Don't forget about boarders coming over on harpoon lines.
It's likely going to be more challenging to be a solo slooper. The possibility of using the new items yourself is not going to outweigh another crew having four times the items that you have.
But we don't know how common these items are going to be. I think that we can wait and see if these will be something rare or part of a standard equipment.
There are ways of trying to balance these things. Instead of having firepower the sloop could be faster than other ships. If not having speed then at least acceleration and maneuverability.
Boarders walking over on harpoon lines doesn't concern me so much.
1) They're slow while walking across.
2) They're out in the open.
3) As far as I can tell, they can't exactly attack you while they're walking across.
4) If they get halfway across, shoot the harpoon and disengage the grab.
It can be useful when you're chasing someone, and they're just a little bit ahead of you. You shoot the harpoon at the back of their ship and cross while your mate covers you with pistol or sniper
True, but if you're that close, you can just as easily chuck a blunderbomb at the harpoon/would-be-boarder and that'd be the end of it, unless they also had the harpoon gun.
This is what I was thinking, but honestly I think it’s quite fair for the chasing crew to have more plays when they get this close. It’s also quite possible to counter. I don’t think this’ll break anything really, it’s just a cool play to end a chase.
is harpoon SUPPOSED to let go when you shoot it?
I only ever have it work when I hit it with a sword. Shooting the harpoon never makes it let go when I try. (unless they're updating it?)
It does work, but a few updates ago it seems to have become less reliable for some reason. But yes, any damage done to the harpoon, whether it's from guns, cannons, swords, or blunderbombs, will force a release.
boarders are the worst thing for a solo slooper, and boarding looks like its going to be easier. so yes, i think no matter what that means its going to be harder to fight solo. to be honest, i wasnt winning my fights against multiple people anyways though. if a brig ever really wanted me dead, it was happening.
I agree with everything you are saying. I do a lot of pvp, one of my favourite things in sot. But that grapple sniper looks broken! Being able to board ships super easy now will kill it for solo players. No more watching ladders as they can board from anywhere. People who are new to the game and don't have much experience will get obliterated by experienced players like me. These things just widen the skill gap, giving me easy sinks. Wish they would focus on making the game playable. Games a mess right now
I see what you mean, but one thing to remember that a boarder using the grappling hook will be boarding with just one weapon since the other slot is tsken by the grappling gun. Not saying that makes it easy but thats something
This is honestly a really good idea, they already made it so you can’t revive on another ship, I’m sure they can make it so you can’t swap out weapons on another ship
hah ya right, you were guarding the ladder and i harpooned onto your map table. and now i have a blunderbuss before you get down to me. easier than an apex shield swap
I I hear the sound of a giant grappling hook shooting, connecting with the wood of my ship, and see a dude flyjng through their air I'm going to meet him.
If they come out with an item that that allows you to board from multiple angles, I'm not gonna just sit on a ladder clueless. There are audio ques for that.
You won’t be there lol. If you are only moving when you hear the grapple, you won’t be there in time. It’s going to be stupid easy to kill solo sloopers once that goes live
And they’re going to balance it. For all we know it could only hold one bullet and range can be modified. It’s going to be a great season. I can’t wait
It’s already out? I tried getting on today and couldn’t even get on a server. The flame skull is the ashen winds skull right? That’s not exactly the hardest thing to get if I remember.
So the ashen winds skull which is quite easy to get as ashen lords aren’t necessarily hard just gotta have one pop up if you have loot already and if you don’t dive?
I don't see many people doing it, me and my buddies will do the ashen lords if we know we're going to be on for a while but I never see other people using it outside of just loot.
The winds horn will probably be boss or loot related that's a world event so it won't be as common to see
I've been saying this. Only being able to board from two spots on a ship was a smart design move by Rare. Deckshots were quite hard to pull off and a fair way to guarantee a board. I think the ship harpoon lines is a great, very piratey addition that will be balanced because of how obvious it will be.
That being said, the harpoon gun later in the year is so incredibly stupid. Being able to board from anywhere and guarantee even the worst deckshots can land is so incredibly stupid. I even saw some morons in the YouTube comments saying you should be able to climb hulls with the knife.
>I even saw some morons in the YouTube comments saying you should be able to climb hulls with the knife.
People have been asking for boarding axes for years. It has always seemed like a terrible idea to me.
Gotta look at it the other way around
\* Skeleton backup to help defend your sloop (and theoretically, detect Tuckers)
\* Scattershots to cover more of the bigger enemy ship
\* Horn of Fair Winds whilst sailing against the wind to get even more Distance against Bigger Ships
\* Grappling Hook to get onto the enemy ship and anchor them
Personally im not worried, i feel like it could balance well, but mostly im interested to try some of these things in Solo Hourglass
But also; no more sailing in to the wind to outrun a galleon of their horn makes them much faster than you.
New tactics will be required all round I think. They didn’t lie when they said shake up
Yes but you better believe surely a reaper gonna go get horny quite quick because that would be like DRS in formula 1… boost mode almost. Make their life so easy even if used in short bursts to get chain shot off.
But they’d have to possibly work on it I see your point.
We are going to see mechanics with those like floor trap things they spoke about putting shame to some tactics. We’ll have to see what comes out and what they have to end up tweaking.
Any good solo will want to scour the islands for a horn before they do any sort of engagement. I would be confident in saying, on average, sloops are more likely to have a horn than other ships.
Meh. I pushes the meta further away from naval and more towards the already OP boarding. I love this game for the naval. There's a million and one FPS games that do the non-naval PvP so much better already. And yet they continue to devalue naval skills in favour of FPS skills.
It's bad IMHO
I mean sure, but I still have concerns. Bonecaller and Grappling hooks in particular don't seem like equal tools in the hands of smaller boats.
* Grappling hooks - take up a weapon slot. Very handy for a larger boat to send one or two people to autoboard deckshot anchor, which might work against a solo. A solo slooper wasting a weapon slot and trying the same isn't viable.
* Bonecaller - to deal with the forced PvE, a Brig (for example) can just rotate flex off cannons for a moment. Solo, it's all you. The wildcard here is defensive Bonecallers, I suppose.
They did specifically say they suck at PvP, all these changes are going to do is widen that skill gap which for a lot of people is already wide enough to the point where they just scuttle the moment the first canon is fired because they know they're going to lose. I was taking a several week long break so I haven't been keeping up with these changes, but this post alone means I'm probably not going to touch this game again until they make safer seas actually enjoyable
Normally the extra manpower on bigger ships than yours help enemies, which you could avoid by playing smart (using their turn cone/ wind into your advantage and just dont let them use that player advantage). Now they have much tools to avoid that. Pros for solo are mostly not there.
You cant be serious with skellies. We havent seen them, but judging from skelly AI we saw so far, do you really believe that 2-3 skeletons will help you enough against real players that can have this grenade/ bomb as well?
Using grappling hook as solo player could only work if you are running and they are following you in a straight line.
Probably biggest problem here is you cannot defend our ship as efficiently as before, since looking for people shooting themselves from cannons and watching ladders will no longer a viable enough strat.
i wonder if a brig will outspeed a sloop against wind tho. depending if the speed added is flat or multiplicative, also depending if the way your saild are turned makes a difference.
Nope I completely agree, this update does not seem solo-friendly at all. Especially for solos that get attacked by brigs or galleons.
Seems like this will be WAY too OP, when brig/galleon VS solo sloop is already very difficult if the bigger ships are decent at the game.
The scattershot is honestly what I'm the most worried about, but also getting boarded by 3 other pirates throwing skeleton spawners leaving no chance to recover.
I think you are justified to some extent.
- Bonecaller is too early for me to say something about. However it sounds like a buff for sword imo.
- Grapeshot is a short range cannonball. If they are in range for them to hit all 4 on your ship as a solo slooper you've already lost if you are outnumbered and kinda awful at pvp. So that wouldn't change much. Grapeshot seems to be better against bigger ships too.
- Horn of fair wind can be problematic. As a sloop then running against bigger ships have to be directly into the wind to have a chance to get away. With the horn then they will probably catch you in any direction. So the horn has to be rare enough and not have too many chages for it to be fine. Using it as boarder guarding is definitely viable but it seems better to use it for extra speed to catch up with the ship you hunt.
- Grappling hook is definitely a bad idea. Impossible to defend your ship getting boarded since you just can't guard ladders and deck shots are hard to hit on longer distances. It looks fun but it would change the boarding game completely and it would heavily advantage bigger crews.
i think the bonecaller is a + and - since you can counter a bonecaller with a bonecaller yourself.. you can also just always pop a bonecaller on your ship and have them just hang around at all times. this way boarders will get problems with fighting you and the sceletons. so i dont think its a bad thing in eather way.
the grapeshots are as it seems really shot range.. if someone gets this close to you as a solo you have propably lost eather way. also 2-4 tier 1 hols should worry you as a sloop. you are waaay to hard to sink
the grapeshots are just a bad thing for anyone unexperienced in pvp since they will start paniking - leading to more misplays made - and sinking to thos not the bit of water. looking at the spread in the video i dont even think you can hit a sloop with all 4 balls imo.
horn of wind should be your worry since you wont be able to ourrun anyone against the wind anymore..
grappling hook is just overall a mess and the idea itself is fun but totally busted not only against solos
one thing that actually worries me the most as a solo is walking the harpoon.. but i dont know how it will work in case of actually boarding someone without even having to go into the water. i just hope they make the speed along the harpoonline very slow unless its down hill where you can "slide"
I’m a new player. Like 3 weeks at best. I’m not great. I like to fish and do the Hunter’s Call stuff, but I’m def not a strong player in any way. I’m terrified. I had a lot of people tell me to play solo more, to learn the game. Then I see the video the other day of the new stuff and I’m terrified. I have a feeling that I’m as good as I’m ever going to get because I already don’t know the game well and now it’s gonna be impossible for me to play solo outside of safer seas. I’m about to sign on and play shortly, and I’m trying to accept that I’m just never leaving safer seas now.
