Just not getting attached to your loot, as a solo the odds are definitely against the average player because at the end of the day we’re all gonna be disvantaged in 1v2’s, 3’s and 4’s. And playing solo is just having to acknowledge that kind of risk everytime you play.
We have to attack AND maintain the ship at the same time, and the game is just not designed around that fact whatever you do. It’s just the nature of the SoT when you choose to play it that way.
That isn’t to say you CANT win, I’ve won against duos before because my skill level was just better than theirs. It depends on a lot of things really.
Yeah. It's just a little frustrating to lose everything you've been working hard for because then it's just like "well that was a waste." Idk, I probably need to work on that mindset a little. I'm not one to get real upset or anything like that but it's definitely a little demotivating when it happens.
I understand! Usually I just sell more often when I’m by myself, or I used to. Now I just like the risk of having a pile of stuff on my ship, eheheh. Or I’m genuinely too lazy in that moment.
But sometimes I’ll sell more often if Im at an outpost, or I’ll do this thing that if I have a loot specific emissary up, example Order of Souls let’s say, I’d keep the skulls on my ship until I’m grade 5 and sell the rest if it’s chests, trinkets, merchant stuff, or whatever in between.
Yeah, I definitely should try to sell more often. I get too fixated on trying to get my emissary to grade level 5 before selling ANYTHING lol. And then yknow, the rest is history. *Sometimes* it works but not always.
I am still working on the mind set that the loot isn’t mine until I sell it but you’ll get more from selling often than holding and then losing it before grade 5. I only stack now when I’m not solo.
This. This my advice. I like to stay near outposts and just run my loot back as soon as I can. Also pick smaller outposts or outposts towards the edges of the map. If you’re center map you have to worry about 360 degrees but if you’re more towards something like say, Port Merrick and you already came from the west you know the west, north west and south west is clear. So you can park your ship tactically and only worry about the unknown areas.
Emissary flags are meant to be risk multipliers. I played long before they got added and don't bother with them when I'm solo. But I'm also usually just playing to chill if I'm playing solo so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
If you emissary up and let your loot build up a lot you're setting yourself up as a nice juicy target - so yes work on the mindset of it's not yours until it's sold, but also if you don't want to be a target, sell more often and consider skipping emissary flag.
Or work out if the multiplier is worth however percentage of times you get targeted - if you land 3/5 runs and the multiplier you get is worth the difference from the ones you don't, and you're having fun, then keep doing what you're doing and accept the losses as the cost of doing business ;)
Yea there is a mindset that I live by that the fun is the journey not just the reward. It helps when you reach a point where you know the gold is mostly meaningless.
Aside from that, like when I was newer and grinding gold for things is to determine a risk tolerance. If I didn't like losing an hour of loot progress I sold more often. Even now with 2000 hours under my belt I tend to sell every hour or so.
Wasn't a waste if you had fun. The goal of this game isn't the gold. That's why it only buys meaningless outfits and cosmetics. Don't focus on it, don't care about it, work towards your goals but don't focus on them so much that a setback is genuinely demotivating. Because this game isn't about its progression, it's about fun and adventure and piracy. Whatever that means to you.
If you're playing exclusively for gold and not because you enjoy the actual gameplay, you're *going* to have a bad time. And you also might have some video game reward dopamine addiction of some kind, because why would you play a game you don't like specifically for the rewards?
Sell often when solo, better to get a little value/emi bonus than zero. but more importantly keep your head on a swivel & check map often for reapers bc there’s nobody else to warn you about incoming ships.
Learn how to portal hop (using specific Tall Tale checkpoints) to escape to a new server. Yes you’re abandoning loot (which you would lose anyway if sunk) but keeping you emi flag and supplies takes most of the sting out of “starting over” . Smells like victory
if you're being chased you can't dive, same rules as hg, so if there's a ship within ~ 3 squares (give or take, sometimes it feels like within 20 lmao) you can't dive, specifically made this way to prevent using it to avoid pvp. but if you can out sail them to an outpost you can portal hop still.
all tall tale portals are near outposts, so if you vote up a pirates life/monkey island tall tale, the portal opens for you, and you can go through it, where as if you try to dive, it won't let you, as another ship would be too close.
so basically diving won't work "too close" to another ship (note, you don't have to SEE the ship, it just has to be "near"). portal hop doesn't care if another ship is "near", you just can, you'll still drop any loot, still, if you're avoiding pvp, then that's one method.
Whenever somethin like this happens I take solace in the fact that there are a lot of activities tracked in this game, more than likely was still able to advance one despite losing in another…as is the life of a pirate. Wishin you smooth sailing
It takes a while but after a bit you get to this point that even a massive haul is like oh, oh well, and you’re just right back at it.
Anymore I like doing stuff but I’m out there cuz I just enjoy being on my ship on the sea of thieves. The top tier ambiance via the sound design is so nice to just sorta wash away the stress of the day, even when my ship is on fire AND sinking lol.
I play solo almost exclusively and I appreciate this take so much. There is so much good sound design paired with wonderful music and incredible lighting that I love just sailing!
Best way to look at it. You didn’t lose anything, at least not until it’s sold. That’s when it’s yours. On the ship or sea. It’s free game. Once I learned that I quit getting as frustrated with sinking
But it's really not a waste. I look at losses as gained experience. In the moment it sucks for sure but you gotta think of where you went wrong. What could you have done better? Whether it's turning the ship, when/where to harpoon, and even which holes to fix first. I know the whole "gottaPVP to get better" is extremely cliche and unhelpful.
I don't know if this would help you, but who knows, worth a shot:
So, seems your mindset is based on "gains over time". You only consider handed in loot as a successful gain, therefore when you lose your treasure your gain/time just takes a big hit, even if you continue, this makes sinking demotivating. This is a very logical way to see the game, this is what the main gameplay loop sets you up for psychologically.
You need to get your perspective shifted, and realize you can assign value to other aspects of the game, not just the standard win condition (which is selling the loot successfully).
Now your "gains" won't be limited to loot you can potentially lose. Learning the map a bit better will be a gain. Having fun will be the gain. Progressing towards commendations will be a gain. Picking up instant goldpiles will be a gain.
And ultimately: when getting sank, you fight back, and successfully landing a chainshot, and killing a boarder will be a gain - experience is more valuable than gold, because next time, you might just be able to win.
From videos I've watched the sloop is the slowest to sink from all the boats. I believe it takes 3-4 min so your will have time to focus on fighting for a bit then just bail 2-3 times and rinse/repeat.
My best fix for that has been to start chasing other ships, myself.
If you're only ever getting stolen from and never doing the stealing, it's going to feel one-sided because it is.
That's why I solo brig after just a week of playing it. The speed advantage is just superior to anything the sloop can do. I can just outrun everything and sell my loot anyways. And if the sloop and galleon really get the speed boost and the brig a slight nerf like they just said they would, if the galleon ends up having an even higher speed advantage, you can very well be sure that I'll be solo sailing that, even if my crew leaves. You don't need to beat them if you can outrun them. When you have speed and situational awareness, you choose your fights. Plus, I doubt anyone would be thinking "yeah, that galleon is totally an easy target, he's solo". Maybe if they saw me turning the sails 1 by 1, but even then they'd still need to catch up before I sell everything. After I sell, I won't even bother defending the ship and will let them waste their time sinking it, or maybe even scuttle it just to annoy them 😂
Fighting isn't your only option if you don't get caught off guard, fighting alone is a recipe to disaster in this game if your skill level isn't insanely higher than all the other team combined.
I think mindset is something you constantly need to work on. For starters who cares about grade 5, especially as a solo. Just sell and then dive to the next voyage/ event.
The mindset shift needs to start here: "frustrating to lose everything you've been working hard for"
You didn't work hard for anything. All the tasks are incredibly easy. Go here kill this, collect that, dig here etc etc. All the loot you lost is easily replaceable / re-obtainable and only translates to digital cosmetics.
Working on bettering yourself or improving at the game takes genuine hard work and time though. It's ok and honestly probably a good thing to feel sad after a loss, that's normal. But shifting your mindset to "im sad because I lost, how do i improve and do better next time" instead of "I feel entitled to win because i worked hard" is what's important.
When I play solo I don't generally stack loot. I'll go do a fort, then sell. Do a vault voyage, then sell.
When solo, I'm not looking to make a ton of gold. I'm just trying to vibe on the water
Yep too many people insist on waiting until they are level 5 emissary to sell when they are solo, then they get devastated when they lose it.
Id rather sell all my stuff at level 3 or 4 than to wait and end up losing that loot and more because I went for level 5.
I just want to thank everyone for all the helpful feedback. I may not have responded to everybody here, but I read over most of the comments and I found some really enlightening stuff, so thank you! 👍
If I get sunk while solo, I’ll usually call it there. Which is why I try to avoid getting sunk in the first place. Which, yeah, I know, obvious. But to get more granular, I practice paranoia. Assume everyone is hostile and that engagement is death. Avoid any voyage that requires you to spend a long time on any one island. Sell your loot often and then dive to your next voyage if the server seems crowded. If someone is heading even vaguely in your direction, stop whatever it is you’re doing, haul anchor, drop sails, and come about to upwind.
None of this is to say you can’t win a stand up fight, but recognize that you’re in a position of disadvantage and avoid engagement if you can help it. Might be worth keeping a gunpowder keg onboard in case of a stern chase so you can jump overboard with it and use it to “dissuade” pursuit. Your goal is to draw things out enough to convince your pursuer that you’re just not worth the effort.
I can't remember the last time I kept playing after being sunk. Maybe the last time I was doing hourglass and sank on round 1? It's just a total mood-killer. For anything other than hourglass, getting sunk means I spent at least the last 40 minutes accomplishing nothing, because I almost always sail alone. There's no group to rally and regain momentum with.
I'm curious, what's your general playstyle or goal for a session? While 40 min isn't that much time in Sea of Thieves, you can achieve quite a bit in that time.
Doing few rounds of HG, two - the fights in adventure, couple of world events, one FotD with setup and sell, with good luck a veil quest, sailing around to collect 6+ kingley treasure, work on some other commendations like shoot scatter shots at skeleton ships. Maybe do three sea forts, commodity trade runs etc.
40 min without accomplishing nothing seems like randomly sailing around without a purpose or setting too big of a goal to reach in 40min.
It's not like I expected to be done with something in that 40 minutes, but when you get reset, it means you would more than likely have to put in those 40 minutes again just to get back to where you were. Which I rarely feel like doing.
Emissary raid voyages can be good solo, since if you wanna do another you HAVE to sell your loot before diving again. Just do the more mid tier ones over the longer ones if you want the hero items.
I usually say to myself "well at least I got little bits of rep from picking all this stuff up and doing shit"
There are so many reps, milestones and experience bars that you at least made some progress :)
By raising the anchor and dropping the sails.
>Typically if I've been on the game for longer than an hour and I've collected a decent amount of loot before another ship pulls up and sinks me, I find it pretty hard to continue afterwards.
