What can a solo experienced player do anymore?

@pithyrumble said in What can an experienced player do anymore?:

Butwhataboutburiedlootvaluemilestonegrinding?

Surely that had been neglected lol.

Honestly I can't be bothered to go out of my way to bury something no one is going to dig up. Quest Boards sadly lost their value shortly after the update they debuted, saddening. I also cleared pretty much 98% of the commendations related to Buried Treasures back at its launch, only one I need to clear is burying Athena treasures, which I just need to remember to do if I ever get Athena loot again.

Grinding milestones is asking me to do PvE I've already done/don't want to do, the amount of gold needed for one of my sloops to get most of the gold seeker milestone ship decorations is so large and mind-numbing, I cannot feel bothered enough to do it when I have no better primary goals in regards to gold gain.

I completely understand where you are coming from. I have been wrestling with the same issue off and on, but more and more frequently.
I just sail to sail, maybe get some supplies and scavenge loot from a beach here and there, then just log out when I've had enough. I don't even turn anything in, just scuttle and leave.

The only thing that an experienced player can do anymore is what RARE and SoT are not doing. Mentoring and Community building is needed imho.

@nex-stargaze I'm sure you are way more experienced and have a lot more cosmetics, but personally what motivates me to do same quests over again, is that I usually spend all the earned millions on something and find another thing I want to purchase. So currently I need to upgrade some of my trinkets and I wanna expand my DA set.

Also I have noticed that when I do alot of Athena (veil) or gold hoarders (random things with few treasure maps on board) and then I try to do the OOS skellies I find them fun again for a while. The only thing that bores me to death is merchant cargo runs, there is very little surprise element involved doing them, apart from a bugs

Also I wanna get The legend of Sea of Thieves title. So every skelly ship I see I am going after them, problem is they keep running away all the time whenever I start sailing towards them, so it takes a while to catch them.

P.S. Why not put on reapers and just do whatever, eventually someone will decide to attack you and unless you guys are completely bored of the game, you will feel some thrill again.

@zig-zag-ltu said in What can an experienced player do anymore?:

P.S. Why not put on reapers and just do whatever, eventually someone will decide to attack you and unless you guys are completely bored of the game, you will feel some thrill again.

In my experience, I've found that even before my break, my performance in PvP wasn't great. Obviously I would spend more time trying to improve upon it, but it has led to the same frustration and pressure that caused me to go on the mental health break in the first place.

PvP is at the point where it is not enjoyable or satisfying anymore, especially because my experiences are riddled with non-fulfilling victories, and damaging losses.

@nex-stargaze Well true, especially if your solo and some huge ship rolls up on you.

But at least for me I find it really exciting doing something difficult that's meant for a full crew, like an Ashen boss. So if the server feels empty, it's go time, just some Disney sticks needed ^^
And that feeling of unknown where a ship can attack you any time really puts some pressure.

Another thing that helps me to break the monotony is to sail and do quests in different parts of the map. Some days I love sailing around ashen and avoiding volcanoes, some days I prefer the smooth waters of the West side of the map. I just don't really enjoy the wilds that much.

P.S. I am sure you have done them all, but Tall tales are quite cool in case you haven't done them ( I don't feel like doing them often as they don't feel very rewarding and you can get sunk by other players, but they are very engaging, the pirates life was really cool ^^)

Do you do the adventures? Do you recon new voyages would reignite your passion for the game again? Or if you had room to progress (Increased max levels for factions)?

@wolfmanbush Well yeah to be honest, but for you personally does PVP feel the same on every ship?

I personally don't like it on sloop as we can only fight other sloops, what you described feels literally like that doing it on a small ship.

But whenever we do it on brigs, or even more so on galleys I honestly love it. Problem is you need 3-4 people for that, open crew sucks and I just cant be bothered to filter through randoms and try to get new teammates each time you play on discord, they work best when you have chemistry with your crew. I am also considering switching off the in game voice chat next time I get the chance and ignore all pleads for parley and 'we are friendly calls'

@zig-zag-ltu said in What can an experienced player do anymore?:

Do you do the adventures? Do you recon new voyages would reignite your passion for the game again? Or if you had room to progress (Increased max levels for factions)?

I have not missed a single Adventure since they started releasing, I even managed to get out of my mental health break just in time as the first Adventure of the year released. They're fine for the first run, completion can get a little tiresome, but I don't see value in doing Adventures more than what's needed due to them being as predictable in nature, even moreso than the Shores of Gold lineup of tall tales.

New voyages would easily bring me back for a bit, but due to solo'ing (and the content being PvE and probably requires tons of sailing), chances of sailing again would be low after the first few runs. It took me till the end of 2022 to get from Athena 20 to Athena 30 since the initial LotV voyage launched. Extra progression would be a leading reason for me to do PvE again, but then I'm still solo'ing.

I'll admit I won't feel lost like I am right now when something new comes up, but reasons or will to sail are still painfully low, regardless of all the suggestions you're making.

It happens to a lot of us being in that mental SoT Slump, either old crews die out etc.
I had a fallout with an old timer irl friend group about a year and a half ago.

Decided to ''get good'' at the game when I was solo as well as actually playing on the official SoT Discord quite a lot for about 4 months straight meeting a bunch of different personalities from Old timer NAL/Arena sweats to the medium player base.

Got invited to some of their discords and found groups that way, and not only branched off from that, but the SoT community on top is small where I was running into similar names here & there.
Joined competitive sea of thieves and stuck to it to the point where I can hit up a bunch of people to play/fill with at a moments notice, being in a top team and knowing to be a good at your own role benefits you. But the grind is there to be in that position.

