Merchant Alliance needs a buff

  • PoppaSquids
    Ship Mate

    Has anyone else noticed that the Merchants seem to give really low rep, low gold, and seem to take the longest? It seems every one I meet is behind in the Merchant faction. I seem to do more Merchant voyages, and hardly EVER do Gold Hoarders or Order of Souls yet I'm still 4 levels higher in both of them than I am the Merchants. Also, why isn't there a Stronghold Merchant item? I'm pretty sure thats the reason I am so behind in it is because the Stronghold chest and skull give SO much rep, and the Merchants do nothing? They're really becoming annoying.

    Anyone else feel like the Merchant voyages need a buff??

    @poppasquids said in Merchant Alliance needs a buff:

    UPDATE since people wont actually scroll down to see my last post

    So the most efficient method I have found yet is to propose a voyage, and if it makes you get cheap animals I cancel it and keep proposing until I get one with at least 2 golden animals. ALSO. I found this on Reddit and its a HUGE help to making it very fast.

    You plug in where you currently are, and where the destination is, and it brings up all the islands in route and shows you what islands have what animals. I have only done a few MA voyages and I have caught up, and I'm starting to think MA is the most profitable. I got 30k in about 2 hours from just choosing the right voyage, and quickly finishing them!

    http://pinataisland.info/sea-of-thieves/merchant-alliance.php

    You're welcome!

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  • Lirnak30
    Master
    Insider

    Yeah, they need to add a rhum crate as the most valuable merchant item!

  • PoppaSquids
    Ship Mate

    Also, I've noticed that if you find a coop on the island, its almost worthless to grab and animal and sell it.

    For instance: Gold chickens are worth about 1,000 gold. ONLY if you're on a voyage.
    If you find a coop, capture a gold chicken and sell it, you get MAYBE 200 gold.
    I don't even pick up the crates to keep the animals.

    I've read the Noah's Ark strategy and heard it works, but damn does that sound BORING!
    I'm getting really tired of grinding them out so I can get to Pirate Legend.

  • HyR0 the PyR0
    Captain
    Founder

    It's all about those spices and silks and whatnot. Search sunken chips and complete Skele Forts. I've hardly done any Merchant voyages and have my Merchant level at the same as the other 2 (well, close, gold hoarder is 23, souls is 21, merchant 20).

  • DreadPirateOob

    my Merchant Alliance is a full level higher than anything else. 25,24,26(almost 27).

    Those crates you find are not as worthless as you think, its what you catch with them that matters the most.

    Try this. Start a MA journey, pick up all the crates. Cancel the journey. Do this 3-4 times, make sure every time you start one, you go and get the crates before you cancel. You will have A LOT of crates. Now after you have stocked up on crates, do 1 more journey, and actually do that journey, but collect as many GOLD animals as you can, with the others crates. Pigs, Chickens, Snakes.....collect all the gold ones (they yield the highest return). Then turn them all in when you complete the contract.

    OR

    Pick up multiple of each type, so every time you start a new journey with MA, you can see if you have what you need for the next turn and go straight to the outpost you need to turn in if you have it. IF not, go get what you need really quick.

    Just remember, keep picking up the excess crates for each contract you start.

    This will help with MA rep and gold.

  • PoppaSquids
    Ship Mate

    @hyr0-the-pyr0 said in Merchant Alliance needs a buff:

    It's all about those spices and silks and whatnot. Search sunken chips and complete Skele Forts. I've hardly done any Merchant voyages and have my Merchant level at the same as the other 2 (well, close, gold hoarder is 23, souls is 21, merchant 20).

    See I am tho. I grab all of that stuff, but still I'm so much lower. I do a lot of Skele forts, I search every ship. Thats why my GH and OoS is so high. I'm 28/26/22 and spamming merchant voyages. I guess I'm just unlucky with the merchant crates

  • PoppaSquids
    Ship Mate

    @dreadpirateoob I have not tried that. Its similar to the Noah's ark stratagy, but I didn't think about just collecting the gold ones. I'll give that a try and see how it goes. Thanks for the suggestion.

  • Gordon sevencav
    Ship Mate

    @poppasquids turning in powder kegs gives you a good amount of reputation for how common they are. And if you get a message in a bottle to bring a powder keg to an island, the reputation gain is really good. Honestly I haven't done a merchant Quest in a very long while, and it is keeping Pace with my gold hoarders and Order of souls just fine. But then again I stopped at every single sunken ship I see and find lots of exotic silks, T's, & Spices which are all really good reputation boosters as well as valuable.

  • xHeIIHoundx

    @poppasquids agreed. The biggest problem being unable to start up a second voyage until you've finished the first one.

  • HyR0 the PyR0
    Captain
    Founder

    @gordon-sevencav said in Merchant Alliance needs a buff:

    turning in powder kegs gives you a good amount of reputation for how common they are.

