SEASON 2 HIGHLIGHTS

Another season ends, and another begins! While our Season 2 "Chorus of Havoc" is now officially over, it is time for the next chapter, "Into the Dragon's Wake" to follow up and bring its own share of new content and improvements to Skull and Bones.

Before we do that, we wanted to continue a habit taken back in May and give you an overview of our thoughts on how everything went, the good and the bad, but also highlight some of the changes coming that we hope will get you excited.

The first thing we want to highlight and show appreciation for once again is the never-ending flow of community support and feedback we've been receiving since launch, and throughout Season 2 more specifically. As a studio, we have made a strong commitment since launch: to bring new content to the game for years to come of course, but also to continuously improve our game's core formula and bring it to new heights based on our players' feedback. While this task isn't always easy, it wouldn't be possible without the help of those of you who spend time and effort sharing their thoughts on our subreddit ,Discord , and other social media channels. Thank you and please, keep the suggestions coming!

With the launch of our Season 2 and its subsequent updates, we introduced several changes that have drastically impacted our core gameplay loop, which we wanted to take a look back at.

The first and arguably one of the most important, was the introduction of our Fleet Management feature. Allowing you to put your unused ships to work, this feature was a direct response to player feedback from Season 1. While your request was for us to give you a way to automatize the Pieces of Eight collection, the goal for us was to free up some of your time and increase participation in other, more engaging world event activities.

Tagging along quite well with fleet management was the introduction of our ship upgrades mechanics. Key feedback gathered indicated a strong desire from our players to bring all ships, small and medium, to a more even playing field. The idea was to give more freedom to our players when choosing which ships they wanted to bring to battle, but also reinforce the fleet you could assign to your Pieces of Eight collection route.

Additional changes implemented in our Y1S2.1 and Y1S2.2 updates respectively were the option to fast travel to a player using our "Call for Help" feature, followed by the option to fast travel to any activity, and last but not least, our new Recommended Activities tab.

All these changes combined have had a significant and lasting impact on the way you engage with our content. Freeing up time from the Pieces of Eight, encouraging you to hunt and gather new materials and rewards, while making it easier for you to join other players have increased engagement in our world event activities significantly, and we hope, provided you with memorable moments whether you chose to play solo, or together with your friends.

All that being said, we're also very aware of various sources of frustrations experienced by some of you and shared with us throughout season 2. Most of which we've already started to address but will continue to monitor and improve on through future updates.

Before we jump into the concrete steps we've taken to address key player feedback and issues raised during Season 2, we would like to reiterate that your voice truly matters to us and that we continue to pay a very close attention to everything you share with us through our bug reporter, or any of our community channels.

SEASON 3 IMPROVEMENTS

Warehouse Space & Cargo Management

One key community request we received early on was for an increase in warehouse space, exacerbated by all the new weapons, armour, furniture added in Season 2, but also by the increased demand for materials required for ship upgrades.

With the last update of Season 2, update 2.2, the warehouse space was increased from 200 to 250 for pirate captains at the rank of Kingpin. In addition, we've also updated the filters to allow you to select more than one category of item, allowing you to more easily find the items you are looking for.

In Season 3, we're also adding two new features that we hope will help alleviate this issue: Item Salvaging, allowing you to break down unused equipment to obtain materials, and material combination, giving you the option to use materials in your possession to create better ones.

The topic of warehouse space but also more generally cargo management is something we'll continue to keep a close eye on and further improve to remove any source of frustration players might have.

Reward Chest Drop Rates

Another feedback raised was the drop rate on reward chests obtained from our world event activities, that many of you perceived as too low. We're aware of the incredible amount of time and efforts some of you have dedicated trying to obtain specific furniture, armour, weapons or cosmetics.

While our most recent update already brought an increase in drop rates for specific reward chests, Season 3 will see an increase in drop rate for all seasonal bosses drops. Our subsequent updates, 3.1 and 3.2 will also bring improvements to drop rates in general as well as to our drop rate system. Keep an eye out for future communication on this topic and do let us know how you feel about these changes.

A gritty, more grounded pirate game theme & setting

Some of you have also shared concerns about some of our cosmetic offers, and to some extent some of our new gameplay addition were deriving too far from the gritty pirate setting you first fell in love with.

While we know some of our players enjoy the fantasy elements brought throughout Season 1, 2 and 3, we also understand your concerns on this matter. Our goal has always been to ensure we find the right balance between a grounded pirate experience, and the opportunity to bring more variety through fantasy. Thanks to your feedback on this topic, our team of artists and designers will continue their effort to deliver assets that better match your expectations moving forward. While changes on that aspect might not be perceived right away, we hope you continue to voice your opinion on the matter and tell us which aspects of Season 3 you enjoy the most, or the least, and why.

Silver Economy and Vengeful Essence Soft Reset

Another growing concern you've shared with us towards the end of Season 1, and throughout Season 2, was the impact the duplication of Vengeful Essence used by some players has had on the player driven trading market.

Regarding this complex topic, we first wanted to assure you we have been monitoring the situation since the beginning and take this matter very seriously. We know some of you would have expected a swifter reaction from us, and we have taken the necessary measures internally to ensure we are not only able to accurately and efficiently detect such issues faster in the future, but also react accordingly to avoid them from occurring again.

To address the issue at end, we have taken the time necessary to properly investigate and identify any unusual number of valuable items or silver currently in possession of any specific player. We have also made a rough estimation of the amount of said items or silver we expect players should be owning from actively playing our game throughout Season 2.

Based on the information collected, we have decided to apply the following measures with the launch of Season 3, to ensure all our players begin the season on a fair and relatively even ground:

• A soft reset of all players inventory to a maximum of 350 Vengeful Essence.

• A soft reset of all players inventory to a maximum of 1500 Sea Monster Fangs

• A soft reset of all players silver wallet to a maximum of 150 million Silver.

We'd like to highlight that our approach with this soft reset does not reflect the exact estimation made from the investigations mentioned above, but a rather generous take on it. While we do believe it is our responsibility to provide a fair and even playground for all, we also believe more severe sanctions should only be given to players who willingly take advantage of a bug, or cheat, to gain an unfair advantage, which was not the case in this specific scenario.

Last but not least, we've also been paying very close attention throughout the entire season to the bugs and issues causing the game to crash, especially for those of you playing on Xbox. We are confident in saying we have addressed most critical issues raised throughout Season 2, and Xbox game crashes in particular which have been reduced by a ratio of 5.

Season 3 starts today!

Once again, we want to take this opportunity to thank all of our players for their support, engagement and passion for our game. We have many great things planned for Season 3, from the new Battle Junk ship and its new perk to new weapons, armour and furniture bringing exciting status effects. Not to mention a bunch of new threats all arriving to the Indian Ocean and for you to stand against. Keep an eye out for the Season 3 Gameplay trailer coming out later today!

You should also look forward to the next chapter of our Year one narrative, which you can preview from our Season 3 Story trailer if you haven't done so already.

Beyond all that, throughout Season 3 and its subsequent updates, we want to reaffirm our commitment to bringing many quality-of-life changes, based on your feedback and suggestions. Our entire development team is looking forward to your feedback on Season 3 and to continue forging our own pirate adventure with you all!

Thanks again for all your support and see you on the high seas!
The Skull and Bones Development Team