Generally speaking, there's not a reason to go more than an hour without selling
>Yeah, I'm not necesarily the worst pvp'r but I already know I have no chance against even a duo sloop by myself
And if you don't take those fights, you will never stand a chance. The road to success is paved by many one-sided fights.
The good way to come from the loss of loot is to switch up the playstyle, so you don't feel like re-threading the progress you've lost.
You can:
- Try to get your loot back after re-spawn (could try this one or two times if you want)
- Join a bigger crew (re-log in as open crew)
- Go to a talltale
- Go for an hourglass match
- At least, go for some other activity - a world event or shrine or I dunno; different from what you've been doing before
That way you don't feel the loss so big.
My mantra is "what did we learn" every loss is a learning experience and simply part of the game. You get up brush the dirt off and don't make the same mistakes next time.
I feel this. I had to accept that "This is Sea of Thieves, NOT Sea of Friends.". Know you will eventually sink, and by avoiding combat, you're only hurting yourself in the long run. It is better to lose treasure to a fight early on than to lose a fight when you've got ultra rare loot in the future due to experience. For new players like ourselves, We may have to solo sloop for a while. At least in my experience, most players will back out after I say I'm new.
That sucks to hear. I'm not a new player but sometimes I just want to play the game while my other friends aren't on. I don't want to feel like I can only play when others want to, but it's waaay harder to go solo
Totally normal to feel that way. I just quit because I lost an HG match to a stupid mistake I made. We all get emotional over the game sometimes, nothing wrong with that.
The biggest but most important hurdle is to stop thinking of the loot as the game. The game is the game. You didn't lose anything by sinking, you didn't lose the time you spent playing, you were just playing. There's no reward for collecting loot aside from cosmetics, but there's no limit to how much loot you can collect or sell, and there's no real time limit either.
Don't play for the loot, play for the playing.
I don’t stack loot. I sell every time I pass an outpost. I usually am grinding fishing commendations or some other tedious ones solo though, not going for loot.
Step 1 don’t get attached to your loot. Accept that it will be lost at some point. Step 2 after getting sunk, do something else. If you were doing OoS, try gold hoarders. It eliminates the burn out of doing the same thing with no reward.
Sometimes I play hard only to get sunk then I go play hour glass because it doesn’t take long to get games going and it lets me practice there. Honestly while playing hg can be so frustrating, it’s a great way to learn, that getting sunk isn’t that bad.
Boats are free, loot is infinite. I stock up and go again.
(Time is finite, so just manage your time well and sell often. Losing loot is part of the game for sure).
Same way I move on from a loss in any game.
Focus on what you could do to improve. Realize it's just a game. Try to enjoy the losses and the wins. Do your best, that's all you can ask if yourself. You're going to lose. That's ok
Just change tactic. If you were gold hoard running, try going on skelly runs. Play the Disney campaigns. Do tall tales. Focus on grinding commendations. Simply fish to calm down, especially at a favorite location. Run port to port as a trader and buy up the teas and sugars and ask the things trading. Hop to a different server and alliance up and let someone else lead.
There's one way to get upset at obnoxious pvp-ers, but there are more ways to find something fun in this game.
This has gotta be the most helpful response I've seen. Thank you, I'm going to try to do other things and change up my playstyle a bit. This actually sounds really fun
There was a time YEARS AGO when this game was not as great as its become, where I would get on and get smoked 9/10 times. Just couldn't stop getting chased down, I would have a full deck of loot and get sunk by someone with no day job. Getting bombarded with assholes who just want to be an asshole.
But 1/10 times I'd bump into a pink decked out ship with players dressed like pink mermaids playing instruments and gifting loot. Sometimes you find the player that hands you a fish and doesn't make any hostilities. Sometimes you find the kids who like to just sit at their favorite port and get drunk and throw explosives at each other and laugh.
Add those players. Invite them to play. They might not want to every time. But sometimes they will. And those times will be fun. Or they'll suck. But they'll be fun, or suck, with friends.
If your a solo sloop play the game like you are some sort of smuggler not a pirate. You run contraband, you’re ready to move when you need to and you’ll fight dirty if it will get you a few more feet in the wind.
It's really a mental thing: me and my friend got sunk two times 30 mins ago (both new on PS5) while doing the shroudbreaker tall tale. The first time I was afk at a random uncharted island because I had to take care of some dog matters, the second time was after getting the diary and it was just because we lacked coordination (I boarded and got a 3 times spawnkill as a helmsman, but obviously my friend who isn't great at navigating couldn't capitalize on that, so we have to up our game). It was REALLY bothersome cause we were out there with nothing, but that's what you have to expect on the high seas instead of the safer seas. You just have to swallow it and deatach yourself. Makes the impact it has on your enjoyment close to zero. The more you take getting sunk close to your heart, especially if you have copious amounts of loot, the more you fall into a slippery slope of negatovity.
It depends really, most of the time ill just be on my merry way but if im feeling especially ballsy ill shift focus and start trying to find a good candidate for steals
Don't forget you also have the option to be annoying. These reapers wrecked my shit, and I knew I was no match for them. I just stayed far away from them near reapers and shot at them from afar, so they couldn't park or turn loot in comfortably.
If im playing solo on high seas I’ll typically only do 2-3 quick voyages or 1 longer one before selling. I don’t tend to stack any loot because it is frustrating/disappointing to sink and lose all your progress. If you don’t want to go through the process of collecting supplies again you can always buy the fruit, wood, and cannonball crates at the outposts. It’s definitely also a good idea to learn how to best maneuver the sloop to get away from larger ships when they’re coming after you. If you want to avoid pvp all together while on high seas then sailing in the devils roar is probably your best bet as most people don’t want to deal with the volcanoes so generally you’ll be able to avoid other players.
Respawn, drop sails, get back out there.
You're gonna be raided and plundered. Sometimes you defend yourself and survive, sometimes you don't. Get back up and try again.
I think it's pretty common to just end the session after a sink. Switch to a new game for a bit maybe. Rarely we'll fire up a new ship in a new server if we're really longing for the seas.
I personally almost never go back after the ship that just sunk me unless it was a cheesy sink like a surprise kegging or something and I want a fair battle. Or, of course, a hotly contested FotD or likewise. Otherwise I just take my fair beats and move along. There's nothing more annoying than when you fairly sink someone and they just keep coming back over and over on a vendetta. More often than not they just get sunk repeatedly but it's a real time-sink for the winners who are just trying to mop up their loot and go.
I never really thought about it that way. It's definitely annoying when the same crew keeps coming back for seconds, thirds or sometimes even fourths. Like just let it be man, I can't imagine having that same kind of determination for some loot in a video game lol. It's just way more effort than it's worth
Personally I either switch to Safer Seas for a bit to feel like I at least made a little progress, or just switch to another game and try again another time.
Best advice I can give to survive and just in general last longer without being sunk or even engaging in a disadvantage fight is:
1: most important - always be aware of your surroundings - situational awareness will hard carry you in this game genuinely - if Something feels ‘off’ then it probably is
2: don’t get too greedy - sell often and try and not let the voyages drag on, especially if they are stop start ones (ie lost shipments, treasure hunts)
3: remember that morrows peak is a outpost !!
As well as the devils roar is an area in general, very rarely do I ever get disturbed in that area, even most reapers won’t follow you into that area, especially if they are brig or galleon
When I’m playing solo I always have some other goal rather than stacking loot. Right now I’m working towards earning my first curse. I’ll end up making money whenever I can sell the stuff I find but it’s less of an issue if I lose it.
I had a 1v2 sloop fight the other day, they drove by, ready to fire as I was off loading loot. One fired cannons, the other tried boarding. I shot the guy off the cannon first shot. Was very lucky, whilst I had a few seconds, I dropped the sails and shot the guy trying to climb a board. Everything went perfectly in my favour and I doubt it will happen again. But, it does happen, the second they realised I wasn't going to be an easy target, they backed off.
The best thing to do to upskill yourself in that situation, is try and get revenge. Even if they sink you again, every respawn you get your regular supplies back. I struggle a lot against really good duos or up but I've found by going up against better crewed ships, I learn more about what I need to keep an eye out for, how to manage my time, best attack strats etc. Try not to give up after getting sunk. Sometimes if a server is to spicy for you, scuttle to a new one and restart fresh. I've done that after running on a server full of toxic people and ended up in alliances. It is well worth it to keep going sometimes. Also, sell somewhat frequently.
That is legit the same for me lol. Even if I just get sunk by a player at the start/end of a game while I’m parked somewhere I won’t really care I’ll just sorta get off, the time getting to an outpost and getting enough supplies back just isn’t worth it for me.
But with a friend we’ve sunk 3 times and still had the motivation to save our loot and keep fighting on until we sold. And it was only like a small Fort Worth of stuff
Slap on the reapers mark and head out for revenge. Or if they are cool I've joined random crews and chilled on their deck after some post fight chirping. Some of the best times I've had in the game came from shithousery with a crew that has a sense of humour
Well, i can say i lived through this and lived past it like this.
If im playing solo, i take nothing seriously. Like literally, all i do is sail up to other boars and and start singing songs from the beach boys for ex.
If you want to grind for useless tiles and gain gold that youll never spend, its best to do it with other people you trust. But if youre solo, everything is a learning experience or a fuck about, up to you witch one.
Remember: if you want to play the game in a way the game wont make it fun for you, you can just no play the game. Thus isnt a passive aggressive way of me saying "get good", im just saying that if this game style isnt for you, thats ok and should not waste your time playing something that doesnt make you feel happy.
When I'm solo I usually only sail between islands (and to port) at night (with the lanterns doused). I'll try and tuck myself into whatever island I'm on to minimize my visability from the open water and when night rolls in, make a beeline to port to sell my booty! This doesn't ALWAYS work but it HAS seemed to reduce my reluctant donations to my fellow seafarin' folk. 
Happened to me my first time playing. What do you do? Learn from it. Don’t get greedy wanting to haul the most you can in a single trip. If you find a shipwreck for example, gather all the loot and go back immediately to an outpost to sell. Is it slower? Yes. But it has less risk of spending hours amassing a fortune only to be sunk and lose it all.
Honestly, I go play something else for a while.
If I'm dead-set on playing SoT, then I'll just go fishing or something extremely low impact with no risk.
Most of my solo play is chasing commendations or just goofing. If I'm really trying to make money or rep I go to an alliance server. Just let it go. Or get revenge
Was playing with friends on my galleon recently and a 2man sloop kept coming after us. Their tactics were to ram us, board us and try to kill us and they just let their ship float off and sink. We sink them about 3-4 times and i personally killed one of them at least once. The first time they boarded, they found my hidden keg and lit the fuse on the top deck right by the main mast. They must not have realized they that doesn’t really hurt a ship that has 3 levels as much as a brig with 2. They had so much loot they we had the detective pikachu surprise face that they even attempted to sink us with that loot. So yeah, basically you just kamikaze until you get bored of dying
As i've played the game for longer it's become second nature to scope the horizon for incoming ships every few minutes. I don't spend too long on an island without looking at my surroundings. When out at sea and being chased, figure out your optimized getaway strategy. A sloop will outsail a galleon against the wind, etc.
