[Mega Thread] The Hungering Deep

  • I really enjoyed the update. I am a sucker for riddles and hope to see more like this in the future. Fools Lagoon will forever be Idiot Island. Loved the clues! Finding friends was easy the two times I was Meg hunting, all were eager to see the beast and again it got my adrenaline pumping seeing that huge thing rise from the depths, the Jaws music was a nice touch when it's about to bite the boat.

    I plan on summoning him a few more times before he's released into the wild.

  • Anyone else get the feeling that there are further commendations (possibly with rewards) for multiple Meg kills?

  • Good evening

    I loved this update. It was a really cool experience to have contact with several players looking for the same goal.

    It's a game I've never stopped playing since its release. What we hope are soon new types of journeys, mermaids, animals, fisheries as it would attract more players and keep the old players who are already legendary and high level in Athena

  • love the new items

  • So, just got done playing this game for the last time ever. I was one of the only ones out of my friend group that was excited for this DLC. There were about five of us that originally played this game when it was first released, 3 who used their free trial on Xbox game pass to download. Another friend and I dropped the initial $60 and were extremely disappointed at the chests, merchant, and skull "missions" that we were offered. On top of that, the only "items" to be purchased were cosmetic changes to the ship, weapons, and clothes. After a week we all stopped playing because of the extreme boredom that set in.

    So here is this dlc. The friend and I who wasted our money logged on about an hour and a half ago to play this "campaign". We spent about an hour and fifteen minutes sailing to islands that already existed to spend just under 10 minutes reading the journals left by that drunk idiot. And you need five people to summon the shark? What an L you've taken, Rare. A large L.

    I know the "thieves" in this game are supposed to be the pirates, but you all have stolen our money from us. I wish I hadn't bought the downloadable version so I could break my disk in half.

    P.S. I wrote this entire entry while sailing between islands. I also played 3 different games on my phone. You shouldn't have that much downtime in a game.

  • @cosmos1255 I don't think you quite understand what a "small content update" is, compared to a full blown expansion. Rare has said multiple times that this will be the smallest DLC, simply because they've only had about 2 months at most to make it. Less than that if you factor in the first few weeks of constant bug fixes and performance improvements. They've said multiple times that the DLCs will only get bigger as they get more time to work on them. Don't get p***y over buying a game that was clearly marketed as what you got.

  • I waited so long to get to play this new update. And just one day in and we beat the beast but now again I'm bored of the game. I'm a little sorry I spent the money I did on this game. Please make the game better for us gamers that do love this game.

  • So here is this dlc. The friend and I who wasted our money logged on about an hour and a half ago to play this "campaign". We spent about an hour and fifteen minutes sailing to islands that already existed to spend just under 10 minutes reading the journals left by that drunk idiot. And you need five people to summon the shark? What an L you've taken, Rare. A large L.
    I know the "thieves" in this game are supposed to be the pirates, but you all have stolen our money from us. I wish I hadn't bought the downloadable version so I could break my disk in half.
    P.S. I wrote this entire entry while sailing between islands. I also played 3 different games on my phone. You shouldn't have that much downtime in a game.

    I think you're being a little too harsh with it.
    First off your buyers remorse shouldn't have to be expressed just because of your inability or refusal to enjoy it.
    Secondly your five people to summon the shark remark is kind of misinformed.
    If you weren't already aware before launch. Rare wanted the skull fort raids to force crews to work together; That did not happen so this was their opportunity to try and enact cooperation between other crews.

    Don't be rude about wanting to destroy your property because of your buyers remorse.
    If you don't have the social skills to strike a conversation with your friend; Instead of playing a phone game, you should consider games that two or four people could play on the ship; for long voyages. In these down times and contribute your suggestions to the forum instead of being a salty sailor.

  • Like the update and the items but so far three attempts to kill the beast have resulted running into griefing around shark tooth . It has quickly taken the fun out of it for my group that plays. So thats my two bits.

  • @morganfr33man42 First of all, p***y is not a curse word. Secondly bugs aren't the only problem.

  • @seeker-of-peace Misinformed? It's hard to make friends when I see a ship every 2 hours because no one plays this game. And how exactly do you expect us to "play" on a ship? There's nothing to do but play the 3 different songs provided and walk around.

  • @cosmos1255 A board game, or a card game. Checkers, War. Those are two player. You must lack imagination if you're required to be entertained constantly. I've had discussion about politics, life, religion. All sorts of topics on the long voyages. With 4 people you can have a lot of heated debate and there's even more opportunity for games.

  • Just played the update, and it's incredibly underwhelming.

