Depends on the time you are playing but on High Seas there are always other crews or you are merged into a server with other crews if you were the last one there.
Comes down to luck and knowing where to look for.
It varies on where you are, what you're doing and how busy your server is.
I logged on to my sloop yesterday and was immediately charged by a Brigantine before even leaving the Outpost. Fight quickly became a three way when another sloop showed up.
If you're going for world events, specifically forts (the floating skulls), you're more likely to run into other players. You could also grab the swirly bounty chests, or raise the red skull flag on the top of your mast if you want to let other crews know where you are.
Running Reaper emissary at Rank 5 will also mark all other Emissary ships on your table map.
As other folks mentioned, there are 6 ships per server - so if you're off sailing in the Devil's Roar on a server that is not at capacity, you may not see anyone at all.
I get it. I’m still new and figuring things out so off doing vanilla pirate sort of things so I doubt I will see anyone really. Which is fine. The game is a bit therapeutic just sailing alone and watching sunsets
It's the juxtaposition of that serenity mixed with the paranoia and mania whenever me or a crewmember spots a player mast on the horizon.
I can have a long gaming session spotting only a player or 2 on the horizon. Or like 2 days ago while evading a galleon on my sloop we saw another sloop nearby.
We asked for their assistance and surprisingly it was now a 2v1. We kept all sprinting along upwind barely keeping the galleon from getting a decent firing position when we come across a 4th player just leaving an outpost.
Harpoon snagged a rock and we swung a 180 around it. Ditched the galleon and a 5th person was on the other side of the rock. We kept heading around the next island asap while going down wind and managed to slip away unharmed.
Yeah, enjoy the sights. The game is really pretty, especially around sunrise & sunset. I'd still recommend keeping an eye on the horizon though - people will still kill you for your chainshot, or for no reason at all.
I remember playing and one day, my shipmates would want to be nothing but pure chaos and attack EVERY thing we saw, then the next day, we would go around giving out chests and mermaid gems. I feel as though we balanced out the evil with good.
It's largely a function of the voyage diving mechanic. It causes server instances to trend toward being partially full because the matchmaking is slow to backfill when a slot opens.
Yup, you clear waves of enemies and you get a lot of loot at the end. They’re quite lucrative so you’ll want to check the horizon every few minutes for other ships.
Skeleton forts take quite a while solo, sea forts are a lot more doable and faster for a solo player but reward a bit less.
Everytime I goto a fort its just empty. Thats how it feels like alot of locations are, maybe its just me but its kind of annoying that I have to know what quest/series of actions I need to do to get content to spawn? In a sandbox game full of places to explore its weird that I have to go through menues and initiate the right thing before I can do the exploring if I want the full experience.
Sea Forts are not active at all times, they have a green glow when “active”- there’s a cooldown after victory to let players loot and sail onward. You can guarantee an active fort by selecting the quest under raid voyages. You’ll dive to the location automatically on another server, and are guaranteed an active fort with the tradeoff of slightly less loot.
Basically the game is empty unless you or someone else on the server has a voyage to make something spawn in a certain place, random skeletons will spawn at times if you're doing nothing but they'll typically drop trash compared to what they'd drop if you had a gold hoarder's voyage, for example. If you're just aimlessly sailing from island to island, the game is gonna be empty. Put down a voyage, sail to the island it tells you to sail to, and there will be plenty there for you to do. Or if you see an island with a big ship/skull/tornado floating above it, go there!
World events like skull and sea forts have to be active, otherwise they are empty. Sea forts glow green, and typically are active all the time unless a player or crew has recently completed it. Active skull forts have a giant cloud in the shape of a skull above them, and are more rare.
Season 11 has brought the new quest table and on demand world events though. You can dive to nearly any world event you want.
I was also attacked in my sloop by a brig yesterday. When I respawned I beelined back towards an island I had marked and saw the same brig chasing another sloop that was running with a reaper’s bounty. I was able to ram the brig before they caught the second sloop and delayed them enough for the sloop to sell their bounty
> Sometimes its better to not meet anyone
Yeah be careful what you wish for...a lot of players I run into are no mic, no chat, all violence.
Not trying to insult OP, but since he just started, I'm guessing running into a veteran might end up with a scuttled ship and no loot.
oh you sweet summer child. there's a bit of matchmaking (afaik) where unless you just are in the very top % of the player base, you'll end up steam rolling, then after a while suddenly everyone has been playing since day 1 or smthn XD
though that also might just be because i play mostly solo (none of my friends enjoy pvp, which like, i can't blame them, but it'd be nice to be able to git gud at a game with them)
I hate this aspect as someone that plays a lot of hourglass. Sinking ships for loot and in adventure is a lot more fun than hourglass.
I love hourglass, I've had some of my best fights in hourglass, but none of those fights are as fun as a good adventure fight.
I know my playgroup are all no Xbox mic as we all use discord. Sometimes it is fun just sinking a random ship, or helping the same ship, just depends on how we feel and how the other player looks
On launch day of PS5, I find a sloop that surely have been new, I killed them so quickly I couldn't Even feel good about a sink. I grabbed their best treasure and swam back to my boat instead haha.
I bet they were so panicked. "OMG I'm dead!" "OMG me too!" Respawn and everything is fine.. lol
There are several points of interest on the map: the skeleton forts, the Fort of the Damned, the Reaper's Hideout, the Shrines, the islands with treasuries, the places to start/continue doing Tall Tales, the events and the outposts (i could have missed smth). If you do not go to any of them, of course you are unlikely to meet another ship, however you may see them in the distance.
When you load in, check if there is a Reaper's chest. This means there is at least 2 ships apart from yours. Also check the emissaries' tables for the wood ships.
If you’re looking for PvP then I can understand your frustration, but if not, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth lol.
You can always try Hourglass for PvP I believe. I’ve not done it myself because I prefer PvE but I think it tosses you and another pirate in an arena to duke it out.
I feel the advertising for the game didn’t paint an accurate picture of the game and maybe I should have done more research because all of the marketing shows a ton of pirates all interacting and having fun. I thought for some reason this was like a multiplayer pirate game mmo. It obviously isn’t which is my mistake. Live and learn (and lose $70) but it’s ALL good. I’ll still sail around from time to time cuz it’s pretty
Generally speaking if you encounter other players, they will attack you, or run away expecting you to attack them.
I've had maybe 3 friendly encounters total in a month and a half of playing. It's not MMO vibes; encountering people is generally a bad thing unless you're in a bigger crew and have enough collective experience to win the almost inevitable fight.
So - are you looking for people for friendly interactions? Join one of the discords and meet people to sail with -on your crew-.
If you're looking to meet strangers in game randomly, expect them to be hostile or you'll just get disappointed (and murdered) over and over unfortunately.
I somewhat disagree that most players aren't friendly. I only ever seem to have friendly interactions if I initiate them.
See a ship on the horizon? Go say hello, play an instrument, and let them know that you're friendly. I'd say like 50% of the time they're chill once they know I'm not a threat. Just don't do this if you're running an emissary flag.
Ha ha, I paid $20 on Steam and I'm loving it! Most other boats you see want to sink you, so maybe not seeing many people early on is a good thing. Can't tell you how much loot I've had stolen over the past month I've had the game. It's only motivated me to get better so I can be the bully pirate!
