[Mega Thread] Part 2 of Barrel 2.0

  • As we now have a post by Mike Chapman in the developer updates section of the forums, we thought it would be a good time to create Mega Thread part 2!

    Inventory Changes - Expanding the Game by Mike Chapman

    Please leave your comments, feedback, suggestions and discussions below!


    @khaleesibot said in [Mega Thread] Barrel 2.0:

    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.

    Barrels are such a hot topic in our community, so we're collating all the feedback in this megathread.

    Senior Producer Drew has some additional information to explain this change.

    @sonicbobjr said in [Mega Thread] Barrel 2.0:

    Hey Everyone,

    With Patch 1.2.4 along with our new Cursed Crews Adventure, the Return of Skeleton Ships to the seas and a raft of other updates - we’ve introduced our new Barrel and Inventory system out into players hands.

    The improved Barrel system gives us much more flexibility in delivering a range of resources to players. Previously a Barrel found out in the world was locked to a specific resource type (Banana’s for example), however in the new system this Barrel can contain a range of different items. Right now expect to find Barrels holding Bananas, Planks, Cannonballs & Cursed Cannonballs – but will allow us to easily extend this to more items and resource types in upcoming updates.

    We’ve seen the feedback from Pioneers and now with the wider playerbase that this new system does take a little longer to stock your ship, we’re monitoring this closely and will be balancing and tweaking the quantity of resources found in Barrels to account for the slight delay in future updates. We’re confident that we can strike the right balance here – but we will continue to review this new system over time and make changes to improve the experience as needed.

    With the introduction of our Barrel & Inventory systems alongside players gaining Cursed Cannonballs for the first time, we know this is a sizeable change to PVP in Sea of Thieves. We’re reviewing how these encounters change with the introductions of these new systems and making improvements from player feedback.

    We know that these are some fundamental changes to core systems players use every session, but this sets us up well for some of our exciting new updates coming down the line that are going to require players to have plenty more storage space!

    Thanks for all the passionate feedback on this, we’re watching the feedback closely on these new introductions.


    Mike has also added a post explaining the changes -

    https://www.seaofthieves.com/forum/topic/71569/inventory-changes-expanding-the-game


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  • Good job @KattTruewalker thanks for this 😁

  • Hopefully they implement that "Store all" and "Take all" option soon. Otherwise this will continue to be painful, stocking your ship remains the least fun part of the game.

  • Why is he so concerned about new "features"? If it takes a clunky, broken, archaic system to use them, breaking the flow and feel we love the game for, what do those features matter? I could care less if that stupid barrel has a banana or a coconut in it, I need to be able to seamlessly grab it and eat it to stay in the fight and off the ferry.
    The new inventory UI is garbage. This isnt a 2003 RPG. It's an action game. Action Games should not have menus. Certainly not in the midst of combat. Name the last (successful) multiplayer game that has combat menus.
    You want to add features and keep the game fresh. Thats great. Kudos to you. Find a way of adding them that doesnt ruin the flow, feel, spirit, and experience of the game as it was last week. Because you just did, and it sucks.

    Edit: Also, plans to update in "coming weeks" This needs to be fixed now. You made a mistake not listening to your pioneers. Don't make the same mistake and not listen to your community. Don't be stubborn. Roll it back and keep the game the way it was: fun. Fix this on test servers, learn your lesson, take your time, and release something good next time.

  • As it stands, I am done with the game. It wasnt broken before and didn't need fixing or changing.

    Really enjoyed it whilst it lasted but the changes that have been made have simply ruined the simplicity of the game.

    If this was your plan from the start, then it should have been in the game from the start.

  • I like the island barrels now but not on the ship it should be as it was for the ship barrels

  • Sigh.. the jist of Mike Chapman post is... Congratulations and suck it up, we're all beta testing the full release triple AAA game. So sad.... All his statements could have been cured easily during testing if they would have just listened to their testers per what I'm hearing from people who were pioneers. The note where he said they limited time..... So they didn't listen to pioneers... But they had an extra freaking week for the patch.

    What about displaying empty on barrels on islands... He didn't even address this issue.

  • @pondobruin85 said in [Mega Thread] Part 2 of Barrel 2.0:

    Why is he so concerned about new "features"? If it takes a clunky, broken, archaic system to use them, breaking the flow and feel we love the game for, what do those features matter. I could care less if that stupid barrel has a banana or a coconut in it, I need to be able to seamlessly grab it and eat it to stay in the fight and off the ferry.
    The new inventory UI is garbage. This isnt a 2003 RPG. It's an action game. Action Games should not have menus. Certainly not in the midst of combat. Name the last (successful) multiplayer game that has combat menus.
    You want to add features and keep the game fresh. Thats great. Kudos to you. Find a way of adding them that doesnt ruin the flow, feel, spirit, and experience of the game as it was last week. Because you just did, and it sucks.