    Don't get me wrong; it was fun, but it was incredibly shallow. I understand that this was put together in two months, but in a game that lacked content at launch, this doesn't set a good precedent for the updates to come.

    I've already mentioned just how exploitable the quest design is, and I expect to see a system that doesn't allow for player exploitation present in the next update, or at least a system that takes more than two minutes for people to figure out how to exploit.

    A possible solution to this is selective invulnerability. You could have a flag (say - the one that you pay 2,500 gold for) that you can choose to equip, and if you equip it during the time the event is live, you cannot be boarded or hurt by other players, and in turn, you cannot hurt other players or board their ships. If you choose to use this invulnerability, you would be restricted to only doing the event quest, and once you complete it, the invulnerability would end. It wouldn't stop the PvP players from not using it, but it would keep them from exploiting a broken design, and in a timed event, I think it's justified.

    Something that I believe was lacking in this update is replayability. Once you've completed the event once, there's little to no incentive to play it again, which is a shame because this will more than likely negatively impact people playing this update later. The longer you wait to play, the harder it will be to complete a quest just because of how few people will actually be interested in doing the quest by that point. Because you need at least 5 people to summon the shark, I don't think too many people past this week will have any luck completing the event. This problem could be fixed in a number of ways, but here are my two suggestions:

    • 1.) Reward players for running through the event multiple times. Either have more secrets to find in successive run-throughs or change things up a bit to keep players interested. You could also reward players with Rep or Loot that you pick up from the quest-giver (in this case, Merrick) and have a different reward each time you finish. You could always try to think outside the box and spice up the adventure every so often so that players will always have a chance of something new when playing through again.
    • 2.) Allow players to select a server they wish to play on. If you plan to have mechanics like the 5 drum beats in the future, a system allowing you to choose which server you would like to play on would make it possible to queue up with multiple crews to ensure that you get the quest done, rather than party up with three other people and hope that you can stumble across a fifth willing to help.

    Either way, this issue is not only important to fix so that you keep your players engaged, it's also important because it could encourage cooperation and encourage people who have already finished the quest to go back and aid players who haven't. In fact, I think it would be a great idea to add in a special reward for anyone who does go back to help anyone who hasn't beaten the event. That'd give players more incentive to not only play your game, but be kind and friendly to other players, as well.

    A small issue I had that bugged me was that the Bilge Rat pirate was the same character at each and every tavern. This small detail really broke the immersion for me, and just left a bad taste in my mouth over-all. Literally every other character at every Outpost is specific to that Outpost. It just boggles my mind why you didn't put a different pirate at each Outpost. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but you probably could've even used your random pirate generator to create the models if need be. Just, something would've been nice.

    The actual hunt for the shark's location was interesting enough and took advantage of uncharted islands, which is really nice, but the riddles themselves weren't interesting in the slightest. They were so easy to guess that I got every answer right on the first try. But, I guess that's probably a good thing, considering that I would've been furious if I had to sail all the way back to the previous location if I got the clue wrong, but traveling through the world shouldn't be aggravating, and I consider this a lose/lose situation.

    The actual creature fight was pretty awesome, though I will admit that I got lucky. I ran into a twelve-man team working together, and my friend and I tagged along. It was so easy to summon the shark and the fight was very epic and engaging - easily the best part of this otherwise mediocre update. However, I definitely feel like my experience was an outlier, and I do not expect anyone to get as lucky as I did. For example, the friend that I was with attempted to round up enough people to summon the shark on his own for hours with no luck. In fact, the people that he found were so uncooperative, he decided to stop playing the game. He only picked it back up again once I was available to play, several hours later. This should be a learning experience for you, Rare, and keep this in mind when designing future updates to be as not frustrating as possible.

    As for what will happen to this quest once the event is over - who knows? I don't know how the shark will be encountered once these two weeks are up, and if it's anything like the kracken, then I personally think it's a huge waste of dev time and content to just shove this thing in as a random encounter. The game is already barren as it is - I hope they at least leave some possible way to ensure that you fight this thing again if you want to.

    Over-all, it wasn't a terrible update, but I wouldn't say it was a particularly good update, either. Mediocre and unimpressive are pretty descriptive of it. Serviceable - for now is also something that describes it well. All I can say is that each event that will release beyond The Hungering Deep better be leagues and bounds more gripping and fleshed out than this one. If this update is all we can expect of future additions, I don't think there's much to get excited about.

