The biggest Skill Issue in this game is the inability to make friends.

It's not forgetting to raise sails and anchor at an island and getting caught out, it's not sinking to a Kraken or other PvE event, it's the inability I see consistently (especially on this subreddit) to apparently make friends on the seas.

This isn't really a PvEvP game, it's more of a PvE&P game. Fighting other people is one of like 6 main options you can take, from ignoring to tucking to alliancing to sinking to threatening to daylight robbing, there are so many different ways to interact with other players and that's what makes the game interesting.

If you cast your mind back to what you perceive as your "golden age of Sea of Thieves" and why you started enjoying the game, I would wager for the vast majority of people, it's the player interactions that keep you interested. Not just the PvP (that's just a part) but the variety of sailors and fun people you might meet. Some will always attack, but many will happily play shanties, tell jokes, and have stupid boat names or play a gimmick like hyper-British, or new skeleton curses playing bad to the bone riffs over the mics.

So how do you make friends?

Well as someone with an approx 50-80% friend making success rate based on how you count friend success on EU servers where a large proportion of the players don't even speak my language, let this moron teach you.

1: Use white / red flares as you approach. This has maybe a 15% chance of doing anything but 15% is still worthwhile. White is "I'm friendly don't worry", Red is "I'm coming to fuck you up and there's nothing you can do about it" which at least sets expectations for a more interesting scenario when they know you're going to kill them. If you're stationary and responding the flares mean White: "Yeah I'm chill, feel free to pull up", Red: "Stay the fuck away, I'm not making friends I'm looting and you will be fired upon unless you leave." This is good because then you know the ship is hostile so either leave or prep for a fight.

2: Use a microphone or you have 0 chance of anything. So you're pulling up to another ship. Whip our your mic and speaking trumpet, hop in a cannon to shoot off (if you're playing solo without a crewmate keeping the ship from crashing you're already playing the game wrong) and start going "Friendly friendly friendly friendly friendly friendly, Amigo, Ami, Freund, Alliance" in as many languages that work for your server as you pull up to someone's ship. They're unlikely to respond so grab a ladder and ask "permission to come aboard?" and wait.

Now a decision point: are they shooting at you or speaking back. If they're speaking back, you're fine. If they're not doing anything, hop on board and start playing music with your mic while chatting to them (allow text chat and emotes as a sign of friendly since some dumbasses play this game without a mic). If they shoot you, just board their vessel normally. If they kill you then they're probably consistently hostile and competent enough to not be messing around. Report to your crew in either VC or text and maybe prep for a fight. You tried. If they don't kill you before you board, get some food in you and jump around while playing music and talk. The longer you stay alive, the more likely they are to be friendly, heck I've boarded multiple brigs, had one person try shooting me, one person being friendly and telling their premature shot friend to ease up I'm clearly not being hostile, while a third just does routing ship stuff. You're showing you're not a threat but somewhat competent at the game.

3. Be cool, be chill, be upfront and chat. When there's a personal connection you're making friends. Talk about what you're doing this session, try to teach newbs about alliances and the benefits or just chat with better players. Keep talking and being friendly and you've already done the hard bit. Get your crewmate to bring the ship in and get that alliance going.

Common questions and queries:

"I'm a solo, how do I shoot of my ship without putting it at risk?" Stop playing Sea of Thieves, make some friends either irl or online who you can crew with, and start playing in a duo, or gamble in open crew / a discord server. Solo is the worst and least fun way to play this game which I don't even think Rare should be encouraging since the entire point of Sea of Thieves is player interaction.

"They already started shooting cannonballs at me, didn't respond to flares, surely this crew is just hostile right?" WRONG! Remember, anyone playing SoT in nearly 2026 is an idiot, you included, and has probably been deluded by this subreddit into thinking everyone is evil rather than a comic pirate. Continue the method anyway and you'd be amazed how many (over 40%) of initially "hostile" crews aren't that when they see you're pretty chill. The litmus test is whether you're chasing them or they're chasing you. If they think you're just after their loot they might be friendly but cautious and fire. However if they're actively going for you and hunting your ship, yeah that's hostile behaviour.

"I don't have a working mic?" Get one and set it up, shouldn't be too hard with modern devices.

"Any more tips and tricks?" I'm glad you asked.

1: Have a funni boat name. The Imkegnator, Buoykisser, Flameheart's Fembuoys, Sloop of the Day, The Sitting Duck, Overweight Sloop / Underweight Galleon. This shows you have some sense of humor. Don't call your ship Ebony Darkness Dementia Way and be surprised when people doubt your friendly intentions.

2: Have some cosmetics on your ship, ideally ones that don't scream tryhard and preferably require some skill or experience to get. Don't have a reaper flag or use loads of reaper cosmetics (duh), don't look like a ridiculously easy sink. Party boat or something else interesting and colourful, or anything that costs a fair bit of gold and isn't just a basic recolour is what you want. Don't look like a noob, don't look like a sweat too much.

3: "Friend making enforced, have a good time." You can bully people into being your friend if you're good enough. Rock up to their ship, board it with a friend, and force them to be your friends in an alliance. If they fight, one person kills them while the other person continues to play music. When they realize they can't win and you could've sunk them due to how epic at the game you are, their choices are either scuttle or listen to you. Free loot or free friends, it's a valid strategy if you're confident you can win. It can be harder on EU servers due to language difference but I've done it before.

4: Anticipate minor betrayal but that's not the end of the world. If you're opening a mega stash, agree the loot split BEFORE you open the door. Don't leave any significant treasure unguarded, and maybe stick it below deck when there's a number of players around. Some stuff like chest of fortune and legends chests may be so valuable people try to steal them. That's expected. Set boundaries, don't let them in your ship when you've got valuable treasure, and go to sell the valuable stuff and then return for the rest of the treasure. Someone trying to steal a chest of fortune is expected and doesn't make the whole alliance cancelled, but attacking other players is an actual betrayal and they're then hostile to the alliance. If it's a regular fort loot it doesn't really matter though.

5: Cry as Rare fucks up their own game. Diving has made server hopping so easy that making friends is significantly harder now people view sessions as just a way of getting treasure rather than necessarily having fun (which actually leads to more salt when they lose their treasure since it's somewhat expected you can play without encountering players much). Cry harder when they add overpowered kegs making it so a single commonly available keg can wipe a whole ship and likely sink it if you let a single person onboard or nearby, giving everyone valid super paranoia because they somehow thought a bigger boom was actually better for some reason rather than making them slightly better stronghold kegs.

And that's how you make friends. These steps not work? Either make your own or admit it. Go on, admit it. You have a skill issue. You can become a double gunning chain shot mastering turbo sweatlord, but if you can't make friends in funni pirate game, you have a major skill issue.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.