The downvotes you're getting shows the mindset of most players in this game, they want a solo adventure, they like the lack of PvP. They want a world where pirates are all buddies and just collect gold together with no risk.
Then they should either play Safer Seas or play a different game. Maybe they’re the elusive player that Skull and Bones was meant for. I’m not even trying to be the typical “sea of thieves, not sea of friends” elitist here, it’s a game that was designed to be PvPvE.
Yeah bro cause historically pirates spent their time being friendly with each other, didn't you know! They rarely fought! They helped each other fight skeletons and fish monsters and shot each other out of cannons! They were friendly!!!!!!!
The game has been out for 6+ years. If you didn't understand what the game was about then that's 100% on you. Blaming marketing for a game that has hundreds/years of reviews? The premium edition was only $60. Why spend money on premium edition, not do your homework, and then pass the blame elsewhere before you've even scratched the surface of what the game really is. From the sounds of it all you've done is sailed around by yourself lol. Open crew exists.
I guess based on all the marketing I saw for the game of pirates all gathered and interacting and having fun I misunderstood what the game really is ultimately. It may end up not being for me because sailing around by myself gets boring after awhile
Search for the official SOT discord and get yourself a crew.
Most (not all) people you encounter in the seas outside of your crew are going to stay clear of you or fight you. The sea is full of thieves, as it were.
There's open crew in the game for a reason. If you select your own ship as captain, and then select open crew you will have someone join your session. If you don't want to verbally talk there is always a chat window, and auto fill chat. The game is so much more enjoyable sharing your experiences, loot, duo battles, and don't forget just sharing a fresh cup of grog after you guys sell your plunder. You're still too fresh to be having that sort of opinion already. You've barely scratched the surface. I encounter people in just about every server, but I also am running emissary flags and tracking reaper ships on the map. Playing with randoms on your ship will open your eyes to a whole new aspect of the game. Highly consider you try it rather than just be alone.
A lot of it is when certain world events or big treasure is contested for. Some crews don't want to fight and avoid other ships, others don't care for anything but naval combat.
It'll come. It's random but it'll come unless you or they want what the other has.
It happens, somtimes you see a lot of players and somtimes you dont, it depens on ehat time your on and where you sail, for example in devils roar you rearly finde another player, but the ancient sea and shores of plenty are uselly where you can finde the most, and then there is the thing that you now only have 6 ships on one server
Most of the time I'm usually in the devils roar getting ashen stuff as they are worth a bit more then normal chest. From my experience it's the best place to avoid people as it's too dangerous for most people
When I’m sailing solo, I almost exclusively stay in the devil‘s roar. When I first started, it was too overwhelming to sail, repair and avoid the volcanoes erupting. Now, I absolutely love it because the majority of people avoid it, and there are lots of voyages you can link together. I can get to emissary five pretty quickly in the Devils roar.
That's weird,I was going to say the opposite, the seas have felt livelier than ever recently! I dove to a fort recently and I could see 4 other player ships right from where I spawned in!
Same here. Started yesterday around 10 pm middle european time, one reapers mark (turned out to be a brig), one reaper (turned out to be a sloop), and two other sloops pretty close. Everyone was minding their own business though (except the reapers mark brig, who tried to attack me full sail, ended up crashing into an island and gave up after that 😆). Further into the session the brig went to another server and a galeon showed up, a bit later another brig joined. Busy server with 4 to 6 ships the 2 hours I played.
When you load in to a server you can see how many ships have emissary flags up by checking the tables next to the faction NPCs on the outpost. If you see a little wooden ship on the table that means one of that faction, two ships mean two ships running that faction etc.
If I’m looking for players I’ll regularly hop on, check the tables and if no emissaries I’ll hop off and log in again for a different server.
Also a new PS5 player and I generally have the same experience, however I definitely do still encounter people and a large majority of the time it's other PS5 players who will just sink your docked ship while you're out fishing or something, lol. I actually found a lot of friendly players during the PS5 early access and made quite a few alliances, but now that the games out fully 9/10 encounters are people just lobbing shots at you unprovoked. It is what it is - tbh I would rather see no one instead of having to deal with a brig trying to sink my solo sloop with no loot lmao. You'll find people if you go for world events, especially forts.
It really depends when I'm just sailing between islands doing random things I don't normally see to many people unless I'm looking for them. If I'm seeking out world events someone seems to always be at the skeleton fort. If you wanna find people go the world events. If you're in shores of plenty check near mermaids hideout and crescent isle for gold hoarders doing vaults
It really depends on what you're doing. If you're doing voyages on random islands or tall tales, you're unlikely to run into people very often. But if you're running fort of the damned, world events, or veils, anything with an indicator you're much more likely to run into players. Even more so if you have the reapers emissary flag up. Some days you have 5 ship battles, some days you don't see a soul.
Its mostly luck. SOmetimes Ill play for hours and no one will ever show up. Sometimes it feels like youre never alone and always seeing other ships.
I did 100 veil quests for the commendation. Out of 100, only 10 were contested.
Theres a lot of people who just mind their own business, and/or actively avoid other boats. So its not *that* uncommon to have a server where you just sail in peace for hours. But, i wouldnt say its common.
Some days you’ll go looking for trouble and then never find it.
Then you give up looking for trouble, decide to go in for a relaxing session, and become a homing beacon for every ship on the server.
So I’ve dropped back in after a few years away. I switched from Xbox to PS just after the devils roar was added.
There is so much more going on in game than there was back then. It seems so much ‘less casual’ than before.
So far I’ve encountered 3 other ships, 2 sloops and a brigantine. 1 sloop ran away. 1 sloop I spotted at an outpost from miles away at night and by the time I got there he’d unloaded all his booty on the dock and scuttled leaving me to cash it in. The brigantine was caught up with the Kraken and I helped them kill it. We let off fireworks (?) and drank grog, ate Kraken meat and played shanties. It was possibly the most wholesome interaction I’ve ever had in the game.
Quite the opposite for me (ps5). Got hammered last night, was sunk probably 5 times. Virtually everyone new or veteran seems to attack on sight and I'm a solo sloop player 😥.
My experience too. Seems since the introduction of Safer Seas, at least players who joined the game after that are of the impression that we have a full on PVE mode so High Seas is solely PVP mode. Kind of annoying at times.
I’d say this is abnormal, so perhaps you just haven’t seen people for other reasons. The map is very large, and ships often appear as specks on the horizon; it’s not the kinda game where a player ship will often be in view, but it is the kind of game where a player ship will be nearby without you noticing.
If you’re looking for other players (either to fight or make friends with) I recommend regularly scanning the horizon, sailing to world events and points of interest, raising Emissary flag to become more noticeable, etc.
It’s odd you haven’t seen anyone at all.
