Patch Notes Discussion - 1.2.4

  • Patch Notes - 1.2.4

    Ahoy pirates!

    You heeded the call to arms, uncovered the clues and successfully protected the Sea of Thieves #GreatWater by defeating the skeletal scourge. Cursed Sails’ time-limited campaign has ended, but the skeleton ships remain in the world even as our latest Bilge Rat Adventure begins: Cursed Crews!

    Patch 1.2.4 brings with it the return of the Kraken, increased chances to find consumable crates, a Commendation requirement rebalance and a controller sensitivity increase. It also includes key performance improvements, crash fixes and other fixes for known issues.


    Bilge Rats Adventures - Cursed Crews

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    Through the ill deeds of Captain Warsmith and her subsequent defeat, the accursed power she sought to control has now been unleashed upon the Sea of Thieves. In recognition of this major event, the Bilge Rats are rewarding pirates who seek out and use these cannonballs against skeleton crews and other ships.

    • Cursed Cannonballs - These magical cannonballs can now be found in barrels and crates around the world. There are 11 different types of Cursed Cannonball to discover, each unleashing a unique curse on players and ships.

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    • The Flag of The Reapers Mark - A mysterious power has been harnessed from Wanda’s Lab and now awaits in the Flag Box of every ship. The Flag of the Reaper’s Mark is a new cursed flag that reveals the location of any ship that dares to fly it. The location of these ships will be shown on all other ships’ maps, but specific ship types and Alliance status will remain a mystery.
    • Inventory Quick Menu - Pressing the TAB key or the Menu button on your controller now shows two new options: ‘Equipment’ and ‘Resources’. From here players can equip themselves with the items they wish to use.
    • Barrel 2.0 – Barrels in the world have been upgraded and can now contain more than one kind of item. Barrels on ships will still remain single item barrels.
      You can find the megathread for this feature in this topic.
    • The Wailing Barnacle Weapons - The Pistol, Eye of Reach, Blunderbuss and Cutlass are now available to purchase with Doubloons from Duke. These items are time-limited for this Bilge Rats Adventure, so purchase while you can before they are removed on September 12th.
    • Bilge Rats Titles - Complete Cursed Crews Commendations to unlock three new Pirate Titles: Bearer of the Reaper’s Mark, Master of Cursed Iron and Legendary Cursed Voyager. These titles will unlock straight into your Vanity Chest for maximum bragging rights.
    • Bilge Rats Commendations & Doubloons - There are 16 new Cursed Crew Commendations available to unlock and the progress screen shows the number of Bilge Rat Doubloons each one rewards. There are to a total of 150 for this event, 90 for Standard Commendations and 60 for Legendary Commendations. Players have until September 12th to earn Doubloons by completing these Commendations.

    Updates

    • Emergent Skeleton Ship Battles - The accursed skeletons and their salvaged ships now sail the seas, posing a continued threat to the world. Periodically, a skeleton ship cloud may be seen on the horizon, heralding a ship battle location and the chance to seize the plunder aboard.
    • Bang For Your Buck - Prices will remain at their Cursed Sails reduced price in all shops to celebrate victory for the Outposts!

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    • Beached Treasures - Banana Crates, Cannonball Crates and Wood Crates will now wash up more frequently on beaches.
    • Supply & Demand - Banana Crates, Cannonball Crates and Wood Crates have an increased value when sold to the Merchant Alliance.
    • Message in Bottles - Banana Crates, Cannonball Crates and Wood Crates are now more likely to be part of Voyages discovered in a Message in a Bottle.
    • Map Table Alliance Flags - Alliance flag colours for both your ship and allied ships now appear on your map table’s off-screen marker.
    • Commendation Changes - Some Commendation requirements have been rebalanced. This change was made due to community feedback. Players who have met the new conditions will need to complete the requirement one more time to trigger the Commendation.
    • Controller Sensitivity - Sensitivity settings have now been doubled. The new '5' sensitivity is equivalent to the previous '10'. Players may have to adjust their settings when they next launch the game.
    • Shop Purchase Updates - The flow of purchasing items from shops has been improved, featuring some shiny UI updates.
    • Light It Up - Lanterns must now be lit in order to trigger riddle steps.
    • Hair & Beards - New animations have been added to the Vanity Chest when trying on beards and hairstyles, to better show them off!

