Skull and Bones Update 1.000.010 Sails Out for Y1S2.1

GAMEPLAY UPDATES & IMPROVEMENTS

MANUFACTORY DEFENSE REBALANCE

• Reduced penalty timer for a failed Manufactory Defense.
  • Reduced the recovery time for a damaged Manufactory (capped at 4 hours).

Manufactory Level	Damage Recovery Time (hr)
1	1
2	1
3	1
4	2
5	2
6	2
7	3
8	3
9	3
10	4

CALL-FOR-HELP

• Expanded fast travel locations to include events, plunders, and when responding to calls for help.
  • Players can now fast travel to events (e.g. Elite Warship, Bounties) from land or from sea, at a silver cost based on distance if they are not involved in combat, and are not participating in Helm opportunities, or other world activities like Helm Wager, Cutthroat Cargo, etc.
  • Players can fast travel to plunderable POIs when responding to a call-for-help initiated by another player at no silver cost.
  • Calls-for-Help: Players responding to a call-for-help initiated by another player can fast travel to the activity (e.g. World Event…) at no silver cost.

WEAPONS

• Torpedoes are no longer destroyed when traveling through non-hostile minefields from a Springloader Buoy that is owned by yourself or another friendly (PVP-off) player.

CONTRACTS

• Added alternative trigger condition for Main Contracts to increase accessibility to the following contracts:
  • “A Smuggler’s Way” – can also be triggered upon reaching Infamy Tier: Rover.
  • “A Covert Initiation” – can also be triggered upon reaching Infamy Tier: Buccaneer.
  • “The Horizon Beckons” – can also be triggered upon reaching Infamy Tier: Brigand.

BOUNTY CONTRACTS

• Reduce the cooldown period of all Bounty Contracts to 30 minutes.
• Expanded available locations for obtaining sea monster Bounty contracts.
  • “Anguish from the Abyss” can now be accepted from the Mysterious Rogue in The Oubliette outpost.
  • “Jaws of Retribution” can now be accepted from the Sea People Huntmaster in Lanitra outpost.
  • “Silent Death” can now be accepted from the Sea People Huntmaster in Lanitra outpost.

SHIPS

• Added a new perk to the Dhow.
  • “Out of Sight” Perk: Reduce detection by ships bigger than the Dhow.
• Increased manoeuvrability of small ships:
  • Increase speed of all small ships by up to 2 knots when sailing in favourable winds for at least 3 seconds.
  • Increase turn rate of all small ships when at full sail, half sail and when trimming.

SHIP UPGRADES

• Updated following ship upgrades for small ships:
  • “Bow Upgrade” perk renamed to “Stations Upgrade”.
  • “Stations Upgrade”, “Gunport Upgrade” perks (at upgrade step 1) no longer provide 5% reload time reduction but will instead provide 25% extra damage and healing output bonus on broadsides.
  • “Big Guns”, “Heavy Arsenal” perks (at upgrade step 4) no longer provide 10% reload time reduction but will instead provide 50% extra damage and healing output bonus on broadsides.
    • Dev note: Enhanced small ship perks, making them more viable to offset the lack of gun ports particularly on the broadside.
• Updated the ship upgrade menu to show the player-set ship name instead of the ship type.
  • Dev note: This makes it easier for players with multiple ships of the same model to locate a specific ship to upgrade.

DAMAGE MITIGATION REDUCTION

• Damage Mitigation now stacks diminishingly instead of additively. This change reduces the overall damage mitigation, particularly at higher levels of stacking, ensuring a more balanced gameplay experience.
  • For example, by equipping these 2 items, Black Prince armour: 50% mitigation (when ship is at less than 33% health) + Iron Capstan furniture: 15% mitigation (when ship is anchored).

