Make solo or even just sloop servers

@oceangate4020 this game isn't supposed to be played solo. If you play this way, you're asking for it to be hard mode. Play with people, find folk via discord or xbox group finder. There are plenty of players out there who need crew members, make friends, share your experience with others.

I am not sure if this is the perfect solution, but it is a step in the right direction.

I only wish that people arguing against very sensible ideas, would at least present an alternative solution or try their best to be in someone elses shoes.

To @Tesiccl I did take up your suggestion to try LFC ( I did that often when I started, but it was usually to find extra members, not the whole crew). So I joined the SOT discord, all I wanted to do is Reapers - World Events. Seems like the most popular social option? 30 mins in I could not find a single crew looking for a pirate to do that. So my options are play solo (my preference to just chill out without voice chat) - do Hourglass... Obviously it's the first option.

So I have about 2-3 hours before bed I wanna spend on sea of thieves. I log on..several reapers, ok I change servers, more reapers..Change again, empty server! I go do fleets, bam server merge 5 reapers in the server. My session was over in 10 minutes.

Next day, I log in, nice empty server, let's do some merchants. 5 minutes in. A brig starts chasing me. Alt f4, not intersted in this pointless fight.

Another day, I log in, I see fort of fortune is up. I pick up a merchant quest, for some quit sailing. BAM the game sets the destination towards the fort. Ok whatever, I sail, less than 5 minutes into the voyage looking for first birds. A flagless brig and a lvl 1 gold hoarder sloop attack me instead of going after the fort??

Not sure what the conclusion is, but from what I understand - People who only PVE and hate pvp and dwell in alliance servers - sub pirates/ very bad. People who just load the game to fight another ship without making any 'story' - good, you should expect it. I hope you see the double standards as the real PVEVP is super rare these days.

I just don't understand why these pirates are so hostile 24/7 when they can do hourglass or fort of fortune. Just like a lot of players don't understand how someone could spend hundreds of hours in alliance servers and not get bored. Not sure what I would be suggesting here if anything at all, but just pointing out my several experiences over the last month with this game. It lacks chill. ( I made few million on other sessions playing solo tho)

One of the biggest reasons people quit is because they don’t have a crew, and galleons chase them around

Not the biggest but a reason sure.
And it not galleons, idk when last time I’ve seen an attacking galleon chase a sloop.

@burnbacon said in Make solo or even just sloop servers:

One of the biggest reasons people quit is because they don’t have a crew, and galleons chase them around

Not the biggest but a reason sure.
And it not galleons, idk when last time I’ve seen an attacking galleon chase a sloop.

100% true BurnBacon. When I first started playing this game, I didn't know anyone, and sure as hell didn't have a crew. Then I discovered the SoT community forums, met some awesome people, and we made our own discord group. Each awesome pvp fight we had on the seas, we'd compliment the other players, thank them for the awesome fight (win or lose), and ask them if they had a crew they sailed with. And our discord group grew, where we have amazing friends who also love pvp, and we always laugh when we tell other new players that join how we met a few of them on the seas. "Oh yeah, we were fighting, we complimented them during the battle, and while we were shooting at them with cannonballs, I gave them the link to our discord, where they joined, and after an awesome fight, we FINALLY sunk them!" Then the hilarious rib-jabbing commences.

Just because you don't have a crew/friends in this game, doesn't mean it has to stay that way. It's what you make of it that matters most.

I am always against these sloop only servers as a long time solo player. 1v4 is absolutely something that can be won, especially if you consider the fact that the galleon is the hardest ship to run and requires most of their 4 players to maintain it in a battle. And i can confirm that 1v4 is very possible seeing well before i had any good experience, i took down a galleon without a ship, using just fire bombs.

If you think the game is too hard solo, then that just means you need more practice, and you need to learn the strengths and weaknesses of all ships. Every ship is balanced to fight each other by making larger ships harder to work, and faster to sink per hole.

@goldsmen But this mindset is the mindset where you are seeking a challange. You put your mind into the 'competitive' mode. There is no way you could just casually and chilling while laid back sink a galleon full of players, unless they are AFK or joined the game 1 hour ago.

