Patch Notes Discussion - 1.4.3

  • Release Notes - 1.4.3

    Ahoy pirates!

    It's time for another update. This one brings your maiden Mercenary Voyage, seeking the treasure and tipple of the Rum Runner!

    Adventures await on your Mercenary Voyage

    That's not all: there's a trove of performance improvements and bug fixes so you can enjoy some smooth sailing.


    MERCENARY VOYAGE OF THE RUM RUNNER

    Duke's in the tavern, offering a lucrative voyage for would-be mercenaries. Recruit some new pirates for your crew and start grabbing loot!

    Grab a new Mercenary Voyage, doesn't it look pretty?

    • New Mercenary Voyage – Purchasable from Duke for the low price of five Doubloons, this voyage challenges pirates to seek out the stash of a notorious Rum Runner, collecting rewards valuable to all the Trading Companies. This voyage can be repeated to your heart's content once completed, just purchase another from Duke!
    • Loyal to the Coin – A new 'Mercenary Voyage' section has been added to the Reputation tab along with our first Commendation: 'Loyal to the Coin'. Completing this Mercenary Voyage will unlock this Commendation, awarding 50 Doubloons.

    Show that you're loyal to the coin with these new Mercenary liveries

    • Time-Limited Mercenary Cosmetics – Complete a Mercenary Voyage from Duke and you'll be able to obtain the Mercenary Sail, Hull and Flag for your ship. These won't be available forever, so buy them while you can!

    Combat Balancing Improvements

    To learn more about the vision for combat in Sea of Thieves and get further detail on these balancing improvements, check out our recent Developer Update Forum post by Design Director Mike Chapman.

    • Double-Gun Switching – The Pistol, Blunderbuss and Eye of Reach have new wield animations and enforce a delay when equipping and switching between these weapons.
    • Fluid Swordplay – Missing a cutlass swing no longer slows down player movement, ensuring a more fluid swordplay experience.
    • Eye of Reach Hip Fire – Reduced accuracy when hip-firing the Eye of Reach. Under pressure you can still get lucky with a hip-fired Eye of Reach shot, but at mid- to long range this is significantly reduced.
    • Weapon Knockback – Pistol and Eye of Reach shots will no longer apply knockback to enemies hit. Cutlass and Blunderbuss, however, will retain their ability to knock back players. Skeletons wielding a Pistol, Blunderbuss or Eye of Reach have also had their ability to knock back players removed.
    • Weapon Reload Improvements – Following the recent change to the Eye of Reach, now the Pistol and Blunderbuss both reload the moment the hammer is pulled. This allows players to sprint sooner when reloading without restarting the animation.
    • Bullet Projectile Speed – Bullets fired from a Blunderbuss or Eye of Reach now travel faster through the air, providing more predictable accuracy at range.
    • Weapon Damage Falloff – Bullet damage no longer decreases over distance.
    • Eye of Reach Damage – Eye of Reach Damage reduced by a small amount to ensure this weapon's damage is balanced following the improvements to bullet speed and damage falloff.

    Updates

    • Game RepackagingSea of Thieves has now been repackaged to give a smaller install size, leaving your device with some extra room! This means that you'll need to reinstall the game for this update, at the new smaller size.
    • New Player Onboarding – New pirates joining Sea of Thieves will be greeted with a new onboarding flow. This now takes players through a range of new activities before leaving the Outpost – they even get some rewards for their troubles!
    • Show Nameplates Above Other Crews – New Settings option allows players to hide the nameplates of any non-crew members they meet, reducing the opportunity for stream sniping.
    • Keybinding for 'Toggle HUD' – Players can now assign a keybind for the 'Toggle HUD' option to give you fast access to remove the UI for those beautiful screenshots. The FPS, Ping and Player Chat indicators are also correctly hidden when activated.
    • Ocean Crawler Cannons – Layout of the Ocean Crawler Cannons has been adjusted to improve line of sight in combat.
    • Floating Treasure – The speed that treasure floats to the surface after being released in deep water has been significantly increased.
    • What's that Whisper? – You can now hear stationary Bounty Skulls when they're close by.
    • Calming the Kraken – The Kraken has learnt to pick on someone her own size and will now take it easier on Sloops and Brigantines. Tentacle wraps that block access to lower levels have been significantly reduced.
    • A Ghost on the Waves – Rumours of a pale beast in the waves have been circulating heavily, with sightings becoming slightly more frequent as it's grown in infamy.
    • Message in a Bottle Cargo Runs – Cargo Runs can now be found inside a Message in a Bottle.
    • Skeleton Ship Encounter Range – Skelly Ships will wait until you're further away before they consider returning to the depths.
    • Cannonball Impact Audio – Cannonballs hitting rock and wood now sound even better. You'll also be able to hear the difference between a cannonball hitting you above or below deck.
    • Triple Buffering – On Windows 10, a new video option allows players to enable Triple Buffering, which will improve the 'VSync' option's performance.
    • Island Shadows – When set to Legendary or Mythical settings, islands now cast a shadow on the ocean.
    • Company Reputation – Entering each of the Company Commendation screens now plays a sound effect relevant to that Company.
    • Did You Hear That? – Barrels and Rowboats now make a noise when you hit them with your ship.
    • Kitchen Delivery – The Shipwrights have fitted new stoves and roasting pans to Sloops, Brigantines and Galleons. We weren't expecting delivery so soon, who signed for this order?
    • Streamlined Hulls – The Shipwrights have been busy streamlining the hulls on Sloops, Brigantines and Galleons. They all now have strange cutouts near the bow, they've said this is more streamlined – we're yet to be convinced...
    • Fortress Under Construction - We've seen that the skeletons have been constructing a new Fort inside The Devil's Roar. So you can visit Molten Sands Fortress, but due to challenging conditions this Fort is still under construction and isn't active yet...