  • @seeker-of-peace You are ridiculously uninformed my dude. I have a great imagination, the argument I am making here is that a video game I dropped $60 on should not force me to entertain myself in other ways. When I'm playing a video game, there should be no moment when I put my controller down and start doing something else. Name one other quality game that forces you to do that.

    This game has a lot of potential but the developers are not focusing on the right ways to make this a better game. They are just trying to bait us into wasting hours sailing around an overly large map. I think the original purpose was to have enough players on the game to have a solid PvP experience but no one wants to play anymore so this game is a bust.

  • @cosmos1255 not my fault the forums censor it, and I never said bugs were the only problem.

  • Ok,

    I just jumped on for a little bit of time tonight. And I like the addition of flags, but is anyone else having trouble actually seeing the flags on other boats?
    I mean I have to be within firing distance to see the flags. Now it could just be my machine, as I am on cursed settings, but was just curious what others were seeing.
    And since there is no default flag, I might have run into a few people who had not even put a flag up.

  • @thyroidalwall5. The same thing happened to me and my friend... however, we chases their a$$ and fought them for 30 minutes. They ran off we docked and started to talk to Merrick. We noticed they we’re coming back to sink us. So I grabbed a gun power barrel and ran across the island my buddy left with the ship to sail around. I swam under water and blew their boat to pieces.

    I agree everyone shouldn’t have to go to the same spot to begin the mission. It’s very frustrating. Especially at the end of the mission if we have to “team” up how the hell is that going to be possible? I’ve only encountered 3 friendly pirates so far this game since it launched..

  • You are ridiculously uninformed my dude. I have a great imagination, the argument I am making here is that a video game I dropped $60 on should not force me to entertain myself in other ways. When I'm playing a video game, there should be no moment when I put my controller down and start doing something else. Name one other quality game that forces you to do that.

    From what I gather you're the type to only be satisfied with instant gratification and therefore do not have much of an imagination.
    You have no idea their original purpose, goals or intentions if you are projecting a negative bias point of view.

  • I had a lot of fun. It took us a while to find another galleon to help us, but it was worth it.

    When the music changed and the shark spawned, everyone was like "waaaaaa" (I think it was the first time I heard so many people with mics haha) and the fight was really awesome. Seeing him bite both galleons, and just throwing them at each other like 2 sloops was really funny.

    I was wondering though: How do you get that new bilge rat set and how many scars/tattos can you get from fighting the shark? I got one scar and tatto from that kill.

  • no loot dropped by meg is a missed opportunity. fun but pointless...

  • @ryz-argos i think meg should drop teeth, and fins, to sell to the merchant guild, with a chest dropped by the kraken, and urns maybe during cursed sails to sell to the order of souls...

  • "mimimi people attack me waaaah"

    Just kill them. It's not that hard. There was an agressive galleon at shark bait, attacking everyone. Instead of whining on the forums, we sank them, then teamed up with the other crews there and hunted down Meg with 3 galleons and a sloop.
    If you "never meet friendly people", maybe you are the problem, because I meet friendly people every single time I play this game. Just board them, dodge their panicked fire while telling them you're friendly (easier now with the trumpet) and maybe give them a chest to show your intentions. Easy.

    The quest itself and the boss fight was pretty easy, but a lot of fun. I really liked that Meg is able to throw ships around like it's nothing. When she was dead and just floating there in the water, I actually felt kinda sad. We killed this ancient creature simply because some drunk guy hyped us up to do it..

    Anyway, the cosmetics are really good looking, the drum is very cool with the whistling, the update really made people work together for extended periods of time and if Meg will stay in the game as a randomly occuring threat, that will be really cool and add a lot of suspense to sailing around. Great update!

    For the people going on about how Meg should drop things or give rewards every time, please consider the implications of that. If a summonable boss reliably drops items, it will be grinded all day every day, turning it into nothing but a loot dispenser. Just like the Kraken, Meg is an ancient creature and encountering her should be random and not something players do over and over to get loot.

  • @ryz-argos sagte in [Mega Thread] The Hungering Deep:

    no loot dropped by meg is a missed opportunity. fun but pointless...

    It would be great to get rewards for the factions, i wouldn't even care if i had to cash it in or if the game just awards you some reputation points.

    But making backstabbing pointless for this mission could help to shift the balance a bit more between PvP and PvE.

  • Just kill them. It's not that hard. There was an agressive galleon at shark bait, attacking everyone. Instead of whining on the forums, we sank them, then teamed up with the other crews there and hunted down Meg with 3 galleons and a sloop.

    Totally agree, or just change servers. Sadly Shark Bait Cove is a bit of an action zone.
    You can even team up with any crews you met on the way by server hopping/checking the time on your watch.

