The Pitiful Adventures of a Pathetic Pirate

@wolfmanbush

Thank you. Most encouraging 👍

Perhaps one of my most eventful sessions to date.

I killed two skelly sloops today. Not in the same fight, but separate ones. The first one seemed to drop nothing more than a couple of basic barrels and a “normal” skull, i.e. not a skeleton captain skull. The second sloop dropped nothing. I also defeated the second sloop with only three of four hits it seemed. I‘m sure I heard them shout cheater! in their bony voices as they went down. Perhaps that’s why they didn’t leave me with anything. 🤣

I decided to investigate one of those blue swirly light things on the ocean surface. I stopped my sloop right next to it and swam down. I realised quite quickly that so long as I swam down in the blue light, I didn’t seem to be running out of air. However, once I started swimming around down there, then I found myself gasping for air. The I saw what looked like an ant hill with air bubbles coming from it. A vent? I asked myself. I swam over to it and was able to draw air from them.

This was great as it gave me plenty of time to explore. It was so nice down there that I spent some time just looking around. I found a book to read down there. 1 of 5 by all accounts. I didn’t find the others, but I’ll try again another day.

I found lots of treasure down there and placed them into a statue of a mermaid (or siren) and then opted to return to my ship. When I arrived on my ship I was stood on an island with my ship just off the shore. All the treasure I had was gone. I’m guessing somebody must have sunk my ship when I was down there. Perhaps it was the skelly sloop I killed earlier.

Not to be deterred I returned to the blue mist thing and swam back down. It was a different one. This time I found a underwater door. I couldn’t find a way to open it, but as I looked around I saw a tunnel. I swam into it and found some kind of barrier. There was a glowing rock thing above it so I hit it with my sword. Nothing happened. I shot at it with my rifle (I’m glad they work underwater 🤣). The barrier lifted and I swam into a dry area. Another barrier. I opened that one and walked it. There was a groaning noise and suddenly the area started to fill with water.

I was confronted with sirens and their bosses. I grabbed one of the many tridents that were laying about and attacked. After a frantic few minutes the water drained out. Was that it? No! Other creatures appeared. Fight!

About twenty minutes later, and after several rounds of water and dry monsters, I finally beat the “Dungeon”, and was awarded hordes of treasures. I stuffed them all into a nearby statue and returned to my ship.

I was then instructed to approach a pink mermaid that was in the water near my ship for the stored treasure. I jumped into the water and requested my treasure. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn’t for the mermaid to just chuck my treasure up onto the water, leaving it floating about. I frantically retrieved it all using the harpoon. This was made all the more tense by the presence of a nearby skelly sloop and a sweat another player.

Eventually I managed to gather it all up and flee to the nearest outpost and handed it all in. I think I made bout 35k gold out of that. What’s more, I reached Renown 100. Yay!

I’m not sure if this resets at the close of the current season.

Had good fun today.

@pumpa-cat said in The Pitiful Adventures of a Pathetic Pirate:

Perhaps one of my most eventful sessions to date.

I killed two skelly sloops today. Not in the same fight, but separate ones. The first one seemed to drop nothing more than a couple of basic barrels and a “normal” skull, i.e. not a skeleton captain skull.

Lol I think your first skelly sloop may have actually been a player sloop

@wolfmanbush said in The Pitiful Adventures of a Pathetic Pirate:

@pumpa-cat said in The Pitiful Adventures of a Pathetic Pirate:

Perhaps one of my most eventful sessions to date.

I killed two skelly sloops today. Not in the same fight, but separate ones. The first one seemed to drop nothing more than a couple of basic barrels and a “normal” skull, i.e. not a skeleton captain skull.

Lol I think your first skelly sloop may have actually been a player sloop

That would be a turn up for the books, as they say. 🤣

Today my friend and I went skelly sloop hunting. We saw a skelly galleon, which my friend suggested we attack. So we did. We died. 🤣

We then went down to one of the siren shrines and took as much treasure as we could find.

Later, after my friend had left, I ransacked a ship wreck, though there was not much in it. As I made my way to an outpost, a sloop with an hourglass on its sail, and a pendant thing started to chase me. I couldn’t shake him, so I headed for the edge of the map. He was still following me. So I went into the Red Sea full steam ahead. Well, if I can’t have this treasure, nobody else can! 🤣. Just as I died I sent a rolling on the deck laughing message.

