Pirates of the Burning Sea 's biggest patch yet is now live!

Main Changes:

• Buccaneer class: All characters are receiving a forced respec and a free respec token. In order to balance Pirates, we needed to create another class for them. They now have Cutthroat (what we're calling the class we've had all along) and Buccaneer. Then we revamped skills on all classes. The logic and general overview is covered in several Devlogs by Taelorn (Cutthroat, Buccaneer, Privateer, Freetrader, Naval Officer ). More details can also be seen below. 
• Unrest Supply: The intended effect of this system is to pace the rate at which unrest is generated by turn-ins, and to ensure that everyone has time to respond to economic moves by their enemies. There's always a fixed, known amount of unrest at stake in each period, and you can tell at a glance how much of that your nation is going to get. You can also tell how much your enemies are going to get, and plan accordingly. When you visit the Rebel Agent or Garrison Commander, you'll see a brand new UI. Through this UI, you'll be able to turn in specific items, including unrest bundles, to contribute to your nation's efforts in the port. Every six hours, at fixed times, a set quantity of each item is consumed, and the port generates a fixed quantity of unrest. You can't always make turn-ins, though. Economic-driven unrest only works up to a point, after which the battle has to move out onto the waves. Neither the attackers nor the defenders can continue making turn-ins past the Pirate PvP stage. Isildur will be posting a Devlog on this soon where he'll go into more detail.
• New ships: Our creative and talented players have provided us with new ships. We've added four to the game in this build. Details below.
• Buddy Key Restrictions: Now, when you're logged in with a free account, there are certain limitations on your characters. For example, free accounts: 
• • Can't talk in Nation chat or Area chat (but still can in local and emote)
  • Can't send /tells unless the target is a friend or is in the same group or society. Can reply to tells.
  • Can group.
  • Can PvP
  • Can't earn credit for landmark unrest. They can still contribute to landmark unrest, the just don't get any personal unrest points and thus will never get a landmark battle invite.
  • Can participate in player-to-player trades.
  • Can't list items for sale in the Auction House and can have only one warehouse.
  • Only have access to two structure slots and cannot use certain structure deeds.
  • Are capped at level 12.

There's lots more patch notes where that came from, so read on the for full list!

Known Issues:

• Missions you have already completed and turned in sometimes reappear on your mission list, replacing missions you haven't completed. This is also happening in 1.3. We're working frantically to find the problem and fix it ASAP.
• ConCo made a pass through several of the starter missions to fix some problems. In some cases, the missions they fixed have been removed from your mission list. You will need to re-take those missions if you want to complete them. (If you already completed them and turned them in, you don't need to do anything.)
• The Smugglers tunnels in Tortuga may or may not take you where they say they will. For example, some Hills tunnels take you to the Prison instead. We're aware of the problem and working on the fixes.

Differences between 1.3.32.0 and 1.4.34.0 include but aren't limited to:

Ships / Outfitting:

• Alexander: Tracking 9 -> 11
• Arcadia: 16.1 speed -> 15.95
• Bahamut: NEW SHIP! A level 50 Buccaneer refit.
• Capricieux: Decreased sails from 2850 to 2750.
• Couronne: Can now be used by Buccaneers as well as Freetraders. Upgunned 5lb -> 7lb, 10lb -> 12lb, bow 4lb -> 8lb
• Cursed Blade: Mast Bonus 10% -> 25%, topdeck 6lb -> 8lb, Reload Bonus 7.5% -> 10%
• Defiant: Increased max speed from 15.25 to 15.4; increased armor from 2860 to 3465; increased sails from 2200 to 2300.
• 'El Dragon' Barque: NEW SHIP! A level 10, lateen-rigged counterpart to the Cutter that has 12x4lb guns. Think of it as the little cousin of the 'Corsair' Xebec.
• Heavy Hercules: Can now be used by Freetraders as well as Cutthroats and Privateers. Armor Bonus 35% -> 30%, Reload Bonus 10% -> 7.5%, Structure Bonus 35% -> 20%, Tracking 16 -> 13
• Mastercraft Hercules: Tracking 18 -> 16
• Sleek Hercules: Tracking 21 -> 17
• Invincible: Decreased speed from 17.5 to 16.25; decreased damage reduction from 17 to 15.
• La Diligente: NEW SHIP! This is a level 1 ship with four guns. It's a quick merchant ship.
• Leviathan: NEW SHIP! This is a level 50 merchant ship restricted to Freetraders. It has a gigantic cargo hold. Note: While pirates can build a Leviathan in the careening camp, it is not a valid ship for them, and they will be flagged for PvP while sailing it. However, they can refit it into the Bahamut, which is a Buccaneer specific ship.
• Lyon Hoy:  NEW SHIP! This is a level 3 ship with eight guns. It performs like a cross between the Renard and Jamaica.
• 'Mont Blanc' Indiaman: New variant: A level 50 Freetrader refit of the Mastercraft Oliphant
• Mordaunt: Tracking 9 -> 11
• Myrmidon: Increased speed from 15 to 15.2; increased armor from 3025 to 3080; increased sails from 2340 to 2400.
• Polacre: The Mystique and Algiers were supposed to have a max Open Sea speed of 62, but it was stuck at 57. Fixed.
• Prince: Decreased speed from 17.5 to 16.25; decreased DR from 19 to 17.
• 'Red Devil' Xebec:  New variant: A level 50 Cutthroat refit of the Mastercraft Arcadia
• Tigre: Removed errant +2 accuracy bonus.
• Heavy Tigre: Increased structure and armor bonuses from 20% to 25%.
• Mastercraft Tigre: A bug was giving this ship a weight bonus to its topdeck instead of its gundeck. Fixed. New loadout: 14x9lb, 24x16lb
• Trinity: Decreased speed from 17 to 16; decreased DR from 15 to 14.
• Triumphant:  Decreased speed from 17 to 16; decreased DR from 15 to 14.
• Valiant: Increased DR from 13 to 14. Tracking 9 -> 11
• Wenden: Increased DR from 13 to 14. Tracking 9 -> 11
• Expert Sailmasters: Speed 5% -> 2%, repair 10% sails
• Scuttle: We no longer allow scuttling ships with cargo or non-permanent outfitting. The confirmation box now contains the ship type and ship name to be scuttled.