Original calculation	New Calculation
50% + 15% = 65% 65% damage mitigated	100% – (100%-50%) x (100%-15%) = 57.5% 57.5% damage mitigated

• Dev note: We have identified an issue where damage mitigation stacking was excessively high due to its additive formula. This led to scenarios where mitigation reached impractical levels, trivializing content and reducing the intended challenge. We are planning to make several balance changes, but we have decided to accelerate this particular fix due to its significant impact on the game.

LOOT/ REWARDS

• Players will no longer need to dock at a den to secure their Pieces of Eight obtained from Bronze, Silver and Gold Raider Caches.

WORLD EVENTS TIMER

• Extended duration of Anguish from the Abyss, The Blighted Bastion, and Chorus of Havoc Elite Warships world events from 18 minutes to 30 minutes.

UI/UX

• Added a tooltip in the Helm Overview menu to indicate when players own the maximum number of manufactories.
• Added an Interface setting that controls the “Default Selection” in Journal.
  • Determines which objective is selected by default when opening the Journal.
    • Tracked (default): When opening the Journal, the tracked objective is selected.
    • Top: When opening the Journal, the first objective in the list is selected.
• Added section in the tooltips to display possible rewards obtainable from a chest (displays up to 5 rewards from the list of potential rewards).
• Updated Silver currency display in multiple menus to show values beyond 999999+.
• Added details for when the next set of contracts in the subsequent episode are available.
• Removed red indicator when viewing other equipment at the Vendors or at the Customization screen.
• Darkened the sides of the main menu to increase contrast of Menu options and IGN article slots.

AUDIO

• Added “Chorus of Havoc” background music in the Main Menu.

BUG FIXES

COMBAT

• Fixed an issue where the “Raised Quarterdeck” did not correctly reduce incoming status effect damage.
• Fixed an issue where ship rank damage multipliers were not being applied when attacking towers and forts.

HELM UPGRADE

• Fixed an issue where the “Master Distillers” upgrade does not work when player is offline.

SMUGGLER’S PASS

• Fixed an issue where the “Freebooter Moustache” piece from the Versailles set was not unlocked even after unlocking the “Bourgeois Bundles” A and B from the Smuggler’s Pass.
• Fixed an issue where incorrect rewards were provided on Tier 15 of the Gunner Master track.
  • The incorrect items: “Ornate Hakama” and “Yoroi Boots” will be replaced with the intended rewards: “Nightsong Pants” and “High Snap Boots”.
  • For players who have already redeemed their rewards, the replacement will take place in your Vanity inventory.

VANITY

• Fixed an issue where the “Sealskin Boots” was missing from the Treasure Hunter set.

UI/UX

• Fixed the Helm Wager destination icon to be consistent with other PVP activities’ icons.
• Fixed an issue where the penalty for failing a Manufactory Defense was not being displayed on the activity tooltip.
• Fixed an issue where the “Manufactory Under Siege” tooltip did not disappear after an unsuccessful Manufactory Defense.
• Fixed an issue where entering the Store from the Item Preview Screen causes an out of currency error message.
• Fixed inconsistent background that is displayed in the Manufactory Buyout tutorial during gameplay.
• Previews of cosmetic items that were planned to be released later in the season have been removed, it will be available on display when the vanity item is available at the Rotative Store.
• Fixed an issue where incorrect descriptions of the “Ebon Pirate Set” and the “Versailles Set” were displayed in the vanity atelier.
• Fixed an issue where Ship Upgrade requirements were displayed outside of the widget borders after tracking the blueprint.
• Fixed an issue where the recommended Ship Rank shown in the Journal does not match the contract target ships’ Ship Rank.

JOB BOARD REWARDS

• Fixed a bug where low difficulty level job board contracts rewarded players with chest.
  • Dev note: The job board chests were intended as a bonus to reward players who took on Jobs of a higher difficulty level.

