Solo sloop vs AI is less hard?

  • Keesiex
    Marauder
    Insider

    Hi all,

    Recently, I have been solo slooping most of my time on the sea, and I noticed some change in difficulty, for example, to the meg and skelly ships.

    I hadn't played in a while. Came back to the game. Started going solo. I was sailing around doing my thing, when a meg spawned on me. I fought it off, and killed it quite easily actually. A bite from this meg gave my 1, 2 holes at a time. Easy to fix. That really boosted my ego, being away for a while and still killing a meg, solo, this easy? "Damn I must be a god or something", is what I told myself.

    So I felt encouraged to continue sailing solo. Time passed, while playing I was rocking all AI encounters I came across.

    Until, the very moment I felt so confidend I could take on a Player Galeon. I had my eye on a galeon for a while, as they where sitting in the same spot for over half an hour.

    Once I approached them, they started sailing away. And thats when things went down. Because they where chilling at the same Island for so long, A meg and a Skelly gally spawned on them, while I was chasing them. At one moment, the meg decided to attack me, while it was previously seen attacking the galeon. It completely destroyed the back side of my ship, giving 4 or 5 holes. It got me suspicious, but I didn't think much of it. So i was repairing a few of the holes, and then the meg attacked again, this time, he bit the side of my ship. Again, giving me 4 holes. Because I was stil fixing the holes from the first bite, I was unable to stop the second attack. After that, I just had to keep repairing, because I was one step behind.
    (I am aware that may be my own fault as I kept repairing: the amount of holes made me paranoid xD). Eventualy the Skelly gally was also attacking me and I died because of canon fire. While respawning, my ship sunk.

    Anyway the point of this story is the following: I think,that the type of ship an AI encounter spawns on, determines the difficulty of the threat.
    Meg:

    • (solo) sloop: 1-2 holes per bite
    • Galeon : 4-5 holes per bite.

    Alot of posts state that solo slooping is hard mode, and while I believe that is true, Rare changed some things to make life more (solo) sloop friendly. Solo slooping for PVP is defenitly hard mode, but random encounters on the sea are not, i.m.h.o.

    You may know these changes made me happy. Also, I am not the god I think I am... (very sad face )

    See you on the sea!

    PS This might have been covered before. Sorry for that. If this has been covered before, please just enjoy the story and tell me I am a noob :) )

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  • Schwammlgott
    Champion

    @keesiex you are right, it depends on ship-size and crew-size how strong the AI is...for example the kraken spawns on a sloop you just have to kill 2 tentacles, on a galleon, I guess it's 7 or 8 (it's been awhile I played on a galleon)

  • Stundorn
    Castaway
    Insider
    Founder

    @Keesiex
    unfortunateley yes - i made a thread some weeks ago about it because i think its completely wrong to incentivice soloing.
    e.g. if you want to hunt down megs and skeleton ships in numbers or go for the legendary kraken hunter title you want to sloop solo, becuase its way more easier to do.
    Completely wrong imho and additionally it makes me have zero mercy with soloers anymore, because they get some stuff handed too easy.

  • Boxcar Squidy
    Captain
    Insider

    Yeah solo is not as tough as it was.

    People asked for it to be made easier. The result was things got even quieter on the sea when all the people who weren't quite good enough to solo before decided to go it alone.

    Now Rare have added FoTD to try and encourage people to play in crews/alliances in an attempt to breathe life back into the sea.

    This is the context behind discussions relating to nerfing the fort to make it soloable.

    The same people whose crys for nerfing nearly killed off Galleon play are back trying to make sure FoTD doesn't encourage people to play on crews.

    Resist!

  • Stundorn
    Castaway
    Insider
    Founder

    @boxcar-squidy

    I'm waiting for anyone complaing that it is too hard to do the Fort solo because of the different colored skeletons and Graymarrow not scaling -.-

    At least i hop he does not scale, is there anyway enough lights on a sloop?
    Ah yes should be.

  • Keesiex
    Marauder
    Insider

    @schwammlgott indeed, it is something like that!

  • Keesiex
    Marauder
    Insider

    @bugaboo-bill said in Solo sloop vs AI is less hard?:

    @Keesiex
    unfortunateley yes - i made a thread some weeks ago about it because i think its completely wrong to incentivice soloing.
    e.g. if you want to hunt down megs and skeleton ships in numbers or go for the legendary kraken hunter title you want to sloop solo, becuase its way more easier to do.
    Completely wrong imho and additionally it makes me have zero mercy with soloers anymore, because they get some stuff handed too easy.

