Sea of Thieves beta, the single player experience!
I think most people want to dive quickly in multiplayer and team up with other people in the Sea of Thieves beta, but did you know that you can also play on your own? Well I say on your own but you still share the online world with other players. But you have your own ship and can do your own things. The game mentions that this is the most difficult way to play but I think it's the best way to learn the basics of the game and get familiar with a lot of things in the game. So here are some of the things I discovered and I talk a bit about my adventures in the game.
Better learn quickly!
I was surprised how the game offers no tutorial or anything at all when you start, I literally had no idea what I needed to do and where I needed to go. No indicators on the map or a map at all actually. On your ship you get a big map that shows you where the islands are but when you're off your ship then you're on your own! So it probably wouldn't surprise you that I spend at least ten minutes walking around on the starting islands looking for something to do. But I found a guy, one of the treasure hunters, that offers you a mission, some of them are free for others you need to pay gold, and at that point I just needed to get on my ship and set sail. That brought me to another problem, how do the controls for the ship work? I'm not really a seaman myself but I did pick up a couple of things in other games so you'll need to adjust the sails and determine how much wind you want them to catch, more wind is more speed, and of course you have to raise the anchor. My big mistake was to not check the map and figure out where you need to go first. So I spend about twenty minutes going North and finding islands and I explored the islands but all of those islands were wrong. I then finally figured out that the map you got from the treasure hunter isn't named but you can figure out which island it is with the shape on the big map. This might take some time but some islands are pretty unique and if it says that the mission is half a day away with travelling then you don't have to look far from your starting area. I managed to figure out which islands it was, for me it was Barnacle Cay and on the island you have to figure out where the spot is where you need to dig. Look carefully at the map and try to determine the exact location of the red X on the map. This means you have to look closely, don't expect the game to cut you some slack, you can be a meter off and get nothing! I managed to find the treasure and bring it back to the treasure hunter which got me reputation experience and gold. Not bad for a first try and a mission that didn't cost me any gold myself.
I'm an army of one!
When you're on the ship you have to do everything yourself. Which means steering, looking at the map, looking for enemies, (during combat) load and shoot canons and if you took damage you also have to plug holes and scoop out water with your bucket. It might seem easy but things can get really nasty if you're shit out of luck! On my first big treasure hunt, I bought a more expensive map, I was followed by another ship. This guy was following me for more than ten minutes and eventually tried to shoot me from a big distance. It's not easy to hit someone from that far away and your best bet is trying to get close. But as difficult it was for him to get close it was as difficult for me to shake him off my tail. I lured him into dangerous areas, with a lot of rocks and after that near a pirate fort that shoots canons at you. This helped a bit but he could still see my sails in the distance so I never really had a chance to truly shake him off. I think that this is a shame and pretty much forces you into combat wether you want to or not. While taking shots at him with my sniper rifle, you get this standard in the beta, I went into unknown territory, the sea will turn red so you know you're in trouble, and it did automaticly do damage to my ship. I had to make a hard turn and quickly get out. The guy following me also went into the unknown territory and was so busy with shooting his canons at me that he noticed too late that his ship was taking damage in the unknown territory. That ultimately meant his doom. But things didn't go so well for me either, I was fixing the holes when I suddenly saw big rocks out of nowhere and I slammed on the brake, which means on a ship dropping the anchor, and it somehow wedged me in between three pointy rocks. That sucked because I couldn't get out. So I let my ship sink and then some weird see creature showed up, some type of mermaid or merman that has a lantern and will take you to your ship if you fall off or teleports you to a new ship near an island.
Things get more difficult!
