More than four hours of experience with Sea of Thieves...

  • I want to report about my last night, I had such a great appetite for Sea of Thieves. I had done my job early, the evening would be long enough to do at least two or three Athena Quests. I am looking forward, my husband is on a business trip, the children are out of the house. Best conditions. At 04 pm everything is ready. I'm not in the mood for a solo action, but my friends are all busy in other games, nobody wants to set sail.

    • I start the game, try to find a functional Random Crew. After only one hour I found a game where three out of three possible people work actively, one person even talks to me. We agree to start an Athena Quest. After a few minutes I notice that we are only acting in pairs, but we are still busy with navigation and mooring. The deaf-mute comrade has left the game, I recognize. Well, there are still two of us, that will work. I start with the orders on the island, would like to coordinate the next routes at the same time and receive no more answers. Later, I find the missing player lying in the cabin on the bed, sleeping legendarily deep. I am briefly tempted to drive the ship against the cliffs, I control myself and leave the game. I drink a beer and then drive the next twenty minutes some tanks in World of Tanks - you can just start there and have no such problems.
    • I start the game again, looking for invitations to Sea Of Thieves via Xbox. The next hour I write applications on open inquiries, but it shows that nobody is interested to really exercise the invitations. Either I receive the message, one regrets, one has waited too long for participants and now decided to do something else and forgot to close the invitation, or the invitation is closed without further words. I drink another beer and watch for twenty minutes at Twitch how others are having fun.
    • I start the game again and actually reach a game via a group invitation. The other player wants to wait until the crew is complete, he does not vote on the proposed assignment. We equip the ship and are sunk twice, because we can hardly manage the ship. After an hour I say goodbye to the ship, still lying in port. I tidy up the kitchen and carry the empty bottles into the cellar, walk around the block with the dog.
    • I think about generating my own invitation to the game. However, I see a larger number of open invitations that share the same interests. But after the experiences at the beginning of the evening I cannot overcome to ask for one of them. I switch to TV. I turn on the animal documentary and iron my blouses for tomorrow.
      Then I go to bed.
      It is about 8:30 pm.
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  • I had exact the same experience last night.. Only i gave up after 45 mins.
    Don't bother to try to on randoms anymore, i search the groups for invitations.

  • I really cannot stress enough the benefit that Discord will bring when looking for crews - especially the official Sea of Thieves server.
    There is a specific looking for group channel and you can enquire for crewmates there - the best part - it is a server dedicated to SoT, so you know folk there will be interested in playing the game.

    It really does suck that you couldn't find a crew, but please try to not be too disheartened. I have had lulls in activity amongst friends, but we sailed last night for the first time in a month together.

  • I got on a galleon with 3 others the other night, 2 had mics 1 was pl and the other was fairly new and we were all up for doing the same thing. Was working pretty well then one of them started playing the most awful music down their mic. No idea what is was but was similar to how iron maiden probably would have been if they were tone deaf.. and unable to sing... or play an instrument! It really done my nut in, i had to take my head set off. The others were struggling too bit didnt say anything.. in the end i had to tell this fella about himself and that was the end of that game!

  • @goedecke-michel If my brother or girlfriend isn’t online, I usually sail solo on a sloop. I’ve been apart of enough disorganized galleon crews to prefer solo play. It is annoying when only 2 of 4 players have voted for a voyage... you can only ring the bell and text “it’s time to pick a new voyage” so many times before it drives you crazy. Raising a galleon’s anchor by yourself often isn’t very fun, nor is raising all sails. I understand that many players dislike the solo experience due to it’s difficulty and perhaps its loneliness but I’ve had plenty of success on a solo sloop. One time, I completed 3 athena’s voyages and a skull fort solo and didn’t cash any of it in until the very end! It took 10.5 hours... trying that on random galleons? Good luck!

  • @personalc0ffee @Sshteeve @they-sank @Ktingaling @nikjw I don't like Discord or LFG very much. Both tools are third party tools that are not integrated into the Sea Of Thieves flow. The preparation time using Discord or LFG and the effort are repulsive to me. If I had a wish free, which rare fulfilled, I would start Sea Of Thieves and would first get a list of players who would like to play. Everyone would have to enter a few preferences that can be selected: Desired language, ship type, destinations (free, type of quest, approximate game duration), party or game chat. If you specify a preference, it is mandatory. If you select several preferences of a group, such as two types of ship, this counts as Either / Or. One also specifies whether a crew assignment may only be made by invitation or randomly. Now I can create a virtual crew that initially contains only me. Players who have created a virtual crew are recognizable in the list of players, they are e.g. highlighted in color. I could also click on the colored player and join his crew, if allowed. Players can be invited from the list to join the virtual crew or can be unloaded from the virtual crew with a majority of the virtual crew. Players in a virtual crew are immediately connected via game chat and can talk to each other. A majority can be used to vote for the start of the session at any time. If the crew is still incomplete at this time, the setting "Private" or "Open" will take effect. If the type is "Open", it will be filled from the list of players with the appropriate preselection.

