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As well known, since Season 11 two commendations/xbox achievements in particular have been near impossible to finish.
These are both tied to the Merchant Alliance and are;

• Black Powder Merchant - Deliver 100 kegs on time
• Merchant Forager - Deliver 50 fruit crates on time

The easy fix in my opinion would be to add both of these as on-demand quests for the Merchant Alliance that could be started from the quest table.
The Black Powder quest should give you a delivery quest with a random number between 2-8 kegs to be delivered on time.
The Merchant Forager quest should give you a delivery quest with a random supply crate (wood, fruit or cannonballs) to be delivered on time to a Merchant Alliance representative.

I've seen so many posts regarding this topic for the last year and I really hope a fix will be implemented soon.

Hello, I am a Sea of Thieves completionist and given the nature of the game with little progression besides cosmetics, I would wager a guess that a decent chunk of the dedicated playerbase is made up of Trophy/Achievement/Commendation hunters like myself.

For the most part, this game is fantastic in this aspect, apart from one small area: the Merchant Alliance related achievements. Many of us started the game after these voyages were removed, and as such, they are now essentially impossible to complete. Yes, you can 'technically' get these still from Bottles, but in its current state it would likely take thousands upon thousands of hours of grinding only this, such that I am comfortable calling these achievements basically unobtainable. In my own experience, I have 0% towards these achievements with 350 hours in the game, making them some of the hardest achievements/trophies currently on Xbox or Playstation. I don't think it is intended to be this way.

As such, I have come up with an easy fix that also doubles to improve the Merchant Alliance faction, which often gets complaints from the playerbase related to it's lack of content.

These new voyages would work similarly to the commodity crates. Each Merchant Alliance Outpost Representative would be able to direct the player to a specific outpost that is requesting said resource, whether that be kegs, fruit crates, or cannonball crates. Empty fruit crates and cannonball crates could be purchased at any outpost, and the goal of the voyage would be to fill said crates from barrels or enemy ships and deliver them to the specified representative. In keeping with Merchant Alliance fashion, there could be a limit of 1-2 empty crates available for purchase at each outpost, and the voyage contract could also have a time limit as well.

Kegs would work slightly differently. Either they could be available for purchase (though this risks affecting game balance) or the voyage could simply be to find some in the world and deliver them, giving players a reason to visit inactive Skeleton Forts and transport kegs from there.

I believe this is a very simple solution to what I and some other trophy hunters would consider one of the biggest problems with the game currently.

Some of the benefits of this implementation would be:

1. Fixes these 'unobtainable' achievements
2. Gives additional purpose to Fruit Crates, Cannonball Crates, and Kegs, which are currently only used as supplies and often just abandoned as trash when empty.
3. Provides additional content for the Merchant Alliance, a faction many consider to be lacking in content
4. The fix itself would require little resources to implement, requiring no new game assets whatsoever

I am open to discussion on these ideas, but mainly oh my god Rare please implement this, lol.

Merchant alliance: the fractured alliance
Story: The merchant alliance has fallen to minors in piracy. And due to this change, some outposts have increased their prices on certain items in the pirating world and lowered others. Such as certain animals or items will become more valuable in certain seas rather than others. While this schism is happening, the pirate lord has reached out to the sea ports to help with this conversion and keep the merchant Alliance together.