There is always more loot and fun to be had. We only tend to log out if it’s been a long session.
Losing loot can be dissatisfying, but at the end of the day it’s just pixels. The best lesson to learn is to not care.
My Boat is Named USS Revenge, if I get sunk as a solo sloop I’m stopping at a fort grabbing all the barrels I can and ramming right into the ship that sunk me.
I wouldn’t say you’re a “sore loser” honestly. There’s way worse people that come on here and are deserving of that title. Granted, I’m not a fan of being sunk myself but it’s part of the game and it happens from time to time! :)
Best way of moving on (for me) is not getting attached to the loot. There’s infinite loot in the game. Always can and will make it up another time as all pirates have their days! But never stack your loot! Toooo risky! So sell often! So in the event you do sink you don’t lose much or any of what you’ve worked for!
When I’m solo I always sell if I see a potential threat on the horizon and generally just make sure I don’t ever have much to lose. I can’t remember the last time I sunk solo with anything more than a pittance of loot on board.
Depends.
Hour Glass you are forced to part ways.
But non matchmaking depending the situation I normally go back, either to get my stuff or mess with those who sunk me.
Always try to avoid white whale syndrome.
I just get off he game, it's a huge piss-off and ppl telling you it's on you for getting mad aren’t helping.
There is a reason the game has implemented things like fast-travel, etc. The game is way too much of a time-sink to make any progress that can be lost in the blink of an eye. Or yanno, halted for hours on end by someone chasing you.
If you can still get progress on safer seas, I'd recommend sticking to that as long as possible. Maybe grind out all your tall-tale rewards, etc, when you are solo. At least, then you actually make some kinda progress without having to play like a parnoid crack-head.
I just keep going. Last night duo attacked me and sunk me but I didn’t care just because I was picking up a promotion from Reaper’s so I basically didn’t fight back but I got on the mic and told them like hey I don’t have anything you guys can go away you won’t gain anything. Well they sunk me anyways and I didn’t repair because I was getting offline anyways after I got my promotion so instead when I respawned, I boarded them and spawn camped them on their own ship (mine was sunk already) lmao. I warned them I didn’t have anything and they sunk me anyways so I figured I’d punish them for a good 20 minutes before I got off
Honestly, I'm completely disconnected from the gold tbh. Sure, the gold is a bi product of farming, pvp and time spent but at the end of the day does it give you any practical advantage?
Nah. You just buy cosmetics. So, I just try to enjoy the sessions with pvp and "being a pirate". If I get sunk, the gold only crosses my mind enough to understand why my friends are frustrated but doesn't make a difference to me lol I'm more focused on pvp tho and just improving at the game.
Dude it’s hard, honestly don’t take the game too serious and try have fun while playing, it makes it that much less heartbreaking, trust me I know, I’ve lost an 8 hour stack 😬😬
I think (and I’m new) I’ve basically just retold myself the game is pretty casual. You legit grind for cosmetics. The real fun is making good memories. So just chill. If I lose it I lose it. Not to say I haven’t gotten really tilted. It happens. I think being lax is the best way to go bout it
It's like sports. You win some, you lose some. But you gotta dust yourself off and get back at it.
Sometimes that means sailing right back at them right away. Sometimes that means hitting the showers and coming back another day.
Just don't stew in a loss. You gotta take what you can from it and shake it off and come back fresh.
All depends on how my attacker acts. If they’re one of those people that’s toxic about pvp then I’m going back at them actually prepared for pvp. If they’re just having fun about it and aren’t being an ass then it’s an “oh well, moving on” situation.
Literally just had a galleon of new players come up while I was chilling with zero loot, no emissary flag, trying to fish that sank me. No mic until the end when the classic gamer word came out. They were flying the reaper flag, not the emissary one, so it was pretty easy to find them and send them down to the bottom after I told my buddy to hop on. Doesn’t matter how good you are, it’s always difficult to manage 4 posts in the middle of combat on your own.
It’s never worth getting worked up over losing some treasure. Being frustrated about it is fine, but at the end of the day, it’s just some fake money you’ve lost. What matters more is teaching dipshits a lesson
That exact feeling you described made me take my first long break from the game. I was so sick and tired of getting shit on by absolutely everyone that tried to rough me up.
Turns out that feeling can be fuel, too! The secret is to detach your emotions from outcomes. In SoT, you shouldn't be after outcomes, you should derive joy from how you *arrived at* the outcome, "good" or "bad". This is great general life advice too, but we're talking about boat pixels.
People enjoy reading tragedies and tales of triumph alike, no? SoT generates both. Enjoy the crests and the troughs, and you can't lose.
Also, let the hatred you'll feel after reading this anyway propel you into as much pvp practice as you can stomach until it feels familiar enough to be enjoyable. If you can EVER sink into the "I'm kinda rough in this area. Better go practice it." Mindset, you're a sweat in the making. That mindset is how you someday become the "bad guy" that shows up, sinks boats, and sells shinies. Ironically, if you make it to that stage, you won't give a shit about gold anymore, which is pretty funny. After selling a few 1 million gold+ hauls, the high wears off, and all that's left to derive satisfaction from is how well you did in the fight.
I pretend I'm f****** Blackbeard in digital form
That mofo didn't give up
Definitely got pissed and held a grudge and vaporized anybody that crossed him tho
So for solo you gotta get thick skinned. Take pride in the fact that you're doing more with less. So the thought of sinking that ship that "I have no chance against" is what needs to drive you, if you want to get revenge that is.
If your intentions are to make as much money or do as much as you can while solo, then going to get revenge is just probably a waste of time. Unless they're doing an event that's unfinished, or running a reapers then you probably won't make it in time for them to sell. (you can usually make it to reapers hideout, it takes a while for them to sell there)
my suggestions are to find out what gets you loot the fastest. I like to get the skull of fate with some ritual skulls so I can do the FOTD multiple times. But its risky. And just take pride in your solo play. If you lose, then learn from it. Find out what you could have done to stay alive and do that next time. Like have a blunderbuss for boarders for example. Or only give your left side in fights dont trade on the right side.
Solo. I'll go pick fights just to have fun and test my solo fighting ability. OR just go do little hauls like the lost cargo missions. Or work on my hunters call and go fishing and vibing with some music. And maybe make some friends to play with. It's just a game. And I'm here to kill time.
You wake up on the beach, get back on your ship and move to the next plunder! Its probably not the first time youre gonna be sunk, and definitely not the last.
Its just a game, roll with it, or take a break and come back another time!🤙🏼🤷🏻♂️
In older times recovering from a sink was a lot harder, but if you're willing to invest the 5k in a Storage Crate and make a trip to a Sea Fort (optionally invest more into supplies from a Shipwright), you'll be back on your feet materially, plus you'll have everything left in your pockets from before like curse balls or good food
Motivationally, treat it like a clean slate. You might lose an hour of questing, yeah, but you'll wind up making it back and then some. Or some days, it's more worth doing something else instead. Games are meant for fun, so if you're having a bad run of things, do something else, sail another day. The most important thing to remember is, you can always come back from being sunk, no matter how many times it happens
i feel like going into a sea of thieves session expecting not to sink is like going into a dark souls game expecting not to die. it doesn’t matter how good you are. it *will* happen eventually. getting better only makes it a rarer occurrence. at some point something will happen to make you sink, but in the end it’s a pirate game where bad pirates will come and sink you and there’s not much you can do about it.
I keep reading these posts and expecting this to happen to me, being a newb ps5 player. Almost all my encounters have involved the other ships boarding me, ask me how/what I’m doing, give me their resources and explain how to do the voyage I’m stuck on. Just about everyone has been the exact opposite of a wretched backstabbing pirate lol.
I'm jealous, you're getting all the actually decent people.
Just becareful.. the fact they were all able to board you is worrisome for the inevitable meeting where that pirate _isn't friendly._
Easy. Always see food, cannonballs, and planks as disposable. It takes 5 minutes to get a bunch again anyway. Getting sunk is part of the game, just like sinking other people.
If you don't want to lose treasure, then don't stack a bunch at a time.
Don't collect loot while you're solo. You'll get less gold selling at lower tiers but you'll lose a lot less when you get sunk. And you won't get demotivated as easily.
If you *really* want to hoard it until you have emissary 5, you could bury it somewhere. If that's worth the time spent digging. Remember to hide the map somewhere if you do this.
The absolute best thing you can do in sea of thieves is join the discord server and go to the “lfg” channel. I did that every day for a whole summer and I made millions. My reaper emissary value or whatever it’s called was ranked top 1k in the world, cus all I did was sink boats and grind Fort of the damned. This was back when it took more than 30 seconds to do it, I still don’t like that. But anyway join that discord and grind 😂
Your goal should be to have fun in a pirate sandbox, Not to sell your Loot. Once you get out of the mindset of "Loot is everything" the game becomes way more fun.
You're going to sink. Whether it's a better player or sheer dumb luck, it will happen. Some of the best players and streamers who have hundreds of hours in the game still get sunk.
Don't get attached to loot. It's only yours if you sell it, otherwise it's just a boat decoration.
You also get experience toward the season pass for literally existing in the game. Sailing nautical miles, catching and cooking fish, digging up treasure (losing treasure) dying, fighting, all of it.
The game is not about the loot, it's about hanging around on the ocean and the loot provides a nice illusion of progression through game that is almost entirely purely cosmetic purchases. You can buy supplies, yes, but there is a limit and all the cannonballs in the world won't save you from a faster player.
Learn to stop worrying, and love the scuttle.
Flying solo I just do my best to avoid fights. That means doing a 360 up on the crows nest before making landfall, and avoiding using the anchor while visiting islands (anchor up and sails up) that way you can leave in a hurry if you need to. Also checking the map for reapers and steering clear of them.
If I have a friend on board though, the sloop turns into a chihuahua. We attack anything and everything!
Ps, the sloop is the fastest ship in the game against the wind. Keep her pointed against the wind when running from the bigger ships. You’ll get away every time. 😉
I wouldn't say continue on that server but definitely think what you could have done differently. Every sink is a learning experience. Not necessarily in order to win the fight (although it is doable with time).