Ship Combat / Skills:

• Reduced the range of bar shot by 5%
• Some NPCs were using too much dismantling shot, making certain missions incredibly frustrating. Now Merchant NPCs will damage sails to a point, then concentrate on crew and hull damage. Similarly, they'll damage crew to a point, then concentrate on hull damage.
• You can now always exit a Duel.
• If someone on your Ignore list invited you to Duel, they'd see no response from you at all. Now it tells them you've rejected their offer to duel.
• Removed Repel Grapples from Freetrader NPCs.
• It was possible to claim the derelict of an ally. Fixed that.
• Fixed a bug with ad hocs that sometimes caused a player to create battle markers on the Open Sea where no one was in the battle.
• It was possible to use Take Command of Ship on certain invalid ships. It didn't work correctly due to a different problem but the end result could be player frustration and confusion. Fixed.
• If your hold was full, it was impossible to claim loot even when it was 0 weight. Fixed that - zero-weight loot can be claimed even if your hold is too full for the rest of the loot.
• During cooldown, tooltips for skills would flash annoyingly. Fixed that.
• All characters are receiving a forced respec and a free respec token. Respec should now work properly, regardless of the ships you have docked.
• All "tiered" ship skills are gone. If you had a skill with a number on the end, now there's just one skill instead of two. The new skill is usually the same as the old second tier skill.
• There are no more skills that give additional dockyard slots. All careers now start with four dockyards which means you can have 5 ships.
• Adding the Buccaneer class, we had to change the way we detected invalid ships slightly. Let us know if you find any bugs with this change.
• Surprise Attack (Privateer skill): The icon misleadingly implied this was a negative effect. Changed the background to blue.

Pirates are now called Cutthroats . There’s a new pirate career called the Buccaneer . We've tried to make this list comprehensive, but we probably missed a few.

New Skill Types: Attacks that use a Per-Hit Bonus. These attacks become more effective with each shot that hits in a single broadside. They multiply the buffs/debuffs shown in the tooltip. These skills have three new fields:

• First Hit Bonus: This is how effective the skill is just by landing a single hit.
• Per-hit Bonus: This shows how much bonus is added for each additional hit. This is usually 1.
• Maximum Hits: This shows how many hits can land before we stop increasing the strength of the skill.

Here’s an Example:
Rake: First-Hit Bonus: 5, Per-Hit Bonus: 1, Maximum Hits: 10, Target Effects: 2% crew damage
This does 10% crew damage just for hitting, and it maxes out at 30% crew damage after 10 hits.

Cutthroat Skill Tree (Existing Pirates)

• Brutality: Sacrifice for Speed – Target Weakness – Sacrifice for Damage – Plague Ship – Sacrifice for Victory
• Career: Scavenge – Run Them Down – To The Last Man – Drink and the Devil – Slaughter Their Crew
• Destruction: Vaporing – Cut Shroud – Entangling Shot – Damage Rudder – Cripple Enemy
• Disaster: Death’s Embrace – Dump Guns – Desperation Fire – Rum Ration – Deter Pursuit
• Flogging: Cut Lines – Flog Gunners – Wolf Pack: Hunters – Increased Damage – Work the Crew
• Gunnery: All or Nothing Shot – Rake – Overloaded Shot – Shred Armor – Vital Strike
• Red Flag: Decimate – Bloodthirst – Tack Upwind – Bosun’s Whip – Fury
• Smuggling: Agile Rigging – Stealth – Before the Wind – Devil Take the Hindmost – Black Market
• Survival: Jury Rig – Defense – Plug Leaks – Hit and Run – Too Mean to Die

The Skullduggery and Evasion chains are gone.

New Cutthroat Skills

• Entangling Shot: Tier 3 Destruction. This replaces foul lines as an attack debuff instead of a short-range click debuff. Reduces target grappling defense by 10, sail resist by 15%. Requires dismantling shot.
• Slaughter Their Crew: Tier 5 Career: Attack. +20% damage, +100% crew damage. First-Hit Bonus: 1, Per-Hit Bonus: 1, Maximum Hits: 19. Target Effects: -1% acceleration, turn rate, reload rate, damage. Stacks with other debuffs. 40 morale, 40 second duration, 5 minute reset. Requires round shot.
• Shred Armor: Tier 4 Gunnery. Attack, ignores 60% of target DR. 30 morale, 5 minute reset.
• Work the Crew: Tier 5 Flogging. Passive +5% armor and structure. Provides 3% Open Sea speed