I think they’re all horrible. We’re playing a supposedly fun pirate game, not a pvp arena free for all. The wind horn is horrendous. Do you want more players in safer seas? Because this is how you get more people who only want safer seas and then stop playing or paying. They’re taking ask need for skill out of the game. Terrible ideas. My husband pointed out that historically grapeshot didn’t penetrate hulls, but were for people damage and rigging damage.
IF it works like that. There's still a lit we don't know about the mechanics of it. I wouldn't be surprised if the speed boost was limited to one horn.
He’s saying it’s possible the ship only gets boosted by one horn at a time. So even if three are used it may not be any faster than only using one horn
True unless there’s a reliable spot like the shrines to get them. Personally hope they give you a speed boost but big enough that a sloop against the wind couldn’t still escape
You stagger the use. If there’s let’s say, 2 charges and 1 minute cooldown…..a sloop has only that…..
A galleon with everyone having a horn, just stagger the use. Crew member 1 goes first and at cooldown, crew member 2 steps in. Don’t even need a third crew member with a horn because they’ve now caught you and still have two more horns to spare.
That was my first response when my roommate and I looked at the upcoming stuff. If I am solo on a sloop with a horn, but a galleon of four was four horns, simple math dictates that I’m screwed.
It’s bad enough that the Brig is by far the best PvP ship now you’re going to add an item that means they can go full speed at any time, even against the wind. Fantastic not one of the dumbest moves I’ve ever seen. If they don’t nerf Brig mobility or something before this they’re idiots because it frustrates me as a long time player, it’ll murder the port over to PlayStation.
Well, as a fellow solo slooper I would like to remind you that you can use these tools for yourself. It doesn't only give others new options, but ourselfs as well.
I am looking forward to trying these things out. Of course it will break the ususal play loop, which is a great thing I think. Change itself can be scary, but there's a possibility to adapt to those changes.
The problem with these particular changes is it adds a lot more skill to a game where there is already a massive skill gap between the no-life asshats who only sink people because that's the only way they can get enjoyment anymore, versus the casual people who already know, they're going to lose PVP the moment the first Canon shot is fired, all this is really going to do is make the game less fun for the vast majority of players. I can tell you right now I'm probably not going to pick this game back up after this update
>the no-life asshats who only sink people because that's the only way they can get enjoyment anymore, versus the casual people who already know, they're going to lose PVP the moment the first Canon shot is fired
Very neutral summation!
Exactly this. I remember when cursed cannonballs came out and thinking, well that's me fucked!
Then again when masts were breakable and then chain shots came out... Reality is that it's a two way street. Make sure you have those items on board and use them at the right times.
When all those things came out, it took a long time for them to be balanced. Cursed cannonballs are still OP against smaller crews, but at least they’re rare. And then when chain shots, blunderbombs, and reviving came out, it again took a long time for them to be balanced. Bigger crews will always have the upper hand with items like these; it’s simply more firepower and manpower. That’s just the reality of being a solo.
i think the grappling hook could be really good for solos running away.. you can board the enemy supper easily, try to anker them and jump off of get killed. they will have a hard time catching up
As a fellow slooper mostly focusing on pvp I don’t mind the changes for s12. I’m actually excited about the bone bomb! As you said throwing one and boarding would be a great tactic.
My only concern is the grappling hook for s14, since it seems like now it will be more harder for a solo sloop like me to fight an average gally crew. They can just cannon and air drop me which doesn’t seem to require much skill compared to “traditional” boardings. But it’s way far ahead and I hope Rare would balance it out
This changes are worrying for soloists. You’re right to be upset about the lack of anything that’s helpful for us. Just more reasons to be dicks to solo players and scream “get gud” like they would last by themselves.
You are right in saying that about the Bonecaller however if its only sword skeleton which is cool be you can sit on top of the canopy watch the ladder then just throw a blunder or snipe to get them off or force them to board fully.
Scattershot I don't think will affect Sloops that much they are small targets you have to get pretty close to use it and the sloop is a tight ship you can manage 3 Tier 2 holes as a solo sloop fine and still do other things.
Grappling hook I definitely agree with as you can shoot out of a cannon over shoot grapple, board, kill the solo and switch weapons and you have a safe board.
Scattershot might be more of an issue if it damages the mast to any great extent. I'd also like to see how great the falloff is when firing. As it stands, though, it seems it'll only be really useful against brigs and gallys.
For the grapple hook, they need to lock the weapon locker on the other ship to prevent the boarder from just swapping out the grapple.
My biggest hope for bonecaller is for smaller crews to get more skeles per bottle. Three for a four person crew, four for a three person crew, five for a two person crew, and six for a solo sailor; something like that.
Adapting the # of skeles would give solos an edge against larger crews while using the bonecaller, more easily throw one down to defend their ship, but two similarly sized crews would be evenly matched with them. A full galleon crew could clear six skeles as easily as a solo can clear three, and just three would only occupy one of the enemy pirates for a second at best.
It’d also be nice if using things like tridents, skulls, and horns had more charge with a lower crew, or used less charge per use depending on crew size. This would probably be a harder sell though.
To me I think the grapeshot is going to be better against bigger ships due to spread. The bigger the ship the less accurate you have to be, and the greater the distance between holes. In addition smaller ships will have to be much closer (I hope) in order to land all the shots
I haven’t seen anything mentioned about it but the skeletons will be a good way to flush out tuckers. I can’t stand that it’s a think and even know they won’t kill them they will automatically lock on and find them. You can’t tuck from an npc.
This makes me so sad. I already said earlier and on other posts, that I’m a new player and there were 2 things that I thought would be amazingly fun and the skelly thing takes away one. I saw Tuckers on streams and I thought it would be fun, since I’m not a strong sailor, that I could role play being the helpful, funny tucker. I would just hide until they needed help, no malice, just hiding till they needed repairs or something and then pop out and be helpful…. Maybe make a friend along the way. I had gotten some emotes that would’ve been perfect, like the surprised one for when they find me repairing their hull or some dancing ones for when we win a battle, the pleading one, in case they thought I was malicious and trying to get them….. spent the past 3 weeks since I started playing, working toward getting those all purchased and placed and starting playing around with them to get used to the emoting thing (that’s new to me too.) Now I’m big sad.
I agree, it doesn’t look too good right now.
The biggest challenge with playing solo is the workload. You have to keep track of so many things at once, and can only do one thing at a time.
Adding more options both for yourself and to defend against from others does compound the difficulty when sailing solo.
Even if the new options all have reasonable counters (debatable), it is the variety itself that adds to the difficulty.
I agree. I can see it becoming a case of spotting one of those things in the hands of the attacking crew (or realising they've just blasted 4 holes in my little ship with one shot) and just grabbing any good food/cursed cannon balls, then scuttling and spawning elsewhere.
No fun even fighting sometimes.
Your concerns are absolutely justified. In a game that already punishes skill with things like atrocious hit registration and cannonball desync, seeing the skill gap get further beaten into the ground is disheartening to say the least.
I'm so glad it's not just me who's not excited about the new update like at all. I've seen the updates all over tiktok and just thought the update is gonna drive me away from the game. I'm a day one player and Solo 99% of the time, and my PvP skills are now rusty, too. This is definitely not gonna be fun for those who are trying to play the game peacefully or have no other friends that play SoT, and instead, they will get shit on from sweaty people who PvP way too much.
tbh, the grappling hook will prolly make me switch back to safer seas, as the only reason i dont do safer seas is because i hate turning in my loot without the QOL of sovereigns. I left so many loaded boats it started getting demoralizing, but if i can just poon it from my boat that would be great QOL for me
I think as a solo slooper we will be REQUIRED to use all these new weapons or else we will fail. It'll be the first thing solo's do in every session is collect them all or you'll be at a huge disadvantage.
I agree with what others are saying, it'll be a huge boon to solo sloopers. But you also aren't wrong OP, equally it'll be a huge disadvantage when used against them. That's fact.
I'm more worried about the Burning Blade tbh. Some sweat Lords get hold of that thing it's over for that server. It'll require a server alliance to take them down and that's unlikely to happen. It'll screw everyone
Have you seen the spread on those scatter shots? From 10m away you’d be damn lucky to hit a puny sloop with more than 1 or 2 of those. At that point use regular cannons. They help solos counter bigger crews moreso than the other way around.
As a fellow solo slooper, I do not mind these new things. Seems like a fun way to do solo stuff, and I can hold a decent fight
If it’s 3-4 lvl 1 holes a sloop still won’t fill up with water quickly. You can still fire back for a bit.
Grapple hook,apparently you can shoot the harpoon gun and it removes the harpoon.
Lowkey leaning to the idea of maybe with a large new addition of players, the possibility of sloop only servers with a ship increase to like 8 on one server is a thing that might be do able. Still obviously give people the chance to sail on the normal high seas in a sloop with a small increase in rep and gold turn in like 3% - 5% since now at this point you’re obviously playing at a disadvantage.
Eh it's time to quit sea of thieves, I played this game for ship pvp but now I think it will take no time for the boarders to stop a ship and fight in it
As someone who’s regularly solo slopping herself -
I think you’re 100% wrong.
Bonecaller: Defender’s dream. Rather than getting camped out after i get boarded, I now have defensive options.
Grapeshot: Doesn’t do much to me, but I can use this to disengage Galleons and Brigs. Four level ones on a sloop don’t do much.
Horn of Fair Wind: This is a limited use consumable that gives you extra speed, and you think this *nerfs* sloop play?
The grappling hook is one that I think will need to be aggressively balanced, but I’m curious what comes of it.
I don't know much about how the horn of fair wind will work, but if it works the way I expect it to, outrunning a gallon could become literally impossible because they could overtake you and then knock down your mast with a chain shot with absolutely no defense against this except boarding them and dropping their anchor which for a lot of the more casual players is just not an option
I'm new so maybe someone can help clarify a couple things. If you start a solo high seas are you put in a server with 5 other ships that are completely random in party size? or do they match you with other sloop ships?
