Please share some PVP tips. Blunderbuss, movement,mindset,naval.

@wolfmanbush So you are suggesting, that I should try to hunt the galleons and try to take them out? Whenever it is the other way around, I usually get wrecked and if I manage to put up a fight, I can't win as they just outnumber me easily.

P.S. What about gun combat? I'd imagine they would have to be very inexperienced to allow me to board them via ladder. Would you suggest to sneak up and get on their deck and fight them off as long as possible, or attempt that during naval combat? (It usually ends with a blunder in my face on the ladder, I spawn back in a ship with holes and on fire with the mast down and 2-3 of them on my ship jumping around with blunder bombs and blunderbusses)

@wolfmanbush I like this approach, just sucks I won't be making gold this way. Thank you for the advice dude.

P.S. This will also help to get Cherished trinket for trips to the ferry :D

@wolfmanbush said in Please share some PVP tips. Blunderbuss, movement,mindset,naval.:

@zig-zag-ltu said in Please share some PVP tips. Blunderbuss, movement,mindset,naval.:

@wolfmanbush I like this approach, just sucks I won't be making gold this way. Thank you for the advice dude.

P.S. This will also help to get Cherished trinket for trips to the ferry :D

are you fighting solo?

and are you mostly fighting people that attack you first or are you attacking other ships first?

I usually play solo and I try to avoid fighting if I have a lot of loot or if I have none as it is simply boring to me , I don't feel I have anything to prove in PVP to anyone. I rarely engage anyone first. So what usually happens, I try to sail away, sail by outposts, sell the most valuable items like Athena chests one by one jumping off and catching mermaid and then either logg off letting my ship sail into distance or logg off close to red sea if its near. Just to make a point that I do not consent or have any will to fight them and they are welcome to waste their time.
Sometimes I do give that Galleon or Brig a fight, but I don't feel like I have a real chance in a fair fight with my skill set against bigger crews, so I try things like using cannons from sea forts etc, but I'm yet to be victorious on my own vs bigger crews of good players who attacked me.

I would fight sloops if they insisted, but as I mentioned I try to avoid combat solo.

Now If I have a crew mate or a bigger ship, I'm a different person. I never attack new players/tall tales and I always try to convince my crew mates to leave them alone unless they are also new. Everyone else is a fair game. If I'm in a galleon/brig I am very bloodthirsty against other Galleons and Brigs.

The reason I want to improve is I don't want to be dominated 1v1. Had some guy with default ship cosmetics and DA sails.
Saw him coming towards my ship as I was doing voyages, waited till last second to know his intentions and obviously he attacked me having nothing on board himself. So even though I knew the fight is just a waste of resources, I knew he won't let me be so we fought.

We started off slow, but as soon as he saw I can put up a naval fight and my cannon balls and chainshots were hitting him good, he probably had an adrenaline rush and I got hit in the face with cannon balls 2-3 in a row and died. When I respawned, the barrage continued and very shortly afterwards I sank. We GG each other and that was the end of my session. If he boarded me I could probably have done a bit better given its 1v1, but still I just can't stand being outplayed 1v1 this badly and just seeking knowledge what is the best approach to handle such situations better and how could I improve without watching hours and hours of streamers.

@DanBeardLuff I used to ignore food until I needed it, now every session I start by cooking and having full regen bar, collecting as many pineapples as possible too.

@wolfmanbush said in Please share some PVP tips. Blunderbuss, movement,mindset,naval.:

@zig-zag-ltu said in Please share some PVP tips. Blunderbuss, movement,mindset,naval.:

The reason I want to improve is I don't want to be dominated 1v1. Had some guy with default ship cosmetics and DA sails.
Saw him coming towards my ship as I was doing voyages, waited till last second to know his intentions and obviously he attacked me having nothing on board himself. So even though I knew the fight is just a waste of resources, I knew he won't let me be so we fought.

It's awesome you have the fire to improve, solo vs solo is so random and rare that I wouldn't get down on myself about it.

Fighting in general in this game (especially as a solo) is just really random especially when you are the underdog. Everything from performance issues to audio issues to a wide skill gap.

You really just do the best you can in the situations you find yourself in. So much of it is second by second on the fly decision making and performance requirement that all you can do is just practice and keep trying.

The thing to remember about solo life and something that often gets misrepresented within the content created around the game is that everyone that challenges themselves as a solo loses a lot. Every single one. People pad their stats with cool plays on crews that are inexperienced on a regular basis but the reality is that solos that fight challenging fights lose a lot no matter how skilled the solo is.

I am fine with loosing a fight that was engaging. Let's say I do a voyage - have 100k worth of loot (with emissary bonus) and another sloop or screw it even a brig that just finished FOTD or a world event wants to fight.
Fine, I will loose, but they are taking a risk attacking.

But majority of the fights is against someone who has nothing on them and they have the numbers. I find this to be very un-sportsmanlike.
Or if someone loads into a server and goes straight for PVP, doesn't collect any loot and might even leave yours floating.
So the same players will make facebook posts how ''bad'' they are, etc etc and people who want PVE servers or play on alliance servers are this or that...pure hypocrisy.

