Unfair to Mercenary Outfit owners

@death-penalty I'm both a Mercenary and Black Dog outfit owner. Honestly at this point I feel perhaps the original Mercenary Owners should get a Mercenary blunderbuss and Eye of Reach, to set them apart from others. Actually maybe we will see more color variants of the mercenary/black dog outfit make their way in, it is a nice design after all.

The original Mercenary DLC has a different eyepatch than the one that was recently on offer and will be returning SOON™ (as per the weekly Dev update vid info)

If anything at all was to be offered for free to those that already have the set (myself included here) i'd ask for the new eyepatch as well as keeping the existing one, that and only that request.

Obviously when this set is re released i hazard the guess that if i obtain it legitimately i shall indeed only be getting the new eyepatch as the rest of the set is the same as before, as i doubt the set would double up in the inventory space.

Images to show the differences:
Original

Updated

I dont have either outfits.
I agree with you.
I did play since launch.
But wasnt a pre order person. I'm not really sweating it the items are cool but not worth irl money to me.
However I agree. These "noobies" getting the sets that are indeed probably some of the coolest gear in game. Is a letdown by rare. Fighting over codes on ebay or fighting over codes while watching a stream is so lame. Terrible design. Want people to watch you. Give the item for watching the stream not make people fight over it mid stream and limit who gets it... again terrible design. I hope they figure their ingame merchandise out bcuz the way their doing it now. Not that great. Rare will be lucky to see me buy a pet later on if they keep doing cosmetics like this. Please rare.. not like this.

@ixxolos It also looks like the pants are different (i.e. tan, rather than the light blue of the original)

@triheadedmonkey Pardon me for bothering you, but, do you believe we will ever see recolors of the Merc/Black Dog pack in the future? After all, it is easily one of the nicest looking ones.

My main complaint is around the codes being shelled out periodically on the weekly streams.
Having to legit fight other players for the code while typing in a code that everyone else is also typing in. Terrible design. I'm all for micro transactions and my reason for that is that everyone would have the same opportunity for the items. Just with irl money. as much as i probably wouldn't buy it at least i could have the option. Doing it in an actual micro transaction store to me is better then doing it through streams where only a few get the items.

@death-penalty If they give you the obsidian or ferry, then any owner of the set will want the other, ie. if you got the ferryman well that would outrage me as an owner of the set & well that's not going to sit well so I want the BD/obsidian set in return for you getting it. Well, that's not going to go over well with the BD/obsidian owners one bit and so on and so forth. Plus, was the merc set ever labeled as limited edition or exclusive?

Borrowing your image here @Ixxolos :)

Here is a rough translation of the bottom, hope it helps everyone tone it down a bit.

German:

Sea of Thieves Spiel (separat erhaltlich) erforderlich. For Sea of Thieves ist Xbox Live Gold erforderlich. Das Mercenary DLC-Pack ist 3 monate lang exklusiv. Angebot gilt ab dem 12.03. und ist zeitiert limitiert. Bei teilnehmenden handlern, solange der vorrat reicht. Digitaler Download-code for Mercenary DLC-Pack wird beim kauf einer 3-monate-mitgliedschaft bei.

English:

Sea of Thieves game (sold separately) required. For Sea of Thieves, Xbox Live Gold is required. The Mercenary DLC pack is exclusive for 3 months. Offer valid from 12.03. and is limited in time. At participating dealers, as long as the stock lasts. Digital download code for Mercenary DLC pack will be included when purchasing a 3 month membership.

@death-penalty OK, Devils advocat: The Merc set came with a 3 month live card. Nowhere that I can find is the word exclusive. It says it on the ferryman set, the black dog is a pre-order bonus and I 'believe' Joe Neate stated that they wanted 'exclusives' to remain as such. They could easily argue that the set was never labeled as being an 'exclusive' and that you just got to enjoy it for nearly a year before they brought it out for purchase in-game. I mean, I'd own the set if I didn't just buy a year of live for the Xbox I just bought solely for the pre-ordered game I just bought. Pretty PO'd at that one at the time. :/

@death-penalty said in Unfair to Mercenary Outfit owners:

The Mercenary outfit is one of rarest outfits in the game at the moment. It feels a bit unfair to give it out to everyone who uses a friend code without giving something to players who already own the outfit. Unless Rare is planning to release all the exclusive items over time, I think Mercenary Outfit owners should get the Black Dog or Ferryman outfit.

They said it way back all ready that even exclusive items would find their way into in-game shops. Yes it takes away from exclusivity and that kinda bums if u bought it for the exclusivity. But they stated it way back all ready.

It started with some items which could only be obtained if u went to a comic con. Thing is i aint travelling 2000 miles for just a code. I wish i could but thats not possible. More people complained about this and these exclusive items like the Huntress Figuring were added roughly 1 month after the item launched as exclusive. Round this time they mentioned about the fact exclusive items would be available in-game.

A fix would be not call them Exclusive but maybe start calling them like pre-in-game items orso.

@archangel-timmy

So it said it's exclusive. it even stated it's exclusive for 3 months.
After 3 months no more exclusive. They never said it be exclusive for your whole life time.

@weakdexx Exactly. T'was limited exclusivity and all of this rage over it coming back is not justified.

Thank you Rare for opportunity to earn Mercenary set, i love you

It's gonna be free to everyone. There will be nicer exclusives in the future. Go for them.

