Not so long ago, a large-scale addition to Sea of Thieves called Pirate Legend was released, the face of which was the famous pirate – Captain Jack Sparrow. This again attracted a huge number of players to the project. Some decided to try the creation of the Rare studio for the first time solely because of the addition of a story campaign with their favorite movie franchise character.
We decided to make a guide that contains important tips for those who go sailing for the first time and those who, after a long break, decided to return to the game.
What is Sea of Thieves?
Release Date: March 20, 2018
Developer, Publisher: Rare / Microsoft Studios
Genre: Action / Adventure / First Person
Platform: Windows 10, X-One
An adventurous sea sandbox that gives four players the chance to live the life of a pirate:
- Explore the wide and beautiful ocean.
- Trade with settlements on outlying islands.
- Fight for control of the sea lanes.
- Have fun in the tavern, lowering the piastres earned on sea robbery.
Sea of Thieves is a pirate-themed, co-op action-adventure game that doesn’t put any boundaries or storylines in front of the players. Do you want to be a merchant and earn a positive reputation? Or discover new lands? Or take contracts to catch especially cruel robbers? Pirate freedom has no limits, and the deeper you dive into the process, the more opportunities open up for you.
The romance of the sea is associated with travel, and the game is in perfect order with this. Having assembled a team, you will have to learn the skill of managing the ship:
- Correctly maneuver, set sails, plot a course, scrub the deck and cook porridge in the galley.
- Raise the sails and go in search of treasures, caches and shelters.
- If you can’t find a team of 4 players for a large ship, buy a small ship for one or two sailors.
The thirst for discovery can distract you for a long time, but you should not relax – sooner or later, you will meet unfriendly pirates and even the dead guarding hidden treasures. Success in the battle at sea will require you to perfectly shoot a cannon, if, of course, you buy one. You will have to wave a saber and shoot from a musket on the shore, having previously filled in gunpowder and hammered a bullet. Experienced teams, predictably, will have a significant advantage over the enemy.
However, the success of battles may depend not only on combat power, but also on the sociability of the team, which performs this or that maneuver on time. It is best to communicate through a microphone, but you can use the gesture system if it is not available. The distribution of opportunities also affects your status – a team with a leader will move faster towards legendary status.
Adventure and the sea are great, but sometimes even the most inveterate corsair needs to set foot on land and soak his throat with a good pint of rum. Visit a place of entertainment, warm yourself by the fire, meet beautiful women and chat with other pirates. You can also dance, bawl songs, or vomit on the person’s shoes sitting next to you. But keep in mind, a pirate with a bad reputation is unlikely to be allowed into a decent establishment.
Supplies on the ship
To begin with, in the world of Sea of Thieves, you initially appear with a weapon, a shovel, a bucket, a compass, and other accessories useful while sailing. You will also have some bananas, revolver bullets, planks and cannonballs. However, few people understand where to replenish supplies when they run out.
You can find ammo, cores, and boards to repair the ship on your ship. Food often lies in barrels that you will meet on the islands where you go on a mission. Sea of Thieves has many useful things right on the ship, but do not forget to check all the barrels and boxes that will be found on land, and then you will not have problems replenishing supplies.
Take on all the quests you can find
The essence of Sea of Thieves is to travel through virtual seas and complete many tasks. Here they are called “Journey”. You can take the task from one of the three factions, while each of them gives the player journeys with specific features.
Golden Chests give the player treasure cards to help you find valuable treasure. Trade Alliance will force you to trade. The Order of Souls only issues quests for killing pirate ship captains and will require you to bring their skulls after the battle. In general, the choice in the game is quite good, so that every conqueror of the seas in Sea of Thieves always has something to do.
Counting steps
On tasks requiring you to find a treasure on the island, sometimes you need to count a certain number of steps from the specified place to be at the right point and start digging. Unfortunately, there is no application in the game that counts how much you have run or passed, but there is one life hack that not everyone knows about.
When you are at the point where you want to start the countdown, pick up the compass and hold RT. The character will bring it closer, and in this state, when you start moving, the vibration of the gamepad will mark each step. Thanks to this, you will begin to clearly count the number of steps and quickly find the treasure.
It is very difficult to control a ship alone
Sea of Thieves was originally conceived as a cooperative game, so many of the actions here are almost impossible to carry out alone. First of all, this concerns the ship’s management, which will require at least 3 people. For proper control, you will have to lower the sails in time, adjust their angle of inclination, raise and lower the anchor, and steer the ship using the helm and at the same time not forget the right direction.
Because ship management in Sea of Thieves is a combined action consisting of solving several tasks, you definitely need a team. A successful treasure voyage awaits you in a team of at least three people, only in this way there will be enough people to complete the main tasks on the ship. Navigator, helmsman and cabin boy are the perfect combination, but alone you will quickly get tired of running back and forth and trying to control the ship yourself.
Learn to dodge obstacles
In the game, you will often have to maneuver your ship. This mainly applies to situations where the ship will inevitably rush to the reefs. If you can’t dodge in time, your vehicle will inevitably take damage, and you will have to quickly run after the boards to start patching holes in the hold.
To dodge sharply and not run into an obstacle, you need to fix the steering wheel in a certain direction and then immediately drop the anchor. After this action, the ship will begin to rotate between 90 and 180 degrees, and you are guaranteed not to hit the obstacle. This maneuver is great during battles for quick turns, so you need to hone it to automatism.
A bucket is a useful tool
If you decided that the bucket is a rather useless thing at the very beginning of the game, then I have to disappoint you. This is one of the essential devices during sea travel, which can save you from sinking on your own ship.
