Season 20 Plunder Pass Is Disappointing

  • YNGAlladin
    Rogue
    Insider

    I’ve been playing this game for years and have always enjoyed the experience, but this season has been a major disappointment, particularly regarding the Plunder Pass.

    The Plunder Pass has traditionally been a significant incentive for players, providing meaningful progression and access to unique cosmetics. Unfortunately, this season’s pass feels substantially weaker than previous iterations. Many of the rewards appear to be recycled items that were already available in the Pirate Emporium, while other additions, such as quests, offer little value to a large portion of the player base.

    The overall presentation also feels lacking. The new Plunder Pass menu is a considerable step backward compared to the previous design, which was more intuitive and visually appealing. It gives the impression that less effort was invested in the system this season despite it being an important feature for many players.

    It seems that development resources are being directed toward redesigning systems that players already enjoyed rather than expanding the core game experience. The previous Plunder Pass worked well and did not require a complete overhaul. The new system feels like a downgrade, offering less content while reducing the sense of progression and reward.

    Additionally, this season has done little to expand the base game itself. What many players are looking for is meaningful new content, activities, and experiences—not new modes or changes to established systems that were already well received.

    I hope future seasons focus more on delivering fresh content and improving the core gameplay experience, while preserving the systems that players have consistently enjoyed.

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  • Boneheart1237
    Marauder
    Insider

    The worst part about this is majority of the community and insiders agreed with you, but they implemented the pass changes regardless.

    I’m still disappointed, shocked, and even appalled that it’s still the same price for half the content with less care put into it. Worst part is, the imbalance between the Emporium/Plunderpass and Outpost Stores are still easily 70/30 or 80/20. I have urged people to avoid buying this pass at all costs and I hope others do the same as well.

  • BurnBacon
    Vanguard
    Insider

    I now without having to look, see what level I am and what I am doing even matters.
    No need to keep checking the progress it’s visible.

    Rewards on the other hand lack because, I own just about everything and I gain nothing of worth.

  • gunnner1
    Marauder
    Insider

    @yngalladin I haven't bought a plunder pass for several seasons for good reason. This game treats players like punching bags

  • Flashkannon5118
    Seafarer

    I managed to get over halfway up the pass in a single day's activities... I know it's not supposed to be an eternal grind or anything, but it is dissappointingly short. The quests... I'm still not sure what we're really supposed to do with them. Most of them are just kind of... nothing. And besides, it would be a supreme annoyance to have a plunder pass reward be obliterated by a dedicated annoyance who happened to be on the same server (or, say, spawned in the same sea with a reaper grade 5 flag and a yearning for hours of chasing).

    I wish you didn't have to claim every reward tier manually, all the excitement of checking off boxes, if the box took several button presses and two seconds of waiting to check. Choices I understand needing to claim, but rewards are auto-unlocked at the end of the season, so why should I have to manually claim every handful of doubloons?

    And the cherry on top is the use of the word "premium" for this, like this was doing us a favor. In my opinion, it's just a eye-rolling, marketing-driven bit of pablum. Plunder pass was infinitely better as a term.

  • Lem0n Curry
    Vanguard
    Insider

    @flashkannon5118 said in Season 20 Plunder Pass Is Disappointing:

    I wish you didn't have to claim every reward tier manually, all the excitement of checking off boxes, if the box took several button presses and two seconds of waiting to check. Choices I understand needing to claim, but rewards are auto-unlocked at the end of the season, so why should I have to manually claim every handful of doubloons?

    You'll be grateful for that mechanic when you have 4k (or close to that) doubloons and the doubloons you'd get would be wasted.

