There's a sign of another wreck, and them. We realized they're actually moored off the island. Time for general quarters/panicking. I end up steering us into the peer, since I'm not getting a heading and can't see past our sails. Whoops. We must be fucked. But the emissary ship crew are scattered. And rather oddly, a bunch of skulls and loot are just arrayed out on the pier I just hit.
Naturally, we assume its ours. Until we realize there are two Tomes of Power. The emissary crew seem to still be by their ship, or elsewhere. I try and turn us around, while my crewmates immediately clear the dock of everything of value (which we eventually realize is substantially more than we were sunk with/robbed of earlier). We beat a hasty retreat once we're unstuck, and it becomes clear that the emissary ship has realized what just happened at about the same time we did: after sinking that other emissary ship, they had salvaged its cargo and placed it on the deck to pick up later. Our (less valuable) cargo is probably still in there ships hold. The fact that we do kill them, once or twice in isolated groups, back on the Reaper Island supports that (even I'm obligated to get off the ship and fire at the sad sack who took up the task of cargo transfer).
I am firmly of the opinion we will not beat them this time either, as far as ships are concerned. The wind is favorable, and we hightail it back to Plunder Outpost. They're on us, but we have a good ldea...until another ship intercepts them.
House Stark. Okay, actually, it's the (respawned and now unmarked) four-star emissary ship they had killed, which we call "House Stark" on account of the distinctive wolf sails. They are clearly in a revenge mood. The better ships fight, and we make our escape. By the time we reach the outpost far to the south, there are no visible emissary markers on the map--and we sell our substantially better haul, including the Tomes of Power.
Only in Sea of Thieves, a game for cowards, bloodthirsty idiots, and trolls. All hail the Pirates of da' North.
And the funny part of the story? I'm the one who got the achievement for the blunderbuss kill. It's the first time I used one in months.
I have never completed a multiplayer mission from cradle to grave. I usually join rando kids doing god knows what without focus and end up quitting.
How do I really get a quality Sea of Pirates experience going?
The official Sea of Thieves Discord does have an LFG section, as do the Discords of various streamers. Those will get you much better quality teams than Open.
I tend to solo sloop a lot personally; after watching Beardageddon a lot to see just what a sloop is capable of, I realised you can actually sink both the bigger ships if you just play better than them, since a lot of people don't really know how to manoeuvre or fire well.
Just the other day I started chasing down a galleon solo since they were harassing me while I was killing skelly ships. A brigantine saw me chasing and eventually sinking them on the sloop, and dropped by to cheer me on and have a good laugh together. So yeah, don't discount slooping; you can definitely have a lot of fun doing it.
Thank you. I'm very unused to forming groups in Discord and favor matchmaking with randos. But the matchmaking in Sea of Thieves is simply not there. I'll use it, I promise!
Steam ID: Obos Vent: Obos
On the other hand, pirate to pirate PvP (melee and ranged) is mostly frustrating. Win or lose I never feel like I learned much of anything beyond 'constantly jump/move and spam attacks'. It's just over way too fast and typically in an entirely lopsided manner.
Other than that the game is fantastic. I love just sailing around.
I land in the water next to the ladder and immediately start hearing the other PvPer on comms trash talking. I climb aboard, no idea where he went other than I can hear him spewing forth typical toxic bs. He's basically just watching me from somewhere and going "What are you going to do? Nothing, because you're an idiot." Ok cool. I don't know what I'm going to do actually. I drop their anchor for no particular reason other than I'm next to it. "Our anchor? You dumbass. We're not even moving. God you're so fucking stupid!". So I wander below deck while he's still running his mouth. What do they have right below deck? A gunpowder barrel. So I stand there for a few more seconds while he's going on, pull out my pistol... oh yeah no more shot. Ok cool. Wonder if the cutlass will set it off?
The answer is yes, the cutlass will in fact set off a gunpowder barrel. Last thing I see as my soul rises away is sea-water filling their hold so fast my corpse is submerged by the time I'm sent to the Ferryman.
Funny thing is he was dead silent after I detonated the barrel.
The game is player equitable to a fault. Even in Battlefield or Call of Duty, more active players will unlock certain weapon upgrades that less active ones wouldn't. At most, in SoT you'll experience visual jealousy over the clothing, ships, and pets of others. It can certainly be frustrating, in fact the (believable) lack of manual sights and by-definition extremely difficult ballistic artillery work on choppy-ass oceans is going to be frustrating no matter what (hence why most ship-to-ship battles basically happen at point blank range), but it's one of the most balanced and fair multiplayer games ever made due to its simplicity.
Protip: If you pick up a barrel, you can light the fuse. That way you could've got some distance from the explosion and not died. You can also put out a fuse the same way
I am by no means good at PvP, if I get attacked I'm probably dead. The Reaper's Mark, in my experience anyway, seems to do the opposite of what its intended goal is.
The game is, by design, unfriendly to the solo experience. You're going to be pretty much stuck on a single ship (the sloop), and even then, ship-to-ship combat is going to be virtually impossible (meaning your canons are basically just there to fire yourself out of and maybe bombard the occasional skeleton standing around by the shore).
It doesn't change the fact that there's beautiful landscape and ambiance to enjoy, and you can still do the lower-end of treasure seeking, soul busting, and cargo delivering quests with (limited) interference, but the game is absolutely structured around a bare minimum of competitive cooperation. You'll basically have no choice but to run if you see any other ship, including those manned by the AI (because damage control, steering, and combat is difficult with two people, and effectively impossible with one), which will be very inconvenient, so long as you're alone.
The way I describe it is that you can definitely play by yourself (I spent a fair amount of time solo slooping) but that none of the activities in the game scale to the number of players in your party. That means you're doing all of the boat stuff alone (steering, managing the sails, dropping/raising anchor, looking for wrecks/enemies, loading/firing cannons) but also all of the adventure stuff (digging up treasure, delivering goods, finding/fighting skeleton captains). So anything you want to do is going to take 2x-4x as long as it would with more people, and obviously expose you to additional risk while you're doing it.
It's certainly doable, but it's far from optimal and you need to set the right expectations going in. You'd be much better off getting on the official Sea of Thieves discord and finding people to sail with there.
Most activities do scale to the size of your boat, though. Skeleton ships are smaller, megaladons have less health, kraken are less difficult, bosses in the Tall Tales have less health, etc.
Steam ID: Obos Vent: Obos
While I think this is generally true, you're still being scaled for a two-person adventure, assuming you took a sloop...by yourself.
Very true, but I don't think it takes much time to learn how to solo play.
That said the game shines with even ONE other person. I've played the majority of it solo, but when a friend can hop in (i never play with strangers), it's just way more fun.
Steam ID: Obos Vent: Obos
The sailing mechanics are very intuitive, no argument there, but what I meant was that you'll be taking on a two-person, rather than one-person adventure on your own.
Even the amount of digs needed to pull up treasure scales based on the boat size
If I take a journey I just get waylaid anyway.
Steam ID: Obos Vent: Obos
also, having been playing again the last couple of days it seems like they've increased the number of voyages you'll find as pick ups in the work considerably. and increasing the gleam of bits of treasure is a nice quality of life upgrade, especially on chests you started digging up. much easier to find those again after getting mobbed by skeletons.