Changes to Existing Cutthroat Skills

• Agile Rigging: Turn 5% -> 6%, Defense 1 -> 2
• All or Nothing Shot: Raised damage to 33%, dropped reload penalty to 13%.
• Before the Wind: Broad Reach 12% -> 8%, Running 12% -> 8%
• Black Market: 2% running speed -> 7.5% Open Sea Speed
• Bloodthirst: Added 10% crew resist
• Break Formation: 15 second duration -> 10
• Cripple Enemy: Duration: 120 sec -> 150 sec
• Cut Lines: 4 defense -> 5 defense
• Decimate: Duration: 30s -> 60s
• Defense: 4 defense -> 5, added 2.5% resist
• Drink and the Devil: Can be stacked with Sacrifice skills. Now provides 7% turn, reload, acceleration, damage. Duration 2 min, reset 5 min, 30 morale 
• Dump Guns: Reset 60 sec -> 75 sec
• Flog Gunners: Reduced reload rate to 14%, added 5% damage.
• Fury: Now acts as a passive +10 max morale.
• Hit & Run: Temporarily increases your speed and acceleration. Becomes more effective with each additional shot that hits. ~1.25% speed, accel per shot that lands, limit 9 hits. 1 minute duration, 450y range, 5 minute recharge.
• Increased Damage: Added 3% resist
• Plug Leaks: DR 7 -> 6
• Rake: Now uses an intensity multiplier instead of flat crew damage. First-Hit Bonus 5, Per-Hit Bonus: 1, Maximum Hits 10. Target effects: 2% crew damage (maximum 30%).
• Rum Ration: Reload Rate 15% -> 10%, Morale 20 -> 30
• Run Them Down: 7.5% Open Sea Speed -> 10%
• Sacrifice for Damage: Reduced morale cost by 10
• Sacrifice for Speed: 12.5% speed -> 15% speed
• Sacrifice for Victory: Turn Rate 20% -> 12.5%, Reload 20% -> 15%, Morale 40 -> 30, Crew Penalty 40% -> 30%
• Slaughter Their Crew: Reset 3min -> 5min
• Stealth: Now mixes 30% relative stealth and 7.5 miles flat stealth.
• To the Last Man: Now recovers 40 morale, 20% crew. Reset 10 minutes.
• Vaporing: Now has a 4 minute reset and a 175 yard range
• Vital Strike: Structure Damage 50 -> 60
• Wolf Pack Hunters: Now gives 1% damage, 1% turn rate increase, 1.5% damage resistance.  

Privateer Skill Tree

• Aggression: Tracking Shot – Deaths Embrace – Burst of Speed – Hit and Run – Aggression
• Agility: Agile Rigging – Tack Upwind – Sturdy Rigging – Agile Tactician – Jugular
• Battle: All or Nothing Shot – Increased Damage – Ride the Wind – Surprise Attack – Crushing Broadside
• Career: Sanctioned Piracy (free @ 15) – Terrorize – Plunder – Second Wind – Concentrated Fire – Break Formation
• Deception: Evade Aggression – Hidden Reserves – Stealth – Surprise Below Decks – Hired Crew
• Disabling: Demoralize – Cut Shroud – Entangling Shot – Damage Rudder – Cripple Enemy
• Flexibility: Signals – Battle Preparations Defense – Maneuver – Battle Preparations Offense – Rapid Reload
• Survival: Improvise Sails – Defense – Improvise Armor – Evasion – Rebuilt Ship
• Unpredictability: Speed – Resist – Maneuver – Sail Defense – Offense

New Privateer Skills

• Agile Tactician: Tier 4 Agility: A stackable group buff similar to Battle Doctrine. 1% resist, turn, damage, reload, accel
• Concentrated Fire: Tier 4 Career: An attack that deals bonus damage and ignores a portion of the targets DR. +25% damage, ignores 35% DR
• Hired Crew: Tier 5 Deception: Gives a passive boost to max crew. 15%
• Jugular: Tier 5 Agility: This is a major debuff that can only be used if your target is in a bigger ship class than you. It reduces DR, acceleration, reload rate and a small amount of accuracy. It gets more effective with each hit that lands. -20% +2% DR, -15% +1.5% accel, -10% + 1% reload per hit. 7 First Hit Bonus, 18 Max Hits.
• Rapid Reload: Tier 5 Flexibility: Click buff. +30% reload rate for 60 seconds. 30 morale, 5 minute reset.
• Rebuilt Ship: Tier 5 Survival:  Passive +5% structure, +5% armor
• Ride the Wind: Tier 3 Battle: A passive boost to target tracking and Open Sea speed. 5 tracking, 4% Open Sea speed
• Sturdy Rigging: Tier 3 Agility: Provides a passive boost to mast integrity. 10% mast integrity

