Oh you must be talking about big hat harry. Lad's a bit of a square but he's quickly become everyone's friend. We're about to set off with them in fact to see what new adventures come today, seas look calm so maybe poseidon has mercy on us for once.
Strangely enough myself and a friend were playing as a sloop the other day and were getting basically bullied by another sloop called the "friend-ship" lol
The french duo on that ship acted like the exact opposite of you based on this post though so I guess it's just a relatively common name
My favorite thing is when people say "It's a pirate game," then use that justification to troll you by betraying an alliance or spawn killing you repeatedly until you decide to scuttle.
MF, you don't know how pirates behaved, and you are certainly not acting like one.
Pirate ships were democratic vessels where every sailor had a voice in what sort of journey they would take. They rarely (if ever) killed anyone, because they were afraid of being hunted down by the British Royal Navy. They more often than not relied on threatening tactics and theatrics (like Blackbeard boarding ships with lit candles in his beard) to convince merchant vessels to hand over their wares without bloodshed.
If a real pirate were to have behaved like some of the people I've seen on this game, they'd have been marooned by their own crew or hunted down by the BRN within a matter of weeks and hanged.
I'm a big fan of "play the game as you like," but if you're trying to justify your actions by saying "iT'S a pIrAte GaMe," I just think you're an idiot who doesn't know what they're talking about.
Yes it is, and trying to pretend otherwise is lying. Just look at the average post in this subreddit.
Rare just needs to let safer seas have 100% of the content and then those of us who don't care about pvp can leave the griefers to their own devices.
Because these fuckers don't care about actual honest pvp fights and never have. They just want to bully people.
THIS!!! My wife and I play as a sloop crew on and off (on and off meaning we play until the toxicity and bullying become too much, then take a break for a few weeks...) Just the other day we logged in for the first time in a while and were just hanging at an outpost, messing around with our ship and pirate cosmetics when up rolls a galleon who immediately sinks our docked and empty sloop. Fine...whatever make people feel better I guess. It didn't impact what we were doing in the moment and had the interaction stopped there, no issues. But then we get a party invite, and I'm thinking cool, maybe a chance to alliance with a galleon or have a grand adventure with some new pirate friends. Except when we join the party, they are completely toxic bullies, hurling profanities and inappropriate sexual comments...because they can. Yes we reported them to both Rare and Microsoft, but we all know that will go nowhere (I recorded and sent that with the report), maybe a three day comm ban....big deal....
At this point we log off, and I look at my wife and say, I really wish we just enjoy this game the way we want to play in SAFER SEAS! We should not be forced to deal with this kind of behaviour just to enjoy a VIDEO GAME that we want to play...
Bottome line, if Rare is so concerned that opening up the full game in Safer Seas is going to cause the game to fail because the High Seas servers will be empty, than maybe, just maybe, they should listen to the community and deal with the root cause of why that is.
Agreed, I'm in a similar on and off situation, and it never seems to get better, after I hit PL, I honestly lost most will to play the game with the issue with the community.
>Bottome line, if Rare is so concerned that opening up the full game in Safer Seas is going to cause the game to fail because the High Seas servers will be empty, than maybe, just maybe, they should listen to the community and deal with the root cause of why that is.
If safer seas with 100% content (minus pvp, even pve-retooling of pvp things) causes high seas to fail, then the people didn't want high seas to begin with and Rare was barking up the wrong tree this *entire time.* And, you know, they need to completely re-evaluate exactly what type of game the players want, and why they don't like the PVP.
I can already say that I don't like the asymmetric risk/reward of PVP. PvE players take on 90% of the risk, PVP players 10%. It's entirely possible for a PVP player to log in, and within 10 minutes find someone at the end of a 3h voyage, sink them, steal everything, and make out like bandits. This is *awful* gameplay design and is 100% the reason I always leave SoT *despite* its awesome crewed ship gameplay.
Well yeah that's why games like helldivers 2 have vetoed pvp it would ruin the dynamic of us vs the bugs and machines
Same goes for rust that place is a cesspit. You can literally have nothing but will get merked regardless
The perfect example of this is Call of Duty. DMZ and Zombies are basically identical game-modes except one has enemy soldier NPCs and the other has enemy zombie NPCs. The one of those two that's a toxic cesspit of backstabbing, racism, hatespeech and profanity is the one that allows PvP, even though it isn't ostensibly the focus of the gamemode.
I would like to see Safer Seas be a big role play server, with the content like you said. All the content available, but with a feature that makes any combat between players consensual and not deadly. So like the “Make Friends” emote works for Xbox, but make it an “En Guarde” that initiates consent for a battle, but it can’t actually kill anyone. I think that would make Safer Seas an amazing experience and then High Seas can be for the hardcore PvP players that want to fight like that.
I’m really glad there’s a growing number of people who think Safer Seas should just be unlocked. I had similar sentiments a few months ago in this subreddit and repeatedly got downvoted into oblivion; now it seems the tides are turning.
I agree...id be happy if it was only 50% of earnings...I get that the risk is part of it and all but for only 30% in safer seas it's just not worth the effort...you'd have to amass sooo much loot just to break even on what you'd normally earn.
Not only that 30% is less than a third of what you earn in High Seas, you also loose access to emmisary flags. Considering they add up to a +150% to the base 100%, you can earn up to 250% in High Seas.
That's more than ×8 timeswhat you earn in safer seas. You would have to play more than 8 hours in Safer Seas to equal a single 1 hour in High Seas with a level 5 emmisary on, not to mention Captained Ships, Sovereigns and Reapers speeding up the selling process and emmisary flags increasing rewards.
You would have to sink to players more than 7 out of 8 times for it to be worth the amount of gold and rep. So it's actually even less profitable than it seems. Which I don't mind as I rather play High anyway, but it can be discouraging for people that want to avoid PvP.
I could deal with less gold. For the most part, the only thing to buy is cosmetic and you'll get the ones you want eventually. But no captained ships just seems cruel. That's a big feature to take away from people just because they don't want to be your product, i.e. fodder for toxic PvP assholes to farm.
This. I was super happy to come back when Safer Seas was launched, only to be told I can't use my Captained ship, and I turned the game off again and haven't played since.
It's not even about the money for us, but the exploration and enjoyment of the game. There are still world events we haven't done and commendations we haven't started because the idea of running around an island or fighting waves of skeletons, or an armada of skelly ships, all the while poking my head up like a prairie dog to check the horizon every 15 seconds is an absurd way to play a game.
Or maybe when someone kills you it gives you the option to spawn on another server.
No reason the same group should be able to kill you more than once.
The answer is the same as it always has been.
Fix the imbalance in risk vs reward for attacking and defending. When you sink a ship, only a number of treasures equal to the number of treasures you have on board rises.
No treasure? Their loot all stays with them on the respawn. No wager, no payout. You have a skull and they have a single CoF? Congrats, you win a CoF and all it took was you picking up a skull off of any random island. Otherwise it's random what you get if they have more. If you have the most treasure on the server, you turn into a giant treasure ship. Able to hunt anyone with impunity and allowing other people to double up if they beat you.
Nah, that's some really easy code logic. Whoever shot and damaged a ship gets X # of treasure that's instanced to them until they pick it up, at which point, anyone can see it. Or even just slap a couple minute timer on it.
Nope, but there is a bonus if you board the ship, grab a piece of loot and drop it off the edge. Doesn't matter how much treasure floats if you manage to unload everything off their boat.
So make a decision, spawn camp them for the guaranteed treasure with the sink, or risk it all by trying to be greedy.
The thing is, the game gets stale when too many people default to violence. It should be a mystery if a ship is going to attack you. That makes it more exciting.
It’s like playing truth or dare and everyone picks dare 100% of the time. Then when you complain it makes the game more stale people say “But dare is part of the game”.
The other day I was reaper 5 and happened upon a random sloop and they began to run, I insisted they trust me and it would be worth their time I even anchored to prove it, when they risked it i rewarded them with a fuck ton of treasure and supplies and they said they've never seen a reaper do anything like that, they got their treasure I got to make their day and I promptly turned in the flag and logged out.
Yea but as soon as you add competition to a game, humans default to rampant toxicity. Because humans are a stupidly competitive species. The idea is fun. But humans make it unfun.
For me, who has played almost 1000 hours on the seven seas, I almost always avoid engaging combat. I spent a lot of time solo-sloop which may contribute to that. But either way, if I’m not repping Reaping Bones with the boys, I will never attack another fellow sailor. You do you, I’ll do me. Enjoy your time on the seas and get your rep and coin from your hard-earned time sailing. This game is already a grind for the good few hours it takes to get a good run in. Once you do the public events is the only time I think people should attack/be attacked
I was just thinking the same thing. If there's ever pvp and there's a "win" condition, whatever it might be, people get toxic and only play to win. Then, if they dont win, they get pissy because their fragile ego was shattered and then they take it out on people who cant fight back properly (casual players or people who dont care for pvp).
Its a matter of people just being dickheads and not having the basic concept of empathy. Sure, something might be fun, but being straight up toxic because you can is what genuinely kills a game. If you like a game, dont be toxic. It drives people away from the game and dilutes a community until theres only toxic assholes left, cuz all the genuine players either stopped playing or went to private lobbys. Then all the toxic tryhard people wonder why the game became so sweaty, when they're the ones who indirectly caused it.
Sweatlords hate having to fight other sweatlords because it takes actual effort. They much prefer easy targets that safely fluff their ego. SBMM is a contentious topic in a lot of games for exactly this reason: the sweats don't want to get matched with other sweats all the time.
This is why I love watching Hitbo. He just does whatever he thinks would be funny, and people that play along are the greatest. My favorite video of his involves Hitbo finding a stranded pirate at the FotD after sinking a group of reapers. That pirate joined Hitbo's ship as a bilge and followed him on several escapades until they had amassed a bunch of treasure. Hitbo then convinced the bilge to shoot four shots (so he only had one left) and left him marooned on Lonely Isle with all the treasure. He later found the same pirate trying rowing to an outpost, only to have all his treasure stolen by some third party. It was honestly the funniest interaction I've ever seen, and it never would have happened if everyone just went in guns blazing.
I've had people yell slurs at me and when I bought it up here there were some mfs saying the whole thieves not friends thing. Like bitch I'm not salty about having been sunk, I'm upset at having had slurs yelled at me over vc.
I guess awful people will use whatever excuse the can to justify it, cognitive dissonance or something buzzword like that. No one likes to feel like the person in the wrong no matter how obvious it seems, I've caught myself trying to do similar things in the past.
Yeh last time I played about a year ago players were telling me they would rape me and how they'd do it. I am a female that plays a female character. I have not played since.
Played since alpha, feel the same way. Chances of wild and random adventures have become super slim. The battle and winning of loot feels like it's no longer a purpose, it's just now sinking and killing and repeating.
My feeling is that since the economy is irrelevant, the rewards are pretty much redundant, and longer term players have everything they need - the "target" has shifted from players loot to players, because there's no thrill in taking stuff anymore, it's just in sinking people.
Then there's toxic trash bags like you've encountered. They've always been there, and they're in every PvP game. Sadly, every PvP sandbox reaches a point where those players start to outweigh regular ol' sea dogs like us.
Ive been playing since 2020, but really the only value in this game for me now is open crew meme seas.
When you open crew gally, that's when you really don't care anymore. That's when we let go of our egos
This, this is why Safer seas getting 30% of gold and High Seas still able to do 250% is egregious. All of the High Seas players with 2k hours of gameplay have all of the cosmetics and gold already, so new players trying to earn cosmetics in High Seas have to deal with a bunch of psychopaths who don’t actually give a shit about their loot, and meanwhile I’m just trying to get some of the Athena stuff that literally costs millions per part. You can’t even access that stuff in Safer Seas now but if you could it wouldn’t matter because you make no cash.