Needing more practise is a perfectly fine argument, but I believe you misunderstand the problem here. It's players (paying custumers) lack of options to choose their experience.

I know all about the PVEVP etc etc. But what most players don't realise is that Sea of Thieves is not some small indie game, it's a massive online multiplayer. Having different people and communities is normal. It's not like in some game - Hell Let loose, which is designed and advertised as a WW2 realistic experience where communication is vital. You don't get many players asking there '' Could we please just have a game mode where we could just race eachother with jeeps'' It's a very nieche game. Sea of Thieves tends to absorb anything that has to do with pirates.

Take any massive game from any genre that is an online game. And see how many games have multiple options for player to choose their experience.

Gta Online - Single player, Heists, racing, goofy stuff, bank heists, etc ( I dont even play this one).

Call of Duty (any fps shooter) Single player/Battle royale/Coop/Bots etc/ can just run around the map on your own.

So obviously it's fun to challange yourself if that is what you are after. Idk how about you, but after a 50 hour work week, without proper sleep, I just wanna relax and chill out. Next day I might want to fight the whole server for FoF with a crew. Problem is the game is trying to choose that experience for you and we as players don't have many options. Unless you want to PVP, then you have hourglass. Bland,stale,predictable - but still offers what you want. Nothing else is guaranteed, which imo is a slight flaw in the original design.

@scheneighnay said in Make solo or even just sloop servers:

@goldsmen said in Make solo or even just sloop servers:

I am always against these sloop only servers as a long time solo player. 1v4 is absolutely something that can be won, especially if you consider the fact that the galleon is the hardest ship to run and requires most of their 4 players to maintain it in a battle. And i can confirm that 1v4 is very possible seeing well before i had any good experience, i took down a galleon without a ship, using just fire bombs.

If you think the game is too hard solo, then that just means you need more practice, and you need to learn the strengths and weaknesses of all ships. Every ship is balanced to fight each other by making larger ships harder to work, and faster to sink per hole.

Running a solo sloop in PVP is like trying to 2-man a galley.

You have 2 options as a solo sloop vs a full galley:

1. Catch them off the ship and keg it
   or
2. Chainshot the masts and run.

The galley can easily have 2 people trying to board you at all times, and being solo you're never going to be able to put enough pressure on their ship to keep them all occupied.

A 2 man galle is much harder to run than a solo sloop, it is half the crew yes, but the sloop is more forgiving and fairly easy to run while solo, as well a solo can handle bucketing and fixing most holes the sloop can get, but a galleon needs at least 3 people just to deal with half of the holes, and can still sink with all 4 bucketing if water gets to the second deck.

The sloop is designed to be more manageable with only half the crew onboard because it has less fire power and crew availability, while a galleon needs to pull more attention so that you cant have have half the crew boarding and firing on a smaller crew ship at the same time. The only time it is fine if a galleon sends half their crew to board is if they have near to no holes in their ship.

@zig-zag-ltu

To @Tesiccl I did take up your suggestion to try LFC ( I did that often when I started, but it was usually to find extra members, not the whole crew). So I joined the SOT discord, all I wanted to do is Reapers - World Events. Seems like the most popular social option? 30 mins in I could not find a single crew looking for a pirate to do that. So my options are play solo (my preference to just chill out without voice chat) - do Hourglass... Obviously it's the first option.

What i should clarify is that i meant discord via not just SoT official but other streamers out there. E.g. Phuzzybond has a massive discord community that's all about being chill, finding a crew to vibe with, and having a good time. Check them out, he's very welcoming and so is the community.

Game is already 70% sloop, 25% brig, 5% galleon. At least NAE servers. Honestly, finding an active galleon (one that isn't parked at OP and disappears in a few minutes) is very very difficult to me...and finding one that wants to fight (or will put up a fight) is near impossible.

