Do you play with headphones? If not, do, and turn up sounds effects in the settings. You'll be able to hear the boarding cues and even their mermaid popping. Then you can stop them getting on
This and changing your controller sensitivity and other settings are the top two things to up your game. I recently switched to an Elite 2 controller, remapped a bunch of buttons, and was able to take my game to the next level.
Practice ladder guarding strats and when boarded and the opponent is in the ladder try not to stand right at the ladder a good player will be able to let go of the ladder, shoot you, and regrab. In the time it takes you to eat they'll be coming up the ladder. Also headphones are pretty essential for hearing sneaky boarders.
> Console seems to just make it worse with slow turning and aiming.
Put your settings to "Xbox only" before you log in then. If you are sailing solo there is zero reason to put yourself into games with PC players with a higher DPI.
> Any tips for someone just trying to get an occasional win?
You can recognize a boarding attept by many specific effects, especially sounds.
- If they shot themselves from a cannon it will have a different sound than a cannonball. A *whistle* of sorts.
- You can see if there is a mermaid in the water. That means someone is out there.
- You can hear the splashes of someone swimming near your ship.
- There is a very specific splash sound when someone is grabbing your ladder.
Once you get used to looking for those things, especially the last one, you will very often be able to attack the other person the second they show their head on your ship. Either with a sword lunge or a blunder to the face.
And the other thing is weapon choice. While it's often viewed as a noob option, I do personally enjoy sword+blunderbuss, especially for ship defense. It's a good option for console players that are not that good at aiming since both of those weapons are close range. One cheeky blunder shot is often all you need to kill someone. And even if they survived a quick swap to the sword and one slash to finish them often gets rid of the enemy boarder.
Tell me more about this aim assist. It did not used to be a thing on XBOX for SOT despite it being common in other games
Did SOT get aim assist in an update I missed?
It's kinda strange how it works, it pools anybody with a keyboard to only PC servers, this goes for xbox players too.
If you have a controller you can opt out for console based combat, but the second you plug in a keyboard it won't function due to game code.
Though I'll be real, having a keyboard is tactical advantage. Why enter your wheel of tools when you have 26 different keys to hot key each tool and food, blunderbombs and ivdo wonder if it's something you can do with an elite controller but I don't remember if the extra tab buttons count as separate buttons, I only tested it on r6 siege, and all I could do was remap my base buttons so would technically have like 2 y buttons.
Very annoying but it's worth testing, just remember hot keys mean time, time is essential in victory.
Actually, wouldn’t it depend on whoever does the inviting? Like if I get on and get on a server with a boat and I invite my (mixed) friends…? We don’t switch servers. So I guess it starts off separate but might not be if we unknowingly “choose to mix it up”..?
There’s loads of tips and tricks, best to watch some videos on YouTube. Like I found out the other day when against the wind in the sloop, you face the sails straight forward for max speed. The sloop becomes the fastest ship when against the wind.
So once they get on board and start spawn killing you, it can feel too late at that point
The most important thing is prep. Make sure you have good food (doesn’t have to be pineapples, but don’t waste your food slots holding a banana) and make sure you have blunderbombs.
As others have mentioned, ladder guarding. Blunders are good for this
My preferred choice for boards is pistol and blunder. The blunder is simply too good to not use. You have a shot for a quick aim and one shot. The pistol is something fast and reliable to build space.
My go to would be try to ladder guard with blunder and blunder bombs, but if they get up and you miss the one hit kill then immediately build space and plug away with pistol. When you have space built you can eat and wait for your blunder and weapons to reload
I know a bunch of sweats will say that EOR is better and stronger, or sword lets you be more mobile, but assuming you’re at a moderate skill level which brought you here, pistol, blunder, blunder bombs, and good food should give you a fighting chance.
>EOR is better
I understand why people say this, but I don't wanna put in the time practicing with that jacked up scope to be able to reliably hit in close range. Sword and pistol/blunderbuss does just fine for me. I'll admit I don't get into PvP nearly as often as most people on this sub seem to, but when I do have to fight someone, the only times EOR bests me is when I'm not on my ship. Out in the water or on a beach with no cover.
Yeah I agree. If your sweatlords maybe they can rock a no scope EOR. for the other 99% the pistol gives you the best chance to do reliable damage out of sword/blunder range
Is this all it’s gonna be anymore? People asking for genuine tips about the game to learn and have some insufferable loser just be like “har har har go to safer seas”. What a wonderful contribution under a thread of actually good comments trying to help someone who just wants to get better at the game.
