[Mega Thread] The Hungering Deep

  • Hello,

    Went trough the first page of comments but then Tl.DR. In my opinion this Dlc is not actually a DlC but a simple side quest that you do once and therefore there's no use in doing it again, got 2 substancial items that don't bring much, or anything new to the game and a few cosmetics that some were on tests... Honestly you had few time for this event since the pressure from the community was big but you could have done it a little more challenging, for example, kill the megalodon to see if it drops some item so you can sell or a number of items which you could assemble some cosmetic for the ship... Talking about cosmetics, a nice addition would be the customization of cannons, but I digress.
    This is what I wanted to say

    EDIT: The flags were a good intro on the game, Gratz for that =)

    Best regards
    ScooterPT

  • I've got to say I'm a little disappointed in this update.

    Fighting the shark was fun, but I got the trumpet, the drum and tat and killed the shark in a little over an hour (finding the journals wasnt very hard).

    Now that I'm done, I'm back to waiting until the next content update and just logging on every now and again for a short gold run.

    My biggest concern is that this was touted as a "medium sized update" with a whole swath of fanfare behind it and it feels more like a small patch than anything. If this is a "medium sized update" as they claimed, then I'm not particularly hopeful for their "larger updates" to be very large. Cursed Sails has me excited for the new ship, but I fear that might be all we get.

    Another concern is that this "update" broke other aspects of the game ( the washed up items and bottles). I find it incredibly odd that Rare actually had to remove content to add additional content.

    This game, while fun when the right conditions are met, still feels very much like an early access title. Yes, games can have bugs or issues at launch and even years after development, but Sea of Thieves has so many glaring issues I'm very surprised they didn't withhold the game for another year to fix this (and yes I'm aware that Micro$oft is probably the reason it was pushed out in its current, clearly unfinished state).

  • no offense but I have to agree on the flaws in this pve event you need 5 people or more to summon the meg and every crew iv come across wont help they just b******u up it ruins the event for those who missed the everyone working together hype window and I haven't been able to do it because we need that 1 extra player for some reason when you could have made it a 4 man band to summon :/

  • So I FINALLY managed to finish the event last night so I figured I would throw in everything from my soloer/dual sloop perspective. Really the only thing being solo has done is added a bit more work to finding help. A galleon playing nice with a sloop is 'big brother' showing up to keep you safe. A sloop playing nice with a galleon is more like food playing nice with whats about to eat it...in my experience.


    If you are aware of my other postings on this event then you know it has not been...smooth. Between personal schedule and jumping into the party later than the first 2 days of its launch it has been pretty disheartening. Last night was the first window I had to tackle the actual fight part of the event.

    I quickly caught my friend up with his speaking trumpet and drum and we set out to find help. First server was full of sloops all going about their business as if the event had never happened. We couldn't even get them to sit still long enough to chat with us. After awhile we spotted a galleon so we dressed ourselves as women in hopes to entice them into aiding two maidens in distress. They turned out to be friendly...but despite their clear ability to type chat they didn't communicate with us at all other than agreeing to help(waste of our comedy bit...). We spent a while aboard this clearly unorganized ship, noticed they had literally zero supplies, and kept getting side tracked screaming 'friend or foe' at any sloop they saw in the distance. We gave up on first server...

    Second server. No one around the island. Go chat up a nearby galleon. This one opens fire at us in passing and shouts something over chat that gets jumbled by distance but I'm sure it wasn't pleasant. Having announced our intent to them...they went straight to Shark Bait Cove to block it from us. They were heading straight for another galleon so...maybe that one will help. Nope...Now one galleon is a stationary fortress guarding the island while the first starts chasing us. Even if we found people this server wasn't going to pan out...at this point disheartening levels have risen and I muse with my friend that we were halfway through our Borderlands marathon before we got addicted to this game and it was sounding pretty good about now.

    Third Server. Galleon would be the easy answer to our numbers problem but at this point we will take anyone. See a sloop at shark bait cove so we go in slow and friendly....they sail off and scuttle/log off...saw a galleon towards Sanctuary area so go check that out. Find a galleon that will chat and they apparently just logged in. Luckily they have people who need the event so fun times and adventure follow.

    The fight itself was...a...BLAST. I REALLY hope when they set that shark loose on the world it attacks sloops cause I want to fight him again. It was so cool and we were all shouting and panicking even though the guy on the other ship had done it twice before. We had an awesome time with some complete strangers and in that sense I applaud this event smiling ear to ear...

    ...but...it played out exactly how I feared it would having to wait so long to try it. At this point in the event's time limit I really didn't think we were going to find anyone. Hopping servers was annoying and overly tedious. I might shrug it off if the load in was faster but it is a huge time sink. I am glad they forced cooperation. I like to solo mainly but this sort of thing needs people around you to experience it with. It wouldn't have been as special by myself. I am glad the event was set up the way it was as far as the event goes but the way it meshed with the pvp aspect of things as well as people's lack of interest to repeat it really made it rough. It was like waiting to ride a roller coaster without knowing what line you are in until it's too late. It's fun once you get to ride but who knows how many disappointments you found getting through all the wrong lines. Some people were lucky and got straight on and I envy them.