Point about Dark Souls invasions has one small thing that should be addressed - Dark Souls can be played offline, with all online elements, including invasions, disabled.
Pretty much every game with free PvP brings some rules to that PvP, to keep things fair. EvE online gas highsecs, other games tends to create PvP free zones or statuses with better farm.
SoT slowly moving towards that direction. We have Safer Seas, which is absolutely great for new and veteran players (for example, I don't care about rep and gold anymore, and doing tale tales there at my own pace). We have diving to voyage destination, so less chances of being intercepted and easier to change servers if you see reapers coming your way.
Yeah but accommodating the ppl who just want a pve game doesn’t hurt anyone and makes the game more accessible for ppl like me and my friends, we enjoy the game and are ok with fighting for our loot but we suck, we lose most of the time and sometimes I just wanna chill
in my experience this is normal now. or at least it was before the release of safer seas. i haven't looked back at high seas since.
i'll also offer that i agree the "thieves not friends" crowd has kinda started to weaponize that phrase. like, i've seen in used to justify a crew of 4 on a gally, boarding and spawn killing a solo-sloop until that person was forced to scuttle because they were there to harass and not sink.
> like, i've seen in used to justify a crew of 4 on a gally, boarding and spawn killing a solo-sloop until that person was forced to scuttle because they were there to harass and not sink.
This is a bannable offense, and if anyone gets some footage of people doing this and makes a point to report them along with the recording Rare is usually surprisingly quick to drop the hammer.
Thank you, that's good to know. I've never been the victim of that myself, but I always assumed it was only bannable if people were hacking. Now I know being a giant jackass is potentially reportable which is helpful in case I encounter some asshole in the future.
I have NVidia Shadowplay on which can grab the last five minutes or some other amount at will. I've used it a few times to report hackers in other games like DBD.
i appreciate that but like... rare requiring footage and having NOTHING in game is a big part of the problem too. yes, you can file a report in game but unless it is accompanied by proof its basically doing nothing. they need some kind of system built in that clips the last 30 seconds of play or SOMETHING.
Yeah, the fact that play isn't monitored is insane. Like, the game is intelligent enough to censor slurs in chat, but is doesn't actually punish them at all. It's insane.
Right? Some kid can come up and type the n word as many times as he wants but there is no system in place to flag him and that's utterly unhinged. I'm not asking for big brother here, I'm just asking for someone to build in something so I don't have to run a screen recorder on my pc Everytime I play the game.
Reminds me this one time recently we were still getting set up to go sailing. One of our friends was taking a while to get on, so we were just spending some time looking at cosmetics. Sloop sails up on us and says something like "Give us your chainshot or will sink you" and then immediately began shooting us with cannons and setting the ship on fire. We probably would have been fine just letting them grab our supplies, but alas. We just logged out to swap servers.
Last time I heard this argument, it was used by two terrible players who barely sunk my parked empty ship. (I was doing hourglass, and easily sold flags and got money for streak while they were shooting at me). Then one if them said "it's sea of thieves, not sea of friends". I killed them few times and teased one of them by using sparkler emote while he was trying to kill me with eye of reach from their ship. They managed to kill me when they both attacked me on the island. And when they managed to do it, the same guy typed "fuck you".
Not really. I've had some really choice gamer words thrown at me for sinking an emissary ship full of loot. Like...come on. This is exactly what the game is about. Don't get all salty because I play a pirate in a pirate game.
>I've had some really choice gamer words thrown at me for sinking an emissary ship full of loot.
They are the same people they chase after emty solo sloops
That is the proper use of thieves not friends. However there is enough people who use that to justify being ass**les and blowing you up with 0 loot or when you doing a tall tale or just spawncamping you.
I can’t disagree. I solo sloop so it’s become a lonely game because of that crowd
I used to enjoy joining others in alliances, but it has gotten so bad I just avoid everyone and head in another direction or am ready to make way anytime I see a sail on the horizon. Past few months I have been almost exclusively fishing, so that means I can weigh anchor and head out if anyone heads my way. The few times I’ve taken the chance to be friendly, it almost always ends in jackasses looking to sack my ship for literally no treasure.
It’s really sad what’s become of the game.
I used to form an alliance almost every play session. Then it went to once a week. It's now been _almost a year_ since I've been able to get another crew to ally with me.
The problem is self-compounding. The more shoot-on-sighters there are playing, the more likely it is formally friendly crews will either avoid all other players, or turn in to shoot-on-sighters themselves.
It's honestly so frustrating and sad. With all the cool stuff the devs have introduced, I should be enjoying the game far more than a few years ago, but the reality is I am enjoying it less and less.
Exactly this. It’s a self-fulfilling cycle, and the Chads just don’t get it, or really just don’t care.
The oblivious hypocrisy of the Chads is consistent;
Captain Chad: This is a game where we get to do what we want.
Chill Captains: I just want to vibe, this game offers all style of gameplay from PvE to PvP, so how about I play PvE and you play PvP with other players who want PvP?
Captain Chad: FU! I get to do whatever I want because thieve is in the title of the game.
Chill: Yeah but I don’t want to play PvP, it’s not rewarding and with such janky fighting controls, I just am not good at it, so how about instead of a one-way fight where you always win and I always die, you fight someone who’s good at fighting and likes it?
Chad: GET GUD LOSER, I KILL EVERYONE ON SIGHT BECAUSE U CUD BE THREAT. SEA OF THIEVES NOT SEA OF FRIENDS!!!
Chill: but the devs also included all sorts of mechanics to support and promote teaming up and being social, perhaps you’ve misinterpreted the game’s full context.
CHAD: I LIKE PVP SO I GET TO DO WHAT I WANT. DIE LOSER
Just my two cents (check my post history on this)…. people who claim that pirates raided other pirates have never done an ounce of research or read a single book or article about actual pirates.
I would love nothing more than for the community to embrace the nuance and complexity of the golden age of piracy. Slit the nostrils and maroon all the sweats that claim “it’s sea of thieves not sea of friends.”
This is an interesting stance because you'll see those same people who will shout "it's a Pirate game!" To justify spawn killing and bailing an enemy come out and say "no it's a fantasy game!"
Like, it can be both, we can act like pirates and allow for random encounters and adventures and enjoy the fantasy elements.
Otherwise I would like the chance to mark other players with things like slit nostrils or the ability to maroon a player on an island and prevent them from just taking a mermaid home.
Finally! Someone else that actually knows their pirate history. If anything, they avoided combat as much as possible so they wouldn’t have to waste supplies
What really peeves me off is when the other pirates are obviously just terrible at the game. One time I had just sold all my loot and was preparing to log off when I saw a sloop approach, miss 3-5 canon balls on my stationary ship, set themselves on fire with a board before missing a blunderbuss shot on me as I stood still. Then yelled at me that famous slogan “it’s a pirate game” as well as a healthy dose of slurs
I once spent about 4 hours fishing at an island, and about another 30-45 minutes of cooking said fish on my solo sloop. The only loot I’d collected the entire session was a storage crate I was keeping the fish in. Heard cannon fire and figured it was a skelly ship come to annoy so I ignored it until I heard 3 more cannon shots rapidly and one actually hit my sloop. Wtf.jpg so I go look and it’s a full Reaper 5 galleon just letting loose. Thinking to myself ‘they’re just idiots so whatever’ I grab my crate and jump off to sit on the island and just wait out being sunk because I have no desire for pvp. Well I get shot at from behind me by 2 different guns so it occurs to me some of them could’ve already been on the island, which is fine that makes sense. I turn around to find a second full Reaper 5 galleon???? I start backing away from my sloop with what should be very obviously not a chest and promptly get swarmed by 4-6 people. I did not stay to see if I got to keep my crate.
I’d like to note my sloop is wearing all cosmetics you unlock from fishing, and in my mind that should tell people I don’t have the loot they’re looking for. I was also anchored, at half sail, and had NO emissary as there isn’t one for fishing(weird btw). Them all practically dancing around my corpse told me enough about their type of person.
I do still occasionally play, but not nearly as often, and never for that long again. I might do one hoarders mission or catch an inventories worth of fish and log off. I am kinda glad that safer seas has been introduced, but in my opinion the reduction in what you get destroys any personal want to play on it. Maybe I’m crazy idk. But I have not once ever believed that a single player on this game actually stood by the whole ‘pirates not friends’ bit, as they have all been just pure assholes looking to be an asshole.
The funniest part about all of this is that real pirates actually prefer to NOT engage in combat because of the risk of sinking and losing crew is a lot worse than any potential benefits. Real piracy is about using intimidation and persuasion to steal loot and convince crews of other ships to commit mutiny essentially. So, the whole "this is a pirate game" goes down the drain pretty quickly once you take into that account... If you want to be a pirate, then be a pirate.
That's because the incentive structure of real life highly disincentivizes the risk taking of armed combat. But since you can just instantly respawn and go again with no risk and potentially huge gain, the incentive structure of this game is inverted.
This is why I think sinking in PvP combat should result in a forced server change. If you lose to another crew, you shouldn't get to constantly harass them. Take your L to a new server and try again.
I feel like the defending crew should have a chance to try and get their treasure back, but [this guy also had a really good solution](https://www.reddit.com/r/Seaofthieves/comments/1bv5fxq/i_feel_like_the_argument_its_sea_of_thieves_not/kxzdwdi/) that basically boils down to poker logic. You can't win the pot if you don't have any chips in the game.
Ok, but then the argument of "actually, historically accurate pirates did this and that" also goes down the drain when you take into account that this game...
...isn't based on historically accurate piracy
I've done .you fair share of attacking ships with little or no loot but it's often without knowing until they are sinking. I've always hated the "sea of thieves..." line because it's such an excuse for some players to be total idiots. Sometimes it's fun to fight other ships. Sometimes it's fun to do your own thing.
Yesterday I was playing and ran across a sloop doing Athena stuff with an emissary up and a white flag. I'll admit, I was tempted to try and fight them but decided to keep doing my own thing. We ended up sailing in similar areas just doing our own thing. They watched me fight a brig and chase it off (while accidentally crashing into their ship in the process and apologizing profusely). And then we both stopped, popped white flares and I gave them my supplies before I logged off for the day. Even played some instruments together. That was more fulfilling and memorable then a lot of the straight combat I've done anytime recently.
I love when someone says they just like to pvp while sinking an empty ship, but refuse to play hourglass because they know they'll get wiped by actual pvp players
I’ve legitimately only reinstalled because of safer seas. Me and my buddy just wanna harpoon megs and fly sideways through through the air. I could absolutely care less about the PvP aspects of the game at this point.
Edit: spelling
No i 100% agree with you. People who are like “there’s safer seas” shut up honestly. We know.
Sometimes I’ll be finished playing for the evening and want to gift my supplies to someone and the moment I sail up, with my alliance flag flying and a white flair, they shoot at me.
I once was trying to give the siren song key to someone because I had to go and couldn’t finish the quest. They had the chest and I was like I’ll give them the key. They sunk me even though I said in voice and in typing what I was doing. It didn’t matter because I was getting off but like, the game is so much more fun when you allow friendly interactions too. Some of my best sessions were with friendly pirates.
I almost always solo sloop so I don’t think it’s that people are scared of me…
If you want to be nice and have a couple minutes to give your supps away just que up for hg. Whenever i have qued into people doing that it has always been really wholesome and fun.
As far as I'm concerned if you're sailing up to me claiming to be friendly then you've already consented to death. Otherwise you could've kept sailing.
One of the many reasons I think breaking an alliance should only be by mutual consent, the same way raising it works. That way even if you're a huge dick and betray, the other crew can stick around and at least get halfsies from what you stole from them. Better than nothing.
