---Post-Launch Update---
Hey Folks,
So for transparency this original post was written prior to us opening up the servers today and focused on sharing our state of play at Launch.
With a few hours of Live play now under our belt it's clear that further issues have flown under our radar here and made their way to live.
Its been incredibly disappointing for the team to see issues with the new features surface so soon and just reinforces our need to focus in on improving quality.
The team have been investigating reports as they've been coming in and we'll be preparing a hotfix for early next week to begin addressing the high impact areas.
I'll hold on the specifics for this hotfix as we pull together a plan, but have confidence that the team are aware of the prominent issues getting reported here and prioritising accordingly.
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.
Drew 'Sonicbob' Stevens
---Original Post---
Hey everyone,
It feels like a hot minute since my last State of Play update back in September, and it's with regret that I'm stepping in here to share an update on a few areas of Season 14's feature set today.
You've no doubt heard me share updates previously about how our process isn't catching high impact issues on their way through our various testing phases; in previous updates that has often led to us being on the back foot reactively dealing with these issues in Live.
While overhauling processes on a live game the size of Sea of Thieves are just going to take some time, we are already taking steps to become much more pragmatic with our risk assessment of issues and step up to make difficult decisions in order to protect the experience for all of you.
As part of our Season 14 launch today, two features are going to be temporarily disabled due to the known but also potential impact they could have to the experience - Traps and Hanging from Ledges.
Traps
Traps provide a new tactic in a crews arsenal once discovered on islands and can be setup in a variety of scenarios to catch unsuspecting enemies (or crewmates if you are an absolute troll like me...).
During the final stages of launch preparation however our team identified an issue caused by a recent bug fix that resulted in the trap's visual model floating and leaving an invisible armed trap behind.
While the initial repro for this was considered an edge case, further testing has shown that this can be reproduced in much more impactful ways and therefore the impact of releasing in its current state is simply unacceptable.
Hanging from Ledges
A small part of the sneaking toolset but a clever one, allowing players to quickly hop over a ledge and hide from others onboard ships.
While a small feature, it actually has a wide testing surface area - and in our final build we saw clear signals that game stability was being affected by players using this feature in a variety of scenarios like during server migration, joining sessions in progress etc.
It's difficult for us to make the call to disable a feature at this late stage but we know that it's the right call to make to protect the stability of the game in Live.
What's next for these?
These features are now back under the quality spotlight and the team are taking a breath to assess the stability and quality bar of each and defining what remaining work is required.
Both of these features deliver the opportunity for new stories and new tactics when sneaking around the world and we will therefore prioritise getting these shored up and back into your hands as soon as they are ready during the Season.
But what about the Mimic Dart?
We jumped the gun a little here, teasing the Mimic Dart's arrival at the Outpost recently. This feature however was deprioritised internally as we moved through production so that we could focus our attention on other areas and as a result has not yet been seen in Insiders to begin its testing and iteration phase.
The team will jump back onto this expansion of the blowpipe's versatile toolset once we have Season 14 stabilised in Live and we intend to deliver this new dart later in the Season as part of one of our monthly updates.
It's always painful for us to have to delay a feature of any size and no doubt some of our players will be disappointed at the reduced feature set at launch today. I hope that by sharing the steps we've taken through this process you can see our clear commitment to improving the quality of our releases even in the face of losing value along the way.
I stand by our decision here to focus on the player experience at launch and for us to put our hands up and hold on something that we can see clearly just isn't ready yet.
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.
Thank you all for your patience here, the team are working hard to rebuild confidence in these features and we'll get them into your hands during the Season as soon as they are ready!
Drew 'Sonicbob' Stevens
