Doubloon Currency - Developer Update

As a long time player, and an old man who’s amassed a fortune in Doubloons, along with purchasing Limited Cosmetics, let us buy cosmetics we weren’t able to get in the past, like the Ebony ship set. Let us purchase these items.

You’re not allowing us to get our use of doubloons from the past, so let’s catch up. Let us buy things we’ve missed on, and then do a reset. Don’t hold out on us and then force us to work for it all over again. It’s insulting to long term consistent players.

I agree with and like the doubloon change. The game is 8 years old and a little refreshment of a long abandoned "vision" is good imo.
I think allowing people to get some commemorative items beforehand is a good compromise but I would have hoped for more! 5 options, one of which is a title, is a little.. thin. BUT, it's a good faith addition so, whatever.
Doubloons should be event currency, as is the point of the reset, and I don't think I'm happy about them remaining in the season pass. Reapers chests makes sense and gives a reason to go after them/fight for them, but as it stands, Doubloons' main draw should be doing these new events.

Now, If you're looking to solve both doubloons and gold.. Do NOT just do the same thing!
The big issue I can understand is that doubloons are/were too accessible with too little to spend on (which is fact) but we do not need our gold reset, or nerfed, or ANYTHING. Gold is our "high score", that even when there's nothing to buy, it's a number to tick up, infinitely, even after the companies and factions have been maxed out.

What we need however, is more to buy. Same old point that's been made for years, the gold shops are dripfeeding us!
Way more variety, way more themes, way more types of cosmetic. As it stands, for a long, long time now, we have gotten half a ship set, and some weapons, or equipment, or a shirt/jacket here and there in the outpost stores. We get dripfed so little, except when a season comes out (and that set tends to be themed to the season) but otherwise, why should I switch up and experiment with my cosmetics when everything I owned I earned, or bought ages ago because I liked it.

I understand you'll never please everyone with every cosmetic drop for sure, but when every single outpost update is dripfeeding very specific sets (i.e. the arena sets), for no commendation requirements nor tied to progress, there's very little inspiration to spend gold on anything. It means nothing, it's just very small options every month.

There is SO many unused cosmetic options left in the files, and even if majority are recolours, want to make gold worth spending? RELEASE THEM! And make them worth earning or working towards rather than outright buying.

Then look at how gold can be spent in other ways. QOL features, more supply up options, reworking it into existing features, there's plenty to explore!

Started playing early 2020 and as many other long time players am a doubloon whxrx (~125K). I love the game and like most other obsessed players would love the opportunity to buy some of the early cosmetics - please consider this as a way to reward the long time, doubloon-rich players as there really is no other way to access some of these great cosmetics. I hope that there are more cosmetics than folks can buy with over 100K doubloons.

Reminds me of the old Bilge Rat adventures, personally. You smash mermaid statues, you get the wailing barnacle stuff. None left over unless you don't buy stuff.

A lot of people don't know how long they've wanted to straight up remove doubloons. I still remember noticing that they removed doubloons from commendations a long time ago.
Once the bilge rats kinda fell out of the story, doubloons almost did too.

I just hope 20k will be enough to put me in the "dedicated" category lol

@sonicbob I think the Emporium needs to have some stock put in the Black Market. Although there’s merit to what’s being proposed, the elephant in the room is the glaring disparity between the quality of items available for currencies other than ancient coins. This is made evident when showcasing seasons and what’s available at ship outposts is rather monotonous in detail in comparison to new additions to the Emporium.

This means that the primary concern is our wallets. After all, your pitch won’t be that doubloons and gold fund the studio. Players cut from the same cloth as myself, including some Partners, have made it known that current the current gameplay loop lacks sufficient incentive to maintain content vitality. This includes current currencies outweighing available stock worth buying and not just as a sink to lighten the load on the wallet. Since commendations leave much to be desired, it think it’s smart to put Emporium items in the Black Market so players can earn better sets and cosmetics via the gameplay loop rather than just pulling out the wallet and bypassing the game entirely to buy the better sets.