Changes to Existing Privateer Skills

• Aggression: Changed to a passive skill.
• Agile Rigging: Added 4% Open Sea speed
• All or Nothing Shot: Reload Penalty 18% -> 15%
• Battle Preparations: These skills now last for four minutes with an eight minute reset timer. They can be used in combat, allowing you to chain them.
• Break Formation: 15 second duration -> 10
• Burst of Speed: 25% speed bonus -> 20%, Reset 2 min
• Demoralize: This is now an attack skill. Reduces target max morale by 5.
• Evasion: Morale cost 50 -> 35
• Entangling Shot (was Foul Lines): Now an attack skill that requires dismantling shot. Since its now very easy to apply, the amount of mast resist reduction is now 15%.
• Hidden Reserves: Reset 30min -> 12min
• Hit & Run: Temporarily increases your speed and acceleration. Becomes more effective with each additional shot that hits. ~1.25% speed, accel per shot that lands, limit 9 hits. 1 minute duration, 5 minute recharge.
• Increased Damage: 5% -> 7.5%
• Improvise Sails: Repair 40% -> 37.5%, Resist 25% -> 20%
• Maneuver: +2 defense
• Plunder: Added 5% chance for bonus loot
• Resist: 17.5% resist -> 15%
• Sail Defense: 35% mast resist -> 25%
• Sanctioned Piracy: This is now received automatically at level 15.
• Second Wind: Now includes the bonuses of No Quarter and 5% crew resist.
• Signals: This is now a tier 1 skill.
• Stealth: The stealth % is not as high as before, but it now includes an absolute stealth. This means its more useful on smaller ships. 30% stealth, -7.5 mi visibility
• Surprise Attack: Revamped skill. Click buff, provides +25% damage for 1 minute. 30 morale cost, 5 minute reset.
• Surprise Below Decks: Morale Cost 60 -> 40
• Terrorize: Reduced morale cost (~40)
• Tracking Shot: Now a single attack skill that costs 20 morale, has +15 target tracking and +10% damage. 4 minute reset.
• Unpredictability line: Reduced morale activation cost by 5
• Unpredictability Resist: Resist 17.5% -> 15%
• Unpredictability Sail Defense: Sail Resist 35% -> 25%

Freetrader Skill Tree

• Career: Sailmaster – Mercenary – Carpenter – Gunner – Captain
• Desperation: Underdog – Dump Guns – Desperation Fire – Rum Ration – Hasty Fire
• Escape: Repel Grapples – Defense – Determination – Evasion – Deter Pursuit
• Logistics: Economy: Production – Economy: Manufacturing – Trade Connections – Economy: Shipwright – Work the System
• Provisions: Defense – Maneuver – Boarding – Offense – Extra Rations
• Ship Mastery: Hold Together – Reinforcement – Identify Weakness – Overloaded Shot – Debilitating Shot
• Smuggling: Ranging Shot - Smuggled Cargo - Give the Slip - Misdirection - Running Dark
• Trade: Tax Evasion - Rescue Me - Before the Wind - Optimal Rigging - Sailhandling Drills
• Travel: Travel – Battle Preparations: Maneuver – Battle Preparations: Defense – Battle Preparations: Speed – Battle Preparations: Offense

Career Chain

• Expert Sailmaster: Max Speed 10% -> 5%
• Expert Captain: Max Speed 10% -> 5%
• Expert Carpenter: 60% armor repair -> 55%, 50% structure repair -> 40%

New Freetrader Skills

• Debilitating Broadside: Tier 5 Ship Mastery: Attack skill with a per-hit bonus. First-Hit Bonus: 1, Per-Hit Bonus: 1, Maximum Hits: 15. Reduces target reload rate, turn rate, speed and acceleration by 1% each (max 16%). 45 second duration, 2 minute recharge, 40 morale.
• Determination: Tier 3 Escape: Boosts your resists and grappling defense by 15%. Requires an enemy target within 250y range. 4 minute duration, 8 minute reset.
• Running Dark: Tier 5 Smuggling: A clickable Open Sea buff that improves your stealth (20% + 7.5 miles) and Open Sea speed (2.5%) at the cost of reload rate (-20%). Lasts 12 minutes, resets in 10 minutes. Yes, the duration overlaps.
• Underdog: Tier 1 Desperation: Increases damage, acceleration, turn rate and speed by 7.5%. Only works if you have less than 82% total armor remaining (50% for one broadside).
• Work the System: Tier 5 Logistics: An upgraded version of Claim Prize. Each derelict has a 20% chance to provide 1 pennant, a 40% chance to provide 2 and a 40% chance to provide 3.

Changes to Existing Freetrader Skills

• Career Base: added 1 defense
• Battle Preparations (4 skills): These skills now last for four minutes with an eight minute reset timer. They work different from the Privateer version in that they have a shared cooldown of two minutes, and they can stack. They can be used in combat.
• Battle Preparations Defense: Resistance 3% -> 4%
• Battle Preparations Offense: Reload / Damage 2% -> 5%
• Before the Wind: Broad Reach 12% -> 9%, Running 12% -> 9%
• Evasion: Now costs 40 morale instead of 50.
• Hasty Fire: now lasts 2 minutes instead of 1.
• Provision Allies (4 skills): These skills now provide twice as much benefit to the user as to the group members. Can be used in combat.
• Repel Grapples: Now provides +35 grappling defense and +4 defense
• Ranging Shot: Revamped skill. Attack. Increases the accuracy and range of your next attack by 1% per shot that hits (max 15).
• Repel Grapples: 4 defense -> 5
• Rescue Me: Max Speed 25% -> 20%, 30 second duration -> 45, cannot be used at 100% health  (cannot be used at the start of a fight)
• Reinforcement: now provides 3% all protection, 5% structure integrity
• Rum Ration: Morale 20 -> 30, Reload 15% -> 10%
• Tax Evasion: +5% armor integrity
• Travel: This is now a passive skill.

