For the skull there is a specific turn in location and that is the only place where you can sell it. That's why you have to open it and not just keep the skull and key on your boat.

I cant wait for this to happen again: "90% of players play safer seas and the majority of toxicity reports come from high-seas thats only played by 10% of the playerbase. So with heavy heart we decided to close high-seas. -Rare"

I like how you cant get PL in safer seas but in my thoughts, the player base will skyrocket and letting new players learning the game in Safer Seas and then once new players get use to the ropes then they will adventure into the High seas. but its a gamble, maybe they are rolling the dice and experimenting then they will adjust accordingly down the road

I can write a whole essay on why Safer Seas is a good call. Edit: I wrote the essay... Joshua Orlando 28 September 2023 Safer Seas, Safe Call? Sea of Thieves is a video game centered around an open-world, pirate themes, and adventure. Released to the public on March 20, 2018, and has since had numerous updates, seasons, and stories named Tall Tales. With the recent news of Season 10, much controversy has surfaced on the waves (pun intended) with the news that the people at Rare are adding a new way to play the game by yourself or with close friends, with private servers called Safer Seas. With this info, many players are arguing whether or not this is a good idea. This is no surprise considering that this is a game where the slightest of disagreement can cause naval and verbal warfare, in and out of game (*cough *cough ‘Pendragon’ *cough). Many against this addition are stating personal opinions such as; “This will kill the game”, “It won’t be fun”, and “It’s a pirate game, the point is to steal from others”. In this presentation, I will be taking a logical and open-minded approach to the addition of Safer Sea from a personal, in-game, and development perspective on why Safer Seas could be a safe call. Personal First, let’s start things off on how I feel about Safer Seas. To which I say “Yes”, it’s a good idea. I think that the world of Sea of Thieves is beautiful, mysterious, packed with lore and well detailed. I simply wish to learn more about this world at my own pace, get familiar with the islands, read all the journals, practice sailing through the Devil’s Roar, and simply admire the well detailed movement of the waves. Will I be spending time in Safer Seas? Heck yeah! Will I only be spending time in Safer Seas? Heck no! I find that the coolest part about this game is running into new players that can provide an unpredictable turn in your adventure. You could run into someone that may just say “Hi”, ask for help or advice, give you some supplies or loot, join an alliance, or maybe the opposite and start engaging in warfare. As for me, I like to mind my own business, I like to mind other people’s business. But, that doesn’t mean I don’t like PvP (Player VS. Player), I only ever engage in combat when I need to or feel that it’s necessary. Don’t get me wrong, getting my hands on my first Chest of Fortune was the most fun I’ve ever had. (Fought against two Brigs and a Dark Adventure Sloop, and got away with no wood, three holes, and was chased by a Megalodon on an open crew Brig). In all honesty, encountering other players can be the turning point of every adventure. But sometimes, I just want a nice smooth sail with my buddy and learn more about what this open-world has to offer. Living or dead, I will always play this game no-matter what becomes of it. In-Game Let’s talk about how Safer Seas will affect the game and the community itself. First, we must acknowledge that there are two types of SoT players, competitive players and casual players. Casual players are the ones that are either new or just keep to themselves, they’ll just stick to simple voyages and avoid any conflict that may come their way. Competitive players are the ones that have mastered the game to their comfort, and will engage in high risk high reward acts. Competitive players are the ones that may even actively hunt for heated conflict to make things more interesting for themselves. Here’s where things get tricky, casual players vastly outnumber competitive players. When a competitive player spots a ship in the High Seas (new name for public servers), there’s a really high chance the ship will run, fight in a boring manner, or just watch you as you burn their ship. Safer Seas seems like a good method to create a safe space for casuals, and the migration of casuals may cause the High Seas to have a higher likelihood of running into other competitives to engage in. It’s a win-win for both sides when you think about it. Safer Seas may even allow players to practice or accomplish all sorts of skills that would create too much attention in the High Seas, acts such as; sailing through storms, sword mechanics, cannon aiming, studying trade routes, ladder catching, the list goes on. Safer Seas may even provide opportunities for content creators like storytelling, reviewing cosmetics and mechanics, or maybe even potential myth-busting. Safer Seas will provide great opportunities to accomplish personal tasks risk free. Development Finally, let’s think about why Rare believes it’s a good idea to launch Safer Seas, especially at this time. Before we go over this topic, we must go over what kind of business Rare is. Rare is a game-development company, and like many companies their primary goal is making financial profit. It feels like a sad truth, but that’s the way the world goes round, workers need to be able to eat and sleep comfortably and still be able to provide satisfactory effort towards the industries they work for. Some companies make profit by providing basic goods and services, same make profit by making huge investments, few may even achieve success through dirty strategies and exploitations. But luckily for us, Rare makes profit through customer satisfaction, so they could be worse. Safer Seas may be Rare’s attempt to draw in new players who like to start slowly and steadily, and may even encourage already existing players who’ve been idle for so long to reconsider playing SoT. Safer Seas may also have been a compromise by the developers at Rare to distract players while they work on already existing problems. Since the release of Hourglass in Season 8, cheating, toxicity, and exploitation has been at an all time high. Safer Seas may be just a quick-fix to allow players to play SoT and avoid negative interactions, while also providing Rare developers with enough breathing room to work on issues that desperately need their attention. Whether their reason may be, Rare makes profit by putting the customer first; and since players have been asking for private servers since release, that’s exactly what Rare did. Conclusion To put it simply, Safer Seas will provide many great opportunities such as allowing newcomers to learn at their own pace, intrigue new and existing players, help players practice necessary skills, provide a suitable atmosphere to both casual and competitive players, create a safe-space to escape negativity, and provide us with a new way to enjoy the game. If it doesn’t work in Rare’s favor, Rare can rework it; or if it’s a lost cause then they’ll just remove it entirely like Arena. In the end, it’s all about providing us with new experiences, we’ll know if it’s an appropriate move once it’s released. But before you make up your mind on what you really think about the addition of Safer Seas, just know this; Sea of Thieves is an open-world adventure game, you play how you wanna play and no one has the authority to stop you. Except maybe the devs, but that’s if you need to be stopped. And also remember what the Pirate Lord says, “It’s not about the gold, it’s about the glory.” *Fades away dramatically… Any questions or concerns???