While I appreciate clearing some things up here I have two points:

1. That is an extremely small amount of commemorative doubloon rewards. Very disappointing.

2. Can we have a better doubloon to gold version rate? The current one Larinna has is really outdated and doesn’t represent how easy gold is to get compared to doubloons. I’ll probably have a lot of doubloons left over so would appreciate being fairly compensated for that.

The main underlying problem here is not just doubloons but its, by devs admission even, that the problem was ignored. So many things in this game are pointed out by the player base and ignored for extended periods of time and even years by devs. The game is undoubtedly dying at the hands of its own devs. I love this game but fear things have been ignored for so long that its past the point of no return. It seems there has been a wake up call and everything recently is fixing problems like doubloons and hourglass that has been complained about for years. The wake up call is too late. This is a fantastic game that has soooo much potential yet here we are. I would even bet that after the "rebalance" it will still not be balanced. Time will tell

I started Sea of ​​Thieves in July 2022, which means I've missed out on a lot of things during the seasons I haven't played and have now spent around 230,000 buying everything. I'm left with around 3000 Thanks.....

@shaixys said in Doubloon Currency - Developer Update:

As I said, if you're not around during "Bilge Rats Weekender," we have no way to get a reasonable amount of doubloon since they're going to nerf other duplicate sources.

You do realize that people can't play 30 days a month, and knowing you, like with Community Week, the event will only last 2 days at most.

More gatekeeping of content reserved for those who spend their lives on the game.

It's not like I'm not used to it; in 4 years you've completely destroyed the single-player experience, creating a monstrous imbalance between solo and multicrew players with all the new tools you've added without thinking about balance.

I imagine I should expect another event where all the multicrews will gleefully focus on kill all solo players, making it unplayable like all your recent "events" and "quests" where you've made a habit of placing markers to pinpoint players' positions on the map, just to further ruin solo play as usual.

I imagine we'll have to search for Bilge Rats chests marked on the map during the "Bilge Rats Weekender" to really rub salt in the wound.

Absolutely. It’s very rough as a solo after all the changes and the fomo model is so disrespectful and frustrating.

Thank you for clarifying. I was worried you were just taking money from us, but now I know my doubloons will converted gold. This is comforting. Not to say I like this decision, but thank you for this important detail.

What about vet players who spent all their dubs on gold throughout the years since there was nothing else to spend them on? Would they be able to get a refund so they can now spend them on this month window event?

Once the dust settles and your dedicated players stockpile again, are you going to reset at every new release?

No one else's wealth in this game affects anyone else in any way. There is no economy. And there are always going to be players who play more than others and get all the content you release. This doesn't fix anything, imo.

I'm glad that the doubloon has it's own thing and it's own market or should I say pirate Doubloon emporium

I logged in to mainly say - Thank you for the post!
Also, glad you are not going back on your decision.

Doubloons currency was broke already when I started the game a bit over 2 years ago - because:
New players - will never get doubloons for "old" items from plunder passes.
Old players - didn't need to spend those doubloons cause they have original items from plunder passes.
This created a huge difference between players which only grew bigger - so this idea of sink was bad whenever that was an idea. Maybe was good at start, but yeah. Bad overall, cause rich get richer and poor stay poor.
As I said before - this will also be personal and very subjective for everyone - so I also understand players who have 100k doubloons or more and like the number to go up..

I had few ideas for this, but I think I will keep them to myself at this point.
After all everyone who says "I've been saving for something special" - well, the commemorative item IS the "something special" you've been saving for.

Now, moving on. Once you convert doubloons to gold, and outpost items costing doubloons will cost gold - remember here to do conversion that we currntly can convert "x doubloons at Larinna into x gold" cause after all that is the "current market price".

Also, don't forget that EVERY commendation which rewards doubloons now, shouldn't reward doubloons cause some players may have it done and new ones won't have it done = doubloons advantage.
Then, convert doubloons to gold (or keep it in mind for adjustment) - all items that gives us doubloons now:
Ritual Skull
Rag & Bone Crate
Ashen Chest
Ashen Key
Ashen Tomes
Humble Gift
Generous Gift
Reaper's Chest

I may have missed something as this is from wiki and feels like it is not up to date - for sure not with purchase options.