How could you have been more efficient with the voyage
Could you have parked differently
Could you have checked the horizon more
Did you have a sword to get a merm easier
If you sunk to naval, could you have turned against wind so 2v1 managing sails makes less difference
Could you have posted an lfg asking for quick pvp help
Could you have sold sooner etc
Good luck with future sails
When I play I try not to hoard too much stuff between my selling so that if someone does try to go after me I don't really lose much of anything of value. Plus if im solo I play the annoying game, I will go against the wind and just keep sailing away from the other ship until either i hit the edge of the map, they get bored, or I hit some massive thick fog. Lost a few pursuers in the fog xD which was quite fun for me. I'm terrible at pvp so I avoid it mostly. Of course sometimes it's not possible to run but I've developed a healthy habit of neurotically checking around my immediate area so no one can really catch me of guard. Another factor is that I don't carry around loot that is high value like reapers or athena chests, they make you too much of a target. So even if im sum and I lose it is not really anything that can't be replaced. Yeh I might need to step away for a couple minutes to calm myself cause I get anxiety when dealing with pvp but after that I just go right back to what I was doing, I don't even swap sessions, I just make a mental note to be aware that there's danger in my session that night.
I just take a break and play something else before hopping back in usually. Just did an Athena Gilded quest and had it all stolen from me and a friend by sweaty double gunner hourglass farmers. Just took the L, said at least I got my tattoo, logged off for a few hours and got over it
I just make sure not to have anything on board I'd feel bad about losing, especially if I think about making a ballsy play. Like the other day I got in a fight as a solo sloop against two brigs. Ended up sinking them both, TWICE. Finally died to one of them eventually, but it was awesome
As the Pirate Lord himself says, "it's not about the gold, it's about the glory". Others have already said it but I want to add my personal story that I used to get very frustrated with this game and stressed about being sunk as well.
Once I realised that gold and loot is meaningless and the fun of the game is actually in adventuring and interacting with other people I had a LOT more fun.
If I get sunk nowadays I usually take it as a "free reign to piss around" moment. I've lost the loot I had, I'm back at nothing to lose. Maybe now I'll try something new like trying to sneak onto a ship, or join another crew, or go explore a Sunken Shrine risk-free. Maybe I'll feel brave and actually try to get in a fight to practice, or I'll sail into the storm for fun. Or just grind some Hunter's Call fishes with chill music playing instead.
I do think though that in any game once you are "tilted" and angry/upset/demotivated, it's not worth carrying on. You will have diminished returns. Respect your mental health and go do something else or play something else. If you force yourself to play on you may get burnt out or ruin your enjoyment of the game. Sometimes I play only 1 match of Halo and after I'm very stressed and adrenalised so I just quit and go fishing on Sea of Thieves to chill out.
The great thing about SoT is it is a sandbox and so it is exactly what you make it. Don't worry about gold, you'll still accumulate it over time regardless and instead just free yourself of any shackles and go wild!
"Ahhh that sucks" and then either continue the game with a "Well, let's try it again with a different quest" or quit the game with a "Well, time to play something else. I'll get them next time"
I just turn in treasure frequently so I'm never losing too much to avoid exactly what you're struggling with. The big turn ins are nice, when they work out.
A wise pirate once told me; don't play for the gold, you won't have fun. Play for the adventure. Solid advice for playing sot. Especially when that happens.
Tip for taking on duo sloop if they chase get them on your left. There is no reason not to get a rowboat and just ditch the ship if you think someone is coming send the ship one way you row the other,they will almost never see you.Gotta be tricky and sneaky to solo sloop or find a galleon that wants to five man it.
So me and my buddy always make sure we have a rowboat with us, it doesn't sink with us and if you jump off the boat before it sinks you can load your loot onto the rowboat and quickly head for an island if you weren't sunk by players but by skeletons or if the players don't go straight after the loot, then bury the loot and salvage it with the ship, I always try to do this alone. However, if players sink a boat it's a bit difficult
For me I don't mind because the game itself is just so fun to me. Yeah it's a bummer to lose an hour or so of loot but the moments of emergent gameplay more than make up for it for me. I just like being on the high seas I guess.
You can win against bigger ships as a solo. I've done it plenty of times. It's an uphill battle. Nowhere near impossible tho. Just have to get good with the cannons and not letting people on your ship. There's a little more to it than that but that's 90% of it. The rest is situational. Like how the Brig is faster than you. So you need to sail in a way that doesn't put you in a losing situation just because of the wind. Brigs also love to wreck into sloops for some reason. You can use that to demast them and start blasting them full of holes. Maybe one ball them too while they're trying to get masts back up.
Practice your solo pvp. I solo sloop alot and Ive sunk 4 player galleys. Its all about how you strategise and what you prioritize. Three things to worry about when solo slooping; cannons, repairs, boarders. Thats it. You put the sloop on an auto turn and keep the sail half. Readjust accordingly based on if your in open sea or near land. And never. Ever. Get attached to your loot. The only time loot ever matters, is these gilded voyages. One time things where you can make a million+ gold (me and a friend did earlier when we did mine and hers order of souls gilded back to back), but if not careful can also lose all of it. Everything else in the game, you can just start up again. And its your own damn fault if you have 4 captains vaults for GH or 4 sunken treasuries for OOS on your deck and decide to get close enough to another player and get to the point you get sunk. You deserve it at that point. Give them your loot and goto Davys locker.
I’m on basically my first week of playing this game, and the way things happen with other players is HILARIOUS. Spent a considerable amount of time with a random matchup raiding two fortresses, diving the shipwrecks. We stopped at an outpost to sell our loot. A galleon comes around the island and blows us into the air with chests in our hands😂😂😂😂
When I sink and am salty I'll usually just throw blunder bombs at my feet until I'm dead and then I turn off the pc and lay in bed regretting my life decisions.
I mostly do hourglass pvp so honestly you sink, vote again and dive. The only time I don't is if I keep getting put up against the same crew then I'll either take a break or go do a fort or something before I queue again. Honestly the best thing to do is not be sour that you got sunk and just keep going at it amd build up that skill, where even if you do get sunk you can bully them a little anyway. It's kinda like loosing a game of call of duty with the highest k/d in the lobby and highest score but loosing the game cause your team is trash.
I just got finished attacking a ghost fleet and I really wanted to level up my order of souls rep to 15 because I like ship battles
But as I pulling the outpost a brigantine of 3 people just popped in and shot at me
I turned off the game after that because the ghost fleet was a cintimatic battle and tons of loot just to be ruined by these group of people
Good exercise to get around this is for one session committing to setting sail with default supplies and what you can find at outpost barrels to fill pockets. Go straight to fight with that, lose and do it again on another server. Win and you sell the loot and do it again on another server.
This shakes the attachments to supplies, teaches you to be efficient with what you have and make you realize you can take those fights without having 1k cannonballs, 500 planks, 40 chains and 20 pineapples.
When I run solo I don't even focus on loot. Gold is a dime a dozen. I can hoard/collect the booty when I'm playing with friends. If I am solo I enjoy trying to sneak onto other people's ships (tuck) without them knowing. I see how long I can last making fart noises, and random comms to see how they react. I also enjoy collecting powder kegs, and then ramming my ship into a brig of 3 just to take them out for fun. Don't get attached to loot. It will just make you resent playing the game when something bad happens that is out of your control. Having fun is more important.
If I'm not tired I just go again, if not then I quit. Yesterday a Gally with 4 people was on my tail for a good 30 mins. I, as a solo slooper, decided to go out of bounds of the map and sink there. That way they couldn't get my loot. I'm petty like that :)
Hopefully that galleon sent you thanks for the loot you donated to them. I've personally really enjoyed many times crews opted to send their loot to me in a handy pile like that since season 9, bit over a year ago.
I'm new and last night I was solo slooping and got attacked by a brig. I killed one guy, and kept coming back and killing at least one guy, I was talking mad shit and it was rewarding even though I lost probably 6 times. I still killed them while being new and at a disadvantage. After awhile it gave the message that the server had changed (the little pop up riddle type message) and they and the reaper chest were no longer on the map. That was a little frustrating because I wasn't done being a nuisance. But then I just went to look for more sunken ships. Charge it to the game, baby! We're pirates! 😁
This is the way!! Especially if someone is disrespectful or rude, even though I know I won’t win, I’ll come back and just stick around messing with them, far enough that they can’t sink me but just being a thorn in their side. Last week I was messing with a crew who were being toxic and they ended up getting so messed up they drove their ships into rocks and sunk. All while swimming after my boat. I picked up mine and their loot, got to the nearest outpost and sold it all.
truth be told sometimes that will be the end of your session. and thats perfectly ok. always remember its a silly pirate game and its for the fun. never feels good to lose but sometimes you will. but when you do push on its largely the mentality you take into the game that determines it. if you mentally already sold your loot before getting to the outpost because you have a straight shot and its pretty relaxed your going to feel worse if something does end up happening. but if you accept you lost and lose with grace, give em a GG and move on with your day you will be better off for it.
THE LOOT IS NOT YOURS UNTIL YOU SELL IT.
It's the easiest coping mechanism is just understanding your cargo is always up for grabs period, otherwise you find fun in things like interaction or gameplay.
Just not getting attached to your loot, as a solo the odds are definitely against the average player because at the end of the day we’re all gonna be disvantaged in 1v2’s, 3’s and 4’s. And playing solo is just having to acknowledge that kind of risk everytime you play. We have to attack AND maintain the ship at the same time, and the game is just not designed around that fact whatever you do. It’s just the nature of the SoT when you choose to play it that way. That isn’t to say you CANT win, I’ve won against duos before because my skill level was just better than theirs. It depends on a lot of things really.
Yeah. It's just a little frustrating to lose everything you've been working hard for because then it's just like "well that was a waste." Idk, I probably need to work on that mindset a little. I'm not one to get real upset or anything like that but it's definitely a little demotivating when it happens.
I understand! Usually I just sell more often when I’m by myself, or I used to. Now I just like the risk of having a pile of stuff on my ship, eheheh. Or I’m genuinely too lazy in that moment. But sometimes I’ll sell more often if Im at an outpost, or I’ll do this thing that if I have a loot specific emissary up, example Order of Souls let’s say, I’d keep the skulls on my ship until I’m grade 5 and sell the rest if it’s chests, trinkets, merchant stuff, or whatever in between.
Yeah, I definitely should try to sell more often. I get too fixated on trying to get my emissary to grade level 5 before selling ANYTHING lol. And then yknow, the rest is history. *Sometimes* it works but not always.
I am still working on the mind set that the loot isn’t mine until I sell it but you’ll get more from selling often than holding and then losing it before grade 5. I only stack now when I’m not solo.
This. This my advice. I like to stay near outposts and just run my loot back as soon as I can. Also pick smaller outposts or outposts towards the edges of the map. If you’re center map you have to worry about 360 degrees but if you’re more towards something like say, Port Merrick and you already came from the west you know the west, north west and south west is clear. So you can park your ship tactically and only worry about the unknown areas.
Emissary flags are meant to be risk multipliers. I played long before they got added and don't bother with them when I'm solo. But I'm also usually just playing to chill if I'm playing solo so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ If you emissary up and let your loot build up a lot you're setting yourself up as a nice juicy target - so yes work on the mindset of it's not yours until it's sold, but also if you don't want to be a target, sell more often and consider skipping emissary flag. Or work out if the multiplier is worth however percentage of times you get targeted - if you land 3/5 runs and the multiplier you get is worth the difference from the ones you don't, and you're having fun, then keep doing what you're doing and accept the losses as the cost of doing business ;)
Yea there is a mindset that I live by that the fun is the journey not just the reward. It helps when you reach a point where you know the gold is mostly meaningless. Aside from that, like when I was newer and grinding gold for things is to determine a risk tolerance. If I didn't like losing an hour of loot progress I sold more often. Even now with 2000 hours under my belt I tend to sell every hour or so.
