Looking for PVP Advice for Mixed Xbox/PC Player Crews

  • Liberance
    Master

    Lately I've been running into what looks like a balance issue when facing other crews, but which I believe may be possible to overcome with some extra skill and good advice. So let's hear what people think.

    I play with a mixed group of friends that includes both PC and Xbox players. Two of us play on Xbox, and the other two on PC. However, one of the PC players uses a controller and only joins us occasionally, so I'll leave him out for the purpose of this question. That leaves us with a 2/3 controller leaning crew playing on PC servers because of the one PC player using KBM. And this is a trend we've been noticing:

    • When two of us play on a sloop as 1 controller + 1 KBM on PC servers, we do fine.
    • When two of us play on a sloop as 1 controller + 1 controller sticking to Xbox servers, we do fine.
    • When the three of us get together on a brig as 2 controllers + 1 KBM, we do have a hard time beating other crews unless they're a smaller ship and not particularly experienced. This is the most problematic configuration.

    I haven't experimented enough with 3 controller players on a brig or 4 players on a galleon yet, but I expect those to not go well either since the third controller player would still be PC and that would prevent us from joining Xbox only servers.

    I believe the reason we do fine as 1 PC/1 Xbox on a sloop is because as one of the Xbox players, I'm decent at naval and I stick to the helm and cannons, while our one KBM friend is good a boarding. He can attack the other ships or defend ours while I make sure we stay out of harm. The other Xbox friend who plays with us is also alright at melee and boarding, however only against other Xbox players. This is because of the age-old KBM/controller imbalance, but I don't want to turn this into a conversation about whether that imbalance is real or not, which input device is best or anything like that. The imbalance is obviously real. No device is better than other. It's just a matter of preference. But since we're a crew where some prefer one over the other, I'm looking for strategies to make the best out of our configuration. Particularly since, when going up against a brig and having to defend ourselves against two KBM players on hand to hand combat, we're pretty much doomed to lose the fight every time.

    I assume any solution may have something to do with sticking to naval as much as possible, keeping our distance, etc. However naval fights against good crews can easily become endless affairs that essentially turn into a de facto stalemate until someone manages to board the other ship and incapacitate the crew, therefore hand to hand combat pretty much becomes the decisive move to end fights 9 out of 10 times. And that, as you can see, may be an issue for us.

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  • ZiG ZaG LTU
    Commander
    Insider

    Controller - Naval
    PC - Boarding

    helm is for whoever commits to it throughout the session.

  • heslashthem
    Champion
    Insider

    As @ZiG-ZaG-LTU said:

    Controller - Naval
    PC - Boarding

    I think this is your best bet. This is how me and my crew mate do it and he’s on PC with a controller (ex console player).

  • Liberance
    Master

    @tesiccl said in Looking for PVP Advice for Mixed Xbox/PC Player Crews:

    As @ZiG-ZaG-LTU said:

    Controller - Naval
    PC - Boarding

    I think this is your best bet. This is how me and my crew mate do it and he’s on PC with a controller (ex console player).

    Sure, but—the minute we're boarded by two KBM players or one of them manages to kill our KBM player, we're out of luck.

    I also admit that there's room for improvement when it comes to task management, though. Not everyone on the team is used to larger ships and sometimes avoidable mistakes are made, or reaction times are slower than they need to.

  • Unleet1
    Lord
    Insider

    @liberance said in Looking for PVP Advice for Mixed Xbox/PC Player Crews:

    @tesiccl said in Looking for PVP Advice for Mixed Xbox/PC Player Crews:

    As @ZiG-ZaG-LTU said:

    Controller - Naval
    PC - Boarding

    I think this is your best bet. This is how me and my crew mate do it and he’s on PC with a controller (ex console player).

    Sure, but—the minute we're boarded by two KBM players or one of them manages to kill our KBM player, we're out of luck.

    I also admit that there's room for improvement when it comes to task management, though. Not everyone on the team is used to larger ships and sometimes avoidable mistakes are made, or reaction times are slower than they need to.

    Someone needs to improve at repelling boarders, or boarding other ships to leave your pc player to defend. There's not much else to it in brig pvp against a good pc crew; if your ship is in trouble (de-masted and swiss cheese lowers), you're going to get at least one or two boarders (two if they're feeling you are weaker players, or about to go).

  • WolfManbush
    Champion

    This is more on the encouragement side but I think it needs to be said.

    This is the best pvpers have ever been. Hg pushed the skilled to get much better, it improved the skills of those that stuck with it, and the typical random pvp crew has improved over time as well. The game has been out a long time, people focus on pvp and they have improved in many different ways.

    It's not by a little, it's by a lot. Not necessarily on every different part of pvp (depending on their preferences and strengths) but they are much more skilled at what they enjoy.

    Just keep that in mind as you are getting in the reps. As frustrating as it can be, you are fighting players at their best in a lot of encounters these days.

    A lot of us gotta try to keep the boarders off or it's over so don't feel alone there.

    Good luck during this, you'll definitely improve as a crew over time as you stick with it.

  • heslashthem
    Champion
    Insider

    @liberance obv if a KBM player kills your KBM player it doesn’t mean it’s instant game over for the console players.

    Play to each other’s strengths, continue the pressure of cannon fire while your boarder is doing their job. It makes your enemies panic when a co-ordinated crew are dominating so they’ll likely slip up and make a mistake.

    Communication is your greatest tool and if you need to pre game your fight before you engage, do it. Call out everything the enemy is doing, even if it’s them changing their sail direction.

    Anticipate, Calculate, Dominate.

