End Game Goals

im going for the gold curse

Athena 20 is a goal. I want the weapons. Commendations too but for me a lot of it getting better at the game. I'm pretty good, but learning more about how to fight players, better ship tactics, and testing those out is a blast. I also hunt stories and have made quite a few friends from meeting people on other ships and just talking to them.

I've gotten pretty bored of trying to grind out the Guild journeys. I'm already 75 in GH and OoS. Reapers is an easy one to just throw up and level up because it works for whatever I want to do that session. Athena takes some planning though.

@rtl-saint
Commendations are a good end game. Some are difficult, some are lucky, some are grindy, some require other crews either peacefully or not, and some are restricted to events. They tend to give you short term and long term goals and give you different playstyles to try out.

I had completed all of the GH and OoS commendations before more were added, and I've finally gotten close to finishing them all again. I'm only lacking 1 for GH, Opening vaults.
OoS only has 2 left but they are earning grade 2 and 3 emissary flags.
As for merchant, I still need grade 2,3, and 4 flags, but I also need to turn in 5 more wood crates on time for "Merchant Shipwright". That is a good flex title. Wood crate voyages are extremely rare.

One of my personal goals was sinking 500 skeleton ships. I've always loved the ship combat and when skelleons were introduced, it was my new favorite thing to do. Once the commendation was added, I had already taken out so many.
I spent a few months working towards 500 sinks, mostly soloing the skeleton ship battle. I fought many variations of the battle. Some that were much more deadly with cannonballs, and shot cursed balls more often. Some battles had more waves than we have now. For a while the eye of reach skeleton had knockback and would launch me off my ship causing me to sink. When expanded ship damage was introduced, hits to your capstan would drop it.
I sank a lot but I learned what worked and what didn't. I became very good at maneuvering a sloop around, even with skeleton ships that can break the physics of sailing. I got much better at the cannons and knowing how fast my ship will fill with water. I learned the angles of my wheel to get good turns without having to adjust. Multitasking the wheel, cannons, water, and holes all while watching the enemy ships and making decisions on positioning.

I've even completed a few battles without using my ship. Once I loaded up a ton of kegs into a rowboat and used them like mines in the water while the skeleton ships sailed circles around a rock and right into them. I've used a chest of sorrow and a rowboat a bunch of times. Once I soloed the battle while my crewmate collected the loot from every ship in a rowboat.

I enjoyed every battle even if I lost. Each ship engaged was ultimately one that would sink. When no ships are there, the skeleton ships can sometimes sink themselves or each other. I literally had the captain skelleon and his buddy ram each other and sink simultaneously right in front of me in a rowboat once. My only real threat was server merges. I eventually got the title "Legend of the Sea of Thieves" and have used it pretty much exclusively for over a year now. I still do the ship battle often though.

The bilgerats have plenty of commendations to earn. Many of them requiring unique ways to play, and some of them with really nice titles. "Raging Firestarter" was one of my favorites. It says "ignite 1000 skeletons" but I think it works more like "ignite skeletons 1000 times". My friends and I would only earn 1 point no matter how many skeletons we lit with firebombs or the chest of rage.

Despite playing since launch, I haven't really felt like I was at an end game. There is always more for me to learn and encounters to entertain me. Sometimes I switch things up and I go on a rowboat adventure and see what happens with one life. Two nights ago, I swam to a ship that was anchored next to a flameheart event. I hid on the ship thinking I could eventually steal a chest from them for my crewmate, but when they almost sank, I popped up and saved them, then helped them finish the event without a single word. As they collected the treasure, I grabbed one of their chests and left as my crew picked me up. Unfortunately ghost chests don't count towards the event challenge.

The closest thing to an end game for me is finishing all the commendations, but that won't be the end of the game for me at all. I just see the commendations as different things I can do and ways to play that I haven't done enough of yet. Once I finish each commendation, I can say I've played the game that way and maybe even mastered it. After they are all done, I guess I'll just put up a reaper's mark and try to solo any crew that wants my emissary flag and any treasure I might have. If they can get it, they can have it.

@rtl-saint my end game goal is the same as my early and mid game goal...pretend to be a pirate.

Commendations completion. Title collection.

@rtl-saint after hitting all the level caps when they were increased i went back to focusing on Xbox achievements. With that finished im working on 100% commendations again.

@rtl-saint I choose my title based on the type of pirate im portraying and less about "respectable".

For example when I dress as Santa I use the giver of gifts title.

As far as respectable, some titles require work. legendary/triumphant sea dog from arena. Legendary hunter of the sea of the thieves and Legend of the sea of thieves are another set of very grindy titles.

For clothing I rarely wear a hat and I dress to my mood or use the random button. My sweat lord outfit is full insider clothing. Right now I'm dressed in the new ice stuff from twitch drops.

I dont wear peg legs ever. for tattoos I really like the constellation one for the "Stars of a Thief" tall tale.

Gold curse still takes 40-60 hours to complete. IMO the hardest part isn't the tedious nature of doing the tall tales its staying on task.

Feel free to hit me up anytime. Ive probably played too much.

@rtl-saint my gamer tag is Captain Coel. I will be playing very odd hours over the holiday. I play on PC mainly and sometimes my XSX.