    Once we got that fight everything was good. My friend and I both agreed it was worth it but both openly admitted something needs changed next time around. I can understand scuttling a ship as a feature but scuttling the server is just a rough way to have to do things. We spent more time trying to find people who would talk to us than anything else. By the time we finished the event our night was over and we went to bed having done nothing else.

    Two weeks seems like plenty of time but for people who might only have that first weekend that overlaps the event you really have to go the extra mile to finish it. If the event wants us to work together then we need a better way to find event like-minded people other than a speaking trumpet and luck (and external outlets. If I have to go outside of the game to complete an in-game event then is it really an in-game event?)


    Overall I walk away satisfied and a bit tired. Anything regarding my personal scheduling I admit to being on me and not the game. I also want it to be clear that I agree with anyone's right to pvp even when it comes around this event. The lack of accessibility pvp created around the event is on the implementation of the event and not the person playing the game. I apologize for the wall of text but being the mega thread I figured I would throw it all out here versus another Hungering Deep Opinion thread.

    Cheers and Happy Sailing~

  • Finally had success myself! In the end I found a cooperative crew via the XBox Looking for Group function. I ended up on a single galleon with a full crew and an extra sailor that was headed up by a knowledgeable Legendary who had done the Meg Hunt a few times. Overall it went quite smoothly...good teamwork made the day. Lots of repairing, bailing, sniper and cannon fire. Was an exciting 20 or so minutes of chaos.

    In the end it still took three days of waiting and bobbing at Shark Bait Cove and T26, lots of trumpeting, and dodging some nefarious campers at the various locations but the excitement of the final battle was definitely worth the time. Best of luck to those still in the quest!

  • Is there a proper thread yet with pirates willing to accept invites from strangers to go help with this. Our crew has already helped several others and we would all be happy to be included in such a list. We've been spending the last few days just hanging out around shark bait cove and cruising along to t26 but this could be an easier way. Not sure how long there is left but I see a lot of worry in the forum that times running out. If we could receive invites from pirates needing our help we could just jump into their game. I've seen the odd posts offering similar but they seem to be all over the place so not sure they'd be easy to find.
    It's a totally different way of playing for us believe me but we all reckon it's quite a good laugh mixing with other crews instead of just cannon fire and bloodshed. Not sure it will last long though so want to make the most of it 😂

  • This event is amazing, but not too amazing for a game of pirates. Pirates rarely are ever friendly enough to help for an event like this. Sure it’s fine for the first time of an event, but later as the event goes on, new players who haven’t gotten this event done yet cannot get this done because other pirates are not willing to cooperate.
    Next time, create an event where we don’t really need more than 4players to trigger an event. Cooperating is not an pleasant feature in sea of thieves filled with PIRATES.

  • The fight was good enough, the implementation of the fight and lead up to it was pretty poor in my view. There is little replayability (it's now just another annoyance like the kraken) it offers no reason to fight it once you get the quest reward. The cooperative aspect of the release was terribly done, forcing players to get lucky and burn hours looking for people in game is reminiscent of a early 2000s mmo where there was an excuse. This game is not ready for new content without more maturity in the base product or just commit to the sandbox idea and dont attempt to release events that require communication platforms. And I'm sorry but offsetting this lack of in game LFG communication capability to discord and forums is a cop out. THD was trying to be something that the base game does not support well.

    A simple ui solution to this in game where you can jump ship in game to join crews that want the same thing would dramatically improve the outcomes of such events (and the entire game).

  • @khaleesibot Please! My wife and I spent two hours waiting for other players at t26 and then went over to see how Merek was doing. We saw one sloop I guess doing voyages just cruising by but other than that nothing. Tonight one of my older kids join the wife and I for a three hour hangout around devils even after shooting ourselves out of the cannon over and over for fun. We finally gave up and logged off for awhile and thought lets give it another try for an hour and to our surprise another sloop showed up with one player aboard........Ok, Thats three so lets spend another hour........hmmmmm. Sorry Rare, I really dont complain because I love this game, I want to participate in the shark hunt really. But How?
    I have spent 6 plus hours trying to do this mission. Please come up with something to keep this from destroying my love for this game.

  • I posted this idea in some other threads, but I guess it is better to actually post it here with my other thoughts.

    First of all, the new instrument is a welcome addition to the game and makes the shanties really sound fantastic now in a group. I also dig the megaphone since I've been able to have a lot more diverse encounters since it came into play. Finally, the new flags for the ships are also a welcome addition along with the low cost customization options now in for adding some early variety to the ships we encounter. Basically, these little additions are very welcome to the overall experience and I look forward to more like this in the future.

    I think as it stands, for the event, the current setup with the Meg is fine. For integration into the game long term it needs to have a tangible reason for teaming up and taking it out - but I don't think it has to be a reward in the strictest sense.

