Black Powder Stashes
Reaper’s Black Powder Runs – Duke is challenging crews to face off against rivals in an explosive new Reaper’s Run, the ‘Reaper’s Black Powder Run’. These dangerous new voyages task crews with hopping from Fort to Fort finding Gunpowder Kegs, buried Merchant Crates and even guaranteed Stronghold Kegs! With two routes to pick from, crews should keep watch for rival crews as they trek the East Fort Run or West Fort Run. Tackling these voyages with your Reaper’s Flag raised adds extra risk to your voyage but unlocks some unique rewards. These voyages can be repeated if you dare!
Black Powder Smuggler’s Runs – For crews looking for a less competitive challenge with the same explosive consequences Duke, is offering a set of ‘Black Powder Smuggler’s Run’ voyages. These new voyages take crews into each region of the seas to collect buried Merchant Crates, Gunpowder Kegs and even guaranteed Stronghold Kegs for the Trading Companies. Pirate Legends have an exclusive voyage tasking them to venture into the Devil’s Roar and brave the threats to reap even more Stronghold Kegs! These voyages can be repeated to your hearts content once completed.
In the future, can we get a list of commendations added with these? :P
Trading Companies Stockpiling – The Gold Hoarders, Order of Souls and Merchant Alliance Trading Companies have begun stockpiling defences and will now reward players for handing over Gunpowder and Stronghold Kegs. Not wishing to be unprepared, the Mysterious Stranger has also begun rewarding Pirate Legends with Athena’s Fortune reputation for handing over Stronghold Kegs.
I don't know how keen I am on this, especially the bold part. Hopefully it serves a point for a really neat lore addition later on.
Mermaid Gems – Duke has heard word of Mermaid Gems being scattered across the world; Washed up on Islands, inside Skeleton Fort Vaults, inside Sunken Shipwrecks and even inside the bellies of Krakens & Megalodons! – the Trading Companies are eager to take these off your crew’s hands.
This is a nice change but it might push the statues into dead content once again if the statues are much more rare to encounter than free gems lying around.
Mercenary Commendations and Rewards – A range of Mercenary Commendations are available to unlock from your crew’s explosive efforts out on the seas. Earn Doubloons, unlock Titles and purchase newly available ‘The Inevitable Reaper Flag’, ‘The Inevitable Reaper Sails’ and the ‘Mercenary Figurehead’ for taking part in Duke's latest challenges.
Same as above, can we get a specific list in future patch notes? And maybe some pics of the rewards?
Game Balancing
Hunter's Call Rewards – Now that they have established a booming business, The Hunter's Call has the capital to reward players with greater Gold and Reputation gains for cashing in fish and meat.
Thanks you :) Feel bad for all the people who already put in the painstaking work of getting this to 50 though lol.
Tall Tales Skeleton Lord Balancing – Captain Briggsy, Captain Graymarrow and the Gold Hoarder now have a more balanced encounter for two person and three person Crews.
‘The Shores of Gold’ Gold Hoarder Encounter – Players engaging in the final encounter will now be given more time to complete the battle before the encounter times out.
Very good, hopefully it's not too easy though. Rare has a tendency to over-nerf things.
Sunken Shipwreck Rewards – Diving into a sunken shipwreck, players now have the chance to find Gunpowder Kegs, Resource Crates and even Mermaid Gems in addition to all the other previously found rewards.
Very glad to see the resource crates be included here. Same comment as above for mermaid gems (nice but hopefully doesn't kill mermaid statues as content).
Improving Resource Crates – Players are more likely to find fruit, cannonball and wooden plank resource crates washed up on beaches across the world.
Awesome!
Mermaid ‘Return to Ship’ Improvements – The mermaids are more helpful, appearing more quickly and in a closer location for players when you need them the most.
Will have to see how this change goes. I didn't see anything wrong with the existing system personally.
Cursed Cannonballs - Effect Durations - The duration of effects for all player curses have been reduced. The duration of effects for Peaceball, Riggingball and Ballastball have also been reduced.
Probably didn't need to reduce the duration, just make them not stack on subsequent hits.
Cursed Cannonballs - Anchorball - Anchorball still lowers/raises the anchor but no longer locks it out from being used for a time afterwards. The Helmball and Barrelball remain unchanged.
IDK how I feel about this one.
Cursed Cannonballs - Skeleton Ships – When engaging a Skeleton Ship, the frequency in which they fire Cursed Cannonballs has been reduced.
See, double nerf. Lower the duration of the curse and then lower cannonball rate. Why do both?
Megalodon Encounter Balancing – We’ve done a wide balancing pass on the Megalodon encounters out in the world. When encountering a Megalodon players should more clearly be able to identify their personality from how they act around the ship and attack, allowing you to strategise on how to engage with them.
Fleeing from a Megalodon to a nearby island will cause her to quickly give up and leave the area rather than lying in wait under the waves for an extended period. Crews on Sloops and Brigs are now much more likely to encounter a more balanced encounter, while still proving to be a challenge to take down.
If I lose a white meg because it runs away too fast I'm probably going to commit murder... The number of times she runs away almost instantly because we are going so fast we get near a rock by the time she surface makes me very afraid of this change.
Sloop Mast Damage – A damaged Sloop mast now takes half the time to resurrect to provide a more balanced experience for smaller crews.
Any changes to the brig? It would feel natural that they are either all the same because of the different number of masts, or the sloop is fastest, galleon slowest, and brig somewhere in the middle.
