Love this game, but as it's evolved, there are some elements that feel like they've been left behind, and I think the seaposts are one of them. A few related observations:
- Seapost stores don't really serve any purpose - they don't sell or buy anything unique and there's no real reason to visit them, except for when you're selling fish to Merrick and the gang.
- Hunter's call is the trading company that you work on while working on other voyages for other companies. It's focused on finding and cooking food.
- Merchants currently has four ways to grow rep: resource/commodity trading, finding lost ships, cargo runs, and animal transport.
I think you can guess where this is going. Here's the idea:
Turn the seaposts from generic stores to basically something more supportive of hunter's call. Move the animal trading/transporting to the seaposts and remove it from the merchants. Make the seapost store owners a second Hunter's Call representative who accept the snakes/pigs/chickens. Instead of issuing quests to find certain types of chickens or pigs, instead do something similar to the resource/commodity trading list that shows which outposts have goods in demand or in surplus. Have a list of high priority animals for each week - e.g., an all black pig, a white chicken, a purple snake - and have the seaposts sell the animal crates (one of each type, per in game day) to players. Add a found chicken/snake/pig commendation that parallels the splashtails and the other fish.
With this setup, players can do the same thing they do now with fishing. They'll be clowning around on crescent isle, see a snake they know is in high demand, and grab it to deliver it later in the voyage. Hunter's call rep inches up, just as slow as normal, lol, but with a few more ways to add to the pile.
As an added bonus, let the seapost stores sell a very expensive crate of raw meat (think like a fruit crate, but with a smaller storage capacity - maybe 10 items, with the items randomized between snake meat/pork/chicken).
Doing this allows the merchants to focus on their shipped teas and coffees and gems and stones and bone dust, and let's hunter's call focus on food. It makes the world of Sea of Thieves make more sense. And it's an easy fix.