    This might need some fine-tuning, but it would be a method to put together a crew very quickly. At the same time, you have good control. There is no break included. It just fitted in with the game start, I don't need any other methods that don't really fit or mean long preparation and waiting.

    Moreover, if a crew candidate is toxic, I can easily find him, block him, report him using my crew lists...

    I would find that simply elegant and chic.

    My Christmas wish, rare, is hereby defined.

    Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator

  • @goedecke-michel what you describe sounds similar to Left4Dead’s matchmaking system. If you’re like me and don’t want to use 3rd party communities to find players, you’ll have to make sure to add the occasional random formidable teammate to your friends list. My protocol for friending randoms goes as follows:

    1. The player must have a mic.
    2. The player must speak english.
    3. The player must be an adult.
    4. The player must exhibit a moderate level of skill.
    5. The player must be... cool.

    From my experience, every 1 in 10 randoms pass the test. Through time, you should be able to accumulate enough friends to enjoy a cooperative experience... OR... there’s always solo slooping.

  • @goedecke-michel
    Hello Mrs Goedecke-Michel. It's a bit sad to see that an evening you had planned completely for yourself falls in the water because of the behaviour of others...i sometimes too , embark with Random crews and yes, mostly people start off silent ,but i keep talking...i was one of them once, you know, those that don't dare to speak because of the possible can of verbal garbage that get's thrown over their head..But i'm like a parrot , i keep hacking their shell untill they take the first step to me...After they have broken their silence it's not a problem anymore to keep them interested in the game...And i can say that i have played with all kinds of ages and personalities...

    You should have tried a few times more with randoms ...I'm no fan of Xbox Live Clubs or Looking for Players option but this very Forum could have helped you to find willing players ...People that read the Forum are more interested in playing than players that never read any Forum...No , i'm not offending people , i just say that you would have had more chance to find a player that wants to co operate with you...

    It's sad to hear that a perfect game night was ended before it even began...If you find yerself in the possession of yet another free evening, then please just throw a post on the Forum , i'm sure that you will find a lot of players ready to jump into yer game and really be a help instead of a "deepsleeper"...

    Don't let others decide when you're gametime reached a premature end ...Because nobody wins from that and you only lost a chance to have a pleasant and beautiful game evening/night.

  • @personalc0ffee sagte in More than four hours of experience with Sea of Thieves...:

    @goedecke-michel 3rd party communities are always options but end up being a requirement for SoT if you don't' want to use Open Crews and don't have friends.

    I can tell you one thing, I doubt we will ever see any list of players. Rare has specifically talked about this in panels and they said it breaks immersion. They've even considered it in the past.

    That last one would be real nice.

    They also kept saying you'll never see NPCs driving a ship. :)

  • I just think that Rare spending time on improving matchmaking is a waste of time and resources when there is a perfectly fine alternative (discord groups) already available. If people are too stuborn or simply 'don't want' too use them then that's their own fault and will have to make do.

  • @goedecke-michel
    I usually play with my wife and friends. When none are on I join randoms to recruit new friends, it's how I built my friends list up in the first place. I will be honest if I find a crew that is on a mission and just not sailing around the world blindly, I am already impressed. lol

  • @Octopus-Lime I've described why group searching in the Xbox isn't perfect right now, the same goes for Discord (as on xbox you first have to be 'friends' to invite each other)! For my taste, they're workarounds, anything but "perfect". I don't know whether you play on PC or Xbox. On Xbox, afaik, they are a mess, they don't match with Sea of Thieves.
    You may consider this situation to be a "solution", you may even think it is perfect for you, that's your right, sir. But I have the right of different experiences and opinions, if you kindly allow me to, will you?

    How dare you condemn people of different opinions as stubborn and unwilling?

    Thank you very much for your constructive contribution, thank you for sharing.

  • @octopus-lime While I agree that people should try out the discord servers out there to prepare a crew beforehand, it is in rates best interest to implement a better matchmaking system, mainly because the less work someone has to do to play a game, the more likely they will play that game over others, and trust me I’m often more inclined to fire up other games and play them as opposed to spending time looking for crewmates in discord or reddit.

