It’s been coming for a little while, but now Rare has applied Sea of Thieves’ December update, bringing with it a bunch of adjustments to Season 14’s more cunning weapons and applying another nerfing to PvE Safer Seas mode.
This patch makes improvements to the grapple gun’s range and reel-in speed, lets players change dart types for the blowpipe weapon via a radial menu, and stops the enchanted merfruit item from being an automatically selected form of character sustenance. One thing that was delayed for this patch is the mimic dart, which has missed an internal quality bar and will have to wait until the new year to land.
Another big part of the patch is the “improvement” to Safer Seas, which brings gold and reputation earnings up to the High Seas PvP mode’s standards but caps reputation level from 40 to 25. Rare Ltd. has categorized this adjustment as a way to onboard new players into the game and encourage them to get into the gankbox instead – despite acknowledging the mode being used as a form of escapism from gankbox play.
Speaking of pushing players into High Seas, the game’s seasonal events for the mode are en route: The Festival of Giving event will arrive on December 18th, granting players a free festive flag, double rewards for treasure turn-ins, and daily guilded voyage hand-outs. The game will also kick off a Gold and Glory week event that grants extra gold and reputation between December 30th and January 6th to ring in the new year.
