I don't really know why i'm making this but i just needed to vent. Me and my friend loaded up the game today, ready to do some hourglass. It says "Less than 1 minute" so we're prepared to get some fast matchmaking. Nope. Hourglass refuses to get us into a match. So we go OK, lets get our faction stash up. We sail to an Ashen Winds event, complete it, get some loot from a shipwreck. We have grade 4 reaper and grade 4 faction stash by now. We sail to the Hideout.
We lower HG and claim our allegience. As we are about to sell, I get struck by lightning, which one-shots me. I hear my friend go "Theres a guy boarding!"
I get out of the loading screen to see a ship pounding us with cannonballs. One of them boards with a stronghold keg. He lights it. There is nothing I can do except jump off the boat. It explodes. My friend dies.
Knowing its futile, I try my best to fight them. We fight our way into the tent, the Servant observing our duel. My enemy sword dashes, missing me. I slash him three times. He falls back for a moment, then throws a firebomb. I throw two blunderbombs at him, but no use- he throws one at me, and I die.
I respawn on the beach of Marauder's Arch, a dense fog covering the island. We check the map. We see their guild flag marked... Almost as far as possible away from where we are. I watch, hope draining, as they head towards the outpost right next to them. A couple minutes later, their flag disappears from the map. They must have sold our loot and lowered it.
We decide to leave and rejoin, then try hourglass again. This time, we load into a match, and proceed to get completely destroyed. Well, thats OK. We go into another match- This time the fight is a lot more balanced. Eventually, I've boarded their boat. As I watch the water on their Sloop reach their stairs, I smile and think: Finally, a win today. Suddenly, a banner pops up on my screen. "Sapphire Blade: Battle Lost." My friend has to go now. All I can do is sit their as I gain my pitiful loss allegiance.
So... Yeah. I don't know, I'm sure we could have done something better, I'm sure that it was our fault and all that... But man, it just didn't feel good.