Ship Talk: Interview With Streamer PhuzzyBond, Part 2

Sea of Thieves is more popular than ever, due to its growing content base and Game Pass inclusion. Today we’re back to conclude our talk with mega-streamer and YouTuber PhuzzyBond. We had so much to discuss with Phuzzy that one article couldn’t contain it all, so here’s Part 2 of 2. Let’s fly the pirate flag and get going, shall we?!

Ship Talk: I think that leads me a bit to my next question because all of this is just pixels, and it does matter, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter.

PhuzzyBond: It’s a tool to bring us together.

Ship Talk: Yeah! And unfortunately, there is a cohort of gamers who think it’s okay to say whatever they want to whoever they want online. Have you ever faced racism online? How do you deal with ignorance and hate?

PhuzzyBond: Oh yeah, of course. Being an Arab, especially since I started doing face-cam, there are references to political figures due to stereotypes. People who get their facts from Family Guy and South Park. They bring that and consider that they’re knowledgeable about how the world looks. It doesn’t bother me at all; in fact, it kind of makes me stronger because when I have a face cam, “oh, Arab has a beard, must be whatever.” Right? They say something, so I tell them, “why did you say that?” You bring them to the stage, and once you bring them to the stage, they get scared because it’s all digital muscles, you know? Because those who live in a cave are always afraid of the light, so the second you bring them to the light, they stop answering.

The first time I dealt with that was on Sea of Thieves, we were on Plunder Outpost, and there was a galleon, and they were more experienced than us. I talked; I was like, “Hey guys, what’s up? We’re friendly. We’re just here to sell some stuff.” So, that player came close and was like, “I want to tell you something.” I was like, “what?” He shot me, like killed me, and sunk our ship, and he’s like, “go back to the effing country you came from.” I was like, “holy heck, man, what makes it your country? I don’t see a country flag.”

Ship Talk: Yeah, get off my seas!

PhuzzyBond: Exactly, yeah, what makes it your country, you know? That was the first time I got it, I was a small content creator then, and I wasn’t streaming. However, I do have an insanely racist video on my Youtube channel that’s unlisted because the people were insanely bad and perverted in other ways. That the comments were just spreading bad vibes all the time like, “ these guys should go to jail. These guys should ‘whatever.’ How dare they.” They started blaming Xbox police for not destroying them, even though they all got banned for what they did to us, nonetheless.

Yeah, racism is there for everyone, but at different levels. Everyone gets it. Also, the gender makes a difference. I’ve seen fellow streamers who, for example, if they win in a PVP battle or something, the enemy will be like, “Oh gamer girl, you’re ‘I dunno what.’” There’s always that stereotype that, for example, gamer girls can’t be competitive. Or if they are competitive, there are great ones out there, and they actually win; the other person tends to get more triggered than begin defeated by a male if you know what I mean? I’m trying to be careful with what I say.

Ship Talk: Yeah, it’s odd.

PhuzzyBond: And that’s a fact. It feels bad for female streamers that they get this, but I’m just stating the facts that we see. You know, we wish them all the best, keep on competing.

Ship Talk: Yeah, absolutely, my wife games a lot, and I see it. She’ll come into a room full of guys, and we’re playing a fighting game, and I’m terrible, and she’s quite good at them, and you get that response. It’s interesting to see.

PhuzzyBond: Yeah, exactly. Or they say unethical things, non-family-friendly things.

Ship Talk: Yeah, it’s like, “come on.”

PhuzzyBond: It’s like 2022, and you still do that, man? Are you kidding me?

Ship Talk: So, after dealing with racist and ignorant people, you’ve said that baking puts you into a meditative state of mind. What do you bake to impress people? Your most recent disaster?

PhuzzyBond: My most recent disaster… Well, it’s not very recent because, you know, you learn, and as I tend to show in my guides, I capture everything. So, if something wrong happens, it’s fine, but if it happens again, I rage. It’s like, “this happened before; you couldn’t learn from it? This is twice you’ve burnt the cake.”

So basically, I bake on Fridays. Fridays in the Middle East because it’s majority Fridays are off. It’s like Sundays in the West and Europe; we have Fridays here. That’s our day off, no schools, no banks, nothing. So, this is my day where depending on how stressful my week was, I start baking. I usually try to challenge myself; for example, today, I am going to make Malt Loaf. Malt Loaf is one of the hardest things to bake for me because it requires putting in tea and stuff. Jackie, my wife, being from England, she told me about it and we can’t find it here, so I learned to make it. I’ve failed several times; every time was a step forward. It’s not a problem for me to fail; the problem is to not improve. It’s okay for the cake to burn, but the next time you make it, it better be better, even if it’s not perfect.

Ship Talk: That’s great. I didn’t know it was a weekly thing for you. So, it’s very often that you bake.

PhuzzyBond: I don’t bake every Friday. Sometimes it’s family day; I visit my parents and stuff like that. Generally, it’s almost every other Friday. I’ll either bake something the kids like, like their favorite. Or, usually, what I like to do is I open recipes, and I try and see what’s out there, like honeybun cake or things that require a bit more effort than just a plain vanilla cake.

Ship Talk: I don’t know a whole lot, but I know that baking is difficult. It’s not like cooking.

PhuzzyBond: I’m not anywhere like an experienced baker at all. But, baking in general, to me, it feels like there is no in-between. You either make something great, or you make a disaster. Because for example, adding a half teaspoon of baking powder extra by mistake, the cake turns out dry, and you can’t eat it anymore.

Ship Talk: Yeah, there’s no fixing it.

PhuzzyBond: Exactly, there is no fixing it. So my solution to the kids, because I don’t waste, is to dip it in some milk and eat it to make up for the problem. Next time I’ll learn, you know?

