Changing Tides

Each of the four major updates last year focused on a different marquee feature. The Hungering Deep brought Megalodons into the game, a new unpredictable roaming threat to add variety to your journeys. The Cursed Sails brought Skeleton Ship Battles, multi-ship naval confrontations that act as one of this game’s “raids”, something that all players on the server can see is happening and choose to drop what they’re doing and team up against. The Forsaken Shores brought an expansion to the map with a new PvE focused region- the volcano laden hellscape of The Devil’s Roar offers a more difficult challenge for questing with greater potential rewards. I’ll discuss the fourth update, Shrouded Spoils, later on. In between each of these major updates were smaller updates, called “Bilge Rat Adventures”, each focused on a single new gameplay feature. Between all of these updates, Rare has gradually ticked away at their criticisms, and while no single feature is a total game changer, the wealth of updates has finally started to add up.

Unimpressed with the launch state of intra crew organization and inter crew interaction?

The game now has private crew settings, a three-player optimized ship, better cross crew communication with the mega-phone-esque Speaking Trumpet and flag system, and a formalized method to create alliances among ships and share in each other’s spoils.

For a game whose entire progression is centered around cosmetics, you didn’t think it had enough at launch?

In addition to adding tons of new sets of outfits and ship decals, including badass Kraken and Skeleton themed ones, they’ve also added many more options for what you can customize, including tattoos, scars, hair color, face paint, ship wheels, cannons, capstan, and flag.

Thought the three main quest types are too easy or repetitive?

Skeletons now have the ability to spawn carrying explosive kegs or sniper rifles, which significantly impacts the Order of Souls voyages but also impacts you no matter what you’re doing on land. Resource crate delivery quests are more common and valuable, and a new type of Merchant Alliance quest called a cargo run allows you to chain multiple together so you can deliver cargo while doing other voyages. Trading Company commendations have been rebalanced to be more achievable, and Bilge Rat Doubloons allow you to buy your way up the trading companies by doing other tasks instead of core voyages. You can also get treasure from Krakens, Megalodons, and Skeleton Ships, and the rewards in Ship Battles and Skull Forts have been upped and rebalanced. Not to mention, the Devil’s Roar region lets you take on harder versions of your typical quests, for loot that is worth double the treasure you’re used to.

Just interested in PvP but disliked its balance?

The weapons have been rebalanced, and Cursed Cannonballs add significant variety to encounters while also balancing out the need to board a ship for a successful offense. The new Stronghold Gun Powder barrel is yet another tool in your arsenal for spectacularly explosive results, AND you now have a PvP focused flag that will telegraph your position to any other player on the server.