My personal solution for anticheat would be limiting hourglass participation for young accounts… (maybe like a few months old or sth else) (or a minimum amount of hours playtime, just so that cheaters aren’t as comfortable with using cheats on their main accounts). Furthermore, they should have the HG circle shrink over time. Removing running as an option and thus making solo slooping more exciting and not being dragged on for too long. :)

Finally, now average casual 9-5 human being that hv responsibilities unlike 80% of the player base can finally enjoy the game.

safer seas is a safe haven for newer players and NON pvpers to be able to play the game, grow to love it and gain understanding without toxic pvpers coming and pushing their ish in instead of looking for a real fight in HG . Players will hit the High seas with their better friends and return to safer seas to solo or t fish or do tall tales

Actually it is the right thing to do, safer seas will create a larger player base for the community expanding the player base, and player won’t auto scuttle when you start to spawn camp them because of safer seas experience

My concern with safer seas is pretty simple. I am concerned that once a PVE focused player reaches the level cap in Safer Seas, will either have no interest in diving into the High Seas (due to preconceived notions of how sweaty "PVP Servers" would be) or they will not have gain the skills needed to thrive in that environment and fail to transition. With the ultimate result being them leaving the game and decreasing the player base even further. I could see Safer Seas one day having a higher player count than High Seas, and that concerns me. I do not believe that the core reason people have wanted PVE servers for years has ANYTHING to do with progression. Even if they limit the gold to 10%, reduced the reputation cap to 25, or whatever... Casual/PVE players wouldn't really care much in the long-term. This is about the intangibles... how it feels. Feeling like you're not in control of your own session sucks. The awful feeling of losing hours worth of grinding in seconds is practically indescribable. Limiting progression has NO EFFECT on how these things feel. As a result, it will not reliably push players to make that transition into the Shared World.

Pvp basement dwellers when they run out of noobs to chase for hours and abuse 😭😭😭

I honestly believe the only ones complaining about Safer Seas are salty because they are losing their soft targets.

We won’t know where to turn in until we open the box. It’d be awesome to sail to plunder and find out that’s the turn in spot, but it will probably randomly pick a place far from your location when you put the key in the chest.

Outside of fixing the cheating, can anyone tell me what the SoT community actually wants? Like, it seems like they don't want to actually play the game. Skull of Siren Song is announced, which encourages multiple ships engaging in combat in a free-for-all race, something which I would assume people would love, cause it keeps the battleground moving from land, to sea, as opposed to primarily being focused on land with Fort of the Damned and etc. But the take away is "It'll be dead in a month cause people will have the cosmetics, so whatever" I don't envy Rare.

