With Season Eight, you no longer have to sail around the open sea looking for a worthy opponent. Instead, your next fight with an equally daring opponent is just a quick dive away!
With the new Hourglass of Fate that lets you choose a Faction to fight for, the Guardians of Fortune or the Servants of the Flame, you can join the fight as soon as you step aboard your ship!
What is on-demand PVP Ship Combat?
On-demand PVP Ship Combat in Sea of Thieves is an opt-in experience that allows crews to quickly find battles together within a confined area in a shared world.
To opt in, you need to join a Faction using the Hourglass of Fate on your ship’s Captain’s Table. As soon as you pledge your Allegiance to a Faction, you can go on the attack or stay on defense. To attack, you’ll invade other crews. To defend, you’ll wait for other crews to invade you!
Of course, you can continue sailing the sea without engaging in the on-demand PVP Ship Combat if you don’t want to. However, on-demand PVP doesn’t remove the possibility of finding another crew during your time at sea. Instead, on-demand PVP just makes finding a crew to fight easier.
Whether invading or defending, you will engage in ship combat with an opponent from an opposing Faction. You will earn Allegiance for your Faction win or lose, which you can use to unlock curses and other customizations. Naturally, though, winning a battle will gain you more Allegiance than if you lost.
You will also earn gold for winning. The gold you earn for each win will be added to your Hourglass of Fate in the form of Hourglass Value. Each successful battle will increase your Hourglass Value. To pocket that gold, you’ll need to leave your Faction at any Outpost.
How to invade another crew
Now that you have joined a Faction, you can use the War Map to invade another crew. Open the War Map on your Captain’s Table and vote to battle. As soon as you are in open water, your ship will dive beneath the water into an Invasion Tunnel where you will matchmake with another crew of the same ship size.
You don’t get to take any treasure on your ship with you through the Invasion Tunnel. However, you can bring your resources including Resource Crates.
Once you’ve made a match, you will migrate to their server, where you will burst out of the water facing your opponent, ready for battle.
If you win the battle, you will stay on the server you migrated to and earn Allegiance for your Faction. However, if you lose, you will be automatically removed from the Faction and migrated to another server.
How to defend from an invasion
To defend your ship and treasure, ignore the War Map. The War Map is just for invading other crews.
Instead, you can stay on your server while you complete voyages and World Events. But you’ll want to be more alert than usual for an invading crew!
A perk of being a defender is keeping your treasure aboard your ship. Keeping your treasure is essential to increase your Faction Stash Grade. Your Faction Stash Grade acts as a multiplier on any Allegiance you earn from winning battles. While pledged to a Faction, you can raise your Faction Stash Grade by placing treasure on your ship. The more loot you have onboard, the higher your Faction Stash Grade.
