Just an aunt trying to learn SoT, advice appreciated! 😂

Ahoy @bethmae94, welcome to the seas (and the forums)!

First thing I would advice is to jump in the Maiden voyage if you haven't done so already. It's the basic introduction to the core gameplay that touches almost all aspects. As for help for visually impaired, there are some accessibly options in the menu that might help. There's also a menu items called "tips & tricks" if I remember correctly which lists a few helpful topics.

As for making your face look better, there's no pirate surgery options apart from removing hands or lower legs on the fly. There is however a variety of makeup/face paints and you have some face covering skins. If you really don't like the look you can buy a potion to change the complete looks of your pirate at the pirate emporium. With the game being in first person though, you won't have to look at your pirate much :)

Below you'll find a few bits and pieces of information that I could think of to be useful for new players.

Menus and lots of popups.

Apart from the game being overwhelming with everything happening in the world. It adds an extra layer to that by making the menus layers upon layers of information. Good thing is that for your basic needs you don't need the game menus at all, they only offer more details on things in the game. Good thing to know is that most of these items can also be found here on the site when you click your icon at the top and look at the My Pirate section. This gives you the exact same information.

One extra thing to add to the confusion though is that the game notifies you a lot about sometimes doing the most basic things. This can be turned off in the menu, although the spam will slow down after playing a bit. To get you a bit more understand of what is happening, I'll just list the most common things that show up:

• Renown: You get this for basic activities and it's part of the Season menu item. This one will restart every season, we're now in season 7. The new season will start somewhere this month I think.
• Milestones: You get these also for doing basic activities, these are listen under your Pirate Log or Ship Log. For the Ship Log you need to own a ship, this can be done from the game menu before you start a session and costs 250,000 gold for the sloop.
• Commendations: You get these for completing specific tasks related to events or additions to the game. Mostly found under Reputation and then zoom in a few times.
• Achievements: The basic Xbox popups that show you that you've accomplished something special... like eating a banana.

Outposts are your friend

I would advice to focus on what is available at the outpost first, all the outposts have the same npc's on them. There's a few things here that might be interesting:

• Resource gathering: From barrels around the island
• Purchase cosmetics: Several vendors sell cosmetics for your pirate, tools, weapon and ship
• Purchase voyages: Main questing is done by bying voyages and voting on them on your captains table.
• Start seasonal Adventure: Usually started by talking to Larinna, the woman outside the tavern. These events are time limited though, so only available for a week or two.
• Start a Tall Tale: Story missions, most are started from an outpost.
• Hand in loot: Almost all the loot you find around the world has to be handed in at an outpost in order to get money and reputation.

After you get the lay of the land, it's key to get a decent grasp on your items, especially your spyglass, and how to use the radial menu's. Along the way you'll find a lot more quests so be sure to learn where to find them. Learn the basics of your ship and how to keep it afloat.

Things to do

When you have a basic understanding of those things it's time to decide what you want to do:

• Just sail: The sea offers you loads of challenges along the way, sometimes it's fun to just jump on your ship and see what you'll encounter. There's a lot to explore and usually you'll find treasure or treasure maps along the way. Even exploring or even fishing can be nice to do at times. The game will do its best to make every session different.
• Tall Tale (story mission): On the map you'll see several markers above some outposts or islands. These indicate the starting location of the Tall Tales. The first one can always be found on a table next to the Mysterious Stranger in every tavern. The start for "A Pirate's Life" can also be found on the beach of every outpost.
• Voyages: Pick one of the 3 factions at the outpost and buy a voyage from them. Golder Hoarders for treasure finding, Order of Souls for skeleton killing and Merchant Alliance for delivery / retrieval of goods.
• Seasonal adventure: Whenever they're available they can be started at Larinna, the woman outside the tavern.

Things happening in the world

When you look out at sea, you often see some colorful things around in the distance. I'll try to explain some of the weird things you'll encounter on the seas.

Feel free to explore

• Birds in the sky: indication of resources below them. This usually means a sunken ship or barrels.
• Blue glow on the water: Underwater shrine, swim really deep for a puzzle live mini adventure. They are also visible on the map.
• Green glowing buildings: Sea Fort, several waves of ghosts that will give you a key and some treasure at the end. It's actually not that hard if you managed to find your weapons.

Approach with a bit more caution

• Skull in the sky: Active Skull Fort event, which is fighting waves of skeletons at the fort its above for loot at the end. Green eyes are easier than Red ones.
• Ship in the sky: Skeleton Fleet event, which is fighting waves of skeleton ships.
• Red hurricane: Very strong skeleton lord, that summons other skeletons
• Green hurricane: End of a Pirate Legend voyage, the people doing this will probably not be happy if you "come help"
• Yellow or colored twirling beam of light: Floating chest that everyone can see on the map, can be handed in at reapers hideout for a reward.

Random enemies

• Skeletons: Come it lots of variety and spawn on islands. Keep your distance of the ones with gunpower kegs. The ones with the red names usually drop special items.
• Ghosts: Random spawns on islands, usually drop some coins.
• Ocean Crawlers: 3 varieties: Big hulking boys that stomp very hard, fast lightning guys that shoot and hit you with an eel and smelly ones that dig and try to poison you.
• Sharks: Can be found almost everywhere in the water. Need a few hits / shots to kill.
• Merfolk: these sea creatures will scratch and shoot you, nothing too impressive though.
• Megalodon: big shark that sometimes attacks you, sometimes just shows its face. Can be killed although you should be ready to patch some holes. Will drop some nice loot.
• Kraken: Will turn the water black and stop your ship from moving. Shoot the arms to defeat it and get some nice loot.
• Skeleton ship: Will emerge from the water, easy to recognize from a distance because of the very colorful lights. Can be easily avoided, but drop some nice loot if you sink them.

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As I know from playing with a friend who's new to the seas, the game is VERY overwhelming with everything happening and all the information in the menus. Even I get lost looking for certain information at times. There's a lot more to the game, however I think this would at least give you a good start. If you want to know more, feel free to ask. Otherwise there's enough to find on the topic on either YouTube or sites like RareThief.

Sea of Thieves seems like a nice and relaxing way to spend some time with your nephew. I wouldn't worry too much about not understanding everything in the game and just talk and have fun exploring the game together. Have fun and see you on the seas!

Signed,

Captain FishSt1ck