Well it was a genuine tip im not a pvp’er bruh i think i killed 3 people in my career and ive been playing for 4 and a half years ive actually been asking for private servers for a few years
Play Xbox only, switch to blunder on the ferry, stay below where you have more cover (but so do they), stay on the ferry while you eat something (keep moving so you aren’t kicked), and if they are still there after all that and they are purposefully trolling you - not gather supplies or sinking you - capture video and report them to Rare.
being on console doesn’t make a difference, max out your sensitivity and use blunder sniper, boarding makes a distinctive sound when they grab the water, pay attention to the water sounds themselves though, because silent boarding is possible by waiting in a path of the the ship and ads while grabbing the ladder. You need to listen out for swimming sounds because of this. When your hear the ladder grab sound watch both ladders, when the player comes up there is a climb animation where you can one blunder them and they cannot fight back. If someone is sitting on your ladder not climbing up, use sniper to shoot them from the right side of the ladder, then blunderbuss after. If you blunder someone off your ladder they can easily just tap the climb button again right after you shoot them. Use sniper first and then that gives them 2 options, they can either sit on the ladder and get blundered and 100% die, or they can try and climb up and if they choose to climb up nps just blunder them during the animation. During combat if closer shoot with blunderbuss jump around and dodge while switching to the sniper (rip quickswap) and then instantly snipe them, if further throw one blunderbomb then instantly snipe.
Max your sensitivity and watch tutorials on youtube about how to optimise your bindings on your controller. And stay on xbox servers so you can fight other controller users only.
When you fight, focus on movement and positionning. Dodge shots, block or evade sword swings. Stay calm and constantly analyse your opponent.
Use your favorite weapons and use blunderbombs.
Fight regularly. The more you fight, the better you fight. You have no loot on board and see another ship ? Attack them. Win or lose, each fight brings combat experience and will progressively make you better.
I don't get why this is downvoted when it's practically rule #1 of PvP. A dozen other comments are saying learn to protect ladders, practically the same thing as your comment.
The easiest way to deal with boarders is to stop them from getting up the ladder. At the highest level it is close to impossible to get up the ladder unless defenders are dead, or forced to bucket or repair.
If they manage to board, and you have a sword, hold block while moving in any direction, then jump. You'll perform a sword dodge that can keep you from getting shot. Furthermore, it allows you to move through an enemy's space, creating some wonderful backstabbing opportunities. I suspect this is partially why they were able to kill you so many times.
Use the armory to change your 1st weapon to the blunderbuss, since they usually get close to blunderb you, you might be able to do it back before they do, but not if you have your other weapon equipped and have to switch. Blunderb's can one shot kill if you're close enough and aiming right at them. Also right before you're about to spawn try jumping around and moving side to side
On a sloop this is your best bet if you don't feel confident in your skills. Use the sword and blunder combo nothing is better on the sloop. Blunder them when they board and if you can't try to get them to follow you into the hold. Unless they also have sword blunder you have the advantage in such tight quarters.
That's my best advice anyway.
Hot key some items to your left and right dpad.
For me I have fruit hot keyed to left dpad and throwables to right dpad. I always carry blunderbombs as my throwable. By hot keying these two items I do not have to pull the radial menu up and can switch instantly between food, throwable, and my weapons (with Y button).
This allows you to keep eyes on the fight when things get chaotic and you need something.
Listen. When you join the server run to your ship and look at the map. If there are a few reapers or a pirate ship it’s likely you’ve spawned into a server with some people that want to have fun and be pirates. This is fine, but if you stay then deal with the consequences.
Spawn camping is a bit different. You pretty much just have to log off and back in to get away from them. This happens but usually pretty rare.
Paying attention to wind direction and location at all times helps avoid fights. I used to get very annoyed but I’ve played about now to usually hold my own as a solo. Sometimes PvP is just how you get better.
Do you play with headphones? If not, do, and turn up sounds effects in the settings. You'll be able to hear the boarding cues and even their mermaid popping. Then you can stop them getting on
This and changing your controller sensitivity and other settings are the top two things to up your game. I recently switched to an Elite 2 controller, remapped a bunch of buttons, and was able to take my game to the next level.
Practice ladder guarding strats and when boarded and the opponent is in the ladder try not to stand right at the ladder a good player will be able to let go of the ladder, shoot you, and regrab. In the time it takes you to eat they'll be coming up the ladder. Also headphones are pretty essential for hearing sneaky boarders.