I'm a pve type casual player who already hit pirate legend long ago. All my casual adult gamer friends quit years ago due to the forced pvp. I quit with my last pal back in May. We are done. Either give us pve servers or continue to watch player counts crash into nothing. I could bring 8 players back next week and we'd play this as a pve game for years and years going forward. Until they do it..... And they will right before the fane totally dies, none of us will return. We want to be casual and chill playing a couple of nights a week. This ain't that so no thanks. The game is in a death spiral. I'll just be patient and wait until they are forced into full pve servers which this is the first step.

Safer Seas has a 70% Gold and Reputation Reduction so you ain't levelling up in Safer Seas at the pace a High Seas Player would so its not really a server worth being angry about, most the community is seeing Safer Seas as an Extended Maiden Voyage its like a tutorial for new players to get better at the game before they start actually taking on the tougher broader community. Safer Seas is also really more for those that do the Tall Tales for we all know how annoying it is for someone to come in and swipe your Tall Tale items or sink your ship while fighting a Tall Tale Boss. Pirate Legends, Reapers, Captain Ships, Alliance and Emissary Flags, FoF and FotD, and even the newly announced Guilds are all disabled in Safer Seas so its really calling it a PVE server is not really true for its again bare to its basics and again the reduced gold does not make the Safer Seas viable as PVE server. Honestly to me the best option is for SoT to just make Safer Seas like Guild Servers just to hang out and get to know the rest of your Guild for its not like any progressions going to be made in Safer Seas. Plus Safer Seas will bring more players to the game there is so many people who bought the game finished maiden voyage and were then sunk instantly as they spawned after maiden voyage and left the game never to be opened again. They also have not told us everything thats coming to Season 10 yet this is only the introduction stuff.

Personally As someone who has quit this game over a year ago due to the forced pvp. I like the addition of Safer Seas and it will bring me back to this game. It’ll be something I’ll do on days that I just don’t want to PvP. However, I do definitely agree that the timing of its addition is a very odd one. Even though I haven’t played in a long time I’ve continued to watch you play this game and I’ve heard all about how the cheating has been getting worse and worse. It’s a Huge shame that they did nothing to fix the cheating. Or at the very least nothing they’ve discussed.

DUDE October 19th is national mens day and the day season 10 drops BIG POGGS

Let's face it, safer seas happened because too many wanted to be assholes. and if they keep being assholes then safer seas will become a full experience.

from what i heard, the skull need to be send to specific outpost, and you'll never know what outpost it is before you open the chest CMIIW

Unless they can add more players and boats to a single server it will never get better imo I enjoyed hourglass at first but it becomes harder to fight in the open world. New events like the siren skull may be popular for a week or two but then it will be back to normal. My solution is this. Have the option to opt into more dangerous server that awards 130-150% more gold. Tall tales and alliances cannot happen and on these servers allow more boats and players. Its crazy they can do all of these other updates but not player count and boat count

Already saw this live, but i really want to see this again 💀

Agreed with everything you said here. Well done ❤

“Safer seas?” My friends still gotta watch out for me >:)

this reminds me a lot of overwatch 2. i feel for you brother. i really do

I honestly feel that the way they should have done safer seas is have completely different progression from regular seas instead of putting on a level cap. Me personally, I have no problem with people who want to pvp. But I can't win a pvp fight to save my life. I just like sailing the seas with my friends and knock out missions that take us all day to do. That is usually always interrupted by pvp players making us not want to even play anymore. We stopped playing about 4 seasons ago. For us, this will bring us back to the game.

I agree that Safer Seas is going to expand and become less restricted and High Seas is going to become a defacto Arena 2 electric boogaloo. If PVP is popular High Seas will be, MORE active, MORE alive, and have more server slots for PVPers.

Safer Seas should also raise the overall player skill level. If most new players do safer seas, then the main server should have mostly skilled players. Also Safer seas is not just 30%, add x2.0-2.5 multiplier on top of it because you can't run an emissary. Basically instead of making 250g (reaper 5 making 100g) you'll make 30g. That's like 12% if we factor all this.