Anyway. I also spot some keywords there:
(...)with both Doubloons and gold, they've lost their value over time. We feel it's time to bring them back as a core part of the Sea of Thieves experience, and we're starting here with Doubloons.

This would suggest that gold will be getting reworked here, too.
While this is happy news for me because it means no "Sea of Thieves 2" is in the works, because you really want to fix the "economy" here, I am not sure if gold sink in the form of super expensive and super shiny sails wouldn't be enough - something like Dark Adventure but for 100mil. Also, remember that the doubloon prices converted to gold, for sure will sink casual / newer players' wallets - and I am sure you already have that in mind and doubloons are just 1st step to see the stats after etc.

My personal line is if commendations would be reset, then I actually can quit, so hope you won't be resetting that - and this is not sarcasm, no pun intended, I'm just sharing my limits.
I don't mind currency resets, because this is earnable again and has no meaning to me as a number. The stories and history I have with commendations though is a no-go zone for me.

Once again, thank you for the post!

Would appreciate, if you can like the post (same as Becky does on Insider forums - this means the post was read/acknowledged)

Edit 1: changed Sea of Thieves to "Sea of Thieves 2"
Edit 2: Add info about like the post

As upset as I am going to be loosing 50,000 of these suckers, I am exited for an actual economy to come to the game.

I really don't like the idea of resetting currency.
I'd rather us get some sink to pour these into but if a hard reset is the only option then at least give us a sink before the reset other than gold.

I mean literally anything other than gold. I don't want to have leftover doubloons before the reset. That will feel really bad. And I don't want more gold.

If we are fixing the doubloons then I imagine will be fixing gold soon too. Which is good. But gold, as of now, is worthless. And I don't want to exchange doubloons for gold just for gold to be reset too.

Honestly, this is a good move. I’m glad to see Rare actually making more bold decisions like so many of us have been asking them to do for years now. Currency in the game as a whole is in a weird spot, and SoT felt best back when every piece of loot mattered. Both doubloons and gold forced real choices when you wanted to spend them. You had to decide what was worth buying and what wasn’t at the time. And that was much more fun than what we have now, which is "buy everything on patch day and not even feel it." At that point, currency stops being part of that core loop and just becomes a number that goes up that means absolutely nothing. And when everyone is filthy rich, nobody is.

So because of that, I’m 100% on board with a currency reset, gold included. I know that’s a boiling hot take, but if a currency has no long-term purpose anymore, hoarding it doesn’t really add value to the experience. And that’s why starting with resetting doubloons makes sense.

That said, this needs to be handled extremely carefully. This reset only works if the economy is rebuilt much better than last time, and we get rewards that actually incentivize continued play rather than one-and-done purchases. In Drew's post it says we will still be able to earn doubloons from Reaper Chests and Plunder Passes. And that is not a good idea. Reaper Chests are what caused the doubloon inflation in the first place. You used to only be able to obtain doubloons from certain commendations. This made purchasing those Year 1 items from Duke in the Black Market a difficult choice, one that made you think twice, and part of the reason why those items were so rare and sought after. Because you didn't have the opportunity to just buy everything at once without a care in the world. So when Reaper Chests came in 2019, that caused the start of doubloons beginning to lose their meaning. Doubloons should stay only earnable in the Bilge Rat Weekender, through a method we can only do or get during that time, to prevent this inflation from happening again.

Also, something I’m seeing a lot on Twitter and in YouTube comments is frustration from newer or casual players who have been actively acquiring Doubloons, but felt the need to spend them all on older Plunder Pass items in the shops. So while vets have mountains of doubloons to spend on these upcoming commemorative items, newer or casual players who are still active, won’t have the opportunity to earn those rewards. And because of how sudden this news was, that is where a lot of frustration is coming from, on top of hearing "We are taking away your doubloons". Is there anything that could be done for these types of players? Maybe refunding some of the doubloons spent on those Plunder Pass items that are about to be converted to gold anyway? Since doubloons will be reset shortly after, a large refund won't matter. This feels like a safe middle ground and a reasonable compromise to me.