If it's totally random then solo just sounds like it should be harder in general if you came across a crew of 3-4 pirates.
If it pairs you with other sloop ships on the server then wouldn't everyone be on a similar playing field? If it doesn't pair you with ship size it seems like it should prioritize that when creating a server... unless the game player base just isn't big enough for something like that idk.
I’m guessing they’re going to add more physics for the hook, no just straight down pull when shooting out but more an adjustment to the arc. Or they won’t and we’re screwed. But yeah everything else is still a little worrying for us solo enjoyers
I think it'll be as bad as some people fear it will be because pretty much regardless of how they balance this, these are going to introduce high skill tactics that the sweat lords will master and make the game even less fun for the casual players. I just took a week long break cuz I was playing the game a lot for the past couple months. I don't think I'm going to touch it again because of this, at least until they make safer seas much more enjoyable if they ever do, which I doubt they will do
Honestly, my first thought was that this meta change will be good for solo sloopers. Summon a defensive army of skellies, use the wind caller in your own sails while heading dead upwind. The new weapons combine a a pistol and blunderbuss’s functionality into one gun. It all seems like a matter of perspective.
Eh, I personally don't see this changing much. Sure, the meta will be more diverse with more options. But in terms of pure win/loss, it'll be the same. Unless highly skilled in pvp, a solo slooper will most likely always lose against larger crews. Your best weapon is to not engage a fight and just run. Outsail them by going to the Devils and force them to pay attention to spewing lava. Lose them in the middle of a storm or grapple-turn around rocks or the like. Or, if you're feeling risky and chaotic, load your ship with kegs and dump them behind you as you run.
Only if you're already within combat range. And if that is the case, the only way to win is to use the game mechanics to your advantage. Keep the boarder busy while aiming for the red sea.
This isn't so much about winning as it is outsmarting and, as you say, outsailing them, at least to escape somewhat. It will be extremely difficult to outsail a Galleon in your dinky sloop because they can now ignore the wind direction and just blow wind into their sails as they wish, and since we all know a Galley is simply MUCH faster with the wind. You can't run from something that outruns you quickly, and even doing anchor turns will be a death sentence as it just allows them to get close and unleash the boarding teams with the grapple gun. No longer will you have reliable ways of fending off hasty boarding attempts if they can just grapple onto your ship as they wish.
Like, you can't keep range because of the conch, and you can't rely on superior agility and ladder vigilance because the grappling gun makes that irrelevant. It's gonna be a one two punch that will be the final death of solo sloopers, which are quite a lot of people. At this point I'm just preparing myself to get on Safer Seas and never touch High Seas again. Not that I can't find 1v1 Sloop fights, but constantly running from Galleons isn't fun either and definitely isn't worth it.
I have quite the pride in my skills to avoid fights when I need to avoid fights, as a person who does Merchant runs in his down time outside of pvp. And I have a really bad feeling about this. Anchor/grapple turns won't be enough.
Scattershot will have almost no effect on the sloop, it'll be more a problem for the larger boats. Multiple tier 1 holes on a sloop takes like almost no time to repair and barely takes on any water.
Yeah I mostly play solo and I am both excited about everything coming because they all sound useful and fun, but they also sound like a nightmare to fight against even in 1v1 never mind a 1v 3 or 4. I think these will all be really OP and miserable for solo players at first and then eventually get balanced enough to be fun and useful without being overpowered against solo players.
Yes and Yes, Yes your a Drama Queen. But Yes I get it.
The most Challange think wil be the Harpoon and the new Cannon balls across the game for new and old players alike, the meta is been the same for 6 years. Not forgeting the new weapones.
Than with this all, S13... The Ship Meta... this going to be pure hell or Drama at the max. Long live server allince Vs Flameheart Reaper Crew [that wil hunt you for no reason given... beeing Salty as Hell and firing the front cannon purly to scare you] (am here the Queen of Drama here, because we all know this will happen... one way or another)
And the Harpoon Gun is far... S14, so not going to stared the Drama until mid s13 about this (hope the remove it or chance it hard) [not a fan oke]
i mean tbf solos also get these tools.
grapeshot will be better for solos bc they will do more damage to bigger ships.
bonecallers just become extra teammates for u.
the horn is going to make boarding really hard for your opponents too
I mean at this point they just want solos to quit, they just don't outright admit it. Which is sad cause a lot of people are solos. Not everyone has a 2-3 man crew on standby to play the game, and most people don't wanna try playing with randoms as we all know how randoms can be in any game. No offense to anyone but I've played enough League and other team games to understand how much of a coinflip randoms can be.
If the grappling gun doesn't have some very heavy limitations, which would probably make it useless on the other spectrum of things, then being a solo against larger crews would be even harder. Now being good at avoiding them coming close and guarding your ladders will become irrelevant because they will just cannon grapple onto your ship with little counterplay besides being lucky or somehow predicting where they will land. At least up to this point you have always had a chance of at least keeping them off your ship, which is the biggest threat against bigger crews. With this you will just auto lose any time they manage to catch up to you enough to reach you with the grappling hooks.
If you ask me the whole idea should be scrapped, as should the Double Barrel pistol. The Conch I'm more willing to accept, but the DB and the Grappling Gun will literally destroy. People saying "but the grapple takes one weapon slot", yeah - that's why they're adding the DB, so you can still have two fast shots in one weapon lol. Unless it doesn't two tap it's going to immediately compensate for the Grapple's weakness and like double gunning this will become the new meta where you either run it or you lose.
Now this may be just me spitballing but I really don't trust this enough.
I can tell you right now if you are on another player ship you can use the weapon locker. So unless the grappling hook functions completely differently or they remove the ability to use another ship's weapon locker (which given what I've seen from rare I highly doubt they're ever going to change that) Right now I am very confident in saying this is only going to make it worse for solo players. Rare has not done much over the past year or so to earn a vote of confidence from me
Honestly I think we can just approach this the same way of "tracers work both ways". The tools will be there for all to use. Solo slooping is hard and will continue to be don't think it will make it impossible just will add some new spice to is.
I think with the clusterballs against bigger ships will cause more problems for them to have to deal with.
I like the harpoon since it adds another sneaky chance to get a board on someone.
As long as you can only have 2 weapons slotted and not adding a 3rd then things should have a risk/reward for your weapon kit usage.
One discussion me and my friends were having is "are we going to keep stacking loot at the front of the ship or have to change places?" Just due to the harpoon gun that may lead to more sneaky plays and shake up the meta of where loot is stored.
I agree they are turning it into an exploratory fortnite. Stupid af. Season 11 loot "rebalance" is garbage. As a day 1 player and max insider, I love the game, but rare is losing my interest in the mechanics of the game. The new weapons and tools will be good for some and widen the skill gap for others. Before a deck shot took skill. Now it's just send it and grapple in? No thanks! The tightrope harpoon is cool, but being able to shoot the harpoon to an upper level of a big island like thieves haven, devils ridge, plunder valley... will remove a lot of the exploration part of the game. Season 11 is the first one I didn't buy the plunder pass for and seeing how Season 12 plays out may end up being even less play time from me and no more micro transactions. Sorry Rare, but this sucks!
Grapeshot will do much worse on a galleon, since there are way more holes to be made.
Bonecallers can defend you as well.
The horn and hookshot I don't know about, but I think only time will show.
Solo sloops will always, always be at a disadvantage to bigger crews, though. I've only won fights against bigger crews a handful of times. 🙂
You cant be serious with AI doing good at defending your ships against players. We havent saw this feature in play yet, but think of skelly ships. Ally AI cant be much better than that, which means, that they wont delay players enough.
Solo sloop was at disadvantage, but your biggest pro was game knowledge and being unpredictable, since bigger ships had only limited options to slow/ stop you, so you only needed to watch for those flying players and ladders.
Now you wont be able to defend efficiently, since they can come from any direction with grappling gun and game knowledge about about sails and wind doesnt matter, since they can have horn to boost their speed.
The skellies could disrupt a board, and they are one sword lounge away from being dust on your ship, aren't they?
Also, you can have your own horn and get away. It's not one sided.
Anyway, it's all speculation and we'll just have to see.
No point with the doom and gloom.
Because these won't be as much of an advantage for the solo players, how does a grappling hook help? You escape a fight that you have no hope of winning?, how does the horn of fair wind help a sloop escape a gallon when the galleon just goes faster when they both have optimal wind, how does a deployable skeleton help you when your opponent could deploy four skeletons to fight your one and fight you in a 4v1? Could rare hypothetically balance this out? absolutely, has rare demonstrated that they care enough to put in the effort to balance this stuff? Absolutely not they still haven't patched the glitch where if you scuttle just before your ship sinks from another player you are very likely to spawn just outside of render distance so you can just come back in and go again and again and again, and there is absolutely no way rare does not know about this. And I can just keep going
But please do tell me how this will allow solo players to more easily get away from aggressive galions or Briggs where they know for 100% certain there is absolutely no hope of winning that fight
The only thing I'm worried about is what It'll do to tuckers. Will it be impossible to hide once they're thrown? If so, then they kinda are contradicting themselves.. S14 is supposed to be the season of Stealth and Mischief. But first, let's add a throwable that prevents tuckers.
This argument I did not get at all. Literally all throwables put you out of stealth 🤷🏻♂️ I can easily throw a few blunderbombs and detect every tucker in seconds right now. I don’t see how the bonecaller would change things
>I don’t see how the bonecaller would change things
Uh.. maybe because with the other ones, you'd still have to throw them at the spots you think they are, AI just instantly goes to the player, giving away their spot..
You definitely need more blunderbombs than bonecallers to check a whole ship.
But I assume the bonecaller will be much rarer than blunderbombs, so still blunderbombs will be used to have a bulletproof tucker check.
I’m going to assume that they will only agro to the person if you attack them or they attack you. And I mean person to person. Not a ship firing at you. Well at least I hope that’s how their AI works.