    Performance and Stability Improvements

    • Reduced loading time for 'Enlisting Pirate' step when skipping the title screen animation.
    • Resolved stuttering on title screen animation.
    • When running a multi-monitor setup with different refresh rates, the main monitor will no longer assume the refresh rate of the lowest monitor.
    • Resolved potential crash when navigating the Bilge Rats Reputation pages.
    • Game chat has been upgraded, resolving several game chat and audio-related crash and stability issues.
      We are constantly reviewing the performance and stability of each patch and providing performance optimisations and stability improvements.

    Fixed Issues

    Gameplay

    • Emoting while picking up a chest no longer causes the chest to disappear into the body.
    • After being drowned by a Kraken, players returning from the Ferry of the Damned should no longer have their camera locked in position.
    • Recent Players list now correctly updates when you see another player in the world.
    • Treasure on board a Rowboat that is subsequently destroyed while on land can still be collected by players.
    • Players affected by snake venom can now correctly interact with barrels.
    • Removed chest hiding spot on outer left-hand side of the Galleon's hull.
    • Players can now light the lantern in the Galleon's brig.
    • Rowboats can now be rowed slowly in Kraken ink.
    • Pigs can now be fed correctly after migrating with the Ship.
    • Snakes inside baskets should now correctly agitate and attack players after migrating with your ship.
    • Snakes now correctly take damage from being shot in the head.

    Sound and Visuals

    • Resolved rendering issues on NVidia GPUs when High Model Quality is selected.
    • Voice chat no longer queues up during the load screen and playback on first entry into the game.
    • Resolved issue with hair clipping through the Ghost Jacket.
    • Adjusted Skelly Fort wave horn volume.
    • When a storm covers an island, bells inside buildings no longer sound like they are affected by storm conditions.
    • Rum Bottle Crates now play appropriate smash SFX.
    • Snakes placed in a basket no longer clip through the bottom of the basket.

    UI

    • All NPCs now use the same consistent interaction button.
    • Using resource crates should no longer cause other game tooltips to show the incorrect button prompt.
    • After handing in a chest, bringing up the pirate chat radial will provide the correct phrase options.
    • Fixed inconsistent layouts in map radial icons.
    • Resolved issue navigating a two-page barrel inventory with a mouse.
    • Pirate chat messages should no longer appear in the incorrect order in the chat window.
    • Slider settings can no longer be set to an unsupported value.
    • French text has been corrected for Shrouded Spoils Commendations.
    • Russian captain names are now in Russian.
    • Resolved issue where the red damage vignette would persist on-screen after a player dies.

    Environment

    • There are no longer floating rocks by Devil's Ridge.
    • Prevented players from getting underneath Lone Cove Island.
    • Removed the chance for players to get stuck inside Gold Hoarder's flagpole at Outposts.
    • Removed the chance for players to get stuck in the branches of the withered tree on Morrow's Peak Outpost.
    • Reduced chance for items dropped into moving bushes to be seen floating in the air.
    • Eruption VFX and/or superheated water effects no longer appear intermittently after server migrations.
    • Removed hole in textures on Snake Island.
    • Torches should no longer have missing VFX.

    Known Issues

    • Barrel Interaction - Players are unable to interact with barrels while drowning.
    • Chest Of Sorrow - Placing a Chest of Sorrow on a Rowboat that is docked to your ship, then undocking the Rowboat, will still cause the ship to fill with water.
      We are working on fixes for both of these issues for a future update.

    Download size:

    Xbox One: 10GB
    Xbox One X: 27GB
    Windows 10: 27GB

    Xbox Installation Instructions can be found here.

    PC Installation Instructions can be found here.


    Looking For Crew?

    Looking for Crew?

    Looking for new crewmates? We've got a bunch of places you can visit to seek out like-minded pirates, so sail on over to these official Sea of Thieves hangouts:

  • 187
    Posts
    338.3k
    Views
  • Here we go!

  • IT’S HAPPENING!

  • @blondagles WOW, you guys have been super busy with this update, I've had the chance to see most in Pioneers but it's great to have it all come together. Awesome work team.

