Season 14 Update - State of Play

Just some thoughts on how I might overhaul some of the new features to make them fun and shake up (but not upend) the meta.

The grapple gun really isn't an intuitive tool in it's current state. I'd suggest giving it longer reach and removing exclusion zones. I'd also consider making all ships immune to it. It already appears to be an edge case use in PvP, and working on one ship type (galleon) but not others adds to the confusion.

Perhaps we could let it really shine in PvE scenarios as a fun tool that creates some truly neat water cooler moments.......instead of being mediocre at both PvP and PvE.

The merfruits are interesting. My take on how they're used would be to overhaul mermaids in general. Make the default time for a mermaid to spawn related to time spent in the water as opposed to distance from your ship......say 30-45 seconds? But if you eat a cooked merfruit it summons the mermaid instantly. I think this would be a more impactful shake up to the current meta, and give Sea of Thieves unique naval battles a chance to shine a bit more.

Whether merfruits go this route or not, I'd like to see something like the above suggestion changed with mermaids. It'd be really neat if the decision to leave your ship had more weight, both in how quickly you're able to return and "reset" and also in deciding whether to take up one of your food slots with a recall item......... should your away plan not succeed.

@sonicbob said in Season 14 Update - State of Play:

We know that this is still ultimately a reactive decision and one very late in the process, and that this is a clear area we need to improve, but I'm happier knowing that in this scenario we've made the pragmatic call and addressed these areas ahead of launch rather than as a reaction to Live feedback.

I'd be remiss if I didn't also mention that, while the state of season 14's launch isn't what we all wanted, good on the team for making some tough calls knowing you'd catch flak for it.

I know it wasn't easy, but thanks for making the overall game experience a priority and doing your best to safeguard that.

As a small QoL consideration to the blow dart could we make it so that the fire is a hold and release shot (holding the right trigger brings it up and let's you shoot farther) freeing up left trigger to be used for the ammo radial.

@captain-fob4141 said in Season 14 Update - State of Play:

As a small QoL consideration to the blow dart could we make it so that the fire is a hold and release shot (holding the right trigger brings it up and let's you shoot farther) freeing up left trigger to be used for the ammo radial.

I like this a lot. Fewer button presses and being able to truly change dart types on the fly. Almost like currently selecting new shanties with your instrument out or bait with the fishing rod.

I'm generally very patient when it comes to folk doing their best with what's given to them. We all make mistakes from time to time.

But when mistakes keep happening, you have to look at the processes and see what needs fixing - are QA being given enough time and resources? Are concerns internally being taken seriously and addressed? Are realistic deadlines being set by management? Should updates be done earlier in the week? Are those working on the game in good morale?

I'm sad that the game is in such a state, and updates aren't going to plan lately, but I'm more concerned right now with what state Rare are in (as an example, the Rare Store has been MIA for nearly 10 months with no update). I hope the ship can be righted for both the game and company.

I'll end with the positives from this State of Play: transparency and honesty is always welcomed, and it's good that you made the decision to deactivate broken features that you had identified before launch.

Much love and happy sailing.

Can we get the merfruit out of the food inventory completely? It's really frustrating to be fighting and the first thing to pop out is that shiny fruit that also, during a fight with the new blunderbuss it's really possible that I will end up in the water and waiting for my mermaid to show up.
I suggest having a diferent hotkey for it or at least put the merfruit last after the 5 pieces of food that I got earlier.

The main thing that is becoming clear, is that Insiders is completely broken, here's what needs to happen.

• Insiders needs to be public, bug hunting streams would be fun to watch, and would encourage more people to actively bug hunt.

• Reporting bugs needs to be easier, a 50mb limit combined with the nda makes it a pain to upload footage, and the website takes forever to upload to and handle the report, and a lot of the time it will bug out and you have to restart the report. There needs to be an in depth dedicated in game report system.