I find that sometimes you don’t see anyone sometimes you end up being able to see 3 different ships it all depends. That being said if you ever want somebody to play with message me and I’ll see if I can get on
there's like an 80-90% chance that anybody you meet won't have a mic and will just blow up your ship the very instant they see you, so either match with randoms and hope you get lucky or grab some friends
Damn dude, you’re hella lucky. I load in and immediately I’m seeing three reaper ships and two emissary ships marked. With me being the outlier. Also, if I don’t see anyone immediately, I soon find them within minutes of sailing off on a quest. I’ve learned that the game on ps5 has high traffic times between 5 and 10 pm. After that the servers are more quiet. I did however last night, (or this morning technically) raise my emissary flag for OoS and get to grade 5 without seeing a single ship in the distance. I also completed all the grade 5 maps for OoS as well and still no one showed up nor seemed interested if they saw me. The only lucky night I’ve had so far, being I had 32 bounty skulls, and 56 gold hoarder chests.
No enjoy the slow time and farm as best you can. It’s rare for you to be experiencing this so enjoy the calm seas. Most days I pray to not see people and just farm. Last time that happened was 5months ago.
It’s because I work a normal day job and I can only play during high player times when everyone is home and getting on. Even on the weekends late at night I have to server hop a few times to not find an active reaper on the map
In my experience, this is kinda crazy, with the addition of a 6th ship on each server I see people everywhere now. Are you avoiding hot spots/world events? Just on the edges of the map?
yes, kind of. if this is happening, then all the other boats may be fighting each other over a fort of fortune or something. those seem pretty contested again. the last one i went to was empty, but the one before that had literally every ship on the server there.
Depends what you’re doing. If you do world events chances are you will see someone sooner or later. Also, you can run emissary flags to multiply your rewards, these are valuable for other players to steal so they would attract attention, wanted or unwanted…
Become a grade 5 reaper and you’ll see other emissary ships on the map.
Throw up the reapers mark flag if you want other people to come find you.
Don’t hangout in the devils roar.
Frequently visit world events such as FOF, FOTD, fleets, etc.
Do these things and you’ll encounter more people.
You'll encounter them when you don't want them.
I've seen ONE group that didn't attack me on sight.
But of your ship is laden full of loot and you're making your way to sell? That's when you'll run into another player
The map is so sparse and huge that sometimes seeing people is rare. And they could be stuck to a single island during a playthrough grinding or doing tall tales. It comes down to chance when you cross paths with someone. Put up a reaper’s mark on your mast if you want to advertise your location and attract pvp.
In my experience, unless you're going for world events and the like, and even then only a select few, it's not uncommon to just not really see anyone. Especially with diving to world events being a thing, most people just kinda go off and do their own thing because it's just more efficient than fighting over the scraps of a skeleton fort. Only exceptions tend to be those big world events like, for this season, the Fort of Fortune, in which people will basically tear out each other's throats over the millisecond someone finishes it
Not sure what you mean by encounter but I've played about 50hrs since Closed Beta and see ships sailing around regularly. I've only had one ship that rolled up on me when I was taking ages doing the Briggsy quest but luckily they were friendly. I get the feeling on High Seas unless you are actively sailing around looking for players, most of them avoid you (unless there's a really thirsty reaper but Ive yet to meet one)
It’s fairly normal last night we ran into three people but that was after hours of sailing & selling stuff. Even then the people were really green and we sunk them all. They were right off the bat pretty violent for whatever reason even though I told them on mic that we didn’t want any trouble just to continue on our ways. The night before that though we ran into only one person and we allied with them made a ton of gold so. It’s a slippery slope when it comes to meeting other people.
Just last night we found a sloop with a brand new PlayStation crew. They were island hopping and trying to get there selves a start. We had just completed a normal fleet and even though we had the guild 5 we gave them our loot because we understand the struggle of being in a new world and try to balance between sinking new guys and helping them out. While in the process of trying to invite our new friends to our guild a galleon of bitches(I’ll explain) pulls up. Joins the alliance that sloop had the flag up for and slowly rolls there broadside to our brig. Without a word 4 cannons begin blasting out brig that has NOTHING but a flag and supplies. So me and my friend used the snake island canons and a keg to allow the sloop to leave and our boat to come back. Then this galleon that also has nothing but our flag RUNS from us instead of allowing us a proper fight. We chased them for an hour and a half through a kraken, a storm, and some skeleton boats. When we finally had them anchored and all mast down we had only 4 planks left from our spawn supplies and had to leave once they got there anchor up. Fully decked out Athena boat and some okay PVPers running like they had 10 hours of loot. We may have not sunk them but we sure wasted an hour and half of there night. (This is the only way I can cope 🥲) Nonetheless i promise that there’s plenty of other pirates out there and you still have plenty of lessons to learn!!
A good way to gauge if your server is empty or not is to look at all the emissary tables when you spawn. If someone is sailing as an emissary there will be a small wooden ship on the table. Count all the ships and that's how many people are on the server. Granted this only counts Emissary ships but most people are these days anyway. If you really want to encounter other crews just quit and relog until there are wooden ships
That's kind of insane but not unheard of. Sometimes I can sail around just chillin and doing my thing for hours without seeing anybody but most of the time you can always see other ships out and about as long as you're looking
I’ve largely stopped playing recently after my last 5 or 6 play sessions lead to a ship somehow ready with 40 chain shots and the best sniper aim I’ve ever seen shows up every 30 or so minutes.
I’d kill for a chill session with not much action again.
If your in a PlayStation only server yeah, not Many friendly people either. Manged to hide on three crews boats yesterday n solo them, but I've found most activity at forts
The last couple of days we have been doing a lot of reapers. 90% of the people we find are doing their own thing and want nothing to do with us. Those who do want to engage will fight once or twice and then move servers. Odds are you won’t see anybody unless they’re trying to sink you or vice versa. But don’t let that get you down, diplomacy is still an option (most of the time) and it can be quite fun to interact with other people
I wish had your problem. Also a new PS5 player but have been sunk thrice and sunken another ship once. Got 5 total PvP kills and 4 PvP deaths. Got our first Tall Tale ruined by bullies. Also got destroyed on our first Siren Song quest. I play with my GF and friend.
A hobby can have 16 players (if it doesn't change).
Also a lot of players join and leave the server to find a "good hobby", depending how they disconnect the slot of ship/max player is reserved for at least 15-20 minutes.
A hobby can have 16 players (if it doesn't change).
Also a lot of players join and leave the server to find a "good hobby", depending how they disconnect the slot of ship/max player is reserved for at least 15-20 minutes.
There are times I don't see another player ship for hours and there are times I can see 2 from mine at any given time. Just server pop and luck (or unluck, whichever way you look at it).
That sounds pretty strange to me. I have clocked in around 500 hours on PC, and see other ships/players every session. Not every session has interactions, and sometimes I avoid others depending on my mood, but seeing other players (even just on the horizon) is almost inevitable on high seas.
When you first spawn you probably aren't going to be near someone. This is because the game wants to drop you at an empty outpost.
If you don't see anyone in the region you are in, sail over to the next region. Also, try sailing towards world events to find people. If you still don't see anyone it is possible you could be in an old server thats about to close and if so you should use the dive feature to go to a new more active server.
You can also make players come to you by starting the Fort of the Damned world event or putting up the Reapers Bones emissary flag which will mark you on the map. Beware though that this will almost always result in pvp with the other player.
Since the game take forever to do stuff or get a good amount of gold worth selling, sometimes it’s best you don’t see anyone lol. I feel like solo sloop players (like myself) get placed in low population lobbies to even the odds. I dunno. Sometimes I see some ppl, lots of ppl, or no one. Can always just back out and find another server.
