Q&A talks future for Pirates of the Burning Sea

In a very interesting Q&A session, the Pirates of the Burning Sea development team dropped some compelling details about upcoming game additions, improvements and balancing. The biggest improvements so far have been to the user interface, but the PvP system is starting to get some love as well. The design team says it was their goal to make PvP easily available for those who wanted to participate, but avoidable for those who didn't care to join in. Refreshingly, they admit that the current game doesn't allow for this and they're bringing the first changes in the 1.2 patch that's out right now.

The rest of the big PvP balance changes are coming in the 1.3 patch, which should see release in four to six weeks time -- according to the dev team's release schedule given in the Q&A. A goal the team has for the PvP players in this next patch is to allow them to do less PvE missions in order to afford losing ships at sea in PvP combat. It will also introduce dueling, which is the first step towards a full skirmish system coming in the 1.5 patch. Skirmishing will let players have full on fleet-sized (guild vs guild) battles with far more ships than is currently allowed. Exciting stuff, considering the massive amounts of cannons that are going to be flying through the sky.

So what else can we expect to see in future updates?

Well, apparently pirates are going to get some attention in the 1.4 patch (codenamed by the team as the 'Patch of Pirate Love') with the addition of brand new content (equipment) rewards via a new pillaging system. Though the team stresses that there will be improvements for everyone, including an update to avatar combat, a new supernatural epic mission (raid) and further improvements to port contention.

All in all, we think there's a lot to be excited about so long as these patches each truly coming in four to six weeks time -- or at least if they take longer are actual fixes and improvements. If you stopped playing PotBS because of the lack of PvP balance, user interface woes, end-game content or you were unable to avoid PvP altogether, than it looks those problems have all been (and continue to be) addressed.