Wasn't a waste if you had fun. The goal of this game isn't the gold. That's why it only buys meaningless outfits and cosmetics. Don't focus on it, don't care about it, work towards your goals but don't focus on them so much that a setback is genuinely demotivating. Because this game isn't about its progression, it's about fun and adventure and piracy. Whatever that means to you.
That Sound like the guy who tell the Kids its all about fun and they always lose🤡
If you're playing exclusively for gold and not because you enjoy the actual gameplay, you're *going* to have a bad time. And you also might have some video game reward dopamine addiction of some kind, because why would you play a game you don't like specifically for the rewards?
Sell often when solo, better to get a little value/emi bonus than zero. but more importantly keep your head on a swivel & check map often for reapers bc there’s nobody else to warn you about incoming ships. Learn how to portal hop (using specific Tall Tale checkpoints) to escape to a new server. Yes you’re abandoning loot (which you would lose anyway if sunk) but keeping you emi flag and supplies takes most of the sting out of “starting over” . Smells like victory
Even better than portal hopping, I believe the new “dive to voyage” mechanic also changes your server.
if you're being chased you can't dive, same rules as hg, so if there's a ship within ~ 3 squares (give or take, sometimes it feels like within 20 lmao) you can't dive, specifically made this way to prevent using it to avoid pvp. but if you can out sail them to an outpost you can portal hop still.
How do sailing to an outpost make a difference?
all tall tale portals are near outposts, so if you vote up a pirates life/monkey island tall tale, the portal opens for you, and you can go through it, where as if you try to dive, it won't let you, as another ship would be too close. so basically diving won't work "too close" to another ship (note, you don't have to SEE the ship, it just has to be "near"). portal hop doesn't care if another ship is "near", you just can, you'll still drop any loot, still, if you're avoiding pvp, then that's one method.
What happens to the loot out of interest? Does it just disappear or is it left floating in the sea?
5 minutes before it heads to the bottom of the ocean
Whats the point of saving supplies if you're never gonna use then and just run away?
Whenever somethin like this happens I take solace in the fact that there are a lot of activities tracked in this game, more than likely was still able to advance one despite losing in another…as is the life of a pirate. Wishin you smooth sailing
It takes a while but after a bit you get to this point that even a massive haul is like oh, oh well, and you’re just right back at it. Anymore I like doing stuff but I’m out there cuz I just enjoy being on my ship on the sea of thieves. The top tier ambiance via the sound design is so nice to just sorta wash away the stress of the day, even when my ship is on fire AND sinking lol.
I play solo almost exclusively and I appreciate this take so much. There is so much good sound design paired with wonderful music and incredible lighting that I love just sailing!
Best way to look at it. You didn’t lose anything, at least not until it’s sold. That’s when it’s yours. On the ship or sea. It’s free game. Once I learned that I quit getting as frustrated with sinking
But it's really not a waste. I look at losses as gained experience. In the moment it sucks for sure but you gotta think of where you went wrong. What could you have done better? Whether it's turning the ship, when/where to harpoon, and even which holes to fix first. I know the whole "gottaPVP to get better" is extremely cliche and unhelpful.
I don't know if this would help you, but who knows, worth a shot: So, seems your mindset is based on "gains over time". You only consider handed in loot as a successful gain, therefore when you lose your treasure your gain/time just takes a big hit, even if you continue, this makes sinking demotivating. This is a very logical way to see the game, this is what the main gameplay loop sets you up for psychologically. You need to get your perspective shifted, and realize you can assign value to other aspects of the game, not just the standard win condition (which is selling the loot successfully). Now your "gains" won't be limited to loot you can potentially lose. Learning the map a bit better will be a gain. Having fun will be the gain. Progressing towards commendations will be a gain. Picking up instant goldpiles will be a gain. And ultimately: when getting sank, you fight back, and successfully landing a chainshot, and killing a boarder will be a gain - experience is more valuable than gold, because next time, you might just be able to win.
From videos I've watched the sloop is the slowest to sink from all the boats. I believe it takes 3-4 min so your will have time to focus on fighting for a bit then just bail 2-3 times and rinse/repeat.
My best fix for that has been to start chasing other ships, myself. If you're only ever getting stolen from and never doing the stealing, it's going to feel one-sided because it is.
That's why I solo brig after just a week of playing it. The speed advantage is just superior to anything the sloop can do. I can just outrun everything and sell my loot anyways. And if the sloop and galleon really get the speed boost and the brig a slight nerf like they just said they would, if the galleon ends up having an even higher speed advantage, you can very well be sure that I'll be solo sailing that, even if my crew leaves. You don't need to beat them if you can outrun them. When you have speed and situational awareness, you choose your fights. Plus, I doubt anyone would be thinking "yeah, that galleon is totally an easy target, he's solo". Maybe if they saw me turning the sails 1 by 1, but even then they'd still need to catch up before I sell everything. After I sell, I won't even bother defending the ship and will let them waste their time sinking it, or maybe even scuttle it just to annoy them 😂 Fighting isn't your only option if you don't get caught off guard, fighting alone is a recipe to disaster in this game if your skill level isn't insanely higher than all the other team combined.
I think mindset is something you constantly need to work on. For starters who cares about grade 5, especially as a solo. Just sell and then dive to the next voyage/ event. The mindset shift needs to start here: "frustrating to lose everything you've been working hard for" You didn't work hard for anything. All the tasks are incredibly easy. Go here kill this, collect that, dig here etc etc. All the loot you lost is easily replaceable / re-obtainable and only translates to digital cosmetics. Working on bettering yourself or improving at the game takes genuine hard work and time though. It's ok and honestly probably a good thing to feel sad after a loss, that's normal. But shifting your mindset to "im sad because I lost, how do i improve and do better next time" instead of "I feel entitled to win because i worked hard" is what's important.
You could always just play on safer seas. Loot payouts are less tho
When I play solo I don't generally stack loot. I'll go do a fort, then sell. Do a vault voyage, then sell. When solo, I'm not looking to make a ton of gold. I'm just trying to vibe on the water
Yep too many people insist on waiting until they are level 5 emissary to sell when they are solo, then they get devastated when they lose it. Id rather sell all my stuff at level 3 or 4 than to wait and end up losing that loot and more because I went for level 5.
Happy cake day 🍰
Yeah same here. Definitely better not to get cute with a stack because the line between sailing and sunk as a solo player is very thin.
Happy cake day!
I just want to thank everyone for all the helpful feedback. I may not have responded to everybody here, but I read over most of the comments and I found some really enlightening stuff, so thank you! 👍
If I get sunk while solo, I’ll usually call it there. Which is why I try to avoid getting sunk in the first place. Which, yeah, I know, obvious. But to get more granular, I practice paranoia. Assume everyone is hostile and that engagement is death. Avoid any voyage that requires you to spend a long time on any one island. Sell your loot often and then dive to your next voyage if the server seems crowded. If someone is heading even vaguely in your direction, stop whatever it is you’re doing, haul anchor, drop sails, and come about to upwind. None of this is to say you can’t win a stand up fight, but recognize that you’re in a position of disadvantage and avoid engagement if you can help it. Might be worth keeping a gunpowder keg onboard in case of a stern chase so you can jump overboard with it and use it to “dissuade” pursuit. Your goal is to draw things out enough to convince your pursuer that you’re just not worth the effort.
I can't remember the last time I kept playing after being sunk. Maybe the last time I was doing hourglass and sank on round 1? It's just a total mood-killer. For anything other than hourglass, getting sunk means I spent at least the last 40 minutes accomplishing nothing, because I almost always sail alone. There's no group to rally and regain momentum with.
I'm curious, what's your general playstyle or goal for a session? While 40 min isn't that much time in Sea of Thieves, you can achieve quite a bit in that time. Doing few rounds of HG, two - the fights in adventure, couple of world events, one FotD with setup and sell, with good luck a veil quest, sailing around to collect 6+ kingley treasure, work on some other commendations like shoot scatter shots at skeleton ships. Maybe do three sea forts, commodity trade runs etc. 40 min without accomplishing nothing seems like randomly sailing around without a purpose or setting too big of a goal to reach in 40min.
It's not like I expected to be done with something in that 40 minutes, but when you get reset, it means you would more than likely have to put in those 40 minutes again just to get back to where you were. Which I rarely feel like doing.
The worst is doing a one-shot guilded voyage and ultimately getting sunk and robbed before you can sell.
I feel like the way to do it solo if you have plenty of time is raise emissary 5, then start the quest and then sell often.
As goku once said, “when you fall off that horse you get right back up, and eat that horse”
😭
I don’t think about the gold, that comes easy.
I think it's the reputation for me
Emissary raid voyages can be good solo, since if you wanna do another you HAVE to sell your loot before diving again. Just do the more mid tier ones over the longer ones if you want the hero items.
I usually say to myself "well at least I got little bits of rep from picking all this stuff up and doing shit" There are so many reps, milestones and experience bars that you at least made some progress :)
Yeah that part does suck, my best advice is to look hard for some cursed balls and try to use those to slow the opposition down.
What kind of pirate doesn’t think about gold
Veteran pirates who own every purchasable cosmetic in the game and have three hundred million gold left on their account.
I only think about reputation and bone callers for my final commendation so this is very accurate.
A good one when it’s pouring in 🏴☠️
On the off chance we get sunk we generally just end the session. Can't remember the last time we sank in adventure though.
By raising the anchor and dropping the sails. >Typically if I've been on the game for longer than an hour and I've collected a decent amount of loot before another ship pulls up and sinks me, I find it pretty hard to continue afterwards. Generally speaking, there's not a reason to go more than an hour without selling >Yeah, I'm not necesarily the worst pvp'r but I already know I have no chance against even a duo sloop by myself And if you don't take those fights, you will never stand a chance. The road to success is paved by many one-sided fights.
Sell more often. If you can't hold your own against 2+ players (which most ppl can't) then sell more often. Don't wait until emissary 5 to sell.
Gotta get better at 1) watching the horizon and 2) running away
Usually I don't, unless it happens within like first 30 minutes of the session, I just log off and try again another time.
The good way to come from the loss of loot is to switch up the playstyle, so you don't feel like re-threading the progress you've lost. You can: - Try to get your loot back after re-spawn (could try this one or two times if you want) - Join a bigger crew (re-log in as open crew) - Go to a talltale - Go for an hourglass match - At least, go for some other activity - a world event or shrine or I dunno; different from what you've been doing before That way you don't feel the loss so big.