  • ZiG ZaG LTU
    Commander
    Insider

    @liberance Well my advice is about sloop, for bigger ships you need good chemistry, good situation judgement, knowledge of ship mechanics etc. (not saying that sloop doesn't have that, but I probably know sloop better than my own house at this point).

    But on a sloop if both of them board you, it shouldn't be a problem, because while boarding , you managed to put at least one hole in their ship, right? Right? ^^

    If they both board you and they have 0 holes and they kill you both regardless of what you do, then you never had a chance of winning that one to begin with.

    When we do HG on sloop, we only board both them when there is 0 question of loosing, or they are really good at protecting ladders, but its a huge risk tbh.

    PS. I don't have any advice against god - like double gunners. I myself use blunder and sword and try to use my environment as much as possible. Also it's a lot easier to attack them than to defend from them. As when you are attacking , they need to get rid of you if you are below deck protecting holes. Double gunning is not as effective if you have cover, so even if you damage them a little bit, you can always finish them off with sword. Not saying it's easy, also I am certainly not the best out there either. But just my own piece of advice.

    P.S. Boarding another ship, if they are not in trouble (good crews) is pointless.

  • Liberance
    Master

    @unleet1 said in Looking for PVP Advice for Mixed Xbox/PC Player Crews:

    Someone needs to improve at repelling boarders, or boarding other ships to leave your pc player to defend. There's not much else to it in brig pvp against a good pc crew; if your ship is in trouble (de-masted and swiss cheese lowers), you're going to get at least one or two boarders (two if they're feeling you are weaker players, or about to go).

    Definitely. Not everyone on the team is good at noticing when they're attempting to board (although here it helps when those who do notice call it out). Ladders should be much better defended.

    @wolfmanbush said in Looking for PVP Advice for Mixed Xbox/PC Player Crews:

    This is more on the encouragement side but I think it needs to be said.

    This is the best pvpers have ever been. Hg pushed the skilled to get much better, it improved the skills of those that stuck with it, and the typical random pvp crew has improved over time as well. The game has been out a long time, people focus on pvp and they have improved in many different ways.

    We're not discouraged, so no worries. We do plenty of PvE in addition to Hourglass and engaging other crews in open seas when needed, so losing fights here and there becomes incidental in the big picture. I guess we're among the few who actually play this game as intended, as opposed to being either obligate PvP players or PvE players like most people appear to be.

    That said, yeah, if the loss comes while trying to defend a Fort of Fortune or you chain several defeats in a row in Hourglass it can suck for moment. I am aware of all the matchmaking complaints with that game mode though, maybe there's some to that as well. It gets weird when you start noticing most crews you run into are either completely clueless or sink you before you even had time to think. And still, every one of those latter ones is a learning experience.

    @tesiccl said in Looking for PVP Advice for Mixed Xbox/PC Player Crews:

    @liberance obv if a KBM player kills your KBM player it doesn’t mean it’s instant game over for the console players.

    It kind of is though, at least at the moment. Not always, but enough times to consider it a major issue. They simply move too fast, so at that point it's like playing two different games. The difference is very noticeable when fighting on Xbox servers—you can tell when the other player is good, and still the fight is fun and fair.

    If our KBM guy gets killed, the rest of us are gonna follow fairly quickly. Especially if you're trying to shoot the other ship or doing anything other than fighting the boarder. Usually our best bet is going 2 vs 1, but even that is not much of a guarantee when all they need to do is move a cursor instantly over you while you have to actually take aim.

    @zig-zag-ltu said in Looking for PVP Advice for Mixed Xbox/PC Player Crews:

    @liberance Well my advice is about sloop, for bigger ships you need good chemistry, good situation judgement, knowledge of ship mechanics etc. (not saying that sloop doesn't have that, but I probably know sloop better than my own house at this point).

    But on a sloop if both of them board you, it shouldn't be a problem, because while boarding , you managed to put at least one hole in their ship, right? Right? ^^

    If they both board you and they have 0 holes and they kill you both regardless of what you do, then you never had a chance of winning that one to begin with.

    Yeah sloop is not that much of a concern because the fights are more equal. Even if the enemy sloop are two KBM players, one will likely always remain onboard so hand to hand combat is limited to their second player alone vs my KBM buddy. And even if my crewmate gets killed, the other guy is usually hurt enough that I can tackle him more fairly.

    Both of them boarding us together would give them an advantage, however as you say people rarely do that because it means leaving their ship unattended and it will almost always have at least one hole to deal with.

  • Unleet1
    Lord
    Insider

    When it comes to "move cursor over target and shoot", for m/k players, it's not that easy. Sure if it were hitscan it would be simplified. I'd argue that in tdm or even melee, movement is more important than aim in this particular game's pvp. If you can make others miss it'll set up your own shots. Having great aim but mediocre movement will not work well in this game.

    There are plenty of good controller players who have reasonably fluid movement as well as aim.

  • StoKids3
    Ship Mate

    As a fellow console player, I can relate to your crew imbalance. Usually I have one friend who is on PC which makes pvp harder as the rest of us use Xbox, but take each loss as a learning opportunity and take learning one step at a time. If you feel it is very slow learning pvp in SoT, I recommend practicing in other pvp games to bring your overall skill up (I play a lot of Minecraft pvp servers) to learn techniques that transfer over.

    Obviously, each game has pvp differences but you can learn to attack both melee and range while in motion, or dodging projectiles. I am not very skilled myself but I try to press my advantages and control the battlefield.

  • Liberance
    Master

    Already noticing some improvement in this department the past couple of sessions. It's still tough, but keeping boarders at bay is key. And if they do board, knowing 9 out of 10 times they head directly for the anchor and killing them right there (while also canceling the anchor drop while you're at it) helps quite a bit too.

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