Trust me, I would love to play with other people, but unfortunately due to my lifestyle, I don't have time or friends online to play with. As for luck, the timing of engagement, the pacing of the players' positions, the combination of buttons pressed, the direction of the wind, etc. There are so many variables involved, no amount of skill can counteract the design flaws like hit detection in the environment and attack spamming with latency.

I dominate entire crews all the time, but the attacker is always highly favored during the encounter. There is no equal fighting, it's all luck. There aren't enough options for skill to be a factor. Sure, there is experience and strategy, but that's not skill, that's time (which players like OP and me don't have). Like I said, if you're time to play is limited, it's easier and faster to join a different server, instead of getting chased across the map for 30 minutes, or respawning or rushing back to avenge for 15 minutes at a time.

When I want real, quick, complex PvP; I play battlefield or ghost recon. It's fast and there's a bunch of options with combat mechanics, loadout gear, and perks to skillfully turn the tide of combat in the heat of the moment. Those do not exist in SoT, sadly. I wish it was AC: Black Flag, but it's really Minecraft.