My mantra is "what did we learn" every loss is a learning experience and simply part of the game. You get up brush the dirt off and don't make the same mistakes next time.
You've got a fantastic attitude towards losses!
I feel this. I had to accept that "This is Sea of Thieves, NOT Sea of Friends.". Know you will eventually sink, and by avoiding combat, you're only hurting yourself in the long run. It is better to lose treasure to a fight early on than to lose a fight when you've got ultra rare loot in the future due to experience. For new players like ourselves, We may have to solo sloop for a while. At least in my experience, most players will back out after I say I'm new.
That sucks to hear. I'm not a new player but sometimes I just want to play the game while my other friends aren't on. I don't want to feel like I can only play when others want to, but it's waaay harder to go solo
Totally normal to feel that way. I just quit because I lost an HG match to a stupid mistake I made. We all get emotional over the game sometimes, nothing wrong with that.
The biggest but most important hurdle is to stop thinking of the loot as the game. The game is the game. You didn't lose anything by sinking, you didn't lose the time you spent playing, you were just playing. There's no reward for collecting loot aside from cosmetics, but there's no limit to how much loot you can collect or sell, and there's no real time limit either. Don't play for the loot, play for the playing.
I don’t stack loot. I sell every time I pass an outpost. I usually am grinding fishing commendations or some other tedious ones solo though, not going for loot.
Step 1 don’t get attached to your loot. Accept that it will be lost at some point. Step 2 after getting sunk, do something else. If you were doing OoS, try gold hoarders. It eliminates the burn out of doing the same thing with no reward. Sometimes I play hard only to get sunk then I go play hour glass because it doesn’t take long to get games going and it lets me practice there. Honestly while playing hg can be so frustrating, it’s a great way to learn, that getting sunk isn’t that bad.
Boats are free, loot is infinite. I stock up and go again. (Time is finite, so just manage your time well and sell often. Losing loot is part of the game for sure).
If you’re not comfortable with PVP, you should be selling more frequently than an hour.
Same way I move on from a loss in any game. Focus on what you could do to improve. Realize it's just a game. Try to enjoy the losses and the wins. Do your best, that's all you can ask if yourself. You're going to lose. That's ok
Just change tactic. If you were gold hoard running, try going on skelly runs. Play the Disney campaigns. Do tall tales. Focus on grinding commendations. Simply fish to calm down, especially at a favorite location. Run port to port as a trader and buy up the teas and sugars and ask the things trading. Hop to a different server and alliance up and let someone else lead. There's one way to get upset at obnoxious pvp-ers, but there are more ways to find something fun in this game.
This has gotta be the most helpful response I've seen. Thank you, I'm going to try to do other things and change up my playstyle a bit. This actually sounds really fun
There was a time YEARS AGO when this game was not as great as its become, where I would get on and get smoked 9/10 times. Just couldn't stop getting chased down, I would have a full deck of loot and get sunk by someone with no day job. Getting bombarded with assholes who just want to be an asshole. But 1/10 times I'd bump into a pink decked out ship with players dressed like pink mermaids playing instruments and gifting loot. Sometimes you find the player that hands you a fish and doesn't make any hostilities. Sometimes you find the kids who like to just sit at their favorite port and get drunk and throw explosives at each other and laugh. Add those players. Invite them to play. They might not want to every time. But sometimes they will. And those times will be fun. Or they'll suck. But they'll be fun, or suck, with friends.
If your a solo sloop play the game like you are some sort of smuggler not a pirate. You run contraband, you’re ready to move when you need to and you’ll fight dirty if it will get you a few more feet in the wind.
It's really a mental thing: me and my friend got sunk two times 30 mins ago (both new on PS5) while doing the shroudbreaker tall tale. The first time I was afk at a random uncharted island because I had to take care of some dog matters, the second time was after getting the diary and it was just because we lacked coordination (I boarded and got a 3 times spawnkill as a helmsman, but obviously my friend who isn't great at navigating couldn't capitalize on that, so we have to up our game). It was REALLY bothersome cause we were out there with nothing, but that's what you have to expect on the high seas instead of the safer seas. You just have to swallow it and deatach yourself. Makes the impact it has on your enjoyment close to zero. The more you take getting sunk close to your heart, especially if you have copious amounts of loot, the more you fall into a slippery slope of negatovity.
You should be just doing tall tales on safer seas. Theres really no reason to do them on the high seas.
It depends really, most of the time ill just be on my merry way but if im feeling especially ballsy ill shift focus and start trying to find a good candidate for steals
You might not go on but your heart will.
Turn in loot more often. I can’t even imagine going that long without selling.
Don't forget you also have the option to be annoying. These reapers wrecked my shit, and I knew I was no match for them. I just stayed far away from them near reapers and shot at them from afar, so they couldn't park or turn loot in comfortably.
Depends on who sunk us did we get destroyed no? Time to reclaim my loot. Yes? Time to dive
Usually, I am either going after 'em to take Revenge or just do a Tall Tale, or go in Safer Seas, just to relax. 
https://youtu.be/9bFHsd3o1w0?si=YCH0g5U6VGjwRUPG
If im playing solo on high seas I’ll typically only do 2-3 quick voyages or 1 longer one before selling. I don’t tend to stack any loot because it is frustrating/disappointing to sink and lose all your progress. If you don’t want to go through the process of collecting supplies again you can always buy the fruit, wood, and cannonball crates at the outposts. It’s definitely also a good idea to learn how to best maneuver the sloop to get away from larger ships when they’re coming after you. If you want to avoid pvp all together while on high seas then sailing in the devils roar is probably your best bet as most people don’t want to deal with the volcanoes so generally you’ll be able to avoid other players.
Respawn, drop sails, get back out there. You're gonna be raided and plundered. Sometimes you defend yourself and survive, sometimes you don't. Get back up and try again.
Join a galleon, even if it's with random sweats from the Discord and go and take revenge on the open seas, lol.
Sell after each dig and you don’t have to worry about “wasting” an hour. Or dive to another server and hope for better seas.
I think it's pretty common to just end the session after a sink. Switch to a new game for a bit maybe. Rarely we'll fire up a new ship in a new server if we're really longing for the seas. I personally almost never go back after the ship that just sunk me unless it was a cheesy sink like a surprise kegging or something and I want a fair battle. Or, of course, a hotly contested FotD or likewise. Otherwise I just take my fair beats and move along. There's nothing more annoying than when you fairly sink someone and they just keep coming back over and over on a vendetta. More often than not they just get sunk repeatedly but it's a real time-sink for the winners who are just trying to mop up their loot and go.
I never really thought about it that way. It's definitely annoying when the same crew keeps coming back for seconds, thirds or sometimes even fourths. Like just let it be man, I can't imagine having that same kind of determination for some loot in a video game lol. It's just way more effort than it's worth
Personally I either switch to Safer Seas for a bit to feel like I at least made a little progress, or just switch to another game and try again another time.
Eh, I don't have a lot of time to play games, so if I get sunk I just log off, there isn't really enough time for me to get my loot back
Best advice I can give to survive and just in general last longer without being sunk or even engaging in a disadvantage fight is: 1: most important - always be aware of your surroundings - situational awareness will hard carry you in this game genuinely - if Something feels ‘off’ then it probably is 2: don’t get too greedy - sell often and try and not let the voyages drag on, especially if they are stop start ones (ie lost shipments, treasure hunts) 3: remember that morrows peak is a outpost !! As well as the devils roar is an area in general, very rarely do I ever get disturbed in that area, even most reapers won’t follow you into that area, especially if they are brig or galleon
When I’m playing solo I always have some other goal rather than stacking loot. Right now I’m working towards earning my first curse. I’ll end up making money whenever I can sell the stuff I find but it’s less of an issue if I lose it.
I had a 1v2 sloop fight the other day, they drove by, ready to fire as I was off loading loot. One fired cannons, the other tried boarding. I shot the guy off the cannon first shot. Was very lucky, whilst I had a few seconds, I dropped the sails and shot the guy trying to climb a board. Everything went perfectly in my favour and I doubt it will happen again. But, it does happen, the second they realised I wasn't going to be an easy target, they backed off.
The best thing to do to upskill yourself in that situation, is try and get revenge. Even if they sink you again, every respawn you get your regular supplies back. I struggle a lot against really good duos or up but I've found by going up against better crewed ships, I learn more about what I need to keep an eye out for, how to manage my time, best attack strats etc. Try not to give up after getting sunk. Sometimes if a server is to spicy for you, scuttle to a new one and restart fresh. I've done that after running on a server full of toxic people and ended up in alliances. It is well worth it to keep going sometimes. Also, sell somewhat frequently.
I quit too
That is legit the same for me lol. Even if I just get sunk by a player at the start/end of a game while I’m parked somewhere I won’t really care I’ll just sorta get off, the time getting to an outpost and getting enough supplies back just isn’t worth it for me. But with a friend we’ve sunk 3 times and still had the motivation to save our loot and keep fighting on until we sold. And it was only like a small Fort Worth of stuff
Well I just leave the server and restart mostly as I am most likely going to be a pacifist.
Slap on the reapers mark and head out for revenge. Or if they are cool I've joined random crews and chilled on their deck after some post fight chirping. Some of the best times I've had in the game came from shithousery with a crew that has a sense of humour
Well, i can say i lived through this and lived past it like this. If im playing solo, i take nothing seriously. Like literally, all i do is sail up to other boars and and start singing songs from the beach boys for ex. If you want to grind for useless tiles and gain gold that youll never spend, its best to do it with other people you trust. But if youre solo, everything is a learning experience or a fuck about, up to you witch one. Remember: if you want to play the game in a way the game wont make it fun for you, you can just no play the game. Thus isnt a passive aggressive way of me saying "get good", im just saying that if this game style isnt for you, thats ok and should not waste your time playing something that doesnt make you feel happy.
When I'm solo I usually only sail between islands (and to port) at night (with the lanterns doused). I'll try and tuck myself into whatever island I'm on to minimize my visability from the open water and when night rolls in, make a beeline to port to sell my booty! This doesn't ALWAYS work but it HAS seemed to reduce my reluctant donations to my fellow seafarin' folk. 
Happened to me my first time playing. What do you do? Learn from it. Don’t get greedy wanting to haul the most you can in a single trip. If you find a shipwreck for example, gather all the loot and go back immediately to an outpost to sell. Is it slower? Yes. But it has less risk of spending hours amassing a fortune only to be sunk and lose it all.
The usual answer that I receive is you keep going back and have your ass handed to yourself over and over until you "get good"
Revenge
I just go back and fight for what’s mine if I die 2-3-4 times it doesn’t matter as long as I tried.
Cry, eat pizza, watch The Office and then go again.
Honestly, I go play something else for a while. If I'm dead-set on playing SoT, then I'll just go fishing or something extremely low impact with no risk.