    For moving forward what I would like to see the Meg become is something akin to the Skull Forts in that it is a periodic event that pops up on servers. How it could go is by making a watered down version of the event quest and some world dynamics along with it.

    When the Meg goes active on a server the shark spawn rate will go up providing incentive one to get this thing handled. Additionally, the Meg will randomly hit ships in a way similar to the Kraken, but what it will do is repurpose the initial summoning breach as an attack that can hit any ship including sloops (giving incentive two for grouping up to take it out for a few hours on the server).

    Once the Meg is active, Bilge Rats at the Taverns will have a dialogue line about "current rumors" where they can advise of the increased shark presence on the server and about ships being randomly attacked by something massive from the deep. They can then mention that Merrick is no doubt tracking the beast, and give some clues as to his last whereabouts.

    Merrick will now spawn at a random uncharted island around the map (to help encourage folks to check these out), possibly like a set of three so the Bilge Rats can have good riddles regarding the locations. Merrick will be able to advise where one can summon the Meg for the big fight (again, make this a set of locations so it can be of a random three when it goes active). We pick up the tune like we do now and team up for the battle.

    Once the Meg is dead the shark spawn rate will return to normal and the random hits on ships will cease. This can be setup on a similar timer system like Skull Forts making a new type of randomly spawning event that is focused on teaming up as opposed to PvP (thus giving us more ways to play on the regular).

    Just my thoughts on how they could possibly approach it and make it interesting once the limited time rewards go away along with my basic thoughts on the other main content additions.

  • Add a decent gold/xp reward for beating the Meg so it people have got a reason to fight it again. Its now pretty frustrating not being able to find people and people camping shark bait for pvp because they've already done it. Tried 2 nights now and still not been able to find other willing to fight meg

  • Hello, great new update. I was expecting new boats, on what date will the update of new boats please?

    Thx you very much

  • I’m an Xbox player. This makes the final boss battle inaccessible unless you are lucky enough to find a cooperative crew. The element of needing 5 players for the final boss is illogical and does nothing but limit the experience for some. Now I understand if people respond to this talking about how they found cooperators easily but the lack of a Typing game chat on Xbox makes friendships hard to make and even harder to keep intact when there’s loot at stake. It was an unnecessary and naive decision to lock off content through a player number barrier.

  • 2 and a half hours, countless servers, and every other player is hostile, and we haven't even heard anyone else even using voice.

    If this is the state of the event on its first weekend, we should get the rewards without doing the battle, because we can't even start it.

    What a colossal waste of a weekend day.

  • @khaleesibot All i have to say honestly is more stuff to do i am bored now and have nothing to do after the update

  • Spent 8 hours trying to find someone to do the new content with today, everyone has "done it 6 times already" and leaves. I can't even find people on MY crew who want to do it nonetheless coerce another ship into it. Way to make all inclusive new content; is this a massive joke? It's not really content if I can't do it. Apparently since I couldn't play until the weekend I no longer can do it; you could have at least offered monetary reward for killing it over and over so people would still be ok about doing it.

    While you are it how about laughing in my face about it by handing out limited time only rewards!

    I just wanted to check it out, I guess there is always youtube.

    Thanks!

  • Make that that three hours not encountering one soul wanting to do it. We'll call it a wash for today, and maybe try once more during the week.

  • I have a couple of requests/suggestions on how to make the game Sea of Thieves even better; They being:

    1st) Include random NPC driven Merchant vessels that travel the ocean's waters to deliver goods. This will encourage more PvE (and less of PvP, which can be especially frustrating for new players who are only just getting a hand at working the vessel).

    2nd) Include 2 factions (with distinctly different flag colors or Sail insignia) that players may pick from when they join:

    • Pirates: Attack Merchant Ships and Privateers; Their cannons deal no damage to other ships that carry the flags or sails of their faction.
    • Privateers: Attack Pirate Ships; Their cannons deal no damage to other Pirate-hunting or Merchant vessels, and gain gold for successfully escorting Merchant ships.

    3rd) A flag signalling system where one vessel may flag down another for Parley. Ships that accept the Parley (via vote) cannot attack the other ships or sailors involved in the Parley.

    4th) Make the wooden cages that hold chickens and pigs float (the reason why sailors got tattoos of these animals is because they float).

  • @anonysimon
    This thread is about the hungering deep. And your suggestions have all been asked for a million times. They dont want ai ships roaming around. Even tho i wish there would. And your other ideas make groups of ppl not be able to hurt eachother. That would he abused

  • @khaleesibot Finally! After a total of ten hours waiting and looking for others we came across another galleon of four players in the middle of finding the journals.
    After they shot a few cannonballs at us and not returning fire back at them we were able to get close enough to talk. We helped their crew finish the voyage, get the drums, and headed off to find Meg. Got ourselves in a nice L shape and had a great time defeating Meg. I don't know what everyone else thinks but we all had a blast.....I've never heard 8 players hooping and hollering so much at the same time. Best time ever, then we spent two hours near Merrick drinking grog, shooting ourselves out of cannons and just having a great time. Thanks to the other players for the great time. Oh, and I just wish It didn't take ten hours to finally get it done but nice job on the Mission Rare.

