Happy to give it a go again; but no amount of in game rewards is going to incentivize someone who is just out to be a dick to other players.
If to reward players the game requires I get nothing, then the permanent loss is permanent waste of my time, regardless of the experience. Putting up with annoying people is normal life, I prefer my escapism activities to not include them.
Submitted by Bigger Rob on Thu, 2020-04-23 15:24
That's a fair call. The irritants in GTA is one of the reasons I don't play then.
Do you already have a license key? I don't but happy to buy one when it comes to steam to join in.
Submitted by brainwipe on Thu, 2020-04-23 16:08
I think I have it via the xbox gamepass thing since it's microsoft it's included in that
Submitted by Evilmatt on Thu, 2020-04-23 23:12
I don't have a copy; I think we gave it a go around launch when it was free for a week? or something like that.
Submitted by Bigger Rob on Fri, 2020-04-24 11:22
Handy SoT beginners tutorial from the end of last year.
Submitted by brainwipe on Fri, 2020-04-24 15:52
I don't think I've ever played it but maybe I did and at the time it was so dull and empty I completely forgot :S
Submitted by Evilmatt on Fri, 2020-04-24 19:34
IGN peg it neatly in the SNG category; lacking in progression for single player.
Submitted by brainwipe on Mon, 2020-05-04 22:22
I've enjoyed my time in it today. There are a few instances where you pick something up and think "what do I do now?" But I've you get used to that, it flows.
I didn't realise that you should spend hold to upgrade your license with the guilds. That's important to do else the chests you pick up are of low value.
If you see something glowing, pick it up, stick it in the ship! The beginner chests are about 300 gold and the shop cosmetics start at 79,000! Character cosmetics much less. Glowing skulls, gems etc. are between 1-3k. I chanced upon a bunch of wreckage just floating and that had a chest, gem and a skull. Win!
I saw a few players in the distance and purposely avoided them. I think one was a galleon because the sail was much larger. I've only done treasure run, none of the more dangerous ones.
I really liked it. Much better with mates.
Submitted by brainwipe on Sat, 2020-06-06 19:20
I met another player team, we exchanged waves. Their ship looked awesome. They kindly left a box of cannonballs on my deck. Still in a box, not for through the side.
I decided to risk exploring some lights in the sky and found a sunken ship with a Reaper's Chest in it. Picking up the chest means you're marked on the map. I didn't seem to get much gold for delivering it but instead got pirate respect points or something.
Got fucked by the Kraken again.
Next time, you bastard.
Submitted by brainwipe on Sun, 2020-06-07 12:16
Pretty good fun playing on sunday the risk reward mechanic is interesting and though we got completely fucked on that last run where one player ship started blasting us with cannon fire and then another crew stole a lot of our good stuff it was a fun time.
It felt like we screwed up that last encounter we probably should have either kept running aiming for a free port to try and sell our stuff so we weren't fighting two crews or turned and tried to take out the agressor. We definately should have planned better for getting our loot sold when there was another crew there guarded our ship better maybe parked it further away rather than ramming it into the dock next to them so we had an edge on the respawn cycle and they were easier to see coming.
I wonder if it will get a bit samey after a while but maybe there are other things to do we've not tried. The lack of any progression felt a little limiting we could earn money to unlock cosmetics but beyond that it didn't feel like there was much incentive to level. I mean in other games there are skills to unlock or new stuff to buy and unlock that give you different options but here there are outfits and customisations and that seems to be it. A level 1 player is identical to a level 100 just with worse hats there is no gameplay effect there.
The tension of trying to get back to sell our stuff before other players came and jacked it was good but could easilly tip over into frustration it's a very GTA public missions level of things although I guess worse as others have more incentive to hunt you down as they get actual good loot out of it so it's not just arseholes that will do it.
I had fun though and can see it having a place in the SNG rotation
Submitted by Evilmatt on Mon, 2020-06-08 19:40
I really enjoyed Sunday night!
I completely agree that we screwed up at the end. We weren't really surprised by anything, tho. We could see the other ship in port, we took the risk. We got about 6 grand of stuff in, so that's not dreadful! I still think it was a fun learning exercise but I totally get your GTA concern of frustration.
