Grinded 200 Bottles to Prove a Point

So what you’re saying.
Just play the game normally and don’t focus on certain commendations.
Game got long life w d you as a player have a lot of time.
Just enjoy it and all will come to you.

@burnbacon said in Grinded 200 Bottles to Prove a Point:

So what you’re saying.
Just play the game normally and don’t focus on certain commendations.
Game got long life w d you as a player have a lot of time.
Just enjoy it and all will come to you.

You just heard from a player with 2,500 hours who had to hard grind a commendation to complete it.
If passively completing it was a reasonable task (and also consider how much time you think a player should reasonable invest into a game for progress) shouldn't he perhaps have completed, or at least close to completed it?
It doesn't seem like that's feasible with the stats provided.

I think Drew has already mentioned they are aware of this.
Hopefully will be added to Captain's Table or maybe the merchants themselves.

@tabaai said in Grinded 200 Bottles to Prove a Point:

We are waiting since season 10....

Merchant has been a problem since season 11, that's when they changed all the voyages.

I got all the Merchant bottle quests done last year. It is still possible, but it was brutal. The most optimal way I found of doing it was using a map containing mysterious journals of Snake Island and Crook's Hollow. I eventually learned all the locations and the quickest route to check all the possible spawn points. Gold Hoarder dive to one of the islands, check it for journals then sail to the other. The dive timer should be almost complete by the time you check both. Absolutely thrilling gameplay, I'm sure you'd agree.... I think my hit rate was about 1 in 10 or so.

Even though I have spent the time to complete this, I'd be more than happy for it to be reworked. It currently just isn't that fun.

Did what I said, wasn't looking at back-to-back bottles; they were all merchant missions. Heck found a glitched journal with 3 on top of each other; they were all the same thing, go to same outpost.

I swear, once they "fix" this once great grind because it taking to long and everyone finishes it...then the next complaint will be, you have nothing left to do because "completed everything"

@arias1101

I feel so bad for people in your situation. I find myself wishing there was a separate section on the voyage board I could post merchant bottle missions I find. Years ago it was a parchment in the barrels and I just kept logging in and searching to do all mine. Why they removed these is beyond me. If I'm on and find any, I'll DM you.

@burnbacon said in Grinded 200 Bottles to Prove a Point:

I swear, once they "fix" this once great grind because it taking to long and everyone finishes it...then the next complaint will be, you have nothing left to do because "completed everything"

I know you've been around the Seas for a significant period of time, and respectfully, I think you're out of touch with just how large that grind is to somebody who hasn't been playing since the beginning.
I share a similar amount of hours to Arias1101, I've really hard grinded almost everything in the game, and there are some comms I'm absolutely dreading/considering not attempting at all due to how laborious or unreasonable they are in a vacuum; And they certainly aren't ones you can do passively.
I can understand how, to someone who has been here since the very early days of Sea of Thieves (and been consistently active) that commendations might seem to easy - if you're keeping up with content they may seem quite minimal, but I can assure you, the grind is no less great, and a lot of content has been added as time has gone on that the pile has just been getting higher and higher.
It really comes down to that question of "How much time do you think is feasible per commendation/for a player to dedicate to a game before they should be able to reasonably make the most out of it?"
Additionally, one thing I've certainly realized over the course of the seasons I've played which you might not have thought about it, is that there are several commendations, like these bottle quests, that have actually become much harder since their initial introduction, and don't get the proper attention from the development team due to being old content.

This why I enjoy this game so much. The randomness of it all. Some players spend days or months looking for something and never find them. While other people are lucky and find the very times even when the aren’t looking

Truely amazing and players get upset over it.

@burnbacon said in Grinded 200 Bottles to Prove a Point:

This why I enjoy this game so much. The randomness of it all. Some players spend days or months looking for something and never find them. While other people are lucky and find the very times even when the aren’t looking

Truely amazing and players get upset over it.

I totally understand that some people - such as yourself, view this game entirely as a do-as-you-go sandbox experience, but you have to understand that there are plenty of people who are very task-oriented, and play because they have things to tick off in a checklist, and not an insignificant amount, either.
The game has been going for 8 years now, and on some level the tasks need to be somewhat attainable to new players putting in the effort to grind; And as such I would again remind you that you are likely far above not only the average player in hours, but also likely the average experienced/dedicated player, and as such, your own experience is not relative to the current required grind.
I've spent a lot of time with other completionists, and in my experience many would agree there's plenty of issues with the current state of a lot of old commendations.
If those actively attempting to complete the game through hard grinding are struggling to do so, who exactly is expected to do it?

If your answer is 'no one' then I don't know if we're going to reach any kind of agreement.