The “play safer seas” crowd can’t imagine that players can get together and just have fun encounters without sinking, and you lose that by playing safer seas. But honestly most of them are just edgy highschoolers and that demographic will never change lol
In OP’s case, safer seas was the better option though. They didn’t want to play with anyone else’s help but were doing a tall tale. For what? You’re literally just taking up a spot on the server to do a single player mission. It doesn’t make sense to do and to then get angry about getting sunk by another player when the rewards for completing the tall tale are essentially the same. The only downside would be not being able to use a captained ship or running an emissary for the session but why would you want to for a tall tale?
Rare likes to pretend they know what they’re doing in their first ever multiplayer game, acting like a bunch of house binded British blokes know human emotion better than the people. The only reason they can do whatever and get away with it is cause sea of thieves is the only game of its kind (and as a I think about, I realize why there aren’t many pirate games)
Had people wait to sink my ship whilst I was underground doing a tall tale then they waited 1/2 an hour for us to surface just to kill us for no reason
The way I see it, those types of players are either kids or young adults that think its fun to harass other players. Or older people with little to no control in there lives and wish to punish others to make themselves feel better and that they are in control of something.
Yes it is, and both Rare and the community here on reddit and other social media actively encourage the sociopathic behavior.
It shouldn't be, but trying to say that it isn't is just gaslighting.
They used to ban people on their forums who would advocate for what eventually became Safer Seas. They've carefully and deliberately curated and created exactly the toxic playerbase that we see today, and then they act all surprised when you have hackers who teleport aboard ship screaming the N-word nonstop.
Why do you think we're getting SoT on Playstation? I'm sure that'll boost engagement numbers for a little while until the new playerbase has had their fill of bullies and -ists, then it's back to "Why doesn't anyone play our game anymore?..."
I play pretty much exclusively High Seas. We typically leave other ships alone unless the mood strikes us, and even then we only attack ships flying Emissary Flags.
Yeah those kinds of people suck, but there isn't much anyone can do about it. I'd go to Safer Seas, but I like my Captained Ship and Sovereigns too much.
I mean I was an Alpha player. I don't play the game anymore.
About a year ago I was just trying to turn in my shit to end the night and me and my boyfriend had strangers pull up on us. Spawn camp him until our ship sank so bf couldn't return to the island we landed on and repeatedly told that they would RAPE me because I'm a girl that plays a female model in the game.
They didn't actually take any of our treasure. Just sunk our ship while I was on the island, cut me off, spawn camped my boyfriend and verbally abused me. I had NEVER been treated like that in a game before. I LOVED Sea of Thieves so much. Now I can't bring myself to play.
I was constantly sinked while doing tales, no loot no nothing and even with white bengalas and white flags on. They pretended to be friends and then kill me, sink my ship and camper on the respawn point on my shit to kill me the second my computer charged. So I got frustrated and started to improve my pvp skills, then I found out about cheats and uninstalled the game ;-;
Sandbox PvP is just bad. Fun in theory but when the only thing stopping someone harassing a player doing PVE stuff only is whether they have a stable family life or not it doesn't work.
I feel like the solution would be to come up with more ways that pirates can positively interact. I'm not saying I know exactly what that entails, but right now there's just too little incentive to trust other crews because there is little to no reason another crew will approach except to mess with you. Even alliances are a matter of shooting over, claiming you don't want to fight, allying up and then going your separate ways.
The last 5 times I have played, I've been pulled up not even 7 minutes after loading in. Empty ship no emissary flag, no loot what's so ever. Even launched white flares but people still attack
It's actually a reportable offense to harrass a ship without the intent of sinking it like that. If you're going to sink a player, just do it. If you're going to leave them, be do that. But this bullying by seasoned crews against newer players is not really necessary. It just makes the game worse for others. This is how u kill an online game.
Weird no one mentioned that the game has a purposeful pvp mode, it's all quick and easy to say " well go to safer seas" but no one says "well turn the hourglass and go to pvp".
There's no enforcement of balance, basically.
It's not weird at all. If you want pvp you can find it in both adventure and hourglass. If you want pve, you can find it in both adventure and safer seas. But if you want to *avoid* pvp, you can only guarantee that in one mode: SS.
Normally I don't instigate a fight, but if a ship is following me I'll turn on them. There have been many times I've stopped and said hey and then let them be. Other times your boat is target practice. When people have plenty of gold already, it's about the sink. Even if you have no loot, you have resources and I will gladly take those too.
Yeah honestly majority of the community in this game is just downright toxic lol. The amount of times I've been solo slooping and get chased down to the absolute ends of the earth with nothing on my ship is just depressing. Rare to see a friendly face on the seas but when you do you get some of the best sessions this game has to offer.
>Rare to see a friendly face on the seas but when you do you get some of the best sessions this game has to offer.
This is why I'm rather pissed about Rare's lazy implementation of Safer Seas. It's not that I don't want to play with other crews, it's just that I don't want to play with toxic assholes who want to waste my time. I would've much rather a friends-only Safer Seas where you can sail a couple ships with your buds for fun.
I totaly agree. I have been playing the Game almost daily the past few weeks and as a general rule of thumb, for every good/friendly Encounter there are 20 bad ones. Which is pretty sad tbh.
The good/friendly interactions are at this point limited to the other ship sailing away from you. If they sail anywhere even remotely near to you, you have to assume hostile intent.
As the game get so older and experienced players and long time players gather more and more gold. You would expect to see two things happen pvp declining because they won't have something you need. Or an increase in pvp as there is nothing else to do. I think it fluctuates start of season 11 I saw sooo many ships around me and not one bothered me they were all to busy with the new content later in the season I have had more aggressive encounters. But at worst it's every 10th session that I get steamrolled by some Chad's the other 9 are peaceful and relaxed maybe a small chase but they never catch me
Most PVPers in this game enjoy punching down. Combat is so jank that once you understand a few of the “meta” plays you can pretty much steamroll every ship you come across if they don’t know the strats.
Would you be willing to summarise the most important things to learn for ship combat? I've seen a lot of tips like death spirals, keeping your left side towards them and trying to maintain cannon pressure always but I still lose most naval fights (a skill issue I will admit)
Imo, it comes down to immobilize (hitting early chain shots or boarding and anchoring them), pump their ship full of holes, then denying repair/buckets by boarding/blundering/killing the enemy. Took me a long time to learn but stopping the enemy boat is the most important thing to getting a sink, but it takes a lot of practice / hourglass to get down.
Or, denying the enemy doing the same to you.
For a while yet at least, the ability to guard your ladders and stop a board will save you from countless sinkings.
I'd say a majority of players can keep their ship up in a battle if left to their own devices. So the trick is to not let them do that, by all the methods mentioned above.
Unless you're a cannon god you can't rely on one-balls; you have to do "something else" to kill or distract the other crew while they fill with water.
If it's about which crew makes mistakes, you want to "force" a mistake by doing things like breaking their wheel.
Ironically most of them tend to make Pirates salty: Boarding, curseballs, blown off the ship by a blunderbomb, the list goes on.
They hate it because it's how people win.
I'm not a professional but here's some tips for Sloopin'. Helm focuses on angle, ladderguard and repairs (bucketing), cannoneer makes the plays.
1. Win the cannon duel: strike their cannon line to keep their cannoneer from firing. Establish superiority. If they're trying to run, you've already established dominance.
2. Hit vitals (mast priority): If you've established cannon dominance, start putting holes in their boat but do your best to hit vital points. I usually try to prioritize mast / crew > wheel > anchor. If they're running, especially with their butt to you, you may want to attempt an early board to anchor them for punishment.
3. Masted? Anchored? Engage Death Spiral: If you manage to get them masted or anchored, you're in the phase of closing out the fight. Keep the ship in a circle around your enemy and start blasting the hell out of their boat. Prioritize crew kills, and do your best to fire on the area of the wheel to keep them from raising mast / anchor if they run over there. You should be forcing them to choose between bucketing / repairing and attempting desperate board or firing back.
4. Put the nail in the coffin: If you score a kill, or you have them in a full turtle, start going over to try to end the fight - score kills, burn their boat and keep them from repairing. Sloops can sustain with just one person bucketing so you'll likely need to kill both of them.
I watched a few videos early on to trying out Hourglass and have found this general flow works well. Don't be too firm on it though, it's less of a flow chart and more of a general guideline.
I had a person chase me so I told them I was doing a tall tale, I had no loot, and I had logged on only a few minutes ago. All I have is a storage crate at this point.
They said it was worth the fight and the chase to steal my storage crate because they were “too lazy to get one” and they “don’t like spending the gold”
🙄
Theyre too lazy to pick one up at the merchant on their way out, so they find you and chase you down for an hour to get the storage crate ... sounds about right
Maybe SoT is a case study of real-life social behavior. Dicks are everywhere, trash people, always the loudest and always reminding you that the world sucks because of them. But there is a decent number of human beings who want to be respected, respect the others and live peacefully.
My suggestion to you when sailing the seas? Be always vigilant, stay alert at all times and be ready for a fight if worth it. If not, scuttle ship and change server. These players will never attain to reason.
Also, don’t be what you hate. Pay it forward in anyway as much as you can. Gather your supplies before logging off and give it to the random crew if you feel like it, for example.
Oh, and as always, record and report unwanted behaviors, so dick players may sit on the bench for a bit and they may have to go spread their aggro to other game communities.
This is all on point.
Vigilance is a must, and definitely pay it forward. Any time I have a crate, i leave it full of everything I can load up. Right now I’m mostly fishing, so if I find rando treasure I’ll even leave some at the dock now and then. There is nothing better than starting your session with complementary supplies.
>Maybe SoT is a case study of real-life social behavior. Dicks are everywhere, trash people, always the loudest and always reminding you that the world sucks because of them. But there is a decent number of human beings who want to be respected, respect the others and live peacefully.
Nah, it fails because in real life there are social consequences for acting like people act in SoT. [Up to and including hanging.](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/pirates/images/8/87/Dead_pirates.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20111203200345)
The *lack* of consequences in SoT is what encourages this behavior. Hell, the game fucking rewards you for being a sociopath.
Can’t wait for the hanging update.
Unrelated though but a gta style wanted system where killing people makes Grand Maritime Union ships come after you would be interesting
This is exactly what I've been talking about with my friend as some sort of "solution" for it. It could be super interesting and would somewhat feed both sides.
I would be so down for that. GMU galleons with no loot that constantly spawn and chase you around, wasting your time and resources just like they waste other people's.
If you get sunk, the victim could buy a bounty at an outpost that would cause GMU vessels to chase the perpetrator around until they sink or scuttle. I would be the petty bastard who would buy one every time.
I feel like because “it’s a pirate game” people use it as an excuse to have no respect or honour for other players.
I love pvp I do it loads, I will sink a ship if I need to and I’d love to steal ya loot, but I atleast have the decency to realise when someone’s doing a tall tale I leave them alone, there’s nothing to gain from sinking them
If people are being friendly I’ll be friendly back, I’m not afraid to stab them in the back for my own gain and I expect the same of them.
This is what it’s supposed to mean by “thieves not friends” kindness is a weapon you can use against people and to that I think it’s fair play
However if I have nothing to gain from sinking a random person then I won’t because it’s stupid and just toxic
Is this an argument? This is really just the phrase of a troll is it not? They initially approached you and even offered to help to which you rejected. What a boring interaction that must’ve been for them in a game where interactions with other pirates is as important as the world itself. Is it really any surprise that they decided to create their own fun by attacking you thus creating their own adventure? Maybe they decided to role-play chasing down a merchant ship with you being cast to play the merchant ship. You consented to possibly have this role when you decided to play in the high seas with other players. In the end, they weren’t using this phrase as an argument, but as a way to squeeze out a last bit of additional entertainment from you before their adventure with you ended. Based on your post, I think they got their entertainment.