Before or since in quite a few hours of SoT, I've not had anything like that. Perhaps we were overladen, perhaps we just got unlucky. Perhaps we should have stayed from port and took pot shots at the Sloop? Lots of things to try.
I've just had an idea that might work for the future if we're chased: we go to an empty outpost (a given), one person sails the ship around and around the island while the other two pick something off, jump off when close to the dock and swim to shore. Like a drive-by quest completion.
There is loads of content left (there are the big voyages) but I do agree that it could get samey if cosmetics are the only upgrade. We do keep going back to rocket league and that's only cosmetic progression. Perhaps as we skill up in the game, we will find new ways to play. We'll see.
I'm glad we all had fun, it's precisely the sort of game I need on a SNG!
Now for some snaps...
It's a game where you go to the pub in your pants to meet your mates and play some music. There are also ships in it.
Swimming back to the Brigantine with a valuable skill. Big R shows off his 14-year-old-boy username of BloodBath42.
Big R goes toe to toe with a shark because he's that fucking hard. And he won.
The Ghost Ship was having a go at this poor bastard. Good Luck we said! And then fucked off.
SPLOSH! The fort near a sunken ship was taking pot shots at us. While parked up, this was as close as it got! A bit too close for comfort!
Submitted by brainwipe on Tue, 2020-06-09 09:23
I am going to suspect it moves you seamlessly between instances based on a few variables, so you start off in near empty worlds at the start, with beginner people like yourself, then as you either run higher level missions or as the value of any cargo you have recovered it starts moving more people into the same instance, then ups the ratio of people with the different allegiances\flags etc.
We can all agree that final situation was handled exactly how noobs are are expected to handle it!
I am pretty sure if I set a goal to do a mission and someone stopped me from doing it I would rage, putting we well off the game; but just randomly picking quests, mucking about finding random loot and trying to return it, not caring about a target, did work out quite well. But the moment I want one specific cosmetic and people start stopping me getting it, I would be out ... so it is a tricky line to walk for me. I could see myself sailing around in a sloop just exploring and returning with small (hopefully high value) prizes just for the escapism every now and then.
Submitted by Bigger Rob on Tue, 2020-06-09 17:25
Yeah, Big R, fair play... but you killed a fucking shark first time.
I did a bit of sloop-chilling last night. Ran some trade missions for a change and finding the person you deliver to is non fucking trivial! They appear in certain places (I had to google one of them because I needed to get to bed) but make for an interesting "hunt around the island". 3 boxes of cargo is about 1500 on level 2 (paid 100 gold) of the trader's missions.
I had a slightly scary moment where someone flying the "I'm going to fuck with you" flag turned toward me. They appear on the map. When I get better at combat (perhaps we might try the arena one night), I might like to flying that flag.
What I think this game needs is more low level NPC skeleton ships as it did feel a little empty/nerve wracking last night!
Submitted by brainwipe on Wed, 2020-06-10 07:48
Watched a streamer at lunchtime and there is loads we don't know!
Most of all: The Harpoon. You can use it for dragging yourself over to dock, picking up floating debris, grabbing chests, doing handbrake turns and it seems loads more.
Submitted by brainwipe on Wed, 2020-06-10 13:49
I had a go of it solo felt a lot more tedious just doing one basic mission took forever lots of having run back and forth to the little ship. Maybe there are some better options to do solo than the chests but it definitely was just a lot of busy work no real enjoyment.
Submitted by Evilmatt on Thu, 2020-06-11 05:17
Playing the tall tales this weekend was pretty good fun it actually felt like a pirate quest rather than just an a to b run to get chests. Shame the arseholes sank our ship for no good reason while we were puzzling over the final section but great that we had an epic boat race with me and rob in the new boat and big bob in the row boat he managed to row a third of the way across the map.
Submitted by Evilmatt on Mon, 2020-06-15 06:38
Last was indeed epic. I've had good gaming nights and bad but rarely have I felt that it's that epic. I did feel like throwing in the towel when the wanker sank our ship for no reason but thanks to the big fella, we managed to win in the end.
Some snaps.
The first step was this delicious little chest, which we had to find with scant but not too cryptic clues.
It went full Indiana Jones at this bit. A very good balance of being shown what to do but not being told.