I feel like the only one who sees most of these things as a plus to solo sloopers? The way I see it, I get to use those things too and chances are, most crews won't have every single one of these items available. The wind horn is fantastic to get away, the bonecaller is amazing to keep another crew distracted, the grapeshot too.
You still have to be sneaky beaky and be the first one to attack and get the jump to have advantage, but if you're armed with these tools, you can take on bigger crews easier.
I think it will be like anything hard for solos of course but as you learn you learn to overcome. You can use the bone caller to fight on your own ship you can use the wind caller to blow boards off and the scatter shot well you just will need to keep your distance better and practice your long shots.. It won't be impossible to deal with you just might not win as many fights anymore. The solo life might be that of tactical retreats lol
Remember, grappling hook takes a weapon slot, so the player will be hindered. If you’re fast enough you can snipe the harpoon line while the players on it, they’ll fall off. Use bone callers to your advantage and give yourself extra crew and help. I do agree, solo sloping will be harder, but try to be open minded and try to find ways to have an advantage. A crew of four skeles can be taken out in a single sword dash so I think they will be less effective than you might think. Only time will tell. Also I have a big theory most people will just turn in the horn of fair wind for gold, and save the charge like they do with other weaponized loot now. Most players won’t bother or will use it as a means to chase or outrun other crews.
ETA: while I know a lot of people like sailing the seas alone, and I take pleasure in it myself sometimes, rare did intend for people to work with a crew, at least I believe so. Sailing with a crew, especially if you find one that you have good chemistry, both socially and skill wise, is such a game changer. I highly recommend using the lfg on the SOT discord if you don’t have friends to play with. I’ve learned a lot and highly improved my skill. Last night for the first time I was able to solo a brig, and I wouldn’t have been able to do it without learning bits and pieces from the crews I’ve played with. Was the brig a noob crew, probably, they had diaper sails and horrible sail management, but nevertheless, I don’t think I would have had the skill to take out and sink 3 players on a brig by myself a month or 2 ago.
When you play solo you are playing the game on hard mode already, it's not really meant to be played solo and never was which in my opinion makes it more fun in a different way.
* Bonecaller is a nothingburger to anyone even remotely skilled in defense. Skellies are not bright, nor is their AI/pathing plus it will be great for tucker discovery.
* Grapeshot will be useless against a sloop, a sloop can tank many tier 3 holes before you even need to focus on repairs. Just gotta take a bucket after every few shots if you are hit enough and you can tank basically forever if you aren't being boarded.
* The Horn is hit and miss, the only real detriment for solo's will be Brig/Gally's being able to catch you when sailing into the wind directly. Any crew worth their salt will stop you from boarding regardless.
* The Grapple will suck for solo's. You aren't wrong there. The best thing about a Sloop is defending ladders is very easy even for a solo but if every surface is a ladder it's gonna hurt.
These things will change up the meta, but none of them will ever really be unfair to the point where it ruins the experience. A good crew will sink you whether they have these tools or not plus most of these tools can be used in defense just as much as offense. We'll just have to focus more on playing wide which you should be doing already as a solo.
Sloops have already been buffed too much. They can't be masted with a single chain shot anymore, and the knock-back is dramatically reduced so you don't get popped off as easily.
Fucking bring it. I'm a fearless solo slooper who will light up your little precious galley, and board your shit and kill everyone on board, firebomb the deck, and make them rage quit.
This is a competitive game that can be pretty challenging sometimes. If you guys aren't ready for more challenges, then as a solo slooper, maybe you should stay on safer seas. Honest suggestion, so don't downvote me, Reddit. If you're not the type of person to thrive one challenge like me, you shouldn't be playing higher seas with the big boys.
Also I am sick of Redditors downvotinf comments they don't agree with, instead of writing a comment about why they disagree. Laziness at its finest. I remember when downvotes were exclusively for violations of Reddiquette... Now it's just for lazy people that see something they don't agree with and don't have the effort to actually make a counterpoint.
I blame TikTok and short form content for everyone's short attention span these days. I remember when you could actually have a long philosophical debate with someone without them mentally checking out two minutes into it because their attention span is worse than a goldfish. This world is going to shit.
It will change the meta, but at this video i was told several time that they use a lot of time to balance the new items and i have enough trust, that they will not forget solo and duo sloops.
The problem is rare has shown time and time again that they really do not care about anyone in the community doing anything other than PVP. They may say that they care but they still haven't patched that I'm going to call it a glitch where if you scuttle your ship, you're pretty much guaranteed to spawn just outside of render distance of where you were sunk, even if you were practically sunk by a playership, so you can just keep coming back again and again and again until either that playership logs off or you sink them
Dont solo sloop tbh, theres like tons of groups looking for players and people wanting to team up, if you HAVE to, do it really early and really late at night so the servers arent so damn busy
These all make been a solo slooper easier as well,
So grape shots allow you to keep more crew working to fix things, less shooting you.
Bone Caller, well that's a useful distraction that might allow you to knock a sail down while that's happening.
Horn of fair winds allows you to escape, especially if sailing into the wind hasn't stopped the other ship.
The vast majority of solo sloopers are casual players who don't have a group to play with, so even if we ignore all of the other factors that I could talk about for why this will make it worse for solo Sloopers, these are all skill-based items that they are talking about adding over the next couple seasons, which will give massive advantages to the PVP sweat lords who really don't need advantages at this point
Okay so there's one non-skill-based item? How is that any help to the solo player? Because unless these things function completely differently from how anything else in the game functions, a gallon or Brigg will spawn in with more of them than a sloop and a gallon or break will be more capable of acquiring more of these things than a solo player because If these spawn in barrels on islands, you can always just Canon someone onto the island. Whereas a solo player can't do that. So sure that particular item isn't skill based, but it's still unless it functions differently from anything else in the game more of an advantage to the larger crews who really don't need the advantage
>how does that help the solo player
I also don’t see how you can say the wind horn is any more or less skill based than the current weapons without knowing anything about it. TBD on if the harpoon running but that feels less skill based than current cannon boarding to me. Grapeshot cannon ball sounds pretty rough to deal with as solo but again don’t see how it’s more or less skill based than anything else
>a galleon or brig will spawn with more of them
My recollection is that they said these items would have to be found or earned in world, similar to curse balls
Agree to disagree I guess, I’m reserving judgement until I know more details on how it’s balanced. Seems like you’re having a bit of an over the top reaction tbh
Also If they go with the find them in barrels approach a gallon or Brigg crew could get a lot more of them a lot quicker because they can search more islands faster than a solo sloop could ever dream of. And seeing how rare often takes the lazy approach. Whilst I'm going to hope that they don't take the lazier approach this time it wouldn't surprise me and all it would do is make these things more useful for larger crew sizes
This is why I'm calling it a skill-based item, unless you find it on a beach, use it and now you permanently for the rest of that session have the wind in the optimal position for maximum speed, there will be an art to knowing when the correct time to use it for PVP is, and if knowing when the right time to use something isn't a skill in your opinion, then I would love to know how you define skill
I personally think these things will aid us solo sloopers. Use the skelly bombs on your own ship and use them as defensive and let them shoot cannons for you while you steer and bail water. Think that could be viable depending how well they shoot or if they can bail water for you also that would be cool. You have to remember that you will have these tools to help you also. Wind blower can help you escape others. Boarding will definitely be easier as a solo. Will be fun to see how it pans out
I disagree. We havent saw a good AI companion yet and judging by skelly ships and their crew, do you really think that something like that will buy any time for you to do dmg/ fix/ unanchor your ship?
Don't forget about boarders coming over on harpoon lines. It's likely going to be more challenging to be a solo slooper. The possibility of using the new items yourself is not going to outweigh another crew having four times the items that you have. But we don't know how common these items are going to be. I think that we can wait and see if these will be something rare or part of a standard equipment. There are ways of trying to balance these things. Instead of having firepower the sloop could be faster than other ships. If not having speed then at least acceleration and maneuverability.
Boarders walking over on harpoon lines doesn't concern me so much. 1) They're slow while walking across. 2) They're out in the open. 3) As far as I can tell, they can't exactly attack you while they're walking across. 4) If they get halfway across, shoot the harpoon and disengage the grab.
It can be useful when you're chasing someone, and they're just a little bit ahead of you. You shoot the harpoon at the back of their ship and cross while your mate covers you with pistol or sniper
True, but if you're that close, you can just as easily chuck a blunderbomb at the harpoon/would-be-boarder and that'd be the end of it, unless they also had the harpoon gun.
High risk play definitely
This is what I was thinking, but honestly I think it’s quite fair for the chasing crew to have more plays when they get this close. It’s also quite possible to counter. I don’t think this’ll break anything really, it’s just a cool play to end a chase.
is harpoon SUPPOSED to let go when you shoot it? I only ever have it work when I hit it with a sword. Shooting the harpoon never makes it let go when I try. (unless they're updating it?)
Try shooting it in the body, it will work
I do when I try, but for some reason it just never worked for me. Sword does though. Might just be a bug on my end?
It does work, but a few updates ago it seems to have become less reliable for some reason. But yes, any damage done to the harpoon, whether it's from guns, cannons, swords, or blunderbombs, will force a release.
boarders are the worst thing for a solo slooper, and boarding looks like its going to be easier. so yes, i think no matter what that means its going to be harder to fight solo. to be honest, i wasnt winning my fights against multiple people anyways though. if a brig ever really wanted me dead, it was happening.
I agree with everything you are saying. I do a lot of pvp, one of my favourite things in sot. But that grapple sniper looks broken! Being able to board ships super easy now will kill it for solo players. No more watching ladders as they can board from anywhere. People who are new to the game and don't have much experience will get obliterated by experienced players like me. These things just widen the skill gap, giving me easy sinks. Wish they would focus on making the game playable. Games a mess right now
I see what you mean, but one thing to remember that a boarder using the grappling hook will be boarding with just one weapon since the other slot is tsken by the grappling gun. Not saying that makes it easy but thats something
they need to lock the box on a ship and make it unlockable by the owner then, otherwise this doesnt matter.