I imagine you could just drag the new skull on a harpoon row boat behind your ship and not have the ship slowed. If they just brought back arena and modified it it would retain a steady chunk of players that are super into the battles. I kind of feel that safer seas are a step to retirement. Also makes those into commendation and achievement grinding servers. Season pass grinding will happen more in safer seas too (unless that progression is reduced as well) It would be cool if there was a way to encourage veteran players to onboard the newer players. Some kind of incentive.

Your thoughts about why they aren't implementing anti-cheat, is spot on.

The game needs new blood. Hence PVE servers. There are more PVE or semi PVE inclined people than PVPers. They should've gone full in on PVE.

Wait I’m living under a rock.. are they removing quick swap?

the actual stuff in the update is good but not nearly enough to be qualified as a "mega season" lol, we need more stuff than that

Hey thats me in the youtube chat saying every 12 seconds

As a PL who's venturing into hourglass, I'm already slightly afraid of how many people who are just 5 or so times better then me. Due to safer seas, my fears are now quadrupled, cause I have no problems with fighting people way better then me, it's just that I want to get fights with people who are about my skill level, which is already rare lol.

Just one thing to say to people who hate on Safer Seas: Keep on gatekeeping, you make the people who don't look so much better.

Common PvE W

The player count is extremely low on xbox. Im not sure if there are official numbers but you can see by how many group posts there are. There used to be around 500 but now it hovers around 100.

The game definitely needed a PvE update.. When they released the reapers curse, the game went down a PvP spiral and ruined it for me and my friends. Every server, every day, the sea's are controlled by brigs and galleons full of sweats that've been playing SoT for years non-stop. That's not a fun experience when these players are all you run into. Me and my friends aren't trash players, we're just not good enough to PvP against these other players doing pro league strats. I might actually return to the game if this gets released and not scrapped because so many tryhard streamers bitched about it. Video games were made to have fun, not play like you die IRL if you lose the fight in game.

Can you post the video of you sinking to crash bandit ?

Bro anyone is gonna complain If it doesn’t come in their favor. This should bring more players, not only that could resurrect a few dead legends.

ROCK AND STONE

This has been way to long, theres a reason i quit…

if you were hunting pve players you weren't for pvp to begin with

They need to disable coms for safer seas

Bro what are these memes 😂 ❤

Don’t forget no more double gunning…

@happyfeetz 0,05% of Players got the chest of Fortune achievement...

This game mode is a weird one only time will tell where this game mode leads I could see this being a great thing if it is executed correctly

As a strictly pvper. I have no complaints about safer seas. Its about growing the player base at the end of the day right? New player joins gets craped on and keaves now they can learn the game in a controlled setting because lets face it. The maiden voyage is useless.

Why do they do it? Tap into the part of the playerbase that doesnt wanna pvp and the ones that wanted to get into the game and quit because the first 10h of playtime was them being farmed and shittalk by "pvpers"

Guilds is such a throwaway feature, shouldn't have been a "main" talking point

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaa they gave the other half of the player base what they wanted, how could they game creators are only supposed to do what I want

Fucking good game moment

im actually thinking about reinstalling the game with safer seas i can finally enjoy the game without getting obliterated by sweats

Only thing i have against that mode is putting Companies exp there. Even limited. Journey to Pirat Legend should be all deserved hard work and satisfaction when you achive that.

Rare has always fallen short somehow in their attempts to force pvp. The scoring in arena not matching the capture the flag mode, hourglass sticking you with tight fighting circles despite tauting that it's on the regular seas, FOF being ignored because the players find that fighting over the fort less profitable than just doing anything else, Veils getting the initial fighting over it and then everyone mostly ignoring the veils because it can be so easily canceled keeping you from stealing the final loot. Safer seas is going to be one ship. Safer seas should be several ships all invited to the instance allowing you to plan TDMs.

I legit thought you are gonna end stream when you were silent for like 10 minutes. 💀

70% decrease in value is a steep price to pay to avoid PvP extremist.

This is exactly what I said

Wait- so with PVE you can just avoid players altogether?

First the divorce, now this!!

They need to improve safer seas... And im back in game ✌️

I share some opinions but the thing with the lower player base is straight up unimportant. Doesnt really matter if currently 18k or 10 k play, you are on a 5 person restricted server anyway. So yeah, die comment about a way higher chance of pvp encounters stands. And not just in theory

They couldnt monetize Arena but they can monetize Safer Seas. This is all about the money and nothing to do with the sentiments of the veteran community.

lmao, time limited? 12:54 dudes arguing one the side of addiction and fomo xDD

If the CASUALS spend money on the game and are higher in numbers then RARE will cater to casuals over the Sweats. They have to pay their bills and they need to make the game profitable. Loyalty to the hard core gamer SOUNDS nice but the bottom line is they need the money to keep the lights on.

