Hi Captains,

It's been a little bit since our last Dev Diary, so it's time to talk about what's been happening behind the scenes.

On today's menu:

• Season 3 Launch Afterthoughts
• What's Brewing Next
• Community Spotlight

SEASON 3 LAUNCH AFTERTHOUGHTS

It's been a busy month, with Year 2 Season 3 officially introducing Faction War, the Sloop of War, Armor Ascension, Ascension Locking, and more. From day one, we've been closely monitoring your first reactions, feedback, and... of course, which side you picked.

Not saying we're judging your reasons... but some of them had us crying with laughter 😂‚

A big shout-out to @MotherFlame for putting together a hilarious compilation of community comments about faction picks.

And we've absolutely loved seeing your faction recruitment posters as some of you went all out as if it was an election campaign.. 🙃

We're also happy to see all the love for the Sloop of War from your first builds to all the "admire the new Sloop" posts along with the positive reaction to the new equipment.

WHAT'S BREWING NEXT

Beyond the laughs, seeing your first impressions and constructive feedback has been incredibly valuable to the team. A lot of top concerns are already being discussed internally, so here's a quick look at what we're working on.

FACTION WAR

REWARDS

We hear that rewards don't feel impactful enough yet, especially with some tied to the winning faction. Here's where we're at:

• Our goal is to keep Faction War fun and engaging long term, across every battle phase, and we'll continue introducing new rewards each season as the feature evolves.
• The exclusivity of the rewards won't last forever. We're exploring ways for all players to earn these rewards in future seasons, even if they end up on the losing side of the Faction War this season.

Dev note: Reward balancing requires delicate approach. If everyone gets the same thing, winning is less exciting; if rewards feel too exclusive, losing feels awful. So, we're aiming for that middle ground where rewards feel motivating, not punishing.

WAR PROGRESSION

We've seen your comments that it's hard to tell if your actions matter. To make war progression feel more impactful, we're looking at:

• Making your personal impact more visible, so you can see how your actions help your faction.

• Clearer feedback on progress, win or lose, so every effort feels meaningful.

• More opportunities to influence the outcome, with clearer territory swings.

Whether you're pushing your faction ahead or holding the line, we are aiming for every session to feel like your efforts truly matter.

FRIENDLY FIRE

Right now, there's a built-in tolerance before allies turn hostile. The intention behind this first iteration was to keep that freedom: if you decide to go rogue, the world should react to it. We know the current behavior isn't perfect and we're now working on a new logic we plan to test in the next testing phase: temporary allies status.

Here's the current idea in a nutshell:

• You gain temporary ally status in Contested Territories while actively engaged in combat the opposing faction
• Friendly fire is disabled during this state, so healing and support builds work as intended
• Once you disengage from combat, ally status fades and normal behavior returns
• You'll be able to disengage, remove ally status, to engage in specific missions fighting against your own faction

The goal is simple: faction allies should feel like allies, without taking away your freedom to go rogue when you choose to. This is very much work-in-progress, we'll test this in the next testing phase first to gather feedback before committing to anything.

MORE ACTIVITIES

There's more coming down the line, and there are a lot of ideas we're eager to explore. As always, how you engage with Faction War will continue to shape what comes next.

Here is a quick look at where we are heading now:

• Elite Warship Event (Y2S3 mid-season). The legendary Soleil Royal and Opwelling return as Soleil Imperial and Opstuwing. Sink them to earn a good amount of War Assets for your faction along with other rewards.

• Next evolution of Faction War, Territorial Control is planned for Season 4. You won't just battle for War Assets, but you'll fight for the map itself, as territories your faction owns will matter in how you progress.

• Connection to the Helm Empire. The territories your faction wins will directly affect the performance of your Helm Empire. When your faction wins or loses territory, your manufactories and production benefits change with it.

• More FW activities in the pipeline, including manufactory-linked events (defense, attacks, extraction missions) and additional event types planned for Y3.

This launch was just the first iteration and the beginning of a much longer journey toward a new endgame experience. Improvements will be gradual and layered, because Faction War isn't meant to stand alone; it's part of building a true end-game ecosystem across Skull & Bones.

WAREHOUSE SPACE

Quality-of-life updates continue to be a big focus for us, and you'll see some of those improvements with the mid-season update. Top feedback we've seen lately is storage filling up fast (especially with ascended items), so let's talk about that first.

Here's what we're currently exploring and planning to roll out gradually over time:

• Cargo capacity was increased (from 50 → 100)
• Bulk chest opening & mass salvage for smoother loot cleanup
• Search bar + filtering tools to help you find items faster
• Warehouse and inventory UI improvements to simplify navigation

ITEM ASCENSION

We've seen a lot of feedback around Item Ascension, especially frustration with the RNG and overall cost of the feature. Right now, we're looking at introducing Curated Mods in Season 4 to give you access to smaller, more targeted perk pools when reforging, making results feel less random and more in your control. Plus looking into increasing reroll count.

WATERSPOUTS

On top of that, you know that giant swirling column of wind out on the ocean we've mentioned before. Official debut incoming with the mid-season update.

Dev-note: "We've heard your feedback on existing stormy weather and currently working on ways to address it. We get why adding waterspout might raise concerns. Think of the waterspout as less storm, more strategy. In reality its less of a hazard and more of a tool and a clever way to turn the tables and take advantage of. Try it out and tell us how it feels, we'll continue to tune and improve based on your feedback!"

A PEAK INTO THE FUTURE CONTENT

We're also making progress on Year 2 Season 4 and finalizing the build for its first testing phase. Here's a little sneak peek at what's on the horizon:

• Our second Large Ship: the Corvette. A large support-focused ship built to strengthen allies and boost their DPS, prepared to face the unseen terror that lurks beneath the waves.
  

• And something mysterious you may have already spotted hints of near outposts... (we'll let you connect the dots 😉)

COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT

Shoutout to our awesome people running community spaces for Skull and bones on Reddit and Discord. Thanks to all of you for keeping the spaces safe, helpful, and fun.

DISCORD

Big love to Veledrome for laying down the early groundwork and helping the server grow into what it is today. And huge thanks to our super active helpers: Lilywhite, Leszii (T), and Grass (Pazoun) for always jumping in when needed. Shoutout as well to MotherFlame, Abatzz, Stormfirebird, Kaeryo, and Alpha, our navigators who are constantly around helping guide members. And of course, appreciation to our long-time helpers ReignFyre, Leo_Kaldoran, and DISsumSauce. Last but not least, Bloody Rye, the person behind the custom bots, announcements, and channel setup.

REDDIT

On Reddit, thanks to our active mods and contributors: Lilywhite, Ed_Straker65, Satsloader, Void0fEndlessDark, and Veledrome, with a special shoutout to Ed for being an incredible help and a standout presence this past year.

Check out some of the other things our community has been up to:

• We couldn't resist sharing these incredible lore posts from Captain Thorne, Captain Drako T. "Blood" , Mary Avery, the Crimson Queen, and Toran | Jörg.

• Shoutout to Daydream Yonkou for drawing these treasure hunting maps to help with finding that precious loot.

• We also had to share these shots from Motherflame and MajorRespect. They both certainly fit the Halloween theme 🎃

We love the creations you, our community shares, and it truly reminds us how creative the community is. We'd love to see more, so keep sharing and tagging us!

And that's a wrap for our Dev Diary! We'll be back with our next Dev Diary soon, so for now, make sure to hit the high seas as we believe there are two factions looking for your support.

Till next time,

The Skull & Bones Team