Navy Skill Tree

• Career: Guardian (Escort renamed) - Rapid Shot - Final Defense - Break Morale - Ultima Ratio Regum
• Defense: Defender: Resist - Emergency Repairs - Rally the Crew - Military Grade Construction - Invincible
• Desperation: Last Resort: Maneuverability - Desperate Shot - Scatter Shot - Last Resort: Speed - Last Stand
• Disabling: Disable Rigging - Disable Rudder - Rake - Show of Force - Crippling Broadside
• Discipline: Decimate - Warning Shot - Focused Fire - Boarding Discipline - For God And Country
• Dominance: Fortress - Thundering Broadside - Flagship - Dominate - Defensive Ship
• Escort: Acceleration Increase - Escort - Speed Increase - Pirate Hunter - Convoy
• Gunnery: Precision Fire - Reload Discipline - Damage Discipline - Gunnery Drills - Vital Strike
• Prestige: Military Communications - Military Intelligence - Battle Doctrine: Offense - Battle Doctrine: Defense - Strategic Position

New Navy Skills

• Battle Doctrine Defense: Tier 4 Prestige: +2% resistance, +3% turn rate, +3% acceleration. Stackable with other Battle Doctrines. It’s on the same cooldown as Battle Doctrine: Offense, but they can be chained (5 minutes of Offense, then 5 minutes of Defense).
• Damage Discipline: Tier 3 Gunnery: A toggle to increase damage. +14% damage, 35 morale.
• Defensive Ship: Tier 5 Dominance: Passively increases armor integrity and DR. +1 DR, +10% armor
• Dominate: Tier 4 Dominance: An attack skill that has a high short-range damage boost and a target tracking boost. +40% short range damage, +10 target tracking
• Escort: Tier 2 Escort: Allows you to escort a ship that's larger than you, improving their resistance (5%), speed (4%) and DR (1). It also improves your own speed (5%). 4 minute duration, 8 minute reset
• Last Resort Maneuverability: Tier 1 Desperation: This is a trade-off toggle that allows you to spend a small amount of structure to gain a large amount of turning and acceleration, for when you need a situational boost. 20% turn and acceleration, 0.2% self structure damage second.
• Last Resort Speed: Tier 4 Desperation: A click buff that lasts 90 seconds. You cannot attack while this is active. It provides a large speed boost, but it has a prohibitive amount of morale reduction. It also reduces your morale recovery rate. +10% speed, +5% closehaul/beam reach/broad reach speed, 85 morale, -50% morale regeneration. 8 minute reset. 
• Military Grade Construction: Tier 4 Defense. Passive +10% structure, +5% sails.
• Pirate Hunter: Tier 4 Escort: A toggle that improves speed (10%) when sailing small, medium or large ships. 30 morale.
• Rapid Shot: Tier 2 Career: An attack skill that increases the rate at which your guns reload for your next attack (40%, plus another 10% possible from hit bonuses). 3 minute reset timer.
• Scatter Shot: Tier 3 Desperation: This attack does almost no damage, but it provides a large bonus to your resistance and defense. It also provides a smaller bonus to speed. The amount of the bonus depends on how many shots in your broadside hit the target. -90% attack damage, 4% resist, 2% defense, 1% speed on success. 1% resist, 0.5% speed, 0.5 defense per additional shot that hits, 4 First Hit Bonus, 14 Max Hits.

Changes to Existing Navy Skills

• Battle Doctrine Offense (was Battle Doctrine): This now gives +2% reload rate, +1% damage, +1% acceleration
• Break Morale: Increased attack damage to 20%
• Desperate Shot: Easier use requirement. Can be used if one broadside facing is down to 50% (or if your current total armor is < 82% of the max).
• Focused Fire: -50% DR -> -40%
• Fortress: Max Speed -7.5% -> -5%
• Last Stand: No use requirement.
• Military Communications: Now available at tier 1. 2 acc -> 3 acc
• Rake: Now uses an intensity multiplier instead of flat crew damage. First-Hit Bonus 5, Per-Hit Bonus: 1, Maximum Hits 10. Target effects: 2% crew damage (maximum 30%).
• Rally the Crew: Cheaper morale cost (~30)
• Reload Discipline: 25% reload -> 22.5%
• Show of Force: Now uses a per hit multiplier. Reduces target reload by 12% +1% per additional hit, maximum 25 hits.
• Speed Increase: This is now split so that the user gets the full benefit (15% speed) and group members get less benefit (5% speed).
• Strategic Position: This is now a click buff that applies a self buff that increases the maximum range and accuracy of your next attack. +10% range, acc.
• Warning Shot: This skill now an attack that applies a self buff that increases the damage of your next attack based on the number of shots that hit. ~+2% damage per bonus, cap ~20 hits. First Hit Bonus 7, Max Hit Count 13, reset time 6 minutes. Max +40% damage. 
• Vital Strike: +2 accuracy, +5% damage

Swashbuckling:

• Fixed an exploit in boarding combat.
• Increased the range at which AI enemies are willing to stand to fight you, so that they don't all move around every time you touch the movement controls.
• Smoothed the range of boarding combat waves.  The minimum wave count at 0 crew is now 2, and the maximum count at 1000 crew is 12.  This change should make boarding combat a little more of an interesting contest, and less of a gank-fest.
• Wall of Steel (Florentine): Corrected tooltip which was incorrectly indicating the skill was instant when it actually lasts 6 seconds.
• Blinding Sand and Throw Sand (Dirty Fighting): Corrected tooltips which neglected to mention the 20-point balance cost.
• Create Opening, Mislead, and Ruse: These skills now have a range of 4 yards.
• We have a new "defend me" floaty for avatar space. The one used for ship space was really too large.