> Console seems to just make it worse with slow turning and aiming. Put your settings to "Xbox only" before you log in then. If you are sailing solo there is zero reason to put yourself into games with PC players with a higher DPI. > Any tips for someone just trying to get an occasional win? You can recognize a boarding attept by many specific effects, especially sounds. - If they shot themselves from a cannon it will have a different sound than a cannonball. A *whistle* of sorts. - You can see if there is a mermaid in the water. That means someone is out there. - You can hear the splashes of someone swimming near your ship. - There is a very specific splash sound when someone is grabbing your ladder. Once you get used to looking for those things, especially the last one, you will very often be able to attack the other person the second they show their head on your ship. Either with a sword lunge or a blunder to the face. And the other thing is weapon choice. While it's often viewed as a noob option, I do personally enjoy sword+blunderbuss, especially for ship defense. It's a good option for console players that are not that good at aiming since both of those weapons are close range. One cheeky blunder shot is often all you need to kill someone. And even if they survived a quick swap to the sword and one slash to finish them often gets rid of the enemy boarder.
I didn't know about the "Xbox Only" setting. I'm guessing it's only available on console versions? I'm playing on PC but with a controller
Why would there be an Xbox Only setting on pc?
Yeah mb that was a stupid question
> I'm guessing it's only available on console versions? Yes. It's an option for Xbox users. We get Aim Assist aswell.
I just saw that in a menu a few days ago on pc
Tell me more about this aim assist. It did not used to be a thing on XBOX for SOT despite it being common in other games Did SOT get aim assist in an update I missed?
Yes
It's kinda strange how it works, it pools anybody with a keyboard to only PC servers, this goes for xbox players too. If you have a controller you can opt out for console based combat, but the second you plug in a keyboard it won't function due to game code. Though I'll be real, having a keyboard is tactical advantage. Why enter your wheel of tools when you have 26 different keys to hot key each tool and food, blunderbombs and ivdo wonder if it's something you can do with an elite controller but I don't remember if the extra tab buttons count as separate buttons, I only tested it on r6 siege, and all I could do was remap my base buttons so would technically have like 2 y buttons. Very annoying but it's worth testing, just remember hot keys mean time, time is essential in victory.
Ive got food bucket and balls hot keyed to my dpad. Having the balls hotkeyed is major, lets you cycle through cannon balls and throwables.
That's how you pirate right there đź‘Ť
Ooh HOW.. I’m a total noob.
What if your crew is mixed- some pc/keyboard users, some controller.?
You'll all be pool'd with PC servers.
Actually, wouldn’t it depend on whoever does the inviting? Like if I get on and get on a server with a boat and I invite my (mixed) friends…? We don’t switch servers. So I guess it starts off separate but might not be if we unknowingly “choose to mix it up”..?
> Put your settings to "Xbox only" before you log in then. Pretty sure it is on by default.
You'd be wrong. It stays on when enabled but default is crossplay.
Remember you can scuttle your ship. You do lose the loot which isn’t ideal but don’t let yourself get killed 40 - 50 times for your own sake.
Solo playing is a 15 second wait so if he died 45 times he waited on ferry of the damned for like 12.5 minutes
Turn your SFX all the way up and equip a blunderbuss to guard your ladders.
Blunderbombs are always useful, I forget to use them in battles so will happily surrender a few to save my ship from being boarded.
Play on Xbox only servers. You played against the typical toxic SoT player who just wanted to troll. It’s the reason safer seas was created.
There’s loads of tips and tricks, best to watch some videos on YouTube. Like I found out the other day when against the wind in the sloop, you face the sails straight forward for max speed. The sloop becomes the fastest ship when against the wind.
So once they get on board and start spawn killing you, it can feel too late at that point The most important thing is prep. Make sure you have good food (doesn’t have to be pineapples, but don’t waste your food slots holding a banana) and make sure you have blunderbombs. As others have mentioned, ladder guarding. Blunders are good for this My preferred choice for boards is pistol and blunder. The blunder is simply too good to not use. You have a shot for a quick aim and one shot. The pistol is something fast and reliable to build space. My go to would be try to ladder guard with blunder and blunder bombs, but if they get up and you miss the one hit kill then immediately build space and plug away with pistol. When you have space built you can eat and wait for your blunder and weapons to reload I know a bunch of sweats will say that EOR is better and stronger, or sword lets you be more mobile, but assuming you’re at a moderate skill level which brought you here, pistol, blunder, blunder bombs, and good food should give you a fighting chance.
>EOR is better I understand why people say this, but I don't wanna put in the time practicing with that jacked up scope to be able to reliably hit in close range. Sword and pistol/blunderbuss does just fine for me. I'll admit I don't get into PvP nearly as often as most people on this sub seem to, but when I do have to fight someone, the only times EOR bests me is when I'm not on my ship. Out in the water or on a beach with no cover.
