Ahoy there!
As the title suggested, I wanted to collect suggestions to spice up Merchant Alliance voyages with new or altered voyage types and mechanisms. If you have any feedback or ideas, let me know in a post below and I'll try to update this (and give credit) accordingly.
For suggestions on the other two factions check here:
Order of Souls voyage suggestions
Gold Hoarders voyage suggestions
Variety is the spice of life (Additional trade resources)
Apart from more voyages that will require full cannonball crates, banana crates or plank crates. We'd love to see more variation in the resources we'd have to trade.
Shipping crates
These crates are generic crates of goods that will have the delivery information on them which will be visible for everyone looking at the crate. The information provided is enough to figure out where they can be handed in. Unlike the cages, shipping crates are always worth the same amount which makes them a willing target for theft. The only downside is that you can only hand them in at the NPC supplied on the delivery information to get money for them.
Rum barrels (Suggestion by @Bern-Dimall, @IceMan-0007)
Nobody trusts water for drinking, so the alcoholic beverages need to be available everywhere. Good pirates as we are, we're definitely willing to ferry around some drinks to bring joy... for the right price.
Sailing with rum is almost as tricky as sailing with gun powder, although the damage is slightly less damaging for the ship, wasting booze is never good for morale. Although nobody on the ship at the moment of breaking will be very sad, everyone will instantly be drunk, singing and going through the entire range of emotes.
Rum will age over time (Suggstion by @m1sterpunch)
When you have rum in your possession, it will age over time. The older the rum, the better the quality and therefor the better the price. The age of the rum could be visualized by the color of the barrel or the color of the label on the barrel and the color will change over time. Much like the animals on other voyages, there will be different "grades" of rum: white, amber, dark and spiced rum.
Finding rum (Suggstion by @m1sterpunch)
Rum can be found stashed away in random stashes in the ground. They'll be recognizable by the wooden planks covering the stash. You need to take the planks (or destroy them in a way) to reveal the hidden goods under them.
Master Merchant (Changed mechanism)
Since the merchants are all about trading, why not maximize profits if you're a good sailor. All the voyages from the Merchant Alliance have a set start and end time, why not allow people to accept multiple contracts (maybe limited to 3?) and prove their worth. Without changing each contract it would offer quite a challenge to try and gather everything in time for a nice payout.
Quality of a Merchants Life (QoL improvements)
Gathering Progress (Suggestion by @Galactic-Geek)
Whenever you capture an animal or gathered a requested item add strikethrough lines, ticks or green checkmarks next to all of the gathered items IMMEDIATELY. This way everyone can see what was captured and what is still needed. If an animal dies or cage/item is lost a red X can appear next to it until recovered.
Reduce the size the cages take up in the screen (Suggestion @Foxdodge)
The cages currently take up about two thirds of the screen while holding them, it would be nice if we could see a bit more when holding a cage. You wouldn't walk around holding the cage in front of your face.
Animal retrieval (Existing voyage changes)
Hungry hungry piggies
Why do pigs require food while snakes and chickens can go without it for years? The mechanism of feeding pigs isn't that bad by itself, however feeding the pig when it doesn't scream doesn't reset the "timer", feeding has to be done really often. It would already improve if you can just feed the pigs once a day and that it would count if you feed them when they're not hungry.
Replenish Lost Cages
Whenever a cage is lost, we should be able to go back to the Merchant and reclaim lost cages either for free or by purchasing them. Allowing the purchasing of cages outside voyages would open things up for cheesing again though.
More animals
It would be nice if we'd have more variation in the types of animals that are required.
Increase the price for an animal outside voyages (Suggestion by @Macadoodledew)
The way animals are currently priced outside voyages, it's never worth it to steal them from another. By making the base price higher and just giving a boosted price for handing them in as part of a voyage it will be worth it to rob a pirate from his animals.
Stop the color discrimination (Suggestion by @Macadoodledew)
Everyone knows by now that the golden animals are worth the most, which means a lot of people will just cancel the voyages until they have a voyages that will offer them the best amount of golden animals. If all the animals were worth the same, this wouldn't be an issue. The differences between high and low level voyages would just be in the amount of animals that need to be gathered.
Postal service
Delivery of shipping crates from one location to a specified NPC. The delivery information will be listed on the crate(s) you will receive.
Example: Delivery to "Merry Merrick", location "Sharkbait Cove"
- Simple delivery
Deliver one or several crates to one NPC.
- Delivery route
Drop off several crates to multiple people, ticking off the names on each delivery.
- High priority delivery (Suggestion by @FishSt1ck, @Ever-Reddy)
Deliver one or several crates to a NPC within a very short time. The longer it takes you to deliver the crate, the less money it's worth.
- Smuggler's run (Suggestion by @John-Hatter)
Deliver a crate on a very specific date and time. If you happen to come into possesion of the package without starting the voyage, the delivery will pass on to you. The shady recipient will only wait for you for 1 hour and missing the mark will fail the mission, however if you're there in time you'll receive cash on delivery.
- Flying the Pirate Post Delivery Flag (Suggestion by @Macadoodledew)
The Merchant Alliance is proud of their delivery service and wants to show that to the world. If you fly the Pirate Post Delivery flag they will offer you a bigger cut on the earnings.
- Dynamic trade routes (Suggestion @Bern-Dimall, @Thor-von-Blitz)
Each outpost should have specific trade goods that can be bought and sold at varying prices. Buying these goods at a certain outpost and selling them at another outpost that is low on these goods might earn you a nice profit. This would create actual trade routes that will change due to supply and demand.
Innkeep rumours (Suggestion by @J4dio)
To get the latest information of what might be worth selling or buying pirates could have a word with the local innkeepers, they might shared with you some of the things they've heard.
Weekly restock request board (Side-voyage)
Check out the Merchant Alliance board to see what goods they're low on and will pay good money for. Looking at this board will present you with a copy so you can tick off the items. This collecting can be done next to your other voyages and will refresh every week. Progress will be personal and won't change when changing server.
Plant and fruit collection
Collection of specific plants, plant parts or fruit (hopefully more than just bananas).
Underwater voyages
Explore the underwater reefs for the collection of plants, coral, clams, pieces of Rare statues (Mermaid statues) or stones from underwater ruins.
Collecting shellfish (Suggestion @Bern-Dimall)
Apart from normal gathering voyages, you can also get special cages for shellfish (shrimp, blue crabs, rock lobsters, dungeness crab, red lobster). Shellfish are fairly easy to capture, but are sold by the dozen. Pricing varies from shrimp being the lowest tier to red lobster being the top tier.
Pearl diving (Suggestion @Bern-Dimall)
When diving for oysters you can open an oyster in hopes of getting a precious pearl. Not all oyster will contain pearls though and opening the oyster will discard it, so is it a risk you're willing to take?
Merchant Challenges (Additional commendations)
Commendation challenges like the current faction commendations (no doubloons!) with several grades, the higher grades would offer titles or cosmetics.
- Hunting challenges
Hunting would include hunting sharks, snakes, Megan, Karen or any newly added animal like boars, tigers, dolphins, whales, etc. The commendations for killing sharks, snakes, Megan and Karen would immediately represent the number of kills you've already had in the game (Rare is tracking everything, so they probably know). Newly added animals would also immediately be added to the list.
- Fishing challenges
Fishing commendations would include fish up X number of fish but also capturing specific Rare fish that only appear on certain spots.
Thank you for reading and again if you have any feedback or ideas, feel free to let me know in a post below and I'll try to update this (and give credit) accordingly.
Signed,
Captain FishSt1ck