Missions:

• We've changed the icon for mission doors on the local map to a white circle with an exclaimation point in it.
• New items will now drop from rare spawns in the Open Sea that lead to unique quests.
• British Tutorial: There were no enemy ships causing the explosions but there were a couple guys walking around on water. Fixed that.
• French Tutorial: Fixed some text bugs.
• Several missions, level 1-15, and several NPCs in the starter towns were "cleaned up." We had rearranged the starter missions a while ago and, as a result, let several NPCs with nothing to do and created a few other problems as well. If you had one of the problematic missions in your mission list, it is no longer in your mission list and you will need to re-take it if you want to complete it.
• Fifteen Magistrate's Commendations: There was code where there should have been text. Fixed that.
• To Protect and To Serve: The allies you were supposed to protect were too fragile and would often be sunk before you even got into range. You now have better allies.
• Business and Pleasure: Made it clearer where to find the wine. Added a "journal" to help you track your progress. Also, fixed some text errors in the dialog.
• Man of Wealth and Taste: The Freebooter was behaving badly, drawing out the encounter needlessly. Improved his intelligence a bit.
• Piper Gets Paid / Get a Clue: These two missions shared a door which led to two different rooms. Fixed that.
• Just in Time: The destination line in part 5 was code. Now it's text.
• Swampcats Bounty: Demanded you sink Jaguars. No such thing so good luck with that. Now demands Panthers.
• Damaged Goods: Added XP and cash rewards.
• Amalgamation: Was directing you to board a Sharktooth Raiders ship when there wasn't one present. Now there is.
• Smash the Squadron: Corrected the allegiance described in the flavor text.
• Pressing Need: The fight encounter was a bit abrupt. Made a custom encounter that fits the mission a bit better.
• Tender Negotiations: You and your allies were flying the wrong flags. We can't easily fix the flags so we changed the text.
• Deals within Wheels: Many players found this confusing as doors that you didn't need to enter yet would light up and failure to read carefully could lead you down the wrong path. The mission's creator has attempted to make it all clearer and easier to follow.
• Like a Cure for Chocolate: Boarding wasn't required and should have been. Fixed that.
• Bad Neighbors: Fixed the bug that prevented taking this mission.
• A Plea to a Higher Power: This mission used to dump you unexpectedly outside Jenny Bay. Fixed that.
• Cooler Heads Prevail: The NPCs in the consulate looked Spanish but were actually British. Fixed that.
• Dividing Loyalties: Text explaining where to go could be misleading. Removed the misleading part.
• Hunting the Coyote: This mission now offers XP and reward for completion.
• In Like Flynn: Attempted to clarify the situation so players don't get stuck fiddling too slowly.
• Mob Rule: If you've taken but cancelled "A Riot is an Ugly Thing," your objectives will be unclear. Improved that.
• Persephone Hedden's Invitation: Corrected destination text. It was pointing you to the tavern when you should be going to the company office.
• Road Scholar: If mission was cancelled after talking to Ogden and then you took it again, he would only say his default text. Fixed that.
• The Teacher: Fixed some gender confusion in the text.
• Ransom: Some players were finding this too difficult so we added some allies.
• A Sad Tale: Your allies were "Attacker (Generic)." Now they have factions as appropriate.
• Curious Delivery: This mission was groupable but played like a solo mission. Now it's no longer groupable.
• Offers They Can't Refuse: Fixed some gender confusion when referring to your career mentor. Also the NPC would keep the ? over their head after they no longer needed it. Fixed.
• Mysterious Bounty: If the port had been flipped, you couldn't progress past the part where you talked to the Garrison Commander. Removed him from the loop so you can complete the mission regardless of Port Contention.
• Plugging the Leak: The Traitor wasn't fighting back. Fixed that.
• Beyond the Sea: This mission was missing a stage where you needed to talk to Wade again. Fixed that.
• Lazarus, We Hardly Knew Ye: Tristan's ship was flying the wrong flag. We can't easily fix the flag so we fixed the text.
• Mad Dogs and Englishmen: Your allies were called Flagship (Generic). Fixed that.
• The Master's Craft: Corrected grammar.
• Under Scrutiny: Mission text and NPC placement didn't make a lot of sense. Cleaned that up a bit.
• Heirs in Judgment: Fixed a problem interacting with one of the ships in the zone.
• Island of the Monkeys: This mission will fall off your mission list if you have it. The standard encounter was tweaked to correct a problem with a conversation with an NPC. This mission had several other changes also.
• Not Without My Daughter1: Boarding anyone would count as boarding the flagship. Fixed that.
• End of the Millennium: The encounter now occurs in a more appropriate room.
• Duty is a Four Letter Word: It was impossible to enter the mission due to a bug with the room. Fixed that.
• Money in the Bank: Corrected the instructions so you're not sent to the wrong bar.
• Research Assistance: Rescued scientists are no longer clones.
• Vendetta's End: Fixed the destination line.(37) Caring for our Own: The smuggler spoke in code instead of text. Fixed that.
• Best Laid Plans: After speaking to the Pirates, speaking to them again resulted in nonsense text. Fixed that.
• Time to Crate: Attempted to make the rope ladder exit easier to discover.
• Risqué Business: The enemy captain would respawn but his crew would not, making him a little too easy to kill. Fixed that.
• Search Muenda Audoire: Fixed a graphical problem with the crates.
• British East India Company: Become Esteemed: The stated goals didn't match what you actually had to do to complete the mission. Fixed that by fixing what you actually have to do so that it matches the stated goals.
• Deputy, My Deputy: It was possible to target the corpse. Fixed that.
• Halls of Commerce: This mission was telling you to go to the wrong place to talk to the wrong NPC to complete it. Fixed that. Also moved the NPC out of the floor.
• An Ill Wind...: The map was sometimes embedded in some crates. Fixed that.
• Suppress the Guanica Pirates: The Magistrates name was code instead of text. Fixed that.
• You Are What You Eat: Fixed the sword impaling the chef. "Fluffy" guys need special weapons placement.