*Things to implement:
•Missions for Merchant Alliance:
-The merchant alliance, now has 2 new rows of missions available. One for cargo runs, and the other is new trade mission called the merchants trade. The merchants trade will bring silk, tea, sugar, spice, bananas, Wood and cannonballs (devil’s roar themed to the outer seas: volcanic stone, fine ore, precious gem stones, and extraordinary minerals) into the trading variety where just like cargo runs you go from one location to another. When you read the note found on the cargo, it will now tell you the agreed upon amount to be paid to you. And with this knowledge you could possibly go to another sea if you know they will pay more for that item and sell I there. If you sell it at another location other than the missions location, then you will not get as much experience but a lot more gold. While if you go to the mission’s location you gain the agreed upon amount of gold and more experience.
-3 rows of merchant missions (1 row for each type) will be added to sea ports. This means that just like merchants at outposts, merchants at sea ports will be desiring to pay more gold for some items while others will pay less.
-The pirate lord will introduce a new row of athenas maps to represent Merchant alliances athenas. This athenas will help resurge the alliance trading group and be made up of 2 cargo runs, 4 animals and 2 merchants trade missions (you need to be a good pirate here and actually sell all of your stuff to the correct place be it cargo or animals or trade missions) of which are all randomized across all seas (leaving out devil’s roar unless you look in the devil’s roar for which you will find one for that location specially). Completing this will lead you to an island where you will find one of the pirate lord’s ghost animals of legend (they are ghost animals be it a pig, snake or a chicken, that can only be captured by shining a light and using a special cage) that need to be captured and delivered safely home.
•New trade items/rules to implement:
-sugar, tea, silk, and spice (devil roar edition: volcanic stone, fine ore, precious gem stones and extraordinary minerals) now have a set destination.
-In the shores of plenty bananas and silk are abundant and so they are less wanted in that sea but wanted on the other 2 seas, cannon balls and spices are abundant in the ancient isles and so they are less wanted there, and in the wilds sugar and tea and Wood are abundant but wanted more in the 2 other seas. To find out prices you can go to those other seas to compare prices or just go on with your missions.
-Sea ports are now a part of the merchant’s alliance as well. And will now sell all merchant alliance missions.
-There is now an athenas level animals of which are a ghost pig, ghost chicken, and ghost snake that are all original pets of the pirate lord. This will offer a high price in gold (not as much as gold chest but around the same as athenas skull) and about the same or less for an athena’s skull.
•Accommodations: (-accomidation, = is rewards)
-Rotten trader: betray the merchants Alliance and sell merchant trade cargo to someone else
=a wet and low class set of merchant clothes
-High Class merchant scoundrel: betray the merchants alliance and sell the merchants trade cargo to someone else to grade 5
=merchant clothes with patches and tools that have damage to them similar to bildge rats but look similar to the items sold by merchants
-High class loyal merchant: obey the merchant alliance and sell a certain number of cargo (merchants trade) up to grade 5
=merchant alliance ship hull (of some kind maybe a nice teal similar to granny’s scarf)
-Scoundrel trader of the seas:earn X gold to grade 5 through betrayed alliance sales
=a high grade suit similar to the merchants but better and a figure head of a snake with a purple hull, 1/3 of merchant alliance tools
-Master grade merchant of the seas:earn X gold through merchant sales to grade 5
=merchant alliance outfit, and the figure head of the chicken and white hull, 1/3 of new merchant alliance tools
-Merchant of the devil’s sea:earn X gold through merchant sales in or from the devil’s roar to grade 5
=a flame singed merchant alliance outfit and a figure head of a pig, and a pink/salmon colored hull, and 1/3 of a set of merchant tools
-Legendary merchant of the sea of thieves:gather to grade 5 athena level animals
=a figure head with a chicken, pig and snake on it, a hull that is a nice mix of pink on the ship, purple sides and a white trim to represent all animals.

This could make alliances somewhat interesting if they are comprised of different trading companies. Might even see more use than some of the other deeds out there. Just in case it wasn't clear, this means to donate loot to other crews, not directly to the company itself.

As the title says, I'm a MA roleplayer and completionisist (37/37 commendations and full emissary set) looking for players to grind MA with.

I have a legendary sloop I can pledge.

Pikappa89

Everyone has experienced this at one time or another. You load your game, you're ready to get out on that water and find that treasure! But wait...you have to stock the ship...