    Ah yes, I also forgot to mention the PKs... I found 9 in a fort that didn't have a skull above it so no Skeles to mess with me as I looted it today. I didn't end up turning them in because I had teamed up with a galleon and just let them have them all because I was logging off anyways. But go raid some empty forts, @poppasquids, stock up on PKs, and you'll get that merchant up in no time.

  • PoppaSquids
    Ship Mate

    @xheiihoundx said in Merchant Alliance needs a buff:

    @poppasquids agreed. The biggest problem being unable to start up a second voyage until you've finished the first one.

    YES! If I have 3 voyages such as Gold Hoarders, I'll complete all 3 before going to turn in. The Merchants seem to take much longer. Not to mention you're timed so I can't really do anything inbetween. I wish I could do multiple voyages at once.

  • Gordon sevencav
    Ship Mate

    @hyr0-the-pyr0 yeah just doing regular missions and searching Islands, I found probably two dozen powder kegs. Those alone got me a full rank with merchants, and then when I got a message in a bottle for a powder keg I probably got three fourths a rank

  • Zanzikahn
    Marauder
    Founder

    See, I am 26/26/21.. My merchant is only lower because most of what I get is chests and skulls. I am sure that if I had just as much merchant loot as I do skulls and chests, I would probably surpass the other two factions. Don't fret, it is a little more work to do merchant quests, but I do feel all three factions level relatively the same speed. I would suggest(if you wish to level merchant faster) to select a merchant quest and stop at strongholds, ship wrecks, and the odd large island in search for treasure. This way you can level all three factions at the same time. ;)

  • Gordon sevencav
    Ship Mate

    @poppasquids look for Message in a Bottle whenever you pass by any Island. Or when you're stopping to look for animals. Collect all the powder kegs you find. This allows you to do multiple Mission types at once. As Message in a Bottle adds to whatever you currently have.

  • Gordon sevencav
    Ship Mate

    @poppasquids oh and I almost forgot, you can use the start and quit mission trick to get a bunch of cages and then just go pen up Golden chickens pigs and snakes. That will give you a metric ton of cages and each one is worth a decent amount of reputation as well. Then you just have to go catch everything on an island LOL

  • Sir Rhavi
    Master

    @dreadpirateoob said in Merchant Alliance needs a buff:

    my Merchant Alliance is a full level higher than anything else. 25,24,26(almost 27).

    Those crates you find are not as worthless as you think, its what you catch with them that matters the most.

    Try this. Start a MA journey, pick up all the crates. Cancel the journey. Do this 3-4 times, make sure every time you start one, you go and get the crates before you cancel. You will have A LOT of crates. Now after you have stocked up on crates, do 1 more journey, and actually do that journey, but collect as many GOLD animals as you can, with the others crates. Pigs, Chickens, Snakes.....collect all the gold ones (they yield the highest return). Then turn them all in when you complete the contract.

    OR

    Pick up multiple of each type, so every time you start a new journey with MA, you can see if you have what you need for the next turn and go straight to the outpost you need to turn in if you have it. IF not, go get what you need really quick.

    Just remember, keep picking up the excess crates for each contract you start.

    This will help with MA rep and gold.

    so this dude is asking for a MA buff, and you're basically saying "no no, if you exploit it this special way, it is very profitable and boring"

    nice.

  • DreadPirateOob

    @sir-rhavi said in Merchant Alliance needs a buff:

    @dreadpirateoob said in Merchant Alliance needs a buff:

    my Merchant Alliance is a full level higher than anything else. 25,24,26(almost 27).

    Those crates you find are not as worthless as you think, its what you catch with them that matters the most.

    Try this. Start a MA journey, pick up all the crates. Cancel the journey. Do this 3-4 times, make sure every time you start one, you go and get the crates before you cancel. You will have A LOT of crates. Now after you have stocked up on crates, do 1 more journey, and actually do that journey, but collect as many GOLD animals as you can, with the others crates. Pigs, Chickens, Snakes.....collect all the gold ones (they yield the highest return). Then turn them all in when you complete the contract.

    OR

    Pick up multiple of each type, so every time you start a new journey with MA, you can see if you have what you need for the next turn and go straight to the outpost you need to turn in if you have it. IF not, go get what you need really quick.

    Just remember, keep picking up the excess crates for each contract you start.

    This will help with MA rep and gold.

    so this dude is asking for a MA buff, and you're basically saying "no no, if you exploit it this special way, it is very profitable and boring"

    nice.

    Where did I say it was boring?

    If its an exploit, then they will fix it, as of now, its a feature.

  • Sir Rhavi
    Master

    @dreadpirateoob said in Merchant Alliance needs a buff:

    @sir-rhavi said in Merchant Alliance needs a buff:

    @dreadpirateoob said in Merchant Alliance needs a buff:

    my Merchant Alliance is a full level higher than anything else. 25,24,26(almost 27).

