Year 3 Season 2 Recap Stream - Highlights

Hi Captains,

Almost a month after Year 3 Season 2 and this time we went live on The Deck to talk about how the season went. Samuel Soh joined us to answer the questions while Neo handled gameplay as usual.

For the full VOD, click here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXPYdf0Pslc Below are the key highlights

BUGS

Q: The Cosmetic and Arsenal loadout wipe, why did it take so long to fix?

The issue was tied to a change in the save structure, which caused existing loadouts to be treated as new and reset.

The simple fix would have been to revert it, but that would have wiped loadouts a second time for anyone who had already logged into Y3S2 and rebuilt them. So, we needed a solution that preserved the loadouts for players who had logged in while reverting it for those who had not, so nobody got wiped twice.

Implementation took about a week. Testing took about two more, because a second wipe would have been far worse than a slow fix.

Q: Why do bugs happen every season, and why do patches sometimes look like they are fixing trivial things?

No game can be completely bug-free, and the live environment is never exactly the same as development. Following the Y3S2 launch, we are reassessing our development and testing flow to reduce the likelihood of these issues happening again. However, we cannot catch everything, which is why we genuinely rely on your reports through the Bug Reporter, Discord, Reddit and our other channels.

We bring those reports together to understand how widespread each issue is and assess its impact. Progression blockers and anything affecting server stability naturally receive the highest priority.

Some smaller fixes were already identified before launch but missed the release window. That is why patches released during the first couple of weeks may appear to focus on cosmetic issues or unlocalised text. Those fixes were already in the pipeline, they were not chosen ahead of more serious issues.

ABYSSAL ESSENCE

Q: Limited Abyssal Essence and the Rode Maangodin, what was actually broken?

We know Abyssal Essence has felt too limited, especially considering how important it is for progression and Mod Transfer. Part of that pressure came from three separate issues that made Essence harder to earn,or made it look like it had not dropped at all.

Abyssal Essence drops were not clearly visible, loot marker beams could disappear at certain distances, and the Rode Maangodin was not dropping Essence in World Tier 4.

All three issues were fixed in Tuesday’s patch. We will continue monitoring drop rates and your feedback, while also working on additional ways to earn Abyssal Essence throughout the season.

Currently we are looking at an option where you will be able to trade Guildmarks for both Abyssal Essence and Vengeful Essence, so there are multiple sources rather than a single pressured one. That is part of a broader set of improvements to the grind and to Essence availability.

Q: Could the Refinery convert materials like Ethereal Ashes into Abyssal Essence?

Not at the moment, but as above, we are adding more ways to obtain Essence through the Blackwood vendor.

MASTERY TREE

Q: The seasonal reset feels grindy and punishing. What is changing?

Seasonal progression should give you something meaningful to work towards, but it should not feel like you are starting from scratch every season. On average, reaching Mastery 80 takes around 40 hours, and in Y3S2, players at 60 points returned to 5, while those at 80 returned to 20.

Starting with Y3S3, you will retain half of your Mastery points, rounded down to the nearest five. For example, 10 points will become 5, while a completed 80-point tree will start at 40. This immediately unlocks the first two tiers of perks and places you around the end of World Tier 3 or the beginning of World Tier 4.

With this change, we expect Seasonal Mastery progression to be at least 30% faster than in Y3S2, while allowing you to retain much more of your power when the new season begins. We will also continue refining the Mastery curve so each seasonal transition feels less repetitive and more respectful of the time you have already invested.

Q: Can Mastery loadouts be turned off for Death Tides, and when PvP flags are raised?

Yes. Mastery loadouts were never intended to be available in PvP. That issue has finally been fixed and should have gone out in Tuesday's update.

Q: Is Perforate working as intended, or is it bugged?

We looked into it properly with the designers, and our stance is that Perforate is working as intended. The description, however, does not fully represent what Perforate actually is , so we are updating that description in a couple of weeks to clarify.

It does look a little strong right now. But players have already put the grind in, and we do not want to take that fun away. We want builds like this to exist and be exciting to discover.

COMBAT 2.0

Q: What is happening with Combat 2.0, and when can we expect it?

The broader part of Combat 2.0 focuses on making status effects and damage types more meaningful when building your loadout. This requires a full balance pass across weapons, armour, furniture and perks, followed by enemy AI and PvP balancing.