    Edit: Also, plans to update in "coming weeks" This needs to be fixed now. You made a mistake not listening to your pioneers. Don't make the same mistake and not listen to your community. Don't be stubborn. Roll it back and keep the game the way it was: fun. Fix this on test servers, learn your lesson, take your time, and release something good next time.

    I agree. Rare suck it up.. you made a mistake. Roll the patch back so we can play over a three day weekend.

  • @treefittymonsta its really not that bad... its still completely playable...

  • I greatly appreciate Mike Chapman's post. I think he expressed this update and change did not go over well. It is nice to have honesty and transparency. He did offer some good changes that will be the start of making things better for everyone.

    I would like the see the over all system scaled down. Smaller, less intrusive inventory menus, rather it be radial or smaller boxes, a more minimal style than what we have now. Something that feels familiar and fits better into the look, feel, and pace of the game we have been playing.

    I am more confident after his response that a happy balance of both the old and new will be found that we all can live with. We all want more out of the game we love. It is going to have to evolve some to do that. We need to give them some time to make it work. I am sure the captain can make it happen.

  • @savagetwinky said in [Mega Thread] Part 2 of Barrel 2.0:

    @treefittymonsta its really not that bad... its still completely playable...

    It really is that bad. Even Mike addressed issues about the system. But not patching it immediately or not rolling back is just pathetic that they are that stubborn to fix the obvious issues, especially with a 600 post thread asking essentially for a do-over. I don't want to be a beta tester.

    Oh wait so since entire community are beta testers bow. Can we all get the pioneer title? Can we now say we're Pioneers!

  • Still concerned about the Keybindings inside the menu and in the overall game, I think this is a big issue and needs a different approach (atleast for PC, I tried it with my XBox-Controller and it works much more fluent and feels a lot! better).
    But this is overall great news! This is my favorite part from @MikeTheMutinous post.

    Quote:
    "We’ve also unfortunately ended up in a situation where the Cursed Crews event and the addition of the Cursed Cannonballs are so closely tied that we ran out of time to react to feedback from our Sea of Thieves Pioneers. Let me assure you that the motivation behind this was around pushing to deliver new content quicker, but we’ll ensure that we plan to have more time in future to iterate on the changes we want to make based on valuable Pioneer feedback. This is worthwhile lesson and an area where we want to make improvements."

    Because I really think it is more important that the updates are completely designed and tested well, before they are implemented into the game rather than just for the players that want "more content". I believe everyone who is still playing the game is totally fine with the content being delayed and have it well tuned. The people who wanted "more content very fast" because "otherwise it's going to be the next No Man's Sky" are people who didn't know what the game is about and i don't think there are many people left with that opinion anyways.

    Thanks @KattTruewalker for being such a good moderator for our issues :)

  • Ignore this post the forums are borked when it comes to trying to post thru a mobile device lol

  • It sad to read "Inventory Changes - Expanding the Game"

    It sad to know that there will be a lot of new types of cannonballs, the game seems to be not a pirate game, but something like mix of real weapon type and fantasy and it's not what I expect from a pirate game (maybe in next update we will have self-aimed cannoballs :)

    The charm and attractiveness of this game is lost with this UPDATE...
    Сomplexity is not comfortable usage of all stuff...

    You'd better do more interesting quests, more sails and other stuff that can be bought to make a pirate look unique. Make PVE mode and PVP, but RARE did huge not balanced PVP... One shot by Cursed Cannon and it's the end of the battle... "Nice" approach...

    RARE continue to "surprise" us with such updates and it seems to that soon it will be real PVE (One ship on a huge map of empty server)

    Try to hear all Pirates in this beautiful and unique game, try to keep all Pirates in this game!

  • Thanks for sha

  • @BaconWrappedSAC Please remember that discussing your Pioneer experience is in breach of the Insider NDA you signed.

  • @treefittymonsta said in [Mega Thread] Part 2 of Barrel 2.0:

    @savagetwinky said in [Mega Thread] Part 2 of Barrel 2.0:

    @treefittymonsta its really not that bad... its still completely playable...

    It really is that bad. Even Mike addressed issues about the system. But not patching it immediately or not rolling back is just pathetic that they are that stubborn to fix the obvious issues, especially with a 600 post thread asking essentially for a do-over. I don't want to be a beta tester.

    Oh wait so since entire community are beta testers bow. Can we all get the pioneer title? Can we now say we're Pioneers!