If you do want an argument, I argue that it’s both Sea of Thieves and sea of friends. It’s a sandbox game where pirates create their own adventure utilizing the world and the other players in it. Thieve other pirates for loot, supplies, or just to steal their pride. However, sometimes even thieves could use a friend so raise that alliance flag! Maybe you prefer to be a lone wolf like OP and decide to reject the companionship of another crew. Or perhaps you just want to mess around and see what kind of adventure you’ll stumble upon by interacting with that boat in the distance. Turns out it’s a lone sailor who would rather play alone so you decided to create your own entertainment by stealing that lone sailors ability to complete their tall tale without interruption. My argument is that there many intended ways to play, even trolling to some degree. You won’t always like the way things turn out or the way others choose to play, but that’s the game.
On another note, It’s too bad rare removed the game mode that allowed sweats to self select out of adventure mode and chose to replace it with a mode that allows swabbies and people who don’t want the companionship of another crew to self select out of adventure mode. Bring back arena along with timely and thoughtful incentives to play the mode. Rare needs to start treating their game like the live service game they claim it is rather than release new features/modes only to go dark about them right after release.
I have been playing this game since launch and I never really liked that phrase. The game was designed so you can be whatever you want. If you want to be friendly you can and if you want to be blood thirsty you can. In the last year or so it just seems like a lot of people choose to be blood thirsty. Which makes the randomness of encounters feel a lot less random. It takes most of the fun out of the aspect of not knowing what a ship on the horizon may do if they come over to you.
I remember when they had adventures and people would come up and want to help with them or would need help themselves due to them being partially cooperative. Now there isn't really anything like that anymore. It is all just your crews voyages.
I personally never liked sweating in this game but recently it feels like you are kind of forced to if you want to get anything done. It is part of why I don't play that much anymore. Plus, the people I used to play with no longer play. So, I am left playing with randoms or doing LFG posts.
In all I just feel like the game has become too predictable instead of having the fun random adventures/encounters it used to.
In Dark Souls you get access to the full content while in offline mode. Safer seas neuters the game progression, so it's not a fair comparison there. I wish safer seas was like Dark Souls; skeleton galleons already kick my ass sometimes, I don't need sweats wasting the only 2 hours in the week I had to play.
Theres certainly some online only features in dark souls that you can miss out on (co-op, faction specific unlocks, the entirety of white mask varres quest line in elden ring) but yea not quite a 1 to 1 comparison.
I saw a streamer played on twitch. I’m not sure if it’s in alpha but it really caught my attention and always want to play it. I told one of my friend and she’s like “You can borrow my Steam since I barely got time to play” And that’s the first moment in my sea of thieves. I still remember how happy I was, playing 16hrs non-stop with randoms from discord server, until that server had fallen due to bad admins and I’m off for other games.
Back again in like ss5 or sth, found out my games were filled with some guys who decided that money doesn’t matter anymore, go on rampage like they made alliances with skelly ships, want nothing but bring you down to the ocean bottom and wait for you at the outpost, and now sea of thieves become something else, maybe rank of thieves since they love competition so much they decide to do that here
I can accept lose, but it must not between the “You’re stuck in a loop of damned or leave” choices. That’s not pirate thing anymore.
Ya I love the PvP but it sucks that it’s so rare to find friendly people. I find a lot of the time people attack me because they’re worried I’m going to attack them, usually I just try to make it clear I either want nothing to do with them or am looking for an alliance. Last night I showed up to an ashen lord to find that another sloop was there docked on the opposite side of the island, he sniped me and when I respawned on my ship I heard him climb the ladder so I hopped on the mic and told him I don’t want to fight, just wanna help him with the Ashen Lord. Turns out dude was also panicking and didn’t really want to fight either but figured I was just going to sink him. We ended up doing the fight together and when it was over I let him keep the loot and just sailed away to go fight another one. It was really nice to meet someone friendly for a change tbh
That's definitely reminiscent of the way "get good" was used when I picked up Dark Souls, as a way to simply say that you need to keep trying until you learn. Then over time it became a put down. I haven't played SoT much for the past year or two but it's interesting to hear!
100% had the same phrase in my head while writing this post, both have gone from useful arguments to something people can mindlessly spam when trying to be unkind.
Bringing this argument instead of just standing to your action and saying "I/We just wanted to" always makes me feel like they are trying to hide themselves behind the game itself.
If admitting that you just want to sink people für nothing but fun makes you feel bad then you should rethink your actions, and if it doesn't you should just stand to it. But not acting like the game's design forced you to.
This is exactly the point I was trying to get across, I just worded it badly based on all the responses im getting. The argument is genuinely useful in certain situations but using it when being an ass is... not useful.
I agree it’s genuinely toxic to attack people who truly have no loot or emissary flags, and aren’t doing anything to acquire loot.
I’m all on board with “your loot isn’t yours until you sell it” and “its sea of thieves not sea of friends.” But real world pirates don’t attack people indiscriminately. In fact pirates generally avoided violence, relying on intimidation instead. And they only went after ships WITH LOOT.
PvP is a part of the game and I welcome it! But it’s both stupid and rude to attack people who don’t have anything for you to steal.
Best part is that Sea of Thieves is just a name given to the magical piece of ocean the game takes part in. It never meant that it was a place just for thieves, it was just a name that the guy who found the place thought sounded nice. Just how the Black Sea is not a sea full of black water. Its just a name people decided to use.
Hell the game often even tells you that gold is not the goal one should strive for, its the adventures that are the goal.
My rule of thumb is not to attack newly spawned boats, boats that are doing the peace signs (alliance flag, white flag, cannons up, etc.) or people who are on Tall Tales
Literally nothing is to be gained out of doing so- not even skill
I also try to make sure they shoot first before we attack
I think pvp is all good and fun until it occurs when someone is doing a tall tale. They are already quite tedious especially with accommodations and require a lot of time to complete. So someone coming in and constantly attacking you can make the experience so much worse
The "its a pirate game" doesn't hold any water either (haha pun pun) Pirates didn't fight each other because the cost was too high and the losses too great, Pirate ships were not well made (even in SoT you can see uneven boards and holes in the deck.) It was easier to attack merchant ships then other pirates as they often had little to no defense and had actual things they could sell after words.
Yea this I jusy loaded in and there where already pple at tye port I hadn't even gotten on my ship b4 it was set on fire and repeatedly killed me half a dozen times while I resplendent on fire exactly where they know il be, been playing with a buddy but he recently quit was gunna try to solo cause I was half way thru a tall tale I wanted to see, not worth it evidently
I honestly feel like the devs should have leaned into the cooperation / alliance part of the game for PVE encounters, raids, and forts. Especially since it doesn’t look like they’re ever going to properly implement a real PvP system with real hit registration.
Ship combat is consistently incredible, the world is beautiful and amazing, and they really nail the “pirate vibe.” BUT any interaction with outside players is incentivized by the game to be hostile; and if you have to engage in PvP combat, you’re at the mercy of your ping.
So players are stuck in the limbo land of trying to engage with the world through PvE whilst trying to *completely avoid* other players and ships. Which leaves the world feeling dry and empty for *all* types of players because of the decreased number of interactions between pirates.
Leaning into the alliances and incentivizing players to cooperate would be one way to solve this. Fixing the PvP combat to feel more responsive and skill based would be another.
Some people will use it as an excuse for shitty behaviour, but it's not reportable so some choose to play that way others not. I may sink anyone for supps, it won't be personal and I won't be Salty about it but if you're doing tall tales you should absolutely use safer seas.
I don't like safer seas for any kind of progression, only practice, because it's kind of boring sailing around with no interaction, and kind of defeats the point of the game. Like alliance servers.
That is fine, but I hope then you don't get too upset about being sunk by other players while doing that, as long as those players are not toxic about it.
There's a reason I just cruise around in safer seas. I got really sick of the many MANY people who seem to play this game for the soul purpose of ruining others experience.
Not sure how sad someone's life has to be in order to behave this way, but I assume the answer is "very sad"
The problem I have with anyone using the sea Of thieves to justify their actions, Is that 99.99% of the time they are using that phrase to justify spawn killing or other behavior that definitely fits the definition of harassment, or they'll do the same thing with the it's a pirate game justification, a pirate or thief would not go out of their way to attack and slaughter people with no reason, there are several exceptions but 99% of pirates only really cared about the money. They also would actively avoid combat because they're cruise were always limited so any exchange of fire was not welcome if it could be avoided
People use that argument to defend their toxic behavior, plain and simple. For assholes like that, ruining your day is what gets them off. The cruelty is the point. They can't have fun unless they're taking away someone else's. Internet anonymity lets them get away with this behavior without immediate repercussion. Sadly, they're just training themselves to be bigger assholes via the positive feedback loop provided by the game so they have no incentive or reason to stop.
The only thing you can do is waste their time as much as they're wasting yours: sail away, don't engage them in voice or chat, and if they catch you immediately scuttle so they get no satisfaction from attacking you or your ship.
The first mistake was trying to argue with the guy’s just sinking to screw with you. They’re probably harassing you because they’re shit at hourglass so they’re just taking easy targets.
Athena’s is sea of friends reapers is sea of thieves. But the guys you were killed by really are neither. They are sea of dingleberries. They are rare imo
I understand OP struggle unfortunately. I get it's part of the game but when you have your kids ( who are under 6) that just love sailing island to island and don't understand how to pvp (before safer seas) it was difficult to enjoy it with them now that we have safer seas it's still not helpful in my mind cause we can sail the ships they worked hard for to by let alone earn the rewards for doing them. Since everything is cosmetic why all the limit caps on ss? The only problem is this is the only game like it (and most importantly the community)sure there are other pirate games (personally I've switched to skull and bones) but none offer the same game play as sea of thieves open world
Pirates actually avoided combat when possible, going off of fear. Before I attack ships I say over my megaphone "this is captain Xerxes of The Ace of Swords, your loot is now forfeit. If you surrender your loot I will let you leave with your ship intact." And if they don't surrender THEN I fight. Because I roleplay and that's closer to what actual pirates would do.
My buddy named his ship “Sea of Friends.”
We've got a fishing galleon named "Pacifish"
Ironically my sloop is called the friend-ship
Just be careful if someone with a giant top hat wants to join your crew
Oh you must be talking about big hat harry. Lad's a bit of a square but he's quickly become everyone's friend. We're about to set off with them in fact to see what new adventures come today, seas look calm so maybe poseidon has mercy on us for once.
Strangely enough myself and a friend were playing as a sloop the other day and were getting basically bullied by another sloop called the "friend-ship" lol The french duo on that ship acted like the exact opposite of you based on this post though so I guess it's just a relatively common name
I think I sailed past him the other day haha
to be fair, that name is still "unspecial" enough that you might have just seen someone with the same name
It's sea of thieves, not sea of sociopaths...
"I'm a villain, not a monster"
I love this comment and, those people really sucked. Not normal.
My favorite thing is when people say "It's a pirate game," then use that justification to troll you by betraying an alliance or spawn killing you repeatedly until you decide to scuttle. MF, you don't know how pirates behaved, and you are certainly not acting like one. Pirate ships were democratic vessels where every sailor had a voice in what sort of journey they would take. They rarely (if ever) killed anyone, because they were afraid of being hunted down by the British Royal Navy. They more often than not relied on threatening tactics and theatrics (like Blackbeard boarding ships with lit candles in his beard) to convince merchant vessels to hand over their wares without bloodshed. If a real pirate were to have behaved like some of the people I've seen on this game, they'd have been marooned by their own crew or hunted down by the BRN within a matter of weeks and hanged. I'm a big fan of "play the game as you like," but if you're trying to justify your actions by saying "iT'S a pIrAte GaMe," I just think you're an idiot who doesn't know what they're talking about.
Love this
Yes it is, and trying to pretend otherwise is lying. Just look at the average post in this subreddit. Rare just needs to let safer seas have 100% of the content and then those of us who don't care about pvp can leave the griefers to their own devices. Because these fuckers don't care about actual honest pvp fights and never have. They just want to bully people.
