Pirates of the Burning Sea takes bold step to curb mission farming

The latest devlog for Pirates of the Burning Sea is written by Lum and focuses on improving the game's mission system, particularly fixing the problem of mission farming. Lum writes, "When we create big mission arcs, we design them to be a fun, engaging, and most importantly, a linear experience. We want players to get a sense of story and to do something interesting. We also want to reward players who accomplish the goals for those missions."

He says that mission farming and the in-game monetary rewards aren't necessarily the problem, although it's not what the devs had in mind for players. Lum says that since people stop to repeat the most lucrative parts of a given mission arc, they're not experiencing the game as it was intended for the players. Even worse, some players make faction choices on the basis of how lucrative a certain mission with that faction is. Flying Lab Software wants to change missions in Pirates of the Burning Sea so that players are continually progressing through stories rather than motivated to remain in place to reap the gold harvest.%Gallery-12977%

Lum says, "We want to reduce the desire for players to farm missions, and one of the ways we accomplish this goal is with reduced loot in non-repeatable missions. We want you to turn those missions in, see the rest of the story, change factions... We want to reward you for completing a mission, not farming it."

Their solution to this problem is rather bold: reduce or outright eliminate loot drops from mission NPCs. Lum adds, "In 1.15 you will no longer get loot from killing NPCs in missions. This does not affect loot dropped by NPCs on the Open Sea, so keep sinking those Fleets. We hope you will complete 'Just One More Time' one last time and enjoy the remainder of that chain, or even explore a new Faction."

How well the removal of loot drops from mission NPCs sits with the game's playerbase remains to be seen, but PotBS players are currently sounding off in the official forum post connected with Lum's devlog "Just One Last Time".