    No its not that bad. This is a knee jerk reaction by people that aren't good at adjusting to change or aren't willing to explore slightly different tactics. Can the system be improved? Yes. But its not unplayable.

  • Go go MS paint

    alt text

    Small sub menu that you can manipulate with dpad or arrow keys, common goods go on top, items you can't take aren't selectable, make spamming X great again!

  • @savagetwinky that is not his point, and it has nothing to do with not wanting change.

    His point was that if this was there intention for the way forward, why wasn't it in the game at launch?
    If this was developed as the game evolved per the communities feedback would be one thing, but they said it was planned.
    As this is more than just a new event, equipment, or voyage type and changes the way we have played in less then a year, it truly seems the game was not fully ready at launch.
    His comment is consistent to all his comments throughout this forum. The game is far from complete.

    I enjoy playing with the storyline evolving and introducing new things, but this is a major change. I didn't support him before, but I am starting to think he is right. We paid money for a game that was not ready at launch which makes us Beta testers who paid to play the Beta.

  • @d-jaguar said in [Mega Thread] Part 2 of Barrel 2.0:

    @savagetwinky that is not his point, and it has nothing to do with not wanting change.

    His point was that if this was there intention for the way forward, why wasn't it in the game at launch?
    If this was developed as the game evolved per the communities feedback would be one thing, but they said it was planned.
    As this is more than just a new event, equipment, or voyage type and changes the way we have played in less then a year, it truly seems the game was not fully ready at launch.
    His comment is consistent to all his comments throughout this forum. The game is far from complete.

    I enjoy playing with the storyline evolving and introducing new things, but this is a major change. I didn't support him before, but I am starting to think he is right. We paid money for a game that was not ready at launch which makes us Beta testers who paid to play the Beta.

    I do believe the game is complete, and the way the development is happening the community progresses with the game, unlike other online games where progression is solo. We get some new mechanics, they introduce things in small chunks, its easier to get feedback on the core game loop.

    Also I don't care about what people think the game is/isn't complete. He stated its unplayable and that is not realistic. Its different leading people to be frustrated building up some new muscle memory. Its still necessary since the old barrel system was too simple. Like I mentioned, can it be improved? Yes.

  • At the end of the day change is inevitable. The current inventory 'wheel' can only hold so much and sooner or later scrolling through 5 pages of wheel's to find something will take just as long(or longer) as the new system.

    The important question here is if a new player comes in with no prior knowledge of the original system would the new system be seen as 'game breaking' to them? I don't think so. I think they wouldn't think anything of it and would master its use quickly. The biggest hurdle with the new approach is we automatically compare it to what we know and what we know is for sure the easier/faster route. I think the real problem is that (at least as far as my limited information radar goes) is that there was no real communication building up to this change. Something of this nature really needed to be spoon fed in increments versus throwing the pie into our face.

    Of course the new system needs some improvements but at this point that is expected. Everything added has needed some polish and they have polished each and every one(quality of polish can be debated depending on perspective).

    Regardless of stance I would rather them truck forward and grow with some hiccups versus stick to the smooth same going nowhere.

  • @treefittymonsta I feel your pain. It would be nice if some changes to improve things could come very quickly. Reversing everything at this point would probably set too many things everyone is looking forward to back. Hopefully it will not be long and the improvements will start rolling out very soon. Right now my crew does not want to sail at all as it is either.

  • With all respect, RARE needs to really listen to their players on this one. We do not care if we eat bannana or a coconut to regain health. We do not care if we find a voyage in a bottle or a barrel (how about making the bottle voyages be worth it, instead of spending an hour only to find a Castaway chest?), WE CARE ABOUT DYING IN THE MIDDLE OF COMBAT WHILE STUCK IN A MENU. This happened to me multiple times last night. It's especially maddening that half of the barrels are empty. We ran out of planks on the ship last night FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER. Most players say they don't want cursed cannonballs. Nobody wants them in the frequency of which your update has presented them.

    You are focusing on changing the wrong things. We want new voyages, a rowboat, more fun stuff like the skeleton ships. We do not want or need different food to eat.

    I probably spent over 10 hours playing SOT last weekend. This is a 3 day weekend coming up and I probably won't even touch it. I hope they fix things in the next patch before I move on to another game. Please Rare!

  • @savagetwinky said in [Mega Thread] Part 2 of Barrel 2.0:

    @treefittymonsta said in [Mega Thread] Part 2 of Barrel 2.0:

    @savagetwinky said in [Mega Thread] Part 2 of Barrel 2.0:

    @treefittymonsta its really not that bad... its still completely playable...

