what has happened to PvP in this game?

The thing is that plenty of people don't want to lose their loot so they'll turn everything in when they pass an outpost or run away from other players and I don't think anyone can blame them for doing that.

I think supplies hold more value to our veteran players then loot does. Which results in spawn camping for said supplies, causing a lot of veterans to either run or not stock up and turning loot in more frequent. Would rather save what supplies I have on the imminent pve threat then a pvp encounter which usually comes down little to no ship to ship combat and more who’s a faster pirate. But that’s just me.

Nowadays no one is carrying loot

Hopefully everyone is learning the lesson of cashing in often.
I personally make no money with it laying on me deck, cash it in.
Sure it can look pretty arranged in pretty lines, but more fool you if you loose it.
Better being cash... than a deck ornament.
Plenty more loot on the Seas.

It's probably because ship to ship combat itself is pretty boring and tedious, while player to player combat is clunky and highly dominated by blunderbuss (at close range like on a sloop ship) or Eye of Reach (on islands and larger ships). This makes PvP overall just boring in my taste and a waste of time as it takes way too much time to do anything. This is why I tend to be and only go toward players with an empty ship or outplay them to get what I want from the ocean while avoiding actual combat with them (I recently got a GRC by letting another sloop chase me in loops while I set up the chest for plucking and then pluck it with my harpoon on my second loop - easy 25K).

And if I do have loot and a ship chasing me... I will drop it off my boat in a rowboat to get them off my trail and if they still chase, ignoring most of my loot then I'll drop my desired loot on an island for safety reasons and then scuttle my ship and respawn, going back to my desired loot after a minute.

Player vs Player combat is just a waste of time. Too tedious for ship combat, and the meta is too boring to make the actual player combat any fun unless you do something really insane, which doesn't even really impress me (I use to play a lot of Team Fortress 2. I am use to insanity).

Don't know what server you are on but I sailed for the better part of 6 hours on Saturday and turned in close to 250K in stolen loot. One sloop we sank had 28 Captain's Chests on board. There was one sloop that only had maybe 10 pieces of loot on board but everyone else we encountered was loaded.

@simplelyricc said in what has happened to PvP in this game?:

@jusey16842 i agree 100% it is either clunky or slow and tedious, what happened to the huge galleon vs galleon fights i used to have. Heck i even once was engaged in a battle with 3 galleons 2 brigs and a sloop(excluding myself and my friend) in a sloop this was quite possibly my favourite moment in gaming history and it is very unlikely even impossible i could say that something like this will ever happen again in the games current state.

I think it's just the nature of PvE and PvP mixed games like Sea of Thieves... Extreme players on either sides are gonna eventually get fed up and leave the game while minor players on both sides just shrug off the clunky and slow combat while trying to have fun with it. Then you have people in the middle who wants both but can't truly get both to the full degree due to the other sides. The PvP side just harassing the PvE side constantly or fighting each other for the most part over the events (usually forts base on my experience) while the PvE side just runs away or stays very very passive to a point of being suicidal.

@jusey16842 I forgot to add... This is probably why you have great times before but not now. Back then, the extreme players of both sides were still around and this caused a lot of PvP activity as the extreme PvE were defending themselves while the PvP extremes were attacking literally everything on sight, causing these massive ship battles to happen very often. But as time went on, the game was tailored to one side or another. Sometimes for the PvE due to balance, nerfs, etc and other times to PvP (such as Arena Mode)... This led to the current servers being such an awkward mixed bag of players where even the most PvP-est of players still around will eventually give in and become friendly sometimes while PvE players just run away or sink, and shrug off the lost.

@simplelyricc said in what has happened to PvP in this game?:

@jusey16842 in a PvPvE game like Sea Of Thieves there will always be the extremes and then the middle man my point is PvP is no Where near as fun or intense as it used to be as I not they are carrying any loot meaning that it is no big deal if I lose

Not quite. I've seen in many MMORPGs of how easily the more extreme people can get really burned out really quickly when you have everything mixed together at the same time. The most extreme players are usually the first to go which is where a lot of the PvP intense gameplay comes from... The extreme players going at each other throats.

Sure, some extreme players might still exists but I wouldn't be surprise if most of them already quit the game by now.

@simplelyricc said in what has happened to PvP in this game?:

It was just plaster them with cannon balls until they sunk.

That sounds worse than the current version of PvP combat.