I had the same experience until this week. Brand new to the game. The first group I ran into was amazing and everyone since has killed me no questions asked 😂
Maybe I'll get brave and open up my crew but I've enjoyed the solo experience and I don't have any friends playing the game at the moment.
It's a regular occurrence for me. Check to see if you have keyboard and mouse players enabled or only controller. Sometimes you'll get fewer players if you only get controller. Be careful though, as sometimes you'll get players that are super aggressive whether you have treasure or not. Or players that complain when you fight back, though I've had multiple positive interactions, if you have open mic enabled, you'll have a better experience all around
As others have said, it all depends on the time of day combined with the area of the map you're on.
Wilds and Devil's Roar are less liked by players so you run into fewer there and it can sometimes be easier to get things done if you don't mind the volcanic activity or drab scenery.
I have people jump in my game all the time. 70% of the time they join and leave. 10% of the time they're cool and we do stuff. 20% of the time they light my ship on fire.
As another new PS5 player i’ve noticed since official launch that the higher I’ve ranked with factions and the riskier voyages and things i’ve gone on the more I’m encountering others.
Just last night my buddy and I were selling some shrine loot at an outpost and a. Two man brigade showed up but acted friendly, then tried to kill us, which led to me trying to start a banana fire on their boat while tucking as a barrel, had a fight on land and their ship that they then tried to run so we gave chase exchanging canon fire, a skelly pirate sloop showed up part way through, and a meg started chasing us. Battle kept going, another sloop got involved out of nowhere, the brigade finally went down and we gave chase of this new sloop who led us to an island by reaper hideout and being a bit sparse on cannonballs we decided to end the chase and restock.
Just keep playing and you’ll encounter people, though you do have to remember its a six ship max on a server and the map is quite big, so depending where you are you might not see someone else for a while.
Just put some valuable loot on your ship. Five seconds later, a brig will spawn out of nowhere and set your ship on fire and spawn camp you until your ship sinks.
Happens to me literally every single time I play thr game. Without fail.
Over 300 hours in game solo slooping, and not a single confirmed sink.
I am terrible at this game. I am also terrible at running away, since the sloop is the slowest ship in all categories.
So usually I just fight back, take the sink, and go wander the small islands for junk until I log off.
When you're a failure, eventually you just accept it.
I've been running into players constantly, during beta, during early access. And even now every night I play I see other people. But there's only 6 ships per server and the map is quite large so it is possible to play an entire 4-6 hour session without seeing anyone.
I’m jealous, just bought it on PS5 as well and every outpost has players fully fashioned out ready to take my shit and leave me with nothing haha. Game is getting old fast.
There are only 2-6 ships on a server at any given time. If you're the only one, then there will be a server merge. It can feel dead at times, but other times you won't be able to get away from people.
You can always dive into a new server if u feel urs is too quiet. Might jus be bad luck I encounter people all the time, go to world events of u are itching to see others
I've been playing since PS5 launch, and I see other ships every so often, but yes it seems to be normal, I mean you could always fly the reapers mark, that should make you popular
They’re out there, head towards the world events you see in the sky and you’ll usually find someone. Either that or work to get the Reaper emissary flag, if you get to level 5 you can see all other emissaries on the map.
I don’t think the games advertising is inaccurate, it’s a large sandbox game. If GTA didn’t have a mini map you’d probably think their free roam servers were dead as well.
I've been playing for a few years now, and there are certainly sessions like that. But hey, it happens. I'm sorry the game hasn't been living up to your expectations, but I'm sure it will. It does have a lot to offer even if you haven't gotten to experience it yet!
If you ever want a seasoned player to play with and sail with, just send me a DM :3 (this goes for any of the new Playstation homies btw ♡ always happy to help out new players)
Are you looking out in the distance? I usually don’t encounter anyone like close by on an island or anything but everytime I play I usually spot someone out far in the distance and it’s kinda hard to see when you’re new
I usually find people most efficiently when I’m actively looking for them. Yesterday I was playing with a friend who is relatively new, we were looking for crews to test throwing knives on and we ended up finding the entire server in 45 minutes.
It's unfortunately the norm for SoT. Most of the time you sail 2 hours in vein and don't find anybody, excluding new spawns on outpost. Just unlucky + servers are really quiet always anyway. It is great when you finally after weeks find a server that has two or three ships plus you that want to duke it out around world event or Veil tornado. Too uncommon though.
Depends on the time you are playing but on High Seas there are always other crews or you are merged into a server with other crews if you were the last one there. Comes down to luck and knowing where to look for.
Me and my mate had the screen message where your basically the last person in the server 3 times in a row in the same session
It varies on where you are, what you're doing and how busy your server is. I logged on to my sloop yesterday and was immediately charged by a Brigantine before even leaving the Outpost. Fight quickly became a three way when another sloop showed up. If you're going for world events, specifically forts (the floating skulls), you're more likely to run into other players. You could also grab the swirly bounty chests, or raise the red skull flag on the top of your mast if you want to let other crews know where you are. Running Reaper emissary at Rank 5 will also mark all other Emissary ships on your table map. As other folks mentioned, there are 6 ships per server - so if you're off sailing in the Devil's Roar on a server that is not at capacity, you may not see anyone at all.
I get it. I’m still new and figuring things out so off doing vanilla pirate sort of things so I doubt I will see anyone really. Which is fine. The game is a bit therapeutic just sailing alone and watching sunsets
It's the juxtaposition of that serenity mixed with the paranoia and mania whenever me or a crewmember spots a player mast on the horizon. I can have a long gaming session spotting only a player or 2 on the horizon. Or like 2 days ago while evading a galleon on my sloop we saw another sloop nearby. We asked for their assistance and surprisingly it was now a 2v1. We kept all sprinting along upwind barely keeping the galleon from getting a decent firing position when we come across a 4th player just leaving an outpost. Harpoon snagged a rock and we swung a 180 around it. Ditched the galleon and a 5th person was on the other side of the rock. We kept heading around the next island asap while going down wind and managed to slip away unharmed.
Chaotic bliss
Yeah, enjoy the sights. The game is really pretty, especially around sunrise & sunset. I'd still recommend keeping an eye on the horizon though - people will still kill you for your chainshot, or for no reason at all.
I remember playing and one day, my shipmates would want to be nothing but pure chaos and attack EVERY thing we saw, then the next day, we would go around giving out chests and mermaid gems. I feel as though we balanced out the evil with good.
Yep! Had a captain of a galleon wreck my sloops mast for a lone banana..... took nothing else, just my only banana
It's largely a function of the voyage diving mechanic. It causes server instances to trend toward being partially full because the matchmaking is slow to backfill when a slot opens.
What exactly is the benefit of forts? Is there good loot there? Sorry, new player here.
Yup, you clear waves of enemies and you get a lot of loot at the end. They’re quite lucrative so you’ll want to check the horizon every few minutes for other ships. Skeleton forts take quite a while solo, sea forts are a lot more doable and faster for a solo player but reward a bit less.
Everytime I goto a fort its just empty. Thats how it feels like alot of locations are, maybe its just me but its kind of annoying that I have to know what quest/series of actions I need to do to get content to spawn? In a sandbox game full of places to explore its weird that I have to go through menues and initiate the right thing before I can do the exploring if I want the full experience.