    It really is that bad. Even Mike addressed issues about the system. But not patching it immediately or not rolling back is just pathetic that they are that stubborn to fix the obvious issues, especially with a 600 post thread asking essentially for a do-over. I don't want to be a beta tester.

    Oh wait so since entire community are beta testers bow. Can we all get the pioneer title? Can we now say we're Pioneers!

    No its not that bad. This is a knee jerk reaction by people that aren't good at adjusting to change or aren't willing to explore slightly different tactics. Can the system be improved? Yes. But its not unplayable.

    We arent arguing about it being unplayable. Clearly its "playable". We are arguing that it is no longer fun. Menus are not fun. This was proven 20 years ago. It remains true today. Trying to navigate a damned menu for items is both unnecessary and not fun. "oh its not that bad" yeah? Well what about when they add 7 different foods and 4 different planks or whatever. And you are trying to scroll to the one you want mid battle? Doesn't sound like fun to me. This new system is garbage, and a menu interface idea should have been crossed out the second it hit the design teams whiteboard. In fact, the person giving that idea should have been pitchforked. Was it "let the intern talk" day?
    "We want to add content"
    "Let add a 20 year old archaic system that is clunky and slows the game down"
    "Why not dynamic menus or contextual sensitive 'smart' commands"
    "Coding too hard; make the menus"
    And now they are shut down, leaving us this s**t for a 3 day weekend. At the least. According to Mr Mike "coming weeks" expect change. This is the only game my wife has enjoyed. We arent waiting "weeks" for you to fix this horrible implementation. Neither will most of your playerbase. This was a terrible decision and if you stick to it I really hope the playerbase proves it.

  • @pondobruin85 said in [Mega Thread] Part 2 of Barrel 2.0:

    @savagetwinky said in [Mega Thread] Part 2 of Barrel 2.0:

    @treefittymonsta said in [Mega Thread] Part 2 of Barrel 2.0:

    @savagetwinky said in [Mega Thread] Part 2 of Barrel 2.0:

    @treefittymonsta its really not that bad... its still completely playable...

    It really is that bad. Even Mike addressed issues about the system. But not patching it immediately or not rolling back is just pathetic that they are that stubborn to fix the obvious issues, especially with a 600 post thread asking essentially for a do-over. I don't want to be a beta tester.

    Oh wait so since entire community are beta testers bow. Can we all get the pioneer title? Can we now say we're Pioneers!

    No its not that bad. This is a knee jerk reaction by people that aren't good at adjusting to change or aren't willing to explore slightly different tactics. Can the system be improved? Yes. But its not unplayable.

    We arent arguing about it being unplayable. Clearly its "playable". We are arguing that it is no longer fun. Menus are not fun.

    Its not that bad. And what they add can make the game more fun. There are growing pains yes... but the game hasn't lost its fun becuase you can still basically play it the same way...

    Are the extra cannons really hard to access mid fight? Yes... but they are extremely OP and if you could quickly select what you want you could easily completely lock another ship down.

    "Why not dynamic menus or contextual sensitive 'smart' commands"

    Because its impossible to have context when you have 12 different cannons that you might want to use in a cannon, or take out of a barrel. And 12 barrels isn't a good plan either, its not scalable and its a feature that will be removed.

  • @john-hatter said in [Mega Thread] Part 2 of Barrel 2.0:

    The biggest hurdle with the new approach is we automatically compare it to what we know and what we know is for sure the easier/faster route.

    In one sentence you say its fine, the next you say we compare it to what we had, which was, by your quote "easier/faster" So they took something better, and made it worse. And you are ok with that. Makes sense to me. Because when I'm fighting a different player, I want to go into a menu to look through 4 different types of food to pick the one to heal with while he's slashing my face off.

    You agree the new system is worse than the previous one in your post, yet refuse to take that stance, somehow correlating that this change is necessary for future content. Which is narrow sighted. This change was not necessary, despite what @MikeTheMutinous has said. Perhaps A change was needed. But certainly not this one.

  • @venvip1983 said in [Mega Thread] Part 2 of Barrel 2.0:

    The charm and attractiveness of this game is lost with this UPDATE...

    I can agree with what you said here. I think this is what a lot of players have been saying in their different ways. It does not look, feel, or play the same anymore. Change is ok, but not when it is not a good thing.

  • @savagetwinky a dit dans [Mega Thread] Part 2 of Barrel 2.0 :

    Go go MS paint

    alt text

    Small sub menu that you can manipulate with dpad or arrow keys, common goods go on top, items you can't take aren't selectable, make spamming X great again!

    @SavageTwinky I love you, your schema is perfect !

    For the option to "take everything" or "store everything" that Rare plans to have, this option should be available by looking at the barrel and not by opening it.