    Those crates you find are not as worthless as you think, its what you catch with them that matters the most.

    Try this. Start a MA journey, pick up all the crates. Cancel the journey. Do this 3-4 times, make sure every time you start one, you go and get the crates before you cancel. You will have A LOT of crates. Now after you have stocked up on crates, do 1 more journey, and actually do that journey, but collect as many GOLD animals as you can, with the others crates. Pigs, Chickens, Snakes.....collect all the gold ones (they yield the highest return). Then turn them all in when you complete the contract.

    OR

    Pick up multiple of each type, so every time you start a new journey with MA, you can see if you have what you need for the next turn and go straight to the outpost you need to turn in if you have it. IF not, go get what you need really quick.

    Just remember, keep picking up the excess crates for each contract you start.

    This will help with MA rep and gold.

    so this dude is asking for a MA buff, and you're basically saying "no no, if you exploit it this special way, it is very profitable and boring"

    nice.

    Where did I say it was boring?

    If its an exploit, then they will fix it, as of now, its a feature.

    you didn't say it was boring, I KNOW it is boring.
    It is an exploit in the sense that they probably didn't think players were going to do this, how they will fix it we're not sure, but there is very little point to scattering cages and pens on islands if a level 0 MA player can spawn infinite of them, don't you think? Heck, you don't even need to be level 0, I'm level 30 with all the factions and have 0 use for gold right now, i can dump the 100k i have on me on baskets cages and pens if i really want a 10 hour boring walk back and forth.

  • PoppaSquids
    Ship Mate

    @dreadpirateoob said in Merchant Alliance needs a buff:

    my Merchant Alliance is a full level higher than anything else. 25,24,26(almost 27).

    Those crates you find are not as worthless as you think, its what you catch with them that matters the most.

    Try this. Start a MA journey, pick up all the crates. Cancel the journey. Do this 3-4 times, make sure every time you start one, you go and get the crates before you cancel. You will have A LOT of crates. Now after you have stocked up on crates, do 1 more journey, and actually do that journey, but collect as many GOLD animals as you can, with the others crates. Pigs, Chickens, Snakes.....collect all the gold ones (they yield the highest return). Then turn them all in when you complete the contract.

    OR

    Pick up multiple of each type, so every time you start a new journey with MA, you can see if you have what you need for the next turn and go straight to the outpost you need to turn in if you have it. IF not, go get what you need really quick.

    Just remember, keep picking up the excess crates for each contract you start.

    This will help with MA rep and gold.

    I tried doing this and collecting gold animals. It felt worthless to me... I got maybe 100g per animal? I could have ran 2 merchant voyages in the amount of time I spent proposing, gathering crates, canceling, and gathering. Not to mention my rank moved about 1/100th of the rep bar. I did however find a list that has what islands have what animals and I think that will help more. Thanks for the suggestion tho!

  • Charity Diary
    Founder

    I think it would be fine if you could deliver the Merchant Voyages to ANY outpost. I can collect the animals as fast as just about any other quest, but the problem is, the outpost I'm FORCED to deliver it to has galleons camping it 80% of the time, and I'm not allowed to go anywhere else to turn the animals in.

  • Charity Diary
    Founder

    @poppasquids said in Merchant Alliance needs a buff:

    @dreadpirateoob said in Merchant Alliance needs a buff:

    my Merchant Alliance is a full level higher than anything else. 25,24,26(almost 27).

    Those crates you find are not as worthless as you think, its what you catch with them that matters the most.

    Try this. Start a MA journey, pick up all the crates. Cancel the journey. Do this 3-4 times, make sure every time you start one, you go and get the crates before you cancel. You will have A LOT of crates. Now after you have stocked up on crates, do 1 more journey, and actually do that journey, but collect as many GOLD animals as you can, with the others crates. Pigs, Chickens, Snakes.....collect all the gold ones (they yield the highest return). Then turn them all in when you complete the contract.

    OR

    Pick up multiple of each type, so every time you start a new journey with MA, you can see if you have what you need for the next turn and go straight to the outpost you need to turn in if you have it. IF not, go get what you need really quick.

    Just remember, keep picking up the excess crates for each contract you start.

    This will help with MA rep and gold.

    I tried doing this and collecting gold animals. It felt worthless to me... I got maybe 100g per animal? I could have ran 2 merchant voyages in the amount of time I spent proposing, gathering crates, canceling, and gathering. Not to mention my rank moved about 1/100th of the rep bar. I did however find a list that has what islands have what animals and I think that will help more. Thanks for the suggestion tho!

    The start voyage/collect cages/cancel voyage method is pretty inefficient. What I do is I keep buying merchant voyages until I get one with either at least one golden animal, or multiple black pigs. That way I typically get at least 2,000 gold from each voyage.