Economy:

• Tweaked tax rates for all nations.  Enemy nations now tax each other at 60%; pirates tax and are taxed at 80%.  This means that a FT can get a 30% tax rate in enemy ports and a 40% tax rate in pirate ports; a Buccaneer can get a 20% tax rate in enemy ports.
• The Writs for Pirate and National Hercules were not easily distinguishable from each other. Fixed that.
• Writ exchanges are now done through exchange shops instead of missions.
• Mastercraft Oliphant: It wasn't possible to make this ship. Fixed that.
• Valiant: Reduced the lineship structure bundle requirement from 8 to 3, bringing it more in line with the costs of comparable ships.
• Ship deed tooltips had a requirement, "You must be in Location Not Known." Now they say you must be in port.
• Marks of Trade: The tooltip said you'd get 10 points of Reputation when you actually received 25. Fixed the tooltip.
• There was a bug where, if you had permanent outfitting equipped and you also listed some for auction, your outfitting would get unequipped. Fixed that.
• Added 25 swashbuckling weapons and outfitting items for level 50 players to the commendation exchange shops.  They all cost 20 commendations, and are available to all nations.
• Buccaneers now start with -450 faction with BrTrade, FrTrade and SpTrade (instead of -750).  This allows a brand-new buccaneer to build structures in enemy ports.
• It was possible to build 11 warehouses. Fixed that.

Open Sea:

• Changed the colors on the radar and local map to make it easier to distinguish NPC hostiles from enemy players.
• When a groupmate was prompted to join an ad hoc, s/he would see code instead of the name of the NPC being fought. Fixed that.
• San Juan: You had to be really close to click to enter. Improved that.
• Grand Turk: Fixed it so it can be seen further away like other ports. 
• Fixed some incorrect textures in the Open Sea.
• Roughly doubled the rate at which Fleets spawn.
• Reduced the chance of a port calling for an evil pirate to roughly 66% of that it previously was, and local merchants to roughly 50% of what it previously was.  This will increase the rate that other ship types, including fleets, are called for.
• Area Traders are ships that are called from a nearby port to sail to the calling port.  They are all trader type ships.  Due to our port layout, virtually all Area Traders are currently the nation of the calling port.  Now we spawn Area Traders of random nations. This will increase the flow of ships of different nations to all ports.
• Tweaked the number of ships called for by various ports:  Ports around the rim of the map: Gulf Coast, and Central and South America, now call for more ships.  Ports in the middle of the map now call for less.

PvP / Port Contention:

• Increased PvP XP gains by 50%
• The waiting list for port battles was backward. If you were the first on the list, players below you on the list were more likely to be invited when invitations were rejected. Fixed that.
• Changed the conquest consumable books from 4 hours to 2 hours, and doubled the number you get from the turn-in. Note that existing books have been nerfed in this way.
• Restored the HUD message when there's a server victory. I think the previous changes to chat channels had relegated that huge news to the chat window only.
• Fixed a bug that caused a few ports to jump straight from 5000 unrest to Martial Law.
• Removed Unrest decay from West End, Nassau, Riding Rocks, Santa Clara and Sabanqui.
• Reduced the PvP radii of Nassau, Riding Rocks, Santa Clara and Sabanqui so they do not cover the nearby low level ports.

Art / Sound:

• We had a bug where adding particle effects to an item would add it to all instances of that item everywhere, whether we wanted them there or not. Fixed that. As a result, we may have lost particle effects on some items where they should be. Let us know if you see anything like that.
• There was an invisible wall at the carpet's edge in the mansion. Fixed that. Also fixed the camera clipping through the stairway.
• Added sound back to the Auctioneer. He's got some great new lines but says them less frequently. The shop sounds have been added to the Preferences slider for voices so the haters can turn them off.
• Lowered the volume of the plane on our splash screen.

Ships

• Atlas Bark: Decreased the resources used by the low LOD version. This will help improve performance on the Open Sea when these ships are about.
• Capricieux Frigate: Hull damage wasn't showing up graphically. Fixed that.
• Curieuse Snow: Decreased the resources used by the low LOD version. This will help improve performance on the Open Sea when these ships are about.
• Defiant Frigate: Added bilge pump. No more water in the hold. Increased the size of the flag to be more appropriate to the size of the ship. Fixed some clipping issues between sails and their mast.
• Hermes Packet Boat: Fixed a sail that showed user content backwards.
• Limburg Flute: Fixed bilge pump.
• Mordaunt Fourth Rate: Decreased the resources used by the low LOD version. This will help improve performance on the Open Sea when these ships are about. Also fixed a bug where trim was disappearing when it shouldn't.
• Mystique Polacre: Decreased the resources required by the low LOD version.
• Oliphant Indiaman: Decreased the resources used by the low LOD version. This will help improve performance on the Open Sea when these ships are about.
• Otter Skuda: Decreased the resources used by the low LOD version. This will help improve performance on the Open Sea when these ships are about.
• Renard Chasse-Maree: Hull damage was showing up other places than on the ship. Fixed that.
• Santiago Galleon: Fixed a sail that showed user content incorrectly.
• Trinity Second Rate: Fixed a sail that was clipping the bowsprit.
• Van Hoorn Snow: Decreased the resources used by the low LOD version. This will help improve performance on the Open Sea when these ships are about.