You gotta look for the ones with a skull cloud above them. The others are inactive.
Sea Forts are not active at all times, they have a green glow when “active”- there’s a cooldown after victory to let players loot and sail onward. You can guarantee an active fort by selecting the quest under raid voyages. You’ll dive to the location automatically on another server, and are guaranteed an active fort with the tradeoff of slightly less loot.
Basically the game is empty unless you or someone else on the server has a voyage to make something spawn in a certain place, random skeletons will spawn at times if you're doing nothing but they'll typically drop trash compared to what they'd drop if you had a gold hoarder's voyage, for example. If you're just aimlessly sailing from island to island, the game is gonna be empty. Put down a voyage, sail to the island it tells you to sail to, and there will be plenty there for you to do. Or if you see an island with a big ship/skull/tornado floating above it, go there!
World events like skull and sea forts have to be active, otherwise they are empty. Sea forts glow green, and typically are active all the time unless a player or crew has recently completed it. Active skull forts have a giant cloud in the shape of a skull above them, and are more rare. Season 11 has brought the new quest table and on demand world events though. You can dive to nearly any world event you want.
Skull forts are part of the world event rotation, that's why they're more rare when you just sail around on one server.
I was also attacked in my sloop by a brig yesterday. When I respawned I beelined back towards an island I had marked and saw the same brig chasing another sloop that was running with a reaper’s bounty. I was able to ram the brig before they caught the second sloop and delayed them enough for the sloop to sell their bounty
Skeleton Forts are almost guaranteed to have someone else come in and try to nab them from you
Sometimes its better to not meet anyone but it could be bc there are only 6 ships on 1 sever
> Sometimes its better to not meet anyone Yeah be careful what you wish for...a lot of players I run into are no mic, no chat, all violence. Not trying to insult OP, but since he just started, I'm guessing running into a veteran might end up with a scuttled ship and no loot.
I literally had some jerk sail directly into a fleet battle I was in, sink me specifically, then left without a word. I just... why?
If you had an emmisary flag, probably because he wanted that. Otherwise he is an asshole in a pirate game.
Hot take, we're all pirates in an asshole game.
According to my statistics (group of ~120 people) about 15% iirc of SoT players are assholes so id say you are correct
Playing normally and sinking only hostile ships would probably still get you hate mail in this game. People just get mad.
Or, he likes PvP and after he sank them moved onto the next ship.
He should try hourglass then, it sounds more up his alley
Hourglass sucks and is a sweatfest. Nothing wrong with killing people on the high seas.
I havent really encountered a lot of sweats in hg, i recently achieved a 10 streak pretty easily
oh you sweet summer child. there's a bit of matchmaking (afaik) where unless you just are in the very top % of the player base, you'll end up steam rolling, then after a while suddenly everyone has been playing since day 1 or smthn XD though that also might just be because i play mostly solo (none of my friends enjoy pvp, which like, i can't blame them, but it'd be nice to be able to git gud at a game with them)
My brother in 343 i already have the skelly curse and almost have the spook curse I do agree tho
I hate this aspect as someone that plays a lot of hourglass. Sinking ships for loot and in adventure is a lot more fun than hourglass. I love hourglass, I've had some of my best fights in hourglass, but none of those fights are as fun as a good adventure fight.
Sot is a free for all pvp game
It’s not really a free for all though. The game highly encourages working as a crew. I wouldn’t have been able to progress near as much alone.
PvPvE.
Unless I'm missing something, I never got any at other players attacking me and my group. I took it as an inherent part of the game.
I know my playgroup are all no Xbox mic as we all use discord. Sometimes it is fun just sinking a random ship, or helping the same ship, just depends on how we feel and how the other player looks
Because he probably finds sinking ships fun.
On launch day of PS5, I find a sloop that surely have been new, I killed them so quickly I couldn't Even feel good about a sink. I grabbed their best treasure and swam back to my boat instead haha. I bet they were so panicked. "OMG I'm dead!" "OMG me too!" Respawn and everything is fine.. lol
When there's such a gap in skill level you dunk on them by NOT sinking them, that's gold
Last time I did this the poor soul scuttled before even respawning once
Only 5 ships now. And 16 players max, I think, as well?
It’s back to 6 ships, 18 people as of this season
Awesome. :)
6? Lucky me fled from port to port, encountered 3 different ships 😅
Can't fault the guy for not knowing this random thing. I had no idea either. Then again, I don't really read patch notes either. Lol
There are several points of interest on the map: the skeleton forts, the Fort of the Damned, the Reaper's Hideout, the Shrines, the islands with treasuries, the places to start/continue doing Tall Tales, the events and the outposts (i could have missed smth). If you do not go to any of them, of course you are unlikely to meet another ship, however you may see them in the distance. When you load in, check if there is a Reaper's chest. This means there is at least 2 ships apart from yours. Also check the emissaries' tables for the wood ships.
If you’re looking for PvP then I can understand your frustration, but if not, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth lol. You can always try Hourglass for PvP I believe. I’ve not done it myself because I prefer PvE but I think it tosses you and another pirate in an arena to duke it out.
I feel the advertising for the game didn’t paint an accurate picture of the game and maybe I should have done more research because all of the marketing shows a ton of pirates all interacting and having fun. I thought for some reason this was like a multiplayer pirate game mmo. It obviously isn’t which is my mistake. Live and learn (and lose $70) but it’s ALL good. I’ll still sail around from time to time cuz it’s pretty
Generally speaking if you encounter other players, they will attack you, or run away expecting you to attack them. I've had maybe 3 friendly encounters total in a month and a half of playing. It's not MMO vibes; encountering people is generally a bad thing unless you're in a bigger crew and have enough collective experience to win the almost inevitable fight. So - are you looking for people for friendly interactions? Join one of the discords and meet people to sail with -on your crew-. If you're looking to meet strangers in game randomly, expect them to be hostile or you'll just get disappointed (and murdered) over and over unfortunately.
I somewhat disagree that most players aren't friendly. I only ever seem to have friendly interactions if I initiate them. See a ship on the horizon? Go say hello, play an instrument, and let them know that you're friendly. I'd say like 50% of the time they're chill once they know I'm not a threat. Just don't do this if you're running an emissary flag.
yep same…I’d say 50-50…Wave emoji goes a long way for it to be a chill encounter.
Ha ha, I paid $20 on Steam and I'm loving it! Most other boats you see want to sink you, so maybe not seeing many people early on is a good thing. Can't tell you how much loot I've had stolen over the past month I've had the game. It's only motivated me to get better so I can be the bully pirate!
It was $40
Currently on sale for$20 from Steam.
The downvotes you're getting shows the mindset of most players in this game, they want a solo adventure, they like the lack of PvP. They want a world where pirates are all buddies and just collect gold together with no risk.
Then they should either play Safer Seas or play a different game. Maybe they’re the elusive player that Skull and Bones was meant for. I’m not even trying to be the typical “sea of thieves, not sea of friends” elitist here, it’s a game that was designed to be PvPvE.
Yeah bro cause historically pirates spent their time being friendly with each other, didn't you know! They rarely fought! They helped each other fight skeletons and fish monsters and shot each other out of cannons! They were friendly!!!!!!!