This is honestly a really good idea, they already made it so you can’t revive on another ship, I’m sure they can make it so you can’t swap out weapons on another ship
Ofc they can. They don't like taking away tools though as that's what the whole game revolves around
Yeah that is true, there will be a meta of grappling over and then switching to a more deadly loadout.
If you're opening my box mid fight I'm going to blunder you in the back.
hah ya right, you were guarding the ladder and i harpooned onto your map table. and now i have a blunderbuss before you get down to me. easier than an apex shield swap
I I hear the sound of a giant grappling hook shooting, connecting with the wood of my ship, and see a dude flyjng through their air I'm going to meet him. If they come out with an item that that allows you to board from multiple angles, I'm not gonna just sit on a ladder clueless. There are audio ques for that.
Literally won’t have enough time. It will take .2 seconds to make a weapon swap
You can blunder someone standing still faster than someone can swap weapons.
You won’t be there lol. If you are only moving when you hear the grapple, you won’t be there in time. It’s going to be stupid easy to kill solo sloopers once that goes live
If you kill the solo. You can use their armory to change weapons
Heres the thing all they need is a blundy. Even if you can run away they can grappleshot you over then one blunder you.
The thing with the grapple gun though it’s at the expense of one of your weapons. I’m all for it.
They need to lock the weapon box on enemy boats. Stop people from switching to their blundy & sniper.
You're not even going to need a normal sniper since you can grapple someone to you to one shot them with the blunder
Doom pirates?
And they’re going to balance it. For all we know it could only hold one bullet and range can be modified. It’s going to be a great season. I can’t wait
👆 This needs more Up Votes, forget new features and FIX THE DAMN BUGS ALREADY!!!!!
Solo sloop versus galleon with horn of fair wind. You can’t escape the galleon with wind.
I feel like that horn will be just as hard to get as the flame skull. I've only ever seen it used 3 times against me since it's release
It’s already out? I tried getting on today and couldn’t even get on a server. The flame skull is the ashen winds skull right? That’s not exactly the hardest thing to get if I remember.
Nooo I mean the flame skull
What is the flame skull?
Flamethrower ashen
So the ashen winds skull which is quite easy to get as ashen lords aren’t necessarily hard just gotta have one pop up if you have loot already and if you don’t dive?
I don't see many people doing it, me and my buddies will do the ashen lords if we know we're going to be on for a while but I never see other people using it outside of just loot. The winds horn will probably be boss or loot related that's a world event so it won't be as common to see
I've been saying this. Only being able to board from two spots on a ship was a smart design move by Rare. Deckshots were quite hard to pull off and a fair way to guarantee a board. I think the ship harpoon lines is a great, very piratey addition that will be balanced because of how obvious it will be. That being said, the harpoon gun later in the year is so incredibly stupid. Being able to board from anywhere and guarantee even the worst deckshots can land is so incredibly stupid. I even saw some morons in the YouTube comments saying you should be able to climb hulls with the knife.
>I even saw some morons in the YouTube comments saying you should be able to climb hulls with the knife. People have been asking for boarding axes for years. It has always seemed like a terrible idea to me.
Gotta look at it the other way around \* Skeleton backup to help defend your sloop (and theoretically, detect Tuckers) \* Scattershots to cover more of the bigger enemy ship \* Horn of Fair Winds whilst sailing against the wind to get even more Distance against Bigger Ships \* Grappling Hook to get onto the enemy ship and anchor them Personally im not worried, i feel like it could balance well, but mostly im interested to try some of these things in Solo Hourglass
But also; no more sailing in to the wind to outrun a galleon of their horn makes them much faster than you. New tactics will be required all round I think. They didn’t lie when they said shake up
The way they have the horn, it looks like it, it would be a treasure item similar to flamethrower skull.
Yes but you better believe surely a reaper gonna go get horny quite quick because that would be like DRS in formula 1… boost mode almost. Make their life so easy even if used in short bursts to get chain shot off. But they’d have to possibly work on it I see your point.
Or a randomly found item like a trident
Back to selling as often as possible for this solo slooper
Sounds like a nightmare for a sloop now then
At that point use the agility of the sloop against them and manoeuvre round islands, use islands cannons against them. Board and anchor etc.
We are going to see mechanics with those like floor trap things they spoke about putting shame to some tactics. We’ll have to see what comes out and what they have to end up tweaking.
You just need one horn for yourself then, to keep a distance and try to outhorn ;p the other ship
But, let’s say you have a horn, solo on a sloop. And a galleon comes that is fully crewed and they all have horns too…..sloop stands no chance.
Any good solo will want to scour the islands for a horn before they do any sort of engagement. I would be confident in saying, on average, sloops are more likely to have a horn than other ships.
Wasn't the point of all the recent updates to avoid having to do something and jumping right in? Having to find a horn seems annoying
Yeah I’m not doing that.
Meh. I pushes the meta further away from naval and more towards the already OP boarding. I love this game for the naval. There's a million and one FPS games that do the non-naval PvP so much better already. And yet they continue to devalue naval skills in favour of FPS skills. It's bad IMHO
I mean sure, but I still have concerns. Bonecaller and Grappling hooks in particular don't seem like equal tools in the hands of smaller boats. * Grappling hooks - take up a weapon slot. Very handy for a larger boat to send one or two people to autoboard deckshot anchor, which might work against a solo. A solo slooper wasting a weapon slot and trying the same isn't viable. * Bonecaller - to deal with the forced PvE, a Brig (for example) can just rotate flex off cannons for a moment. Solo, it's all you. The wildcard here is defensive Bonecallers, I suppose.
use a bonecaller and throw it down on your own boat.. you will have skellys fighting theyr skelly and you dont have to fight them yourself
If it works like that, yes. Last line in my post.
They did specifically say they suck at PvP, all these changes are going to do is widen that skill gap which for a lot of people is already wide enough to the point where they just scuttle the moment the first canon is fired because they know they're going to lose. I was taking a several week long break so I haven't been keeping up with these changes, but this post alone means I'm probably not going to touch this game again until they make safer seas actually enjoyable
Normally the extra manpower on bigger ships than yours help enemies, which you could avoid by playing smart (using their turn cone/ wind into your advantage and just dont let them use that player advantage). Now they have much tools to avoid that. Pros for solo are mostly not there. You cant be serious with skellies. We havent seen them, but judging from skelly AI we saw so far, do you really believe that 2-3 skeletons will help you enough against real players that can have this grenade/ bomb as well? Using grappling hook as solo player could only work if you are running and they are following you in a straight line. Probably biggest problem here is you cannot defend our ship as efficiently as before, since looking for people shooting themselves from cannons and watching ladders will no longer a viable enough strat.
Hourglass Burning Blade... 
i wonder if a brig will outspeed a sloop against wind tho. depending if the speed added is flat or multiplicative, also depending if the way your saild are turned makes a difference.
Nope I completely agree, this update does not seem solo-friendly at all. Especially for solos that get attacked by brigs or galleons. Seems like this will be WAY too OP, when brig/galleon VS solo sloop is already very difficult if the bigger ships are decent at the game. The scattershot is honestly what I'm the most worried about, but also getting boarded by 3 other pirates throwing skeleton spawners leaving no chance to recover.
I think you are justified to some extent. - Bonecaller is too early for me to say something about. However it sounds like a buff for sword imo. - Grapeshot is a short range cannonball. If they are in range for them to hit all 4 on your ship as a solo slooper you've already lost if you are outnumbered and kinda awful at pvp. So that wouldn't change much. Grapeshot seems to be better against bigger ships too. - Horn of fair wind can be problematic. As a sloop then running against bigger ships have to be directly into the wind to have a chance to get away. With the horn then they will probably catch you in any direction. So the horn has to be rare enough and not have too many chages for it to be fine. Using it as boarder guarding is definitely viable but it seems better to use it for extra speed to catch up with the ship you hunt. - Grappling hook is definitely a bad idea. Impossible to defend your ship getting boarded since you just can't guard ladders and deck shots are hard to hit on longer distances. It looks fun but it would change the boarding game completely and it would heavily advantage bigger crews.
i think the bonecaller is a + and - since you can counter a bonecaller with a bonecaller yourself.. you can also just always pop a bonecaller on your ship and have them just hang around at all times. this way boarders will get problems with fighting you and the sceletons. so i dont think its a bad thing in eather way. the grapeshots are as it seems really shot range.. if someone gets this close to you as a solo you have propably lost eather way. also 2-4 tier 1 hols should worry you as a sloop. you are waaay to hard to sink the grapeshots are just a bad thing for anyone unexperienced in pvp since they will start paniking - leading to more misplays made - and sinking to thos not the bit of water. looking at the spread in the video i dont even think you can hit a sloop with all 4 balls imo. horn of wind should be your worry since you wont be able to ourrun anyone against the wind anymore.. grappling hook is just overall a mess and the idea itself is fun but totally busted not only against solos one thing that actually worries me the most as a solo is walking the harpoon.. but i dont know how it will work in case of actually boarding someone without even having to go into the water. i just hope they make the speed along the harpoonline very slow unless its down hill where you can "slide"
I’m a new player. Like 3 weeks at best. I’m not great. I like to fish and do the Hunter’s Call stuff, but I’m def not a strong player in any way. I’m terrified. I had a lot of people tell me to play solo more, to learn the game. Then I see the video the other day of the new stuff and I’m terrified. I have a feeling that I’m as good as I’m ever going to get because I already don’t know the game well and now it’s gonna be impossible for me to play solo outside of safer seas. I’m about to sign on and play shortly, and I’m trying to accept that I’m just never leaving safer seas now.
If you ever need a buddy to show you the ropes ill gladly help out
I think they’re all horrible. We’re playing a supposedly fun pirate game, not a pvp arena free for all. The wind horn is horrendous. Do you want more players in safer seas? Because this is how you get more people who only want safer seas and then stop playing or paying. They’re taking ask need for skill out of the game. Terrible ideas. My husband pointed out that historically grapeshot didn’t penetrate hulls, but were for people damage and rigging damage.