@scheneighnay said in Make solo or even just sloop servers:

@goldsmen said in Make solo or even just sloop servers:

@scheneighnay said in Make solo or even just sloop servers:

@goldsmen said in Make solo or even just sloop servers:

I am always against these sloop only servers as a long time solo player. 1v4 is absolutely something that can be won, especially if you consider the fact that the galleon is the hardest ship to run and requires most of their 4 players to maintain it in a battle. And i can confirm that 1v4 is very possible seeing well before i had any good experience, i took down a galleon without a ship, using just fire bombs.

If you think the game is too hard solo, then that just means you need more practice, and you need to learn the strengths and weaknesses of all ships. Every ship is balanced to fight each other by making larger ships harder to work, and faster to sink per hole.

Running a solo sloop in PVP is like trying to 2-man a galley.

You have 2 options as a solo sloop vs a full galley:

1. Catch them off the ship and keg it
   or
2. Chainshot the masts and run.

The galley can easily have 2 people trying to board you at all times, and being solo you're never going to be able to put enough pressure on their ship to keep them all occupied.

A 2 man galle is much harder to run than a solo sloop, it is half the crew yes, but the sloop is more forgiving and fairly easy to run while solo, as well a solo can handle bucketing and fixing most holes the sloop can get, but a galleon needs at least 3 people just to deal with half of the holes, and can still sink with all 4 bucketing if water gets to the second deck.

The sloop is designed to be more manageable with only half the crew onboard because it has less fire power and crew availability, while a galleon needs to pull more attention so that you cant have have half the crew boarding and firing on a smaller crew ship at the same time. The only time it is fine if a galleon sends half their crew to board is if they have near to no holes in their ship.

1 person on a galley can handle repairing the firepower 1 cannon can put out.

1 person on a sloop can either repair, or fire. They can't do both at the same time.

If they're not firing, they're getting shot and boarded simultaneously. If they're not repairing, they're sinking, until they go to repair and get shot and boarded.

There's no scenario outside of your imagination where a solo sloop will sink a full galley that's actually fighting back.

I would agree if it wasnt for the fact that the galleon takes on drastically more water for a single hole than a sloop does for the same size hole.

The galleon is the fastest ship to sink per hole, with more potential hole spots than any other ship, so a sloop can put out more functional damage onto a galleon per cannon shot than any 1 cannon shot from the galleon can put onto the sloop. It could then be argued that the galleon can put out more functional damage with 4 cannons, but not all 4 cannons should be manned at once, and the sloop can outmaneuver the galleon and keep out of its cannon range a lot easier.

4 more players seems like a big deal, but when put into practice, based on how the ships function alone, it is not as powerful as many people make it out to be. The only way a galleon is going to absolutely dominate a sloop is if said sloop actively puts them self in the cannon range of a galleon, or if they wernt watching horizon while exploring an island, in which case any ship would destroy them.

Most of the discussion here, and like every single other thread/post that wants to suggest making things sloop-only pretty much sum up what type of player you generally are.

If your combat is awful - you want Sloop servers
If you're trying to primarily PvE in a PvPvE sandbox - you want Sloop servers
If you're very anti social and lack patience - you want Sloop servers
If you're trying to do Tall Tales - you want Sloop servers

Point being: Worse/inexperienced/low-patience/passive players would rather change their own experience to what they prefer, completely disregarding the game's vision, the tight-knit community the game's socials are surrounded by, and the literal point of an online-only multiplayer-only sandbox adventure game, than trying a little harder to get into how the game works, understand their choices, weaknesses, strengths, and sociability (if applicable).

If you're considering a suggestion like this, it's time to go get Sailwind on Steam, or another game like Stardew Valley. Destroying the functions of the world the devs built and intended because you can't be bothered to adapt to the game's nature and it's habits, you need a break and a calmer head, or some friends to steer you in a better direction if Sea of Thieves isn't the game you want to endure.

@scheneighnay said in Make solo or even just sloop servers:

There's no scenario outside of your imagination where a solo sloop will sink a full galley that's actually fighting back.

