Solo slooping is a lot of fun for people who just like to sail and chill. Some of us can't commit to crewing up with randos as for whatever reason we might have to leave the game in a instant. For me personally I have a severe special needs autistic teenager who requires 24hr care. So for me there is rarely a time that I can commit to a crew. I hate it when I meet a great random crew and then have to bail on them. 90% of my time if I want to play SOT, I solo. I play on PC and Xbox X. I prefer to play on the Xbox because of the large TV experience. The last 2 weeks have been really frustrating, I have lost a lot of gold because of the combination of getting one shot killed by blind luck skele cannon balls and the getting the dreaded 5-6 min black screen when returning fron the ferry, listening to your sloop getting pounded by the skele ship, hearing the dreaded creaking of the sloop as it fills with water and then final death audio of the ship, and to be spawned in the water surrounding by your loot while holding your bucket. How I usually play is I don't use emissary while I stack, this keeps the reapers away. When I am ready to sell I raise emissary, spend 20mins getting to grade 5, then sell. This is when the skele ships always appear. The last few times they fired cursed cannonballs (jigball) so I'm dancing on deck, just as the dancing stops I get one shot from a cannonball. And this is all good SOT fun, but when I'm not being put back on my ship, that's not fair. I spent hrs grinding, 100k's in gold on board. I realise now that I can't solo sloop and stack the way I play on console anymore which is a real pity for me. On PC it's not an issue, spawning times have always been fine for me anyway. This post is for the more newbies on the seas, the pros will have different opinions like 'get gud' or something, but as I stated above, a lucky cannonball to the face happens in this game and it's a one shot kill, and with no way back to your sloop it's GG to Rare. So don't solo sloop and stack on console.
Don't solo sloop and stack on console
Yeah solo slooping sucks. Your best option would be to join the official Sea of Thieves discord. While you still might have people who will leave randomly, it's better than some of the Xbox LFG's or open crews. Some people will put out a post saying something like: Looking for 3man to stack world events for 3+ hours. Be Pirate Legend. So while it's not as good as having a set crew that you can play with, it's better than the alternatives.
Discord: https://discord.gg/seaofthieves
I mean, stacking in general is opting for risk. This is an online game.
If your internet went out while you were stacking and was out longer than the rejoin timer you'd have the exact same result - lost all the loot. Or your console/PC crashes and you don't manage to get booted back up and reconnect to the game to rejoin your session fast enough, same result again.
Then there is stumbling into another crew who ends up being good at PvP and aggressive as you are trolling around. Doesn't matter if they are flying Reaper or are not flying an Emissary at all, there is now a chance that you've lost all that loot.
Then there is RNG based PvE that can result in some very intense encounters - like a Kraken, Meg, and Skelly Ship hitting you all at once (or in quick succession leading to a pile up). Sure, it is rare, but it does happen. Again, you may well have lost all the loot now.
Fact of the matter is, loot isn't "yours" until such time as it is handed in and converted to coin (which can't be stolen from you), up until then the longer you hold on to anything the greater the risk is that you won't be handing it in. Sure, it looks awesome seeing a ship loaded to the brim with tons of loot - feels great right up to the moment that something happens that results in you losing all of it.
If you dig those kinds of super highs and super lows then fill your boots, as they say. Otherwise, mitigate the impact of something going wrong by offloading some of the loot along the journey and making some coin. This game is one heck of a risk management simulator, and it is strictly up to you exactly how much risk you want involved in that equation.
The amount of times I've heard an open crew suggest stacking blows my mind.
Here is is useful info for pirates.
Stacking is an illusion and you're likely not a magician.
The big stacks you see around social media? manipulated and contrived. It doesn't apply to most of you. Either they are manipulating the server to make it much safer or they are playing with a more than capable crew and/or have people on standby if something starts going wrong. They can still lose loot but they are not playing in the same conditions that most of you play.
Stacking to any significant degree has always and will always make no sense unless it's content that is paying your bills.
