What I learned in last session.

@n0soup4u SoT isn’t an fps.

@wolfmanbush said in What I learned in last session.:

@huhxyz said in What I learned in last session.:

@wolfmanbush Seems more like you want to see people struggle. There are plenty of counters to every suggestion you have made and every one of them has been used by more experienced players.

You made it from the west to the east

what you are missing is that you did alright in that situation

now it's just a matter of making some adjustments for next time

Well said @WolfManbush . Take every encounter as a learning opportunity. I record a lot of my sessions so I can go back and assess what went right and what didn't go so well.

@logicalg they don’t call you ‘logical’ for nothing ^___^

This thread sparked a 70+ post argument over what is essentially another PvP v PvE discussion by players who feel false advertised and cannot come to grips with how PvP in this game works, ending in a frustrating session that would cause any player to quit the game with the lack of positive self reflection (something that even I know I don't do).

-You did a single "Ghost fort".

A Sea Fortress, which is a fairly short encounter that can put about 10k+ worth of loot on board within 15 minutes, took you an hour? I can give the benefit of the doubt in some area, but 4x the length of time at a sea fort for a casual? I'm a little concerned.

-An Emissary ship came after you.

Running when you felt you couldn't handle the fight was a fine strategy. Yes, running was a good thing. Little did you know that this is a chance to create an advantage in the fight or to even turn in at least 1 piece of loot passing by an outpost, and from the far west side of the map, you're bound to come across at most 2 outposts where you could sneakily hand in loot while your chasers wouldn't be so aware. (EDIT) In fact, if the crew is that unaware, you can attempt to surprise board the enemy and maybe drop their anchor so you can buy yourself extra time. There's also the chance to use cannon towers from forts, island cannons from other islands, can use the fog to hide/evade another crew easily, can harpoon around rocks to get sharp turns your opponent might not be ready for. Taking a bad broadside is entirely avoidable once you figure out what to do.

-Turning to fight.

This is something a lot of people congratulate due to how spiteful crews commonly are when they get into a conflict they wanted nothing to do with. That being said, I can't exactly tell you what you could have done in the fight besides watching ladders, and trying your best to hide nearby your ship's quest table in order to avoid taking too much damage from cannonballs. Getting killed by a cannonball while you have cannons firing at you is a game over as a solo in a PvP battle. Which is unfortunate, but is the consequence of being solo.

I do recommend you try to find players from Xbox LFG posts and even these forums to bring an experienced player along with you to teach you the ropes and gain some confidence out there. (I cannot recommend the Official Discord at this time due to recent events that will not be discussed here.)

You missed the lesson entirely

So you can choose to go red sea that is up to you and no one can say otherwise.

The reason I encourage people not to is because then you're giving yourself the role of victim, forcing yourself into it and guaranteeing you won't improve. If your mentality is now red sea everytime. People who only run only get better at running.

Think about what you could have done differently, someone mentioned jumping odd bits of loot off to sell, this depends on how close behind the attackers are. You tried to fight, how could you have played it better, did you make any mistakes? If they straight out naval you then fine that just comes with time, could you have gone past a Fort and tried to take their mast down or keg them, not necessarily to sink but delay and distract and force a bigger gap so you could jump sell.
You could sail towards another ship, ask for help or hope they get distracted, I've also jumped off and used other ships to attack.
You could post an lfg saying help being chased. I love pvp and have jumped in on the odd urgent request (not saying I'm the best at it there's always better).
You could try harpoon turning on things, if they're not quick to react the sudden change in direction can create some big gaps (sometimes do this as you've gone past something and temporarily broke line of sight). Though if close this can risk them chaining you while your ship is picking up speed if you try something like anchor turn

@huhxyz
I can understand your frustration but i believe you are blinded by your emotions and do not see things for what they are. I was once at the same position you are. I could not pvp even if my life depended on it and i was angry that i was getting sunk all the time. But with time and practice i became better and better and i now enjoy the game more than ever before. Do not get disappointed. SoT is hard game and if you are consistent you are gonna get better. If you want to practice a bit more safe Fleet event, as well as OoS ghost ship event, and regular ghost ship event is a really good way to practice ship positioning, managing sails and canon aim. As far as combat goes i suggest sticking to one weapon combo of your choice and eventually you will get better. You can even find some people in HG willing to practice combat with you (but it is not that recommended).