  • 4 hours looking for people, another hour going through the quest with two guys we finally found, we finally find a 5th, go into the fight, and we get killed right before meg dies and everyone gets the achievement but us.

    Talk about a pita, and then a big letdown.

    Not sure we'll even try again.

  • I really liked this event. This is definitely a great way to introduce new items and AI.
    My only issue with this event is the amount of people it takes to complete it. Don't get me wrong it was really fun getting together with other crews and fighting the megalodon. The problem with it is it only lasted 2-3 days tops then it was back to business as usual. If we are going to have another event were we need more then our crew something needs to change.
    Here are my suggestions.

    • Make it so friends can join the server. This would solve finding a crew willing to help with the event. Limit this though. Make it so they can only join with a gallon and a sloop and limit to the event time. Though, unfortunately, I'm sure it would be abused but I feel like this would solve the problem for people who did not get to do on the first two days.
    • Gold reward. This would definitely keep people coming back to do the event for a little. Make the reward some where between 4-7 k.
  • I'm among one of the Legends of sot and I've got to say I love your same (I have major stomach problems witch makes me so I can't work a normal job) I'm 21 and find myself looking forward to my the next adventure in sot (Im not saying this idea I'll tell you will make the game great because it's already the best game out there will tons of growing room) but as I was growing to become a level 50merchant I'd hear these parrot noises and I know you'll be coming out with parrots at one point but I was thinking you should make it so we can catch them for the merchants (you get the cage, find the bird flying around or sitting on a tree and you have to throw a bucket of water on them to stun them {knocking them to the ground for a brief time to capture them}] I talked to a few buddy's about this idea a few weeks ago and they thought it would be amazing and encouraged me to send this message. and if you think it's good enough to add I would like my own parrot at ancient spire outpost in the bar with a plack on the cage saying my gammertag 'TheTruKingChief' I would totally be in awe and probably cry with joy if you guys can do this,
    thank you for your time rare

  • We have been so bummed about not being able to get the full experience on this DLC. Both times we were so hopeful about fighting the megalodon and both times we were completely trolled. The first time we were so excited because these two ships came over to us all friendly and we had a rando with us and we all had our drums out and all they did was get into position and completely lit us up. The second time, the rando team helped us summon the megalodon, we got to see him, BRIEFLY. Because next thing we know, the team that helped us turned their fire on us. We were already demolished from the megalodon so there was literally nothing we could do. The silence from the pure shock and disappointment from my fireteam was saddening.

    It kinda crushed me and my team from wanting to try again. I am always the mama bear voice of reason with my fireteam being the only female on our squad. But even I couldn't bring words of encouragement.

    I hope someday we can do this without the need of a 5th player who is just going to turn on us.

  • @thegeekyturtle that's pretty demoralizing. hopefully they reduce it to 4 once this window has closed. then maybe you can get a reward once a week. they need to have a reason to revisit it.

    but i would recommend you try again. it is a really great experience, when it goes right.

  • @thegeekyturtle sagte in [Mega Thread] The Hungering Deep:

    We have been so bummed about not being able to get the full experience on this DLC. Both times we were so hopeful about fighting the megalodon and both times we were completely trolled. The first time we were so excited because these two ships came over to us all friendly and we had a rando with us and we all had our drums out and all they did was get into position and completely lit us up. The second time, the rando team helped us summon the megalodon, we got to see him, BRIEFLY. Because next thing we know, the team that helped us turned their fire on us. We were already demolished from the megalodon so there was literally nothing we could do. The silence from the pure shock and disappointment from my fireteam was saddening.

    It kinda crushed me and my team from wanting to try again. I am always the mama bear voice of reason with my fireteam being the only female on our squad. But even I couldn't bring words of encouragement.

    I hope someday we can do this without the need of a 5th player who is just going to turn on us.

    the day rare learns how to design games. maybe with sot2 then

  • So after playing a lot of the Hungering Deep update this past week, I thought I’d post my feedback in the hopes that Rare will use it in future updates. But first I just want to preface this by saying I haven’t read any of the other posts on this board since the update and I may say some things that have already been said. What follows are just my own unfiltered personal thoughts on the Hungering Deep and may or may not be in line with what everyone else is already saying here.

    In broad strokes, the Hungering Deep is a great allegory for my opinion of SoT as a whole: What’s there is great, I just wish there was more of it. Now before anyone loses their minds and directs me to Inn-Side Story #28 where it’s made clear that this update will have less content than the subsequent ones, remember that I’m giving my feedback for this update based entirely on its own merit so that Rare can make those bigger updates even better. The more we as a community hold back constructive feedback in favor of giving Rare the benefit of the doubt, the more we hurt the game. After all, Rare can’t fix a problem that they aren’t aware of and if we want the game to improve we need to be honest with our feedback.

