Sea of Thieves

[Boozy The Clown]

 

If you are desperate for a ship name. I've ended up with The Purple Sausage. That' ll work.

[mechamonkey]

Sea King Goodtimes
I'll probably go for my fave Cult song name "Bad Fun" or some random Hawkwind reference

[SuperCapes]

Ours is the Phil Spencer. Tough as old boots, has a cracking smile, and likes money.

[Captain Kelsten]

Not sure what I’ll go with yet, but got plenty of options. Some of the stupid ones I came up with were “Get Wrecked”, “Shipfaced” and “Sloop Dog”. 
 

 

[Popo]

Serenity. 

[Boothjan]

As a Wolves fan, I'm going for The Molly New 

[moosegrinder]

Mines going to be "The Bellowing Void"

[Captain Kelsten]

I’m going with “The Lobster’s Claw”, “The Salty Shark” or “The Floating Barnacle” 🏴‍☠️ 

[Captain Kelsten]

Very productive morning slooping with my son today!

 

We found a reaper’s chest (and handed it in!), raided a ghost fort, killed a crested Queen meg (his first Meg fight) without getting hit, got to rank 5 emissary with gold hoarders, went from 0 - 11 with reaper’s bones, from 0 - 5 with hunter’s call, cleared a sunken shrine and got loads of loot and overall made about 100k gold in the session - still not enough for my own sloop, but much closer! 
 

[moosegrinder]

This game is so fucking confusing.

[moosegrinder]

This game is so fucking tedious solo. I seriously don't get how you're supposed to play it. Just do the forts? Do shorter quests? Are there shorter quests?

 

I got a bundle of Quests from the shipwright, the first one was fine. Dig up loot. Second was find chests on an island for someone and a galleon turned up and fucked me.

 

I left that alone and went to do some named skeletons, but there were three of them plus their skele crew PLUS some fucking ghosts and just wrecked my shit. For two and a half hours work I got fuck all. Between this and Power Wash Sim losing hours of progress it's been a shit day for gaming.

[Captain Kelsten]

Aww dude  

 

Solo I just explore, try to track down lore bits, do ghost stuff, do the tall tales, get commendations and, bizarrely, fish. Really enjoy fishing, for some reason! 
 

I don’t mind losing any treasure I’ve accumulated- it makes no real difference, there’s no vertical progression so yeah whilst it’s a bit bum losing stuff (and the time spent doing said stuff), I just shrug it off and go do something else (either in game or elsewhere!). 

[Captain Kelsten]

2 hours ago, moosegrinder said:

This game is so fucking confusing.

In what way? I’m finding my feet again and yeah, there’s a lot to take in but I’ve found it quite fun figuring it all out - don’t forget my main game is world of Warcraft which, these days, hand holds you and spoon feeds you everything so this game, where you actually have to figure shit out, I find quite refreshing.

 

Today, for example, we finally decided to explore the green and red swirling things we’ve often seen on the horizon. Turns out it was that reaper’s chest, which then turned into a game of figuring out where to take it, then discovering the reaper faction and what they’re about, then handing everything in there for a bit to get rep. 

[moosegrinder]

39 minutes ago, Captain Kelsten said:

Aww dude  

 

Solo I just explore, try to track down lore bits, do ghost stuff, do the tall tales, get commendations and, bizarrely, fish. Really enjoy fishing, for some reason! 
 

I don’t mind losing any treasure I’ve accumulated- it makes no real difference, there’s no vertical progression so yeah whilst it’s a bit bum losing stuff (and the time spent doing said stuff), I just shrug it off and go do something else (either in game or elsewhere!). 

 

I didn't lose anything really, because I never gained anything. The stuff I dug up I handed in immediately. What I hate about it is that all that time resulted in very little. I hate feeling like I wasting my time.

 

As for confusing, I bought my sloop and then the Pirate Lord told me some shit, I bought some quest thing off the shipwright but then I forgot you need to vote on the table because you can't do it while the Pirate Lord is doing his guff then I totally forgot voting on the table is a thing so I spent ages wondering why I hadn't got a map or anything in my quest wheel. 

[Captain Kelsten]

Ah yeah the game definitely has some foibles like that where stuff isn’t as easy as it should be to navigate.

[Captain Kelsten]

Absolutely bonkers night solo slooping!