I can’t even play seas anymore I’ve done everything that I needed to do an this doesn’t make me want to come back so I’ll just chill on gta for now

Agreed

Segregation analogy doesn't really work when it's voluntary, not a forced action. Either way, Idk how anyone could find this game fun without chance encounters. Even when I was not solo sloop and playing with a bunch of my friends a dead server still sucked ass.

theres less LFG's on xbox so yeah pretty sure that means less players

"after 7 months of no content we are proud to announce... captaincy. again. and pve servers. no anticheat, fuck you. Anyway, over on the PIRATE EMPORIUM!"

Personally, i wont use sea of friends that much, but its not the worst update

I miss season 6 with the boys 😔😢

Im more of a pve player but I'm not gonna use safer seas unless I'm doing a tall tale but other then that I'm going to be in the high seas bc I like meeting new people even if they're hostile bc its more fun and sometimes you make new friends which won't happen in safer seas

I look at guilds and think, so what you just want me to do everything that I have done loads of times before for some new leveling system. Doing it all again for trinkets was enough let alone doing all the same shit again for a chef costume. my point being we need much more to do in the game first. The new world event is likely just going to be riddled with hackers flying, and in my eyes that skull should be selling for at least 100k to compete with other world events or else it will be risk and no reward. Safer Seas, I mean yeah no hastle with other players when they eventually being out another lackluster adventure but other than that very disappointing…

Sense school started for me, I haven’t played SoT very much. Mostly because of my anger with the cheaters and lag. If I shoot the man, he should die. Why can a man fly around the map and drop a bomb on my boat. Makes it all the more impossible to continue when your a controller player who dearly loves the game, almost everyone is better than me, makes me feel useless. I also know I’ll end up getting red bearded like a few of my friends have. I don’t cheat, I’m not toxic unless deserved, why the fuck are they adding servers for people to hide their tails? Can’t wait…. Looks like the game is really catering to one part of the fanbase.

Im glad I quit. Seeing how its just getting worse and worse....😢

i thought it was a joke when they said safer seas☠☠

new vid out(;

bro has the look and room of a 9 year old...

if they release safer seas a lot of the player base might start playing that and stop playing the higher seas.. so what? that will just show that people don't like to pvp and are willing to sacrifice 70% of the loot income to just chill in single player and probably those players in higher seas would've just ran from a fight.. why do you want to force them into playing what YOU WANT TO PLAY.. that's just selfish.. i think they should remove the 70% income reduction cause that is still forcing pvers to play higher seas and make it even 100% loot income.. no world events and pirate legend archivable with all commodations.. that give people free choice to go for the risky extra fun pvp route or chill stacking 4M gold worth of loot cause who are you to tell them they MUST play higher seas with people sinking them when they hate that part of the game.. FREE WILL IN SOT PLEASE! and for those who are so fan of pirates and think pirates fight.. turns out the Golden Age of Piracy ended in the 18th century so even in real life it wasn't that great game after all so stop comparing sea of thieves to real pirates cause no one in 2023 is out there with a ship sinking other ships anymore.. the real question is.. how many of those pveers are out there.. are they more than pvpers? if yes.. will the game lean more pve side and stop focussing on ships fighting each other? only time will tell (that's what content creatos are crying about)

lmao this community is insane

So here is my thought on Safer Seas. I have been saying this for years now, the overly focus on playing this game like it is fortnite drives away almost ALL of the new players. Now we are in a state where there are basically no new players that stick to the game, as they will just get crushed over and over again with a lot of nasty little "heists" going on which they don't understand (and almost no PvP sweatlord would ever take the time to explain anything to anyone). This hyper PvP focus on betrayal just killed the game. There are a lot of ways to enjoy the game which you don't seem to see anymore, but these other options is what is interesting for new players, creating the safer seas finally gives new players a reason to stick to the game. If you don't like this, give newer players a reason to opt into PvP instead, because right now there is none. The community did ruin this game. Start acting like pirates and stop acting like psychopathic mass murderers. You reap what you sow. You enjoyed killing the game, so don't complain about the game being dead. I finally get a chance to properly explore this world, I really don't care what you think a "Pirate Game" should be, for me it is freedom, for you it is murdering the game, now we can both get our way but it seems like I will enjoy this way more. I didn't have a single friendly encounter in all my playtime of a couple houndred hours, this concern seems to be neglegable for me.