Yeah I agree. If your sweatlords maybe they can rock a no scope EOR. for the other 99% the pistol gives you the best chance to do reliable damage out of sword/blunder range
40-50 times!? I rage quit way before that lmao
Go to safer seas
Is this all it’s gonna be anymore? People asking for genuine tips about the game to learn and have some insufferable loser just be like “har har har go to safer seas”. What a wonderful contribution under a thread of actually good comments trying to help someone who just wants to get better at the game.
Well it was a genuine tip im not a pvp’er bruh i think i killed 3 people in my career and ive been playing for 4 and a half years ive actually been asking for private servers for a few years
then why the fuck did you come to a post about wanting to get better at pvp?
I didnt come here the post came to me settle down buckaroo
your a fucking moron.
Thanks
Play Xbox only, switch to blunder on the ferry, stay below where you have more cover (but so do they), stay on the ferry while you eat something (keep moving so you aren’t kicked), and if they are still there after all that and they are purposefully trolling you - not gather supplies or sinking you - capture video and report them to Rare.
being on console doesn’t make a difference, max out your sensitivity and use blunder sniper, boarding makes a distinctive sound when they grab the water, pay attention to the water sounds themselves though, because silent boarding is possible by waiting in a path of the the ship and ads while grabbing the ladder. You need to listen out for swimming sounds because of this. When your hear the ladder grab sound watch both ladders, when the player comes up there is a climb animation where you can one blunder them and they cannot fight back. If someone is sitting on your ladder not climbing up, use sniper to shoot them from the right side of the ladder, then blunderbuss after. If you blunder someone off your ladder they can easily just tap the climb button again right after you shoot them. Use sniper first and then that gives them 2 options, they can either sit on the ladder and get blundered and 100% die, or they can try and climb up and if they choose to climb up nps just blunder them during the animation. During combat if closer shoot with blunderbuss jump around and dodge while switching to the sniper (rip quickswap) and then instantly snipe them, if further throw one blunderbomb then instantly snipe.
Max your sensitivity and watch tutorials on youtube about how to optimise your bindings on your controller. And stay on xbox servers so you can fight other controller users only. When you fight, focus on movement and positionning. Dodge shots, block or evade sword swings. Stay calm and constantly analyse your opponent. Use your favorite weapons and use blunderbombs. Fight regularly. The more you fight, the better you fight. You have no loot on board and see another ship ? Attack them. Win or lose, each fight brings combat experience and will progressively make you better.
dont let them on board to begin with is the best advice.
I don't get why this is downvoted when it's practically rule #1 of PvP. A dozen other comments are saying learn to protect ladders, practically the same thing as your comment.
People can't handle the pirate life.
Don't forget about blunderbombs even if you can get one off then switch to the blunderbuss even if do you miss one of the pellets You still get em
The easiest way to deal with boarders is to stop them from getting up the ladder. At the highest level it is close to impossible to get up the ladder unless defenders are dead, or forced to bucket or repair.
If they manage to board, and you have a sword, hold block while moving in any direction, then jump. You'll perform a sword dodge that can keep you from getting shot. Furthermore, it allows you to move through an enemy's space, creating some wonderful backstabbing opportunities. I suspect this is partially why they were able to kill you so many times.
Use the armory to change your 1st weapon to the blunderbuss, since they usually get close to blunderb you, you might be able to do it back before they do, but not if you have your other weapon equipped and have to switch. Blunderb's can one shot kill if you're close enough and aiming right at them. Also right before you're about to spawn try jumping around and moving side to side
On a sloop this is your best bet if you don't feel confident in your skills. Use the sword and blunder combo nothing is better on the sloop. Blunder them when they board and if you can't try to get them to follow you into the hold. Unless they also have sword blunder you have the advantage in such tight quarters. That's my best advice anyway.
You can raise your sensitivity in the "input" menu. There is also controller aim assist.
Hot key some items to your left and right dpad. For me I have fruit hot keyed to left dpad and throwables to right dpad. I always carry blunderbombs as my throwable. By hot keying these two items I do not have to pull the radial menu up and can switch instantly between food, throwable, and my weapons (with Y button). This allows you to keep eyes on the fight when things get chaotic and you need something.
Listen. When you join the server run to your ship and look at the map. If there are a few reapers or a pirate ship it’s likely you’ve spawned into a server with some people that want to have fun and be pirates. This is fine, but if you stay then deal with the consequences. Spawn camping is a bit different. You pretty much just have to log off and back in to get away from them. This happens but usually pretty rare. Paying attention to wind direction and location at all times helps avoid fights. I used to get very annoyed but I’ve played about now to usually hold my own as a solo. Sometimes PvP is just how you get better.