@thorumsu

Of course I got to the black wall. That was the whole point. Yes, I know that my actions did not necessarily mean they couldn't get the loot, but what little value it was worth have made it not worthwhile.

Today I tried my hand at Emissary playing for the first time. I started simple with the Merchant Alliance and was rewarded with a pennant on my mast, and a flag at the stern of my sloop. My mission was to collect two snakes and two chickens. I did this and claimed the rewards and extras. I then got my second stripe on my pennant.

I felt that the rise from one stripe to two stripes was way too fast. However, I later learned that once you lower the flag, or are sunk, you have to restart with one stripe. So that explained the speed.

I got chased by a one stripe Reaper chap, and I lead him on a merry chase. After about 5 minutes or so he tried sending me an Xbox party invite. I don’t accept invites from random Xboxers, and so I ignored it. I’m assuming his intentions were dishonourable, otherwise he would not be chasing me halfway across the map.

As I was fleeing from him and nearing the Red Sea, I was attacked by a megalodon. A black one with red eyes. It was quite a task to fight it, whilst being chased by a Sweat another player, whilst trying to maintain my direction of travel, keep the wind in my sails and repair and bail water. As I entered the Red Sea I rolled on the deck laughing maniacally until the black screen of death claimed me.

I had no treasure onboard and I know that if I die whilst flying an Emissary pennant, then somebody can pick it up from my wreckage and sell it. I’m not sure if my chaser was able to get it, but I wanted to make it as difficult as I could for them. 🤣

@thorumsu said in The Pitiful Adventures of a Pathetic Pirate:

@pumpa-cat

...
Just escaping into the devils shroud without any loot seems like a waste of time to me.

Unless... You wanted to irritate them and have a laugh. In which case, you succeeded considering the Xbox voice chat invite.

That's the whole point. If somebody is going to chase me for my (supposed) loot and they can't catch me, then that's on them. Yes, I do run into the Red Sea just to be irritating. But again, if they are going to chase me for my loot they had better be able to catch me first.

Had some more fun with emissary today, this time flying the Gold Hoarder pennant.

I also flew the Merchant’s pennant. One of my missions was to collect five pigs. I did so and transported them to the appropriate outpost. On the way there I kept hearing an odd noise, like a kitten mewing. I assumed it was one of the pigs not liking the journey. When I got to the outpost one of my pigs was dead. Not sure what happened there. I’ve noticed that you can feed the pigs. Perhaps it died of starvation. Surely not though. It was only a 5 minute trip.

Managed to get to level 35 with the Gold Hoarders. As I approached an outpost I saw a sloop parked up. I passed close by and did a circuit of the island, coming back round to where the sloop was parked. I parked behind it, at which point it dropped sails. I then got an Xbox PM from the player asking I’m assuming you’re friendly?. I replied that I was to which they explained that they were doing a Tall Tale mission. It was nice speaking to them. I’ve not done a Tall Tale yet.

Oh, and I did dive down to a shrine and got some coral chests. When I resurfaced there was a brigantine parked near me. I thought Oh no! I’m dead! but they looked like they were occupied elsewhere. Perhaps they were also exploring the same shrine.

I’m at 106,010th on the Emissary leaderboard as I type this. Well, at least I’m not at the very bottom. 🤣

Today I did something very bad that immediately had me scolding myself. I rage quit the game.

I was on a Gold Hoarder’s mission where I had to travel to Thieves Haven. Or at least that’s what I think it was called. I had to find some buried treasure there but I was finding it extremely difficult to find the treasure. Three times I got killed by monsters as I searched. Then I got attacked again and was pushed off a cliff whereupon I died. It was then I rage quit. Immediately I regretted it and logged straight back in. But of course I’d lost my treasure, maps and mission. What a numpty!

So I then decided to get some ship repairs and baling practice by sailing straight into the middle of a storm and dropping anchor. I waited for the inevitable. Sure enough I started getting holes in the ship. Lots of frantic repairing and baling ensued.

