Tips for avoiding PvP and other players?

Check the horizon and your ship frequently. That's rule #1.

Also, when you're soloing and trying to do voyages while you're an emissary, if you're not too confident in your pvp ability, then it's often better to temporarily abandon a voyage and go turn in what loot you have already, rather than risking it to other bloodthirsty pirates

Best way to avoid ships it to spot ships asap. Keep your eyes peeled and you'll be able to spot ships from miles away.

park with your sails and anchor up facing away from the island and with your sails angled correcly. Make sure to park close to the island -use harpoons- so you can get back to your ship quickly.

When fleeing from another ship type, remember that the sloop is the fastest ship to sail against the wind. Angling your sails directly into that wind -counter intuitively- gives you a tiny speed boost over angling them side ways. If this descprition is vague search for: "dummy sails".

When you need to do a voyage at a huge island make sure to climb to the top now and then to scan the horizon.

Scheduling.

Playing in the wee hours of the morning helps the most. Going from night shift to day shift, man I miss playing between 230 and 4am lol

Play normal or on Xbox servers.

I’ve gone hours without player contact or pvp

@shadeparade5082

• Pay attention and make sure you spot people coming before they are to near.
• Raise your sails and anchor when parking, while facing your ship towards open waters.
• Learn to do more than just run in a straight line, use rock formations and islands to your advantage.
• Learn to do drive by sells to sell everything you have.
• Learn to use cannons on islands/towers, by guiding people to follow you towards them (don't use cannons to leave your ship) - start with cursed or chain shots to immobilize those pursuing you and follow up with cannons/blunderbombs and maybe even fire... then board or head to the ship (based on where it is at).
• Learn to position yourself for combat.
• Keep your ship safe above all else.
• Learn to move the ship in such a way that boarders can only approach from one side if possible and guard your ladders.
• Stay mobile.
• When doing emissaries: Get to Grade 5, sell, claim the voyage, drop the flag, re-raise it at level 1.

To many people believe they are good at fleeing while all they do is run in a straight line; that is not something that will break the will of those that chase. The more you let your opponents work to follow you, the more frustrating it is and the more likely they will give up. Naturally you will make mistakes, they will punish it and they might sink you because of it. Play in a way that secures a win for you, practice, lose and try again. You can always try while keeping your ship out of harms way to negotiate and talk to the other crew (just don't ever fully trust them before you get a feeling for who you are dealing with... and even then be on your toes).

@cotu42 said in Tips for avoiding PvP and other players?:

• Learn to do more than just run in a straight line, use rock formations and islands to your advantage.

This is huge imo. Every time you break line of sight with a pursuer, view that as an opportunity to change vector.

For example: If you're headed west, cutting around the south side of an island, and the pursuers take the northern route, as soon as you break LoS, harpoon turn (or raise sails to tighten turn radius) and head due south, maybe slightly S/SE (to prolong the broken LoS). They will expect you to keep headed West, or possibly to 180 and head East. Either way you give yourself some breathing room to set up your next tactic, such as a drive-by sale or two at the next outpost, or setting up in a fort tower cannon, etc.

This method won't usually work twice in a row though, so make sure to mix things up.

All of the above is good advice. My advice is to get good at PvP. Spend some solo session just hunting fights or practicing pirate combat in arena.

When you can board an enemy ship approaching you, anchor them, slay them and spawn camp them a few rounds they usually leave you alone.

When you can make yourself a hard target a lot more deterrents are available besides just running. Especially if you learn how to board them on their approach they won't know you're solo and then have to ask the question, do they want to deal with two players like you? Being a hard target also opens up more talking routes in my experience. Things go a lot differently when you solo kill the gallery crew and then offer to talk ;)

@shadeparade5082

Have some fun in The Roar, less traffic there - though I prefer to go there when duo.

It can cost you your ship though, thus keep a rowboat close in case you're caught by a volcano and can't patch in time.

When I did emissary solo, I tried to get to level 3 and turn in - I considered the rest (turning in at 4 or 5) a bonus when it worked out and a minor inconvenience when it didn't. Hoarding until level 5 seems more profitable but it's just more risk and might tarnish your game night.

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Running into the red sounds to me it's a waste of time for you: you won't get anything out of it and it costs you your time anyway.
Just try running and a sail-by to an outpost - every skull turned in gets you closer to your emissary goal and time spent to get into position &c adds to your experience for the next time.