We originally aimed to deliver the whole overhaul in Y3S3, but decided to give it more development and testing time and it may now arrive in Y3S4, while the first stage of it is planned for the next season starting with improvements to small and medium ships, so they remain viable for players who prefer their speed, handling and playstyle. They will not necessarily match large ships in raw damage, but choosing a large ship should no longer feel mandatory.

SEASONAL CONTENT

Q: There is not enough seasonal content. How is the team approaching this?

We hear the feedback that seasons need more variety, more rewarding goals and stronger reasons to keep coming back.

In Year 1, we built each season around a new Kingpin boss. While that brought regular new content, the pace was not sustainable and created a technical debt that eventually had to be addressed.

Our approach now is to build more depth and replayability into the content we create, with new encounter variations, challenges and rewards, while continuing to introduce new content. The Abyssal Envoy, which arrived in Week 5 of Y3S2 with new mechanics and behaviours, is one example of that approach.

For future seasons, more new Elite Bosses are planned , alongside Trials , a new way to challenge your builds, strategy and combat efficiency. We will share more as these features progress through testing.

Q: How is the team balancing new content against stability and polish?

The priority is shifting to quality-focused delivery.

That reduces risk. Something new with a short testing window and no proven track record carries more of it. Being slightly less ambitious and refining instead gives us longer testing periods and a more focused view, so instead of delivering five to ten things a season we are reducing that number to make sure the quality is actually there and so the time and energy freed up goes into fixing bugs, including the ones that are not critical but are still annoying.

You will see less of the brand-new-system approach , things like Mod Transfer or Seasonal Mastery and more building on top of what exists.

That is not to say we will not build new content. We want to stress that we are continuing to build content. We are just not building extremely big things right now, because we want to be able to deliver on our promises. We have learned over time that we tend to be ambitious (which is not a bad thing in itself, or we would not have the Kraken) but on some things we need to make sure we are not biting off more than we can chew.

You can see this in Y3S3 already: the content and feature set is deliberately smaller so we have room to respond to feedback. That space is exactly why the bug fixes in Y3S2.1, the reset improvements, the grind improvements and the Adept Mod UI could be pulled forward from Y3S3 into Y3S2.1. Keeping our resources from being fully tied up in future content means we can react to you faster than we could before.

Q: Are new ships coming in Y3S3?

Yes , and we are trying something new by delivering two ships : one large, and one small. That is not something we will reliably do every season; we want to see how players respond to more ship variety.

Alongside that, we are improving small and medium ships in Y3S3. They will not match large ships for damage output, but the gap will close significantly, so pursuing a large ship stops feeling mandatory if you prefer how smaller ships play. The Dungiyah is a small ship and will perform close enough to a large ship.

Q: Any sneak peaks for upcoming seasons?

A new UI feature we are testing is Quest Log. It shows your quest completion and how the storylines tie together, so you can see whether you have fully explored them. For players who have finished the storylines, completing a quest gives you a summary recapping what happened. You can navigate it, hover, and track quests directly from that menu.

We are also about to start the next Insider Program Phase (not next week, but the week after), where players will be able to get their hands on the two new ships, new event, and the first stage of Combat 2.0.

Your feedback and comments will help us polish and make the necessary adjustments to incorporate the content in the upcoming seasons. And if there is additional time needed, we will take it to ensure the quality of delivery of the final content, which is in line with the approach of releasing things when they are ready.

Q: Could we get more interaction with Lucian Harrow?

You caught a little of that in the Quest Log screenshot.

Q: Any sorting improvements for mods?

Alongside the Adept Mod UI released on Tuesday, we are adding sort and filter for Adept and Exclusive mods in Y3S3, so you can find your equipment faster.

Q: Is a Junk or Galleon skin being considered?

We will provide ship skins for all the ships over time, no ship left behind. Depending on popularity, some skins may come sooner than others, so let us know.

FACTION WAR

Q: Could factions get a leaderboard with participation-based rewards?

Faction War is designed as a collective effort rather than an individual one, though we understand the appeal of a participation leaderboard. For now, our focus is on ensuring the Trials leaderboard is well polished before we look at introducing other leaderboards.

Q: A faction reputation system, where helping one faction affects standing with rivals?

Still being planned, but not something we can deliver immediately.

Q: Daily and weekly faction war missions?

Good idea, to consider.