    This update really does bring pirates together and I hope more friends can be made on the open seas. And about your loot comment; The rewards were plenty enough for me to be satisfied. Especially since they're limited. Showing that stuff off months or even years later will be really neat.

  • I loved the whole thing - a really great evening's entertainment! (SPOILERS follow)

    First of all, I really appreciate how the clues were done - it's exactly what I've been wanting in the game since launch. They weren't really hard to solve, but still satisfying, and I don't care what anyone says, unless you looked the answer up you did have to use your brain a bit! And I liked the mechanics of the journals unlocking the next 'commendation' while also giving you the next clue - elegant. More of this in future content please!

    The experience around Shark Bait Cove and the other 'quest' islands was all positive for us - I loved seeing sloop after sloop arriving to see Merrick, and the constant leaping around, 'shouting' through the speaking trumpet and playing shanties was fun. A real change in atmosphere. I get how it would be frustrating if ships are purposely trying to ruin the quest for others, and they're stupid if they think it's worth sinking people on the quest as it's a loot-free quest, but that's the game and I wouldn't change it. Those of us who have completed the quest should perhaps consider helping people out by 'defending' the quest islands? I certainly intend to help others out with the hunt, as you can't beat a bit of "jolly cooperation"!

    Speaking of which, we then hooked up with a sloop crew of 2 and went for the hunt - we were a galleon of 4. We went in severely under-prepared at first, and quickly ran out of planks, so we tried to limp on with constant bailing but it didn't work - the sloop sank first, then they came aboard our galleon to help but we didn't last long... We re-stocked though, and sailed back to T26, and met the same sloop again there! And this time we had a decent stock of cannonballs and planks!! ("Get more planks" would be my first piece of spoiler-free advice to anyone asking for it.) Eventually the beast grabbed hold of the sloop and didn't seem to want to let go, so I can only assume they were constantly bailing and repairing while we peppered it with cannon fire, and eventually it went down!

    The fight itself I thought was amazing - the adrenaline was like nothing else, and the Jaws-like feeling as the shark circles the ship and then comes in to ram you was scary and exciting. When it comes at you with its mouth open it's the stuff of nightmares!! When the fight was over the feeling was such a relief, and as we sailed back to Shark Bait Cove in convoy with our sloop buddies it felt like returning home after a real adventure. Never had that feeling in another game before.

    I'm also in love with the unlockable cosmetics - wearing your shark bite scars with your 'Shark Slayer' title will become a badge of honour over the coming months, after the event is finished, and I can't wait for there to be more events to further distinguish pirates based on the experiences - it doesn't need to be a display of skill, it's plenty that it shows what you've lived through, and again that's pretty unprecedented in games, as far as my experience is concerned.

    I get that people will be disappointed, but looking objectively I've simply had a great time with this content, and will continue to enjoy the surrounding additions going forward, so I have nothing but praise. Obviously I want more, but I think that's just greed - if I eat a cake and I enjoy that cake then I might want more cake, but I don't need more cake straight away!!

  • Of course there will be trolls...but I have a screenshot of a beach full of pirates (4 galleons and 2 sloops) all sitting at shark bait. I loved the battle and helped kill it again, the quest took you to some neat places, but the most rewarding and fun part was the amount of pirates that came together and took the beast down. The best player to player interaction I have experienced to date.

  • @john-hatter said in [Mega Thread] The Hungering Deep:

    @thyroidalwall56
    ugh I was afraid of this. It hit me yesterday that this would be a VERY possible outcome of things. I was already concerned if my playstyle and real life obligations would get in the way of enjoying the limited time content and then add this to the mix...fingers crossed I guess.

    Agreed zhoba gave us the info I shared via voice with other crews while we waited for her return with a couple people getting the drums and we all got to have fun together.

    Sadly our 5th got killed had to sail back and didnt get credit so I told him ill be back on tonight and recrew with him to help him get the stuff.

    I believe that was an oversight by rare. If the person fights for the entire time but dies a few seconds prior to the shark they dont get credit as they were on another ship that got sunk shame honestly.

  • Game keeps crashing on xbox one s sometimes main menu other times in game ive restarted my xbox done hard reset still nothing anyone else experiencing this?

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

    @khaleesibot

    So.. For anyone starting out with this my first recommendation would be gamechat.

    Once you gain the speaking trumpet this makes it far easier to approach other crews from a safe distance to find those who are willing to sail with you.

    Secondly, pay attention to all the clues in the journals and from the conversations with the barmaids.

    Thirdly - you're going to need a LOT of resources. Stock up your ship at every available opportunity to the max.