    While I agree with your point, I have mixed feelings. I am a casual player. I play a few hours when I can, besides work and other life things. For the little amount of playtime I find the hassle to get a full crew together not worth it. If I hop on, solo sloop and can get some things done, the game gives me a positive vibe, that makes me want to play again when I have some spare time. In that light, I like that they made things more easy for solo sloopers. But that is without the intention of getting commendations easily.

    The point you make is valid, and is something that makes me worried. That is not how it was intented and needs to be looked into.

  • Kaloudz
    Commander
    Insider
    Founder

    My opinion; the game’s difficulty is subjective. Yes, sloops are more manageable, but Brigs and Gallys have the crew to make things just as manageable.

    I’ve never had an issue with the game’s difficulty. In fact, it’s too easy if you ask me. The problem I have is with crew on crew-based difficulty.

    FotD for instance; it’s hard for a solo player such as myself to fend off a galleon crew of four players once the key drops. Sadly, the only way you’re going to know if that’s the outcome is after already spending hours lighting the fort and fighting the fort.

    It leaves a nasty sting, and sadly, from personal experience, greed trumps honour nine times out of ten. I understand it’s a pirate game, I understand it’s choice, but when you’re on the wrong end of the stick for simply not having the manpower, it wrecks.

    This ^ is one of the only aspects of the game I have issues with, and it happens in a multitude of different ways. Four guns shooting at one pirate will almost always outdo one pirate shooting at four. That’s where things get testy for me. The core difficulty (megs, skellys, FotD itself, and Kraken), IMHO, should be tough.

  • Keesiex
    Marauder
    Insider

    @boxcar-squidy said in Solo sloop vs AI is less hard?:

    Yeah solo is not as tough as it was.

    People asked for it to be made easier. The result was things got even quieter on the sea when all the people who weren't quite good enough to solo before decided to go it alone.

    Now Rare have added FoTD to try and encourage people to play in crews/alliances in an attempt to breathe life back into the sea.

    This is the context behind discussions relating to nerfing the fort to make it soloable.

    The same people whose crys for nerfing nearly killed off Galleon play are back trying to make sure FoTD doesn't encourage people to play on crews.

    Resist!

    In my experience the seas are not empty (even before the newest update).
    The thing is, people will always complain. I think a lot of the complaining depends on what happends to them in game. if they sink because of an AI threat, the AI needs to be nerfed. If they sink because PVP happens, they will complain about PvP.

    Bottom line: People complain because their effort is not rewarded. I get why they complain, I really do. People invest time in a game and might be left with little to no reward for their efforts. Offcourse that frustrates the people. But that's how Sea of Thieves is designed.

    But that is my 3 cents on this matter :p

  • Stundorn
    Castaway
    Insider
    Founder

    @keesiex

    casual too, i play on 2 or 3 days a week and for 3-4 hours, but i have found a small community of players and we try to organize.
    I cannot play Games that want me to aproach it like a serious sport or work. I cannot raid or farm stuff to get prepared for pve or pvp (and i also dont want to) and i cannot compete in games i like for wht they are, but have an e-sports like online community like R6Siege.
    But i can search and find some players i can play with in the Sea of Thieves. Its only 2-3 i need and want to find and until this was possible.
    Its not always easy, i then maybe solo too, and sometimes i like to solo, but i'd never ask to scale down the difficulty of encounters for me, nor would i ever complain if i get steamrolled by a larger crew or whatever.
    If i solo sloop i play another style and immer on my own, hide and collect stuff by the way or i become a sneaky rowboat captain stealing stuff unnoticed. This is time consuming and can get very tedious, but its a ton of fun if you stole gems and fish from large crews and they dont get it :D

  • Boxcar Squidy
    Captain
    Insider

    @keesiex Ah yeah, the seas are never empty. The servers won't allow it. So there'd maybe be six ships, but those ships would only have between 6 - 8 players on them.

    For a couple of months I didn't see a single galleon. It was all 2 person brigs and solo sloops.

    Solo sloops avoid any contact whatsoever 8/10 times.

    Duo brigs are an easy sink, but they tend to run more often than they fight in my experience.

    It's more interesting when there's a decent variety in ship types and crew numbers. In my opinion.

  • Keesiex
    Marauder
    Insider

    @bugaboo-bill
    Yeah same, I noticed a change in difficulty, but I never asked for it! But not that I am complaining :). As I said: for me, Casual as I am, it is great. But I never asked for the change.

  • Stundorn
    Castaway
    Insider
    Founder

    @keesiex

    remember this when you got steamrolled next time :D

    i know you didnt ask for it, although i also enjoy soloing sometimes as said above i made a thread that this is bad as it does not correlate with the PVP part of the game.
    Its not good to "lurk" soloers into Adventure to get the encounters or tal tale bosses more easy done and on the other hand have sandbox like PvP and have every swordarm count.
    People choose to solo to game the system and then complain to get steamrolled by large crews.