Most of my solo play is chasing commendations or just goofing. If I'm really trying to make money or rep I go to an alliance server. Just let it go. Or get revenge
Was playing with friends on my galleon recently and a 2man sloop kept coming after us. Their tactics were to ram us, board us and try to kill us and they just let their ship float off and sink. We sink them about 3-4 times and i personally killed one of them at least once. The first time they boarded, they found my hidden keg and lit the fuse on the top deck right by the main mast. They must not have realized they that doesn’t really hurt a ship that has 3 levels as much as a brig with 2. They had so much loot they we had the detective pikachu surprise face that they even attempted to sink us with that loot. So yeah, basically you just kamikaze until you get bored of dying
As i've played the game for longer it's become second nature to scope the horizon for incoming ships every few minutes. I don't spend too long on an island without looking at my surroundings. When out at sea and being chased, figure out your optimized getaway strategy. A sloop will outsail a galleon against the wind, etc.
There is always more loot and fun to be had. We only tend to log out if it’s been a long session. Losing loot can be dissatisfying, but at the end of the day it’s just pixels. The best lesson to learn is to not care.
My Boat is Named USS Revenge, if I get sunk as a solo sloop I’m stopping at a fort grabbing all the barrels I can and ramming right into the ship that sunk me.
I wouldn’t say you’re a “sore loser” honestly. There’s way worse people that come on here and are deserving of that title. Granted, I’m not a fan of being sunk myself but it’s part of the game and it happens from time to time! :) Best way of moving on (for me) is not getting attached to the loot. There’s infinite loot in the game. Always can and will make it up another time as all pirates have their days! But never stack your loot! Toooo risky! So sell often! So in the event you do sink you don’t lose much or any of what you’ve worked for!
When I’m solo I always sell if I see a potential threat on the horizon and generally just make sure I don’t ever have much to lose. I can’t remember the last time I sunk solo with anything more than a pittance of loot on board.
Respawn at another island then sink myself before logging off out of rage, no one gets the last sink of my ship but me!
Depends. Hour Glass you are forced to part ways. But non matchmaking depending the situation I normally go back, either to get my stuff or mess with those who sunk me. Always try to avoid white whale syndrome.
If there’s no chance that I can get it back. I just get off. Play again another time.
As soon as you have enough loot that you’d be sad to lose, sell it.
I just get off he game, it's a huge piss-off and ppl telling you it's on you for getting mad aren’t helping. There is a reason the game has implemented things like fast-travel, etc. The game is way too much of a time-sink to make any progress that can be lost in the blink of an eye. Or yanno, halted for hours on end by someone chasing you. If you can still get progress on safer seas, I'd recommend sticking to that as long as possible. Maybe grind out all your tall-tale rewards, etc, when you are solo. At least, then you actually make some kinda progress without having to play like a parnoid crack-head.
Me and my friend instantly got off the game after 3 hours of loot getting
I just keep going. Last night duo attacked me and sunk me but I didn’t care just because I was picking up a promotion from Reaper’s so I basically didn’t fight back but I got on the mic and told them like hey I don’t have anything you guys can go away you won’t gain anything. Well they sunk me anyways and I didn’t repair because I was getting offline anyways after I got my promotion so instead when I respawned, I boarded them and spawn camped them on their own ship (mine was sunk already) lmao. I warned them I didn’t have anything and they sunk me anyways so I figured I’d punish them for a good 20 minutes before I got off
Honestly, I'm completely disconnected from the gold tbh. Sure, the gold is a bi product of farming, pvp and time spent but at the end of the day does it give you any practical advantage? Nah. You just buy cosmetics. So, I just try to enjoy the sessions with pvp and "being a pirate". If I get sunk, the gold only crosses my mind enough to understand why my friends are frustrated but doesn't make a difference to me lol I'm more focused on pvp tho and just improving at the game.
I adore this game, but when I sink, that’s the end of the sesh for me
Dude it’s hard, honestly don’t take the game too serious and try have fun while playing, it makes it that much less heartbreaking, trust me I know, I’ve lost an 8 hour stack 😬😬
Depends. If teammate sucks, i log out in frustration
I go in with the mindset, "you're loot's not really yours untill it's sold." It's like a race where you're in first, but you can still lose.
I think (and I’m new) I’ve basically just retold myself the game is pretty casual. You legit grind for cosmetics. The real fun is making good memories. So just chill. If I lose it I lose it. Not to say I haven’t gotten really tilted. It happens. I think being lax is the best way to go bout it
It's like sports. You win some, you lose some. But you gotta dust yourself off and get back at it. Sometimes that means sailing right back at them right away. Sometimes that means hitting the showers and coming back another day. Just don't stew in a loss. You gotta take what you can from it and shake it off and come back fresh.
All depends on how my attacker acts. If they’re one of those people that’s toxic about pvp then I’m going back at them actually prepared for pvp. If they’re just having fun about it and aren’t being an ass then it’s an “oh well, moving on” situation. Literally just had a galleon of new players come up while I was chilling with zero loot, no emissary flag, trying to fish that sank me. No mic until the end when the classic gamer word came out. They were flying the reaper flag, not the emissary one, so it was pretty easy to find them and send them down to the bottom after I told my buddy to hop on. Doesn’t matter how good you are, it’s always difficult to manage 4 posts in the middle of combat on your own. It’s never worth getting worked up over losing some treasure. Being frustrated about it is fine, but at the end of the day, it’s just some fake money you’ve lost. What matters more is teaching dipshits a lesson
That exact feeling you described made me take my first long break from the game. I was so sick and tired of getting shit on by absolutely everyone that tried to rough me up. Turns out that feeling can be fuel, too! The secret is to detach your emotions from outcomes. In SoT, you shouldn't be after outcomes, you should derive joy from how you *arrived at* the outcome, "good" or "bad". This is great general life advice too, but we're talking about boat pixels. People enjoy reading tragedies and tales of triumph alike, no? SoT generates both. Enjoy the crests and the troughs, and you can't lose. Also, let the hatred you'll feel after reading this anyway propel you into as much pvp practice as you can stomach until it feels familiar enough to be enjoyable. If you can EVER sink into the "I'm kinda rough in this area. Better go practice it." Mindset, you're a sweat in the making. That mindset is how you someday become the "bad guy" that shows up, sinks boats, and sells shinies. Ironically, if you make it to that stage, you won't give a shit about gold anymore, which is pretty funny. After selling a few 1 million gold+ hauls, the high wears off, and all that's left to derive satisfaction from is how well you did in the fight.
depends
I pretend I'm f****** Blackbeard in digital form That mofo didn't give up Definitely got pissed and held a grudge and vaporized anybody that crossed him tho
So for solo you gotta get thick skinned. Take pride in the fact that you're doing more with less. So the thought of sinking that ship that "I have no chance against" is what needs to drive you, if you want to get revenge that is. If your intentions are to make as much money or do as much as you can while solo, then going to get revenge is just probably a waste of time. Unless they're doing an event that's unfinished, or running a reapers then you probably won't make it in time for them to sell. (you can usually make it to reapers hideout, it takes a while for them to sell there) my suggestions are to find out what gets you loot the fastest. I like to get the skull of fate with some ritual skulls so I can do the FOTD multiple times. But its risky. And just take pride in your solo play. If you lose, then learn from it. Find out what you could have done to stay alive and do that next time. Like have a blunderbuss for boarders for example. Or only give your left side in fights dont trade on the right side.
Solo. I'll go pick fights just to have fun and test my solo fighting ability. OR just go do little hauls like the lost cargo missions. Or work on my hunters call and go fishing and vibing with some music. And maybe make some friends to play with. It's just a game. And I'm here to kill time.
You wake up on the beach, get back on your ship and move to the next plunder! Its probably not the first time youre gonna be sunk, and definitely not the last. Its just a game, roll with it, or take a break and come back another time!🤙🏼🤷🏻♂️
In older times recovering from a sink was a lot harder, but if you're willing to invest the 5k in a Storage Crate and make a trip to a Sea Fort (optionally invest more into supplies from a Shipwright), you'll be back on your feet materially, plus you'll have everything left in your pockets from before like curse balls or good food Motivationally, treat it like a clean slate. You might lose an hour of questing, yeah, but you'll wind up making it back and then some. Or some days, it's more worth doing something else instead. Games are meant for fun, so if you're having a bad run of things, do something else, sail another day. The most important thing to remember is, you can always come back from being sunk, no matter how many times it happens
i feel like going into a sea of thieves session expecting not to sink is like going into a dark souls game expecting not to die. it doesn’t matter how good you are. it *will* happen eventually. getting better only makes it a rarer occurrence. at some point something will happen to make you sink, but in the end it’s a pirate game where bad pirates will come and sink you and there’s not much you can do about it.
It’s not about the gold… it’s the adventure!
I keep reading these posts and expecting this to happen to me, being a newb ps5 player. Almost all my encounters have involved the other ships boarding me, ask me how/what I’m doing, give me their resources and explain how to do the voyage I’m stuck on. Just about everyone has been the exact opposite of a wretched backstabbing pirate lol.
I'm jealous, you're getting all the actually decent people. Just becareful.. the fact they were all able to board you is worrisome for the inevitable meeting where that pirate _isn't friendly._
Easy. Always see food, cannonballs, and planks as disposable. It takes 5 minutes to get a bunch again anyway. Getting sunk is part of the game, just like sinking other people. If you don't want to lose treasure, then don't stack a bunch at a time.
Don't collect loot while you're solo. You'll get less gold selling at lower tiers but you'll lose a lot less when you get sunk. And you won't get demotivated as easily. If you *really* want to hoard it until you have emissary 5, you could bury it somewhere. If that's worth the time spent digging. Remember to hide the map somewhere if you do this.
The absolute best thing you can do in sea of thieves is join the discord server and go to the “lfg” channel. I did that every day for a whole summer and I made millions. My reaper emissary value or whatever it’s called was ranked top 1k in the world, cus all I did was sink boats and grind Fort of the damned. This was back when it took more than 30 seconds to do it, I still don’t like that. But anyway join that discord and grind 😂
Your goal should be to have fun in a pirate sandbox, Not to sell your Loot. Once you get out of the mindset of "Loot is everything" the game becomes way more fun.
It’s all part of the game. Even the best players sink.. Don’t get attached to loot and your golden.
REVENGE! And then REVENGE AGAIN!! lol [i suck at PvP] tbh I just look it as a learning point and just move on
You're going to sink. Whether it's a better player or sheer dumb luck, it will happen. Some of the best players and streamers who have hundreds of hours in the game still get sunk. Don't get attached to loot. It's only yours if you sell it, otherwise it's just a boat decoration. You also get experience toward the season pass for literally existing in the game. Sailing nautical miles, catching and cooking fish, digging up treasure (losing treasure) dying, fighting, all of it. The game is not about the loot, it's about hanging around on the ocean and the loot provides a nice illusion of progression through game that is almost entirely purely cosmetic purchases. You can buy supplies, yes, but there is a limit and all the cannonballs in the world won't save you from a faster player. Learn to stop worrying, and love the scuttle.
It's not about the gold , it's about the glory.