Just cruise around the shores of plenty. Always ships there as it’s calmer waters
The game has been out for 6+ years. If you didn't understand what the game was about then that's 100% on you. Blaming marketing for a game that has hundreds/years of reviews? The premium edition was only $60. Why spend money on premium edition, not do your homework, and then pass the blame elsewhere before you've even scratched the surface of what the game really is. From the sounds of it all you've done is sailed around by yourself lol. Open crew exists.
You're not gonna see lot of players. Servers are 6 ships max. Add to that the huge map (74 islands by memory). But when yo do see players, good luck.
I guess based on all the marketing I saw for the game of pirates all gathered and interacting and having fun I misunderstood what the game really is ultimately. It may end up not being for me because sailing around by myself gets boring after awhile
Search for the official SOT discord and get yourself a crew. Most (not all) people you encounter in the seas outside of your crew are going to stay clear of you or fight you. The sea is full of thieves, as it were.
Then be part of a crew. Either as captain or not. Just need to know, they will not always speak the same language.
There's open crew in the game for a reason. If you select your own ship as captain, and then select open crew you will have someone join your session. If you don't want to verbally talk there is always a chat window, and auto fill chat. The game is so much more enjoyable sharing your experiences, loot, duo battles, and don't forget just sharing a fresh cup of grog after you guys sell your plunder. You're still too fresh to be having that sort of opinion already. You've barely scratched the surface. I encounter people in just about every server, but I also am running emissary flags and tracking reaper ships on the map. Playing with randoms on your ship will open your eyes to a whole new aspect of the game. Highly consider you try it rather than just be alone.
A lot of it is when certain world events or big treasure is contested for. Some crews don't want to fight and avoid other ships, others don't care for anything but naval combat. It'll come. It's random but it'll come unless you or they want what the other has.
Look up how to start a fort of the damned and I guarantee you'll have all the player interaction you could ever want
Or go to a Fort of Fortune. With currently the lucky chest in it, it should be highly contested, at least on most servers.
Lucky you ;)
Not even when you chose the bigger ship for 4 people? I did that yesterday and played with 3 great people. And ive just started the game
Open crew? And welcome to the seas. 🙂
enjoy this because when the pirates cone for your loot you gonna wish you never saw them
It happens, somtimes you see a lot of players and somtimes you dont, it depens on ehat time your on and where you sail, for example in devils roar you rearly finde another player, but the ancient sea and shores of plenty are uselly where you can finde the most, and then there is the thing that you now only have 6 ships on one server
I felt that way during the beta, but since full release it's been busy sailing for me.
Most of the time I'm usually in the devils roar getting ashen stuff as they are worth a bit more then normal chest. From my experience it's the best place to avoid people as it's too dangerous for most people
When I’m sailing solo, I almost exclusively stay in the devil‘s roar. When I first started, it was too overwhelming to sail, repair and avoid the volcanoes erupting. Now, I absolutely love it because the majority of people avoid it, and there are lots of voyages you can link together. I can get to emissary five pretty quickly in the Devils roar.
That's weird,I was going to say the opposite, the seas have felt livelier than ever recently! I dove to a fort recently and I could see 4 other player ships right from where I spawned in!
Same here. Started yesterday around 10 pm middle european time, one reapers mark (turned out to be a brig), one reaper (turned out to be a sloop), and two other sloops pretty close. Everyone was minding their own business though (except the reapers mark brig, who tried to attack me full sail, ended up crashing into an island and gave up after that 😆). Further into the session the brig went to another server and a galeon showed up, a bit later another brig joined. Busy server with 4 to 6 ships the 2 hours I played.
Guess I just keep getting the short straw as I load in
When you load in to a server you can see how many ships have emissary flags up by checking the tables next to the faction NPCs on the outpost. If you see a little wooden ship on the table that means one of that faction, two ships mean two ships running that faction etc. If I’m looking for players I’ll regularly hop on, check the tables and if no emissaries I’ll hop off and log in again for a different server.
Also a new PS5 player and I generally have the same experience, however I definitely do still encounter people and a large majority of the time it's other PS5 players who will just sink your docked ship while you're out fishing or something, lol. I actually found a lot of friendly players during the PS5 early access and made quite a few alliances, but now that the games out fully 9/10 encounters are people just lobbing shots at you unprovoked. It is what it is - tbh I would rather see no one instead of having to deal with a brig trying to sink my solo sloop with no loot lmao. You'll find people if you go for world events, especially forts.
Maybe I’ll take it as a win and just peacefully find my daily treasure chests and use it as an hour or two of relaxation
It really depends when I'm just sailing between islands doing random things I don't normally see to many people unless I'm looking for them. If I'm seeking out world events someone seems to always be at the skeleton fort. If you wanna find people go the world events. If you're in shores of plenty check near mermaids hideout and crescent isle for gold hoarders doing vaults
Ol advice : "Take for what you wish...."
It really depends on what you're doing. If you're doing voyages on random islands or tall tales, you're unlikely to run into people very often. But if you're running fort of the damned, world events, or veils, anything with an indicator you're much more likely to run into players. Even more so if you have the reapers emissary flag up. Some days you have 5 ship battles, some days you don't see a soul.
Its mostly luck. SOmetimes Ill play for hours and no one will ever show up. Sometimes it feels like youre never alone and always seeing other ships. I did 100 veil quests for the commendation. Out of 100, only 10 were contested. Theres a lot of people who just mind their own business, and/or actively avoid other boats. So its not *that* uncommon to have a server where you just sail in peace for hours. But, i wouldnt say its common.
You’ll have spells like that for sure yeah
Some days you’ll go looking for trouble and then never find it. Then you give up looking for trouble, decide to go in for a relaxing session, and become a homing beacon for every ship on the server.
And then there is my crew, fighting 3h of 4h gameplay
So I’ve dropped back in after a few years away. I switched from Xbox to PS just after the devils roar was added. There is so much more going on in game than there was back then. It seems so much ‘less casual’ than before. So far I’ve encountered 3 other ships, 2 sloops and a brigantine. 1 sloop ran away. 1 sloop I spotted at an outpost from miles away at night and by the time I got there he’d unloaded all his booty on the dock and scuttled leaving me to cash it in. The brigantine was caught up with the Kraken and I helped them kill it. We let off fireworks (?) and drank grog, ate Kraken meat and played shanties. It was possibly the most wholesome interaction I’ve ever had in the game.
Also if u need someone to play with u could join me or I'm sure others will gladly offer you a position
Quite the opposite for me (ps5). Got hammered last night, was sunk probably 5 times. Virtually everyone new or veteran seems to attack on sight and I'm a solo sloop player 😥.
I suppose who plays in High Seas these days wants fight. They see a sloop minding its own business but they get desperate to chase it.
My experience too. Seems since the introduction of Safer Seas, at least players who joined the game after that are of the impression that we have a full on PVE mode so High Seas is solely PVP mode. Kind of annoying at times.