I sometimes like to engage a reaper before logging off for the night if I see one nearby.

I can see myself wanting to improve via failing and failing all over again, once I max out all the factions and get the cosmetics that I really want. But If I manage to gather 100-200k towards my next purchase, loosing all that without having any fun is just demotivating to continue playing the same day.

It's not so bad in the beginning, when you are a fresh pirate, as everything is new and breathtaking, set backs are ok, because there is so much to discover and you just take it as part of the experience.

However If I wanna get into top Tier for Athena emissary rewards, being sunk against uneven competition really brings nothing positive in my book. I know it's just a game and these meaningless pixels mean nothing, but it certainly does not give you any joy or fun playing sea of thieves, I would probably take it very personal and religiously start training if I was 16-24 again.
I think captaincy update was a small step forward to fix this problem (dopamine production) as even if you sink you will still have progress towards something.

Yeah like everyone says, this game is proper hardcore playing solo, but I don't think that its just about mechanics and fighting, it's the emotional effect that is the hardest. The feeling like you just literally wasted 2-3hours of your life and have nothing to show for it.

As I imagine majority people are like me, if they are in a crew and they get sunk with a good stack of loot, they will go back after people who sank them to have a round 2 and possibly revenge. Even if its sloop vs galley. Worst case you will still have fun and a story to tell.
Doing this solo and having same emotions in such situation, you really need to be on a different mindset. I wonder how many adults after working 40-50-60 hours a week, would have this in them?

Sorry for the long rant, just curious what is your mindset.

(Also, please do not immediately think that this is my story on daily basis, I've learnt to be very vigilant and careful when doing voyages, now I just get surprised if I let myself get caught like that and try to learn from my mistakes) But sometimes PVP is inevitable unless you consider playing cat and mouse for 30mins,1hour or even more - Fun. I honestly can't. The chase becomes boring after 20 minutes.
Does anybody know anyone who would chase someone for hours, what are they like as a person and why do they do it? (someone who is actually good and you can see they spent a lot of time in the game by their cosmetics and curses) Perhaps knowing your enemy will help to beat them :D

I work 40+ hours a week at a job plus countless hours of family/pet/home maintenance; I don’t have it in me to either keep battering my head against the wall or run endlessly in losing PvP situations. I’ve kind of moved into my “post-loot” phase of SoT; the payoff at the end is nice but for me it’s about the experience, sail/sink/scuttle. As a solo you’re kinda screwed when it comes to PvP; it’s as much a luck as a skill game and something as simple as bad hitreg, bail-fail, or a blip of lag can and will turn the tables brutally on a solo where it’s a minor inconvenience for a bigger crew. Once you’re pushed into keeping the ship alive as a solo you’re probably not gonna win. I’d also consider that those folks coming at you with no loot onboard might be in the same boat as you and are trying to build their skills in the least frustrating way possible (for them).

I too am a mostly solo player trying to build solo PvP skills, so I totally know where you’re coming from, though it sounds like you are a better PvPer in general (I still lose my cool and do stupid things in the heat of battle).

@sn0kanon Thank you for taking your time to read what I wrote and for your insight. I appreciate it.

I used to play CSGO hardcore and win against odds (I did not even have the minimum necessary 60fps and would still mange to beat players much better than me who would have NASA PCs :D)
Situations were I would be 1vX was what I loved the most, would almost be seeing red how bad I wanted to win and my mind and muscle memory would go to next level how bad I wanted to beat them and I have many, many times. Until I reached the level where I needed a proper computer and an actual polished team to compete.

Currently I can relate to David Bowie - Man who sold the world - ''I must have died alone, a long long time ago'' :D

The real competitive edge is gone and only comes back sometimes to a limited extent.

But honestly I believe your approach and mindset is the one that will pay off and work in the long run, given like you said - you can relate. My plan now is to play a bit on alliance servers until I make about 100m (30 sessions more or less) and then I will see what happens. I might gain nothing CQC wise but the Naval skills are certainly improving, I started to feel again the range when attacking ghost ships and forts so hopefully this will translate into PVP if I can hit people long range and they cant, even if there is more of them.

P.S. If you want we can sail together sometimes, I'm fine with a quiet session, I have discord as well.

@zig-zag-ltu I’ll add you to my Xbox friends list; most of my late-night sailing is in bed next to the wife so it’s text-only comms but I always enjoy a chill session.

I feel that in some respects PvP and PvE both have sort of ended up playing second fiddle to the general experience of the world. They’re both too sloppy to really cater to the hardcore in the same way that totally PvP- or PvE-focused games do. I bet your CSGO-playing former self would have blown a gasket or uninstalled in frustration with the lack of precision and heavy hand of Lady Luck 😉

That’s fine by me, it’s the most seriously casual, contradictory game I’ve played and I have pretty much dropped everything else for SoT this year.

@sn0kanon said in Please share some PVP tips. Blunderbuss, movement,mindset,naval.:

@zig-zag-ltu I’ll add you to my Xbox friends list; most of my late-night sailing is in bed next to the wife so it’s text-only comms but I always enjoy a chill session.

