On at least two occasions this weekend I found myself having to deal with aggressive pvp peeps. On one occasion I was solo on a brig, waiting for friends to come along, stocking the ship to get a head start on the days adventures. The first adventure I was out and about, finding every sunken ship and fort I could to stock up, when I notice a brig approaching fast. They had the make friends (alliance) flag up, so I watched cautiously, but ready to move if needed (my anchor is always up). As they got closer they were clearly angling themselves to have their cannons on me. Not wanting to jump to conclusions, after all they could have been just as gun shy as I felt, I sat waiting next to my drop cord for the sails. I tried calling out over the megaphone, but not answer. Sure enough, they fired as soon as they were in range, they fired continuously. Because I was prepared I dropped the first sail, spun the wheel some to get my ship in a direction to gain distance, dropped the second sail then repaired the ship. As soon as I got the ship repaired my first friend joined me. I had some loot on the ship from the ship wrecks, but being at a 3-2 disadvantage, and not real strong in pvp, we decided to do the best we could to maintain distance and simply sail by outposts, one person jumping off to sell while the other continued on. I really didn't want to lose a stocked ship. Soon after we sold our last bit of loot our third player joined. Now it was a fair fight. Having heard what was going on through party chat while he waited to join, he knew the situation as soon as he spawned on our ship. Without even saying a word he jumped from our ship to engage the other brig. Dropping their anchor and killing one of them before being dispatched himself we changed the dynamic of this encounter. We turned our ship and engaged in naval combat, landing many more solid hits on them then they were getting on us. Through the course of the battle they did manage to board our ship, but we killed them easily before they could drop our anchor or cause any other mischief on our ship. During this battle, meg showed up, and for once, decided the other brig was more tasty than ours. Once again we boarded their ship and killed them all before they finally killed us upon re-spawn. However, meg chomped their boat while they were re-spawning. Having to fight us off for a few minutes made the difference and they quickly sunk. We did not see their ship again after that.
The second occasion we had a brig with two of us on the ship. We were getting some gold chests off an island when my friend tells me a galleon is approaching. They have no flag up. So I run back to the ship with the chest I had just dug up. I get back on the brig and as soon as I do, the galleon is lighting us up. We are taking heavy damage, but I manage to pull the sails and we are off. We quickly patch the holes and get water out. The galleon then chases us in a cat an mouse chase for over an hour. We speed by outposts dropping loot, and do our best to stay away from the galleon. Sailing against the wind more often than I care to, while the galleon in chase has the advantage of angles to shorten its distance to us and get slightly better winds. The chase is intense. My friend and I take turns trying to board their ship to drop the anchor and are successful on one occasion. During which the other crew tell my shipmate they won't stop chasing us until they have sunk and killed us, before killer her off. Shortly after that, the skull fort pops up and the galleon decides chasing us had been pointless and they peel off to go the the fort. We then are able to finally stop at an outpost and sell the remainder of our booty. Suddenly, our friend shows up in game. Not being a strong pvp player, and generally one that tries to avoid it unless I have no other option, I make a bold declaration. Lets go have some fun at that galleons expense. So we sail towards the fort, sure enough, there is the same galleon there, already engaged. Of course, the forts cannons start firing at us, giving any attempt at a surprise attack away, but we continue on any ways. They try to angle their galleon so cannons are on us, but they can't seem to hit us with a single shot, meanwhile we are peppering them solidly. Now, because the skellies in the gun towers respawned, and the galleon was in a bad position, they were also getting hit by the fort. Forced to move away we begin an intense naval battle, of which they seem to be very much outmatched by our now fully manned brig. We sail around the fort, exchanging cannon fire. With our brig connecting on a far greater percentage of shots then they are able to connect on us. Eventually we pull away, mostly because of the damage from the fort and one of our peeps needed a short break. During that time the galleon once again pulls back to the fort. After our short break we go back, this time we want to gun powder them, so we sail in close, they apparently want to do the same to us, but we got so close to their ship, that when they hit our ship with the gp, they also take heavy damage. Now we are fully enganged in sword fighting. Our crew gives a good fight, killing 3 of their 4 before ending up on the ferry ourselves. Knowing our ship was going down, and theirs too, we figured we would spawn to a new ship, but myself and one other spawn back at our sinking ship (gong sound for sunken ship sounds as soon as we spawn). The galleon was already under water too. We see two of their crew on the skull fort. So we approach, and with the help of the final wave of the skellies, we kill the first one. The second one of their crew kills the captain and tries to run off with the key, but we quickly dispatch him. Our other ship mate is already sailing towards us now, and for the first time that I can remember, spawned on the island closest to the fort. We quickly raid the loot and set off to sell. Not sure if the crew from the galleon even tried, but we didn't see them again.
Long story short, it felt good to finally turn the tables against people that really are only on the game to make other people miserable. I am sure this will not be the end results all of the time, but for now it truly felt good.