    Moreover, the option "take everything" isn't available on the stocks of ships, otherwise it would be instantaneous to steal all the cursed cannonballs on an enemy ship !

  • @jejesasa said in [Mega Thread] Part 2 of Barrel 2.0:

    @savagetwinky a dit dans [Mega Thread] Part 2 of Barrel 2.0 :

    Go go MS paint

    alt text

    Small sub menu that you can manipulate with dpad or arrow keys, common goods go on top, items you can't take aren't selectable, make spamming X great again!

    @SavageTwinky I love you, your schema is perfect !

    For the option to "take everything" or "store everything" that Rare plans to have, this option should be available by looking at the barrel and not by opening it.

    Moreover, the option "take everything" isn't available on the stocks of ships, otherwise it would be instantaneous to steal all the cursed cannonballs on an enemy ship !

    Its not mine, what we have now is skyrim level container access. This is the much improved fallout 4's system.

  • @savagetwinky I think we are talking passed each other. You still are on the barrels. I am just pointing out he has said the game is still in beta for months now. I didn't agree with him much before, but Rare has now said this is for their planned way ahead. If it was needed for their plan and not implemented at start, was the game ready at launch? The answer to me is no. When it first released, there were rumors Microsoft forced Rare to release it earlier than it should have been. It looks like the rumors are true.
    Beta or not it is a fun game, but sometimes we just have to call it what it is.

    Overall, the barrels are a slight pain and cause some problems on the seas.
    Last night, we attacked ships first as to catch them off guard in their own barrels. It was better than allowing them to catch us with our heads in a barrel. Strategy will adapt.
    Sure the barrels can be fixed some more, until then the seas are not going to be so friendly. Poor solo sloops.

  • loved the basic old inventory just go there and grab everything without any useless ugly menus and it worked like a charm, now during a battle i have to go trought 3 menus to get my stuff, i know they did this so they could add more items but why not simply add more barrels or use the ones that are already in every ship ? you know the ones that do absulutly nothing ?

  • @d-jaguar said in [Mega Thread] Part 2 of Barrel 2.0:

    @savagetwinky I think we are talking passed each other. You still are on the barrels. I am just pointing out he has said the game is still in beta for months now. I didn't agree with him much before, but Rare has now said this is for their planned way ahead. If it was needed for their plan and not implemented at start, was the game ready at launch? The answer to me is no. When it first released, there were rumors Microsoft forced Rare to release it earlier than it should have been. It looks like the rumors are true.
    Beta or not it is a fun game, but sometimes we just have to call it what it is.

    Overall, the barrels are a slight pain and cause some problems on the seas.
    Last night, we attacked ships first as to catch them off guard in their own barrels. It was better than allowing them to catch us with our heads in a barrel. Strategy will adapt.
    Sure the barrels can be fixed some more, until then the seas are not going to be so friendly. Poor solo sloops.

    It depends on what you mean by "ready". The game as far as I'm concerned when sold, it was a complete game. It was somewhere between an arena ship game and a sandbox about sailing to find treasure, and then delivering it while potentially fending off other pirates.

    With player feed back, things like "No AI ships" has turned to... now we have AI ships. They probably have a lot of things planned but to say its identical to the original plan... has already been proven false. Maybe the way they are taking the approach is more PVE type game rather than an arena type game where this is no AI ships and combat is lean and fast.

  • @x-crowheart-x said in [Mega Thread] Part 2 of Barrel 2.0:

    @treefittymonsta I feel your pain. It would be nice if some changes to improve things could come very quickly. Reversing everything at this point would probably set too many things everyone is looking forward to back. Hopefully it will not be long and the improvements will start rolling out very soon. Right now my crew does not want to sail at all as it is either.

    Yah the people I play with said they aren't coming back til it's fixed either. Bad thing is I'm the one that got them into the game in the first place. Heck I bought an Xbox specifically for this game for my gf... Today at lunch she's like meh let's play WOW this weekend.

  • @savagetwinky So lets "nerf" or "balance" the op nature of the cursed cannonballs by making them difficult to access through a menu, rather than looking at their effects. That's great thinking.

    If you want to further argue the point of cursed cannonballs, they also take away from the spirit of the game. "Everyone is fair" "No advantages" From the start. No ship upgrades, no weapons, etc. Now its a gamble as to who finds the right "OP CCB" and menu shuffles. Or who no-lifes in forts collecting supplies. Cursed cannonballs dont add a gameplay element. They are a silly gimmick that people will soon be sick of. A competent sailor/crew can have every advantage, get struck with a ccb, and be done. That is not rewarding skill, its rewarding luck.

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