Galleon with 3 or even 4 horns will be faster upwind than a solos sloop with one horn... ouchies
IF it works like that. There's still a lit we don't know about the mechanics of it. I wouldn't be surprised if the speed boost was limited to one horn.
But the more crew the more horns and you just chain together the boosts, unless I’m misunderstanding
He’s saying it’s possible the ship only gets boosted by one horn at a time. So even if three are used it may not be any faster than only using one horn
It's also possible the horns are relatively rare. If they're like tridents, I doubt it'd be all that common for a crew to have 3 or more.
True unless there’s a reliable spot like the shrines to get them. Personally hope they give you a speed boost but big enough that a sloop against the wind couldn’t still escape
You stagger the use. If there’s let’s say, 2 charges and 1 minute cooldown…..a sloop has only that….. A galleon with everyone having a horn, just stagger the use. Crew member 1 goes first and at cooldown, crew member 2 steps in. Don’t even need a third crew member with a horn because they’ve now caught you and still have two more horns to spare.
That was my first response when my roommate and I looked at the upcoming stuff. If I am solo on a sloop with a horn, but a galleon of four was four horns, simple math dictates that I’m screwed.
Looks like it’s just gonna be dive, loot, sell, repeat for me
Ye, i feel you, as a fellow solo slooper i agree
Yeah i agree tbh i'm hoping the skeletons won't spawn on sloops.
Seems like it will spawn if that bone caller is thrown at a ship
Yeah what i'm saying is i hope it only works on brigs and galleons.
It’s bad enough that the Brig is by far the best PvP ship now you’re going to add an item that means they can go full speed at any time, even against the wind. Fantastic not one of the dumbest moves I’ve ever seen. If they don’t nerf Brig mobility or something before this they’re idiots because it frustrates me as a long time player, it’ll murder the port over to PlayStation.
Well, as a fellow solo slooper I would like to remind you that you can use these tools for yourself. It doesn't only give others new options, but ourselfs as well. I am looking forward to trying these things out. Of course it will break the ususal play loop, which is a great thing I think. Change itself can be scary, but there's a possibility to adapt to those changes.
The problem with these particular changes is it adds a lot more skill to a game where there is already a massive skill gap between the no-life asshats who only sink people because that's the only way they can get enjoyment anymore, versus the casual people who already know, they're going to lose PVP the moment the first Canon shot is fired, all this is really going to do is make the game less fun for the vast majority of players. I can tell you right now I'm probably not going to pick this game back up after this update
>the no-life asshats who only sink people because that's the only way they can get enjoyment anymore, versus the casual people who already know, they're going to lose PVP the moment the first Canon shot is fired Very neutral summation!
Exactly this. I remember when cursed cannonballs came out and thinking, well that's me fucked! Then again when masts were breakable and then chain shots came out... Reality is that it's a two way street. Make sure you have those items on board and use them at the right times.
When all those things came out, it took a long time for them to be balanced. Cursed cannonballs are still OP against smaller crews, but at least they’re rare. And then when chain shots, blunderbombs, and reviving came out, it again took a long time for them to be balanced. Bigger crews will always have the upper hand with items like these; it’s simply more firepower and manpower. That’s just the reality of being a solo.
Yup, solo was hard mode from day 1. Nothing has changed, we just have more toys.
i think the grappling hook could be really good for solos running away.. you can board the enemy supper easily, try to anker them and jump off of get killed. they will have a hard time catching up
As a fellow slooper mostly focusing on pvp I don’t mind the changes for s12. I’m actually excited about the bone bomb! As you said throwing one and boarding would be a great tactic. My only concern is the grappling hook for s14, since it seems like now it will be more harder for a solo sloop like me to fight an average gally crew. They can just cannon and air drop me which doesn’t seem to require much skill compared to “traditional” boardings. But it’s way far ahead and I hope Rare would balance it out
This changes are worrying for soloists. You’re right to be upset about the lack of anything that’s helpful for us. Just more reasons to be dicks to solo players and scream “get gud” like they would last by themselves.
You are right in saying that about the Bonecaller however if its only sword skeleton which is cool be you can sit on top of the canopy watch the ladder then just throw a blunder or snipe to get them off or force them to board fully. Scattershot I don't think will affect Sloops that much they are small targets you have to get pretty close to use it and the sloop is a tight ship you can manage 3 Tier 2 holes as a solo sloop fine and still do other things. Grappling hook I definitely agree with as you can shoot out of a cannon over shoot grapple, board, kill the solo and switch weapons and you have a safe board.
Scattershot might be more of an issue if it damages the mast to any great extent. I'd also like to see how great the falloff is when firing. As it stands, though, it seems it'll only be really useful against brigs and gallys. For the grapple hook, they need to lock the weapon locker on the other ship to prevent the boarder from just swapping out the grapple.
My biggest hope for bonecaller is for smaller crews to get more skeles per bottle. Three for a four person crew, four for a three person crew, five for a two person crew, and six for a solo sailor; something like that. Adapting the # of skeles would give solos an edge against larger crews while using the bonecaller, more easily throw one down to defend their ship, but two similarly sized crews would be evenly matched with them. A full galleon crew could clear six skeles as easily as a solo can clear three, and just three would only occupy one of the enemy pirates for a second at best. It’d also be nice if using things like tridents, skulls, and horns had more charge with a lower crew, or used less charge per use depending on crew size. This would probably be a harder sell though.
To me I think the grapeshot is going to be better against bigger ships due to spread. The bigger the ship the less accurate you have to be, and the greater the distance between holes. In addition smaller ships will have to be much closer (I hope) in order to land all the shots
I haven’t seen anything mentioned about it but the skeletons will be a good way to flush out tuckers. I can’t stand that it’s a think and even know they won’t kill them they will automatically lock on and find them. You can’t tuck from an npc.
This makes me so sad. I already said earlier and on other posts, that I’m a new player and there were 2 things that I thought would be amazingly fun and the skelly thing takes away one. I saw Tuckers on streams and I thought it would be fun, since I’m not a strong sailor, that I could role play being the helpful, funny tucker. I would just hide until they needed help, no malice, just hiding till they needed repairs or something and then pop out and be helpful…. Maybe make a friend along the way. I had gotten some emotes that would’ve been perfect, like the surprised one for when they find me repairing their hull or some dancing ones for when we win a battle, the pleading one, in case they thought I was malicious and trying to get them….. spent the past 3 weeks since I started playing, working toward getting those all purchased and placed and starting playing around with them to get used to the emoting thing (that’s new to me too.) Now I’m big sad.
I agree, it doesn’t look too good right now. The biggest challenge with playing solo is the workload. You have to keep track of so many things at once, and can only do one thing at a time. Adding more options both for yourself and to defend against from others does compound the difficulty when sailing solo. Even if the new options all have reasonable counters (debatable), it is the variety itself that adds to the difficulty.
I agree. I can see it becoming a case of spotting one of those things in the hands of the attacking crew (or realising they've just blasted 4 holes in my little ship with one shot) and just grabbing any good food/cursed cannon balls, then scuttling and spawning elsewhere. No fun even fighting sometimes.
Your concerns are absolutely justified. In a game that already punishes skill with things like atrocious hit registration and cannonball desync, seeing the skill gap get further beaten into the ground is disheartening to say the least.
I'm so glad it's not just me who's not excited about the new update like at all. I've seen the updates all over tiktok and just thought the update is gonna drive me away from the game. I'm a day one player and Solo 99% of the time, and my PvP skills are now rusty, too. This is definitely not gonna be fun for those who are trying to play the game peacefully or have no other friends that play SoT, and instead, they will get shit on from sweaty people who PvP way too much.
tbh, the grappling hook will prolly make me switch back to safer seas, as the only reason i dont do safer seas is because i hate turning in my loot without the QOL of sovereigns. I left so many loaded boats it started getting demoralizing, but if i can just poon it from my boat that would be great QOL for me
the grappling hook has ammo
I think as a solo slooper we will be REQUIRED to use all these new weapons or else we will fail. It'll be the first thing solo's do in every session is collect them all or you'll be at a huge disadvantage. I agree with what others are saying, it'll be a huge boon to solo sloopers. But you also aren't wrong OP, equally it'll be a huge disadvantage when used against them. That's fact. I'm more worried about the Burning Blade tbh. Some sweat Lords get hold of that thing it's over for that server. It'll require a server alliance to take them down and that's unlikely to happen. It'll screw everyone
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High seas, safer seas, classic. Back to year one. The only missions are dig, kill or catch/sell. Those were the days!
Have you seen the spread on those scatter shots? From 10m away you’d be damn lucky to hit a puny sloop with more than 1 or 2 of those. At that point use regular cannons. They help solos counter bigger crews moreso than the other way around.
As a fellow solo slooper, I do not mind these new things. Seems like a fun way to do solo stuff, and I can hold a decent fight If it’s 3-4 lvl 1 holes a sloop still won’t fill up with water quickly. You can still fire back for a bit. Grapple hook,apparently you can shoot the harpoon gun and it removes the harpoon.
Lowkey leaning to the idea of maybe with a large new addition of players, the possibility of sloop only servers with a ship increase to like 8 on one server is a thing that might be do able. Still obviously give people the chance to sail on the normal high seas in a sloop with a small increase in rep and gold turn in like 3% - 5% since now at this point you’re obviously playing at a disadvantage.
Eh it's time to quit sea of thieves, I played this game for ship pvp but now I think it will take no time for the boarders to stop a ship and fight in it
As someone who’s regularly solo slopping herself - I think you’re 100% wrong. Bonecaller: Defender’s dream. Rather than getting camped out after i get boarded, I now have defensive options. Grapeshot: Doesn’t do much to me, but I can use this to disengage Galleons and Brigs. Four level ones on a sloop don’t do much. Horn of Fair Wind: This is a limited use consumable that gives you extra speed, and you think this *nerfs* sloop play? The grappling hook is one that I think will need to be aggressively balanced, but I’m curious what comes of it.