If loot matters to a person then arrogance has no place on a ship. No matter how skilled you are there is someone more skilled, no matter how lucky you are there is someone luckier. It only takes seconds to lose a fight, seconds to lose loot, and you will likely lose it in conditions that are random and not manipulated.
Streamers do it for the views and it's all in good fun, either way for them (sell or lose it) it all makes good content for them, and it's great PR for the game.
There is nothing wrong with stacking in general as long as you keep an eye on the horizon and try to keep out of harms way. Personally I love the adreniline rush of having a boat full of loot.
Again, I do it my way so that server hopping lvl 5 reapers don't make a B-line towards me when I have the emissary raised. Leaving the emissary as late as possible lowers the risk, so it does make sense to stack for an hr or 2.
Of course I have lost loot by not keeping my eye in the ball, usually fishing when a brig creeps up on me, but that's OK, it's the game, I fought, I lost, GG. My issue is when I'm not being put back in the game giving me no chance to do anything.
@x-reepoman-x said in Don't solo sloop and stack on console:
Streamers do it for the views and it's all in good fun, either way for them (sell or lose it) it all makes good content for them, and it's great PR for the game.
There is nothing wrong with stacking in general as long as you keep an eye on the horizon and try to keep out of harms way. Personally I love the adreniline rush of having a boat full of loot.
Again, I do it my way so that server hopping lvl 5 reapers don't make a B-line towards me when I have the emissary raised. Leaving the emissary as late as possible lowers the risk, so it does make sense to stack for an hr or 2.
Of course I have lost loot by not keeping my eye in the ball, usually fishing when a brig creeps up on me, but that's OK, it's the game, I fought, I lost, GG. My issue is when I'm not being put back in the game giving me no chance to do anything.
The issue isn't that an individual stacks, might lose, and moves on
The issue is that content has a reality show effect on the community with people that are less experienced and don't know that the content has resources the average sailor is not going to have for those stacks. It's two difference scenarios and one is made for tv and one is more harsh.
If a person wants to risk a lot and doesn't care if they lose that is their business but the glorification of it leads inexperienced players into situations that they aren't fully informed about.
"keep an eye on the horizon" is a useful tip but it's a hollow in a lot of cases. Pirates are going to think they are safe, they think the server is dead, they think they more prepared and more skilled than they are. This is something I have seen during the organic experience over and over.
It's easy to take risks until consequences become a reality. There are far more crews willing to take the risks than are able to handle the consequences.
It doesn't do any good for longevity within the game to only view the environment through the lens of content creation. It leads people into poor decisions, it frustrates them, and they find something else to do.
It contributes to all the stories of pirates feeling overwhelmed and like they cannot succeed. They are basing their pirate life on what others are showing off.
If they value treasure and if they have goals they will serve themselves by selling often, dedicating to consistency and efficiency.
To get over the struggles that come with inexperienced piracy a pirate needs to become efficient and consistent. If they only do what they see on content and hear from experienced high risk takers they will crash and burn out. They will make the same mistakes over and over again until they move on. That doesn't serve their potential and it doesn't serve retention in the game.
If you're on an XBox One, I strongly recommend looking into a fast SSD external drive, with a fast USB cable.
Then move SoT onto that drive, even though it's external the additional speed from the SSD will massively improve the load times.
I picked up a Samsung T7, USB3.2 and the difference was significant.
Sometimes its fun to play an "all or nothing" stacking session. Me and some pals ran 4 gold hoarder vaults back to back, whilst mostly meh tier loot there was silly amount, it was funny and we were fully prepared to lose all of it if we got pumped by a good crew. If we had been sunk, it would have been wild to see all that float to the surface. You could have seen it from orbit, honestly.
That being said, if I'm solo I sell often. Stacking solo is asking for trouble!
You'd have sorely regretted sinking my ship a few weeks ago then LOL
EDIT: anyone know how I can get this image function to work?! ;-;
EDIT EDIT: Got it!
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