I think there's a lot of opinions on the recent Bilge Rat Weekender, and since the event is trying to find it's footing as a monthly event for the community, I thought it's time to make a collective thread. Feel free to add yours!
I did all there is to do (except focusing on stealing crates), but only started Saturday.
Returning "Live-Event": Dark Fortress Raids
Far less exciting than April's fishing event. The voyage itself is special, but was given out a lot and is after all, just one voyage. It would have definitely helped if there was something like the 2x multiplier on Hunter's Call loot like last time involved.
Overall, it felt like a filler event. Which was probably the intention so the devs get more data on the other stuff.
BR Challenges
I think overall it was a mix that was way too time-consuming. One or two of the friction points would have been okay, but there were way too many, with actions either beyond your control (rowboat RNG) or having to sail to many specific outposts. 3 things I want to criticize especially:
- 5 Pirates Challenge - I like the "talk with another crew" angle, but is 5 really necessary? If you only have small crews, you might end up with 3 or 4 motivated pirates, but then not be able to do it. I know from Insiders that at least the next set might have fixed this already.
- Make other crew challenges a fixed location - You managed to convince 4 other pirates to do the challenge with you? Good, now sail with them to a roatatin outpost you have to manually track. And if someone has problems with unlocking the challenge, you have to sail to a completely different outpost. Generally, I'd say keep the "see the firework" challenges to stuff you can do alone or with your crew. Because the pirates I encountered the last few times didn't even know what the Bilge Rat Weekender was and were just friendly enough to still do it with us. I think the same effect would be reached if was a task were you don't have to convince a crew to change places every 20 minutes in case you mess up the conditions.
- Keg-Harpoon rowboats DIDN'T count for the Meg-challenge - Sorry, but this is just a missed mark. Not sure if this is a bug or just some pedantic design, but any rowboat with a harpoon should count.
Smugglers' Doubloon Run
I think it's great the voyages were increased to give up to 1000 Doubloons... but Smuggler voyages are still the most boring thing to do in Sea of Thieves. While it feels rewarding to steal them, it's damn boring to do them. And I don't know how the voyage can be improved to fix this, as it still has Smuggler voyages as a base. The famous Regina George quote from "Mean Girls" comes to mind...
Recovery of a Secret Shipment
This feels more exciting... but I feel like this wouldn't have needed 2 extra voyages. But it might also feel this way because Reaper Crates are now worth more and overall more exciting to do - especially since you can do it over time instead of doing 5 of them over a weekend. Others might have felt this way too, because I actually "stole" some by finding them swimming at an Outpost I started playing at.
I also doubt anyone has the chance to actually steal them as the treavel-distance is usually so short that it's very rare you actually steal one legit.
I think this voyage however could be fixed by rebalancing rewards (make it 3 voyages, but make crates give 40-50 Doubloons), or by changing parameters (make it so that it has to be delivered to a certain smuggler not near you instead of any smuggler; make it available for a month like a lucky voyage).
I could also see this becoming more interesting if the cosmetic rewards were rarer. The Shadow Tides Throwing Knife is pretty cool, but I'd probably be more excited if instead of a Season Pass cosmetic, it was a past-live-event log-in-cosmetic or something older than Season 1. Or you make Past-Season-13 the common reward, but give the chance to get a rare crate that still gives the same doubloons, but would give you a rarer item.
Final Thoughts
Overall, I was a lot more excited about last event, but while more Doubloons is welcomed, the increase of the voyages felt more tedious than "a better opportunity to steal", the returning event felt empty and was lacking modifiers and the Challenges felt unnecessarily tedious (RNG, sailing) or felt outright bugged (gunpowder harpoon rowboat).
I don't think it's a lost cause, but there's a lot to be desired. I also think it's good that the only "FOMO" is the Doubloons, so if you don't like a challenge, you still have the option of skipping it and just get more through BRW steals or Reaper Chests another time.