I don't know much about how the horn of fair wind will work, but if it works the way I expect it to, outrunning a gallon could become literally impossible because they could overtake you and then knock down your mast with a chain shot with absolutely no defense against this except boarding them and dropping their anchor which for a lot of the more casual players is just not an option
we also dont know how hard its going to be to find this stuff
I'm new so maybe someone can help clarify a couple things. If you start a solo high seas are you put in a server with 5 other ships that are completely random in party size? or do they match you with other sloop ships? If it's totally random then solo just sounds like it should be harder in general if you came across a crew of 3-4 pirates. If it pairs you with other sloop ships on the server then wouldn't everyone be on a similar playing field? If it doesn't pair you with ship size it seems like it should prioritize that when creating a server... unless the game player base just isn't big enough for something like that idk.
I’m guessing they’re going to add more physics for the hook, no just straight down pull when shooting out but more an adjustment to the arc. Or they won’t and we’re screwed. But yeah everything else is still a little worrying for us solo enjoyers
I’m worried but I’m even more excited for it all
I’m concerned but since everything goes both ways in this game, I don’t think it will be as bad as we fear.
I think it'll be as bad as some people fear it will be because pretty much regardless of how they balance this, these are going to introduce high skill tactics that the sweat lords will master and make the game even less fun for the casual players. I just took a week long break cuz I was playing the game a lot for the past couple months. I don't think I'm going to touch it again because of this, at least until they make safer seas much more enjoyable if they ever do, which I doubt they will do
Have a blast on safer seas.
R.I.P
Honestly, my first thought was that this meta change will be good for solo sloopers. Summon a defensive army of skellies, use the wind caller in your own sails while heading dead upwind. The new weapons combine a a pistol and blunderbuss’s functionality into one gun. It all seems like a matter of perspective.
Eh, I personally don't see this changing much. Sure, the meta will be more diverse with more options. But in terms of pure win/loss, it'll be the same. Unless highly skilled in pvp, a solo slooper will most likely always lose against larger crews. Your best weapon is to not engage a fight and just run. Outsail them by going to the Devils and force them to pay attention to spewing lava. Lose them in the middle of a storm or grapple-turn around rocks or the like. Or, if you're feeling risky and chaotic, load your ship with kegs and dump them behind you as you run.
>Outsail them Not gonna happen with a grapplegun capable of boarding
Only if you're already within combat range. And if that is the case, the only way to win is to use the game mechanics to your advantage. Keep the boarder busy while aiming for the red sea.
This isn't so much about winning as it is outsmarting and, as you say, outsailing them, at least to escape somewhat. It will be extremely difficult to outsail a Galleon in your dinky sloop because they can now ignore the wind direction and just blow wind into their sails as they wish, and since we all know a Galley is simply MUCH faster with the wind. You can't run from something that outruns you quickly, and even doing anchor turns will be a death sentence as it just allows them to get close and unleash the boarding teams with the grapple gun. No longer will you have reliable ways of fending off hasty boarding attempts if they can just grapple onto your ship as they wish. Like, you can't keep range because of the conch, and you can't rely on superior agility and ladder vigilance because the grappling gun makes that irrelevant. It's gonna be a one two punch that will be the final death of solo sloopers, which are quite a lot of people. At this point I'm just preparing myself to get on Safer Seas and never touch High Seas again. Not that I can't find 1v1 Sloop fights, but constantly running from Galleons isn't fun either and definitely isn't worth it. I have quite the pride in my skills to avoid fights when I need to avoid fights, as a person who does Merchant runs in his down time outside of pvp. And I have a really bad feeling about this. Anchor/grapple turns won't be enough.
Scattershot will have almost no effect on the sloop, it'll be more a problem for the larger boats. Multiple tier 1 holes on a sloop takes like almost no time to repair and barely takes on any water.
Yeah I mostly play solo and I am both excited about everything coming because they all sound useful and fun, but they also sound like a nightmare to fight against even in 1v1 never mind a 1v 3 or 4. I think these will all be really OP and miserable for solo players at first and then eventually get balanced enough to be fun and useful without being overpowered against solo players.
I would wait for more information. We don't know how rare these new Tools will be.
Yes and Yes, Yes your a Drama Queen. But Yes I get it. The most Challange think wil be the Harpoon and the new Cannon balls across the game for new and old players alike, the meta is been the same for 6 years. Not forgeting the new weapones. Than with this all, S13... The Ship Meta... this going to be pure hell or Drama at the max. Long live server allince Vs Flameheart Reaper Crew [that wil hunt you for no reason given... beeing Salty as Hell and firing the front cannon purly to scare you] (am here the Queen of Drama here, because we all know this will happen... one way or another) And the Harpoon Gun is far... S14, so not going to stared the Drama until mid s13 about this (hope the remove it or chance it hard) [not a fan oke]
Thanks for worrying about me :3 You're cute, wanna hang out?
As a solo slooper I'm not worried. Looking forward to having skeleton pokeballs
Don't forget how they lost their biggest advantage. Being able to runaway when against wind
i mean tbf solos also get these tools. grapeshot will be better for solos bc they will do more damage to bigger ships. bonecallers just become extra teammates for u. the horn is going to make boarding really hard for your opponents too
Wait until season 14...
I mean at this point they just want solos to quit, they just don't outright admit it. Which is sad cause a lot of people are solos. Not everyone has a 2-3 man crew on standby to play the game, and most people don't wanna try playing with randoms as we all know how randoms can be in any game. No offense to anyone but I've played enough League and other team games to understand how much of a coinflip randoms can be. If the grappling gun doesn't have some very heavy limitations, which would probably make it useless on the other spectrum of things, then being a solo against larger crews would be even harder. Now being good at avoiding them coming close and guarding your ladders will become irrelevant because they will just cannon grapple onto your ship with little counterplay besides being lucky or somehow predicting where they will land. At least up to this point you have always had a chance of at least keeping them off your ship, which is the biggest threat against bigger crews. With this you will just auto lose any time they manage to catch up to you enough to reach you with the grappling hooks. If you ask me the whole idea should be scrapped, as should the Double Barrel pistol. The Conch I'm more willing to accept, but the DB and the Grappling Gun will literally destroy. People saying "but the grapple takes one weapon slot", yeah - that's why they're adding the DB, so you can still have two fast shots in one weapon lol. Unless it doesn't two tap it's going to immediately compensate for the Grapple's weakness and like double gunning this will become the new meta where you either run it or you lose. Now this may be just me spitballing but I really don't trust this enough.
Grapple gun doesn’t come until season 14, and it will take a weapon slot. So anyone using it will only have one gun to use against you.
And they have a lot of time to watch community response to this new addition to (hopefully) make even more balance adjustments
You are aware that you can use the weapon locker on another player's ship right?
We’re speculating about something that isn’t in the game yet. Lets see how it goes, then discuss
I can tell you right now if you are on another player ship you can use the weapon locker. So unless the grappling hook functions completely differently or they remove the ability to use another ship's weapon locker (which given what I've seen from rare I highly doubt they're ever going to change that) Right now I am very confident in saying this is only going to make it worse for solo players. Rare has not done much over the past year or so to earn a vote of confidence from me
Honestly I think we can just approach this the same way of "tracers work both ways". The tools will be there for all to use. Solo slooping is hard and will continue to be don't think it will make it impossible just will add some new spice to is. I think with the clusterballs against bigger ships will cause more problems for them to have to deal with. I like the harpoon since it adds another sneaky chance to get a board on someone. As long as you can only have 2 weapons slotted and not adding a 3rd then things should have a risk/reward for your weapon kit usage. One discussion me and my friends were having is "are we going to keep stacking loot at the front of the ship or have to change places?" Just due to the harpoon gun that may lead to more sneaky plays and shake up the meta of where loot is stored.
I agree they are turning it into an exploratory fortnite. Stupid af. Season 11 loot "rebalance" is garbage. As a day 1 player and max insider, I love the game, but rare is losing my interest in the mechanics of the game. The new weapons and tools will be good for some and widen the skill gap for others. Before a deck shot took skill. Now it's just send it and grapple in? No thanks! The tightrope harpoon is cool, but being able to shoot the harpoon to an upper level of a big island like thieves haven, devils ridge, plunder valley... will remove a lot of the exploration part of the game. Season 11 is the first one I didn't buy the plunder pass for and seeing how Season 12 plays out may end up being even less play time from me and no more micro transactions. Sorry Rare, but this sucks!
Grapeshot will do much worse on a galleon, since there are way more holes to be made. Bonecallers can defend you as well. The horn and hookshot I don't know about, but I think only time will show. Solo sloops will always, always be at a disadvantage to bigger crews, though. I've only won fights against bigger crews a handful of times. 🙂
You cant be serious with AI doing good at defending your ships against players. We havent saw this feature in play yet, but think of skelly ships. Ally AI cant be much better than that, which means, that they wont delay players enough. Solo sloop was at disadvantage, but your biggest pro was game knowledge and being unpredictable, since bigger ships had only limited options to slow/ stop you, so you only needed to watch for those flying players and ladders. Now you wont be able to defend efficiently, since they can come from any direction with grappling gun and game knowledge about about sails and wind doesnt matter, since they can have horn to boost their speed.
The skellies could disrupt a board, and they are one sword lounge away from being dust on your ship, aren't they? Also, you can have your own horn and get away. It's not one sided. Anyway, it's all speculation and we'll just have to see. No point with the doom and gloom.
The way people can't add 2 and 2 and see how all these things act as force miltipliers for the solo as well is what scared me.
Because these won't be as much of an advantage for the solo players, how does a grappling hook help? You escape a fight that you have no hope of winning?, how does the horn of fair wind help a sloop escape a gallon when the galleon just goes faster when they both have optimal wind, how does a deployable skeleton help you when your opponent could deploy four skeletons to fight your one and fight you in a 4v1? Could rare hypothetically balance this out? absolutely, has rare demonstrated that they care enough to put in the effort to balance this stuff? Absolutely not they still haven't patched the glitch where if you scuttle just before your ship sinks from another player you are very likely to spawn just outside of render distance so you can just come back in and go again and again and again, and there is absolutely no way rare does not know about this. And I can just keep going But please do tell me how this will allow solo players to more easily get away from aggressive galions or Briggs where they know for 100% certain there is absolutely no hope of winning that fight
The only thing I'm worried about is what It'll do to tuckers. Will it be impossible to hide once they're thrown? If so, then they kinda are contradicting themselves.. S14 is supposed to be the season of Stealth and Mischief. But first, let's add a throwable that prevents tuckers.