Towns

• Belize: Burton Stagg was sitting in the ground. Fixed that.
• Bridgetown: Four NPCs looked identical, including some major players. There's a little more variety between them now.
• Charlesfort: It was difficult to click on the Privateer Trainer. Fixed that.
• Fort Caroline: Cleaned up a seam on the beach.
• Pointe-a-Pitre: None of the Judges had yea or nay animations or chat text. Fixed that.
• Tortuga: The Crime Lord's Office longboat didn't glow like other doors when moused over. Fixed that. Also, it's now possible to get to any smuggler tunnel from any other smuggler tunnel. And BSharp has a new tool that lets him set avatar lighting based on what part of town you're in. He's gone a little mad with power. But where your avatar sometimes looked wonky in Tortuga, based on where you were, it should look pretty good most anywhere in that town now.

Avatars

• New PvP rewards: Added new clothing rewards to the Mark of Victory exchange shops.
• Names of several clothing items were code instead of text. Fixed. 
• Fixed clipping problems with the male left large eye patch.
• Fixed clipping problems with the female longcoat and gloves.
• Fixed clipping problems with the female naval coat and vests.
• Fixed many other clothing clipping problems.
• Fixed clipping problems with /boggle.
• Some female soldiers were carrying invisible rifles. Now they have visible rifles.
• Fixed Bishop's eyes in Pointe-a-Pitre.
• Fixed the hand on sword idle so that hand doesn't clip pommel as it had been.

UI:

• Splash Screen: Changed the logo bar at the bottom. Blends better now instead of looking tacked on.
• Server Selection UI: If there is no MOTD to display there, the box for it doesn't appear.
• Character Creation / Customization: If the secondary color field isn't something you can set, we hide it. Previous attempts to disable it by making it white, gray, or brown failed to prevent confusion. Hopefully hiding it will help.
• Chat UI: Your chat windows can now be made more or less transparent using a slider in Preferences. 
• Radar / Compass: Removed the wind indicator in avatar spaces.
• Harbor Master UI: If disabled, the "Switch to Ship", "Teleport to Ship", "Scuttle Ship", and "Refill Durability" buttons now have tooltips that say why.
• Junk Merchant's shop is no longer just generic "Shop."
• Inventory UI: There was a bug where the Junk Dealer's sell pane sometimes had broken items (couldn't right-click on them and other problems). Fixed that and we're hoping it fixes a similar bug in Inventory UI also.
• Economy UI: Allowed word-wrap in the region area so that text doesn't overlap in foreign language versions.
• Fences now have text names instead of code.
• It was totally bothering Ivy that, if you were close to a door, it might say "Press X to Tavern" at the bottom of your screen instead of "Press X to enter Tavern." So she fixed that.
• World Map: Tooltip text showed incorrectly if a town name was too long. Fixed that.
• Added more tips to the Loading... screens.
• Combat UI: Two different fonts were being used by the Defiant Frigate. Fixed that.
• Using healing and repairs would show floating 0's. Now it shows positive numbers like +2 or such.
• Victory Status UI: Tweaked the art to better match that used by Economic Unrest UI.
• Character Info: Reputation bars were too long. Fixed that.
• Preferences: Added a slider so you can set the opacity of your Chat UI.
• Ignore List: The sweet spot for scrolling wasn't where you'd expect. Cleaned that up.
• Flag and Sail Customization Shop: The Sell tab served no purpose so it has been removed.
• When you take a screenshot (press P), you get a HUD message telling you where it was saved.
• Preferences: Trying to change the slider for Open Sea music would cause the window to scroll and not actually change the slider. Fixed that.
• Created empty key bindings for our second horizontal and vertical tool bars.  This will allow players to bind those hotkeys to whatever they'd like, without adding a default binding for those hotkeys.
• Help: Some 'Captured' ships are not listed in the 'Ship Deeds: Captured' category. Fixed that.

Stability / Performance:

• Added some code to help prevent the character rollbacks we've been experiencing. We've also tweaked some database settings that may help. Or it may not - we're still researching.
• We have been fighting a problem that periodically causes us to need to reboot some or all of a cluster. We've had to reboot Rackham multiple times as well as Blackbeard and Antigua. We've finally tracked down and fixed that bug.
• Fixed a physics memory leak that could eventually crash the game. Thanks for sending those reports to Microsoft - that helped us nail this one.
• One of our testers hung while sailing in the Open Sea. We think we fixed the cause of that.
• During some automated testing, the client hung. An error in the log file said, "ERROR Texture: flsTextureManager::loadTexture load failed to load file õµ.*ÅAD1õËŠ" We think we fixed the cause of that.
• One player had repeated hangs while zoning but sometimes when sailing the Open Sea. He sent us a crash dump and we were able to find and fix the problem.
• We may have fixed a bug one player reported where he would crash on zoning when he had User Content equipped.
• Fixed a rare zone server crash that was a result of a race condition.
• UC flags have been downloading truncated on some machines, causing memory corruption crashes. Fixed that.
• Cache Server: Fixed a crash we saw as a result of a player deleting a character. We only saw it once but crashes are bad and cache server crashes in particular can cause data loss. We don't want data loss, even on deleted characters.
• Added some robustness to the Character Transfer system.

Misc:

• The Server Status Button now links to the Server Status page on our site instead of the Message of the Day/Release Notes page.
• We now have support for multiple keyboard language settings.  We added a /switchKeyboard command and bound it to F9.  So if you have a French keyboard layout installed, for example, you can now swap between keyboard layouts with F9.
• Function keys are no longer swallowed by edit controls.  This means F1 will work if you're in the chat window now (in addition to F9).
• Alt-Enter no longer also does Enter.  Which means if you're toggling fullscreen from the login screen it doesn't also log you in.
• Clarified the errors you get if the game fails to launch due to an issue with PhysX.
• Added more localized text from SOE