Ship Talk: So let me change directions here and talk a little bit about Sea of Thieves to cap this off. What is your favorite region to sail around in Sea of Thieves?

PhuzzyBond: This region, is this it? Yeah. Shores of Plenty is kind of the most peaceful and less “Tim Burton-y,” you can say like the wilds. The wilds feel like it was directed by Tim Burton. This region feels like a Disney movie. It’s all bright and when you think of the sea and the beach and adventure. You actually think of this more than the dark side, which is The Wilds.

Ship Talk: I’d say that’s accurate.

PhuzzyBond: Like the Northside of Wilds like where Old Faithful Isle is and stuff. This area is probably the worst and most hated area in the game. Almost no one goes there, this one here, Old Faithful Isle.

Ship Talk: Oh, yeah, it’s huge.

PhuzzyBond: Above these outposts, [Galleons Grave and Dagger Tooth] if it got deleted from the game, no one would notice. Not that much, but generally speaking.

Ship Talk: So, if you could add anything to Sea of Thieves, what would it be and why?

PhuzzyBond: Well, first of all, a boarding ax. This is the thing I talk about most because the boarding ax is basically — Ships aren’t balanced between each other in Sea of Thieves. Like a sloop only has two people but has two ladders, and a galleon has four people, but it also has two ladders. So, it’s much harder to board the bigger and more powerful ship than the smaller one. Which kinda doesn’t make sense, right? Because you should kind of balance things out as long as you have a server that mixes the sloop and galleon together. You have to have advantages and imbalances.

Like, back in the day, a sloop used to outmaneuver a galleon very easily. When they added the harpoons, that ruined that because a galleon can do a 180-degree turn. A 180-degree U-turn is just as good as the sloop, and that kind of ruins it. Without getting into harpoons and other things, the only weak point of a boarding ax is when you board a ship, it makes a sound like this [ the shovel against wood]. So, on a galleon that’s bigger, if you’re on the helm and I’m boarding from the front side here, it’s a harder chance for you to hear. However, on a sloop, because it’s smaller, I can hear the boarding ax from everywhere. So, this boarding ax is kind of easier on bigger ships and harder on smaller ships making it a balanced experience.

Ship Talk: I think that’s clever. That’s really cool, so it would allow you to board the ship from anywhere?

PhuzzyBond: Exactly, and it’s a consumable, so it won’t be overpowered, just like throwables and you can find them in barrels, you can take up to five, you can hit a player with them and cause a limp, you cut harpoons with it, and you can board ships. You can also remove planks, but every use is consumable, so it’s not overpowered. For example, if it takes two seconds to put a level three plank, which is the biggest hole in the ship, it takes twice as long to remove it, like four seconds, and it gets consumed after. So, basically, it adds a nice twist and balance to the game. I did a video back when I was two thousand subscribers, and it blew up off the charts compared to my viewers back then. It’s still there; they tell me I need to revise it or make a new one. Maybe I’ll make one soon in the next month or something.

Ship Talk: Yeah, I’ll have to go and check that out. That sounds like a lot of fun. I’m always stuck on people’s ladders, and they’re talking to me, saying they know I’m there.

PhuzzyBond: Yeah, there’s other unfair things. For example, if you stand here on a sloop [deck of ship near ladder], you cannot see someone who is all the way down right here [at the bottom of the ladder]. Hard to see me unless you stand on the edge. On a brigantine, you cannot. However, a galleon the hull extends out, let’s say twenty degrees outwards, so just by standing here where I am [deck of ship near ladder], you can see a person hiding on it. It’s even harder to hide on the ladders on a galleon. In addition to that, there’s a plank you can stand on and shoot them from the back.

Ship Talk: Oops! [Falls off ship]

PhuzzyBond: Aw! haha! Alright, take the mermaid, just swim away, and it will spawn faster. It’s even harder to hide on a galleon, so in addition to all that, you have four players aiming guns at you.

Ship Talk: Do you think they would ever add another ship to the game? I know that’s always talked about.

PhuzzyBond: If they add, I think it will be smaller and not bigger because the servers can barely carry themselves. A smaller ship is more likely than a bigger ship, but it’s unlikely too. Because, as they say, it’s just good business, and Sea of Thieves recently has been designed to favor numbers over skill. So they can cater to casuals who sail on galleons with their family because these are the ones that actually give the game money, not a competitive player who just wants to sink others and steal treasure.

Ship Talk: I’ve seen plenty of that on my end.

PhuzzyBond: Yeah, exactly, and that type of player — it’s not wrong. But, that player doesn’t generate money as much as a father. My two kids sailed with me once, and they wanted pets, right? I bought two ten-dollar gift cards, and they bought a pet and sword from the Pirate Emporium. But, when I’m alone on a solo sloop, I couldn’t care less about that stuff, right? So, as a business move for them, they kind of did that on purpose to favor, they didn’t announce that obviously, but we’re not ignorant either. We can see things, right? That’s why they did it.

Ship Talk: I think that’s a great insight. So, where can my audience find you online?

PhuzzyBond: I’m PhuzzyBond. Let me type it because people put it with an ‘F.’ I’m PhuzzyBond on Twitch and Youtube. I’m a Youtuber who streams, not a streamer that does youtube. I just want to make that clear. I love streaming, but I’m mainly a YouTuber; that’s my heart. Twitch, I take care just as much. I’m also on Twitter and all other socials, but if they want to stay updated with my news, they can follow me on Twitter because that’s where all the drama happens. As for content, it’s Twitch and Youtube.

Ship Talk: Awesome. Check out Phuzzy’s videos on his Youtube, check out his Twitch, check out his Twitter. I want to thank him for being here, thank my audience for tuning in, and we’ll catch you on the next episode of Ship Talk.

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