    IMHO encounters like Meg, Kraken, Skeleton ships, even the skeleton sloop and Forts and Tale shouldn't be soloable but encourage everyone to find a crew.
    This is a MP Game!

  • Vaca Hombre
    Champion
    Boatswain
    Founder

    @bugaboo-bill said in Solo sloop vs AI is less hard?:

    Completely wrong imho and additionally it makes me have zero mercy with soloers anymore

    Wait, did anyone ever have mercy for soloers?

    Cause I've been playing since the alpha, but must've completely missed that part.

  • Captain Steel X
    Seafarer
    Insider

    @keesiex The meg is pretty unforgiving for Galleons.

    The meg strength/health depends on the ship. Sloop is very easy to deal with all encounters even on solo.

    Kraken = two tenticals which is roughly 20 max 30 hits with the cannon. Just make sure you don't get sucked in. While it scales significantly for brig and galleon. More tenticals, more hits per tentical.
    The skelly sloops solved the issue of skelly galleons for solo sloopers as the skelly sloops sink pretty fast and have only 1 cannon.

    My crew was chasing a Galleon on the Sloop once ourselves and the galleon sunk to a meg before we could get to them. The Meg went on us opening 5 holes each bite, we ran out of cannons (on the top of my head more than 60-70 cannons were shot) and we had to retreat to an island to resupply.

  • Captain Steel X
    Seafarer
    Insider

    @mr-dragon-raaar The galleon is the worst ship in this game. I vomit just by thinking about it literally and I'm really happy I don't have a 4th person to make me play Galleon.

    It is slow, it is really bad at maneuvering, you don't see anything if all sails are fully dropped, performing any task takes forever.

    The only real pros of a galleon is that it can be pretty durable and has the strongest defensive position in the game.

    Now you will say, but the galleon is the fastest ship bla bla bla, that is only true when you have wind in the sails, which in my case is never and I can share the videos to prove it, over 80% of my times traveling the Sea is against the wind, literally when we have doubts on which way to go, we go against the wind and it proves to be the right place when checking with the map. It's literally works like Jack Sparrow's compass for me.
    We will agree on the maneuverability
    Going back to being fast, to reach full speed you need full sails, which means you see nothing on the wheel.

    To be able to benefit from the galleon fortification, you need 1 on the wheel and 3 on cannons, with 3 people, it is the same as with Brig.
    Which leaves you with the only benefit - durability - two rows that need sinking.

  • Captain Steel X
    Seafarer
    Insider

    @mr-dragon-raaar
    Galleon allows victims to run away.
    All I need to know in order to dislike a ship.

    I need to ensure you understand 1 simple truth, what ship you drive in SOT is not related to how big of a man you are...

  • Keesiex
    Marauder
    Insider

    @captain-steel-x @mr-dragon-raaar
    I didn't make this topic for your guys to fight over if a certain choice is man enough or not. :) Every one sails whatever he likes. That's fine, isn't it?

  • Dr Dirty DNA
    Marauder
    Insider

    @v a ca-hombre if I see a solo I Generally leave them bee. Unless they want to have a go. Even if I go in for the attack and I see this person is solo I'll break off/ disengage (duo sloop) guess i just let them play one player.. apparently your name is inappropriate

  • RealStyli
    Vanguard
    Insider

    @masterbetty89 said in Solo sloop vs AI is less hard?:

    apparently your name is inappropriate

    He knows! He's just stubborn and refuses to change it! He also likes that it trolls us when we try to talk to him! XD

    (btw, it's not that it's inappropriate, just the filter is too sensitive)

  • Dr Dirty DNA
    Marauder
    Insider

    @realstyli haha yea I was just saying because I had to space it out.. not my words I wouldn't even know what it means.. yea the filter

  • Vaca Hombre
    Champion
    Boatswain
    Founder

    @masterbetty89

    Yeah, I find it all balances out for the most part. This morning I got killed at an outpost (after turning in all my loot =) ) and later ran into the guy on the Ferry. I know because he was helpful enough to tell me, "you're that [expletive deleted] I killed on the dock".

    Classy.

    But then this afternoon, I was fishing on an outpost and another sloop pulled up. Not only did they turn in their loot without killing me, but they started fishing with me and giving me everything they caught.

    They also let me pet their monkey, which is much more innocent than it sounds.

    The "little mercy for sloopers, cause they got easy stuff" comment stuck in my craw a bit, just cause I've seen it used in other circumstances before and feel it's a ridiculous stance.

    I also can't get onboard with the "too easy" thing either. I know I'm probably too easy going at times, but that idea that I can't enjoy something I've got because someone else might have got it a bit easier....

    I don't know. It's like buying a really cool jacket and then getting mad at someone cause they found it on sale at another store. Seems unreasonable to me.