@sailorkek We are going to have to buy it from the shops, so we still have to make some money to get it. And if they add the complete set(Outfit, equipment, weapons, ship livery) it is going to be a lot of money making to get all of it.

@lethality1 I'd like to hold out hope that we can keep the original one and will also be able to obtain the newer updated eye patch from this set.

Would be a nice nod to the Pirates that purchased it first time round to be able to have both imo.

@weakdexx Actually I do believe that isn't an accurate translation. What I believe it is saying is that it is exclusive with a 3 month xbox live card.

@sargent-sully

So in that case back than it was only exclusivly obtainable by buying 3 months of live card. So the way to obtain was exclusive back than. The items wasnt mentioned as exclusive.

@sargent-sully said in Unfair to Mercenary Outfit owners:

@weakdexx Actually I do believe that isn't an accurate translation. What I believe it is saying is that it is exclusive with a 3 month xbox live card.

That is a possibility, and we would need a fluent speaker to double check it.

However, I believe it to be accurate enough given how things are broken up within the original message and translation..

There is also the fact that the other promotional material I have seen for the Mercenary set does not include the word "exclusive" at all and every piece for the Ferrymen and Black Dog does...

@death-penalty

" A Pirate's Thoughts"

I have been a long time strong supporter for SOT and played since the closed Beta days. Not only testing this game in closed beta but playing the new content for the developers so they may watch our game play in order to add or tweak exiting content. The unique clothing is the one thing that myself and other players had that showed their timeline and commitment to this game. Throughout these months I have brought in many friends and family that "purchased" this game and have become members of this community. I was surprised to see the direction this company has taken in regards to the limited cosmetic content. It showed a lack of respect to the old time players to give away mercenary clothing because someone gave away a free code. I have supported this company even after I paid full price and was given a portion of the onyx set and told to be patient since the game was a work in progress. The old time players now what I mean.... how many chickens snakes and pigs did we collect to get to pirate legend, there was no Devils Roar or cargo runs. We didn't have Megs, Krakens or Skelly ships to milk for reputation along the way. I stayed quiet when the Mixer viewers were given the onyx weapon skins shortly after the game release since it was limited cosmetic that was sign of respect from the company to dedicated fans that attending the SOT stream. But this recent mercenary clothing give away is not appropriate. I wonder how owners of the ferry of the damned cosmetic set would feel if you gave that away for passing out a code for a free week of play.

At the end of the day there is nothing anywhere, that I have been able to find, that states this dang set is 'exclusive' and as I have brought up this point, no one has been able to dispute the statement. It was able to be purchased for a few months, but nothing ever stated it was limited, or exclusive (a statement brought up by those that are rightfully angry but need to see this point). There has been a statement by Joe, I believe, that exclusive content will remain exclusive and, being the devil's advocate again, it was never claimed to be exclusive anywhere I can find. Unless someone can find a tweet I missed, a MS/Rare formal ad with exclusive on it, anything that would validate a claim that it should have never been brought out for public purchase at a later date, I'm going to unfortunately see it for what it is:

No promise of exclusivity for the DLC set, on a 3 month live card, that you enjoyed for nearly a year. Was it handled correctly? Or, was it a set that was always on the road map to be released as it wasn't categorized as exclusive? Who knows.?

My thoughts are that SoT shouldn’t be a game that “I was here for this one week event and got this cool looking cosmetic.” Or “I bought this real world item with cash and got this cosmetic.” Every player should have access to all cosmetics, some should be gold purchase others locked behind a quest checkpoint.

To me the cosmetics show the players devotion and their journey not what they bought in the real world. Not saying that cosmetics for the early pioneers, day 1 and launch crew should be available as those are tokens of appreciation. However they could release a similar item just without the cool little extras painted on.

The entire progression in this game is cosmetics. To be the pirate you want to be. Locking an item behind an outside purchase is silly. Have the items obtained in game through quests or gold purchase. Example the hungering one figure head. Everyone who completed the quest got it. For weeks that’s the only figured head you saw.

How’s does it make sense months down the road a new player wonders how to obtain that only to be told to bad so sad you didn’t happen to play then. Only to realize wait I can kill a meg called the hungering one and get doubloons for it??? But no figure head?

Let’s be honest here, if having an “exclusive” item in a game gives a player a power trip over another player then you don’t understand what SoT is. A game where all players are welcome to be the pirate they want to be. Give them the chance to earn those cosmetics by forging their stories through quests and play to unlock them. That’s how you wear or use a cosmetic with pride. Not by acting like your in an exclusive club of limited time.

@death-penalty As someone who has collected almost every cosmetic conceivable for the average player to get ,I'll admit it is very fun to impress people with the unique items I have.

With that said I don't take issue at all with them finally releasing these cosmetics for everyone to get. For many games DLC especially as a supplementary for pre-ordering, or taking advantage of an offer it's usually the norm to re-release it later. You bought 3 months of Xbox Live Gold that happened to have an offer of a Special cosmetic. Same with the Controller and Hardrive. Actually it's amazing Rare took this long to finally offer it to everyone. We had the honor of showing these things off early.

Really the best way to make early adopters feel like they got a deal is to charge for those cosmetics when released in the future like most pre-order DLC. At least we got them for free, sort of.

The things that should remain exclusives are items from special one time occasions like the Founders Pack, or the Golden Banana Pack(even though I would murder to have those Banana Sails).