Having survived that I went to an island that had a Skelton-manned cannon in a cave just above the shore line. I parked up at almost point blank range. Sure enough those naughty skeletons started pummelling my sloop with cannonballs. Again lots of frantically hectic repairs and baling. After every six shots or so there seemed to be a pause. I used this pause to jump onto a cannon and practice my targeting by firing into the cave in the hope of killing the skeletons. My first volley did not hit the target. The skeletons resumed their own target practice on my sloop. Back down below armed with wood and bucket. During the second pause I shot a cannonball into the cave and this time I hit my target and there was no more enemy action coming my way. I finished my repairs and baling.

I moved to the opposite side of the island to look for treasure. I spent perhaps ten minutes looking for goodies, with my ship out of sight for a majority of that time. Foolishness, I know. When I got back to my ship the mast was broken. No other damage sustained and all my treasure was onboard. Nothing taken from barrels either. No hidden gunpowder kegs or enemy players. The only thing missing was a treasure chest I had placed on the beach for later collection. I’m not sure how that happened. Perhaps a passing player took the opportunity to get some chainshot target practice in. I made repairs and set off on my way. 🤣

I got caught in another storm and a Meg attacked too.

Today I got two Xbox achievements.

1. A Professional Pirate - you unlocked a Legendary Title by progressing your Pirate Milestones. 0.80% of gamers have unlocked this.

2. A Seasoned Ship - you unlocked a Legendary Ship Title by progressing your Ship Milestones. 0.47% of gamers have unlocked this.

0.80% and 0.47%? Less than one percent of gamers have got these easy achievements? Strewth! What have other players been doing? 🤣

@pumpa-cat said in The Pitiful Adventures of a Pathetic Pirate:

Then I got attacked again and was pushed off a cliff whereupon I died. It was then I rage quit. Immediately I regretted it and logged straight back in.

fall down, get up, dust off, get back to it
it's all we can do no matter what we are doin'

you're transparent about it, accountable for it, focused on moving forward

that's what makes it obvious that you'll find success in adventure

Oh, the bad luck I’ve had today!

I was on a mission when I heard the ominous skelly music. Sure enough up popped a skelly sloop on my starboard side. I engaged it and beat it very easily. A good 90% of my shots were on target. He hit me only twice.

But. Towards the end of the fight I heard Meg music. A megalodon was approaching me as I was finishing off the skelly sloop. This meant I had no chance of retrieving any treasure that the skelly sloop had dropped.

I turned my attention to the Meg and underwent the longest, most gruelling fight I’ve had I the game so far. My first few shots never even came close to the shark. But then as I did hit it I am certain they were having no effect on it. Again and again the shark attacked my sloop, and I used up almost all of my wood supply trying to repair the sloop.

Then more bad luck. As I’m fighting the Meg a fog rolls in. Now I’m having trouble even seeing the Meg. Finally I started getting hits on target and then the Meg disappeared. I hadn’t killed it. I was soon to find out why it vanished. The sea was turning red. I had sailed off the map. I quickly turned around and got back into safe waters. The shark was no more in sight. I took the opportunity to go to the nearest island for wood.

Typical! When I don’t want wood all the barrels I find have wood. On this island none of he barrels contained wood. Just cannonballs and food. I took all the cannonballs as my stocks were completed.

But the fun is not over. A pirate captain and some skeletons spawned out of the ground and attacked me. As I was fighting it another sloop arrived on scene. Perhaps he’ll help me. Nope!

He took advantage of the situation and killed me. When I respawned on my sloop I was stuck behind the black screen for a while, all the time hearing cannonball fire wreck my ship. As I spawned in the player killed me again, and that was the end of my adventure for the day. Time to get ready for work. It was an exciting day on the high seas.

Today was a far less eventful day than yesterday, though still enjoyable.

I did a Merchant Emissary mission where I had to find some lost shipborne cargo. I was given a map of the ship's route and had to look for clues as I sailed along it.
One clue seemed to suggest that I had to go to a fort for the next clue. So, I sailed to said fort only to be attacked by the skeletons on it. I sailed just out of skeleton cannonball range but was still getting shot by sniper fire, or at least that is what I assumed it to be.