Our Hero, the rowing motorboat, Big Rob on his epic row across the ocean.
"Old Glo-Eyes" tells us the end of the tale and the start of the next as a hook.
And we celebrate a great evening with a tankard of grog in the tavern.
Our brig, it's a touch pastel but I don't hate it!
Was looking up that boss fight and I know we had it much harder due to the stupid ghost fleet parked round the bloody island but I've seen some guides that suggest even without that this boss is especially OP.
One of these guides suggested she's invulnerable to pistols and snipers and only the blunderbuss does enough damage and that you need special cannon balls to stop her regen.
This one which is a terrible video as it's all dark suggest having one person just focus on her while another person takes out the mobs she summons until she tries to heal by eating bananas and then focus on her. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oppakufuM84
Without the stupid ghost fleet we would have at least been able to respawn nearby so maybe next time we will have better luck
Submitted by Evilmatt on Mon, 2020-06-22 23:16
Yeah, definitely got done in by the RNG last time. I did do her a fair amount of damage and managed to kite around the skeles before charging back at her but it's definitely a mission for more than one. Happy to give it another go, especially as we now know which part of the ocean to go to in the first place (nice one, EMW).
I was tired by the end but felt like we'd had a great night nonetheless. It would have been fun to take her out but I am not bothered that we didn't. It was epic charging through the ships, being fired out of a canon and then having the grim damage report replayed to me via Big R while I hoon around the island in absolute darkness with two kinds of undead having a go at me.
I do feel like we're getting better. As Big R said at one point, setting sails is now second nature and getting around the map is much easier. I was even thinking of plotting a route off the devil skull bastard island if I managed to kill skeletal tits.
Submitted by brainwipe on Tue, 2020-06-23 15:51
When I came back to the game from my call with my parents I was surprised to find the ship full of water missing the mast and leaking from about 20 holes even with Big bob and I frantically bailing and patching the raspberry ship went down. We did have a go just the two of us ramming the new ship onto the shore and then attacking the boss and running away to eat fruit when we got damaged but eventually our luck ran out and she killed us both and we respawned on one of the start point islands.
I don't know if we have to do that quest all again although as you say we know where to go this time so there will be less mucking about and confused navigation. Ideally we would still have the magic compass and could just finish that one off this time with less ghost pirate fleet.
Submitted by Evilmatt on Tue, 2020-06-23 18:45
Well that was a trail blasting the boss with repeated cannon fire and them just soaking it up was quite frustrating but we got there in the end.
I wondered if it was a synchronization thing in that we were catching it such that they healed after our shots hit so rather than us taking her out she just kept topping back up.
I hope the rest of the tall tales are not that hard :S
Submitted by Evilmatt on Sun, 2020-06-28 23:45
You're not wrong, it was insanely hard. I liked all the cash tho. Big R and I met up with his mate last night and we did some bimble-around-questing and made about 20k in an hour; which was nice.
From the week before...
Nothing like dancing to live music!
Big R, you don't look well. You OK, mate?
Giving a skele ship what for.
When you've drunk a little too much grog.
Submitted by brainwipe on Tue, 2020-06-30 08:25
Another fine quest completed!
EMW and Big R take a skeleton ship to task!
We got a little bit too close...
VERY CLOSE!
Submitted by brainwipe on Sun, 2020-07-05 22:26
With rob unfortunately incapacitated by migraines on sunday Big Bob and myself sailed the pirate seas a bit in a sloop just the two of us.
We started strong noticing the reaper chest thing was just near us and without any loot on board figured we could chance it and we managed the task unmolested delivering the thing to the reapers successfully. This probably used up our luck for the session.
Flush with success we decided to try running one of the tall tales the stars of a thief. We've tried this one previously with Rob on board and failed at the last moment due to arseholes. We set off trying to find star signs and navigating we managed to get confused by the directions which seemed to indicate another step in the island star navigation chain which we didn't need to do. So going from what was actually the objective island to another one incorrectly. I'm pretty sure we made the same mistake the last time we ran it and the directions are just poorly written with extra steps and an additional star sign that shouldn't be there.