Eye of Reach Skeletons – Players will now only encounter Eye of Reach wielding skeletons manning certain posts on a Skeleton Ship. These skeletons no longer spawn on islands or during encounters.
Why? Couldn't just limit the number that spawned in a group of land-based skeletons to 1 eye-of-reach skele?
Skeletons on Cannons – Skeletons on islands are less accurate with cannons and take longer to return after being killed.
Escaping a Skeleton Ship – When chased by an emergent Skeleton Ship, crews no longer need to put as much distance between them before the Skeleton Ship decides to let you escape.
This patch sounds like easy mode...
Morrow’s Peak Outpost Geysers – Geysers on Morrow’s Peak Outpost in the Devil’s Roar now spawn much less frequently.
Good, this was annoying.
Devil's Roar Volcanoes - Volcanoes encountered in the Devil’s Roar do not hit ships as often.
I hate the auto-target, but isn't this the point of the area? Why not increase the number of rocks but truly randomize their trajectory?
Accessibility Improvements
This update provides a range of Accessibility Improvements to players across the Sea of Thieves. To learn more about Accessibility in Sea of Thieves, head over to our Accessibility Guides.
Support for ‘Tap to Interact’ – An option has been added to the Accessibility Settings known as ‘Reduce Held Interactions’, which allows many ‘Hold to Interact’ actions to only require an initial tap. Players must still stay within range and wait the full duration of the action.
Nice!
Radial Menu Support for ‘Toggle’ – An option has been added to the Accessibility Settings ‘Toggle Radial Menus’ which allows radial menus to be opened and closed with two separate button presses rather than a button being held and released.
Radial Menu Support for ‘Sticky’ – An option has been added to the Accessibility Settings ‘Sticky Radial Items’ which allows radial menus to stay selected when releasing the analogue stick.
Radial Menu Support for Keyboard Bindings – All radial menu’s now support selection using number keys in addition to using the analogue stick. These keys can now also be re-binded in the Keyboard Settings page.
Support for ‘Escape’ to back out of Settings pages in stages – An option has been added to the Accessibility Settings ‘Escape as Back’ for Keyboard & Mouse controls. When toggled on, the ‘Escape’ changes its function when navigating the settings menus. When drilled into submenus, previously Escape would return the player all the way back to the top-level menu – with this setting enabled, Escape now steps the player back through each menu requiring multiple presses to return to the top-level menu.
Support for Mouse Hover in Settings – When using a mouse to navigate the settings menu, hovering over an item no longer automatically selects it and requires players to click to select to avoid accidental selection while navigating. This does not affect navigating the settings with a controller.
Cool options to have!
‘Let Games Read to Me’ Message Priority – When triggering multiple narration messages, there is now a hierarchy to manage the order in which narration messages are played.
Narration of server messages takes priority and pause any current message, playing immediately and queuing up subsequent messages.
Narration of UI messages is second in priority and will play if no other message is currently playing. UI messages will not queue and will override a currently playing message. Player chat messages are third priority and will only play if no other message is currently playing.
‘Let Games Read to Me’ Player Chat Messages – The first chat message from a player will begin with "[Gamertag] says", with any consecutive messages from that player dropping the “[Gamertag] says” so that multiple messages will be read out as if they were part of one larger message. As soon as there is a break in speech however, the player’s gamertag will be read out again at the start of the next message.
Updates
Crew Member ‘Join’ & ‘Leave’ Notifications – Crew members now receive a notification when a player joins or leaves their crew.
It's about time! Thank you!!
Tall Tales ‘Shroudbreaker’ New Puzzles – The Shroudbreaker Tall Tale has had a range of new Vault Puzzle variants added to provide a varied experience each playthrough.
Tall Tales ‘Cursed Rogue’ New Puzzle & Briggsy Fight Locations – The Cursed Rogue Tall Tale has had a range of new Puzzle variants added. Crews will now find new locations for Skeleton Crews and buried quest items and will engage Briggsy in different locations on islands for a more varied experience each playthrough.
Tall Tales ‘Revenge of the Morningstar’ New Puzzle Locations – The Revenge of the Morningstar Tall Tale has had a range of new puzzle variants added to new islands for a more varied experience each playthrough.
Good way to make repeating them less monotonous.
Digging up Bait – Players now have a chance to find fishing bait from digging in the world. Digging on beaches, shorelines and grassy areas will yield the different bait types, happy digging! The amount of bait found in island barrels has also been reduced as part of this change, however crews will still find they can acquire some stock at outposts and sea posts to prepare for their journey.
How much slower is it to get bait now?
Interactive Hatches – The Shipwrights have added player-controlled hatches to both Sloop and Brigantines. Brigs have hatches added to the small window in the Captain’s Cabin, Sloops now have hatches on the small windows which players can close to help defend from attacks.
This sounds cool.
Outpost Tavern Audio – Tavern ambient audio experience has been enhanced to be more interesting for players.
Audio during Pirate Selection – The ambient audio experience has been enhanced when selecting a new pirate.
Good for immersion.
Session Setup Panel – When navigating the front-end menu and selecting your game mode, ship type and crew type – there is a UI panel showing the choices that you have made when setting up your session.
Nifty way to see if you accidentally select open crew. I like it.
Controller & Keyboard Settings Menu - Improved the layout of the Controller and Keyboard screens on the settings menu.
So many bug fixes lol. Hope you get that hit detection figured out!