    Performance Improvements

    • Fixed a server memory leak which was causing lag on busy servers on occasion.
    • Multiple server and client crash fixes.
      We are constantly reviewing the performance and stability of each patch and providing performance optimisations and stability improvements.

    Fixed Issues

    • The Kraken has been unleashed upon the seas once again.
    • Alliances can now contain more than two crews.
    • When offered an Alliance by multiple crews, acceptance now only allies you with the closest ship.
    • Merchant Crates no longer display an incorrect maximum capacity when being filled.
    • Titles from shops are correctly removed when purchased.
    • Viewing the Brigantine from a far distance no longer makes its crow's nest appear to be on the front mast.
    • Skeletons will no longer dash through and get stuck in walls, causing issues with hidden skeletons in Forts and Order of Souls voyages.
    • Players can no longer scuttle their own ship and teleport chests back to their new spawn point.
    • Players can no longer glitch through the hull of the Brigantine to enter the ship.
    • The Brigantine stairs have been updated to stop players getting stuck underneath them and ejected from the ship.
    • Cannon explosions will no longer randomly be heard out of nowhere during normal gameplay.
    • Players on PC will now be able to select 'Options' after being invited to a game.
    • Corrected clipping issues with the Hunter Shirt, Hunter Pocket Watch and Bone Crusher Tankard.

    Known Issues

    • Bounty Skulls which are washed up on islands cannot be picked up.
      We have a fix for this coming in a future update.
    • Players can come back from the Ferry of the Damned as a skeleton.
      We have identified the issue and we're working on a fix.
    • Merchant Alliance crates which sink will not float to the surface and cannot be picked up.
    • The Hunter Jacket & Trousers are incorrectly Purple.
      This will be corrected to red in a future update.

    Download size:

    Xbox One: 3.75GB
    Xbox One X: 3.75GB
    Windows 10: 3.66GB

    Xbox Installation Instructions can be found here.

    PC Installation Instructions can be found here.


    Looking For Crew?

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    Looking for new crewmates? We've got a bunch of places you can visit to seek out like-minded pirates, so sail on over to these official Sea of Thieves hangouts:

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  • Thanks for the patch notes @khaleesibot!

    Some big changes here which I am sure we will all eventually get used to!

    I also can't wait to see where this little PvP adventure takes us over this next couple of weeks!

    Ooooooh and good to hear that Karen is back out on the seas!

  • This is good but i'm not a fan of the return of the kraken

  • Ayyyee Karens back! Is it strange I’ve missed her? And now I can finally get that achievement!

    Great to see we will be getting more cannon and banana crates and the commendations have been adjusted, a welcome improvement indeed!

    Do we know if the Skelly ship battles are the same as the cursed sails? E.G multiple waves or will it be just the captains ship?

    And not going to lie not a fan of the increase to supplies on ships, it’s going to make those battles of attrition ridiculous now.

  • I already had ranks for 1000 chests. Why did they disappear? Is it joke? I got this titles for 1000 chests, Carl!

  • Happy the kraken back

  • I won't discuss barrels in here, but overall it's a really cool patch. A lot of interesting improvements.

  • Shop Purchase Updates - The flow of purchasing items from shops has been improved, featuring some shiny UI updates.

    Gonna have to check this one out. Not sure if it means the shops finally got some much needed organization and other stuff or what exactly.

  • Anyone know what the commendation requirements for this bilge rats adventure are?

  • did Karen get her body tho? ',:^/

  • Did the shops get better organization? Like categorizing armor sets together?

  • @khaleesibot I am not sure if it's a bug affecting only me currently or everyone all over the seas.
    But i cannot feed the pigs with the Bananas. When it says "feeding" i press the correct button. My banana disappears but the pig is still in a "sitting" position crying until it dies. Even giving it 5 banana in a row doesn't change anything...

  • @lakefront17 Ahoy matey!

    It's not just you matey, this is a bug, I had it earlier too!

    Make sure you submit a ticket using the link below so the devs can see the scale of the issue.

    Submit a support ticket.

  • @lakefront17
    This has been a bug for a while. If you don't have both the option to pick up the pig as well as feed the pig, it doesn't count.