Q: Contracts to raid faction ports or capitals?

Activities to defend them already exist, and (little tip) you can also collect war assets by sinking waves of the enemy faction ships during a plunder.

CUSTOMIZATION

Q: More Abyss-themed ship cosmetics or full ship skins?

Message received!

Q: Will anything be done with the green lighting on the Frigate skin?

We have been looking into that. No spoilers.

Q: Could players choose their own colours instead of preset sets?

Not at the moment. We want to keep colours coherent with the game's art direction rather than have ships turn into rainbows but we will keep creating variety within that range.

Q: Can we finally get an all-black palette after three years?

There is a Year 1 set that is the closest to all-black, and it is still quite rare. We may bring it back for the founding event though we would like to preserve some exclusivity for players who have been here since Year 1 and earned it.

QOL

Q: Could emotes be added to Photo Mode?

It’s under consideration but a bit lower down the priority list. Part of the UGC challenge was timing the shot yourself!

Q: Could notifications be reduced, and disabled in Photo Mode?

Most notifications can already be turned off in the settings menu. If some are not turning off despite the setting, that is not intended, please report it through the bug reporter.

Q: Could the vendor shop UI be redesigned?

We are considering it, but we first want to prioritize other parts of the game UI, such as Loot and infamy notifications that pop up too much simultaneously currently.

Q: Could the in-game calendar show more event detail?

We can look at that. Our UI team is prioritising things like sort and filter improvements first.

Q: Could the Death Tides Pass be accessed from the Seasonal Center?

The seasonal page is already quite full and hard to navigate, so we do not want to overload it. As Death Tides is not especially seasonal, and we show the pass where it makes sense, we are keeping it in its current place.

Q: Could the Smuggler's Pass go to 120 levels?

We are looking at expanding the Pinnacle store with relevant rewards.

Q: Could daily and weekly missions be more rewarding?

We can look into that.

Q: Could reaching Diamond rank give more exclusive rewards?

In Y3S3, we do not want to reward grinding for its own sake. The focus is interesting challenges. Rewards will lean toward the Trials leaderboards, where a good clear time gets you rewarded for skill and effort.

Q: What is the status of old, currently unavailable quests?

We can look at bringing some back, but it is not a priority right now as it would mean cutting something else, and we would rather put that effort into developing the storyline further.

Q: Can we get a Silver boost this season?

Yes. We know the grind is real, so we have changed the boost schedule toward the later end of the season, expect noticeably more boosts, including week-long boosts on some items, and not only Silver.

OTHER

Q: Can mods be transferred between different weapon types?

Not for now. When we looked at long gun to bombard, some perks stopped making sense and some combinations lacked balanced. Each weapon type should retain its own distinct gameplay, and transfers across types would muddle that.

What we are doing instead is expanding Adept Mods to more weapon types, starting with torpedoes and bombards, so they are all at the same power level, and further expanding Exclusive Mods.

Q: Could the Kraken's attack zone be adjusted? Being sunk, respawning outside the area and still getting hit is annoying.

We can take a look at it.

Q: Are the Indian Ocean vendors getting an overhaul?

An update to item availability rather than an overhaul, and not immediately in Y3S3. We are looking at what vendors sell and in what quantity, food and commodities among them , and asking whether there is really a reason to cap repair kits, or whether that is the right way to control how often players return to shore.

LIVESTREAM

Q: Could you run a second stream for European players, so it is not 4am?

We are now varying stream times to allow more opportunities to catch the stream it depends on guest availability but it should allow more options to catch Twitch drops,,,,

Q: Will the Skull and Bones emblem drop come back?

Not on this stream, but we will definitely bring it back for the next one, and we will announce it in advance so you know it is coming and can claim it. Last time it was more of a surprise drop.

The key takeaway from this stream is that we are taking the time to make sure things are polished while putting a greater emphasis on fixes and quality. It has been recurring feedback that each season arrives with more than a few issues, and we are taking that seriously. That’s why we’re making changes to our development pipeline with the goal of delivering future updates in a more polished and stable state.

We also want to say that being able to explain the reasoning behind our decisions, why something is the way it is, and what we weighed up along the way, is one of the more valuable parts of these streams for us. We would rather show you the thinking than only the outcome.

Thanks to everyone who submitted questions, watched live, claimed the drops, and keeps shaping this game with us.