I moved a little further out and dropped anchor. I then aimed my own cannon at the nearest tower and fired myself over to it. I fell somewhat short but decided to swim for it. Just as I was nearing it, I got eaten by a shark.

Once back on my ship I looked about and spied a rowboat on an island close to where I had anchored. I swam over to it, climbed aboard, and considered my next plan of rowing over to the fort. As I was pondering the merits of this, I received an Xbox message from a player on a sloop. I had seen the sloop milling about on the other side of the fort. He too seemed to be loitering just out of the fort cannon range. He said he intended to storm the fort and wanted to know if I would like to help him. I agreed and rowed to the fort, hoping I would not get cannonballed or sniped by the skeletons. Luckily, I did not, and I was able to clamber up into the nearest tower and kill the skeleton.

I then saw that the other tower a little way off was firing cannonballs at the fort itself. It seemed the other slooper had the same idea as me. So, I did likewise. Once the cannonballs from the fort stopped flying, I made my way over to the fort beach. Again, the other slooper was thinking along the same lines as me as we met up on the beach. We said hi and then ran to the entrance of the fort.

Bah! I got killed and woke up on my sloop again. My rowing boat was still at the fort. I had to leave then as other, real-life matters were pressing on me.

Two good things to take away from today’s play: 1) There are other decent players out there (not everybody is a sweat or tryhard). 2) My cannon aiming is getting better.

Today I concentrated on Merchant Emissary missions, and at one point was awarded an extra EM mission.

Got into a fight with a purple coloured megalodon that turned out to be called a Crested Queen. I defeated her! I learned that it's best to aim at where the shark is going to be, rather than where she is right now, unless, of course, she is right next to you or coming at you with her mouth open. I also found out that you can tell if you hit the shark as its coming towards you, as it seems to reconsider the attack.

I then saw a skelly sloop on the horizon and raced towards it. But when I got there it had disappeared. however, my disappointment was short-lived as it, or another, rose out of the sea, and battle commenced. Skelly sloops are for me, now, quite easy to defeat. I have leanred that when your ship gets hit with a cannonball and you hear water rushing in, you don't have to immediately go to make repairs. You do have enough time to get some more cannonballs on target and then go sort out the repairs.

Finally, I was carrying out a mission in which I had to deliver items to Grogsoaked Ed. The merchant only allowed me to collect nine items, I think it was. So that would mean two trips. I went off to find Mr Grogsoaked, finding him relatively easily. I gave him his items but was so engrossed in it that I did not notice a sloop coming alongside my own. It wasn't until he started firing at me that I realised what was happening. This guy parked his sloop in such a position that he was able to aim and fire his cannons directly onto me, whereas I was unable to get my cannons into position in order to fire. Needless to say he made mincemeat of me. Another lesson learned :D

I sent him an XBox message telling him well played. he replied with thanks for being a good sport. GGS.

Awesome! :)

Today I ascended the first rung of the Sweat ladder. I had been carrying out a mission in the vicinity of an outpost. I could see a brig moored up there. I went off to fight a skelly ship and a megalodon, and when I returned 10 minutes later the brig was still there. It had not appeared to have moved. I wanted to hand in some treasure and lower my emissary flag, so I stopped on the opposite end of the outpost and did just that.

I then boarded my ship and slowly made my way round to the brig. It was still there and appeared deserted. No sign of it’s crew and no mermaids. So I positioned myself in front of it so my broadside was facing his bow, so that my cannons were looking at the brig, but its cannons couldn’t come to bear on me. Then I let lose with my cannons. I also used chain shot for the first time ever and brought one of his masts down. I continued to fire cannonballs until it sunk. I then sailed away. 🤣

I was disappointed that I didn’t get any notifications of sinking a ship. Oh well.

Phew what a day!

I decided to do a quick Gold Hoarders Emissary mission. I thought it would take 30 minutes, an hour at most. It took 4 hours! 😮

The main reason for the delay was that I decided to attack a skelly sloop. That went fine, but as I was leaving the vicinity, more skelly music, and a skelly sloop rose up on my port side. I immediately engaged it. It wasn’t until I was being hit when the sloop was not firing that I realised there were two skelly sloops. One on each side of me. I quickly sank the port side sloop, but the starboard side sloop was far more problematic. It must have been manned by SBS trained skeletons as these guys just kept coming and coming. We were both hitting each other regularly, but, it seemed, I was the only one who needed to stop every so often to bail and repair.