    It also used to be significantly easier to find people, you couldn’t take your eyes of for a second off the lfg channels before all the spots got snatched up...now? I spent an hour yesterday screwing around random crews all the while searching. For people willing to do a devils roar Athena’s quest, ended up just playing some lol.

  • @sytoki That's why you join a discord server that has dedicated players, who you know will be playing.

  • @goedecke-michel Well like I said, you choose not to use these other options that would solve the issues that you have mentioned and that is 100% you're right.

    However, if you was at the top of a building and you wanted to get to the bottom and you had two options, "use the stairs or jump out the window", if you chose to jump out the window don't complain about breaking your legs.

  • @octopus-lime As already written in my first posting: I use tools like LFG and Discord, but I have other experiences than you. You may not understand it or be not interested in, but if you need to find your fellow players in a smaller language group within a single time zone, it will be less successful than, for example, in the English-speaking world. English-speaking players can be found like salt in the sea and at any time.

    You can now continue to try to stall this thread or just stay out of it if you don't want to deal with other people's experiences. After all, you've already said your purely egocentric opinion, and your last post doesn't add anything to its quality.

    Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator

  • I know I sound like a broken record when saying this and many before me have said it too.

    Discord might be an external tool but it's a great tool for this game.
    Sea of Thieves is an incredibly social game, playing it without a mic for example will give you a completely different experience as compared to playing with a mic. Having fun in this game (in my opinion) hinges on communication and your teammates. Going into open crew will often result in bad experiences, sure there are lots of people out there willing to be a great person but you can never expect it.
    Even with the LFG tool the groups you make are temporary and having one person leave could either mean you get a worse replacement or just flat out have to stop and start a new crew.

    Discord on the other hand does the following:
    It's a social hub, you join one (or more) groups and start chatting, see what people are like and ask to join a session, you might not get the right group imediately but soon you'll get a feel for who's online when and you you'll play well with. Even without using the voice app you can still use it to keep in touch make a crew (open discord from work and ask if anyone is up to sail for the evening for example) and heck I even use it to have friendly conversation with the guys and gals on my discord.

    Some misconceptions and answers:

    • Discord is PC only - No it isnt you can use discord from a smartphone, X-box one or a laptop.
    • Discord is a voice chat app - Yes and no. It's both but mostly a community hub. The Admin can make as many voice and chat channels as needed.
    • Discord costs money - Discord is comepletely free, there is a premium version but it's features are incredibly limited.
    • Discord wants my soul - no comment ;-)

    Some downsides to Discord:

    • Like all social platforms that are free it will use some information to sell to others. It's all in the TOS and It's no worse then sites like Facebook.
    • Like all social platforms you might meet people you won't like.

    So It's up to you if you want to use it or not. I'd say give it a shot. It's free it's accessable to everyone and I think it's the perfect solution to your problems. I'll have to compare it to joining a guild in an MMORPG. You could use the LFG tool to get trough dungeons with randoms but if you don't like that you can join a guild and have a fixed group of people or at least a pool of people to pull from.

  • @hynieth I can understand why you think discord is a solution. But it is not on a smaller number of players. When I look at discord, it is empty as hell. You may have a much much larger variety of players as we have. I need to have a view on players that_want_to_play_right_now and no fuddle with +/- 1 hour casting before. What I need is: WHO WANTS TO PLAY ON A BRIG; DO ATHENA IN DEVILS ROAR RIGHT NOW AND SPEAKS GERMAN AND HAS A MIKE? I beg you get your crew. But ask WHO WANTS TO PLAY ON A BRIG; DO ATHENA IN DEVILS ROAR AND SPEAKS GERMAN AND HAS A MIKE IN AN HOUR? You get none, because everybody left the building. Even myself does not know if I want still play SoT IN AN HOUR.

  • @goedecke-michel Off topic question, but I see a translator at the bottom of some of your posts. What language do you speak? What time zone are you in?

  • @goedecke-michel I'm in a small Dutch Discord channel (because I like the people there and it's a tight knit group) and yeah I can litterally type:
    "Hey Guys who's up for a Devils Roar athena's this evening" and I'll get a reaction.

    Sure since people have lives and plan things ahead of time I can't always get a group Ad-Hoc but to be honest who doesn't plan out their social game time?

    All I'm trying to do is give a solution to people's problems, I know for 100% certainty that there are a few German discords out there (in the LFG section of the forums) and joining one or maybe even a few doesn't hurt and might help you out a lot.

    You can go complain on the internet and hope your problems will be solved between now and the next few months OR you can take life by the balls and do something about it.