CONTRACTS

• Fixed an issue where the contract “Plague and Poison” was not being triggered after completing the contract “Dressed to Kill”.
• Remove contracts that were unintentionally triggered causing affected players to be stuck at the following contracts: (the contract will become available again at the correct narrative progression)
  • “The Pirate’s Lament”
  • “Dissonant Disappearance”
  • “Rhapsody in Red”
  • “Rhythemic Retrieval”
  • “Ballad of Destruction”
  • “Clashing Cadence”
• Fixed an issue where the contracts’ reward was not being updated properly after unlocking the Helm upgrades: Helm Contracts I, II and III.
  • Dev note: the fix will be applied to newly generated contracts, and not to ongoing contracts.
• Fixed an issue where the repeatable contract “The Tow of Empire” was not available after completing Rahma’s main contracts.
• Fixed an issue where the rewards of Job Board contracts located in the Red Isle were giving Silver chests instead of the Gold chests.
• Players are now no longer able to abandon the contract “A Shipwrecked Soul”.
• Fixed an issue where a party member’s contribution to the contract “Destroy DMC Towers” was not reflected in the UI of the contract.
• Fixed an issue where the contract “East Indies Delicacy” was rewarding less rewards than intended.
• Fixed an issue where the recommended ship rank of the contract “Symphony of Cannons” was lower than intended.
• Fixed an issue where the contract location of “Sable Refrain” and “Argent Refrain” was incorrectly displayed in the Journal.
• Fixed an issue where the Job board contracts “Hunt Merchants”, and “Sink for Drugs” were highlighting an incorrect trade route.
• Fixed an issue where players receive “Joka Kubwa’s Head” from sinking the first wave of reinforcements in the bounty contract.
• Fixed an issue where players were unable to discard contract items like “Ornate Special Ammo Crate” and “Escape Letter” after completing the respective contracts.
• Fixed an issue where the contract objective was not displayed after accepting the repeatable contract “In for Skins”.
• Fixed an issue where the shared contract “Jaws of Retribution” was being persistently displayed on the group members’ UI when the group leader leaves the group.
• Fixed an issue where the contract “Loadout: Bombard” does not update after players sink Rogue Warships that were spawned during Rival Hunts using bombards.
• Fixed an issue where the contract “Loadout: Mortars” does not update after players destroy the DMC towers.
• Fixed an issue where the recommended ship rank for the contract “Loadout: Mortars” is incorrectly displayed as 7 instead of 6.
• Fixed an issue where the contract “Steven’s Ruby Tune” was displaying incorrect values on the objective tracker.
• Fixed an issue where the contract “Smugglers’ Way” was not given on completion of the contract “Shadow of Spoils”.

WORLD EVENTS

• Lowered the pre-requisite of the “Convoy of High Spirits” world event icon being displayed on the map from Infamy Tier Cutthroat to Infamy Tier Brigand.

MULTIPLAYER

• Fixed an issue where accepting a group invite could redirect the player to the title screen instead of joining the group’s server.

GRAPHICS

• Fixed an issue where players could see other players visually sunken into the ground.

AUDIO

• Fixed an issue where audio feedback was missing for pressing a button when picking up floating loot in the sea.

LOCALIZATION

• Fixed an issue where the “Clear storage space to fund” message was missing in Polish and Spanish localizations.

ACHIEVEMENTS/CHALLENGES

• Fixed an issue where Time Limited Challenges were not showing the required quantity for challenges’ objectives.
• Fixed an issue where achievements were being unlocked during the trial version.

PERFORMANCE AND OPTIMIZATION

• Improved stability on Xbox platforms.
  • Dev note: We are actively investigating the remaining stability issues on Xbox platforms.
• Improved stability for Ship Upgrade.
• General stability improvements.
• Fixed an issue where a frame rate drop was observed after spamming the Cycle inventory button while previewing ship vanities in the Shipwright.
• Fixed an issue where significant frame drops could be observed when submitting a contract.
• Fixed an issue where significant frame drops could be observed when sailing and fighting ships in the Open Seas region.