 

First I did a ghost fort solo. Not too difficult at all (although having my son there as bait definitely makes them easier!). 
 

Decided to do a good hoarder voyage. Following the golden compass thingy, I got three pieces of a map that led to Wayfarer’s Island. Got there and it gave me a shark totem for Kraken’s Fall. I get there, find the location and insert the totem, opening a secret shrine. I head inside and the door starts to close. I get greedy, grabbing as much treasure as I can then start ferrying it out of the cave. Then I realise the whole thing is a puzzle and I’m running out of time. I find three medallions and insert them into the altar but not with enough time remaining - the door slams shut, the room fills with water and I drown, having wasted too much time grabbing the gold piles off the floor, I’d only managed to bring out two seafarer’s chests. 
 

Heading back to an outpost I hear some music I don’t recognise and before you know it, a skeletal sloop erupts from the waves on my starboard. We start trading cannon fire, all my shots on target and I’m feeling confident.
 

Well, the game must have picked up on that cus then the music changes…and this music I recognise. I turn in time to see the Shadowmaw Meg charging right at me! So now I’m shooting the skele ship, shooting the Meg, running downstairs to bale and repair as best I can.

 

I finally defeat the skellies, then the Meg, patch up as best I can but I’ve run out of planks and I’m still taking on water so I start grabbing the treasure with the harpoon, when I get that “the world is changing message” and think shit, I’ve lost everything as it’s moving me to another server. 

 

Thankfully, all my loot is still on board or floating in the ocean, so I grab the last of it, point my ship in the direction of Ancient Spire Outpost and then run below decks, bailing desperately as the ship still has about three holes in it. 

 

I limp into port, beach the boat and hand everything in. I’m exhausted so look at the time and realise 3 hours have passed and it’s 2am. 

I started the day with 10k gold and between the duo sloop session with my son and my solo session, I ended the night on 120k gold. Chump change to a lot of you, I’m sure, but I was pretty pleased with my pirating. 🏴‍☠️ 

[Captain Kelsten]

On 26/03/2018 at 12:54, Captain Kelsten said:

With regards to the comment earlier in the thread about people being angry, I don't think that's the case - not here, anyway. 

 

For me, it's disappointment I feel. I've been super excited by this game since it was first announced. I love the look of it, the dev diaries and drip feed of info said most of the right things, you could see and hear the passion Rare had for the project, there's been a bizarre lack of pirate games in general, let alone good pirate games. I was ready to buy a One X just for this game, despite being able to run it at max settings on my PC. I bought the art book, considered buying the controller...I was ready to go all-in on this. 

 

So whilst the game is fun to play in parts, for me it's the thought of what might have been that stings the most. It's only really recently where Rare have been open about what the game was, and even then they could have done a better job of explaining. What's there is ok, but limited. The thought of what could have been there is much worse. 

 

Essentially, MS haven't disappointed me this much since they cancelled True Fantasy Live Online, way back on the original Xbox. 

 

Having said all that, I want the game to succeed. Even though it's not really what I expected, or even wanted in some respects, I still want it to do well and for 

Rare to be given the opportunity to turn it into what it should be rather than what it is now, which is the foundation of a brilliant game but not much else. 

I’ve been re-reading the early pages of this thread and it’s funny looking back and seeing the mix of wonder, disappointment and, in some people’s case, pure disgust at the game and saying it’ll never be supported, it’s doomed to fail and there’s nothing to do. Seeing my own post I’ve quoted there is quite fun because…Well, it’s four and a bit years later and the game is everything I originally wanted it to be. Any complaints I had back at launch have all been addressed:

 

- lack of enemy variety with just skeletons? Now there’s skeletons, ghosts, deep crawlers, sirens, all require different approaches to fight

 

- lack of things to do, with only basic go there, get a thing and come back missions? There’s so much to do now - almost too bloody much!. The old style quests, voyages, tall tales, forts, raids, fishing, shrines, emissaries - loads more I’ve forgotten

 

- empty world? The world is bristling with life now. Fish in the oceans, animals everywhere, new enemies, megs, krakens, pets, world events, ghost ships, skeleton ships, massive naval battles 

 

- lack of story? Tall tales are brilliant. Puzzles and lore and temples to raid and shrines to plunder and traps and bosses…and then there’s the pirates of the Caribbean stuff on top! Now there’s also the regular adventure stuff which helps progress the story at a regular clip. 
 

so yeah. Four years later and it’s the game it should have been at launch, but better late than never I say. I adore this game so much and any disappointment I once had had all but evaporated. 
 