When you pick up more expensive treasure maps you get more than just a map. I got a map and a piece of paper with a riddle. The map will show you an island that you need to identify and the riddle will take you to an island and you have to follow the steps exactly. For the riddle I needed to go to shipwreck isle and I had to look at the morning gleam, which is the morning light and at that moment more text appeared on the piece of paper. I had to find the scarecrow near the inland water and take six paces North from the scarecrow. This felt more and more like a treasure hunt and it eventually gave me two chests which gave me a total of over a hundred gold so not bad for a 34 gold investment. The treasure hunting is a lot of fun and it's one of three big things you can do in the game. You can also deliver cargo for a trading company or kill skeleton captains and collect their skulls for rewards. At the same time you have to dodge other pirates or if you want to pick a fight. When it's just you on the ship you might want to be careful with that. I stumbled on a big ship full of players and my luck was that they either didn't see me or they were busy with something else. Otherwise that could've ended badly for me! You have a sword, flintlock pistol and a sniper rifle (rifle with a telescope on it and the crap lets you aim more accurately) and you can get new ammo for the guns on your ship. Other resources like canon balls, pieces of wood and bananas are limited and you can only carry a certain amount of those. So try to resupply whenever you can because you never know when you might need it! A good tip for all the single players out there, when you steer the ship you will feel a slight vibration (if you play with a controller) when you're locked into one direction. This is the perfect time to check the map and see if you got any holes or if you want to scoop out some water below deck if you got a leak. Just steer towards open water and do whatever you want. Just don't take too long or you might bump into some rocks that come out of nowhere!
Is this game worth checking out?
I had a lot of fun on the first day of the beta and eventhough I'm not a big fan of the combat so far I can see that this will play a big role in multiplayer (with bigger crews). For the single player ships you're just not that well equipped for combat and can only do that much. I had a lot of fun with the treasure hunting and it made me so happy everytime I found a treasure chest, but then the fear sneaks up on you because what if another player tries to steal it from you? So I always try to rush back to my island and sell the chest to the treasure hunter. I couldn't stop laughing at the drunk animation and all the puking. I was puking over everything after drinking too much grog and even started puking over the woman behind the counter and into my own tankard. The game offers you a great experience as a pirate and eventhough it feels a bit repetitive in certain ways and also like grinding I do get a feeling that with the full games you have more things to do with the other two factions and you can switch things up a bit. While doing missions for a faction you also gain levels with that faction which gives you acces to new gear and you can also buy new gear on your island. Most things are expensive though, a new jacket is over a thousand gold which is ridiculous in my opinion considering you earn by far not that much gold with the first missions you play. I think the game is a lot of fun to play and probably should be played with friends but you can definitely enjoy yourself on your own if you prefer that or none of your friends are online.
Better learn quickly!
I was surprised how the game offers no tutorial or anything at all when you start, I literally had no idea what I needed to do and where I needed to go. No indicators on the map or a map at all actually. On your ship you get a big map that shows you where the islands are but when you're off your ship then you're on your own! So it probably wouldn't surprise you that I spend at least ten minutes walking around on the starting islands looking for something to do. But I found a guy, one of the treasure hunters, that offers you a mission, some of them are free for others you need to pay gold, and at that point I just needed to get on my ship and set sail. That brought me to another problem, how do the controls for the ship work? I'm not really a seaman myself but I did pick up a couple of things in other games so you'll need to adjust the sails and determine how much wind you want them to catch, more wind is more speed, and of course you have to raise the anchor. My big mistake was to not check the map and figure out where you need to go first. So I spend about twenty minutes going North and finding islands and I explored the islands but all of those islands were wrong. I then finally figured out that the map you got from the treasure hunter isn't named but you can figure out which island it is with the shape on the big map. This might take some time but some islands are pretty unique and if it says that the mission is half a day away with travelling then you don't have to look far from your starting area. I managed to figure out which islands it was, for me it was Barnacle Cay and on the island you have to figure out where the spot is where you need to dig. Look carefully at the map and try to determine the exact location of the red X on the map. This means you have to look closely, don't expect the game to cut you some slack, you can be a meter off and get nothing! I managed to find the treasure and bring it back to the treasure hunter which got me reputation experience and gold. Not bad for a first try and a mission that didn't cost me any gold myself.
I'm an army of one!