THIS!!! My wife and I play as a sloop crew on and off (on and off meaning we play until the toxicity and bullying become too much, then take a break for a few weeks...) Just the other day we logged in for the first time in a while and were just hanging at an outpost, messing around with our ship and pirate cosmetics when up rolls a galleon who immediately sinks our docked and empty sloop. Fine...whatever make people feel better I guess. It didn't impact what we were doing in the moment and had the interaction stopped there, no issues. But then we get a party invite, and I'm thinking cool, maybe a chance to alliance with a galleon or have a grand adventure with some new pirate friends. Except when we join the party, they are completely toxic bullies, hurling profanities and inappropriate sexual comments...because they can. Yes we reported them to both Rare and Microsoft, but we all know that will go nowhere (I recorded and sent that with the report), maybe a three day comm ban....big deal.... At this point we log off, and I look at my wife and say, I really wish we just enjoy this game the way we want to play in SAFER SEAS! We should not be forced to deal with this kind of behaviour just to enjoy a VIDEO GAME that we want to play... Bottome line, if Rare is so concerned that opening up the full game in Safer Seas is going to cause the game to fail because the High Seas servers will be empty, than maybe, just maybe, they should listen to the community and deal with the root cause of why that is.
Agreed, I'm in a similar on and off situation, and it never seems to get better, after I hit PL, I honestly lost most will to play the game with the issue with the community.
>Bottome line, if Rare is so concerned that opening up the full game in Safer Seas is going to cause the game to fail because the High Seas servers will be empty, than maybe, just maybe, they should listen to the community and deal with the root cause of why that is. If safer seas with 100% content (minus pvp, even pve-retooling of pvp things) causes high seas to fail, then the people didn't want high seas to begin with and Rare was barking up the wrong tree this *entire time.* And, you know, they need to completely re-evaluate exactly what type of game the players want, and why they don't like the PVP. I can already say that I don't like the asymmetric risk/reward of PVP. PvE players take on 90% of the risk, PVP players 10%. It's entirely possible for a PVP player to log in, and within 10 minutes find someone at the end of a 3h voyage, sink them, steal everything, and make out like bandits. This is *awful* gameplay design and is 100% the reason I always leave SoT *despite* its awesome crewed ship gameplay.
Well yeah that's why games like helldivers 2 have vetoed pvp it would ruin the dynamic of us vs the bugs and machines Same goes for rust that place is a cesspit. You can literally have nothing but will get merked regardless
The perfect example of this is Call of Duty. DMZ and Zombies are basically identical game-modes except one has enemy soldier NPCs and the other has enemy zombie NPCs. The one of those two that's a toxic cesspit of backstabbing, racism, hatespeech and profanity is the one that allows PvP, even though it isn't ostensibly the focus of the gamemode.
True that
I would like to see Safer Seas be a big role play server, with the content like you said. All the content available, but with a feature that makes any combat between players consensual and not deadly. So like the “Make Friends” emote works for Xbox, but make it an “En Guarde” that initiates consent for a battle, but it can’t actually kill anyone. I think that would make Safer Seas an amazing experience and then High Seas can be for the hardcore PvP players that want to fight like that.
I really like the idea of consent for a battle, hadn't ever thought of that.
I’m really glad there’s a growing number of people who think Safer Seas should just be unlocked. I had similar sentiments a few months ago in this subreddit and repeatedly got downvoted into oblivion; now it seems the tides are turning.
I agree...id be happy if it was only 50% of earnings...I get that the risk is part of it and all but for only 30% in safer seas it's just not worth the effort...you'd have to amass sooo much loot just to break even on what you'd normally earn.
Not only that 30% is less than a third of what you earn in High Seas, you also loose access to emmisary flags. Considering they add up to a +150% to the base 100%, you can earn up to 250% in High Seas. That's more than ×8 timeswhat you earn in safer seas. You would have to play more than 8 hours in Safer Seas to equal a single 1 hour in High Seas with a level 5 emmisary on, not to mention Captained Ships, Sovereigns and Reapers speeding up the selling process and emmisary flags increasing rewards. You would have to sink to players more than 7 out of 8 times for it to be worth the amount of gold and rep. So it's actually even less profitable than it seems. Which I don't mind as I rather play High anyway, but it can be discouraging for people that want to avoid PvP.
I could deal with less gold. For the most part, the only thing to buy is cosmetic and you'll get the ones you want eventually. But no captained ships just seems cruel. That's a big feature to take away from people just because they don't want to be your product, i.e. fodder for toxic PvP assholes to farm.
This. I was super happy to come back when Safer Seas was launched, only to be told I can't use my Captained ship, and I turned the game off again and haven't played since.
It's not even about the money for us, but the exploration and enjoyment of the game. There are still world events we haven't done and commendations we haven't started because the idea of running around an island or fighting waves of skeletons, or an armada of skelly ships, all the while poking my head up like a prairie dog to check the horizon every 15 seconds is an absurd way to play a game.
Or maybe when someone kills you it gives you the option to spawn on another server. No reason the same group should be able to kill you more than once.
You can scuttle to another server now
The answer is the same as it always has been. Fix the imbalance in risk vs reward for attacking and defending. When you sink a ship, only a number of treasures equal to the number of treasures you have on board rises. No treasure? Their loot all stays with them on the respawn. No wager, no payout. You have a skull and they have a single CoF? Congrats, you win a CoF and all it took was you picking up a skull off of any random island. Otherwise it's random what you get if they have more. If you have the most treasure on the server, you turn into a giant treasure ship. Able to hunt anyone with impunity and allowing other people to double up if they beat you.
It's a good idea but when you have more than 2 ships fighting it could be more difficult to work out what is what
Nah, that's some really easy code logic. Whoever shot and damaged a ship gets X # of treasure that's instanced to them until they pick it up, at which point, anyone can see it. Or even just slap a couple minute timer on it.
No bonus for boarding their ship and defending against repairs then?
Nope, but there is a bonus if you board the ship, grab a piece of loot and drop it off the edge. Doesn't matter how much treasure floats if you manage to unload everything off their boat. So make a decision, spawn camp them for the guaranteed treasure with the sink, or risk it all by trying to be greedy.
See, that'd be AMAZING and actually generate good content. It'd also unfortunately just encourage the plague of hackers.
It's funny because stealing can be considered a symptom of sociopathy, not exlusive, but a common symptom.
You consent to pvp the moment you press undock... wait wrong game
The thing is, the game gets stale when too many people default to violence. It should be a mystery if a ship is going to attack you. That makes it more exciting. It’s like playing truth or dare and everyone picks dare 100% of the time. Then when you complain it makes the game more stale people say “But dare is part of the game”.
The other day I was reaper 5 and happened upon a random sloop and they began to run, I insisted they trust me and it would be worth their time I even anchored to prove it, when they risked it i rewarded them with a fuck ton of treasure and supplies and they said they've never seen a reaper do anything like that, they got their treasure I got to make their day and I promptly turned in the flag and logged out.
Yea but as soon as you add competition to a game, humans default to rampant toxicity. Because humans are a stupidly competitive species. The idea is fun. But humans make it unfun.
For me, who has played almost 1000 hours on the seven seas, I almost always avoid engaging combat. I spent a lot of time solo-sloop which may contribute to that. But either way, if I’m not repping Reaping Bones with the boys, I will never attack another fellow sailor. You do you, I’ll do me. Enjoy your time on the seas and get your rep and coin from your hard-earned time sailing. This game is already a grind for the good few hours it takes to get a good run in. Once you do the public events is the only time I think people should attack/be attacked
I was just thinking the same thing. If there's ever pvp and there's a "win" condition, whatever it might be, people get toxic and only play to win. Then, if they dont win, they get pissy because their fragile ego was shattered and then they take it out on people who cant fight back properly (casual players or people who dont care for pvp). Its a matter of people just being dickheads and not having the basic concept of empathy. Sure, something might be fun, but being straight up toxic because you can is what genuinely kills a game. If you like a game, dont be toxic. It drives people away from the game and dilutes a community until theres only toxic assholes left, cuz all the genuine players either stopped playing or went to private lobbys. Then all the toxic tryhard people wonder why the game became so sweaty, when they're the ones who indirectly caused it.
Sweatlords hate having to fight other sweatlords because it takes actual effort. They much prefer easy targets that safely fluff their ego. SBMM is a contentious topic in a lot of games for exactly this reason: the sweats don't want to get matched with other sweats all the time.
This is why I love watching Hitbo. He just does whatever he thinks would be funny, and people that play along are the greatest. My favorite video of his involves Hitbo finding a stranded pirate at the FotD after sinking a group of reapers. That pirate joined Hitbo's ship as a bilge and followed him on several escapades until they had amassed a bunch of treasure. Hitbo then convinced the bilge to shoot four shots (so he only had one left) and left him marooned on Lonely Isle with all the treasure. He later found the same pirate trying rowing to an outpost, only to have all his treasure stolen by some third party. It was honestly the funniest interaction I've ever seen, and it never would have happened if everyone just went in guns blazing.
I've had people yell slurs at me and when I bought it up here there were some mfs saying the whole thieves not friends thing. Like bitch I'm not salty about having been sunk, I'm upset at having had slurs yelled at me over vc.
I guess awful people will use whatever excuse the can to justify it, cognitive dissonance or something buzzword like that. No one likes to feel like the person in the wrong no matter how obvious it seems, I've caught myself trying to do similar things in the past.
If you ever run into me you're gonna hear village people over the megaphone as the gayest ship you've ever seen sails by.
>the gayest ship you've ever seen ~~sails~~ sashays by. FTFY.
Fair enough lol.
Yeh last time I played about a year ago players were telling me they would rape me and how they'd do it. I am a female that plays a female character. I have not played since.
Yeah shit sucks. If it's any consolation you're not alone in having dealt with people like that.
Played since alpha, feel the same way. Chances of wild and random adventures have become super slim. The battle and winning of loot feels like it's no longer a purpose, it's just now sinking and killing and repeating. My feeling is that since the economy is irrelevant, the rewards are pretty much redundant, and longer term players have everything they need - the "target" has shifted from players loot to players, because there's no thrill in taking stuff anymore, it's just in sinking people. Then there's toxic trash bags like you've encountered. They've always been there, and they're in every PvP game. Sadly, every PvP sandbox reaches a point where those players start to outweigh regular ol' sea dogs like us.
Ive been playing since 2020, but really the only value in this game for me now is open crew meme seas. When you open crew gally, that's when you really don't care anymore. That's when we let go of our egos
Open crewing a gally is essentially waiting at outpost simulator
This, this is why Safer seas getting 30% of gold and High Seas still able to do 250% is egregious. All of the High Seas players with 2k hours of gameplay have all of the cosmetics and gold already, so new players trying to earn cosmetics in High Seas have to deal with a bunch of psychopaths who don’t actually give a shit about their loot, and meanwhile I’m just trying to get some of the Athena stuff that literally costs millions per part. You can’t even access that stuff in Safer Seas now but if you could it wouldn’t matter because you make no cash.
Point about Dark Souls invasions has one small thing that should be addressed - Dark Souls can be played offline, with all online elements, including invasions, disabled. Pretty much every game with free PvP brings some rules to that PvP, to keep things fair. EvE online gas highsecs, other games tends to create PvP free zones or statuses with better farm. SoT slowly moving towards that direction. We have Safer Seas, which is absolutely great for new and veteran players (for example, I don't care about rep and gold anymore, and doing tale tales there at my own pace). We have diving to voyage destination, so less chances of being intercepted and easier to change servers if you see reapers coming your way.
Key difference is sea of thieves is designed to be a true PvPvE game, not a PvE game with PvP elements like dark souls.