    Alright tangents aside, on to the actual feedback starting with the main attraction: the Hungering Deep live campaign. First off, I really like the way the campaign was delivered to the players. The Bilge Rats are an excellent idea to keep players informed in a way that doesn’t break the immersive nature of the game or feel forced. Just enough information was given to get the player intrigued but nothing too cryptic either. This is great stuff Rare and I’m looking forward to how the Bilge Rats handle the weekly events.

    As for the campaign itself, I'll start with my thoughts on Merrick, I have to admit I was a little disappointed for a few reasons. The first and most glaring reason was that he wasn’t fully voiced. I know no one said he would be or anything but after having watched the trailer I was hoping he would be. I understand the nature of game development means that things such as dialogue are subject to change, no other character in the game is fully voiced, and that voice actors need to be paid, but I really feel like a lot of Merrick’s personality was ‘lost in translation’ from video to game.

    Additionally, I felt that Merrick as a whole felt very lifeless. Partly because of the aforementioned lack of VO but mostly because he just plays that expletive drum all day long no matter the circumstances.
    Skeletons pop up? Eh, I’ve got some drumming to do.
    Two rival crews battling it out within arms reach of me? Better get some drumming in.
    This pirate tells me he felled the beast that took the lives of all my crewmates and left me horribly disfigured? Cool story bro, but not as cool as this drum!
    Now obviously he needs to be playing the shanty so players can pick it up but I just can’t help but feel like Rare could’ve had him react in some way to what’s going on around him as well as give him a simple daily schedule where he drums for a good chunk of time but also goes to eat and sleep as it gets later. It’s the little details that really add up to make a more immersive experience imo.

    The final thing I have to say about Merrick is that his character arc was pretty much nonexistent. He was robbed of the opportunity to avenge his crew. Imagine how captain Ahab would’ve felt if some random dude casually walked up to him while he was having a beer and told him he took care of that mean old Moby D**k for him. My guess is he wouldn’t be all that pleased! Now I know SoT has a very different tone to it but can you imagine how much more satisfying it would’ve been if Merrick would have accompanied the players to battle the Hungering One and was integrated into the fight somehow? Perhaps he’d leap on its back and expose a weak point for the players to shoot or maybe he’d jump into cannons for the players to launch him into the mouth of the beast so he could damage it from within over time. Idk, I’m just spitballing but as it stands right now I feel like Merrick didn’t do much for the game narratively speaking and that really bummed me out considering how much potential the setting has for storytelling (I mean tales from the Sea of Thieves? Great stuff.).

    Next I’d like to discuss the puzzles. Now just to get it out there, I love riddles and puzzles and really enjoy the ‘ah-ha!’ feeling of solving something. That said, I found these puzzles to be a little too easy for my tastes. I feel like too much emphasis was placed on wordplay and not enough of deductive reasoning (with the notable exception of the summoning ritual). Additionally, I think Rare really missed a great opportunity to further enhance the cooperative vibe they were going for in this update by making the puzzles so easy. If they had made them a lot more difficult, the community would have had to come together and exchange notes to try and come up with a solution as opposed to just gliding through it on their own. However, I will say that I enjoyed the thrill of the hunt while it lasted.

    As for the final battle, I had a pretty enjoyable experience overall and was glad to see the hungering one was a lot more fleshed out and challenging than the kraken encounters were at launch. The audio cues were exhilarating and the sheer presence of the beast was undeniably substantial throughout the entire fight. Although, I would have liked to see deeper mechanical elements beyond the standard: shoot-it-with-cannons-especially-when-its-mouth-is-open technique, but the nature of the charge attack adds a risk-reward dynamic that I think is on the right track.

    Now the biggest problem I have with the campaign itself is the lack of incentive to repeat it. Now don’t get me wrong I get what Rare is going for here, from a narrative perspective there is only one megalodon that Merrick lost his crew and legs to and it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to encourage players to break that continuity by constantly killing it over and over again especially *Speculation Alert* when they (the megalodons) will eventually (probably very soon) net players rewards with a sea monster slaying company (that is probably run by the now not-so-retired Merrick) anyways *Speculation Over*. But I would argue that it also doesn’t make a whole lot of sense from a gameplay perspective to not incentivize repeating a co-op only event. I was fortunate enough to be able to play the day the event went live and so finding willing participants was easy, but due to how fast the campaign is, that is becoming the exception rather than the rule in my experience. Just last night, two of my IRL friends and I struggled to find even just 2 people who were willing to partake and searched the sea for hours shouting down every sloop and galleon we saw. Ultimately through discord group finders and no small amount of luck, we managed to get enough players together and complete the event but by the time it was all said and done it took 4x as long as my initial playthrough and there’s still just over a week left in the event. I feel for those who weren’t able to complete the event this past week and I seriously hope Rare has learned their lesson on this one.