Also, it looks stunning on series x with the ray tracing and stuff. 
 

 

[Captain Kelsten]

I'd always avoided doing any Merchant's Alliance quests back when I played before as they were bloody boring and, as a result, my rep with them was far lower than both Gold Hoarders and Order of Souls. However, I read about the lost shipment quests they do so this morning, I set myself up as an emissary for them and took on a quest and man, it was loads of fun! You're like a pirate detective - the merchants tell you one of their ships never made their scheduled delivery. Then they give you the ship's route and schedule and then you follow it, picking up clues along the way to try and track down what happened to the ship. Once you find the ship, you get to finish their delivery for an absolute boatload of gold! I really enjoyed it and I went from rank 28-31 with Merchants just doing that, and got to grade 5 emissary

[moosegrinder]

How the fuck are you supposed to find quests like that?! The game tells you fuck all!

[Captain Kelsten]

You just go to the merchant alliance and buy the quest from them.

[moosegrinder]

23 minutes ago, Captain Kelsten said:

You just go to the merchant alliance and buy the quest from them.

 

Which one?

 

Tell thee this much, the Sovereign are worth the price of captaincy alone.

 

Naturally after I had a hissy fit the other day about how frustrating this game is I went back to it after a good night's sleep and with a mind to try and roll with the punches had some solo shenanigans with nothing too outstanding aside from a sloop who was chasing a brig deciding I was better prey. I fucked them up but ultimately sank to their two man vs solo bullshit. Ne mind.

 

Now I'm just doing milestones and other pointless box ticking. It soothes my brain.

[Captain Kelsten]

26 minutes ago, moosegrinder said:

 

Which one?

 

Tell thee this much, the Sovereign are worth the price of captaincy alone.

 

Naturally after I had a hissy fit the other day about how frustrating this game is I went back to it after a good night's sleep and with a mind to try and roll with the punches had some solo shenanigans with nothing too outstanding aside from a sloop who was chasing a brig deciding I was better prey. I fucked them up but ultimately sank to their two man vs solo bullshit. Ne mind.

 

Now I'm just doing milestones and other pointless box ticking. It soothes my brain.

 

These ones:

 

https://seaofthieves.fandom.com/wiki/Lost_Shipments 

 

Quote

A Lost Shipment voyage can be purchased from a Merchant Alliance Representative by any Pirate that has attained Rank 25 Merchant Officer Promotion with the Company.

 

[moosegrinder]

Oh ok. I've just hit 25. 

 

How do those bundles from the shipwright work? Are they just a bunch of quests the Merchants/whoever would give you but without having to go and pick them up individually?

[Captain Kelsten]

This morning I managed to get enough to buy my very own sloop

 

[Captain Kelsten]

First bum night since I started playing again. Me and my brother doing a merchant voyage and we stop on a fort island for a clue and notice the fort is active, so we fight wave after wave of skellies and the boss guy spawns and then I happen to turn round and see our ship is sailing off. I catch up to it and there’s two people on board - they kill me and I respawn on the ship and they’re gone. Our loot is still there and their ship is nowhere on the horizon.
 

All of a sudden they reappear on deck, seemingly out of nowhere. It’s at this point I realise they’re doing something called “tucking” - using hide emotes and skinny characters to effectively hide themselves in objects on the boat - the cannons, the captains table, even the tarp cover over the captain’s bit on a sloop. 

 

It’s two v one and they kill me again. And again. And again. Every shot of theirs is with an eye of reach from 10ft away or closer with no scope and every single shot hits. They’re not trying to take our loot, they’re just spawn camping me whilst spamming the rofl emote.
 

Eventually my brother makes it back to the ship and between us we kill one of them. We sail off and try to complete the voyage, abandoning the fort. That’s when we notice they’re a rank 5 reaper ship, so they can see us at all times. 
 