One question I have: Are there any plans to bring back additional Year 1 sets in the Black Market other than Bone Crusher? Things like Wailing Barnacle, Mercenary, Festival of the Damned, Reaper, etc.? Knowing which Year 1 items are returning would go a long way in helping players understand what they’re working towards post reset.

I do appreciate the change here, and I think once this settles into retail, most people will look back and see that this was the right call to make. It’s certainly a tough call, but if this leads to currencies that actually matter and get people excited about playing again, then it’s a step in the right direction.

Will commendations still be a primary (or at all) way to earn doubloons after the reset? Will the current commendations that reward doubloons be stripped of that reward? If not then will anyone who has completed most of the commendations in the game be compensated after the reset?

It would be B S if little Timmy who just hit Pirate Legend last week have more exclusive currency than a year 1 veteran because they have fewer commendations completed before the reset.

I shouldn't have to be held accountable for Rare's mistakes. RARE fails to do things, neglects them etc. So because Rare didn't develop items for purchase with dubloons the solution is to take away ingame currency. While they try and sell us more ancient coins and emporium BS. How about making emporium items purchasble with a ridiculously high amount of dubloons. Because I'll be damned uf i drop a cent towards this unstable, glitch filled game with rampant cheaters and now pay to win audio . Microtransactions and FOMO is a terrible product.

Thank you for the clarification!

I’m not opposed to this. I think it will help keep the seas sound and foster more adventure opportunities in the future.

An advance list of the cost would be helpful so for those of on the cusp could grind out some additional doubloons would be helpful.

Also honestly resetting gold every season would be cool too.

"A monthly recurring Live Event".

That is simply not frequent enough for a Live Service Game. If you're sticking with monthly events, it can not be something that only goes on for 2 days during a Weekend. It has to be a weekly event (7 days), so that people actually have time to get on and take part.

@sonicbob

Glad to hear there will be an automatic conversion for left-over doubloons and that absent players will also get commemorative Doubloon-themed items.

I wonder, if a person buys two of these but has enough left over to buy more, will these automatically be bought for them or will this only work for players who haven't logged in during the month or so in S19 ?

People who are not interested in one or more commemorative Doubloon-themed items obviously have the choice to convert enough doubloons at Larinna's shop so they won't be added, but people (I at least) would like to know if it's necessary.
Perhaps adding an option to convert more doubloons at Larinna's shop, e.g. 500 for 100,000 would be helpful as well (same conversion rate as the highest currently available), will also remove some strain for the shop-server on the last day before the reset 😁.

I know there are plenty of regular players who'll have multiples of the number of doublouns I have, but among the "big collecters" will also be people who got them on pre-made alliance servers, I do hope that when you decide on the pricing of the commemorative Doubloon-themed items those out-layers will be ignored.

@sanana94 said in Doubloon Currency - Developer Update:

Literally months ago, I started spending all my Doubloons to get every cosmetic in the game. I'm only missing maybe 20 items priced 600 each.
This kinda sucks, as I have to farm an incredible amount of Doubloons in such a short time to be sure I can unlock those cosmetics.

Or wait until after the reset and buy them with gold; keep to your doubloons to see if you want to buy the commemorative Doubloon-themed items.

This sounds great! Game economy needed and still needs attention.
What is the plan to avoid similar situations in the future? Very active players will inevitably accommodate huge amount of doubloons - what then? Please consider seasonal reset. I want to care about the currency.

I hope you will find a way to fix gold too.

@rorenxbox

Yup! saw video pop up on my lunch break and skipped through quickly (no sound, just CC) while talking to collegues then went home. I started selling my blue coins while watching the video from start to hear it all... to my own disgusted reaction at clickbait title. 31k down the drain. My bad but branded as going away... RIP possibly special cosmetics.

As many people stated, the pricing of these items being only for veteran players only feels off. I missed some seasons and have spent most of doubloons on these past items in the stores. Now with 2000 left, with the wording, it feels like i don't even have to log in for the items, since i won't be able to afford them. Can you guys do something about it, maybe count lifetime doublooms and give the items based on that?

I have been spending my doubloons so I feel like I'm being penalized for using the currency as intended since I won't be able to afford the limited items. They should be rewarded based on lifetime doubloons earned instead.