We'd gotten the gems and had just used them to pick up the totem when things took a turn. Another player ship turned up just as we were leaving the island with the totem (which was actually a mistake as it turned out as the totem objective for that version of the quest was on the same island) a brig appeared and stopped basically right in our path the players taking a few pot shots with rifles but not cannons for some reason. We decided to get the hell out of there and ended up ramming their ship. They gave chase. On our voyage to get the tale complete we had picked up a lot of little loot chests and various gems as we passed them in the water so we must have been lit up like a christmas tree so maybe that's why they pursued, or maybe they were just arseholes. There is a lot of that on the sea of thieves servers.
Then the ominous music started signaling some sort of AI attack incoming and a massive skeleton ship galleon surged out of the deep. We just ran and had hoped the ship behind us would engage and we could escape. They did engage fighting the ship while we just scarpered but then the skeleton ship came for us for some reason. With that and a player ship on our tail we had no chance so just ran and Big bob managed some incredible sailing swinging our smaller but more maneuverable ship through a narrow gap in some nearby rocks threading the needle evading the ai ship.
It followed a little while and occasionally rammed rocks at one point flying out of the water as it ramped off the side of one which was entertaining to watch. We escaped the skeleton ship and decided to go dump our cargo of stuff then circle back to the tall tale to finish it once the player was gone. Unfortunately they were still following us. We maneuvered to try and escape trying to take advantage of our tighter turning circle
We ran as fast as we could and they kept following at one point Big bob tried jumping in the water so he could then board them as they went past but wasn't able to get on their boat. They kept following at range doggedly pursuing us too far out to attack but not giving up. We decided to head for an outpost to dump our loot and hopefully evade our pursuer
We got attacked again by an ai ship and tried to evade but in doing so the player ship caught up and began hammering our smaller ship. Since if you get sunk and lose the totem you have to completely restart the tall tale we decided for one of us to leap off the ship where the following player wouldn't see and hide in the water while the other sailed on then when the ship sunk and the attacking players fucked off they could respawn a ship and come pick up the player in the water and continue the quest. It was a perfect plan with one small flaw ... sharks.
I bailed out off the front of the ship and hid under the water as the annoying player vessel passed overhead and then swam as far away as I could so my mermaid (a mechanism to get stranded players back to their ships) didn't show up and give my position away to the attacking ship. Big bob sailed on as they attacked frantically patching and bailing our beleaguered sloop.
I was heading for the nearest island to hide but then the sharks started attacking me. I tried to fight it off but ended up dying leaving our precious chest with the tall tale totem floating somewhere in the sea. In another piece of irony big bob managed to fight off and kill the players as they boarded and our ship didn't sink (although it was pretty damaged and somewhat on fire but still sailing) so we could have not bothered with the ill fated bailing out maneuver at all.
I respawned on the ship and we put it back together repaired the holes put out the fires and patched the hull bailing out the knee deep water. We'd marked the rough location of where I bailed out with the chest so there was some chance we could recover it from the water. We decided to go drop off our loot and then circle back to try and find the chest since the attacking players though no longer about might have still been in the area. As is typical the nearest outpost had a player ship there and we had to go further a field to find a place to land. As a result we decided to go back to try and get the chest as we both didn't really care about the loot gold and such is only for cosmetics and somewhat pointless whereas the effort we'd put in for the tall tale was more significant (even if the reward is only another cosmetics, sea of thieves doesn't have any real progression or level system with any game related impact).
Just as we were setting off we got a "tall tale failed" message indicating the chest had been despawned and so we would have had to restart the whole tall tale thing from the beginning and while we could have done it a bit quicker knowing the steps, I didn't really have time to do that.
We headed for another outpost to dispose of our loot and predictably the ominous music started up again and two smaller skeleton ships appeared one on either side while they attacked a megalodon shark also came out of the deep. We managed to sink one of the skeletons and make it away from the shark running to the nearby outpost to unload our booty. We even made a second trip back to the wreck of the skeleton ship to loot that but the tall tale had failed again and roughly in the same way it failed the last time we did it. In that players showed up and screwed us over.
Looking back on the story it sounds like an epic adventure but at the time it was immensely frustrating we just wanted to complete the quest and having had it fail the same way once before (and other tall tales fail in the same manner numerous times it gets a little old) it was an exercise in frustration but it seems a common theme to the game.