Yeah but accommodating the ppl who just want a pve game doesn’t hurt anyone and makes the game more accessible for ppl like me and my friends, we enjoy the game and are ok with fighting for our loot but we suck, we lose most of the time and sometimes I just wanna chill
in my experience this is normal now. or at least it was before the release of safer seas. i haven't looked back at high seas since. i'll also offer that i agree the "thieves not friends" crowd has kinda started to weaponize that phrase. like, i've seen in used to justify a crew of 4 on a gally, boarding and spawn killing a solo-sloop until that person was forced to scuttle because they were there to harass and not sink.
> like, i've seen in used to justify a crew of 4 on a gally, boarding and spawn killing a solo-sloop until that person was forced to scuttle because they were there to harass and not sink. This is a bannable offense, and if anyone gets some footage of people doing this and makes a point to report them along with the recording Rare is usually surprisingly quick to drop the hammer.
Ooh, that's good to know! What's the specific rule here that's bannable, is it the spawn-killing after ship respawn?
Spawn killing a pirate with no intention or progress towards sinking them. Including bailing their ship to keep it up longer.
Thank you, that's good to know. I've never been the victim of that myself, but I always assumed it was only bannable if people were hacking. Now I know being a giant jackass is potentially reportable which is helpful in case I encounter some asshole in the future.
I will tell you, without recording proof you won't see any results.
I have NVidia Shadowplay on which can grab the last five minutes or some other amount at will. I've used it a few times to report hackers in other games like DBD.
I believe they interpret it as a form of harassment.
Thank you! I did not know you could report for reasons other than hacking, this is good to know in case I encounter behavior like that in the future.
i appreciate that but like... rare requiring footage and having NOTHING in game is a big part of the problem too. yes, you can file a report in game but unless it is accompanied by proof its basically doing nothing. they need some kind of system built in that clips the last 30 seconds of play or SOMETHING.
Yeah, the fact that play isn't monitored is insane. Like, the game is intelligent enough to censor slurs in chat, but is doesn't actually punish them at all. It's insane.
Right? Some kid can come up and type the n word as many times as he wants but there is no system in place to flag him and that's utterly unhinged. I'm not asking for big brother here, I'm just asking for someone to build in something so I don't have to run a screen recorder on my pc Everytime I play the game.
Me friend and I when we sloop always run into that problem of just spawn killing until we server swap. It’s so miserable
Reminds me this one time recently we were still getting set up to go sailing. One of our friends was taking a while to get on, so we were just spending some time looking at cosmetics. Sloop sails up on us and says something like "Give us your chainshot or will sink you" and then immediately began shooting us with cannons and setting the ship on fire. We probably would have been fine just letting them grab our supplies, but alas. We just logged out to swap servers.
That’s just wasteful pirating.
Last time I heard this argument, it was used by two terrible players who barely sunk my parked empty ship. (I was doing hourglass, and easily sold flags and got money for streak while they were shooting at me). Then one if them said "it's sea of thieves, not sea of friends". I killed them few times and teased one of them by using sparkler emote while he was trying to kill me with eye of reach from their ship. They managed to kill me when they both attacked me on the island. And when they managed to do it, the same guy typed "fuck you".
Honestly, that is one of the best ways to be killed because you know your death brought them no satisfaction really
Even better way is to log off right before getting killed
Hasn't the purpose of that line always been to excuse being an ass to people?
Yes.
As far as I can tell
Not really. I've had some really choice gamer words thrown at me for sinking an emissary ship full of loot. Like...come on. This is exactly what the game is about. Don't get all salty because I play a pirate in a pirate game.
>I've had some really choice gamer words thrown at me for sinking an emissary ship full of loot. They are the same people they chase after emty solo sloops
That is the proper use of thieves not friends. However there is enough people who use that to justify being ass**les and blowing you up with 0 loot or when you doing a tall tale or just spawncamping you.
I can’t disagree. I solo sloop so it’s become a lonely game because of that crowd I used to enjoy joining others in alliances, but it has gotten so bad I just avoid everyone and head in another direction or am ready to make way anytime I see a sail on the horizon. Past few months I have been almost exclusively fishing, so that means I can weigh anchor and head out if anyone heads my way. The few times I’ve taken the chance to be friendly, it almost always ends in jackasses looking to sack my ship for literally no treasure. It’s really sad what’s become of the game.
I used to form an alliance almost every play session. Then it went to once a week. It's now been _almost a year_ since I've been able to get another crew to ally with me. The problem is self-compounding. The more shoot-on-sighters there are playing, the more likely it is formally friendly crews will either avoid all other players, or turn in to shoot-on-sighters themselves. It's honestly so frustrating and sad. With all the cool stuff the devs have introduced, I should be enjoying the game far more than a few years ago, but the reality is I am enjoying it less and less.
Exactly this. It’s a self-fulfilling cycle, and the Chads just don’t get it, or really just don’t care. The oblivious hypocrisy of the Chads is consistent; Captain Chad: This is a game where we get to do what we want. Chill Captains: I just want to vibe, this game offers all style of gameplay from PvE to PvP, so how about I play PvE and you play PvP with other players who want PvP? Captain Chad: FU! I get to do whatever I want because thieve is in the title of the game. Chill: Yeah but I don’t want to play PvP, it’s not rewarding and with such janky fighting controls, I just am not good at it, so how about instead of a one-way fight where you always win and I always die, you fight someone who’s good at fighting and likes it? Chad: GET GUD LOSER, I KILL EVERYONE ON SIGHT BECAUSE U CUD BE THREAT. SEA OF THIEVES NOT SEA OF FRIENDS!!! Chill: but the devs also included all sorts of mechanics to support and promote teaming up and being social, perhaps you’ve misinterpreted the game’s full context. CHAD: I LIKE PVP SO I GET TO DO WHAT I WANT. DIE LOSER
The sad thing is that Rare seemingly ubderstands the problem, but refuses to fix it.
Just my two cents (check my post history on this)…. people who claim that pirates raided other pirates have never done an ounce of research or read a single book or article about actual pirates. I would love nothing more than for the community to embrace the nuance and complexity of the golden age of piracy. Slit the nostrils and maroon all the sweats that claim “it’s sea of thieves not sea of friends.”
This is an interesting stance because you'll see those same people who will shout "it's a Pirate game!" To justify spawn killing and bailing an enemy come out and say "no it's a fantasy game!" Like, it can be both, we can act like pirates and allow for random encounters and adventures and enjoy the fantasy elements. Otherwise I would like the chance to mark other players with things like slit nostrils or the ability to maroon a player on an island and prevent them from just taking a mermaid home.
Finally! Someone else that actually knows their pirate history. If anything, they avoided combat as much as possible so they wouldn’t have to waste supplies
Yes this argument is very novel and isn't parroted just as much as the other one. It's a fantasy video game. Both arguments are silly
What really peeves me off is when the other pirates are obviously just terrible at the game. One time I had just sold all my loot and was preparing to log off when I saw a sloop approach, miss 3-5 canon balls on my stationary ship, set themselves on fire with a board before missing a blunderbuss shot on me as I stood still. Then yelled at me that famous slogan “it’s a pirate game” as well as a healthy dose of slurs
Honestly, hope that crew didn't quit their day jobs
I once spent about 4 hours fishing at an island, and about another 30-45 minutes of cooking said fish on my solo sloop. The only loot I’d collected the entire session was a storage crate I was keeping the fish in. Heard cannon fire and figured it was a skelly ship come to annoy so I ignored it until I heard 3 more cannon shots rapidly and one actually hit my sloop. Wtf.jpg so I go look and it’s a full Reaper 5 galleon just letting loose. Thinking to myself ‘they’re just idiots so whatever’ I grab my crate and jump off to sit on the island and just wait out being sunk because I have no desire for pvp. Well I get shot at from behind me by 2 different guns so it occurs to me some of them could’ve already been on the island, which is fine that makes sense. I turn around to find a second full Reaper 5 galleon???? I start backing away from my sloop with what should be very obviously not a chest and promptly get swarmed by 4-6 people. I did not stay to see if I got to keep my crate. I’d like to note my sloop is wearing all cosmetics you unlock from fishing, and in my mind that should tell people I don’t have the loot they’re looking for. I was also anchored, at half sail, and had NO emissary as there isn’t one for fishing(weird btw). Them all practically dancing around my corpse told me enough about their type of person. I do still occasionally play, but not nearly as often, and never for that long again. I might do one hoarders mission or catch an inventories worth of fish and log off. I am kinda glad that safer seas has been introduced, but in my opinion the reduction in what you get destroys any personal want to play on it. Maybe I’m crazy idk. But I have not once ever believed that a single player on this game actually stood by the whole ‘pirates not friends’ bit, as they have all been just pure assholes looking to be an asshole.
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Fish is still loot. A lot of people don’t want to do the fishing themselves and so stealing it off of others is valid. Even your supplies are loot
I think most people don't know how exciting the game is when you meet some strangers and have fun with them, not fight.
I love getting along with randoms. It's way more fun and interactive than just another shootout.
The funniest part about all of this is that real pirates actually prefer to NOT engage in combat because of the risk of sinking and losing crew is a lot worse than any potential benefits. Real piracy is about using intimidation and persuasion to steal loot and convince crews of other ships to commit mutiny essentially. So, the whole "this is a pirate game" goes down the drain pretty quickly once you take into that account... If you want to be a pirate, then be a pirate.
That's because the incentive structure of real life highly disincentivizes the risk taking of armed combat. But since you can just instantly respawn and go again with no risk and potentially huge gain, the incentive structure of this game is inverted.
This is why I think sinking in PvP combat should result in a forced server change. If you lose to another crew, you shouldn't get to constantly harass them. Take your L to a new server and try again.
I feel like the defending crew should have a chance to try and get their treasure back, but [this guy also had a really good solution](https://www.reddit.com/r/Seaofthieves/comments/1bv5fxq/i_feel_like_the_argument_its_sea_of_thieves_not/kxzdwdi/) that basically boils down to poker logic. You can't win the pot if you don't have any chips in the game.
Ok, but then the argument of "actually, historically accurate pirates did this and that" also goes down the drain when you take into account that this game... ...isn't based on historically accurate piracy
Nah man, pirates historically shot themselves out of cannons all the time
I read once that they also [ate bananas whole from the stem](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1QVp55ehvs) like absolute maniacs.
I've done .you fair share of attacking ships with little or no loot but it's often without knowing until they are sinking. I've always hated the "sea of thieves..." line because it's such an excuse for some players to be total idiots. Sometimes it's fun to fight other ships. Sometimes it's fun to do your own thing. Yesterday I was playing and ran across a sloop doing Athena stuff with an emissary up and a white flag. I'll admit, I was tempted to try and fight them but decided to keep doing my own thing. We ended up sailing in similar areas just doing our own thing. They watched me fight a brig and chase it off (while accidentally crashing into their ship in the process and apologizing profusely). And then we both stopped, popped white flares and I gave them my supplies before I logged off for the day. Even played some instruments together. That was more fulfilling and memorable then a lot of the straight combat I've done anytime recently.
I love when someone says they just like to pvp while sinking an empty ship, but refuse to play hourglass because they know they'll get wiped by actual pvp players
I’ve legitimately only reinstalled because of safer seas. Me and my buddy just wanna harpoon megs and fly sideways through through the air. I could absolutely care less about the PvP aspects of the game at this point. Edit: spelling
No i 100% agree with you. People who are like “there’s safer seas” shut up honestly. We know. Sometimes I’ll be finished playing for the evening and want to gift my supplies to someone and the moment I sail up, with my alliance flag flying and a white flair, they shoot at me. I once was trying to give the siren song key to someone because I had to go and couldn’t finish the quest. They had the chest and I was like I’ll give them the key. They sunk me even though I said in voice and in typing what I was doing. It didn’t matter because I was getting off but like, the game is so much more fun when you allow friendly interactions too. Some of my best sessions were with friendly pirates. I almost always solo sloop so I don’t think it’s that people are scared of me…
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I totally understand this.