  • @bobafestus I know that bug.
    I am (was) aware of this. Both options (feeding the pig and picking up) were available.

  • I'll submit a report ticket...but so far today for my crew. Pig's won't eat and the Unity and Mutiny flags are missing :-(

  • "Some Commendation requirements have been rebalanced. This change was made due to community feedback."
    What community feedback? The only commendation issue (aside from them not being rewarded during Bilge Rat events) was concerning the merchant crates, and that was an entirely different problem.
    I had 700 Castaway's turned in. 120 Chests of a Thousand Grogs. All that progress has effectively been wiped out, and I simply do not understand the reasoning behind it. If you want the game to last a long time it's good to have long-term goals in the game. But now the commendations are all very easy to complete, meaning the titles are not unique, and the dedicated no-lifers like myself have not only been robbed of progress, but have also been robbed of a long-term goal.
    Yes, I'm salty. Very much so.

  • Any visual updates to Karen? I'll assume not since if they did it would have been in the patch notes. I would hope soon that they release some "surprise" updates without actually putting them in the notes. Like crab critters and Kraken body.

  • August 30th Patch - Changes to barrel inventory management.

    Guys, I've been playing since 3 days after launch, and have hundreds of hours into the game. This is the first time I've had a significant reason to provide feedback on a development change. This new inventory system is going to cause some ruffled feathers. There are at least 4 issues stemming from this update to barrels.

    1. You cannot see at a glance what your supply count aboard your vessel is without accessing the barrels.
    2. You cannot see if a barrel is empty when approaching it, meaning that it will slow down harvesting materials, and crucial moments when in a fight and trying to eat that banana before you die. This also has an unintentional effect of causing frustration when a player may encounter several barrels in a row that are empty. This will also effect crew coordination when collecting supplies as a team.
    3. It is much more laborious to interact with. Yes muscle memory will adapt, but seasoned players will see this as a step backwards. A simple task such as stocking or retrieving supplies should not feel complicated.
    4. This further widens the gap in response and difficulty between xbox and PC players, as xbox players have a limitation on the amount of hotkeys available to use.

    Solutions - Make supply count on vessels visible on the respective barrels aboard ship. Clearly mark resource barrels as (empty) if they are empty (although this is only a partial solution as clicking on a barrel that has resources you do not need still creates agitation). The other two issues, you guys are going to need to do some thinking on.

  • Reducing the commendations this drastically is a joke and an insult to the most loyal players. Players who, for the longest time, have had nothing to work on in this game. Players who quickly reached PL, Athena 10, and have had no other goals to reach, aside from commendations. Many players, myself included, and many much more dedicated players, have sunk countless hours into completing commendations for little reward besides a prestigious title that many players don't even recognize the worth of. These players have spent the past few months playing the game with nothing to work towards besides grinding commendations. Just as these players complete some or many of these difficult commendations, all their hard work is nullified.

    At this point in the game, I see no more reason to play. This isn't really much different than the state of the game thus far, but at least we had commendations to do. Now, there is nothing. The cursed cannonballs are out which is cool, but they are so difficult to use fluidly. How can you expect someone to sort through 3 menus to select one cannon ball for proper use with proper timing in the midst of the fight? The barrel menus are horrible but I think you know this already. I have no factions to grind, no goals to achieve, commendations that I have been working on are worth nothing, the ones I didn't finish yet have been finished for me, and the one thing worth doing at the moment (experimenting with the new cannon balls) isn't even fun to do because of how difficult it is to pull them out and swap between them during a fight. I might finally have given up on this game.

  • Were going to add the reapers mark so pvp players can get more pvp, totally optional!
    oh but if you want commendations, you HAVE to pvp...
    oh and by the way for the commendations, you have to use the reapers mark but be in an alliance, which defeats the purpose of it anyway since everyone will just allign and wear the flag... but good job though, more well thought out commendations. not to mention the horrible update that is the barrel system, the commendation overhaul that slapped a bunch of people in the face that spent time working them, etc. etc.
    ive had a lot of fun in this game, but after hitting athena 7, i didnt play at all for the first time since release date, all last week. i have no desire to grind out the rest of athena for a sub par figure head thats too expensive. cursed cannonballs just showing up randomly in barrels and able to be stock piled will ruin pvp, if you can even grab them out of your barrel and load one in a cannon in time to get a shot off before you get sunk from a ship that has 1k cannonballs on board...

    good stuff

  • @specialadvisor Ahoy matey!