In short we managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and got attacked by numerous in game ai as well as one annoying player vessel that probably was trying to run the same tall tale or something similar and decided to attack us for no conceivable gain just to screw us over
Welcome to sea of thieves
Submitted by Evilmatt on Mon, 2020-08-10 19:35
Sorry to hear that, EMW. My frustration with SoT is identical. Although it sounds like Big Fucker was completely on FIRE last Sunday; kick ass and taking names. I've never been that lucky. Can't believe that for the SECOND week in a row, that fucking totem isn't complete. What a PITA.
You're right that it does sound good in writing but is very frustrating. Rare don't care, tho. They just say that it's the game's design.
Comments
Happy to give it a go again; but no amount of in game rewards is going to incentivize someone who is just out to be a dick to other players.
If to reward players the game requires I get nothing, then the permanent loss is permanent waste of my time, regardless of the experience. Putting up with annoying people is normal life, I prefer my escapism activities to not include them.
That's a fair call. The irritants in GTA is one of the reasons I don't play then.
Do you already have a license key? I don't but happy to buy one when it comes to steam to join in.
I think I have it via the xbox gamepass thing since it's microsoft it's included in that
I don't have a copy; I think we gave it a go around launch when it was free for a week? or something like that.
Handy SoT beginners tutorial from the end of last year.
I don't think I've ever played it but maybe I did and at the time it was so dull and empty I completely forgot :S
IGN peg it neatly in the SNG category; lacking in progression for single player.
I've enjoyed my time in it today. There are a few instances where you pick something up and think "what do I do now?" But I've you get used to that, it flows.
I didn't realise that you should spend hold to upgrade your license with the guilds. That's important to do else the chests you pick up are of low value.
If you see something glowing, pick it up, stick it in the ship! The beginner chests are about 300 gold and the shop cosmetics start at 79,000! Character cosmetics much less. Glowing skulls, gems etc. are between 1-3k. I chanced upon a bunch of wreckage just floating and that had a chest, gem and a skull. Win!
I saw a few players in the distance and purposely avoided them. I think one was a galleon because the sail was much larger. I've only done treasure run, none of the more dangerous ones.
I really liked it. Much better with mates.
I met another player team, we exchanged waves. Their ship looked awesome. They kindly left a box of cannonballs on my deck. Still in a box, not for through the side.
I decided to risk exploring some lights in the sky and found a sunken ship with a Reaper's Chest in it. Picking up the chest means you're marked on the map. I didn't seem to get much gold for delivering it but instead got pirate respect points or something.
Got fucked by the Kraken again.
Next time, you bastard.
Pretty good fun playing on sunday the risk reward mechanic is interesting and though we got completely fucked on that last run where one player ship started blasting us with cannon fire and then another crew stole a lot of our good stuff it was a fun time.
It felt like we screwed up that last encounter we probably should have either kept running aiming for a free port to try and sell our stuff so we weren't fighting two crews or turned and tried to take out the agressor. We definately should have planned better for getting our loot sold when there was another crew there guarded our ship better maybe parked it further away rather than ramming it into the dock next to them so we had an edge on the respawn cycle and they were easier to see coming.
I wonder if it will get a bit samey after a while but maybe there are other things to do we've not tried. The lack of any progression felt a little limiting we could earn money to unlock cosmetics but beyond that it didn't feel like there was much incentive to level. I mean in other games there are skills to unlock or new stuff to buy and unlock that give you different options but here there are outfits and customisations and that seems to be it. A level 1 player is identical to a level 100 just with worse hats there is no gameplay effect there.
The tension of trying to get back to sell our stuff before other players came and jacked it was good but could easilly tip over into frustration it's a very GTA public missions level of things although I guess worse as others have more incentive to hunt you down as they get actual good loot out of it so it's not just arseholes that will do it.
I had fun though and can see it having a place in the SNG rotation
I really enjoyed Sunday night!
I completely agree that we screwed up at the end. We weren't really surprised by anything, tho. We could see the other ship in port, we took the risk. We got about 6 grand of stuff in, so that's not dreadful! I still think it was a fun learning exercise but I totally get your GTA concern of frustration.