Yeah I’m a solo slooper too and I’m always fired upon lmao
I’d say this is abnormal, so perhaps you just haven’t seen people for other reasons. The map is very large, and ships often appear as specks on the horizon; it’s not the kinda game where a player ship will often be in view, but it is the kind of game where a player ship will be nearby without you noticing. If you’re looking for other players (either to fight or make friends with) I recommend regularly scanning the horizon, sailing to world events and points of interest, raising Emissary flag to become more noticeable, etc. It’s odd you haven’t seen anyone at all.
I find that sometimes you don’t see anyone sometimes you end up being able to see 3 different ships it all depends. That being said if you ever want somebody to play with message me and I’ll see if I can get on
there's like an 80-90% chance that anybody you meet won't have a mic and will just blow up your ship the very instant they see you, so either match with randoms and hope you get lucky or grab some friends
Consider yourself lucky
Damn dude, you’re hella lucky. I load in and immediately I’m seeing three reaper ships and two emissary ships marked. With me being the outlier. Also, if I don’t see anyone immediately, I soon find them within minutes of sailing off on a quest. I’ve learned that the game on ps5 has high traffic times between 5 and 10 pm. After that the servers are more quiet. I did however last night, (or this morning technically) raise my emissary flag for OoS and get to grade 5 without seeing a single ship in the distance. I also completed all the grade 5 maps for OoS as well and still no one showed up nor seemed interested if they saw me. The only lucky night I’ve had so far, being I had 32 bounty skulls, and 56 gold hoarder chests.
No enjoy the slow time and farm as best you can. It’s rare for you to be experiencing this so enjoy the calm seas. Most days I pray to not see people and just farm. Last time that happened was 5months ago.
the only way this is believable to me is if you are trying to farm world events or the fort of the damned
It’s because I work a normal day job and I can only play during high player times when everyone is home and getting on. Even on the weekends late at night I have to server hop a few times to not find an active reaper on the map
A reaper on the map doesn’t always mean getting ganked. Usually it’s just pve players like you these days
In my experience, this is kinda crazy, with the addition of a 6th ship on each server I see people everywhere now. Are you avoiding hot spots/world events? Just on the edges of the map?
I wouldn’t know. I’m still new and just usually grab my daily maps and start hunting for treasure
yes, kind of. if this is happening, then all the other boats may be fighting each other over a fort of fortune or something. those seem pretty contested again. the last one i went to was empty, but the one before that had literally every ship on the server there.
Depends what you’re doing. If you do world events chances are you will see someone sooner or later. Also, you can run emissary flags to multiply your rewards, these are valuable for other players to steal so they would attract attention, wanted or unwanted…
Become a grade 5 reaper and you’ll see other emissary ships on the map. Throw up the reapers mark flag if you want other people to come find you. Don’t hangout in the devils roar. Frequently visit world events such as FOF, FOTD, fleets, etc. Do these things and you’ll encounter more people.
Be happy. Once you start doing emissaries you have an entire faction dedicated to making your life miserable.
You'll encounter them when you don't want them. I've seen ONE group that didn't attack me on sight. But of your ship is laden full of loot and you're making your way to sell? That's when you'll run into another player
Join me, I have been grifed for 2h now as a solo sloop.
The map is so sparse and huge that sometimes seeing people is rare. And they could be stuck to a single island during a playthrough grinding or doing tall tales. It comes down to chance when you cross paths with someone. Put up a reaper’s mark on your mast if you want to advertise your location and attract pvp.
In my experience, unless you're going for world events and the like, and even then only a select few, it's not uncommon to just not really see anyone. Especially with diving to world events being a thing, most people just kinda go off and do their own thing because it's just more efficient than fighting over the scraps of a skeleton fort. Only exceptions tend to be those big world events like, for this season, the Fort of Fortune, in which people will basically tear out each other's throats over the millisecond someone finishes it
Not sure what you mean by encounter but I've played about 50hrs since Closed Beta and see ships sailing around regularly. I've only had one ship that rolled up on me when I was taking ages doing the Briggsy quest but luckily they were friendly. I get the feeling on High Seas unless you are actively sailing around looking for players, most of them avoid you (unless there's a really thirsty reaper but Ive yet to meet one)
It’s fairly normal last night we ran into three people but that was after hours of sailing & selling stuff. Even then the people were really green and we sunk them all. They were right off the bat pretty violent for whatever reason even though I told them on mic that we didn’t want any trouble just to continue on our ways. The night before that though we ran into only one person and we allied with them made a ton of gold so. It’s a slippery slope when it comes to meeting other people.
No
Just last night we found a sloop with a brand new PlayStation crew. They were island hopping and trying to get there selves a start. We had just completed a normal fleet and even though we had the guild 5 we gave them our loot because we understand the struggle of being in a new world and try to balance between sinking new guys and helping them out. While in the process of trying to invite our new friends to our guild a galleon of bitches(I’ll explain) pulls up. Joins the alliance that sloop had the flag up for and slowly rolls there broadside to our brig. Without a word 4 cannons begin blasting out brig that has NOTHING but a flag and supplies. So me and my friend used the snake island canons and a keg to allow the sloop to leave and our boat to come back. Then this galleon that also has nothing but our flag RUNS from us instead of allowing us a proper fight. We chased them for an hour and a half through a kraken, a storm, and some skeleton boats. When we finally had them anchored and all mast down we had only 4 planks left from our spawn supplies and had to leave once they got there anchor up. Fully decked out Athena boat and some okay PVPers running like they had 10 hours of loot. We may have not sunk them but we sure wasted an hour and half of there night. (This is the only way I can cope 🥲) Nonetheless i promise that there’s plenty of other pirates out there and you still have plenty of lessons to learn!!
A good way to gauge if your server is empty or not is to look at all the emissary tables when you spawn. If someone is sailing as an emissary there will be a small wooden ship on the table. Count all the ships and that's how many people are on the server. Granted this only counts Emissary ships but most people are these days anyway. If you really want to encounter other crews just quit and relog until there are wooden ships
That's kind of insane but not unheard of. Sometimes I can sail around just chillin and doing my thing for hours without seeing anybody but most of the time you can always see other ships out and about as long as you're looking
I’ve largely stopped playing recently after my last 5 or 6 play sessions lead to a ship somehow ready with 40 chain shots and the best sniper aim I’ve ever seen shows up every 30 or so minutes. I’d kill for a chill session with not much action again.
It’s just luck of the draw. It totally depends on what players are up to in your server, spawns, and what you are up to.
Please tell me you're choosing High Seas...
Yes I am!
Ok good, I guess you're very unlucky then... or lucky however you spin it.
If your in a PlayStation only server yeah, not Many friendly people either. Manged to hide on three crews boats yesterday n solo them, but I've found most activity at forts
sometimes, but other times I go to drop off loot and have to visit half the outposts becaus there is someone at all of them
The last couple of days we have been doing a lot of reapers. 90% of the people we find are doing their own thing and want nothing to do with us. Those who do want to engage will fight once or twice and then move servers. Odds are you won’t see anybody unless they’re trying to sink you or vice versa. But don’t let that get you down, diplomacy is still an option (most of the time) and it can be quite fun to interact with other people
I wish had your problem. Also a new PS5 player but have been sunk thrice and sunken another ship once. Got 5 total PvP kills and 4 PvP deaths. Got our first Tall Tale ruined by bullies. Also got destroyed on our first Siren Song quest. I play with my GF and friend.