  • Fantastic Patch.

    Ty for fixing my crab cannons.

  • LETS DO THIS

  • "Kitchen Delivery - The Shipwrights have fitted new Stoves and Roasting Pans to Sloop, Brig and Galleons. We weren't expecting delivery so soon, who signed for this order?"

    Maybe we are getting new food types or fishing as well?

  • Wooooh Molten Sands Fortress sounds quite interesting 👀

  • Incredible patch notes.... might take the rest of the afternoon off 😬😬.

  • Now this is content.

  • I am on board for the PVP changes!

  • Great work. Hope the double gunning is fixed for good?

  • So many great tweaks, fixes, and QoL improvements! Combat changes look good and can’t wait to swing my sword and release my kraken, my blunderbuss. A new fort in the Devil's Roar is going to be hot fun. On top of all this we get a new voyage and get to be rum runners! Simply awesome!

  • This "laundry" list of fixes and improvements almost feels like Shrouded Spoils all over again. Still a lot of issues to fix that they did not list like rubber banding, but I have faith they will eventually figure it out.

    Several things to get excited for. The new ship looks good. Cooking is coming. New quest. New outpost in DR. Kraken will be less likely to wrap the stairs.

    But ultimately my favorite, more Ghost sightings. Can't wait to get another shot at the elusive ghost.....

  • So many QOL updates, love it :D

  • @nofears-fun

    Yep the hunt for the Shrouded Ghost is on.

  • Well no one can deny they haven’t been working hard to squash bugs now ahaha!

    Great job Rare!

  • “Kitchen Delivery” I think some fish would go great on that!

  • That's what i like to see!

  • @beanmariocow said in Patch Notes Discussion - 1.4.3:

    “Kitchen Delivery” I think some fish would go great on that!

    That is a very fishy delivery indeed... xD

  • Great update guys!

    Would like to put some input in for option to change extra keybinds.
    I'm a lefty so i use pl;' as my movement keys. When opening barrels or talking to NPC's i have to continuously take me hand off my mouse to push escape and it's rather frustrating if in a fight with another boat when getting cannon balls and wood or trying to loot bananas quick whilst fighting skele's when low health. Just something i hope to see in the next patch :) Keep the content coming!

  • @thor-von-blitz I just understood why the barrel full of skulls is in the tavern. It acts as a replacement of the Stranger when you are in a crew with someone doing the tutorial!

  • @jetorchidee97
    Ohhhhhhhh

  • @thor-von-blitz a dit dans Patch Notes Discussion - 1.4.3 :

    @jetorchidee97
    Ohhhhhhhh

    I just watched someone pulling a chest from the barrel lol

  • wow, really great update here guys/gals. Excited for the combat restructuring. :)))

  • @jetorchidee97
    Oh dang 😂

  • I’m not gonna be able to get on until later. Can anyone confirm if the mercenary voyage is just tied the normal area or if there’s a slightly different one if you buy it in the devils roar? Sorta like the gilded ones.

    Taa

  • A much needed patch that is paying attention to detail. I hope the new download fixes the long mermaid black screens!

  • Gonna have to revive my patch notes discussion videos for this one. Lots of thoughts on this one.

  • Being someone who has just been to the New Fort in the Devil's Roar, i have to say that i like that it's somewhat larger than the other forts in the normal area, plus the caves are a nice addition so players can hide when the Volcano on the island erupts. Hope fishing is added in soon. Given the changes to the ships and the new kitchens on the sloops and brigs, it seems like we might soon see that finally be added in.

  • Sorry if i sound dumb, but where is the Arena? Is it in here

  • @beanmariocow It's not in yet. If it was, we would have seen the title under the Sea of Thieves logo like with the other "DLC" updates.

  • Pretty good set of changes. Love the no damage falloff for weapons.

  • @xz-i-5pud-i-zx said in Patch Notes Discussion - 1.4.3:

    Great update guys!

    Would like to put some input in for option to change extra keybinds.
    I'm a lefty so i use pl;' as my movement keys. When opening barrels or talking to NPC's i have to continuously take me hand off my mouse to push escape and it's rather frustrating if in a fight with another boat when getting cannon balls and wood or trying to loot bananas quick whilst fighting skele's when low health. Just something i hope to see in the next patch :) Keep the content coming!

    BRO, i kid you not like the day the barrel came out i complained about this on the forums. I am also a lefty that uses pl;’ and have this same issue. Barrels are basically my weakness. It’s really good to know that someone else has this same issue and that i’m not alone. All Rare has to do is add the “close barrel” which is X into a changable keybind. Doesn’t sound too hard, hope next patch they can add this.

  • Really excited by the inclusion of the cooking stations, can’t wait to see how these are utilised in a future update.

    I’m a big fan of the new streamlined ships, they look great. Can’t think of why these have been implemented though. Looking forward to what’s to come.

    Quality update. ❤️

187
Posts
338.3k
Views
127 out of 187