Depending on your luck, maybe this only takes you 5 or 10 minutes. If you're solo, maybe it takes longer. Regardless, most players would agree that the initial stock-up is a bit of a chore and one we could do without. Wouldn't it be great if we could start with our ship having 50 Cannon Balls, 50 Fruit and 50 planks?

Enter the Merchant Alliance. We spend countless hours delivering Chickens, Pigs, Snakes and all manner of Crates to them...but do we ever see them sell them? No.

I would like to propose, for RARE's and the community's consideration, an upgrade to the Merchant Alliance's business model. While they will continue to accept full crates for coin, now they will sell these full crates back for profit!

Here's how it would break down in my mind:

• A new text option would be added to the Merchant Alliance NPCs that opens a new purchase menu. Something like, "I'm in need of some supplies..."
• The new menu will show you any of the crates capable of holding supplies: Wood, Cannon Balls or Fruit. Each crate will cost a certain amount (for this example let's say they all cost 3,000 gold coins).
• The pirate can click on the crate they want and similar to the Quest page it will ask for confirmation. Click yes, and the Crate will spawn where it normally would if you were picking up an empty for a Quest, only this one is completely full.

DESIGN NOTES

• The Fruit Crate could potentially be a randomized assortment or (for balance-sake) it could only contain Coconuts/Poms/Bananas.
• It is important to note that since this is still a turn-in crate, the cost to acquire a full one should be at least double the value of a turn-in. After all, Merchant Alliance is about profit first... (joke aside, it must be higher than turn-in cost to prevent an infinite farming loop)
• Once you empty out the crate, you can keep it (and refill it) to turn it back in when you are done your journey. This will provide a small return on investment if you can hold onto your empties.
• The price could potentially fluctuate depending on how many of a specific crate pirates on the server have turned in. For Example: if everyone turns in a bunch of fruit, the cost to buy a full Fruit crate might drop by a % for a while due to over-supply.

The main goal of this suggestion is to help remove some unnecessary drudgery from the game and add some new purpose to the Merchant Alliance.

So I do a lot of cargo runs! I would love the ability to put down and vote for 3 merchant quests in a row (Without having to pick up the cargo).

So its no secret that a lot of people dont like doing the merchant allience quest what with loud obnoxious animals, timed quests, and cargo that can break. And while those are not deal breakers for everyone they are for most.
I suggest another option that may be easy to implament. Why not have merchant ships carring cargo from one outpost to another that can be attacked, sunk, and looted. Ship battle is quite enjoyable and as a faction activity that wont have cursed cannonballs it will be easier and help get newer players aquanted with ship battle that they can later go to the more difficult skeletonships that have cursed cannonballs.

So I've turned on Sea of Thieves tonight to try and plow through some of the 500 cargo turn ins that I'll need for the Pirate Legend commendation.

I'm finally all motivated and ready to work on these, but when I speak to the Merchant trader to purchase a cargo run she only has animal runs to offer me... Hmm no matter, I'll just start in on another server. Okay, fresh start, different outpost, new server. Let's go get a cargo run, right? Apparently not, animal runs only, yet again.

So I've spent the past 40 minutes server hopping, just in hopes of being able to buy at least one cargo run. No luck. The in game day has cycled at least once and I've server hopped dozens of times, but I can't purchase cargo runs due to the RNG voyage offering system. It's frustrating.

I don't know how much of an undertaking this change would be, if there are server limitations, or other technical hardships, but I really think it would be a HUGE quality of life improvement to give the merchant trader 2 pages for voyages. One for cargo runs, and one for animal runs. I don't think a choice of voyage type should not be left to RNG.

Since the release of cargo runs you've still been limited to buy 3 voyages from the Merchant Alliance before each restock of contracts. The problem with this is that if someone wants to cycle through or do multiple animal deliveries they're restricted to only 1 or 2 per stock of contracts; the same applying to cargo runs. Why not just have 2 pages of Merchant Alliance voyages with 3 of each variation on each page?