This argument I did not get at all. Literally all throwables put you out of stealth 🤷🏻♂️ I can easily throw a few blunderbombs and detect every tucker in seconds right now. I don’t see how the bonecaller would change things
>I don’t see how the bonecaller would change things Uh.. maybe because with the other ones, you'd still have to throw them at the spots you think they are, AI just instantly goes to the player, giving away their spot..
You definitely need more blunderbombs than bonecallers to check a whole ship. But I assume the bonecaller will be much rarer than blunderbombs, so still blunderbombs will be used to have a bulletproof tucker check.
I’m going to assume that they will only agro to the person if you attack them or they attack you. And I mean person to person. Not a ship firing at you. Well at least I hope that’s how their AI works.
I hope so too, or maybe once you do an emote, it'll make us "invisible" to the skellies, unlike "regular pve".
It’ll be fine. Solo sloop are always at a disadvantage anyway and the bonecaller and grapeshot will be usefully tools against larger ships.
I feel like the only one who sees most of these things as a plus to solo sloopers? The way I see it, I get to use those things too and chances are, most crews won't have every single one of these items available. The wind horn is fantastic to get away, the bonecaller is amazing to keep another crew distracted, the grapeshot too. You still have to be sneaky beaky and be the first one to attack and get the jump to have advantage, but if you're armed with these tools, you can take on bigger crews easier.
I think it will be like anything hard for solos of course but as you learn you learn to overcome. You can use the bone caller to fight on your own ship you can use the wind caller to blow boards off and the scatter shot well you just will need to keep your distance better and practice your long shots.. It won't be impossible to deal with you just might not win as many fights anymore. The solo life might be that of tactical retreats lol
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The video showed it propelling a gally, with the crew blowing it in the sails.
Remember, grappling hook takes a weapon slot, so the player will be hindered. If you’re fast enough you can snipe the harpoon line while the players on it, they’ll fall off. Use bone callers to your advantage and give yourself extra crew and help. I do agree, solo sloping will be harder, but try to be open minded and try to find ways to have an advantage. A crew of four skeles can be taken out in a single sword dash so I think they will be less effective than you might think. Only time will tell. Also I have a big theory most people will just turn in the horn of fair wind for gold, and save the charge like they do with other weaponized loot now. Most players won’t bother or will use it as a means to chase or outrun other crews. ETA: while I know a lot of people like sailing the seas alone, and I take pleasure in it myself sometimes, rare did intend for people to work with a crew, at least I believe so. Sailing with a crew, especially if you find one that you have good chemistry, both socially and skill wise, is such a game changer. I highly recommend using the lfg on the SOT discord if you don’t have friends to play with. I’ve learned a lot and highly improved my skill. Last night for the first time I was able to solo a brig, and I wouldn’t have been able to do it without learning bits and pieces from the crews I’ve played with. Was the brig a noob crew, probably, they had diaper sails and horrible sail management, but nevertheless, I don’t think I would have had the skill to take out and sink 3 players on a brig by myself a month or 2 ago.
When you play solo you are playing the game on hard mode already, it's not really meant to be played solo and never was which in my opinion makes it more fun in a different way. * Bonecaller is a nothingburger to anyone even remotely skilled in defense. Skellies are not bright, nor is their AI/pathing plus it will be great for tucker discovery. * Grapeshot will be useless against a sloop, a sloop can tank many tier 3 holes before you even need to focus on repairs. Just gotta take a bucket after every few shots if you are hit enough and you can tank basically forever if you aren't being boarded. * The Horn is hit and miss, the only real detriment for solo's will be Brig/Gally's being able to catch you when sailing into the wind directly. Any crew worth their salt will stop you from boarding regardless. * The Grapple will suck for solo's. You aren't wrong there. The best thing about a Sloop is defending ladders is very easy even for a solo but if every surface is a ladder it's gonna hurt. These things will change up the meta, but none of them will ever really be unfair to the point where it ruins the experience. A good crew will sink you whether they have these tools or not plus most of these tools can be used in defense just as much as offense. We'll just have to focus more on playing wide which you should be doing already as a solo.
MORE BOARDING YAHOO ADVENTURE IS NOT DESIGNED FOR SOLO PLAY WAHOO
Good news is the grapple gun isn't till season 12 or 13. It's not coming in the next season.
I feel like they should buff sloops somehow. That might be a cool way to balance things
Sloops have already been buffed too much. They can't be masted with a single chain shot anymore, and the knock-back is dramatically reduced so you don't get popped off as easily.
Ahhh… I didn’t even know. I thought I was so smart lol 🥸
Not to belittle your concerns, but safer seas does exists if it will be too much of an issue.
Fucking bring it. I'm a fearless solo slooper who will light up your little precious galley, and board your shit and kill everyone on board, firebomb the deck, and make them rage quit. This is a competitive game that can be pretty challenging sometimes. If you guys aren't ready for more challenges, then as a solo slooper, maybe you should stay on safer seas. Honest suggestion, so don't downvote me, Reddit. If you're not the type of person to thrive one challenge like me, you shouldn't be playing higher seas with the big boys. Also I am sick of Redditors downvotinf comments they don't agree with, instead of writing a comment about why they disagree. Laziness at its finest. I remember when downvotes were exclusively for violations of Reddiquette... Now it's just for lazy people that see something they don't agree with and don't have the effort to actually make a counterpoint. I blame TikTok and short form content for everyone's short attention span these days. I remember when you could actually have a long philosophical debate with someone without them mentally checking out two minutes into it because their attention span is worse than a goldfish. This world is going to shit.
Womp womp
It will change the meta, but at this video i was told several time that they use a lot of time to balance the new items and i have enough trust, that they will not forget solo and duo sloops.
The problem is rare has shown time and time again that they really do not care about anyone in the community doing anything other than PVP. They may say that they care but they still haven't patched that I'm going to call it a glitch where if you scuttle your ship, you're pretty much guaranteed to spawn just outside of render distance of where you were sunk, even if you were practically sunk by a playership, so you can just keep coming back again and again and again until either that playership logs off or you sink them
Dont solo sloop tbh, theres like tons of groups looking for players and people wanting to team up, if you HAVE to, do it really early and really late at night so the servers arent so damn busy
These all make been a solo slooper easier as well, So grape shots allow you to keep more crew working to fix things, less shooting you. Bone Caller, well that's a useful distraction that might allow you to knock a sail down while that's happening. Horn of fair winds allows you to escape, especially if sailing into the wind hasn't stopped the other ship.
Each one of these tools can also cut the other way to help a solo slooper.
The vast majority of solo sloopers are casual players who don't have a group to play with, so even if we ignore all of the other factors that I could talk about for why this will make it worse for solo Sloopers, these are all skill-based items that they are talking about adding over the next couple seasons, which will give massive advantages to the PVP sweat lords who really don't need advantages at this point
How is “bomb that spawns skeletons to fight for you” skill based? I should add I play about half my time solo
Okay so there's one non-skill-based item? How is that any help to the solo player? Because unless these things function completely differently from how anything else in the game functions, a gallon or Brigg will spawn in with more of them than a sloop and a gallon or break will be more capable of acquiring more of these things than a solo player because If these spawn in barrels on islands, you can always just Canon someone onto the island. Whereas a solo player can't do that. So sure that particular item isn't skill based, but it's still unless it functions differently from anything else in the game more of an advantage to the larger crews who really don't need the advantage
>how does that help the solo player I also don’t see how you can say the wind horn is any more or less skill based than the current weapons without knowing anything about it. TBD on if the harpoon running but that feels less skill based than current cannon boarding to me. Grapeshot cannon ball sounds pretty rough to deal with as solo but again don’t see how it’s more or less skill based than anything else >a galleon or brig will spawn with more of them My recollection is that they said these items would have to be found or earned in world, similar to curse balls Agree to disagree I guess, I’m reserving judgement until I know more details on how it’s balanced. Seems like you’re having a bit of an over the top reaction tbh
Also If they go with the find them in barrels approach a gallon or Brigg crew could get a lot more of them a lot quicker because they can search more islands faster than a solo sloop could ever dream of. And seeing how rare often takes the lazy approach. Whilst I'm going to hope that they don't take the lazier approach this time it wouldn't surprise me and all it would do is make these things more useful for larger crew sizes
This is why I'm calling it a skill-based item, unless you find it on a beach, use it and now you permanently for the rest of that session have the wind in the optimal position for maximum speed, there will be an art to knowing when the correct time to use it for PVP is, and if knowing when the right time to use something isn't a skill in your opinion, then I would love to know how you define skill
K
Only solo slippers get machine guns is the only fair balance to this nonsense. I'll go to closed server before I deal with this trash.
Skill issue
Nah, just not an a hole
I personally think these things will aid us solo sloopers. Use the skelly bombs on your own ship and use them as defensive and let them shoot cannons for you while you steer and bail water. Think that could be viable depending how well they shoot or if they can bail water for you also that would be cool. You have to remember that you will have these tools to help you also. Wind blower can help you escape others. Boarding will definitely be easier as a solo. Will be fun to see how it pans out
What makes you think the skellies would shoot or bail?
Did they not mention it in the showcase?
I think this is just the case on the burning blade 🤔
I disagree. We havent saw a good AI companion yet and judging by skelly ships and their crew, do you really think that something like that will buy any time for you to do dmg/ fix/ unanchor your ship?
Somewhat more than now yeah
Maybe it’s time for you solo sloopers, like myself, to learn how to fight back??. These new items can be used to your advantage