I’m quitting sot now

Just bring back arena and we’ll be ok

Super update my ass they're adding 3 things 1 of which is the only new feature guilds is just captaincy but shared between friends and PvE servers add nothing to the sandbox other then maybe new players stay around until they realize that the PvE is so boring and mind numbing they decide to quit before even experiencing pvp part of the pvpve

The timing of it is actually perfect. The reason the player base is down is because of PVP sweat lords destroying new players. I love this new update. Can't wait to check it out

🧔🏻‍♀️ 💨 🐺 grrrr

I completely agree with your Opinions on Safer Seas. I just think it would have been a more justified addition if you couldn't earn rep or gold.

i think they should reduce the lvl 40 and 30% gold to about lvl 20 and 0-10% because all this will do is basically boost the game a little but when these people reach lvl 40 and has learnt the basics just doesnt want to continue anymore and not have the will to learn the pvp and adrenaline pumping side of the game and after all of this the game will probably just die out even more. And if Rare thinks this is a boost that will continue for over 5 months they will probably put more effort into safer seas and slowly but surely transfer the game into a more pve perspective game and just that the pvp side of the game will die out...

Stay frustrated my friend. Where Rare went wrong is removing the social aspect from safer seas and penalizing those who choose to play on safer seas. Give players the ability to choose their Sea of Thieves experience with or without PvP enabled. Stop trying to force people to enjoy PvP.

the lack of new content is sooooooo disappointing, I will not be returning to the game for a while. But to anyone who will continue please enjoy the seas unhalted. Happy if you want to branch out to more content please do I think you deserve it lol.

I like safer seas only for the tall tales finally without getting sunk by assholes that want to pvp all day

I think the PvE server should have been a hardcore mode. A mode where all the enemies are super hard. Skeleton ships spawn rates in creased, legendary skeleton ships created, legendary sea monsters created, world events insanely difficult. A game mode where you NEED a good team of players in order to survive, and along with that very stylish cosmetic and weapons to show your metal on the seas. I’m talkin very flashy cosmetics, maybe something like “5 hardcore skeleton fleets vanquished” you get the basic skeleton themed cosmetic, “15 skeleton fleets vanquished” gets you the bronz skeleton themed cosmetics, “25 skeleton fleets vanquish” gets you the Silver skeleton themed cosmetics, and finally “50 Skelton fleets vanquish” gets you the golden skeleton themed cosmetics. On top of title “Fleet Revenger”, Golden skeleton themed wepones and tools, a ship cosmetic set that makes your ship look like a skeleton ship but with with golden parts and like a charcoaled wood finish. Having all of those grades of items be for every other hardcore world event in the seas, including hunting down legendary beasts of the sea.

I dissagree with you about the safer seas, its gonna pull a lot of people into the game, people that have quit because they want to avoid pvp and new players. Then those players will draw in other people, some of them will play for the pvp and not just on the safer seas. That being said it also means less people will run from pvp on the high seas because most of the people that would run are on pve servers. You will have better pvp experiences on high seas because of the existence of safer seas. That being said i agree that they shouldnt give the safer seas more stuff, there needs to be an incentive to go on the high seas.

Finna kill someone

Couldn't of been said better, the timing rare is taking on some of this new frontline features is what makes it all more interesting and odd.

Other content content creators reacting to the season 10: «What the fuck? What is this?» happyf333tz: «menacingly looks into camera»

Guilds are cheap stat tracker. Same as captaincy.

Another huge issue with Safer Seas is while it lets new players learn the game, they're only learning the basics at its core. They won't learn any valuable PvP tactics to use if/when they join the High Seas. Sure, they might can "learn" what those things are, but until they are in a tense, active, DANGEROUS PvP scenario, they won't truly learn how to fight and use those skills correctly. They may learn how to aim a gun or swing a sword, or even a sword lunge, but the second they are caught in a proper PvP scenario where thinking on your feet can be the different of sinking or floating, they'll be Deer in the Headlights, and end up rage-quitting anyways because they didn't learn how to handle a (silent) boarding, double gunning or sword wielding PvPer.