  • @nofears-fun sagte in More than four hours of experience with Sea of Thieves...:

    @goedecke-michel Off topic question, but I see a translator at the bottom of some of your posts. What language do you speak? What time zone are you in?

    Germany, Timezone MET / MEST (Summer time)

  • @hynieth sagte in More than four hours of experience with Sea of Thieves...:

    You can go complain on the internet and hope your problems will be solved between now and the next few months OR you can take life by the balls and do something about it.

    How come everybode tells me to take life by the balls. You advice me to use discord. I described in my very first posts that I do so. Do I need to take a screenshot of discord, showing them to be empty or crowded by people that play any other available game but Sea of Thieves - even the Sea of Tieves groups - to proof my experiences?

    Instead of trying to convince me that I am wrong or too lazy and therefore deserve my fate, I would find it far more helpful you would accept that LFG and Discord could not be a solution for everyone - and instead, you would be concerned with whether my sketch of controlled matchmaking could be a solution for everyone.

  • @hynieth sagte in More than four hours of experience with Sea of Thieves...:

    Sure since people have lives and plan things ahead of time I can't always get a group Ad-Hoc but to be honest who doesn't plan out their social game time?

    Everyone who wants to play a game with proper matchmaking has not to do so. Like in World Of Tanks (don't debate 3-5-7), Battlefield, Medal of Honor, Red Dead Redemption, GTA, Red Orchestra, ... You start those games and immerse yourself into it.

    The contradiction is that Rare finds that a previous vote, sorting and selection of the crew prevents you from immersing into the game. Which clearly is what happens when you need to use discord and companions.

    Since the system, as it is now in SoT, does not function satisfactorily, one switches to third-party offers. But instead of discussing and achieving the simple introduction to the game in the game itself, you defend the use of aids outside the game as kind of ideal solution and criticize me because I find them obstructive: they prevent from simple immersion in the game as desired by Rare.

    Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator

  • I've been using the "Xbox Club" feature since I hit pirate legend to find people for Athena quests and I never seem to have to wait more than 20 minutes or so to find 3 other competent players with mics to fill a Galleon. I did 3 Athenas quests last night in about 4 hours and did it with total random players that I found which is usually the case. Just check the persons stats and that they have a mic before you invite them and that usually weeds out 90% of the bad players. From there you can add all of the good players you come across for future runs.

  • @hynieth I don't plan my game time. It's always ad hoc. I think "hmm. I have an hour of free time let me go join someone on open crew and help them."
    I no longer do LFG or Discord because I waste time looking for a group where as I could just log in and play.

  • @d-jaguar thank you!
    @Itz-Noobsbane The most obvious difference between a solution in the game and the external aids is: in the game you would see who really plays SoT and is available and one could start immediately. With the aids you have a group of people who would perhaps play SoT and you immediately have an investigation, waiting time, effort ... until you can start the game later.

    @Hynieth Does anyone actually claim that this would not make any difference?

    Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator

  • I always start my own xbox lfg which explicitly states my mission goals and expectations.... for example... DR Athenas on a gally NO KIDS.

    Works every time.

  • @marsmayflower We're going round in circles argumentatively. Please consider that there are other restrictions in other areas. For players who can speak English, Spanish or any other widely spoken language, this may all be fine. AS I'VE ALREADY DESCRIBED, IT MAY NOT BE SO IN THE REST OF THE WORLD.
    I wrote in my very first post that I tried that, as I usually do. And I hate it for described reasons. It does not help me if you are lucky due to different, external sircumstances.

    Will the game be better with a included management system as I tried to describe? You don't answer that!

    Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator

  • @goedecke-michel Are you saying that GTA Online has a better matchmaking system? Because I've done many heists where people just up and die or ruin the heist at first contact. People throwing sticky bombs at your car during the intial trip then leave.

    People still play medal of honor? Last time I played that it was still done trough TCP/IP hosting.

    RDR doesn't have a propper multiplayer aside from a few Lobby events and even then it's as bad as GTA online.

    Also those games are completely different, you won't be playing World of Tanks for hours on end in the same session since it's match based. Sea of Thieves is a constant open world game and even the developers admit it's best played with friends.

    I'm not saying Rare can't improve the matchmaking. They can and probably will, Rare's already stated it wants to at least have Mic /No Mic be a factor for matchmaking so I'm guessing more options will be there besides that.

    I'm just trying to help you have a good time, try to paint me as the boogyman all you want but that kind of behaviour just proves to me that your matchmaking problem might not be wholly on others' shoulders, remember if you're not nice to others they might just bomb your ship to spite you.