Before or since in quite a few hours of SoT, I've not had anything like that. Perhaps we were overladen, perhaps we just got unlucky. Perhaps we should have stayed from port and took pot shots at the Sloop? Lots of things to try.
I've just had an idea that might work for the future if we're chased: we go to an empty outpost (a given), one person sails the ship around and around the island while the other two pick something off, jump off when close to the dock and swim to shore. Like a drive-by quest completion.
There is loads of content left (there are the big voyages) but I do agree that it could get samey if cosmetics are the only upgrade. We do keep going back to rocket league and that's only cosmetic progression. Perhaps as we skill up in the game, we will find new ways to play. We'll see.
I'm glad we all had fun, it's precisely the sort of game I need on a SNG!
Now for some snaps...
It's a game where you go to the pub in your pants to meet your mates and play some music. There are also ships in it.
Swimming back to the Brigantine with a valuable skill. Big R shows off his 14-year-old-boy username of BloodBath42.
Big R goes toe to toe with a shark because he's that fucking hard. And he won.
The Ghost Ship was having a go at this poor bastard. Good Luck we said! And then fucked off.
SPLOSH! The fort near a sunken ship was taking pot shots at us. While parked up, this was as close as it got! A bit too close for comfort!
I am going to suspect it moves you seamlessly between instances based on a few variables, so you start off in near empty worlds at the start, with beginner people like yourself, then as you either run higher level missions or as the value of any cargo you have recovered it starts moving more people into the same instance, then ups the ratio of people with the different allegiances\flags etc.
We can all agree that final situation was handled exactly how noobs are are expected to handle it!
I am pretty sure if I set a goal to do a mission and someone stopped me from doing it I would rage, putting we well off the game; but just randomly picking quests, mucking about finding random loot and trying to return it, not caring about a target, did work out quite well. But the moment I want one specific cosmetic and people start stopping me getting it, I would be out ... so it is a tricky line to walk for me. I could see myself sailing around in a sloop just exploring and returning with small (hopefully high value) prizes just for the escapism every now and then.
Yeah, Big R, fair play... but you killed a fucking shark first time.
I did a bit of sloop-chilling last night. Ran some trade missions for a change and finding the person you deliver to is non fucking trivial! They appear in certain places (I had to google one of them because I needed to get to bed) but make for an interesting "hunt around the island". 3 boxes of cargo is about 1500 on level 2 (paid 100 gold) of the trader's missions.
I had a slightly scary moment where someone flying the "I'm going to fuck with you" flag turned toward me. They appear on the map. When I get better at combat (perhaps we might try the arena one night), I might like to flying that flag.
What I think this game needs is more low level NPC skeleton ships as it did feel a little empty/nerve wracking last night!
Watched a streamer at lunchtime and there is loads we don't know!
Most of all: The Harpoon. You can use it for dragging yourself over to dock, picking up floating debris, grabbing chests, doing handbrake turns and it seems loads more.
I had a go of it solo felt a lot more tedious just doing one basic mission took forever lots of having run back and forth to the little ship. Maybe there are some better options to do solo than the chests but it definitely was just a lot of busy work no real enjoyment.
Playing the tall tales this weekend was pretty good fun it actually felt like a pirate quest rather than just an a to b run to get chests. Shame the arseholes sank our ship for no good reason while we were puzzling over the final section but great that we had an epic boat race with me and rob in the new boat and big bob in the row boat he managed to row a third of the way across the map.
Last was indeed epic. I've had good gaming nights and bad but rarely have I felt that it's that epic. I did feel like throwing in the towel when the wanker sank our ship for no reason but thanks to the big fella, we managed to win in the end.
Some snaps.
The first step was this delicious little chest, which we had to find with scant but not too cryptic clues.
It went full Indiana Jones at this bit. A very good balance of being shown what to do but not being told.
Our Hero, the rowing motorboat, Big Rob on his epic row across the ocean.
"Old Glo-Eyes" tells us the end of the tale and the start of the next as a hook.
And we celebrate a great evening with a tankard of grog in the tavern.
Our brig, it's a touch pastel but I don't hate it!