    The alliance flags are now a bit smarter I think, you should only see the mutiny flag now once you are in an alliance they don't show up all the time.

  • Woo hoo!! Excited to curse my enemies!

  • @shuoink - Thats a good point about the pace of battle. I spent maybe 20 minutes online this morning just to check out the changes. I had a brig sail up on me while i was still at port, just beginning, I set my boat off and distracted the crew, and then mermaided back to my sloop, turned around and went back to that brig. I killed it as a solo player, they weren't able to return a single shot. A 3 to 1 battle should have gone in their favor, had they been watching.

  • That new inventory and barrel system will really open up the door for new and interesting items.
    NEW AND INTERESTING WAYS!!!

  • Massive patch! Nice one Rare!

  • The new commendation rebalance has effectively taken away any sort long term progression for the loyal and devoted community.

    As a PL10 I found the long and arduous commendation grind to be quite rewarding. Titles were a mark of achievement, and at this point in the game, most of them are still uncommon to come by. It was a mark of achievement, something to work towards every day. Something I could proudly display to my friends and frienemies.

    I have been grinding my way to 500 skull fort clears for the title of that commendation. I have more than double the amount (120) that is now currently required to have the title. In fact almost all of my Commendations are completed. Yes I play this game more than most but this is a complete slap in the face to the hardcore community.

    Any sort of long term progression has been taken from me. I like goals. And now not having any I have no desire to play this game at this point in time.

    I urge you to reconsider this commendation rebalance. While it serves the casual crowd upfront, your hardcore community (which is the one that is going to stick around) is furious right now. This is my first and likely only post in the forum. I have never been more frustrated with a video game update. Please don’t do this to the community that plays this game the most.

    PS the inventory system needs a lot of improvement.

  • Feeding pigs doesn't actually feed them, they remain hungry.

    All of my merchant progress for Bananas, Wood and Cannonballs were re-set to zero.

    Still can't fly Looking for Alliance flag and normal flag at same time.

    Doing Merchant Voyage under Repair flag not counting towards commendation.

  • Athena's is broken again. When you complete the first 8 quests, it says voyage complete instead of going to Final Chapter and giving you the Legend Chest Map.

  • @geno-on-a-boat Apparently the next one you hand in will sort it out? I’m not one hundred percent sure if that’s true though :)

  • I can't feed my pig's since the last update!!

  • @musicmee good to know about a contextually smart Mutiny flag...and that makes sense. But what about the missing Unity flag? We had a ship pass by us with an Alliance flag flying, and I only had the Alliance flag visible in my menu...so no option to join. I hoisted the Alliance flag as a what the heck let’s see. No joy...nothing happened.

    I’ve already reported this and the starvation strike by all our pigs :-(

  • Dear rare, it is a wonderful game you've created.
    You have to team and work together towards a common goal, it is in all aspects a social game and we've built communities.
    There is a lot of things to enjoy about the game but you are really pushing us away from it.
    PvP/PvE
    We wanted servers with more ships so there was more interaction between players, we got skeleton ships that ram themselves into rocks (which to be fair isn't that uncommon with players)
    We wanted more mechanics to board as the only way to do it right now against a good crew is a mast shot with cannons.

    My friends and I have a lot of experience in the game, bought everything, athena 10, PL and all that stuff ages ago aside from commendations. Now that you've taken that from us what is left?

  • @chanizu Gotta say, the rebalance of comendations is just another step in nerfing the game so everyone can get everything sooner, in hopes of keeping them. It doesn't mean a thing anymore to be a PL, since you could easily have bought your last 15 or 20 combined levels with the dabloons. And the commendations now are worthless, as everyone who has played for a few weeks, will now qualify for the ones it took us a few 'months' to earn. This leaves us with only the raw stats as a real measure of what you have accomplished, and those are only visible by viewing the players gamer card. O'well, all these milestones i've achieved, almost time to call it a day, as it has gotten to be 'everyone come, we'll make you all equal no matter how much time you spent playing'.

  • @knifelife Unfortunately, turning in one of each item will not revert the changes made to these commendations. I wish, though.

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