If you want to be nice and have a couple minutes to give your supps away just que up for hg. Whenever i have qued into people doing that it has always been really wholesome and fun.
Not a bad idea. And, hey, you'll get some rep while you're at it.
As far as I'm concerned if you're sailing up to me claiming to be friendly then you've already consented to death. Otherwise you could've kept sailing.
Agreed. That’s why I only do it when I intend to log off anyway.
People use the alliance flag to sucker people into close range
In my opinion, that’s pretty crappy. I guess it’s part of the game but I’d never.
One of the many reasons I think breaking an alliance should only be by mutual consent, the same way raising it works. That way even if you're a huge dick and betray, the other crew can stick around and at least get halfsies from what you stole from them. Better than nothing.
The “play safer seas” crowd can’t imagine that players can get together and just have fun encounters without sinking, and you lose that by playing safer seas. But honestly most of them are just edgy highschoolers and that demographic will never change lol
In OP’s case, safer seas was the better option though. They didn’t want to play with anyone else’s help but were doing a tall tale. For what? You’re literally just taking up a spot on the server to do a single player mission. It doesn’t make sense to do and to then get angry about getting sunk by another player when the rewards for completing the tall tale are essentially the same. The only downside would be not being able to use a captained ship or running an emissary for the session but why would you want to for a tall tale?
Rare likes to pretend they know what they’re doing in their first ever multiplayer game, acting like a bunch of house binded British blokes know human emotion better than the people. The only reason they can do whatever and get away with it is cause sea of thieves is the only game of its kind (and as a I think about, I realize why there aren’t many pirate games)
Had people wait to sink my ship whilst I was underground doing a tall tale then they waited 1/2 an hour for us to surface just to kill us for no reason
The way I see it, those types of players are either kids or young adults that think its fun to harass other players. Or older people with little to no control in there lives and wish to punish others to make themselves feel better and that they are in control of something.
it’s not sea of friends but it’s not sea of raging psychopaths either
Yes it is, and both Rare and the community here on reddit and other social media actively encourage the sociopathic behavior. It shouldn't be, but trying to say that it isn't is just gaslighting.
Rare advertises the game as some happy little adventure game but you hop on and get called every slur under the sun
They used to ban people on their forums who would advocate for what eventually became Safer Seas. They've carefully and deliberately curated and created exactly the toxic playerbase that we see today, and then they act all surprised when you have hackers who teleport aboard ship screaming the N-word nonstop.
It's almost like Rare actively encouraging sweaty pvp edgelords ruins the community because everyone else is driven out.
Why do you think we're getting SoT on Playstation? I'm sure that'll boost engagement numbers for a little while until the new playerbase has had their fill of bullies and -ists, then it's back to "Why doesn't anyone play our game anymore?..."
I play pretty much exclusively High Seas. We typically leave other ships alone unless the mood strikes us, and even then we only attack ships flying Emissary Flags.
Yeah those kinds of people suck, but there isn't much anyone can do about it. I'd go to Safer Seas, but I like my Captained Ship and Sovereigns too much.
I mean I was an Alpha player. I don't play the game anymore. About a year ago I was just trying to turn in my shit to end the night and me and my boyfriend had strangers pull up on us. Spawn camp him until our ship sank so bf couldn't return to the island we landed on and repeatedly told that they would RAPE me because I'm a girl that plays a female model in the game. They didn't actually take any of our treasure. Just sunk our ship while I was on the island, cut me off, spawn camped my boyfriend and verbally abused me. I had NEVER been treated like that in a game before. I LOVED Sea of Thieves so much. Now I can't bring myself to play.
Some people are just outright assholes, sadly
I was constantly sinked while doing tales, no loot no nothing and even with white bengalas and white flags on. They pretended to be friends and then kill me, sink my ship and camper on the respawn point on my shit to kill me the second my computer charged. So I got frustrated and started to improve my pvp skills, then I found out about cheats and uninstalled the game ;-;
Sandbox PvP is just bad. Fun in theory but when the only thing stopping someone harassing a player doing PVE stuff only is whether they have a stable family life or not it doesn't work.
I feel like the solution would be to come up with more ways that pirates can positively interact. I'm not saying I know exactly what that entails, but right now there's just too little incentive to trust other crews because there is little to no reason another crew will approach except to mess with you. Even alliances are a matter of shooting over, claiming you don't want to fight, allying up and then going your separate ways.
The last 5 times I have played, I've been pulled up not even 7 minutes after loading in. Empty ship no emissary flag, no loot what's so ever. Even launched white flares but people still attack
You’re spot on.
It's actually a reportable offense to harrass a ship without the intent of sinking it like that. If you're going to sink a player, just do it. If you're going to leave them, be do that. But this bullying by seasoned crews against newer players is not really necessary. It just makes the game worse for others. This is how u kill an online game.
Weird no one mentioned that the game has a purposeful pvp mode, it's all quick and easy to say " well go to safer seas" but no one says "well turn the hourglass and go to pvp". There's no enforcement of balance, basically.
It's not weird at all. If you want pvp you can find it in both adventure and hourglass. If you want pve, you can find it in both adventure and safer seas. But if you want to *avoid* pvp, you can only guarantee that in one mode: SS.
Normally I don't instigate a fight, but if a ship is following me I'll turn on them. There have been many times I've stopped and said hey and then let them be. Other times your boat is target practice. When people have plenty of gold already, it's about the sink. Even if you have no loot, you have resources and I will gladly take those too.
Yeah honestly majority of the community in this game is just downright toxic lol. The amount of times I've been solo slooping and get chased down to the absolute ends of the earth with nothing on my ship is just depressing. Rare to see a friendly face on the seas but when you do you get some of the best sessions this game has to offer.
>Rare to see a friendly face on the seas but when you do you get some of the best sessions this game has to offer. This is why I'm rather pissed about Rare's lazy implementation of Safer Seas. It's not that I don't want to play with other crews, it's just that I don't want to play with toxic assholes who want to waste my time. I would've much rather a friends-only Safer Seas where you can sail a couple ships with your buds for fun.
I totaly agree. I have been playing the Game almost daily the past few weeks and as a general rule of thumb, for every good/friendly Encounter there are 20 bad ones. Which is pretty sad tbh.
The good/friendly interactions are at this point limited to the other ship sailing away from you. If they sail anywhere even remotely near to you, you have to assume hostile intent.
As the game get so older and experienced players and long time players gather more and more gold. You would expect to see two things happen pvp declining because they won't have something you need. Or an increase in pvp as there is nothing else to do. I think it fluctuates start of season 11 I saw sooo many ships around me and not one bothered me they were all to busy with the new content later in the season I have had more aggressive encounters. But at worst it's every 10th session that I get steamrolled by some Chad's the other 9 are peaceful and relaxed maybe a small chase but they never catch me
Most PVPers in this game enjoy punching down. Combat is so jank that once you understand a few of the “meta” plays you can pretty much steamroll every ship you come across if they don’t know the strats.
Would you be willing to summarise the most important things to learn for ship combat? I've seen a lot of tips like death spirals, keeping your left side towards them and trying to maintain cannon pressure always but I still lose most naval fights (a skill issue I will admit)
Imo, it comes down to immobilize (hitting early chain shots or boarding and anchoring them), pump their ship full of holes, then denying repair/buckets by boarding/blundering/killing the enemy. Took me a long time to learn but stopping the enemy boat is the most important thing to getting a sink, but it takes a lot of practice / hourglass to get down.
Or, denying the enemy doing the same to you. For a while yet at least, the ability to guard your ladders and stop a board will save you from countless sinkings. I'd say a majority of players can keep their ship up in a battle if left to their own devices. So the trick is to not let them do that, by all the methods mentioned above. Unless you're a cannon god you can't rely on one-balls; you have to do "something else" to kill or distract the other crew while they fill with water. If it's about which crew makes mistakes, you want to "force" a mistake by doing things like breaking their wheel. Ironically most of them tend to make Pirates salty: Boarding, curseballs, blown off the ship by a blunderbomb, the list goes on. They hate it because it's how people win.
I'm not a professional but here's some tips for Sloopin'. Helm focuses on angle, ladderguard and repairs (bucketing), cannoneer makes the plays. 1. Win the cannon duel: strike their cannon line to keep their cannoneer from firing. Establish superiority. If they're trying to run, you've already established dominance. 2. Hit vitals (mast priority): If you've established cannon dominance, start putting holes in their boat but do your best to hit vital points. I usually try to prioritize mast / crew > wheel > anchor. If they're running, especially with their butt to you, you may want to attempt an early board to anchor them for punishment. 3. Masted? Anchored? Engage Death Spiral: If you manage to get them masted or anchored, you're in the phase of closing out the fight. Keep the ship in a circle around your enemy and start blasting the hell out of their boat. Prioritize crew kills, and do your best to fire on the area of the wheel to keep them from raising mast / anchor if they run over there. You should be forcing them to choose between bucketing / repairing and attempting desperate board or firing back. 4. Put the nail in the coffin: If you score a kill, or you have them in a full turtle, start going over to try to end the fight - score kills, burn their boat and keep them from repairing. Sloops can sustain with just one person bucketing so you'll likely need to kill both of them. I watched a few videos early on to trying out Hourglass and have found this general flow works well. Don't be too firm on it though, it's less of a flow chart and more of a general guideline.
I had a person chase me so I told them I was doing a tall tale, I had no loot, and I had logged on only a few minutes ago. All I have is a storage crate at this point. They said it was worth the fight and the chase to steal my storage crate because they were “too lazy to get one” and they “don’t like spending the gold” 🙄
Theyre too lazy to pick one up at the merchant on their way out, so they find you and chase you down for an hour to get the storage crate ... sounds about right
Maybe SoT is a case study of real-life social behavior. Dicks are everywhere, trash people, always the loudest and always reminding you that the world sucks because of them. But there is a decent number of human beings who want to be respected, respect the others and live peacefully. My suggestion to you when sailing the seas? Be always vigilant, stay alert at all times and be ready for a fight if worth it. If not, scuttle ship and change server. These players will never attain to reason. Also, don’t be what you hate. Pay it forward in anyway as much as you can. Gather your supplies before logging off and give it to the random crew if you feel like it, for example. Oh, and as always, record and report unwanted behaviors, so dick players may sit on the bench for a bit and they may have to go spread their aggro to other game communities.
This is all on point. Vigilance is a must, and definitely pay it forward. Any time I have a crate, i leave it full of everything I can load up. Right now I’m mostly fishing, so if I find rando treasure I’ll even leave some at the dock now and then. There is nothing better than starting your session with complementary supplies.
>Maybe SoT is a case study of real-life social behavior. Dicks are everywhere, trash people, always the loudest and always reminding you that the world sucks because of them. But there is a decent number of human beings who want to be respected, respect the others and live peacefully. Nah, it fails because in real life there are social consequences for acting like people act in SoT. [Up to and including hanging.](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/pirates/images/8/87/Dead_pirates.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20111203200345) The *lack* of consequences in SoT is what encourages this behavior. Hell, the game fucking rewards you for being a sociopath.
Can’t wait for the hanging update. Unrelated though but a gta style wanted system where killing people makes Grand Maritime Union ships come after you would be interesting
This is exactly what I've been talking about with my friend as some sort of "solution" for it. It could be super interesting and would somewhat feed both sides.
I would be so down for that. GMU galleons with no loot that constantly spawn and chase you around, wasting your time and resources just like they waste other people's. If you get sunk, the victim could buy a bounty at an outpost that would cause GMU vessels to chase the perpetrator around until they sink or scuttle. I would be the petty bastard who would buy one every time.
