Way to make Merchant Alliance commendations more accessible [Forager, Shipwright, Cast Iron, Black Powder]

  • NeyZer6724
    Rogue

    Hi everyone,
    (Sorry it will be a bit long)

    Today, I would like to point out an “issue” regarding a few commendations concerning Merchant Allience.

    I am someone who loves to complete games to 100% and I fell in love with your game (which I have been playing since the release on PS5).
    So, I also plan to complete this one to 100%.

    But despite everything, I'm going to have a lot of trouble regarding certain achievements concerning the Merchant Alliance.

    You have to deliver 100 barrels of gunpowder and 50 crates of fruit on time and since season 11 released these quests can only be obtained thanks to bottles at sea or mysterious journals.
    However, before this season you could obtain them inside barrels or by interacting directly with the merchant, which is no longer doable today.

    To illustrate the absurdity of it, my friend was able to find 6 gunpowder keg quests and 3 fruit quests in 500 hours of play. In my case, in 200 hours I found no gunpowder keg quests and 2 fruit quests.

    I can understand commendations that require doing a few things repeatedly, it just takes time. But on the other hand the quantities required by these commendations are completely absurd at today's time. Finding a bottle at sea or a mysterious book is already quite rare in itself, but 95% of cases these are not even merchant quests...
    Which means that these commendations are completely based on luck (x100), I think I have better chances to win the lottery than to complete these commendations in less than 2000 hours of play.

    Don't you think that you should reduce the number of crates and barrels to be delivered to make these achievements more accessible ?
    Or, don't you think that doing the quests the way it was possible before wouldn't be better ?

    I have 100 more ways to make these commendations more accessible, I can list them all for you if you need suggestions.

    By the way, your game offers a bunch of things to do, but among those things, sailing from island to island for the sole purpose of looking for quests is one of the last things I want to do on this beautiful map.

    Thanks for reading me !
    Hoping to convince you!

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  • DerMasterBob
    Commander
    Insider

    Sorry i haven't read everything, but i still want to put in my opinion on this matter.
    In my opinion the wood-, cannonball- and fruit crates were much easier to find before the changes of season 11.
    They could be found on every outpost and not just with bottle quests, but getting those is still possible.
    The thing that bugs me are the kegs, as they were part of normal merchant animal deliverys and you coul get up to 6 with one quest.
    So i think the kegs should be put back into the animal deliveries, the rest is fine in my opinion, its supposed to take long afterall (except the kegs).

  • Lem0n Curry
    Vanguard
    Insider

    They definitely should increase the chance of finding such quests; perhaps add them to outpost barrels again or just increase the chance of having a crate/barrel voyage when you find a quest with multiple voyages.

    They also should spawn in shipwrecks or part of the barrels'o'plenty.

    While you don't seem to want to go island hopping with the sole purpose of finding these quests, it would be the most succesful method, but it does pay to go and search for quests in barrels and on the beaches when you go to an island anyway or when you pass an island and are in no direct danger to sword lunge or shoot yourself to an island. Besides the chance of finding a quest it's also good for getting more supplies if you leave your ship with empty pockets.

  • Hefty Henri
    Marauder

    This achievement is almost unobtainable right now as you said. Good suggestion and i hope Rare touches on these commendations as well as just take a look at all achievements and do some balancing where needed.

    For example right now people are getting the ''sail 1000 miles on X voyage'' by just slapping down a voyage whenever possible to grind this achievement. Surely that wasn't the intended idea behind it. Doing it naturally by just doing voyages doesn't get you there, especially now that they added diving to voyages which cuts down sailing time even more.

  • Selgewick
    Master

    Ye see lad, the problem is that ye trying to complete this Commendations as soon as possible. However, that not how it works. Ye will need more than 2,000 n maybe even 5,000 hours to complete them, n thats the beauty of it. I agree, that would be nice to have some voyages which would allow us to find n sell some of specific types of treasure more efficiently & effectively, however the chance of finding 'em on the seas is better than having 'em as a Common Voyage pushed by Trading Companies.

  • Fry9889
    Commander
    Insider

    I think putting a couple of them in the Merchant Emissary quest might work. The current Emissary quest for merchants is pretty underwhelming and honestly not really worth doing. Some number of the resource crate voyages in them would solve both issues.

  • NeyZer6724
    Rogue

    @lem0n-curry
    Actually hoping from island to island is not an issue, that’s the point of the game.
    I’m just blaming the little odds of having these specific quests

  • Smuntface
    Captain
    Insider

    If a Crying Chest & Chest of Rage can be obtained thru a simple fetch quest, so should these.

    Just add them to the Merchant as a mission you can do.

    For Merchie Emissaries, it would give us welcome variation in the types of missions we can do.

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