Please explain dev process that lead to this patch size.

Here is my theory:

• maybe the patch was ready, but they HAD TO REMOVE the death toll feature because everyone was whining about it

• packaging a patch and QA takes about a week, so they had to accelerate the release process

@grandalfnaughts I'm looking for a more technical explanation.

I find it crazy that it is that much in terms of size and no content has been added. It is simply mind blowing to me since I know how much a byte is and what you can do with it. I think they are hiding most of the stuff that are included in this "patch" and are not completely transparent with us. I might be wrong but hey that is my opinion.

Have you ever witnessed a "patch" such big like ever?.............. WITH NO ADDITIONAL CONTENT INSIDE??......

As the developer that left said they worked on one asset for 2 years which made it become a running joke in the office. So they're not exactly the best at time or resource management.

@sartirical

Calculating Patch Deltas can take DAYS of processing time. It's a o(n²) or o(n³) complexity operation, which means for large games, just creating the "patch" by diffing the two versions of the game is really, really tough. They probably re-baked a lot of the lighting data, so many assets were touched. (and the baking itself probably also took at least a full workday)

Then, the patch needs to be QA'ed for every type of install on every platform and language (also a n³ scenario... in this case, twice the work, if you count "not installed" and "1.0.0" as the two states a customer can have their game in)

A full reinstall needs to be tested on each platform and language, but not for every previous type of install. (a linear to quadratic scenario for the number of platforms*languages)

I'm pretty sure they wanted to cut the QA time in half or less, so they went for the customer-unfriendly, but easier solution. I also have a hunch that at the very last minute, they had to change the patch because everybody was crying about Death Toll, so they had to remove it again, restarting the QA process.

@thygrrr Thank you, that makes more sense.

@jaw1love Well, you have to admit, the game is pretty polished.

The few game mechanics it has are wrapped into tight core loops that are fun and engaging.

However, the rest, down to the dialogue with the shop keepers, has me scratching my head.

@simply-nephalem
Yes, it's called downloading a game.

@jaw1love I'm still enjoying it, a lot! The fact that I can't play because of the Game Pass issue (I spend about $750 on games a year, I'm not being cheap here :)) is a huge threat for my enjoyment of the game. Pokemon Go was similar; it scratched that itch and then just failed to work for a crucial weekend, and I lost interest because other than the PvP, there's no content there that matters.

I hope I can play again soon... though I find myself rarely going on voyages (I'm absolutely not a cosmetics person, other than my weapons, which were just 10 k each), and only seeking out other players to battle with. I wish that had more purpose, though.

@oneeyedheathen I'm a professional game dev, so I kinda know how long stuff takes. I can totally see Rare polishing and reducing this game to its shiny, beautiful core for four years. (I can also see the to-and-fro with their business performance units, trying to make it Free2Play and what not.)

What I don't see is how they made it a $60 Game (actually costs an insane €70 == $86 in Germany!!!!!) ... while it clearly is more in the $20 range, given the gorgeous looks, but vapid content. I wouldn't mind shelling out $5 to $10 every 2 months for extra content, so I'm playing this on game pass and am using that as a side effect to try more console games.

@thygrrr The game is definitely not worth what I paid for it. Overhyped, underperforming.

@the-medic-fatty True, just look at The Witcher 3 - that game started out costing LESS than Sea of Thieves on its initial release.

I think The Witcher 3 had similarly fantastic graphics and vistas, but easily and quite literally over 100x the content.

@jaw1love gee it's almost like they're waiting for our feedback to let them know what features we really want and how important they are to us. They said they have a roadmap, so let's wait and see what they've got and then we'll judge them.

This isn't a game that really has much similar to it. This is pretty much new ground that Rare is exploring. Sure we've had Black Flag.. But that was just an Assassin's Creed game with a pirate theme.. where the sailing almost felt like a mini game.. not really a real pirate game.

If you don't have actual feedback to give, well go ahead and just be another complainer that doesn't help anything.

@jaw1love then leave. Byeeee~