New update just out containing ghost ship fleets
This was quite interesting, turns out we probably could have outrun the menacing sloop:
Was looking up that boss fight and I know we had it much harder due to the stupid ghost fleet parked round the bloody island but I've seen some guides that suggest even without that this boss is especially OP.
One of these guides suggested she's invulnerable to pistols and snipers and only the blunderbuss does enough damage and that you need special cannon balls to stop her regen.
This one which is a terrible video as it's all dark suggest having one person just focus on her while another person takes out the mobs she summons until she tries to heal by eating bananas and then focus on her. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oppakufuM84
Without the stupid ghost fleet we would have at least been able to respawn nearby so maybe next time we will have better luck
Yeah, definitely got done in by the RNG last time. I did do her a fair amount of damage and managed to kite around the skeles before charging back at her but it's definitely a mission for more than one. Happy to give it another go, especially as we now know which part of the ocean to go to in the first place (nice one, EMW).
I was tired by the end but felt like we'd had a great night nonetheless. It would have been fun to take her out but I am not bothered that we didn't. It was epic charging through the ships, being fired out of a canon and then having the grim damage report replayed to me via Big R while I hoon around the island in absolute darkness with two kinds of undead having a go at me.
I do feel like we're getting better. As Big R said at one point, setting sails is now second nature and getting around the map is much easier. I was even thinking of plotting a route off the devil skull bastard island if I managed to kill skeletal tits.
When I came back to the game from my call with my parents I was surprised to find the ship full of water missing the mast and leaking from about 20 holes even with Big bob and I frantically bailing and patching the raspberry ship went down. We did have a go just the two of us ramming the new ship onto the shore and then attacking the boss and running away to eat fruit when we got damaged but eventually our luck ran out and she killed us both and we respawned on one of the start point islands.
I don't know if we have to do that quest all again although as you say we know where to go this time so there will be less mucking about and confused navigation. Ideally we would still have the magic compass and could just finish that one off this time with less ghost pirate fleet.
Well that was a trail blasting the boss with repeated cannon fire and them just soaking it up was quite frustrating but we got there in the end.
I wondered if it was a synchronization thing in that we were catching it such that they healed after our shots hit so rather than us taking her out she just kept topping back up.
I hope the rest of the tall tales are not that hard :S
You're not wrong, it was insanely hard. I liked all the cash tho. Big R and I met up with his mate last night and we did some bimble-around-questing and made about 20k in an hour; which was nice.
From the week before...
Nothing like dancing to live music!
Big R, you don't look well. You OK, mate?
Giving a skele ship what for.
When you've drunk a little too much grog.
Another fine quest completed!
EMW and Big R take a skeleton ship to task!
We got a little bit too close...
VERY CLOSE!
With rob unfortunately incapacitated by migraines on sunday Big Bob and myself sailed the pirate seas a bit in a sloop just the two of us.
We started strong noticing the reaper chest thing was just near us and without any loot on board figured we could chance it and we managed the task unmolested delivering the thing to the reapers successfully. This probably used up our luck for the session.
Flush with success we decided to try running one of the tall tales the stars of a thief. We've tried this one previously with Rob on board and failed at the last moment due to arseholes. We set off trying to find star signs and navigating we managed to get confused by the directions which seemed to indicate another step in the island star navigation chain which we didn't need to do. So going from what was actually the objective island to another one incorrectly. I'm pretty sure we made the same mistake the last time we ran it and the directions are just poorly written with extra steps and an additional star sign that shouldn't be there.
We'd gotten the gems and had just used them to pick up the totem when things took a turn. Another player ship turned up just as we were leaving the island with the totem (which was actually a mistake as it turned out as the totem objective for that version of the quest was on the same island) a brig appeared and stopped basically right in our path the players taking a few pot shots with rifles but not cannons for some reason. We decided to get the hell out of there and ended up ramming their ship. They gave chase. On our voyage to get the tale complete we had picked up a lot of little loot chests and various gems as we passed them in the water so we must have been lit up like a christmas tree so maybe that's why they pursued, or maybe they were just arseholes. There is a lot of that on the sea of thieves servers.