Maybe u should get some treasure first by doing a voyage or so. Then some treasure is at stake. People are playing it smart if they don't have much loot on them and I can only commend them for it. After all, it's one tip that I would happily give to a new player, turn in treasure quickly and repeatedly. Besides when I attack I actually value regular resources more than treasure, stuff like cannonballs, cursed balls, fire balls, and wood are the focus as they can be used to get treasure easier. Especially magic imbued cannon balls, those make cursed fleet battles so much easier and makes getting a ton of treasure one of the fastest ways possible

@simplelyricc said in what has happened to PvP in this game?:

@red0demon0 but then that's putting my loot at stake whereas the point of PvP is to steal others loot but no one has any

Stealing others loot isn't the entire point of the game, only a small part of it. Theirs a lot of stuff u can do with resources, I consider that treasure too. It's thrilling to attack others when u have loot on u, but if u don't want loot on ur ship during an attack then really ur also part of the problem u mentioned. Devils advocate, why do I need to be attacked, only to win, only to find out u have no treasure on ur ship either? :P

@simplelyricc What is your approach? Do you engage in PvP at islands, outposts, forts, mid-sailing? Do you track ships from island-to-island? Do you use rowboats? Are you comfortable swimming long distances?

PvP alone will not guarantee you any loot. If you're seeking death, then sail right at any ship and "take it down". If you're seeking their loot, you should probably take measures to ensure they have any.

I have no issues finding ships to plunder.

I’ve always thought the hunt was more fun than the fight it self. Spotting a ship from the horizon and watching it’s movements. If they seem to be moving from island to island after fifteen minute stops. They may be on a Athena’s. If they are at an island that’s for a TT I try and sneak over and look at their table to see if their worth it.

If I think the ship I’m watching is worth it I try and go in for attack from an advantageous position. Not just strait for them. Circle the island until you break line of sight with their ship and ride the wind in for a faster approach. Sneak to the island and sabotage their ship. Chase them in a way where you push them to the corner of the map so they either sail to their death or turn and face you.

Personally I play adventure solo sloop about 90% of the time. Whenever I have a voyage down I just make sure I cash in the loot before anyone sees me. When I go into pvp while solo on a sloop I make sure I have the lowest possible loot on my ship, and that is the loot that 99% of the pirates I encounter or sail with always leave behind. In other words, I'm not worth chasing at.
I once had a weird encounter with another duo sloop that was hunting me down, I let them come to me, I let them know I did not have any value for them (they had all athena 10 cosmetics on them), I let them know that I was going offline and wanted some pvp and they can take my supplies afterwards. Anyway they ignored all except the pvp, I had fun for about 5 minutes, seeing them spamming out most of their supplies and also shouting at me that they wanted my loot at all cost, when they saw I had only one foul bounty skull they just quit the game before I did (probably server hop in the hope to find someone who actually has loot).
There are also times I am short on time and only seek for shipwrecks or fishing. When I fish I usually don't have more then 5 fish so I can have them safely in my inventory. Most of the things that has loot involved is pve related (except forts, and the ship clouds), and I think most ships I see sailing around are all well aware of their surroundings and cash their loot in asap. If I want pvp on instant I just go to the arena and sail there. But yea, I do agree with you. Doing pvp in the early days was for myself a lot more fun then pvp in these days.

@simplelyricc If you glance throw the forums you will see a fairly constant theme when it comes to PvP. It is unbalanced and very clunky right now. As some have mentioned, ship to ship combat seems to have died down quite a bit, since most PvP people want to get on your ship and use exploits to kill you. I personally was slightly above average at PvP before all of the combat balancing that took place. Then, I simply could not keep up with most and became below average. When I have that, combined with the fact I have no idea how many crew mates are on an enemy ship, I automatically assume I am against superior numbers and I know I have little to no chance to win. So, rather than entertain you, I run. I actually enjoy frustrating people that chase me. I know how to sail properly and can make you chasing me a frustrating endeavor for you. Which does give me joy. And since I am playing the game for my own fun, not someone else's, I am free to make that choice.

If your main goal is PvP, I would suggest you try out Arena.

On another note, the game is a PvEvP game. And there seem to be far more people interested in the PvE than the PvP side of things.

As for server density, I do think they should add one more crew to the fold per server. They added another outpost when they introduced DR, and should have added another ship/4 person cap to each server when they did. But I believe the reason they didn't was more because of a servers ability to handle more than 6 crews was not possible due to processing/memory limitations.

I will say, while there are times I am out sailing and feel like I might be alone on a server, I rarely actually am alone. Often times I am working in one particular part of the seas, and when I sail to another area, I suddenly will see 2,3 or more ships that were all concentrated over there. But at the same time I can not remember the last time I saw 5 or more ships on a single server. But I believe this is more a function of Rare's system to fill servers/server merges not performing as they should than anything else.

As an avid solo slooper i can answer the question as to why you are not finding Sloops loaded with loot or others flee from you,
It's simple really most carry little loot turn in often and or carry no loot and have a specific aim for the sailing session.
None of the Sea of Legends commendations require you to carry any loot for instance.

As a PvP Pirate this is the dice roll you take when choosing to attack every single ship you see.