  • QuiteSpace1450
    Rogue

    ive heard others say for years they need to hire someone who specializes in UI for this game. their solution to the UI problems have always been awful. now their fix for the emporium is just add a fomo element to the store making things go on rotation so theres less clutter but also urges people to buy stuff. also the new season pass setup of giving you some items for a set to kinda push you to want to complete the collection via the shop.... its a fair strategy and tends to work thats why its been used in so many places. but this is just more proof that its end of life. old season passes were adding new unique cosmetics, with the introduction of the black market with old doubloon cosmetics, deleting everyones doubloons so you have to actually farm currency again instead of just buying stuff right away, no new emissary rewards despite never having finished the ship themes (they did livery but never added captaincy items to match), heck the captaincy specific captain/map room customization has NEVER gotten and update. not a single time!!! how?!?! all we have gotten is the obsidian stuff which was just setup as twitch drop stretch goals which lately the game is performing so bad on its own let alone on twitch that we cant even reach stretch goals to obtain.

    though you cant honestly tell me in the past the gold and doubloon rewards which was like 80% of the season pass felt good or worth anything. especially now that they deleted all those doubloons. the season pass was just another way to trigger dopamine response. just like gaining reputation which is why they thought they would give us the ability to make a 2nd pirate.. which like maybe 20 people have even bothered to do? lol. all because 1 unique individual early only deleted their pirate losing all their fomo because they missed the experience of seeing the rep bar go up every time they sold items. well now we have 500 levels to grind just to get rings that cant even be seen if we wear fingerless gloves? and guild levels which if you play in a guild of just friends or family will take forever to max out, i guess pirate profiles is good for streamers is they wanna go incognito. but all the streamers i watched bailed with the recent controversy. they have increased the number of doubloons from season pass which means less people would have to cheese on bilgerat weekend. stopped adding unique rewards so counter productive to their plans now people can just straight up skip seasons when the intent was "make it easier to complete so more people will complete" though it will make more people complete it without trying i guess.

    but assuming 100% of the games revenue isnt going to the movie..... and assuming they even care about this game and are going to continue updates. still silent on the season 21 front? like for real... havent they usually talked about future seasons on insiders at this point? i quickly glancing at the last 2 months or archived posts not a single mention of seasons past 20....... everone praises rare for transparency... well whats going on with the game we used to love that they are forcing us to lose interest in?

    for me one of the perks of season pass was the free ancient coins. but i think about this game from the money making point of view. IE pve servers would mean more people playing "how they want, when they want" which is what they have been promising from day1 but adding fineprint saying "unless you want pve only" thats millions lost in cosmetic sales to an audience they gave the finger to. but giving away ancient coins for free when they desprately need money to keep the game running? bad strat. similar idea as other games though. give them a little bit of currency to afford 1 item so they need to buy more to complete the set.... problem is rare was giving away a crazy amount of premium currency. i have a friend whos sitting on like 5k ancient coins cause he doesnt do cash shops even if the currency is free.

  • Winga1511
    Rogue
    Insider

    Ahoy pirates, and hello to the Rare Team,

    I wanted to share my feedback on the new progression system. While the change feels original, it is a massive step backward.

    1. Menu and User Experience (UX):The old menu was much simpler. Having to constantly and manually click to claim every single reward is exhausting and feels outdated.

    2. Recycled Rewards & Missing Titles:Bringing back old seasonal items is a nice gesture for newer players, but it’s disappointing for veterans. It completely strips away the rarity and prestige of these items. On top of that, we don't even get a Title anymore to celebrate reaching the end of the pass!

    3. Pass Length (50 levels is way too short):Why make a 50-level pass when almost every other game on the market offers 100 levels? The season lasts for 13 weeks, yet the pass is completed way too quickly just by playing casually. Just by doing the "Dive to Quest" (Mer sur Mesure) voyages, I gained 17 levels at once. Let's be real, this pass is not hard at all. It leaves us with zero goals way too early in the season.

    4. Ancient Coins Economy:Getting your initial investment back makes sense, but making a net profit of only +1 coin overall is ridiculous. Usually, battle passes give back at least 1.5x the price. This surplus is exactly what motivates players to buy the pass and then spend extra in the Pirate Emporium.

    To fix this, we desperately need more levels, unique rewards, the return of the end-of-pass Title, and a simpler automated menu layout.

    Smooth sailing to everyone.

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