I feel that in some respects PvP and PvE both have sort of ended up playing second fiddle to the general experience of the world. They’re both too sloppy to really cater to the hardcore in the same way that totally PvP- or PvE-focused games do. I bet your CSGO-playing former self would have blown a gasket or uninstalled in frustration with the lack of precision and heavy hand of Lady Luck 😉

That’s fine by me, it’s the most seriously casual, contradictory game I’ve played and I have pretty much dropped everything else for SoT this year.

That's good know dude, I love playing late at night and last time got in trouble with my fiancée for talking too loud on discord :D

Yeah I do agree about the experience, but it's the people who try to make it all about PVE or all about PVP and forgetting that there is so much more to Sea of Thieves.

My younger self you would find in the Devils Roar trying to sail past active volcanoes, shooting at wall in an outpost and blasting cannon shots on rocks at smugglers bay or similar :D I just love the beauty of this game too much.

Looking forward to sailing with you. Next time for me most likely will be Monday evening to Friday night.

@zig-zag-ltu

When it comes to improving your naval against better crews its important to always have your boat in a position for first shot. Turning your boat before your opponent turns his is very important. A lot of players feel they need to get really close before they turn their boat for cannons. The sooner you turn and have your cannons pointed at them the better off you will be even if you are missing your shots. Don't be afraid to turn out of a broadside even if you feel you have the advantage. As soon as you get knocked off cannon or one balled that could be it. Once you get better at naval learning the death spiral is the al mighty skill. Circling your opponent after he is anchor,d or de-masted is the fastest way to sink a boat . Last tip, its okay to hear your boat creaking and still engage in fighting. Some of the best crews will sink you when they have 7 holes and are good at judging when to repair their boat or let their boat fill up to gain the advantage in the fight . Good luck on the seas!

@fpg-onslaught said in Please share some PVP tips. Blunderbuss, movement,mindset,naval.:

@zig-zag-ltu

When it comes to improving your naval against better crews its important to always have your boat in a position for first shot. Turning your boat before your opponent turns his is very important. A lot of players feel they need to get really close before they turn their boat for cannons. The sooner you turn and have your cannons pointed at them the better off you will be even if you are missing your shots. Don't be afraid to turn out of a broadside even if you feel you have the advantage. As soon as you get knocked off cannon or one balled that could be it. Once you get better at naval learning the death spiral is the al mighty skill. Circling your opponent after he is anchor,d or de-masted is the fastest way to sink a boat . Last tip, its okay to hear your boat creaking and still engage in fighting. Some of the best crews will sink you when they have 7 holes and are good at judging when to repair their boat or let their boat fill up to gain the advantage in the fight . Good luck on the seas!

Thank you for the advice, in theory I am more or less aware about this. But wouldn't you agree that 'death spiral' is the death blow and hard to achieve against competent players.
So let's say you have a good aim day and you managed to position your ship perfectly for the first strike. Would you be using Chain shot, Chain shot, Anchor ball, cannon balls? Would you use blunder/fire bombs? I was fighting a very good sloop duo, they seem to put out the fires as soon as I landed the fire bomb shot, perhaps more cannon balls were necessary combined with curse balls/blunder bombs?

I really lack situational knowledge what works best in such fast paced situations where every second can give you an advantage or enable your enemy got back on their feet.
At what point would you raise sails the reduce speed or this is a no no until you have the upper hand?

@mintharp184509 said in Please share some PVP tips. Blunderbuss, movement,mindset,naval.:

@zig-zag-ltu said in Please share some PVP tips. Blunderbuss, movement,mindset,naval.:

@wolfmanbush said in Please share some PVP tips. Blunderbuss, movement,mindset,naval.:

@zig-zag-ltu said in Please share some PVP tips. Blunderbuss, movement,mindset,naval.:.

We started off slow, but as soon as he saw I can put up a naval fight and my cannon balls and chainshots were hitting him good, he probably had an adrenaline rush and I got hit in the face with cannon balls 2-3 in a row and died. When I respawned, the barrage continued and very shortly afterwards I sank. We GG each other and that was the end of my session. If he boarded me I could probably have done a bit better given its 1v1, but still I just can't stand being outplayed 1v1 this badly and just seeking knowledge what is the best approach to handle such situations better and how could I improve without watching hours and hours of streamers.

I have had similar experiences. It helped teach me what targets to prioritize like other ships cannoneers first with regular cannonballs, blunders, or curses to start unless you suspect the other crew is just going to flee then you prioritize immobilizing their ship.

If they are landing more shots you pull out and reset the fight. Watch for boarders.

Thank you dude, I feel all of you guys giving me advice will bear some fruits. This is one of the things I have struggled with as I have mentioned in my post above (we posted it roughly at the same time I think :D)
Priorities. I always thought mast and lower deck was a priority for example.

And I do allow some holes, but I start getting worried when the water reaches the stairs to captains quarters.

Do you know if there is any good guide on the ship sounds to judge how many seconds exactly you have before sinking? I feel it would kind of take half a day to do testing and learning from scratch properly.