  • PlatypusErotica
    Founder

    @poppasquids I think part of the reason everyone is behind in Merchant is that skull forts give no "Stronghold (Merchant)" item. So you get a ton of rep for the skull and chest and then RNG on Merchant. I've had one fort with four spices. That was awesome. But I've had 15 forts with a skull and chest.

  • BoozyTheCl0wn
    Founder

    the merchant alliance is actually the fastest to lvl up and makes you the most consistent gold unlike the other factions you pretty much know the value of the voyage before you leave the port and can cycle the missions until you get one worth doing

  • PoppaSquids
    Ship Mate

    UPDATE

    So the most efficient method I have found yet is to propose a voyage, and if it makes you get cheap animals I cancel it and keep proposing until I get one with at least 2 golden animals. ALSO. I found this on Reddit and its a HUGE help to making it very fast.

    You plug in where you currently are, and where the destination is, and it brings up all the islands in route and shows you what islands have what animals. I have only done a few MA voyages and I have caught up, and I'm starting to think MA is the most profitable. I got 30k in about 2 hours from just choosing the right voyage, and quickly finishing them!

    http://pinataisland.info/sea-of-thieves/merchant-alliance.php

    You're welcome!

  • Zeo
    Captain
    Insider
    Founder

    I did Merchant Alliance for 12 hours, and got roughly 100,000 gold.

    Buff..?

    Sure, make me rich!!

  • Rakan le rouge
    Captain

    For me, Merchant Alliance rewards should be proportionnal with the clock :
    Faster you complete the voyage, more gold and xp you earn.
    It will solve the low rewards problem and it will make player more focused on the clock (that is never checked, simply because the time to complete a voyage is way too long).

  • Blam320
    Legend
    Insider

    @rakan-le-rouge said in Merchant Alliance needs a buff:

    For me, Merchant Alliance rewards should be proportionnal with the clock :
    Faster you complete the voyage, more gold and xp you earn.
    It will solve the low rewards problem and it will make player more focused on the clock (that is never checked, simply because the time to complete a voyage is way too long).

    I agree with this. Since the Merchant Alliance is geared around completing tasks in a set time, there should be some sort of bonus for completing them "early." To balance this, we could reduce the number of days the voyage can be completed in, and add a penalty for being "late."

  • Alymon
    Commander
    Insider
    Founder

    Liked for the update and link to the route planner. Thanks. :)

  • Sorenthaz
    Captain
    Insider
    Founder

    Maybe it doesn't need a buff per se but it could definitely use some Quality of Life touch-ups.

    Namely, at higher levels you should be regularly getting the better payouts (and I think this needs to happen for all reputations), but I also think that MA voyages should be chartable alongside a GH or OoS voyage and you simply start them at the MA rep dudes. That way MA voyages serve as side objectives to your primay voyages and they feel more natural flowing vs total hassles.

  • Grievous32
    Legend
    Insider
    Founder

    What I think about it :

    • We should have less time to do a voyage ( 20 - 40 hours depending of how many objects/animals we should transport). This would encourage people to look at their watch more often (I had a quest where I looked at my watch a lot of times because I bring back the ressources 30 seconds before the end of the voyage, and it was a really cool moment).
    • At the end of the voyage, if you didn't bring all the stuff, then you still have 2 hours (2 minutes in real life) to bring it to the outpost, but each hour will divide the Gold and the XP you'll received by 2. At the end of the second hour of the sudden death, your voyage will be cancelled.

    With this, I'm pretty sure it will make the voyages from the Merchant Alliance really more interesting because the only thing which makes them different is the time you have to success. If you have a lot of time, there's no reason to rush, because you have more than 1 hour in real life to accomplish the voyage. It's WAY TOO MUCH, and this is what they are not really interesting. But if you don't have a lot of time, then the voyage will be more "stressfull" and you will not take as much time as you take right now. You will have to be really reactive and that's what could make the voyages of the Merchant Alliance interesting : a true Time-Trial "gametype".

  • SolysDayga

    @PoppaSquids Merchant is balanced, most people are just doing it wrong. They give really high rep and gold, you just need to do the right voyages. Good on you for editing the original post, you figured out the right way. You don't need to use the reddit thing, I never do and my merchant is almost 37.

  • PoppaSquids
    Ship Mate

    @solysdayga I actually love the Reddit thing. It's probably annoying if you're on xbox or only have one monitor, but I have a few monitors so I just keep it up on one monitor and plug it in quickly.

    Funny part is, now I'm having trouble keeping my GH and OoS rep up with my MA! xD

  • SolysDayga

    @PoppaSquids Might be hard to use on xbox. Not sure. I feel it would be just a little too robotic for me :P The search still interests me a bit. But draw distances are a massive pain in the a*s, they need to fix that asap.

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