    So a TL;DR summary of my thoughts on the campaign itself would be: Merrick disappointed me, the puzzles weren’t challenging enough, the meg fight was fun and atmospheric but could have been more challenging and a lack of incentive to repeat, coupled with how brisk it is really hurts the experience overall.

    Next, I’ll talk about the other features of this update starting with the drum and the speaking trumpet. Both are great! I love the whistling and the tambourine that accompanies the drum when leading and I think it adds a lot to the existing shanties when played alongside the other two instruments. As a quick aside, I’d also love to see Merrick’s shanty added to the game after this event. The speaking trumpet was much needed and allows players to parlay BEFORE they’re within shooting range which will hopefully encourage more cooperation and negotiation on the open sea.

    The tattoo and scar systems allow the player to customize their character more and that's always great. I would’ve liked to have seen hair dye to be implemented as well but Rare’s stated it’s coming eventually and that's good enough for me.

    Perhaps my favorite new addition to the game is the flag system. I looove how you know each flag you see was placed there deliberately and how you can infer from them what any given ship’s intentions are from a glance (or what they want you to infer from a glance ;P). My only criticisms are A) I can’t create my own flag emblem and B) there aren’t flags that have company symbols on them to convey what kind of voyage I’m doing. I understand the former due to technical/censorship reasons and the latter is more of a gripe than anything else but still.

    To conclude this unintentional novel I seem to have written I’ll just say that there’s a lot to enjoy in this update and while I may have spent a great deal of time talking about the things I didn’t enjoy I did so in the hopes that Rare will improve from them. I want so badly for this game to be one I look back on with fond memories as the pioneer of a whole new style of gaming experience. A game people will one day hold as the gold standard for shared world adventure games in the same way that they do with Minecraft for survival games or WoW for mmorpgs. There’s so much potential here and I’m hoping these weekly events are good enough to keep us all interested until the next big update, and then the next big one after that and so on until that potential is met. But to do that, Rare is going to have to straddle the fine line between innovation and player expectation. I don’t envy being in their shoes and yet for whatever reason, whenever I watch a dev update or read one of their articles I can tell that they’ve got the right mix of passion and authenticity to make it happen one day. And what a day that’ll be.

  • Its probally been sed before but;

    You need to give people reason to do the megalodon again, its a awesome fight but if you dont really gain anything from it why would you spend time to do it a 5th time.

    It would also help people who havent done it find more people to team up with, there was many on patch release but its starting to decline now and people go back to voyages cause that is what gives you rep and moneys.

    if you kill the megalodon i think its perfecly possible to have some chests, skulls or even merchant crates pop up! i mean he prolly swallowed some up while sinking many ships right? xD

    if not that, at least give us some reputation thats shared acros all factions, i would deffo have more incentive to team up for it again then, would be a nice change from voyages too, instead of just doing it and gaining nothing.

    Cheers,
    Nivek

  • @nivekbe Totally agree with you. They really need to get the insider team up and running on pre-release stuff ASAP because some silly decisions are being made because they're just not testing with a big enough player base. Without incentive to replay those that try completing The Hungering Deep after the initial launch were always gonna struggle and a good pre-release test would have spotted it. This is something that is both easy to predict and easy to fix. Love this game and love the dev team but this shouldn't have been missed...

  • Final feedback on GD...

    We had to literally walk through the puzzle quest 5 times (about 5 hours worth of playing) with other player to finally get a crew to take on the beast. (And thats not counting the 4 or 5 hours just sitting around at merricks island or sailing around it looking for people to complete it with, (or our own hour to originally do it ourselves). so thats like 11-12 hours doing the same thing over and over again, or just literally sitting at the island browsing facebook totally bored for hours on end.

    The first time we did the fight, we both died and lost our ship, and because we didn't make it back in time before he was killed, we didn't get the achievement. (Theres another 45 minutes or so.)

    so in the end it took us around 14 hours to complete 2 hours worth of gameplay. We probably encountered no less than 15 crews out to troll us during the quest or sink us during the event as well.

    The battle itself (when a pvp player wasn't sinking us) was great fun, and what we had hoped for, but the rest of the related experiences were some of the worst gaming experiences in our lives.

    At the end of the day, Hungering deep was a frustratingly negative experience, even though the battle itself was well done.

    Addendum: There is so little to do in SOT we stopped playing after two weeks, awaiting something new and fun to do (2 pc copies) This was the experience we got upon returning.... we'll return again for the big june update with more features or things to do, or weekly events, but if griefers can ruin them, odds are our return will be very short lived.

  • @khaleesibot Hey. You said that the hungering deep campaign was for 2 weeks. Once the time is up will I have missed out on the Shark figure head?

    I've been really struggling to find a crew to do it with and will be very sad if I miss out on this?

    Also is the Black Shark hunter Hull and sails staying? Just because I'm not sure if I'll be able to make the 140k dabloons in time :(

  • @kyahstar The whole shark hunter set is staying. Flag, Sails, Hull, and Figure head.