If that is not something that seems appealing there are a lot of helpfull pve skills you can practice that will temendously help you. Whenever you join a server look at the map for reapers and the emissary tables. You want to ideally find a server without reapers and without too many emissaries especially the one you plan on playing. After that do your voyages like you normaly would without forgetting to check the horizon and the map as well for reapers every once in a while. Once you hit grade 5 go sell everything, lower and reraise your flag and repeat. If you find yourself being chase always try to catch the wind and when you do try to board spam to get an anchor at the boat chasing you (if they are sailing directly behind you) and go drive by sell your most expensive items. Ideally you want to see that ship before they start chasing you so that you can get to an outpost fast and sell. With the recent changes unless you have a lot of loot selling shouldn't take more than 3-5 minutes.

Another "Whats the point of trying?" Post.
Youre getting good advice here, but youve already decided to lose. Not the games fault.

@huhxyz said in What I learned in last session.:

@wolfmanbush Oh I've tried to get gud. The last wasted 100 hours have been spent watching tutorial videos and actively fighting back. Even forced myself into HG pvp. Can tell you now and you can accept this or not, doesn't help. Still get crushed still get screwed still get forced off the seas. So take your positive outlook and chew on some reality.

Then play to your strengths and adapt your play style slightly. A defeatist attitude will never work as you have already decided you are going to fail.

This post you showed you have some skill in sailing and keeping distance, work on that a bit more. When you have a tail, try to angle your escape route near the outpost and jump off a piece of loot each time unseen. It will add up over time, trust me I am a master scavenger and got probably 99% of my progress solo. Use the environment to your advantage - change directions when their view is blocked by a rock formation, as in an anchor turn. Use storms or fog banks to lose them. You can even jump off at an island and bury or hide loot unseen and come back for it later - just make sure that if you bury it it is in a place you can easily remember in case you do sink and lose the map (and most people do not bother with map packs in my experience so it is safe to get them later by memory).

Most important piece of advice for avoiding conflict is to be mindful of how long you spend in one location. It is generally not a good idea to spend any amount of time in on place very long, especially for solos and small crews. If you find you are somewhere spending too much time, go find another task to do for a short while and come back later to finish. This is especially true on big islands where you may have a lot of Xs on the map. Go fish, do a bottle voyage, take out a skeleton ship, hunt skeleton captains - just keep yourself moving every once in a while so you aren't a stationary target or away form the boat for too long.

Yes your progress may take a little longer than it would if you are doing events uncontested, but you are progressing and also learning in the process. I used to get frustrated when bro gamers would try to disrupt me when I was doing the Mercenary events early on. But I learned to not worry about them and treat them pretty much like any other threat in the game. It made the game a lot less stressful and I also started to have more success as well - try that. That is not to say I am allowing actual toxic behavior, I have reported quite a few foul mouthed offenders and toxic spawn campers (knowing the difference between that and the unavoidable camps to secure the sink).

You've been given some good advise but choose to disregard it. Take the chip off your shoulder and actually give some of the good advice a try. You've likely improved a bit since you say you last tried some of the tactics so just because it didn't work before (or doesn't work the first time you try it) does not mean you should just throw up your hands and give up.

In summary, work on recognizing and improving what are your strengths in the game, then start using that in your overall strategy. You do not need to master PvP skills, but having a few wouldn't hurt - just try to make the encounters on your own terms if you can.

@huhxyz I don't think watching the VOD will help with that but you could try I guess?

If it takes you 1 hour to complete a sea fort, which is a new player activity, maybe you should look for easier games dude?

My advice would be that if you got to the Roar, head to the nearest active volcano, set your wheel so that you'll sail close to it but not run into it, and then head below decks so that you don't get one-shot by the thing. This will either:

1. Hit their ship with flaming boulders, causing damage, maybe dropping their mast, maybe killing them, or
2. They will back off because they don't want to risk being that close to an active volcano, giving you more room to maneuver.

There's always the chance the boulders hit your ship and drop your mast, too, but you've already admitted you were probably going to lose the engagement anyway, so at least this gives you a chance the world will help you out a bit.

You could also sail through a Ghost Fleet world event if you spot one, or the Skelly Fleet event. Again, this will potentially get the pursuer to agro some of the npc ships and they will do damage to your pursuer, maybe forcing them to reconsider.