    The quest itself is fairly straightforward if you know the world.

    You will need to 'carry' the tune, literally... one crewmate will need to keep playing or pass it on to another crewmate to take over til you get to the location. You can pass the tune between your own crew and another to keep it going.

    It's a great encounter, lots of fun and teamwork needed.

    We had an absolute blast!

    guess what :') we had everything together, and sail with the new Gallon mates around the island (i don't want to spoil) and playing music... Yes, Music, just music... so we get the clue something is wrong here... he sail back to the other island, and hit on a sloop... they was screaming at us: FOLLOW US MATES!!! so we made a u-turnand almost lost the gallon.. but they was pretty good and did the same... on the way back to the shark, there was a strom... inside the storm was the Kraken... WHAAT!!
    Really, I never ever saw something nice like that!!!^99

    We got attacked by the Kraken, the sloop and gallon stopped and search a war into the dark water, for us it looked like they are in too and fight the Kraken with us! JUST AWESOME!!! (see i can't stop screaming) after we finally was out of the dark water we was sailing all together back to the shark... played the song.. and zing...
    12 Woods are way to less xD
    in the middel of the fight, the sloop was screming, we are out of woods, help us, help us, help us... i was the only person with 5 planks left in stock... i jumped into the water and helped them repair.. but it didnt work out well, so i told them to let the ship go down, and came on ours, when the fight is over you can get the new sloop and we tell ya where we bring your mate (we thought we get a cheest or something).. at the end, one sloop came to the outpost and start shooting on the boots while we was getting hammered :)

    We hear the cannons and run out, the dude was making fun and telling us we havnt pay'd for the parking slot... (hahahahahahhahahahahaha super nice!) so we go to him and killed him xD after he saw a sloop is coming and we are welcome them (was the new russian mates) he quit...

    All i can say is, this Update, even if its not that big as we all thought, is one of the most funniest things i played in the last 5-10 years !!! it was free, we had so much fun!

    just a question, that is why i write to you diretlly:

    You guys told us, there will be weekly events, when will they start, i mean,
    killing the shark is part one i guess?
    make it sens to go more often to the rats or mavvrik? or we have to wait for 2 weeks when you start the next event? -- so i would have some time to finally become a legend ^^

  • @thyroidalwall56 I'm having the same experience, and it's kinda killing the game for me. I'm not incredibly social, or good at making friends, so a relaxing trip through Merrick's tale was all I wanted, but the game is wildly unbalanced for single players.

  • Are the Shark Hunter Ship cosmetics here to stay or is it only for a certain period?

  • @gareeet Was just thinking the same thing. Maybe after you slay the beast your crew could harvest the skin and take this to the Merchant or even better you could take said skin and take it to the clothing merchant and they could make you a shark skin hat, belt or eye patch.

    Maybe on super rare occasions you get Meg teeth that are worth a butt load at the Order of Souls. Perhaps a special chest appears on one of the deserted islands that you had to stop at during the OG quest line.

    Loved the Hunger Deep DLC and will definitely be out being the friendly pirate that I am seeing if anyone needs a 5th.

  • @cptbartroberts awesome story. thanks for sharing.

  • I've gone hunting our sharky friend last night, given myself some time to reflect on the adventure, and it was overall enjoyable even if not perfect, so here is some feedback:

    +The new cosmetics and items are cool additions to the game
    +The riddled quest
    +Carrying the tune, that was really fun to do, even when we lost it once and had to backtrack :)
    +The need for five players at once. Finding teammates can be hard, but it's so worth it. The cooperation feels really good, and the celebration afterwards is so pleasant and good spirited.
    +The Hungering One is really impressive and cool looking

    -I found the riddles to be very easy. I was expecting a bit more of a challenge, maybe even with a community effort to crack them?
    -The fight against the shark was nice but a bit underwhelming. With minimal organisation and good supplies, it's mostly a matter of time with no real challenge. Some surprises or varied attacks/phases could make for a more dynamic fight.
    -I think it would also be nice if the shark yielded some rewards for defeating him, and not just quest related. Maybe a gain in reputation for everyone involved if you feel like proper loot would divide the crews after the fight (which can be kinda nice, but encouraging coop is more important atm I think
    -A way to track quest objectives or quest related commendations?
    -Where is Merrick's shanty? I want to keep playing it ;( I understand it is unadvisable to give it to the players for now as it would ruin the tune carrying, but I hope to receive it at the end of the event.

    All in all, we've had a very good time with this adventure, and are hungry for more, thanks Rare!

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