I watch this kind of stuff on Twitch at least once every week lol

A Solo sloop can stand a chance against a galleon crew, but yes, the galleon crew's competence has to be very low for a Solo sloop to win, as a super competent galleon will use their numbers to their strengths with good teamwork, solid communication, and well-timed usage of the ship's functions to decimate the solo sloop easily.

Additionally, a sloop can fire without repairing and not sink, it's called bucketing the water out of the boat. A single bucket on sloop can manage a fairly good amount of water from a few scoops, in which you can turn out of danger, repair at least 1 hole, and guard your ladders for at least 1 incoming boarder (ggs if you get double boarded though lol).

Disagree

• Extra resource and economic expenditures to keep extra servers active

• More limited, less randomized, and specific game world

• Rare caters to player forming crews, yes, it's been transparently stated and known, it's all about the crew. To a lesser extent, majority of players know that sloop or solo play is considered hard mode in this game. That's not to say they didn't make a way for people to escape encounters... the most you can have is a crew of 4, that's not much and I wouldn't consider that "big" in terms of crews. Play Atlas and you'll know what large groups blasting solo players truly feels like.

• Large playerbase dos not = No harm possible to player count

• Learn to sail better, you can avoid larger crews.

• How would you know the player base will grow without seeing the outcome of something that has yet to be implemented?

@scheneighnay said in Make solo or even just sloop servers:

Saying "find a crew" or "learn to sail better" is asinine and won't stop people from quitting or playing less.

So changing the entire vision of the game to suit players that refuse to adapt is better for retention?

You might want to think about what you're trying to imply, because that idea, in of itself, is asinine to the game's Open World vision.

@scheneighnay said in Make solo or even just sloop servers:

@red0demon0 said in Make solo or even just sloop servers:

Disagree

• Extra resource and economic expenditures to keep extra servers active

• More limited, less randomized, and specific game world

• Rare caters to player forming crews, yes, it's been transparently stated and known, it's all about the crew. To a lesser extent, majority of players know that sloop or solo play is considered hard mode in this game. That's not to say they didn't make a way for people to escape encounters... the most you can have is a crew of 4, that's not much and I wouldn't consider that "big" in terms of crews. Play Atlas and you'll know what large groups blasting solo players truly feels like.

• Large playerbase dos not = No harm possible to player count

• Learn to sail better, you can avoid larger crews.

• How would you know the player base will grow without seeing the outcome of something that has yet to be implemented?

Again, the majority of players solo sloop not because they want to play hard model but because they don't have people to play with at the moment and dislike group finders.

Ignoring the difficulty difference falls on the player and not the game. It's a game about the crew, people should be well informed of this before they buy the game. The crew is literally at the core of everything in the game even in solo, you are still considered as part of a crew. I'm in support it needs balancing, sure, but that doesn't mean I will go to the extremes and support only solo play as you had suggested. Most players won't agree with you, your suggestion is too extreme to be a major or popular vote, logically speaking. If they don't like group finds and rather play by themselves then this game was never one for them. Either accept it as is or don't, the message has been clear from both, devs and majority rule from th player base, no private servers. It goes against the vision the devs have for the game which again majority of players support, to have live, random, ever- changing and evolving encounters. Encounters are limited to only sloops so that's not good for starters, and even then this doesn't stop players from attacking and sinking you. There will always be players better than you and if you think you can outrun a ship that's similar to yours in speed, but the player knows how to maneuver it better than you, then you're mistaken. At best you can only hope to maintain constant distance against these players. And who's to say that solo players won't band together in an alliance and still sink you? Might you also complain about that?

Saying "find a crew" or "learn to sail better" is asinine and won't stop people from quitting or playing less.

It's asinine to those unwilling to learn, people unwilling to open their minds to the possibilities and have a predefined perception of things will always find change to be toxic, even if it's reasonable. It's not on the level of improve your reaction and precision skills for pvp combat, that's not what I'm saying, everyone has different skill levels but that's not what this is about. It's literally learn the sailing mechanics. Go on YouTube and search up sailing speeds on ships if you rather skip discovering it through experience, although you're going to need to practice and learn it regardless. If you're being chased and caught by a galleon, you're definitely doing something wrong. I don't mind if players stop playing because they are unwilling to learn the game mechanics. Maybe devs will mind? idk, that's equal to saying "I'm unwilling to learn how to play the game, I play it wrong, the game punishes me for it, therefore I quit". But to each their own I suppose, I don't have anything personal against you, I provided a suggestion in hops it would help you, learn or don't, you do what you think is best.

