Sea of Thieves – 2.8.3 Patch Notes | Massive Gameplay Improvements!

Reduced Cannonball Knockback

• Players sailing a Galleon or Brigantine will find that the knockback from cannonball splash damage no longer propels them so far into the air, preventing them from being so easily sent overboard. However, they will still be knocked back and disorientated by the blast. This change makes the knockback experience consistent across all ship sizes.

Captains of Adventure Balancing

• A large number of Pirate and Ship Milestones have been rebalanced to make gaining Classes easier, and any progress already made will automatically be converted, potentially boosting players to higher Classes.
• The number of Classes required to buy the four tiers of Trinkets has been significantly reduced.
• The cost for saving cosmetics to a Captained ship has been removed, and this function is now free.
• The gold cost for purchasing ship decorations and Trinkets has been significantly reduced.
• Any Captain’s Beds that unlock through Milestones will now unlock at Class 2 instead of Class 5.

Video Support

• Players logging in to Sea of Thieves will find that the front end menu now has the ability to display video content. This will serve the latest trailers and content directly in-game, and once watched or skipped will return to the beloved Map Table animation.
• Players will now also find video content within the What’s New section of the front end menu, which can be browsed and rewatched on demand.

Aristocrat Hairstyles

• The urge to style yourself exquisitely needn’t stop when you reach the top of your head, as these additional hairstyles become available from Outpost shops.

Captain’s Week (June 15th – June 22nd)

• To encourage pirates to test the waters of Captaincy and explore the permanent improvements introduced this month, the Captain’s Week Event comes with a whole package of perks!
• Enjoy heavy discounts on ship purchases, boosted rewards when sailing on a Captained ship, new weapons to earn by using the Sovereigns’ services and a Pirate Emporium sale full of bargains for keen Captains.
• Visit the Captain’s Week Event page for more, and discover details on the permanent Captaincy changes in the dedicated news article.

Twitch Drops

• Continue to unlock cosmetics throughout Season Nine with Twitch Drops! Stay tuned to Sea of Thieves social channels to find out when Twitch Drops will be active for Partnered streamers, allowing players to earn a selection of items from the Eastern Winds Sapphire set.
• Find out how to link your accounts and more on our dedicated Twitch Drops page.

Gameplay

• Seagulls above barrels no longer prevent Megalodons from appearing across the seas, bringing the frequency of Megalodon encounters back to intended levels.
• Letters of Recommendation and Ritual Skull Voyages from Larinna have now been refreshed, and players can purchase twice the usual amount to cover those missed last month.

Battle for the Sea of Thieves

• The Hourglass is no longer interactable after a ship has been sunk, or scuttled by the crew.
• Crews losing a battle should now consistently be sent to the sinking wreck sequence and moved to a new location.

Captains of Adventure

• Rowboats that become damaged while docked to a ship will now visually show the damage prior to being undocked.
• The Pirate Milestone for Rowboats Docked will now increase when a Rowboat is docked to your ship by any player.

Pirate Emporium

• The icon for the Night Wulf Eye of Reach is now centered.
• The Crab Dab Emote and Monkey Dance Emote are no longer showing their sale prices.
• The Cutler Beckett Costume Set has now been updated to show the correct description of the item.

Visual and Audio

• When fishing, the names of fish that surface will now be shown consistently.
• The Flag of the Bristling Barnacle can now be equipped on a Brigantine.
• Pirates’ hands no longer intersect with the Order of Souls and Merchant Alliance Shovels.
• When approaching the location of an active Bounty Quest, the music will now consistently switch to the appropriate theme.

Text and Localisation

• The action of delivering, giving and selling items is now more clearly translated when playing in the Korean language.
• ‘The Legendary Storyteller’ – The Quest Book now correctly references Port Merrick.
• ‘Dark Brethren’ – A typo in the initial notification when starting the Tale from a checkpoint has been corrected.

Performance and Stability

• Improved server performance when large numbers of floating items are left at sea.
• Improved server stability to avoid instances of players being disconnected from their session.
• Steam players encountering a file corruption issue will now be shown an error message on launch rather than becoming stuck in a loop.

Reduced Server Performance

• Players may experience scenarios where they encounter ping spikes at random while playing, resulting in rubberbanding or client stutters. While improvements were most recently released in update 2.7.3, the team continue to work on further improvements for future updates.

Ranged and Melee Weapon Hit Detection

• In areas of intense action, players may find themselves firing shots or landing strikes that do not cause damage to their targets. While small improvements continue to be delivered during our regular updates, we are continuing to investigate and identify further improvements to the player combat experience.