I used to play just like this and dont get me wrong its super fun, but pvp is inevitable and the sooner you get good at it the quicker you level up. and also t gets super fun once you get good. since i got legend and almost maxed everything it now super fun to just go and steamroll some people.

Lots of folks saying move fast and be efficient, which I agree with. However, on the grand scale of things, when you play solo you have to be patient. Is someone at that island you need for a voyage or tall tale? Head somewhere else and find something different to do (I recommend doing a little fishing to pass the time :D). Is there a Lvl. 5 reaper’s emissary gallivanting around? Take the long way to your next destination and keep your distance.

To be honest, you don’t have to think of every other ship as a group of bloodthirsty bandits. Just the other day, a duo sloop with a Lvl. 5 reaper’s flag chased me down. Turns out, they wanted to make an alliance of tiny ships, so I made some new friends.

If you just let ships come to you, there’s always a chance that they want to pilfer your loot, but there’s also a good chance they want to interact, which can be some of the funnest parts of the game.

Outside of that, just be patient. Lost loot is what it is. There will definitely be more, and in trying to cling to every chest with dear life, you take away some of the fun. Just set a course, take to the seas, and take in that sweet ocean air!

@logiic4554 said in Tips for avoiding PvP and other players?:

don't make yourself a big target. don't hoard treasure on your ship, sell frequently. also depends on what ship you are on, but on a sloop, if you go against the wind with sails set to stupid (i.e. in default position as you would do if the wind was coming from behind you), no one can catch you if they are chasing you. […]

added bolded text.

I just wanted to add a few things to this list of helpful hints. The most important thing is to be aware. Part of this is being aware of your surroundings - checking the horizon for ships and destination for mermaids as well as the map in the captain's cabin (for Reapers). But also be aware of the time you are spending in a certain location - the longer you are sitting in one place the more likely someone else will run across your location. If you are taking too long fighting skeletons or looking for that last X, don't be afraid to pull up anchor and do something else for a bit and come back to that. Bottle quests are a good thing to break that up, or simply make a run to turn in treasure.

The other tip I have which seems to have been overlooked or neglected - USE COMMUNICATION. By that I don't mean sending out text saying your friendly or want an alliance (I'll get back to this), but use VOICE communication to contact others. I find you have generally more luck when using the voice chat to communicate your intents as well as easier to judge other players intentions. Granted this is no guarantee that you will get a friendly encounter, but you have more insight than by judging off what someone types or Pirate Chats to you. I've been in situations where I was needing to get to an outpost to sell (either wanting to end my session or I needed to sell at that specific outpost but it was occupied by another crew. I'd use the speaking horn to announce my presence and ask for permission to dock - and to this day I've been granted permission to dock safely every time by doing so. Coming back to the text chat - do not trust anyone that approaches you spamming "WE'RE FRIENDLY" and asks for an alliance. 9 times out of 10 this is a trap so they can track and sink you.

Now for some random tips:

• Be prepared - keep cannons loaded and stock up often. Position storage crates so they can be useful quickly, a good place is between the harpoon and cannons. Makes it easy to offload supplies gathered by harpoon and easily accessible to get ammo for the cannons.

• Use the environment to your advantage - Storms and fog banks can be your friend when trying to elude pursuers. Sail into them and when far enough out of range do a quick course correction to lose them.

• Learn to Ghost Sail - this entails leaving the ship while it sails off in a safe direction. Useful in drive by selling as well as misdirecting other players - if you have a certain mission at a certain island you can drop off unseen and allow your ship to sail away, taking pursuers with it - then let it sink or scuttle after it is far enough away. This of course is best done with an empty ship and brings me to my next point.

• Your ship is disposable - this advice will run counter to a lot of the other tips give that prioritize keeping the ship afloat. But many times it is better to let it sink and get a new one. You can use it as a decoy as I mentioned above. If you don't have much or any treasure on board, let it go if you are in a bad spot - you'll save yourself some grief, have a new ship, and be in an unknown location from your pursuers (and not very far off from your current location if you scuttle yourself).

And finally -

• Attitude - Changing your attitude while playing solo will do wonders. Since you've asked for advice you are already on your way. Main thing is to not let others get to you when they attack or sink your ship, if you don't let it bother you then your mental state will be better and you will improve because of it. I used to get a little uptight when "bro-dudes" would always attack in the early days of the game, making me stress out and make mistakes. Once I got over that, treating them as I would any other threat in game (unless they get verbally toxic in their play, then they get reported), I had less stress and began to play better because of that. I just picture them as marauders.