• Insider rewards need to be reflective of helpful reports, not time played, I sometimes sail from outpost to outpost and all I see is players afk either with a program or just wiggling their mouse every 8 minutes.
  This is a hard one to fix, as we know any metric that becomes a target ceases to be an accurate metric, and bug reports isn't an area you want to sacrifice accuracy. But something has to be done, maybe a closed insiders with a closer eye on insider activity, but insiders servers are dead enough as is. Perhaps paid bug testers

• This is more minor, but there should be an lfg page and closed vc in the discord server for Insiders, lots of bugs need multiple players to work or be observed, and maybe this is just my servers but open crew is completely empty.

Very glad to hear that the mimic dart hasnt been scrapped. I just hope it doesnt mimic people's usernames as well, to avoid any false bans.

Thanks for keeping us up to date.

I think @realstyli did a very excellent job at explaining what alot of us are thinking and questions and actions that need to be taken. It keeps happening and getting worse. There seems to be a lack of management and accountability within Rare. We all make mistakes but its getting out of hand. We understand its difficult but there is without a doubt changes that are needed. I love this game. It is to me the best game I have ever played and I have been gaming since the Atari era. Ive never cared for nor had as much fun as I do on the seas, yet I have never had a game where me and my crew talk about how much and what stuff we think will break on Update day. Its sad its gone from this is gonna be exciting to how much will be broken. The transparency is always appreciated. Hopefully we can see proof and not just hear promises. Best wishes to you all.

P.S. Please consider changing Insiders to a Public Test. I think it would greatly benefit the game.

In all honesty, I know it's not been a perfect release, but I personally had the smoothest feeling servers last night when I finally got immersed. Not even the burning blade spawning impacted my gameplay, and we had two galleons and two sloops in close proximity. I know there are flaws, but y'all have progressed by leaps and bounds, so know that it's seen and appreciated.

@regairegina I agree here servers feel oh so smooth when sailing around and such, dont get any lag or other so something positive amongst all this eh

It's really easy for players to get wrapped up in what's wrong and forget to acknowledge what's gone right. This was by far, despite the delayed features, the smoothest update I have experienced during my time in this game. The servers were shockingly smooth, the weapons worked largely as intended, I wasn't plagued with DC's, the servers were full of players that were laughing and having a great time with the new toys. The concept for this season is so clever!
I am also overjoyed to see timely and transparent communication and ownership of where things have fallen short.
Thank ya'll for your handwork and the positive direction the team is moving with game updates and communications! Looking forward to the hotfix.

I and my crew played last night and we had a smooth experience. We have seen much worse releases, and content released while ignoring major issues. I feel there where too many major concept changes(i.e. no harpoon boarding) made too close to release for a finished product(that's not something insiders can fix). However I definitely prefer stable servers and delayed content to massively crashing servers as I have seen before. Lets definitely keep appreciating when Rare acknowledges issues, and communicates more clearly/transparently as they seem to be making an effort to do lately. Keep stabilizing/fixing those servers and chasing those cheaters @sonicbob.

All the bone crusher jackets have a visual glitch

I appreciate that folks are eager to see improvement in quality here and ultimately words aren't going to cut it, so we need to get stuck in and prove through our actions how we can make changes for the better here.

I understand you’re the face of these updates and this post is in no way directed at you, but the quality level players are experiencing from these game updates is beyond poor and not what an industry leading games company with nearly 40 years experience should be delivering.

I don’t know what on earth is causing such poor quality updates to come out now two seasons in a row but it sets the tone for the rest of the season, and falling flat on your face at the start of the race is just embarrassing.

Several times there’s been commitment to making the game better and having stronger quality updates as teams are shifted to focus on this quality. It’s got to the point that this phrase is a meme and now become a lie to quell the masses.

I think it’s clear you’re understaffed for the type of game you have on your shoulders. You need more people to help deliver content on time AND keep the game healthy. Hire. More. People.

I truly love this game and the people who make it, but my god it is so embarrassing that I have to tell people who want to play desperately, to avoid it.