  • Stundorn
    Castaway
    Insider
    Founder

    @vaa-hombre sagte in Solo sloop vs AI is less hard?:

    @bugaboo-bill said in Solo sloop vs AI is less hard?:

    Completely wrong imho and additionally it makes me have zero mercy with soloers anymore

    Wait, did anyone ever have mercy for soloers?

    Cause I've been playing since the alpha, but must've completely missed that part.

    Haha, but yes i often had.
    I often said to my crew, c'mon leave them alone, we checked him or her and there is nothing. We either help him find his Seafarer chest ;-)
    In the very beginning it was balances imho.
    It quickly escalated and nobody trusted anybody else anymore.
    You could never know, even when Alliances were introduced and people knew they will get betrayed.
    Barely any alliance is trustworthy.
    I decide that on the sound of the others voice. I can hear it if you are honorable or not.

    I long kept that attitude, but when more and more solo sloopers were around i more and more had no mercy for them.
    It's Sea if Thieves, it's MP, it's PvP, so sorry to say, but if you are not willing to play in a crew you maybe become fish food.

    We still have mercy if they are bloody beginners and as a RPer i also sink people who park their ship on my place and are just in the way at an outpost , but outside i mostly check if and what they have and decide based on that if they deserve mercy or not.
    Maybe we just want that shiny red gem and leave you the rest ^^

  • Stundorn
    Castaway
    Insider
    Founder

    @mr-dragon-raaar sagte in Solo sloop vs AI is less hard?:

    @bugaboo-bill said in Solo sloop vs AI is less hard?:

    IMHO encounters like Meg, Kraken, Skeleton ships, even the skeleton sloop and Forts and Tale shouldn't be soloable but encourage everyone to find a crew.
    This is a MP Game!

    That would be fine if Rare didn't make this game an ungodly mess and have all of these spawn every 2 mins.
    They screwed up and put in commendations so now were stuck with it.

    Kraken should be rare and only spawn on galleons.
    Megs and skelly ships should be rare and should only be defeated by multiple ships.
    Oh. That was the case once!!

    If you want real easy mode you should try a brig. Sloop difficulty but with more cannons, crew, speed.
    Completely pointless addition to the game! Not man enough to 3-man galleon then go play something else!

    I like the Brig, but completely agree.

    Skeleton Ships and the first Meg were barely soloable for a Galleon Crew, it were hard fights.
    Kraken need to be very rare and a thing not an annoyance you try to circumvent.

  • Galactic Geek
    Seafarer
    Founder

    My takeaway from the OP's post is this: if an AI encounter spawns on a bigger ship, but attacks a smaller 1, it will do the bigger ship's worth of damage to the smaller ship.

    I don't like this. Regardless of who it spawned on, the damage should scale to the size of the ship being attacked, IMO, and the damage to the AI should be static regardless of ship size.

  • Vaca Hombre
    Champion
    Boatswain
    Founder

    @bugaboo-bill said in Solo sloop vs AI is less hard?:

    It's Sea if Thieves, it's MP, it's PvP, so sorry to say, but if you are not willing to play in a crew you maybe become fish food.

    Eh, suppose so. But if Rare lets us solo sloop, ya can't really blame us for doing it. Sadly some sloopers do get impatient and start feeling we should be catered to a bit more. This is a multiplayer focused game; I knew that coming in and I don't expect to be catered to.

    But I also expect not to be neglected either. Rare added the ability to solo sloop, so the feature must be kept in mind. I think they've been doing pretty good so far. The Tall Tales are a big addition for me and most of the Bilge Rat and Mercenary voyages had stuff that could be done solo, giving us a good source of doubloons even before the Reaper Chests and Ritual Skulls.

    I know the scaling of the Megs and Kraken are a source of contention. The Megs never gave me much trouble, they just took more boards. The Kraken I fought probably twice in between when they added it for sloops and rebalanced it. Beat it once, sunk once, just ran away the rest of the time.

    I didn't really feel a need for rebalancing them, but I can't say I haven't been enjoying it. Fighting the sea monsters and skellie ships is fun and now I can do it whenever I feel like it without having to dedicate my whole night to it.

    The commendations I can't really speak to as I pretty much ignore them. I suppose that's a personal stance though, since I know others are really into them.

    I don't really have a solution in mind, but I'd just like everyone to keep in mind that we solo sloopers aren't interlopers here. Rare opened the doors and let us in; the multiplayer should always be the focus, but us hermits aren't second-class citizens who deserve to subsist only on the scraps of our MP betters.

    I know some of us complain a lot, but so do a lot of non-soloers. Don't condemn a whole section of the community for the actions of a few. (Or for the actions of Rare, for that matter. =P )

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