  • @hynieth sagte in More than four hours of experience with Sea of Thieves...:

    I'm just trying to help you have a good time, try to paint me as the boogyman all you want but that kind of behaviour just proves to me that your matchmaking problem might not be wholly on others' shoulders, remember if you're not nice to others they might just bomb your ship to spite you.

    In the last sentence you show yourself affected. I'm sorry about that. Don't take it personally, but you're unfortunately one of those people in this thread who, out of helpfulness, leads that old lady across the street to the side she just came from. Since this happened several times, I had to speak more clearly and more robustly - I apologise for the inconvenience.

    I understand very well that you don't mean to be bad. Please also understand that I have described a quite normal day with my contribution, which often ends as I described it. Despite Discord and Co. It is therefore not helpful at all to refer again and again to Discord and Co.

    I would like to point out once again that I do indeed use Discord and Looking for Groups. The fact that I am not happy with them has nothing to do with my behaviour, as you suggest to me here. It has to do with, unfortunately I have to repeat it again, in German Discord groups I rarely meet someone who actually plays Sea Of Thieves and if so, then nobody there wants to play Athena Quests for hours, or if one would like to, the one is already engaged in another full crew. Once you've found someone, you first have to find them in the Xbox, declare them a friend, invite them - as with Discord - or invite them to a party. Most of the time the circle of party participants isn't ready to switch to the voice chat of the game. I don't like party mode because it hides a lot of the action - being heard, that is. There are many reasons why I'm not happy with LFG and Discord. If you follow my contributions, there are a lot of wishes related to that. For example, make it possible to change the ship type, change from brigantine to galleon and be able to have one more person to play with this crew.

    What I really like about the Xbox is joining into a friends game session when there's a seat available. And I would like to have this extended - tell me the conditions under which you play so that I could join you - and not just friends. Those conditions depend on the game that is played, therefore this must be part of the game itself. Light, quick & easy.

    Surely you're right that the games I mentioned are not very comparable. And yet they are, because I can form groups and crews out of the game. I can form a group in World of tanks in a minute and play for hours, battle for battle. I would love to do so in Sea of Thieves.

    So, now I was again on the other side of the street... :)

  • @goedecke-michel I think I understand part of the problem.

    See I'm Dutch, I live in that little awesome country next to yours. We generally Learn English German and often French as well. We can play games with all these people without problem, the playerbases I can join (trough discord LFG etc) is huge because of that. WoT is huge in German Culture so it's not really fair to compare it to that game since you've got a huge playerbase to join. I'm guessing Pirates aren't that popular there and the German discords might be empty.

    I hope you find a solution for your problem. If you're able to speak Dutch you can join my discord where people sail daily but seeing as I have to speak German to tourists on a daily basis I'd say chanses are slim on that.

  • @goedecke-michel I feel so sorry for you!!

  • @goedecke-michel we're arguing? okay, sorry, just giving you my perspective. sorry you're having so much trouble.

  • Mrs Goedeke- Michel...You talk about that it's hard to find persons that want to play with you through LFP or Discord ...But why don't you just post a Topic, here in the forum, in wich you search for German speaking persons and Pirates to play with...
    Another thought that crossed my mind was, what if other nationalities capable of understanding or speaking German Language would like to join you ? As Hynieth stated , some countries, the smaller ones mostly have many people capable of using more than one language...They may have an accent but that only adds to the atmosphere i always say...

    i even know people , English ,that understand German perfectly but suffer a bit in talking it ...But that could maybe be a possibility for you to join them...i play with French, British, Italian, Russain and so on people...i use many words coming from all kind of languages and i don't say that it is perfect but we get where we want to be...It's a bit giving and taking...

    i really hope you can find people who want to play with you , i know how frustrating it must be to be unable to express yourself if you don't master a language...i just hope that you know that there are other Pirates around , that may not speak your language perfectly but are capable of understanding you fully...

  • @hynieth her point is still valid, why do we have to use a third party app to find a decent group?
    Most people have bad experiences with open crew because the players who play often go to their favorite discord groups.
    If there was a way (Rare can input anything here) to match up in game, that would be great. I would love to be able to go solo and find another solo and we decide " heck let's get a brig together". Or I find a 3 man brig and I join them at an outpost where we switch to a galleon.
    There are many ways to make matchmaking happen.
    LFG and Discord are neat and should be used, but why shouldn't the game provide an option.
    We just want to load the game and play.

    Btw, I speak english and live in the USA. Discord and LFG are full of people. I choose not to as I rather just load the game as soon as I am ready to play.

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