@nex-stargaze said in Make solo or even just sloop servers:

@scheneighnay said in Make solo or even just sloop servers:

There's no scenario outside of your imagination where a solo sloop will sink a full galley that's actually fighting back.

I watch this kind of stuff on Twitch at least once every week lol

A Solo sloop can stand a chance against a galleon crew, but yes, the galleon crew's competence has to be very low for a Solo sloop to win, as a super competent galleon will use their numbers to their strengths with good teamwork, solid communication, and well-timed usage of the ship's functions to decimate the solo sloop easily.

Additionally, a sloop can fire without repairing and not sink, it's called bucketing the water out of the boat. A single bucket on sloop can manage a fairly good amount of water from a few scoops, in which you can turn out of danger, repair at least 1 hole, and guard your ladders for at least 1 incoming boarder (ggs if you get double boarded though lol).

I will note even a competent galle crew can still sink to a solo, it all depends how the sloop player positions their own ship.

I have seen a number of decent galleon crews struggle against a solo, but since its hard to pin point live streams, i think the best example i can think of is phuzzybonds third video in his solo slooping series. The galleon crew wasnt some arena sweat tier crew, but they absolutely knew what they were doing, and phuzzy was low on supplies, but still before the buffs to the sloop, and with low supplies he managed to sink said galleon with little trouble. This was years ago, before the sloop had the buffs it has now when rare was saying they didnt want to buff solo play at all.

@scheneighnay said in Make solo or even just sloop servers:

@goldsmen said in Make solo or even just sloop servers:

@nex-stargaze said in Make solo or even just sloop servers:

@scheneighnay said in Make solo or even just sloop servers:

There's no scenario outside of your imagination where a solo sloop will sink a full galley that's actually fighting back.

I watch this kind of stuff on Twitch at least once every week lol

A Solo sloop can stand a chance against a galleon crew, but yes, the galleon crew's competence has to be very low for a Solo sloop to win, as a super competent galleon will use their numbers to their strengths with good teamwork, solid communication, and well-timed usage of the ship's functions to decimate the solo sloop easily.

Additionally, a sloop can fire without repairing and not sink, it's called bucketing the water out of the boat. A single bucket on sloop can manage a fairly good amount of water from a few scoops, in which you can turn out of danger, repair at least 1 hole, and guard your ladders for at least 1 incoming boarder (ggs if you get double boarded though lol).

I will note even a competent galle crew can still sink to a solo, it all depends how the sloop player positions their own ship.

I have seen a number of decent galleon crews struggle against a solo, but since its hard to pin point live streams, i think the best example i can think of is phuzzybonds third video in his solo slooping series. The galleon crew wasnt some arena sweat tier crew, but they absolutely knew what they were doing, and phuzzy was low on supplies, but still before the buffs to the sloop, and with low supplies he managed to sink said galleon with little trouble. This was years ago, before the sloop had the buffs it has now when rare was saying they didnt want to buff solo play at all.

Positioning isn't going to secure a sink with 1 cannon and no boarders against 4 people. It's not happening, you're not going to outpace repairs.

You can say that all you like but i did mention where to watch exactly that very thing happening. I dont get why you would deny something that you can watch for your self.

@oceangate4020 Welcome to he'll
and if you want to play the game that YOU BOUGHT a certain way that isn't what Reaper kids want then you're a scrub.

@nex-stargaze Bro shut up people can play the game the way they want. Not everyone likes to run around and bully people. If you guys really wanted a fair fight ARENA would still be here. No you just want to force PVE people who just want to have fun with their friends in a situation that they don't want to be in.
This combat system is Broken PERIOD