Your route might be different, but my advice would be to put yourself out there and join SoT discords to your playstyle that fits (PvE,Hourglass) etc.
Not gonna lie, it does take a bit of time to vibe with people, also making game changing plays in PvP and proving your good over time with practice will get you invited from others.
PvE is the same from being knowledgeable and being efficient in knowing what to do.
Nothing beats a PvE lord that is assertive for the crew and knows efficiency in my experience.

Some players play this game religiously (Main game) almost every day, others do not etc.

@ix-indi-xi said in What can a solo experienced player do anymore?:

Your route might be different, but my advice would be to put yourself out there and join SoT discords to your playstyle that fits (PvE,Hourglass) etc.
Not gonna lie, it does take a bit of time to vibe with people, also making game changing plays in PvP and proving your good over time with practice will get you invited from others.

I've tried using LFC on the Official SoT Discord (before "leaving") and my experiences were fairly poor to medium. Other Discords that were SoT-centered either weren't very active or provided mostly poor quality crew experiences.

On some note I probably need to be mentored how to start/maintain a crew properly, or endure the poor crew quality hoping I'll match with a diamond in the rough. I do appreciate this advice though, and might start taking action with it soon. Thanks.

EDIT: On second thought, I could use some guidance on where to find active communities trying to play this game, as most of the ones I used to be in had those crewing issues I mentioned.

Solo burn out is quite a thing. I am currently in solo burn out and struggle to find a crew i like to do stuff with, but the only thing to do with burnout is just take a break if you cant fix it otherwise. I have been burnt out of many games, and the only thing that really helps is taking a break.

On top of a break, when dealing with any kind of burn out, dont get back into the thing you got burnt out of immediately the moment you feel that you may have interest in it again, or else you will get burnt out again quick, so even if you are starting to get interested in the game again, you will want to continue to take time away.

I got burnt out of this game completely around s1, and it took a couple seasons before i could get back into it again full force.

Monster Hunter Rise came to game pass. lol
Been playing overwatch and apex as well. I quit seeing a lot of the appeal when captaincy came out and I was already 99% done with the game. PvP in SoT isn’t my thing, so once I got the base curse I stopped caring.

Definitely hoping they bring new stuff for the veterans like me. Especially harder stuff that isn’t just trying to climb in PvP.

@wolfmanbush I think to generate long term interest your ideas for life time stats would need to be put into comparison with other players/friends - just like the monthly emissary. Humans are competitive, perhaps that would be appealing to someone. People still remember the nickname of a guy who was no1 in Runescape 20 years ago.

P.S. During the festive season when they released the statistics my Nautical miles sailed was still ''-m2'' I reported this issue probably 2 years ago and it seems they don't have a clue why its like that. Perhaps more data is corrupt and unsuitable for Life time leaderboards.

hey ive been mentioned

While I do a lot of solo sailing, I do have a regular crewmate that I do ~6 hours a week with. On Monday, he and I were discussing the state of the game a bit and both agreed that despite there being a TON of active content in the game, there's nothing to really do as players that have done it all.

• World events have been stagnant (and even reduced) for nearly 2 years.

• The time-limited Adventures are stale at best. If you like lore, it's probably neat...but...I can't imagine many casual players going through these exercises and feeling any sort of connection to what's going on or any desire to see where it goes.

• Sea of Bones (S8) burnout is very much real. The variety is...lacking...Nobody does the defending part (for good reason) and despite these battles being IN adventure mode, the invader vs invader thing feels wildly inorganic.

_
Yesterday, I was feeling a bit tired of faction battles...so I did something that I haven't done in a long while...Open Crew Galleon...We had two newer players (one moreso than the other), and then me and one other high-game-hour player. It was oddly fun...we had plenty of whoopsie moments as a crew during our lengthy GH Vault voyage, but they were moments that ended in RODLs.

While we accomplished absolutely nothing that I actually cared about from a progression standpoint, it was a genuinely enjoyable time. It invigorated my passion for the game and gave me an outlet for getting away from the game without getting away from the game.

_
I'm not saying that Open Crew Galleon is the solution to your problem @Nex-Stargaze , I'm saying that you have to find a way to mix it up...Do something that you haven't done in a while. Do something that you don't care about. Something that has no bearing on your progression in the game. Something that you've already completed. Something that you don't care if you finish or not. And if strongly encourage it to not be done solo. It might help.

There are hundreds of people in the official SoT discord looking for crew...
and other thematic discords like fishing, alliances ect...

If you are burned out with the game, then you are burned out. Take a break, but don't blame lack of players - there is plenty.

If you are bored you can join open crew and help and guide them with whatever they are doing.

Again. Take a break.

Edit: "got max reputation on all trading companies", Bruh this is just the start. Hoarder of the barnacled gold. Stolen Athenas. Glitterbeard. Shrines, all the tall tales. Adventures.
There is so much content and commendations to grind...

Take a break. Play something new. Sot’ll be here.

I prefer the Xbox LFG over Discord. Justvgotta make the post yourself and include the right tags and pick people you won’t regret.

You’ll be back if you like the game. Said it yourself recently, it’s not going anywhere

@nex-stargaze I hate to say it, but, things in life are finite. Sometimes the sense of an ending is the best thing you can do for something that you've gotten joy from. If trying to wring extra bits of fun out of it is just going to besmirch the good memories and leave a bitter taste maybe this is its time to end for you?