When you're on the ship you have to do everything yourself. Which means steering, looking at the map, looking for enemies, (during combat) load and shoot canons and if you took damage you also have to plug holes and scoop out water with your bucket. It might seem easy but things can get really nasty if you're shit out of luck! On my first big treasure hunt, I bought a more expensive map, I was followed by another ship. This guy was following me for more than ten minutes and eventually tried to shoot me from a big distance. It's not easy to hit someone from that far away and your best bet is trying to get close. But as difficult it was for him to get close it was as difficult for me to shake him off my tail. I lured him into dangerous areas, with a lot of rocks and after that near a pirate fort that shoots canons at you. This helped a bit but he could still see my sails in the distance so I never really had a chance to truly shake him off. I think that this is a shame and pretty much forces you into combat wether you want to or not. While taking shots at him with my sniper rifle, you get this standard in the beta, I went into unknown territory, the sea will turn red so you know you're in trouble, and it did automaticly do damage to my ship. I had to make a hard turn and quickly get out. The guy following me also went into the unknown territory and was so busy with shooting his canons at me that he noticed too late that his ship was taking damage in the unknown territory. That ultimately meant his doom. But things didn't go so well for me either, I was fixing the holes when I suddenly saw big rocks out of nowhere and I slammed on the brake, which means on a ship dropping the anchor, and it somehow wedged me in between three pointy rocks. That sucked because I couldn't get out. So I let my ship sink and then some weird see creature showed up, some type of mermaid or merman that has a lantern and will take you to your ship if you fall off or teleports you to a new ship near an island.
Things get more difficult!
When you pick up more expensive treasure maps you get more than just a map. I got a map and a piece of paper with a riddle. The map will show you an island that you need to identify and the riddle will take you to an island and you have to follow the steps exactly. For the riddle I needed to go to shipwreck isle and I had to look at the morning gleam, which is the morning light and at that moment more text appeared on the piece of paper. I had to find the scarecrow near the inland water and take six paces North from the scarecrow. This felt more and more like a treasure hunt and it eventually gave me two chests which gave me a total of over a hundred gold so not bad for a 34 gold investment. The treasure hunting is a lot of fun and it's one of three big things you can do in the game. You can also deliver cargo for a trading company or kill skeleton captains and collect their skulls for rewards. At the same time you have to dodge other pirates or if you want to pick a fight. When it's just you on the ship you might want to be careful with that. I stumbled on a big ship full of players and my luck was that they either didn't see me or they were busy with something else. Otherwise that could've ended badly for me! You have a sword, flintlock pistol and a sniper rifle (rifle with a telescope on it and the crap lets you aim more accurately) and you can get new ammo for the guns on your ship. Other resources like canon balls, pieces of wood and bananas are limited and you can only carry a certain amount of those. So try to resupply whenever you can because you never know when you might need it! A good tip for all the single players out there, when you steer the ship you will feel a slight vibration (if you play with a controller) when you're locked into one direction. This is the perfect time to check the map and see if you got any holes or if you want to scoop out some water below deck if you got a leak. Just steer towards open water and do whatever you want. Just don't take too long or you might bump into some rocks that come out of nowhere!
Is this game worth checking out?
I had a lot of fun on the first day of the beta and eventhough I'm not a big fan of the combat so far I can see that this will play a big role in multiplayer (with bigger crews). For the single player ships you're just not that well equipped for combat and can only do that much. I had a lot of fun with the treasure hunting and it made me so happy everytime I found a treasure chest, but then the fear sneaks up on you because what if another player tries to steal it from you? So I always try to rush back to my island and sell the chest to the treasure hunter. I couldn't stop laughing at the drunk animation and all the puking. I was puking over everything after drinking too much grog and even started puking over the woman behind the counter and into my own tankard. The game offers you a great experience as a pirate and eventhough it feels a bit repetitive in certain ways and also like grinding I do get a feeling that with the full games you have more things to do with the other two factions and you can switch things up a bit. While doing missions for a faction you also gain levels with that faction which gives you acces to new gear and you can also buy new gear on your island. Most things are expensive though, a new jacket is over a thousand gold which is ridiculous in my opinion considering you earn by far not that much gold with the first missions you play. I think the game is a lot of fun to play and probably should be played with friends but you can definitely enjoy yourself on your own if you prefer that or none of your friends are online.
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