Hey everyone,
Following the launch of our recent update on September 19th, we've seen various reports of issues introduced in this update and the resulting quality of the game as a whole. Speaking openly, this release isn't at a quality bar we strive for and that isn't good enough - we'll be assessing what process changes we can make here to get back in control of the game quality we are releasing each month.
I wanted to share a quick update on the steps we'll be taking to improve the experience for you all ahead of the upcoming Community Weekend, but also plans for next week.
Fishing Rod Issues - 20/09 Hotfix
This update introduced an issue with the fishing rod that has had massive ramifications on the wider experience, from new launching exploits and negative player interactions to affecting wider game stability, with players experiencing elevated Marblebeard and Allmondbeard errors.
The team have been working to expedite a hotfix for the root cause of this issue, which from internal testing shows to have resolved all of the various use cases we are seeing reported from Live. We will be taking the game down for maintenance on Friday afternoon [13:00 UTC, 20th September 2024] and deploying a small game update to address these issues ahead of the weekend.
While there are clearly other issues we are still prioritising fixes for, we wanted to expedite an update here for the fishing rod as fast as we could, and therefore further fixes will now be taken in a follow-up release next week.
Follow-up 26/09 Hotfix
We're also working on a follow-up hotfix targeting Thursday next week which addresses further high-impact issues currently affecting players in Live.
- Throwing Knife Interactions - The team have identified the issue causing throwing knives to become stuck when colliding with allied crew members, and the recent regression to throwing knives able to be placed in the capstan to disrupt naval combat. Fixes will be heading into Insiders testing on Tuesday.
- Burning Blade Disappearing - A crewed Burning Blade will now have a short grace period before it sinks to protect from scenarios where the Captain temporarily disconnects from the session. In the event of a crew purposefully leaving the game while in control of the Burning Blade, it will now sink naturally rather than use the visual effects that would signify it had been handed in at The Reaper's Hideout. These changes will be heading into Insiders testing this Friday.
- Burning Blade's Skeleton Crew - An issue causing the Obsidian Skeleton crew from disappearing when returning to the Burning Blade via a Mermaid or Statue has been resolved and confirmed with Insiders.
- Further Crash Rate Improvements - The team have identified further improvements to crash rates that will be heading into Insiders on Tuesday for testing.
These proposed fixes will be making their way through Insiders and then rolled into the hotfix we are targeting for next Thursday [09:00 UTC, 26th September 2024]. We'll continue to monitor the bug reports and feedback following yesterday's update and triage any further issues we see come in.
We appreciate all of the bug reports and feedback provided since we brought the update live on Thursday, and for myself and the team, we recognise that this update just hasn't hit the quality bar that it should have. It's disappointing that many of our players are experiencing issues right now and we hear your frustrations - we have some work to do here to improve the experience for everyone - so thank you all for your patience.
Drew 'Sonicbob' Stevens