Please fix Black Powder Merchant and Merchant Forager (Merchant Alliance Commendations)

Even if they don't add them as voyages you can choose to do, it would be nice if they made them less rare when you get a bottle quest. As it stands right now you have about a 1% chance to get the bottle quest you want.

Impossible?
They are random messages in bottle or journal messages found. They can be done it just random and little “grindy”

Question as always. Why you in a rush to complete these?

Completely agree that a change is needed. I've been actively working on them for several months now using maps of mysterious journal potential spawn locations. I have made progress (finished cannon ball, one away from fruit, 10 more wood and 30 more kegs needed). Progress is possible, but painfuly slow. Smugglers bottles has made the situation significantly worse.

There have been lots of solutions proposed, and at this point literally anything would be an improvement. I'm partial to adding one of each to the MA emissary quest (merchant V flags aren't all that common on the seas, so a little help for the reapers also). But increasing spawn rates when a bottle/journal picked up would be fine. Or have multiple deliveries per each voyage rather than just a single crate/keg.

@burnbacon said in Please fix Black Powder Merchant and Merchant Forager (Merchant Alliance Commendations):

Impossible?
They are random messages in bottle or journal messages found. They can be done it just random and little “grindy”

Question as always. Why you in a rush to complete these?

A little grindy?
Before Season 11, you could complete kegs in an hour.
Now one out of three bottles on an island are able to give a merchant quest, and the chance of getting the one you want is about 4% for each bottle.
Its also 4% for each mysterious journal, where just like bottles, a max of 2 can spawn on one island, exept if the game buggs out.

Now in the seasons where i've tried to complete all the crate-/keg commendations, i've had more islands without bottles/journals than islands with bottles/journals.
Im still not finished after grinding for seasons and finding one on accident is very unlikely.

Not only are these commendations only completable if you grind them, they also have an insanly low spawn rate, you have to get lucky 250 times to hit that 4% chance of getting the quest you need.

These commendations are in fact the grindiest commendations, that currently exist in this game.
Not counting the shrouded.

And before you say "why the rush?".
Ive finished all the other stuff exept miles (i need 800 more and im done), 9999 HG and shrouded.

Edit: The 4 percent aren't the true value for merchant kegs/crates, but since there are no official numbers, i used simple math, as i cant be bothered figuring the true numbers out.
Rare knows the chances, so my math doesn't matter anyway.
1/3 (≈33%): Chance of getting the right company
1/2 (≈16%): Chance of right voyage type (cargo voyage, crates/kegs deliverys)
1/4 (≈4%): Chance of getting the right crate or a keg delivery
Lady hysteria made a YouTube video about it, if you want evidence, of this being a huge grind.

@dermasterbob It's about as bad as I expected with those numbers. I will have gold bones before I have even 10 kegs sold, that's how rare this is.

Yeah this old content is in dire need of an update. I've been working on mine for about 3 years at this point. I even have a friend who's played since day 1 and he isn't finished with his yet.
Smugglers Bottles have certainly made things worse.

I myself am done with all the crates but need about 20+ more gunpowder kegs delivered.

I really don't understand why they've just left these commendations to rot... I believe it was easy to complete upon launch? Where they were on-demand quests you could do whenever. Then they added you can only find them in barrels and bottles, then made it so you can buy crates (you can buy meat at outposts for hunters call, but lets not talk about that I guess), and maybe they think it would be too easy?

You'd think the easiest commendations would be the easiest to complete but they're not.
One theory I have is they are worried about player backlash from people who completed it while "it was difficult to do", and then being mad that "the noobs can do it".
Which I don't think is a healthy, you shouldn't wish the same suffering you had on others.

At the same time they trivialize other commendations who while hard and grindy, are reliable... Like Chests of a Thousand Grog, Chest of Sorrow, Horn of fair winds (one on every island and skele ship).
I dunno if its like a bar you have to pass where if its 100% chance they wont tamper with it.
So the Merchant Deliveries and the Pristine Meg Scales/Teeth kinda get left behind.

Its just frustrating when its not something you have control over, not to say we shouldn't have luck-based commendations, but maybe, just maybe, we shouldn't have luck-based commendations that reach the 50 mark?

All I see on these posts people agreeing it should be fixed. And yet they dont.

@hammerpunch In the dev twitch stream they just had today they said they have plans to try to fix merchant bottles. Lets hope they do.

@hammerpunch said in Please fix Black Powder Merchant and Merchant Forager (Merchant Alliance Commendations):

@potatosord I didn't see anything mentioned of that in the Developer Update video on Youtube? Was it cut out?

Not in the developer update, but in the twitch stream they did just before that (I think I have the correct time in the link, otherwise it's a very short bit around 56 minutes in).

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@lem0n-curry That is the correct part, I can see myself in chat during it. I should have said hi to myself in the future

@hammerpunch said in Please fix Black Powder Merchant and Merchant Forager (Merchant Alliance Commendations):

@lem0n-curry Thanks for sharing! Great to see that Mike is at least aware of this. Hopefully they'll fix this soon.

What bothers me a bit is that Drew said they tried to fold it in several times but couldn't, which seems to me they want something "complicated" for a fix.

I would have thought that adding them to bottles which already have the possibility of multiple voyages or even add them (as a chance) to the Merchant Alliance Emissary voyage wouldn't be that difficult as it's an already existing voyage.

I hope it's just because there were other things they had to prioritise and that didn't leave time for changes to the crates and kegs voyages.

@potatosord said in Please fix Black Powder Merchant and Merchant Forager (Merchant Alliance Commendations):

@hammerpunch In the dev twitch stream they just had today they said they have plans to try to fix merchant bottles. Lets hope they do.

Man I hope so