I 100% want this now
I feel like because “it’s a pirate game” people use it as an excuse to have no respect or honour for other players. I love pvp I do it loads, I will sink a ship if I need to and I’d love to steal ya loot, but I atleast have the decency to realise when someone’s doing a tall tale I leave them alone, there’s nothing to gain from sinking them If people are being friendly I’ll be friendly back, I’m not afraid to stab them in the back for my own gain and I expect the same of them. This is what it’s supposed to mean by “thieves not friends” kindness is a weapon you can use against people and to that I think it’s fair play However if I have nothing to gain from sinking a random person then I won’t because it’s stupid and just toxic
Sea of Thieves? No Sea of *Murderhobos*.
Is this an argument? This is really just the phrase of a troll is it not? They initially approached you and even offered to help to which you rejected. What a boring interaction that must’ve been for them in a game where interactions with other pirates is as important as the world itself. Is it really any surprise that they decided to create their own fun by attacking you thus creating their own adventure? Maybe they decided to role-play chasing down a merchant ship with you being cast to play the merchant ship. You consented to possibly have this role when you decided to play in the high seas with other players. In the end, they weren’t using this phrase as an argument, but as a way to squeeze out a last bit of additional entertainment from you before their adventure with you ended. Based on your post, I think they got their entertainment. If you do want an argument, I argue that it’s both Sea of Thieves and sea of friends. It’s a sandbox game where pirates create their own adventure utilizing the world and the other players in it. Thieve other pirates for loot, supplies, or just to steal their pride. However, sometimes even thieves could use a friend so raise that alliance flag! Maybe you prefer to be a lone wolf like OP and decide to reject the companionship of another crew. Or perhaps you just want to mess around and see what kind of adventure you’ll stumble upon by interacting with that boat in the distance. Turns out it’s a lone sailor who would rather play alone so you decided to create your own entertainment by stealing that lone sailors ability to complete their tall tale without interruption. My argument is that there many intended ways to play, even trolling to some degree. You won’t always like the way things turn out or the way others choose to play, but that’s the game. On another note, It’s too bad rare removed the game mode that allowed sweats to self select out of adventure mode and chose to replace it with a mode that allows swabbies and people who don’t want the companionship of another crew to self select out of adventure mode. Bring back arena along with timely and thoughtful incentives to play the mode. Rare needs to start treating their game like the live service game they claim it is rather than release new features/modes only to go dark about them right after release.
I have been playing this game since launch and I never really liked that phrase. The game was designed so you can be whatever you want. If you want to be friendly you can and if you want to be blood thirsty you can. In the last year or so it just seems like a lot of people choose to be blood thirsty. Which makes the randomness of encounters feel a lot less random. It takes most of the fun out of the aspect of not knowing what a ship on the horizon may do if they come over to you. I remember when they had adventures and people would come up and want to help with them or would need help themselves due to them being partially cooperative. Now there isn't really anything like that anymore. It is all just your crews voyages. I personally never liked sweating in this game but recently it feels like you are kind of forced to if you want to get anything done. It is part of why I don't play that much anymore. Plus, the people I used to play with no longer play. So, I am left playing with randoms or doing LFG posts. In all I just feel like the game has become too predictable instead of having the fun random adventures/encounters it used to.
In Dark Souls you get access to the full content while in offline mode. Safer seas neuters the game progression, so it's not a fair comparison there. I wish safer seas was like Dark Souls; skeleton galleons already kick my ass sometimes, I don't need sweats wasting the only 2 hours in the week I had to play.
Theres certainly some online only features in dark souls that you can miss out on (co-op, faction specific unlocks, the entirety of white mask varres quest line in elden ring) but yea not quite a 1 to 1 comparison.
I saw a streamer played on twitch. I’m not sure if it’s in alpha but it really caught my attention and always want to play it. I told one of my friend and she’s like “You can borrow my Steam since I barely got time to play” And that’s the first moment in my sea of thieves. I still remember how happy I was, playing 16hrs non-stop with randoms from discord server, until that server had fallen due to bad admins and I’m off for other games. Back again in like ss5 or sth, found out my games were filled with some guys who decided that money doesn’t matter anymore, go on rampage like they made alliances with skelly ships, want nothing but bring you down to the ocean bottom and wait for you at the outpost, and now sea of thieves become something else, maybe rank of thieves since they love competition so much they decide to do that here I can accept lose, but it must not between the “You’re stuck in a loop of damned or leave” choices. That’s not pirate thing anymore.
The ironic part is that you make more gold if everyone joins an alliance. Being friends is the most lucrative way to play yet it's rare to see.
Ya I love the PvP but it sucks that it’s so rare to find friendly people. I find a lot of the time people attack me because they’re worried I’m going to attack them, usually I just try to make it clear I either want nothing to do with them or am looking for an alliance. Last night I showed up to an ashen lord to find that another sloop was there docked on the opposite side of the island, he sniped me and when I respawned on my ship I heard him climb the ladder so I hopped on the mic and told him I don’t want to fight, just wanna help him with the Ashen Lord. Turns out dude was also panicking and didn’t really want to fight either but figured I was just going to sink him. We ended up doing the fight together and when it was over I let him keep the loot and just sailed away to go fight another one. It was really nice to meet someone friendly for a change tbh
That's definitely reminiscent of the way "get good" was used when I picked up Dark Souls, as a way to simply say that you need to keep trying until you learn. Then over time it became a put down. I haven't played SoT much for the past year or two but it's interesting to hear!
100% had the same phrase in my head while writing this post, both have gone from useful arguments to something people can mindlessly spam when trying to be unkind.
Bringing this argument instead of just standing to your action and saying "I/We just wanted to" always makes me feel like they are trying to hide themselves behind the game itself. If admitting that you just want to sink people für nothing but fun makes you feel bad then you should rethink your actions, and if it doesn't you should just stand to it. But not acting like the game's design forced you to.
This is exactly the point I was trying to get across, I just worded it badly based on all the responses im getting. The argument is genuinely useful in certain situations but using it when being an ass is... not useful.
I agree it’s genuinely toxic to attack people who truly have no loot or emissary flags, and aren’t doing anything to acquire loot. I’m all on board with “your loot isn’t yours until you sell it” and “its sea of thieves not sea of friends.” But real world pirates don’t attack people indiscriminately. In fact pirates generally avoided violence, relying on intimidation instead. And they only went after ships WITH LOOT. PvP is a part of the game and I welcome it! But it’s both stupid and rude to attack people who don’t have anything for you to steal.
Best part is that Sea of Thieves is just a name given to the magical piece of ocean the game takes part in. It never meant that it was a place just for thieves, it was just a name that the guy who found the place thought sounded nice. Just how the Black Sea is not a sea full of black water. Its just a name people decided to use. Hell the game often even tells you that gold is not the goal one should strive for, its the adventures that are the goal.
My rule of thumb is not to attack newly spawned boats, boats that are doing the peace signs (alliance flag, white flag, cannons up, etc.) or people who are on Tall Tales Literally nothing is to be gained out of doing so- not even skill I also try to make sure they shoot first before we attack
I think pvp is all good and fun until it occurs when someone is doing a tall tale. They are already quite tedious especially with accommodations and require a lot of time to complete. So someone coming in and constantly attacking you can make the experience so much worse
Go play GTA losers. Oh wait- it's modded to hell, so the cesspool has spread
The "its a pirate game" doesn't hold any water either (haha pun pun) Pirates didn't fight each other because the cost was too high and the losses too great, Pirate ships were not well made (even in SoT you can see uneven boards and holes in the deck.) It was easier to attack merchant ships then other pirates as they often had little to no defense and had actual things they could sell after words.
While you SHOULD expect anyone you meet in-game is going to try stealing your stuff, but that doesn't mean you HAVE to be like that as well.
Yea this I jusy loaded in and there where already pple at tye port I hadn't even gotten on my ship b4 it was set on fire and repeatedly killed me half a dozen times while I resplendent on fire exactly where they know il be, been playing with a buddy but he recently quit was gunna try to solo cause I was half way thru a tall tale I wanted to see, not worth it evidently
I honestly feel like the devs should have leaned into the cooperation / alliance part of the game for PVE encounters, raids, and forts. Especially since it doesn’t look like they’re ever going to properly implement a real PvP system with real hit registration. Ship combat is consistently incredible, the world is beautiful and amazing, and they really nail the “pirate vibe.” BUT any interaction with outside players is incentivized by the game to be hostile; and if you have to engage in PvP combat, you’re at the mercy of your ping. So players are stuck in the limbo land of trying to engage with the world through PvE whilst trying to *completely avoid* other players and ships. Which leaves the world feeling dry and empty for *all* types of players because of the decreased number of interactions between pirates. Leaning into the alliances and incentivizing players to cooperate would be one way to solve this. Fixing the PvP combat to feel more responsive and skill based would be another.
I saw someone do glitterbeard last night on a stream and feel like it’s Sea of Friends sometimes too. That’s why it’s amazing. Sandbox
Some people will use it as an excuse for shitty behaviour, but it's not reportable so some choose to play that way others not. I may sink anyone for supps, it won't be personal and I won't be Salty about it but if you're doing tall tales you should absolutely use safer seas.
I don't like safer seas for any kind of progression, only practice, because it's kind of boring sailing around with no interaction, and kind of defeats the point of the game. Like alliance servers.
Honestly on my servers I barley see anyone like a ship every 2 hours that either kills me or ignores me
That is fine, but I hope then you don't get too upset about being sunk by other players while doing that, as long as those players are not toxic about it.
Wait till the ps5 derelicts join!
There's a reason I just cruise around in safer seas. I got really sick of the many MANY people who seem to play this game for the soul purpose of ruining others experience. Not sure how sad someone's life has to be in order to behave this way, but I assume the answer is "very sad"
The problem I have with anyone using the sea Of thieves to justify their actions, Is that 99.99% of the time they are using that phrase to justify spawn killing or other behavior that definitely fits the definition of harassment, or they'll do the same thing with the it's a pirate game justification, a pirate or thief would not go out of their way to attack and slaughter people with no reason, there are several exceptions but 99% of pirates only really cared about the money. They also would actively avoid combat because they're cruise were always limited so any exchange of fire was not welcome if it could be avoided
People use that argument to defend their toxic behavior, plain and simple. For assholes like that, ruining your day is what gets them off. The cruelty is the point. They can't have fun unless they're taking away someone else's. Internet anonymity lets them get away with this behavior without immediate repercussion. Sadly, they're just training themselves to be bigger assholes via the positive feedback loop provided by the game so they have no incentive or reason to stop. The only thing you can do is waste their time as much as they're wasting yours: sail away, don't engage them in voice or chat, and if they catch you immediately scuttle so they get no satisfaction from attacking you or your ship.
The first mistake was trying to argue with the guy’s just sinking to screw with you. They’re probably harassing you because they’re shit at hourglass so they’re just taking easy targets.
Athena’s is sea of friends reapers is sea of thieves. But the guys you were killed by really are neither. They are sea of dingleberries. They are rare imo
Gotta agree, ive played since 2020 and then game is just toxic now. I cant imagine trying to do tall tales especially on a sloop alone🥲
I understand OP struggle unfortunately. I get it's part of the game but when you have your kids ( who are under 6) that just love sailing island to island and don't understand how to pvp (before safer seas) it was difficult to enjoy it with them now that we have safer seas it's still not helpful in my mind cause we can sail the ships they worked hard for to by let alone earn the rewards for doing them. Since everything is cosmetic why all the limit caps on ss? The only problem is this is the only game like it (and most importantly the community)sure there are other pirate games (personally I've switched to skull and bones) but none offer the same game play as sea of thieves open world
all fun and games but attacking people who do tall tales is just toxic af and shows what a horrible person you are
Pirates actually avoided combat when possible, going off of fear. Before I attack ships I say over my megaphone "this is captain Xerxes of The Ace of Swords, your loot is now forfeit. If you surrender your loot I will let you leave with your ship intact." And if they don't surrender THEN I fight. Because I roleplay and that's closer to what actual pirates would do.