A bucket is needed to draw water from the hold, which will be there if you hit a reef or come under fire. In such situations, you will first need to patch up the holes from which the water is gushing and then quickly pick up a bucket and start “transporting” it outside the ship. If this is not done, the ship will literally fill with water before our eyes, and you will safely go to the bottom with all your crew and prey.
Do not swim behind the “buoys”
Sea of Thieves offers players a fairly large map with many different islands, but this does not mean that it has no end and edge. As soon as you swim to the end of the virtual sea, the sky will instantly turn red, and your ship will begin to receive a huge amount of damage.
If you continue to stand your ground and try to continue to prove that the Sea of Thieves is still round earth, then your ship will quickly go to the bottom along with all the treasures. So be careful, and as soon as you notice that the sky is turning red, immediately turn around.
Good pirate = drunken pirate
It’s easy to get drunk in the game, and all it takes is three mugs of grog. As soon as the alcohol takes over your character’s mind, the screen will turn green, and the camera will begin to shake continuously. However, in this state, you have an additional weapon.
If you take a bucket and vomit in it, you can pour this substance on the enemy and disorient him. The same can be done by getting rid of yesterday’s dinner not in a bucket but in your glass. A rather nasty thing, but no one said that pirates are an example of good manners.
Shoot your guns right
There are still questions about some mechanics in Sea of Thieves , and the shooting from cannons is implemented here ambiguously. There are no sights on them, and in general, the game does not help to deliver accurate shots at an enemy ship. Most likely, at first you will simply waste cores and will not achieve the desired result.
To hit an enemy ship, always shoot just below the water level. This will help direct the core straight into the body and bring a lot of problems to the enemies. A broken hold guarantees that water will begin to pour into it, respectively, the enemy team will have to be distracted by repairs and they will become less likely to shoot at you. In general, accurate hits on the hull will most quickly send a pirate ship to the next world.
Stop running to the map
I’m sure this is just an incredible pain for anyone who plays Sea of Thieves or has ever done so. When you take a task, a mark appears on the map, but you cannot take it with you, but there are no more markers while you are at the helm. Accordingly, while sailing, you have to control the ship, then run into the hold to make sure that you are going in the right direction. How annoying this running!
On the sloop, you can look at the balcony behind the ship to fully view the map. Naturally, it will be small, but when there is a mark on it, you will perfectly understand in which direction to swim even from such a distance. You can view the map on the right deck on the galleon through a gap in the floor.
Black water
Sometimes during the journey, you will find yourself in a situation where the ship stops abruptly, and the water around it turns black. Congratulations, you’ve landed on a “date” with the Kraken. If you do nothing, this huge creature with many tentacles will quickly deal with your ship and the entire crew.
As soon as the water turns black, immediately stand behind the cannons and prepare for battle. It will be complicated, but you must win if you want to save your prey and not go straight to the bottom.
Skulls in the sky
When you see clouds in the form of skulls or ships in the sky, then you should know that very great booty awaits you there. You can immediately go to this place and prepare for battle. If the treasure is on land, then with a high probability, you will see a castle with a bunch of animated skeletons that will have to be taught a lesson. If the cloud hovered over the sea, you will have to fight with the ships of the dead, and it is on them that valuable loot is located.
In such situations, it will be useful to team up with other players’ ships and then share the booty. It cannot be said that skeletons are very difficult enemies, but help will not hurt you.
Deliver loot to the outpost
After you find a treasure chest or knock out a pirate skull, the task, in fact, will be completed. At this stage, many players decide to simply exit the game and continue to travel the seas later, but this is not correct. If you do not deliver the treasure or the same skull to the outpost of one of the factions, you will lose the opportunity to gain experience and gold.
If you exit the game immediately after you find your loot, you will find that you no longer have a pirate skull, and the chest has disappeared from the hold somewhere when you return to Sea of Thieves again. So do not make such mistakes and always bring the matter to an end.
What is that glare?
When other players ship sails near you, they may want to board you. This happens much more often than friendly interactions with other pirates. Whatever one may say, but pirates are still bandits, and laws are not written for them. So, you can find out that you can become a potential target for another ship by glare. Opponents will first want to examine your ship with the help of a telescope, and it is she who will create the very glare.
It’s also worth noting that a sniper rifle can create glare, so if you see something flashing like a torch in the distance for long enough, it’s best to leave the deck and prepare for an attack.
Teamwork
In Sea of Thieves, you can work for one of the three available alliances and complete their missions to benefit other players’ ships. This can be done if you start travelling on virtual seas under a specific flag. In this case, you and the team of allies will receive a 50% bonus to production. It’s not bad enough and an excellent reason to work together and not immediately start cutting each other’s throats.
However, be careful, as there are many players in Sea of Thieves who can trap you under the guise of friendship. At first they will offer you their help, and when they get closer, they will simply shoot your ship. Always be on the alert!
Don’t forget to look to the sky
And finally, one more tip will help you become more affluent in Sea of Thieves. When you are just sailing through the virtual seas, pay attention to the seagulls in the sky. As soon as they appear, a ship has sunk somewhere nearby. You will probably even be able to see his “nose”.
Shipwrecks always guarantee you free loot. Moreover, you will empty at least one chest, but more often, there are several of them, and along with them, other valuable buns, such as luminous skulls, lie at the bottom of the ocean. Be sure to search the sunken ships that the seagulls point to, and you will have pirate happiness.
This was our detailed guide to all the key aspects of playing Sea of Thieves, which will help both beginners and those who have been sailing the endless seas for some time to become more seasoned pirates.