Twice I fell off my sloop during this fight and had to wait for the mermaid to rescue me. Twice. BLEEDING TWICE! I was so annoyed with myself. Then, twice I was killed and had to wait for the door to open on the ship of the Damned. Then the few moments black screen before spawning back on my ship. As soon as I spawned, I bailed and repaired, ignoring the skelly sloop.

Then disaster! I ran out of cannonballs. I fired chainshot at the skelly sloop (not sure if the do work on the skelly ships - no mast came down). When they ran out I used firebombs then bluster bombs. Still the skelly sloop was fighting me. I assume skelly sloops have an endless supply of cannonballs. Maybe they were cheating 😉

So in the end I had to break away and head to an outpost. I purchased more cannonballs and went to find the same skelly sloop. There it was, where I left it, and I quickly made short work of it. But then immediately two more skelly ships surfaced beside me. A sloop and a galleon. I only had about 20 cannonballs, and time was pressing on, so I scarpered. Though I did give them both a bit of a beating.

I finished my original missions. Four hours! 🤣

@lem0n-curry said in The Pitiful Adventures of a Pathetic Pirate:

@pumpa-cat

That was the skelly fleet - several waves of skloops & skalleons in the center of the map.

It's a world event indicated by a large ship in the sky.

Thank you. I must have strayed into the area without realising it.

@thorumsu said

You also missed the giant "THE BATTLE FOR THE SEA OF THIEVES" banner?

Ah no, I do remember seeing that! I wondered what it was. 🤣

Just thought I’d have a quick go at solo brigantine sailing. It was an experience certainly. Not quite as difficult to sail as I thought it would be. Yes, there were two groups of sails to control, individually, but I generally only used the one near the wheel, unless I needed extra speed.

I liked the extra space and the Captain’s cabin, with its windows. Not having the map table near to hand did make things a little trickier, but not a huge problem.

One of the main issues I saw was that my cannonball supply was below decks, whereas on the sloop it’s near the cannons on the upper deck.

Not been in a fight in one yet. I’d like to find a lone skelly sloop for my first fight in a brig.

@a10dr4651 said in The Pitiful Adventures of a Pathetic Pirate:

@pumpa-cat I feel like I solo a brig all the time (crew mates not helping) lol. Jokes aside they're ok to solo out of combat would not recommend using in any sort of fight, even against PvE. Brigs fill fast and being solo you lose th advantage of having the 2nd cannon.

Many thanks. I appreciate the advice. 👍

Did another Order of Souls emissary today. This one gave me two maps. One had two captains to kill, whilst the second had four.

The first map was tricky as the two captains and their crew were in a hidden cave, but eventually I killed them. I collected their skulls and went to find the island with four wanted pirate captains. This one was on Chicken Island. A tiny flat piece of land. The crew were already on the seashore as I approached, along with the suspenseful music.

I fired a cannonball into them and this caused all four captains and their crew to emerge from the sand. There they were, a crowd of wanted pirates and captains. So I just ripped them to shreds with constant cannonball fire. Some of the skeletons were holding gunpowder kegs. Of course, when I hit one it caused a chain reaction with the others, which helped wipe out and weaken many other skeletons. Within a minute there were four green skulls to collect. The easiest win for a long time.

I also fought three skelly sloops, at different times. The third one was out of cannonball reach, or so I thought. I had the idea of practicing my long range cannon fire, and on the third shot I actually hit it! I would never have been able to do that one month ago. He came steaming towards me, his bow aiming at my broadside. He couldn’t fire any shots as his cannons had not the arc to get me. So I just fired a stream of cannonballs at him, and down he went. He didn’t even get a shot on me.

The second skelly sloop hit me once with a anchor cannonball. I killed him quickly too. No damage done to my ship.

I’m getting better at this. Yay.

I’ll soon be looking for defenceless noobs to kill. 🤣🤷‍♂️😋

Today I tried tackling the "boss" chap who appears out of the red tornado. A friend and I had fought him before when we unintentionally activated him. Neither of us knew what the red tornado was. He killed us both.

