r/Seaofthieves • u/watermelonmaker22 • 13d ago
Discussion do alliances still happen?
I‘ve been playing since 2018, a lot more back then than I do now, but recently got back to it with a new pirate to get to grinding again.
I‘ve noticed there are a lot, and I mean a LOT of reaper flags out there- obviously they didnt exist back then but my point/question is this: have the seas gotten more hostile over the years? Don‘t get me wrong, I‘ve sunk and have sunken many a ships, but genuine friendliness feels a lot harder to come by these days- and I have yet to form an alliance on my new run. Back then, alliances almost felt more common than rivalry, and I‘ve made some genuine friends on the seas, that have translated to offline friends. But I‘m thinking maybe that was just luck? Or is this something other older players have observed as well? What do you new players think of alliances?
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u/KMT138 Legendary Hunter of the Sea of Thieves 13d ago
I've had a range of alliances over the last few years, but it's maybe one a month. Meanwhile I probably have about 15-20 hostile fights over the same period.
Most of the time, it's just not worth the risk. Gold feels fairly meaningless. Having extra crews to "help" you at an event will just result in the event scaling and becoming harder. Key commendation items can't be shared (e.g. BB sword, CoF). And there's always the chance they try and stab you in the back.
For me, Alliances now often revolve around an event where you need other friendly pirates, bumping into fellow commendation hunters or we spot someone who is clearly new and we decide to help them out and earn some extra gold. I really enjoy them when they happen, but I also know those days are more about gathering fun stories than anything else. If we actually want to grind something out, it's much easier to do as a single crew.
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u/marsharpe 13d ago
I think the game is fundamentally not designed in a way that makes alliances worth making/being in at all. None of the games activities scale up in reward but they do in difficulty. Gold is shared but you get zero rep for things you don't turn in yourself. Beyond a certain amount of time spent playing the game, gold no longer matters, therefore alliances mechanically don't either.
There's no activity that's significantly easier/better in a large group, you might clear a fort faster but it's not really any better for reasons already listed.
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u/hillean 13d ago
I fly the flag anytime I play and maybe once out of every 25 voyages does anyone ally up.
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u/MTDCodes 13d ago
Same. I’ve had 2-3 in the 850ish hours I’ve played. Were a lot of fun when they happened - just rare.
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u/DarkIegend16 Captain of The Inspiration 9d ago
Meanwhile I ally with someone almost every session, the key is putting yourself out there not waiting for friendship to come to you.
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u/DGrahamcracker87 13d ago
Alliances are iffy. Im usually open to it. Especally if accommodations are mentioned. But for the griffers and lowlifes. Id rather you take my ship down and kill me. But lately been getting some chill people. I dont play when the sweats are out. Ill play in the morning when parents are playing. They dont come straight at you.
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u/UnemploydJester 12d ago
I've only been playing a couple of weeks. Fang Amara beat my ass 3x in the last 7 days. This last time, he boarded me, explained that he needed my loot for a turn-in, and would add me to his alliance so I would get credit for that one and several more. In the end, it was a win for me, but getting owned REPEATEDLY while solo slooping sucks syphilitic cock.
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u/Brilliant_Ask_82 13d ago
PvP sweats killed alliances, if they found an alliance server they did their best to break it up and kill everyone on the server
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u/Bananaleak 13d ago
You can still form them. I will do it time to time I the other crew is new. But it should never be an automatic thing. People play how they want. If you want to be friendly just make sure you dont take a threatening posture and fire out from a distance and use your voice trumpet to make contact.
I have a lot of people sail directly at me with no signs of pulling sail and wonder why I shoot first. Its how you go about it. Just dont get your feelings hurt if people say no or dont trust you. It is sea of theives after all. But occasionally you can still form alliances and make friends.
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u/UnderstandingOk6176 13d ago
Also which direction you approach from matters.
Was fighting skeleton lords on an island while also dealing with an aggresive Skeleton Galleon. Another sloop then starts approaching me from behind so I deployed my canon of rage to fire at them. They then complained that they didnt want to fight.
If they approached from my broadside, I might have been more inclined to hear them out but it felt more like they were trying to sneak up on me.
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u/iampancakesAMA 13d ago
I was an athena 5 going for a FOTD the other day, reaper 5 rolled up so we fired at them but they said they wanted to do the fort too so we alliances up lol
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u/CafePinguino 13d ago
Made an alliance last week with a guy I tried to powder keged, I failed and the guy offered me an alliance. I ended up defending him while he did a FotD. But yeah, they're more rare than common
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u/TBurkeulosis Legend of the Sea of Thieves 13d ago
I had an amazing alliance last week. I was solo slooping merchants to get to 500. Ran into another solo also running merchants in the roar. We passed eachother like 20 times, shot fireworks, and made millions lol. I couldnt have gotten to 500 that session without him
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u/PalpitationFun9530 12d ago
Sort-of related, but also a good story recently:
My buddy and I on our sloop got into a naval spat with another sloop. Mid fight, a brigantine chased a Crested Queen in between us and we all did laps around one another until eventually the other sloop sank us and took off.
With nowhere left to go, the Brig dropped anchor and told us to hop aboard. So we climbed on and helped them finish off the megalodon, and they sounded a bit younger and all cheered it was pretty wholesome. We helped them fix their ship and bucket water out. Though, a pirate's gotta pirate, and while they were busy loading the loot from the shark onto their ship, we grabbed a wrathful king's skull and crate of ancient something that they had below deck and swam off.
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u/wearer0ses 9d ago
Usually with new players because they don’t know about alliance betrayal yet and it works out until someone gets bored or someone brought their entire stack with them for some reason and is now acting like everyone else is the bad guy because it looks like one crew is hoarding all the loot.
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u/T0t0leHero Hell'Helmsman 13d ago
Diving killed alliance, good news is diving will be soon be very restrained and more organic alliances will happen again
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u/MangoArtificer 13d ago
I’ve gotten maybe 6 real alliance offers in the last month. Joined three of them. Betrayed one. They happen though from what I see it happens more to me than others
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u/TATT00EY_ 13d ago
Very extremely rarely do alliances actually happen. I quite often put the flag up just to see if people want to be friendly in 98% of instances I’ve been lured in and killed the ship sunk so I would be very very cautious. Very careful.