Then the ominous music started signaling some sort of AI attack incoming and a massive skeleton ship galleon surged out of the deep. We just ran and had hoped the ship behind us would engage and we could escape. They did engage fighting the ship while we just scarpered but then the skeleton ship came for us for some reason. With that and a player ship on our tail we had no chance so just ran and Big bob managed some incredible sailing swinging our smaller but more maneuverable ship through a narrow gap in some nearby rocks threading the needle evading the ai ship.
It followed a little while and occasionally rammed rocks at one point flying out of the water as it ramped off the side of one which was entertaining to watch. We escaped the skeleton ship and decided to go dump our cargo of stuff then circle back to the tall tale to finish it once the player was gone. Unfortunately they were still following us. We maneuvered to try and escape trying to take advantage of our tighter turning circle
We ran as fast as we could and they kept following at one point Big bob tried jumping in the water so he could then board them as they went past but wasn't able to get on their boat. They kept following at range doggedly pursuing us too far out to attack but not giving up. We decided to head for an outpost to dump our loot and hopefully evade our pursuer
We got attacked again by an ai ship and tried to evade but in doing so the player ship caught up and began hammering our smaller ship. Since if you get sunk and lose the totem you have to completely restart the tall tale we decided for one of us to leap off the ship where the following player wouldn't see and hide in the water while the other sailed on then when the ship sunk and the attacking players fucked off they could respawn a ship and come pick up the player in the water and continue the quest. It was a perfect plan with one small flaw ... sharks.
I bailed out off the front of the ship and hid under the water as the annoying player vessel passed overhead and then swam as far away as I could so my mermaid (a mechanism to get stranded players back to their ships) didn't show up and give my position away to the attacking ship. Big bob sailed on as they attacked frantically patching and bailing our beleaguered sloop.
I was heading for the nearest island to hide but then the sharks started attacking me. I tried to fight it off but ended up dying leaving our precious chest with the tall tale totem floating somewhere in the sea. In another piece of irony big bob managed to fight off and kill the players as they boarded and our ship didn't sink (although it was pretty damaged and somewhat on fire but still sailing) so we could have not bothered with the ill fated bailing out maneuver at all.
I respawned on the ship and we put it back together repaired the holes put out the fires and patched the hull bailing out the knee deep water. We'd marked the rough location of where I bailed out with the chest so there was some chance we could recover it from the water. We decided to go drop off our loot and then circle back to try and find the chest since the attacking players though no longer about might have still been in the area. As is typical the nearest outpost had a player ship there and we had to go further a field to find a place to land. As a result we decided to go back to try and get the chest as we both didn't really care about the loot gold and such is only for cosmetics and somewhat pointless whereas the effort we'd put in for the tall tale was more significant (even if the reward is only another cosmetics, sea of thieves doesn't have any real progression or level system with any game related impact).
Just as we were setting off we got a "tall tale failed" message indicating the chest had been despawned and so we would have had to restart the whole tall tale thing from the beginning and while we could have done it a bit quicker knowing the steps, I didn't really have time to do that.
We headed for another outpost to dispose of our loot and predictably the ominous music started up again and two smaller skeleton ships appeared one on either side while they attacked a megalodon shark also came out of the deep. We managed to sink one of the skeletons and make it away from the shark running to the nearby outpost to unload our booty. We even made a second trip back to the wreck of the skeleton ship to loot that but the tall tale had failed again and roughly in the same way it failed the last time we did it. In that players showed up and screwed us over.
Looking back on the story it sounds like an epic adventure but at the time it was immensely frustrating we just wanted to complete the quest and having had it fail the same way once before (and other tall tales fail in the same manner numerous times it gets a little old) it was an exercise in frustration but it seems a common theme to the game.
In short we managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and got attacked by numerous in game ai as well as one annoying player vessel that probably was trying to run the same tall tale or something similar and decided to attack us for no conceivable gain just to screw us over
Welcome to sea of thieves
Sorry to hear that, EMW. My frustration with SoT is identical. Although it sounds like Big Fucker was completely on FIRE last Sunday; kick ass and taking names. I've never been that lucky. Can't believe that for the SECOND week in a row, that fucking totem isn't complete. What a PITA.
You're right that it does sound good in writing but is very frustrating. Rare don't care, tho. They just say that it's the game's design.