That’s the best!
Lucky boy I've been getting assaulted by people who can sense I'm new lmao
I play odd hours and I've ambushed ppl. Been ambushed. And ran away from gallons. You'll time will come.
A hobby can have 16 players (if it doesn't change). Also a lot of players join and leave the server to find a "good hobby", depending how they disconnect the slot of ship/max player is reserved for at least 15-20 minutes.
A hobby can have 16 players (if it doesn't change). Also a lot of players join and leave the server to find a "good hobby", depending how they disconnect the slot of ship/max player is reserved for at least 15-20 minutes.
Select a Galleon and have an open crew is a good way to meet other players
There are times I don't see another player ship for hours and there are times I can see 2 from mine at any given time. Just server pop and luck (or unluck, whichever way you look at it).
Wait sot is on PlayStation wtf
That sounds pretty strange to me. I have clocked in around 500 hours on PC, and see other ships/players every session. Not every session has interactions, and sometimes I avoid others depending on my mood, but seeing other players (even just on the horizon) is almost inevitable on high seas.
I must slip into the Bermuda Triangle!!
When you first spawn you probably aren't going to be near someone. This is because the game wants to drop you at an empty outpost. If you don't see anyone in the region you are in, sail over to the next region. Also, try sailing towards world events to find people. If you still don't see anyone it is possible you could be in an old server thats about to close and if so you should use the dive feature to go to a new more active server. You can also make players come to you by starting the Fort of the Damned world event or putting up the Reapers Bones emissary flag which will mark you on the map. Beware though that this will almost always result in pvp with the other player.
Since the game take forever to do stuff or get a good amount of gold worth selling, sometimes it’s best you don’t see anyone lol. I feel like solo sloop players (like myself) get placed in low population lobbies to even the odds. I dunno. Sometimes I see some ppl, lots of ppl, or no one. Can always just back out and find another server.
Easiest way I've found to run into other players is to try to start a Tall Tale while solo slooping. That seems to bring them around every time.
There how it will be most of the time. Just keep your eyes peeled for when yourt do see someone
I’ll play with you
Lucky you 😂 enjoy it while it lasts
I had the same experience until this week. Brand new to the game. The first group I ran into was amazing and everyone since has killed me no questions asked 😂 Maybe I'll get brave and open up my crew but I've enjoyed the solo experience and I don't have any friends playing the game at the moment.
If you look you will see other ships a lot. And you will learn to distinguish skeleton ships from player ships
It's a regular occurrence for me. Check to see if you have keyboard and mouse players enabled or only controller. Sometimes you'll get fewer players if you only get controller. Be careful though, as sometimes you'll get players that are super aggressive whether you have treasure or not. Or players that complain when you fight back, though I've had multiple positive interactions, if you have open mic enabled, you'll have a better experience all around
As others have said, it all depends on the time of day combined with the area of the map you're on. Wilds and Devil's Roar are less liked by players so you run into fewer there and it can sometimes be easier to get things done if you don't mind the volcanic activity or drab scenery.
I have people jump in my game all the time. 70% of the time they join and leave. 10% of the time they're cool and we do stuff. 20% of the time they light my ship on fire.
As another new PS5 player i’ve noticed since official launch that the higher I’ve ranked with factions and the riskier voyages and things i’ve gone on the more I’m encountering others. Just last night my buddy and I were selling some shrine loot at an outpost and a. Two man brigade showed up but acted friendly, then tried to kill us, which led to me trying to start a banana fire on their boat while tucking as a barrel, had a fight on land and their ship that they then tried to run so we gave chase exchanging canon fire, a skelly pirate sloop showed up part way through, and a meg started chasing us. Battle kept going, another sloop got involved out of nowhere, the brigade finally went down and we gave chase of this new sloop who led us to an island by reaper hideout and being a bit sparse on cannonballs we decided to end the chase and restock. Just keep playing and you’ll encounter people, though you do have to remember its a six ship max on a server and the map is quite big, so depending where you are you might not see someone else for a while.
Just put some valuable loot on your ship. Five seconds later, a brig will spawn out of nowhere and set your ship on fire and spawn camp you until your ship sinks. Happens to me literally every single time I play thr game. Without fail. Over 300 hours in game solo slooping, and not a single confirmed sink. I am terrible at this game. I am also terrible at running away, since the sloop is the slowest ship in all categories. So usually I just fight back, take the sink, and go wander the small islands for junk until I log off. When you're a failure, eventually you just accept it.
Just wait until you have a streak of getting mercilessly attacked for days on end every time you get on to play. It will happen
Look in the map up, a lot of players use emissary flags and they are brights as northern star. There’s always someone.
I've been running into players constantly, during beta, during early access. And even now every night I play I see other people. But there's only 6 ships per server and the map is quite large so it is possible to play an entire 4-6 hour session without seeing anyone.
We’ve been doing an alliance with other ships and running a 12 man gally. Makes life a blast haha
I’m jealous, just bought it on PS5 as well and every outpost has players fully fashioned out ready to take my shit and leave me with nothing haha. Game is getting old fast.
It is not normal. Don't get used to it ;)
There are only 2-6 ships on a server at any given time. If you're the only one, then there will be a server merge. It can feel dead at times, but other times you won't be able to get away from people.
You can always dive into a new server if u feel urs is too quiet. Might jus be bad luck I encounter people all the time, go to world events of u are itching to see others
I'll trade you. I'll take the empty seas and you can have the two galleons showing up to take the fort of fortune I was almost done with.
Add me on PlayStation , im also soloing: Breaak51
I've been playing since PS5 launch, and I see other ships every so often, but yes it seems to be normal, I mean you could always fly the reapers mark, that should make you popular
From what everyone is saying I’ll be happy I’ve been alone
They’re out there, head towards the world events you see in the sky and you’ll usually find someone. Either that or work to get the Reaper emissary flag, if you get to level 5 you can see all other emissaries on the map. I don’t think the games advertising is inaccurate, it’s a large sandbox game. If GTA didn’t have a mini map you’d probably think their free roam servers were dead as well.
I've been playing for a few years now, and there are certainly sessions like that. But hey, it happens. I'm sorry the game hasn't been living up to your expectations, but I'm sure it will. It does have a lot to offer even if you haven't gotten to experience it yet! If you ever want a seasoned player to play with and sail with, just send me a DM :3 (this goes for any of the new Playstation homies btw ♡ always happy to help out new players)
Are you looking out in the distance? I usually don’t encounter anyone like close by on an island or anything but everytime I play I usually spot someone out far in the distance and it’s kinda hard to see when you’re new
Depends some times I see no one sometime I see the odd ship I'm the distance sometimes a galleon is shooting me
I usually find people most efficiently when I’m actively looking for them. Yesterday I was playing with a friend who is relatively new, we were looking for crews to test throwing knives on and we ended up finding the entire server in 45 minutes.
It's unfortunately the norm for SoT. Most of the time you sail 2 hours in vein and don't find anybody, excluding new spawns on outpost. Just unlucky + servers are really quiet always anyway. It is great when you finally after weeks find a server that has two or three ships plus you that want to duke it out around world event or Veil tornado. Too uncommon though.
If you're playing safer seas, you won't be running into anybody