We manage to find the lost ship off the coast of morrow’s peak outpost and grab as much as we can, keeping a wary eye on the map - it seems these reapers are staying at the fort. We then notice they’re on their way so we abandon some of the loot and head to the sovereign thing on the island and start loading the loot. Unfortunately I mess up the harpoon and end up dropping all the loot in the water, rather than on the pier, so my brother and I start diving in and grabbing one crate at a time. As we’re doing this, I notice a mermaid in the water by our ship - no other ship on the horizon. They’re somehow on the dock without either of us noticing them arrive or seeing their ship, and they kill us.
 

I respawn on my boat and check the map. It shows the reaper boat not far from ours, but looking over its not actually there - it’s still nowhere to be seen. But now they’re on the boat and they repeatedly kill us over and over and over to the point where we just abandoned the loot and scuttled the ship. 
 

Now, I don’t mind better players killing me, sinking me and stealing my stuff. It’s a pirate game. And the reaper faction is about killing other player emissaries, taking their flag and loot and handing it in for gold and rewards. Again, fair enough. What these guys were doing was seemingly appearing out of nowhere, somehow hiding their ship from plain sight, hitting every single shot with their sniper rifles and not even attempting to take our stuff, just spawn camping us again and again. Really put a downer on the evening. 

[thesnwmn]

Can you play this solo? Like on a server with no other fuckers.

 

That story right there is simply the thick end of why I won't go near this.

 

It doesn't add anything for me. I don't enjoy PvP at all even if it's not camping and griefing. I'm not excited to think a boat on the horizon might be another player group.

 

Remove other players and I'm straight into this. Love the style and the idea of basic adventuring.

[friedgold]

It does happen, but - at least in my experience - very rarely. More often than not other players you encounter want to just go about their business, same as you.

[Captain Kelsten]

1 hour ago, thesnwmn said:

Can you play this solo? Like on a server with no other fuckers.

 

That story right there is simply the thick end of why I won't go near this.

 

It doesn't add anything for me. I don't enjoy PvP at all even if it's not camping and griefing. I'm not excited to think a boat on the horizon might be another player group.

 

Remove other players and I'm straight into this. Love the style and the idea of basic adventuring.

I’ve been playing this on and off for a few years now and I’ve played a lot this last few weeks and that is the first time since I started back that it’s been shit.
 

But what I’d say is that the pvp isn’t a big deal if they kill you, sink you and steal your stuff and then leave you be -That’s part of the game. All progression is horizontal, you don’t ever get more powerful through gear or anything, so if you lose all your treasure what you’ve really lost is the time you spent getting it and the chance to buy a new hat or something.

 

This also means you’re always on an even footing with anyone else save for skill and experience. You won’t die because the other player has more powerful weapons or bigger cannons, because everyone is on the same level in that regard. 
 

Id also echo what @friedgold said in that often people will just leave you alone to do their own thing. Sometimes you’ll play for hours on end and not even see another player. 

 

So yes, it can definitely be frustrating when you’re just trying to go about your business and someone kills you. It can he ever more so when you’re just about to hand in a load of treasure and they get you then, but again it’s important to play with the mindset that it doesn’t matter. With my story up there it was more that they were griefing and, potentially, cheating. But that is extremely, extremely rare in my experience - it’s literally the first time I’ve had someone do that. 
 

Despite all this, I’m itching to get back on it later today and play more.  
 

Give it a go. You might enjoy it! 

[thesnwmn]

Even the idea of the fact another player can spoil my evening is enough. I'm not bothered about loss of stuff but time and frustration. I want to explore a beautiful looking world and not have that interfered with.

 

As for player power level it's great that I'm not going to die because of gear. But I am doing to die because of skill. I am bad at action-y games. I get flustered. When forced to play WoW on PvP servers because that's where my friends were my approach to it was simply run and, if caught take the death. I'd even just immediately grave resurrect to avoid the chance the shits are camping so long as I didn't need to be doing something proper immediately. I'm not bothered to fight that shit. It isn't in the least bit fun to me.

 

Being killed even once by another player isn't something I'm ever going to enjoy (or even the threat of it).

 

Such an odd choice to me by the developers but ah well. No real loss.

[Captain Kelsten]

Aah that’s fair enough then. It’s definitely not for everyone. I would say it’s not a strange decision, it makes perfect sense given it’s a pirate game and pirates went round sinking each other and nicking each other’s treasure! 
 

But yeah if the thought of someone killing you even once puts you off, you’re probably best to keep away, I’m afraid. Sad, though, because it is such a beautiful world.