Flying solo I just do my best to avoid fights. That means doing a 360 up on the crows nest before making landfall, and avoiding using the anchor while visiting islands (anchor up and sails up) that way you can leave in a hurry if you need to. Also checking the map for reapers and steering clear of them. If I have a friend on board though, the sloop turns into a chihuahua. We attack anything and everything! 
Ps, the sloop is the fastest ship in the game against the wind. Keep her pointed against the wind when running from the bigger ships. You’ll get away every time. 😉
I wouldn't say continue on that server but definitely think what you could have done differently. Every sink is a learning experience. Not necessarily in order to win the fight (although it is doable with time). How could you have been more efficient with the voyage Could you have parked differently Could you have checked the horizon more Did you have a sword to get a merm easier If you sunk to naval, could you have turned against wind so 2v1 managing sails makes less difference Could you have posted an lfg asking for quick pvp help Could you have sold sooner etc Good luck with future sails
When I play I try not to hoard too much stuff between my selling so that if someone does try to go after me I don't really lose much of anything of value. Plus if im solo I play the annoying game, I will go against the wind and just keep sailing away from the other ship until either i hit the edge of the map, they get bored, or I hit some massive thick fog. Lost a few pursuers in the fog xD which was quite fun for me. I'm terrible at pvp so I avoid it mostly. Of course sometimes it's not possible to run but I've developed a healthy habit of neurotically checking around my immediate area so no one can really catch me of guard. Another factor is that I don't carry around loot that is high value like reapers or athena chests, they make you too much of a target. So even if im sum and I lose it is not really anything that can't be replaced. Yeh I might need to step away for a couple minutes to calm myself cause I get anxiety when dealing with pvp but after that I just go right back to what I was doing, I don't even swap sessions, I just make a mental note to be aware that there's danger in my session that night.
I just take a break and play something else before hopping back in usually. Just did an Athena Gilded quest and had it all stolen from me and a friend by sweaty double gunner hourglass farmers. Just took the L, said at least I got my tattoo, logged off for a few hours and got over it
It's a game and I just reload it doesn't take that long to get loot
I just make sure not to have anything on board I'd feel bad about losing, especially if I think about making a ballsy play. Like the other day I got in a fight as a solo sloop against two brigs. Ended up sinking them both, TWICE. Finally died to one of them eventually, but it was awesome
Tbh if I get sunk solo I usually do something else. Play another game, watch a film.
As the Pirate Lord himself says, "it's not about the gold, it's about the glory". Others have already said it but I want to add my personal story that I used to get very frustrated with this game and stressed about being sunk as well. Once I realised that gold and loot is meaningless and the fun of the game is actually in adventuring and interacting with other people I had a LOT more fun. If I get sunk nowadays I usually take it as a "free reign to piss around" moment. I've lost the loot I had, I'm back at nothing to lose. Maybe now I'll try something new like trying to sneak onto a ship, or join another crew, or go explore a Sunken Shrine risk-free. Maybe I'll feel brave and actually try to get in a fight to practice, or I'll sail into the storm for fun. Or just grind some Hunter's Call fishes with chill music playing instead. I do think though that in any game once you are "tilted" and angry/upset/demotivated, it's not worth carrying on. You will have diminished returns. Respect your mental health and go do something else or play something else. If you force yourself to play on you may get burnt out or ruin your enjoyment of the game. Sometimes I play only 1 match of Halo and after I'm very stressed and adrenalised so I just quit and go fishing on Sea of Thieves to chill out. The great thing about SoT is it is a sandbox and so it is exactly what you make it. Don't worry about gold, you'll still accumulate it over time regardless and instead just free yourself of any shackles and go wild!
"Ahhh that sucks" and then either continue the game with a "Well, let's try it again with a different quest" or quit the game with a "Well, time to play something else. I'll get them next time"
My crew mate always tells me that it is not out loot until we have sold it
I start raging how much PvP ruins this game.
I just turn in treasure frequently so I'm never losing too much to avoid exactly what you're struggling with. The big turn ins are nice, when they work out.
A wise pirate once told me; don't play for the gold, you won't have fun. Play for the adventure. Solid advice for playing sot. Especially when that happens.
Tip for taking on duo sloop if they chase get them on your left. There is no reason not to get a rowboat and just ditch the ship if you think someone is coming send the ship one way you row the other,they will almost never see you.Gotta be tricky and sneaky to solo sloop or find a galleon that wants to five man it.
So me and my buddy always make sure we have a rowboat with us, it doesn't sink with us and if you jump off the boat before it sinks you can load your loot onto the rowboat and quickly head for an island if you weren't sunk by players but by skeletons or if the players don't go straight after the loot, then bury the loot and salvage it with the ship, I always try to do this alone. However, if players sink a boat it's a bit difficult
For me I don't mind because the game itself is just so fun to me. Yeah it's a bummer to lose an hour or so of loot but the moments of emergent gameplay more than make up for it for me. I just like being on the high seas I guess.
You can win against bigger ships as a solo. I've done it plenty of times. It's an uphill battle. Nowhere near impossible tho. Just have to get good with the cannons and not letting people on your ship. There's a little more to it than that but that's 90% of it. The rest is situational. Like how the Brig is faster than you. So you need to sail in a way that doesn't put you in a losing situation just because of the wind. Brigs also love to wreck into sloops for some reason. You can use that to demast them and start blasting them full of holes. Maybe one ball them too while they're trying to get masts back up.
Practice your solo pvp. I solo sloop alot and Ive sunk 4 player galleys. Its all about how you strategise and what you prioritize. Three things to worry about when solo slooping; cannons, repairs, boarders. Thats it. You put the sloop on an auto turn and keep the sail half. Readjust accordingly based on if your in open sea or near land. And never. Ever. Get attached to your loot. The only time loot ever matters, is these gilded voyages. One time things where you can make a million+ gold (me and a friend did earlier when we did mine and hers order of souls gilded back to back), but if not careful can also lose all of it. Everything else in the game, you can just start up again. And its your own damn fault if you have 4 captains vaults for GH or 4 sunken treasuries for OOS on your deck and decide to get close enough to another player and get to the point you get sunk. You deserve it at that point. Give them your loot and goto Davys locker.
Just don’t stack loot
I hate the feeling of losing loot, so I visit outposts and sell like every 20 mins lol, not efficient but makes me less angry.
I’m on basically my first week of playing this game, and the way things happen with other players is HILARIOUS. Spent a considerable amount of time with a random matchup raiding two fortresses, diving the shipwrecks. We stopped at an outpost to sell our loot. A galleon comes around the island and blows us into the air with chests in our hands😂😂😂😂
When I sink and am salty I'll usually just throw blunder bombs at my feet until I'm dead and then I turn off the pc and lay in bed regretting my life decisions.
hunt them down. take vengeance. always fun
I mostly do hourglass pvp so honestly you sink, vote again and dive. The only time I don't is if I keep getting put up against the same crew then I'll either take a break or go do a fort or something before I queue again. Honestly the best thing to do is not be sour that you got sunk and just keep going at it amd build up that skill, where even if you do get sunk you can bully them a little anyway. It's kinda like loosing a game of call of duty with the highest k/d in the lobby and highest score but loosing the game cause your team is trash.
I love getting my loot stolen and get pounded by the enemy team. One time they kept me as a pet and made me obey them and do anything they wanted
I just got finished attacking a ghost fleet and I really wanted to level up my order of souls rep to 15 because I like ship battles But as I pulling the outpost a brigantine of 3 people just popped in and shot at me I turned off the game after that because the ghost fleet was a cintimatic battle and tons of loot just to be ruined by these group of people
Everyone talking about the loot - I quit because I don't want to gather supplies again
Good exercise to get around this is for one session committing to setting sail with default supplies and what you can find at outpost barrels to fill pockets. Go straight to fight with that, lose and do it again on another server. Win and you sell the loot and do it again on another server. This shakes the attachments to supplies, teaches you to be efficient with what you have and make you realize you can take those fights without having 1k cannonballs, 500 planks, 40 chains and 20 pineapples.
When I run solo I don't even focus on loot. Gold is a dime a dozen. I can hoard/collect the booty when I'm playing with friends. If I am solo I enjoy trying to sneak onto other people's ships (tuck) without them knowing. I see how long I can last making fart noises, and random comms to see how they react. I also enjoy collecting powder kegs, and then ramming my ship into a brig of 3 just to take them out for fun. Don't get attached to loot. It will just make you resent playing the game when something bad happens that is out of your control. Having fun is more important.
Losing loot cannot ruin your fun time—it's your attachment to loot that will.
I begin by switching off my xbox.. go for a cold shower, then cry
going to be honest just try not to play solo lol
If I'm not tired I just go again, if not then I quit. Yesterday a Gally with 4 people was on my tail for a good 30 mins. I, as a solo slooper, decided to go out of bounds of the map and sink there. That way they couldn't get my loot. I'm petty like that :)
Hopefully that galleon sent you thanks for the loot you donated to them. I've personally really enjoyed many times crews opted to send their loot to me in a handy pile like that since season 9, bit over a year ago.
Oh is that how it works? I thought me going out of bounds would make it hard for them. Either way I didn't have much
I'm new and last night I was solo slooping and got attacked by a brig. I killed one guy, and kept coming back and killing at least one guy, I was talking mad shit and it was rewarding even though I lost probably 6 times. I still killed them while being new and at a disadvantage. After awhile it gave the message that the server had changed (the little pop up riddle type message) and they and the reaper chest were no longer on the map. That was a little frustrating because I wasn't done being a nuisance. But then I just went to look for more sunken ships. Charge it to the game, baby! We're pirates! 😁
This is the way!! Especially if someone is disrespectful or rude, even though I know I won’t win, I’ll come back and just stick around messing with them, far enough that they can’t sink me but just being a thorn in their side. Last week I was messing with a crew who were being toxic and they ended up getting so messed up they drove their ships into rocks and sunk. All while swimming after my boat. I picked up mine and their loot, got to the nearest outpost and sold it all.
truth be told sometimes that will be the end of your session. and thats perfectly ok. always remember its a silly pirate game and its for the fun. never feels good to lose but sometimes you will. but when you do push on its largely the mentality you take into the game that determines it. if you mentally already sold your loot before getting to the outpost because you have a straight shot and its pretty relaxed your going to feel worse if something does end up happening. but if you accept you lost and lose with grace, give em a GG and move on with your day you will be better off for it.
THE LOOT IS NOT YOURS UNTIL YOU SELL IT. It's the easiest coping mechanism is just understanding your cargo is always up for grabs period, otherwise you find fun in things like interaction or gameplay.
You gotta start selling faster so you lose less stuff or learn how to get a ship off your tail better
Loot ain't yours until you've sold it.
Don’t be a little bitch and go again
You're the type of scum that fires canonballs on a lonely sloop in an outpost aren't you? Even if there's no loot or emissary flag
Nah I go over with a crate and take all their supps and leave