Mercenary Voyages Should Not Cost Doubloons

I believe they should, for they are exclusive voyages, not normal ones. Players without doubloons should find it very easy to focus on some bilge rat commendations and earn some. After all, with the last mercenary voyage, you earned 50 doubloons (Might be mistaken) for completing one of the voyages, giving you a fair amount of new voyages, if you choose to spend it on that.
As of the crate thing, I think Rare needs to develop an idea for us to get our crates back. A simple QoL improvement would solve all of the issues. @Sgt-Palooggoo brought up the idea of being able to get lost crates back from Seaposts in a somewhat older post. If you’re interested, I’d look into it. Cheers.

@xcalypt0x You have some valid concerns but 5 Doubloons isn't much, you get them back when you complete. There are far more Doubloons you can earn than what is needed, unless you spent it all buying gold or levels and in that case that is on you.

Doing it once for the event was ok. You got 50 back which basically paid for the Mercenary set during the Friends event. That was the intended purpose to show off this part of SoT. However, after that it is just trading doubloons for gold and rep which is not necessary and a waste. Nothing special about the actual voyage really. Just the same of what we can already do and have done over and over condensed down for a bit of convenience and more reward.

Now if there was a truly special voyage that offered more than just gold And rep via a brand new, different type voyages, it might be worth it. That there were chances for special limited cosmetics in addition to the other rewards and a truly new voyage. Not another voyage with a new name name or a reskin appearance to the same voyages and rewards already performed and earned. If it is just an opportunity for another voyage of existing voyage types that will yield just extra gold and rep, then there needs to be another form of in game earned currency or just let it cost more gold.

@xcalypt0x when I first read your title I was expecting nonsense but you brought up the key points others will at some point. As far as the disconnecting goes, that can be problematic with anything even though dabloons arent always at stake. Athenas can be lost do to disconnections, skull fort keys gone, etc... in all cases work previously done is lost so it is really just an overall issue and not one to truly be considered for mercenary voyages specifically. The issue with not having dabloons I have seen people bring up but I'm not really sure how people wouldn't have them. They are pretty easy to obtain and maybe people bought like a million levels, lol. Since this is valid, mayb ed rare can gift 15 dabloons to each person to by the 1st 3 voyages? Still has issues but atleast gives people the chance to sail. For the merchants, well. That ain't my thing so I'll leave that up to you experts! Lol.

@one-eye-ethan said in Mercenary Voyages Should Not Cost Doubloons:

@Sgt-Palooggoo brought up the idea of being able to get lost crates back from Seaposts in a somewhat older post. If you’re interested, I’d look into it. Cheers.

Aye, I believe @One-Eye-Ethan is referring to this Post I made.

@xcalypt0x yeah, your right. I see the potential limit to the voyages. I kind of like that about them but I also have like 300 dabloons and so i dont think i qualify to relate to the folks who do not have a lot of dabloons.

@luciansanchez82 I like this idea and have been hoping that something like this would be implemented into the game at some point. While I love that the BR and Merc voyages tie into the lore and overall story of the game, if they also had a daily and/or weekly challenge (perhaps learned through a conversation with Duke, or by a bulletin at each outpost) that could get between 5 - 15 dubloons, then I think it would be a fun way to get rid of the problem as well as add something new each week.

Maybe they could even add a community challenge like kill X number of skeletons across all servers.

@luciansanchez82 I like the way you think, but I would have to disagree -- I feel that one of the main reasons they introduced doubloons in the first place was that gold was becoming too cheap. You can see it in our reactions to stuff -- "5,000 gold? Meh, add it to my x million heap" vs "Wow 20 doubloons, I'm rich!" As you point out regarding yourself, we're already seeing doubloons get too common. Making them even more common would just exacerbate that issue and make them value-less.

TLDR: You're 100% right, that would solve the problem the OP presents, but imo it would exacerbate or create a new one in the process.

I fully concur with this wholeheartedly.
Simply due to the frequency of my infinite loading screens of death and or disconnects as mainly a solo slooper i be.

I'd be okay however if doubloon cost is to remain a thing for any future Legendary commendation voyages to remain as is but the other regular adventure voyages surely would be better fixed to coin purchase, i'd pay 100x whatever coin cost Rare attributed to buy Gilded versions (coins stacking up nothing to spend it on thus me Pirate spirits getting restless, and others hunt me make it worth their while)
This would not solve the issue for the higher tier unlocks but would allow future small adventure voyages to be done enmass.

@luciansanchez82 I think it could be fun! Could even make it a dialogue option for Duke if we don't want it to break the fourth wall.

Give him a community challenge status option. "What's happening across the seas?"
And he can respond with something like, "Bilge Rats from the Ancient Isles to the Devil's roar have reported X skeleton ships sent back to the depths this week. Only X more to go!"

I do like @Galactic-Geek's suggestion of a 1 dubloon daily reward too. Want to participate in the 5 dubloon challenge but are dub-broke? You'll have to log in 5 days in the next 2 weeks and complete the daily challenge to earn those cosmetics.

Aye agree. Even with the amount of doubloons I have saved up, I found myself having a hard time spending 5 on a quest. Thank the Pirate lord for my spare Xbox and separate pirate, he has no problem spending his doubloons.

For me, I just don't see these voyages being doubloon worthy, excluding the initial voyage for commendation. Doubloons are a special currency in this game, and with the current track record for Rare, events have been kind of slacking to get this currency. This would be a different case if doubloons were more common, or if the rewards from the voyage were actually noteworthy. However, if I am being pragmatic (I don't actually play this way) about my doubloon spending, I would rather save up and buy the full level up rather then gamble on loot that will most likely not give me much worth.

We do need some form of doubloon money sink, however, these voyages aren't a good way to do that. Maybe they could keep the 5 doubloon voyage cost, but have a chest or an item at the end that gives 7 doubloon back. So in the end you gain something of value rather then standard gold and rep. At least the gilded voyage had Athena Rep.

@xcalypt0x
Considering that this voyage is probably the length of the Rum Runner Voyage, I wouldn't see a need to save the progress. I would also expand that sentiment for an Athena Voyage as well. The Rum Runner Voyage is pretty short compared to say an Athena. I personally don't see a need to save voyage progress in general. If anything, I see it as a way of abuse. If say a boat is stalking me for my Athena chest, I might just log off to avoid risking it being stolen.

I started during the friends play free event. I had 5 tokens to my name and bought one of these voyages. I went part way through the voyage, but didn't realize HOW long it was going to take. It was bedtime, I cancelled the voyage, and found out I didn't get the voyage back. I was pretty devastated to be honest.

It wasn't till 2 days later that I was in a random crew and I guess we did something that I got some more doubloons, and was able to buy the voyage again, and this time I waited until I was with someone I trusted, and had the time to actually finish it.

Disconnects are a problem in a number of ways, but I don't think it makes these costs a no-go.

I think this system is fine. Everything in this game comes with choices. And the choices we make have an impact. If I choose to spend all of my doubloons, that's on me. That's the life of rogues... because, there's also ways to work around that problem, as you've outlined, yourself.

I've seen a lot of people having a negative reaction to these voyages costing doubloons, but I don't, personally, agree with any of this.

It kind of boils down to, "it can't, because it shouldn't" ...but it does, and it's not really a problem. We can imagine edge cases where it could be a problem... but there are also solutions to that.

Most importantly... if anyone loses their mercenary voyage to a disconnect, bug, or server error... contact support. They handled that for the gilded voyages and I'd imagine they'll handle it for these as well.

I think the cost is intentional and plays an interesting part into the entire scheme of things.

Anyway, just my opinions! =)