    The Hungering one figure head, the Shark themed drum/Speaking trumpet, Merrick's tattoos and scars with be no longer available (My understanding).

  • @ecljpse @KyahStar This tweet clarifies it a bit more

    https://twitter.com/SeaOfThieves/status/1003567558761598976

  • The Hungering Deep...

    Where to begin?

    As time is the only thing we can't alter, I barely managed to start playing yesterday afternoon. Gathered me crew (4 rusty drunken sailors) and started the quest. Everything was going well. The riddles and clues were fun, although a bit misleading for some that didn't play on a daily basis and , well... kinda forgot many of the island names and locations... :D. No worries though, it got back to us. Then... we were searching for the last clue... that cursed underwater cave under the uncharted island... if only Teri wouldn't be so fond of her Grog, heh? Darn drunken pirates :D///
    Where was I? Ah, yes! Searching for the cave... As we were swimming all around the island, except the one entrance that was in front of us the whole time, only that we were 4 blind bats in a pile of muddle, I hear one of my friends addressing a dazzling onomatopoeic sentence: "Yeeeaaaaiiigghkeeas, a ship!". I barely gazed my look up from the water to witness a massive shadow that rose over the whole island and over my friend's dazzled face. A Galeon was in front of us. I couldn't even notice the crew as the massive hull was slowly rolling over me like a boot approaching an anthill. Suddenly, as I was confronting the thought of meeting Davy Jones, a loud boom was heard. "This is it lads!", I screamed to me crew as I was holding my eyes closed so tight I could even feel the cannon ball blowing me hair... Then, silence. Was I dead? I could still here me crew. Where they dead too? Suddenly I open my eyes just to see... nothing. It was a wall. A wall, you say? No. A massive wall. Yes, lads. It was the massive hull of the Galeon nearly touching my nose. The 'bang', was the anchor that stopped the beast in a second. I raised my look... I couldn't even understand who were we dealing with. As I decided to make 3 steps back, I hear a voice "Hello lads! We are friendly! Sorry for scarring you!", then started laughing. Clearly they heard my friend's expression: "Yeeeaaaaiiigghkeeas". Perhaps this is what saved us in the first place. That fearsome yell that inspired fear in their crew and made the captain to decide dropping the anchor or they were made for... yeah... right.
    So, it appears they were indeed friendly. They just wanted to complete the quest and needed some more men. Which brings me to the point of my inquiry: Why needing a minimum of 5 man to summon Meg where there can only be 4 members in a crew? Why forced to befriend another crew just to complete the event? Hold that thought for a moment, I will get back to it!
    Where was I? Ah, the encounter. So, these guys were indeed friendly. One of them, the Captain, was able to communicate like a normal person. The others, well... one could write as he lost his voice somewhere along the voyage, or he didn't have one at all, couldn't tell exactly, as clearly, my friend's onomatopoeic speech was more defined. And the other two... well, I believe they were as smart and as able to communicate like two monkeys on a Sunday afternoon... Exactly!
    Well, they helped us find the underwater cave. You know, the one that was in front of us and we couldn't see it because... oh yeah.. because my friend yelled. After we read the final journal, we returned to our drummer friend to tell him about our journey. Here, all of us received a pair of drums and a set of tattoos. As me and my friends were trying to understand just what this poor fellow was trying to tell us, you know... what to do with these drums and where to go from here, it seems that on the other ship the two monkeys were having a blast. Yeah, 'blast'. Literally! They were firing cannons and shooting at each other like a pair of baboons that discovered these tools of destruction we sometimes refer to as "weapons", "guns", you get my point. In the end, we managed to come to a conclusion, but not before we started arguing how we should approach this. "I suggest, we sail with both ships. We keep the drums playing by one of us on each ship.", I said. "No, I think it's better if we board your ship and keep playing together.", the captain replied. "We can handle the guns better and we can all repair the ship faster if we need to.", he added. "Oh, we will definitely need to!", my friend stated as he was pointing towards their ship. "Gather everything you have from your ship: planks, cannon balls, bananas. Everything! And bring them to our ship. We will need everything we can use!", I said. But as I barely finished my sentence, the moment we were all 'not' expecting for, arrived like a fast bird that was eager to enter a room to escape it's predators just to hit the transparent window that was being closed in a morning summer day. Exactly! There was absolutely no point waiting for this moment. What happened, you wonder? Well, remember the two baboons that were expressing themselves on the ship? They discovered the ultimate thing. THE POWDER KEGS! Oh yeah! They blew each other apart along with the ship and everything on it. We could have laughed so hard if only everything we needed to take with us, was on that darn SHIP! "You have got to be f.....g kidding me!", the captain exclaimed. "What the ....?", he asked. We were dazzled. Speechless. Not only that we lost everything, the two baboons decided to leave. Yeah, you know. Left the group. Exit the game. You name it! Could it be that they wanted to sabotage us from the beginning? Could it be that they were trolls and wanted to have some fun? Or only a couple of baboons that thought it's fun to play with matches.... Nonetheless, our plan was no more. "I had it! This is enough!" Unfortunately, this is the point where one of my friend also decided to leave as... well, you can figure it out yourselves.
    So here we are. 5 men. Enough for the Meg. Or so they say. With as many provisions as a wheel less cart dragged by a dead donkey. "What do we do?", one of my friends asked. "Let's continue", I replied. "Everyone, let's board my ship and head for the beast. Let us show her that even a bunch of drunken sailors with 10 cannonballs mean business", I added. At this point you wonder if we really did it? Did it happen? Did this brave sailors managed the impossible. Was he right to decide this? Well lads, I couldn't be more wrong.
    We took the tune from our drunken friend and started towards the point of no return. "Count everything, lads!, I told them. "Keep playing those drums!", I added to my friend. "We have 45 cannonballs, captain", the captain of "Blasted Keg" said. "We got 35 planks left, sir!, one of my crew mates added. "There are only 23 bananas", a text appeared on the screen. Yep, you guessed. The voiceless lad. "Well, we either kill it or we die trying", I replied. "We are too far now to abandon", I added.
    Here it is. The drums were beating louder and louder, the sea was turning red like our blood was leaving our bodies, the wind stopped and suddenly, our tattoos turned glowing green. And then, we heard it. She was a beast, she was. A powerful roar that made us say the exact same sentence at the exact same time: "Holy, f.....g s..t", only it was in everyone's different language.
    So it begins. She attacks with a devastating power. Parts of the hull were flying off the ship. Water started spilling from everywhere. Cannons were firing like never before. It was intense. "We are running out of planks, captain!" The moment we were all expecting. "There are no bananas left". I knew that this was to be followed by, "These are the last canon balls!", a far voice could be heard. "Where are you yelling from, lad?", I asked. "Did she eat you?", I added. "I fell of the ship!", he yelled. "Wait for me!", he added. "Hurry up, we are preparing to raise anchor". "Raise anchor lads!", I yelled towards my crew as I grabbed the handle myself. "Help me push!", I said. We were moving. Easily drifting away with a ship that had more holes in it than an entire slice of Schweitzer. "Keep pouring water out of her lads! An outpost is near!", I said. "Give her everything you got, captain! We will soon be sailing on the bottom of the ocean at this rate!", Captain Keg yelled as he was running all over the ship or what was left of it. But the universe had a other, bigger plans stored for us 5 little simple sailors. Because as we were sailing towards the outpost, a loud tune started playing. The water was getting as dark as the sky on a heavy storm, the ship suddenly stopped as we had hit a reef.... Then weird arms started raising from the sea. What better to wish for than, "The Krakeeeeeen!", as one of my friends yelled. "You cannot be serious!", captain Keg exclaimed. "Why do you hate us so much, Rare!", I yelled. "Get in here lads! Let's not leave this day remain unwritten. Get in here and start singing! Let's give Davy Jones a proper welcome!, I said to them! And so, beautiful drums and symphony could be heard as the ship was going down faster than Felix Baumgartner. And we along with it. And finally.... silence. There he was. Davy Jones. Or was he? No! We were on the Ferry of the D amned. Where it's captain greet us with only his looks. He was steering the ship towards something. Couldn't tell where as he appears to be cursed to steer it forever. Then we knew it. We are given a second chance. And the doors cracked. And a bright light was behind it. We entered it. And it was true. A new ship. A new life. Same ugly pirates. Except... "Captain Keg!", I yelled. "Is it with you lads?", I asked. "No sir", my crewmates answered. "He is back on his ship", one of them added. Along with his fellow mute friend.

