Before y'all read, yes I understand this is a pirate game. Yes I understand FoFs are high risk, high reward. Yes, I understand this is a PvPvE game, and yes, I most certainly understand this is Sea of THIEVES and not Sea of FRIENDS. If that's all y'all are gonna comment, don't waste your time.

The tale:

My friend and I were duo slooping earlier today, and lo and behold a FoF spawns. At the same time there is a level 5 Reaper stacking FotD, and so we're thinking "hey, while they're doing that, let's do the FoF. We get around halfway through the FoF undisturbed until I see that the Reapers are selling and are making a beeline for the FoF. They come into view, and it's a brig. My friend and I have been tired of constant attacks by Reapers lately, and so we just leave the game, not seeing the point in wasting what could be hours only to be sunk by said brig OR some random third ship who wants a piece of the fun. Neither of us are great at PvP. We're decent, but we don't play for the PvP, and frankly it's just not fun to us. Yes, we chose to leave, we were like "well that sucks, but oh well."

Fast forward a couple hours, we hop back online again, duo slooping again, and our first server, a FoF. Again, FotD is being stacked, which we found funny, and so we go to the FoF, half expecting it to be a cesspool of combat and cannonfire. But there was none...

My friend goes ashore to deal with the skellies, while I stay aboard to provide sniper support, and be look out. We make it to halfway when I spot a brig at the nearby outpost flying an emissary. My friend goes into the Recently Played With tab on XBOX and messages the most recent people to see if they are on the brig.

He makes contact with the brig, and since they are at the sovereigns he asks "Camping or selling?" They respond with "selling" but later admitted to "camping". While I don't know the whole process of negotiations (he loves to negotiate), he tells me they just want half of the loot and we can get the Chest of Fortune, we counteroffer and say they can have everything BUT the Chest of Fortune, and they agreed. Additionally, they message they are in need of the Gifting gifts (another crew needs to turn in gifts that they have) commendations, and after them sending screenshots that they did indeed not have that commendation, we agreed to do it for them.

With us believing that were was some sort of mutual quid pro quo here, the brig pulls up, flying glitterbe@rd sails, level 5 Athena emissary, and Athena HG. We alliance. One of them helps ferry the gifts on board our ship, and while my friend and the brig crew (minus one who stays on our ship to "make sure we sell the gifts") deals with the FoF, we head to Reapers. As we're sailing to Reapers, I let my friend know that this can go very wrong, since our ship is not there but theirs is, and all the paranoid pirate alarms that have been trained after five years of playing were ringing in my head.

While on the way to Reapers, another sloop pulls up at the FoF, and so the brig member guarding me leaves to help defend. I honor our end of the deal and sell the gifts to Reapers, my friend helps take out the sloop, and the FoF is completed while I'm heading back. They open the vault, and I tell my friend to grab the Chest of Fortune and bury it. He goes to the vault, and it's gone, and so my friend asks where the Chest of Fortune, and is responded with "it's on our ship, I'll grab it" and then sniper fire, and death. My paranoid pirate alarms were correct.

My friend messages them a WTF, and they say "the deal has changed, YOU will get 50% of the loot through the alliance and get to live, and we get everything. Take it or leave it." My friend spawns back and we head to the outpost they are heading to, not really expecting to win, as they are wearing ghost and skeleton curses, so we know they can hand us our own asses in PvP. We get to the outpost they are going to at roughly the same time, and as we pull up, we got the 10,000 gold and the notification that they sold the Chest of Fortune. My friend and I, pissed and not caring about anything, go for rams, all the while the brig is firing off fireworks, spamming THANKS in the chat, and one in game chat saying "HEY GUYS, ANCHOR AND WE WON'T SINK YOU" "THE CHEST OF FORTUNE IS ALREADY SOLD. THANKS FOR THE CHEST OF FORTUNE." They spam board, finally getting aboard, and my friend and I just leave, fed up and frustrated.

I give up for the night, but my friend was bound and determined to complete a FoF with friendly people, not even caring about the loot. After ten minutes of server hopping, he gets a FoF, and as he approaches, he sees a brig doing it. He fires off white flares, signaling non-hostility, and messaged one of them to get their attention while anchoring out of cannon range. One of them swims over, and they discuss terms, my friend saying he just wants to do a FoF, they can have the loot, they can take his cannonballs, he just wants to do a FoF with chill people. They agree, also agreeing to alliance, and head back to the fort, and not even ten minutes later, with my friend not even leaving his ship and sitting in plain sight, with the fort not even completed, the brig drops sail, gets cannon angle on my friend's ship, and unloads broadside after broadside, while also sending a player to board. My friend tries to talk with them as they do so, getting forced off of his ship by blunderbombs, getting back on board, and killing the person who boarded, who graced him with an earful of aggressive sexual moaning in the mic. My friend then went on to just leave.

Some say he is still searching for chill people to do a FoF with, asking for none of the loot except for the treasure of friendship.

EDIT: To clarify, directly messaging someone's profile on XBOX is normal. I've received random messages and party (private voice chat) invites from players in my server asking me "hey are you X ship that sunk me," and even in other games. It's normal to message another player on XBOX. XBOX messages are essentially a universal game chat to communicate with the players around you.

On XBOX, most SoT crews are in party chats (private voice chats), and by being in a party, they are unable to hear the in-game voice chat, robbing them of communication with other crews. And while you can type in the in-game text chat by changing settings, the XBOX keyboard is slow and you are unable to type and play at the same time. By messaging another player through the console, and then continuing the conversation through the XBOX mobile app, you can both play and communicate at the same time.