Merchant Alliance fix for Season 17

I definetly agree with the kegs.
The animal quests offered exactly this before Season 11, so why not do it again.

The other crates (wood, fruit, cannonball) shouldnt be that easy though. (havent finished them myself)
Instead i would remoove the normal cargo from messages in a bottle and reduce the frequency of order of souls quests.
At the moment the chances of finding one of the needed merchant crates, is about 1 in 50 (Thats how many messages in a bottle and journals i found in this current season, only one had a Crate/Keg delivery), if we reduce that to 1 in 5 than it would be more in line with the frequency of them before S11.

Otherwhise put quests back in barrels like before season 11, so we can farm them again, no reason not to do this, as it has worked like this for Years before S11 changed it.

I think these changes would be fair.

Animals also need a fix but thats another topic.

Totally agaree. This is a frequent request and I'lll continue to support anything to make these coms less tedious. Anything would be fine. Add it to the quest table or the emissary quest. Increase the spawn rate in bottles even. Adjust the number requested in each voyage could even work. Delivering 5 crates of fruit at a time, rather than just one would actually be moderately challenging.

@fry9889 said in Merchant Alliance fix for Season 17:

Totally agaree. This is a frequent request and I'lll continue to support anything to make these coms less tedious. Anything would be fine. Add it to the quest table or the emissary quest. Increase the spawn rate in bottles even. Adjust the number requested in each voyage could even work. Delivering 5 crates of fruit at a time, rather than just one would actually be moderately challenging.

Moderately challenging ? You probably can fill one crate each with the fruit supplies found at the starting and delivery outpost, you can buy a fruit crate on both, and if you're lazy and don't want to fill one or more crate at a nearby seapost, you can get some fruit (30 or so) from the shipwrights, plus 32 coconuts and bananas in a new sloop.

@lem0n-curry said in Merchant Alliance fix for Season 17:

@fry9889 said in Merchant Alliance fix for Season 17:

Totally agaree. This is a frequent request and I'lll continue to support anything to make these coms less tedious. Anything would be fine. Add it to the quest table or the emissary quest. Increase the spawn rate in bottles even. Adjust the number requested in each voyage could even work. Delivering 5 crates of fruit at a time, rather than just one would actually be moderately challenging.

Moderately challenging ? You probably can fill one crate each with the fruit supplies found at the starting and delivery outpost, you can buy a fruit crate on both, and if you're lazy and don't want to fill one or more crate at a nearby seapost, you can get some fruit (30 or so) from the shipwrights, plus 32 coconuts and bananas in a new sloop.

Perhaps I overstated it, but defintely more challenging than a single crate. When I get a voyage I just buy a fresh crate from the merchant, transfer the goods and hand it in. Zero challenge. Gathering 100s of fruit pieces would at least be an activity.

@fry9889 said in Merchant Alliance fix for Season 17:

@lem0n-curry said in Merchant Alliance fix for Season 17:

@fry9889 said in Merchant Alliance fix for Season 17:

Totally agaree. This is a frequent request and I'lll continue to support anything to make these coms less tedious. Anything would be fine. Add it to the quest table or the emissary quest. Increase the spawn rate in bottles even. Adjust the number requested in each voyage could even work. Delivering 5 crates of fruit at a time, rather than just one would actually be moderately challenging.

Moderately challenging ? You probably can fill one crate each with the fruit supplies found at the starting and delivery outpost, you can buy a fruit crate on both, and if you're lazy and don't want to fill one or more crate at a nearby seapost, you can get some fruit (30 or so) from the shipwrights, plus 32 coconuts and bananas in a new sloop.

Perhaps I overstated it, but defintely more challenging than a single crate. When I get a voyage I just buy a fresh crate from the merchant, transfer the goods and hand it in. Zero challenge. Gathering 100s of fruit pieces would at least be an activity.

Hardly more challenging, Rare would be better of just to hand out these commendations instead of wasting dev time.

We can't be the only crew that at the end of most sessions we're over-supplied with cannonballs, planks and fruit (or could be if we took the supplies of the crew we just sunk if we had some fights). Just start a MA voyage before gtting too close to an outpost (and making sure not another crew is too close) and all it takes is gathering crates from the dock and filling them, for another 5 out of 100.

You used to have to make choices, just found a crate delivery crate at a shipwreck; e.g do I stop with what I'm doing now (or planning to), and sail to an outpost not close to current position most of the times and do it within a narrow time-frame (*) and perhaps lose supplies that I might need later on. After that, you may have to sail back to finish the voyage you were on, the World event might have changed or is too contested to do &c.

(*) the ones found on outposts were much easier, most of the time the other outpost in the region with plenty of time - even before buying supplies was a thing, with the added benefit you could fill it after getting it from the Merchant; for those in shipwrecks you probably would be without a crate before a visit to an outpost.

I perhaps wasn't clear, buy my various suggestions were supposed to be independent of each other. I'll try to make my points more clear in the future. For example if the voyages are still found randomly like they are now, a time limit to gather a large amout of supplies/kegs might be fun mission. Certainly no less fun than catching chickens or delivering plants. Personally my ideal would be in the Emmisary quest. The current one is kinda poor. If the emissary quest involved delivering one or two of each of the required goods to several different outposts it might be fun. Encouraging Merchant V flags to stay on server can only be a positive.

I completely agree with it. It used to be able to just choose a voyage and go do it, but now it is a whole quest to find a merchant delivery quest.

As time and seasons pass, some achievements only get easier - why these particular ones got harder is unclear..

@d3adst1ck sagte in Merchant Alliance fix for Season 17:

@dermasterbob said in Merchant Alliance fix for Season 17:

I definetly agree with the kegs.
The animal quests offered exactly this before Season 11, so why not do it again.

The difference is that now these voyages spawn those items, rather than just giving you a list that you have to track down yourself, so I could see them being hesitant to provide a method to spawn kegs that easily at any time.

They could still make it so that the kegs have to be collected otherwhise or make them their own voyage that let's you sell 4 kegs each.

It was very easy before S11 anyway so making kegs their own voyage who give mutiple selling opportunities makes perfect sense.

I don't see a problem with these voyages being added to the captain's table. Of course, they would need to be modified accordingly, for example:

• the pickup point for empty crates and the delivery point are defined for a specific recipient at least one region away.
• the delivery point for powder kegs is defined for a specific recipient at least one region away.
• during this voyage, there is an increased chance of being attacked by a skeleton ship.
  Simple? Simple.
  You're welcome, Rare.

I just wish that the keg voyage wasn't so rare that if I get it I have to do it no matter what I'm doing rn, because I can almost certainly do whatever I'm doing again, the keg quest I cannot.

@hammerpunch I started playing in 2020 but took a long break until december 2024, after which I've been playing multiple times a week minimum. I missed being able to get it done more easily.