    So this is it! My story. Our encounter with Meg. Also our demise. To live and share the tale. To give others the opportunity to follow on your footsteps and succeed where you couldn't... Or, should we gather more men and see to that beach (pun intended) once again. For now, we decided to join our peg-legged-one-eyed friend and write this tale. Only time will tell if the day were we will finally be able to say and sing "We killed her!"... will come.

    The end

    And as I said, I am back to the part of the 5 member crew. Yes, it's a great way to join and befriend other pirates. But, as some of them already completed the event and are unwilling or even against it (if you know what I mean) and this is a timed event, I suggest that you guys should add the possibility to have a 5 member crew on the ship or add members you meet to your crew. They can appear with blue text, as allies or add the possibility to have another friend or two, on a Sloop, join you and your team of 4 men on Galeon, on the same instance. This last one I believe it's a great addition and it's really needed.

    Other than this, keep up the good work and continue to deliver us more experiences so we can continue to share our stories.

    Cheers guys! And safe sailing on these new treacherous waters.

    Signed - Captain Bobyslick

  • Hello Rare team,

    Could you please be so kind and add an option to change UI/Text Language in-game (not by using Windows Region/Input method)? Some people need to use Windows in English, have default input method in French, and want to play game in German. This is very annoying that we can't use it as described above.

    PLEASE help multilingual people to enjoy your game! Thank you!

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