Merchant Alliance value balance

And even with the Lost Shipment Voyage, its value hasn’t increased at all compared to the loot you get from the other companies.

Plus with the change to Cargo Runs requiring immediate delivery, the emissary voyage is not really worth the effort. (Note: OOS emissary voyage isn’t really worth it either… if it was Kingly loot yes, but it’s not)

@lordqulex I have no issues with the direct sailing/selling: its the value of the items when compared to the other companies.

@reverend-toast
You can cancel the cargo voyage once you collect the cargo. This works for the normal cargo voyage as well as athena quests. Then you can stack cargo as long as you want. Even sell it at reaper's all at once.

@reverend-toast said in Merchant Alliance value balance:

Since all Merchant voyages (with the exception of Lost Shipments) require you to pick up and deliver before you can select another voyage the value of the loot needs to be rebalanced. You can easily chain multiple GH or OOS small island voyages together, just going island to island collecting skulls/chests to your hearts content till you get to grade 5 emissary… while Merchant you can only get 2 items, of much less value than a skull, and have to immediately sail to the next outpost.

You can have four items as well, use the voyage next to the one you're using.

While people complain about the new way cargo is handled (quest completion at delivery), there is a benefit as well: if after delivery you vote to sail for the next one, your pick up point is the same as the previous delivery ! No need to sail at all for picking them up.
It worked for me three or four cargo runs in a row, so I doubt it's my luck.

Since the update dropped I have bounced around all the trading companies… with a lot more emphasis on merchant and have already gotten past 110 in GH and OOS, but have just cracked 86 in merchant.

Would have been more in line with the GH & OoS if you had done the ones that have you deliver 4 cargo / animals.

@testakleze said in Merchant Alliance value balance:

@reverend-toast
You can cancel the cargo voyage once you collect the cargo. This works for the normal cargo voyage as well as athena quests. Then you can stack cargo as long as you want. Even sell it at reaper's all at once.

Is there even any downside to doing this as a merchant? Aside from not progressing the commendation for completing a certain number of merchant voyages?

Ideally Rare will update this soon to where we can organically stack cargo runs again, but this is likely the best alternative there is at the moment.

@lem0n-curry I have done those and the small islands are more efficient for solo slooping just like the small islands for GH and OOS.

Difference with GH and OOS is the value of the items you get is ALL 1-2k, and you can Daisy chain island back to back, get to 5 and then everything in, while with Merchant you have to go back and forth to individual islands and (hopefully) back to the same outpost but it will occasionally send you to the next one over.

Again, not complaining about the voyage… but with GH and OOS getting more valuable loot, only the cargo runs got new stuff making occasional appearances.. and it takes several of those with longer sailing times to get the multiplier.

The ashen cargo runs did get a little boost in value… but should be a bit more to match the other companies progression speed.

@testakleze kinda defeats the purpose of upping merchant rep though.

@Habiki
Not getting the voyage completion credit for commendations is the only downside I know of, but that has been the norm until this update. Technically you don't even have to cancel the voyage, you can skip canceling and just vote on a new one. It automatically removes the previous voyage.

@reverend-toast
You don't have to sell to reaper's. Just an option. Reaper's don't care about the time limit, and cargo will raise your reaper emissary the same way it does the merchant emissary, so you can literally stack as long as you want with no emissary, then raise the reaper flag once you get to the hideout to sell. I can't remember the exact number of cargo needed to be sold to hit grade 5 flag but I think it's around 32.

When I stacked cargo from an ashen athena the other day I noticed a few things.

It was always DR cargo, not regular cargo (obviously) or the new pieces.

It might give me both cargo mission pickups on the same island like ruby's fall or fetcher's rest but never were both pickups on the outpost. So every voyage provided either 0 or 4 cargo to collect. If I had been sitting at those other islands, I may have been able to collect the cargo faster.

Most of my cargo needed to be delivered outside of the devil's roar. I think 1 set of cargo had a destination inside the DR but most went to kraken's fall or crook's hollow. Other destinations were as far as plunder outpost and shipwreck Bay. These destinations being so far away outside of the DR when also now being required to advance the athena voyage is ridiculous.

After collecting so much, I didn't even want to sell it. That's when I decided to go to reaper's instead of the normal destinations, I also hunted down a harpoon rowboat and invited a friend to help. We made over 600k.

@reverend-toast said in Merchant Alliance value balance:

@lem0n-curry I have done those and the small islands are more efficient for solo slooping just like the small islands for GH and OOS.

Difference with GH and OOS is the value of the items you get is ALL 1-2k, and you can Daisy chain island back to back, get to 5 and then everything in, while with Merchant you have to go back and forth to individual islands and (hopefully) back to the same outpost but it will occasionally send you to the next one over.

Again, not complaining about the voyage… but with GH and OOS getting more valuable loot, only the cargo runs got new stuff making occasional appearances.. and it takes several of those with longer sailing times to get the multiplier.

The ashen cargo runs did get a little boost in value… but should be a bit more to match the other companies progression speed.

The non-ashen cargo got a boost as well, more than the 700 you used to get.

You're right that you can't turn everything you gathered in at grade 5 though, you'll be turning everything in at grade 1-4 - at least when you get targeted at higher grade and get sunk you already made some gold.

Perhaps in combination with picking up commodities at outpost you turn in your cargo or animals at and turning those in at grade 5 would make it more worth your while ?

@lem0n-curry regardless, it’s rep gain pales in comparison to OOS and GH.