This time I was visiting Grogsoaked Ed when I saw the tornado on the shoreline near him, so I decided to have another go. I lined up my ships cannons on him and fired at the tornado, causing him and his minions to appear.

I constantly shot cannonballs at him. Twice I got him down to begging to be left alone, complaining that he felt weak. Both times I thought I was on my way to victory. Both times he suddenly regenerated.

My ship's mast was on the deck and there were holes and fires everywhere. Lots of running about, bailing, firefighting and repairing ensued. Each time I got a hole repaired, so the Boss would hit my ship again and again, causing more holes.

His first wave of attacks consisted of causing a brief darkness to fall around me, like a thick black fog. I continued to fire cannonballs at him as I could just about see where he was.

The second wave caused the fires on my ship. It looked like he was shooting fire at me.

The third attack wave was a storm of burning rocks falling out of the sky, decimating my ship. It was at this point he killed me and sent me to the Ferry of the Damned. When I respawned, my sloop was almost at sinking point, but somehow, I managed to get it back from the brink. My being killed seemed to despawn the Boss, though his minions were still there. I killed them and then looked for the Boss. He seemed to have disappeared, but his red tornado has once again reappeared. I assumed he would be back to full health, and so I repaired my mast and got my ship seaworthy once again.

Later I attacked a skelly sloop and it constantly fired green cannonballs at me causing me to fall asleep for a few moments. Eventually I sank him.

Then I was killed and sunk by a brig that I allowed to get too close.

I was watching a YouTube video of SoT play and there was a slooper who was being chased by a brig that he couldn't shake off and it was catching up with him. The slooper then activated his hourglass and sank beneath the waves. I thought that was a great getaway, and one I will try my self next time. though, of course, I'll end up in hourglass PvP. Unless .... unless I can use the hourglass to escape somebody chasing me and then, once beneath the waves, I could cancel hourglass and return to the game proper. Not sure if that will work, but it's worth a try.

@lem0n-curry

Thanks for the info. I’ll remember it for next time. 👍

STOP RUNNING. IT'S SAD!

So came the, I suspect, tear-laden demand into my Xbox PM list from another player.

I don't know which is the more sad. Player A for not allowing Player B to catch him or, Player B for sending a PM to player A demanding he stop running.

Today I undertook on a mission for the Order of Souls where I had to take on a Ghostly Fleet. I did not play too much attention to the details, but quickly regretted it. There was me in my humble single-man sloop being tasked to take on 6 Ghost Galleons. Eek!

It wasn't too bad. It didn't seem to take many shots to sink one of the Ghost Galleons. If it wasn't from the interruption from the above princess, I wonder how quickly I would have sunk them. Have to say, I love the projectiles fired by the Ghostly Galleons.

Just recently learned the lunge jump, and that I can sprint swim under water.

Oh, and another odd thing. I saw a UFO in the game! I was sailing on the high seas when I saw what looked like a flash meteorite in the sky. It seemed to fall from high in the sky into the sea, though even with telescope I could not see where it landed. Then suddenly it would streak back into the sky and hover. A little light. When it was hovering, I looked at it through my telescope and was surprised to see what appeared to be a tiny brigantine in the air, with lights blazing. Nothing came of it. How very odd.

Two fortunate things: 1) I had just turned in the last of my treasure and, 2) the other player did not attack. In fact, other than a quick exchange of AHOY THERE we went about our own business, and shortly afterwards I set sail again to continue my initial mission. Thank you ironmatt71620 onboard THE RANGER.

It was me :) I have now the title of "guardian of the sea". I protect the pirates from the reapers. Maybe see you again, and good luck on the seas.

@ironmatt71620 said in The Pitiful Adventures of a Pathetic Pirate:

Two fortunate things: 1) I had just turned in the last of my treasure and, 2) the other player did not attack. In fact, other than a quick exchange of AHOY THERE we went about our own business, and shortly afterwards I set sail again to continue my initial mission. Thank you ironmatt71620 onboard THE RANGER.

It was me :) I have now the title of "guardian of the sea". I protect the pirates from the reapers. Maybe see you again, and good luck on the seas.

Thank you for the nice game experience. 👍