I was getting behind on Merchant and saw a group forming on discord this afternoon to grind it. I joined up, great crew, but the grind was just awful. Everyone did their best to grit their teeth and get through it but it has become an awful experience.
What we encountered today (and this may not be new, I've not focused on Merchant for a while, was that once you cancel a couple of quests futher re-rolls will force you across the map to a particular outpost. I see why they put this in, its in response to the launch Merchant cheese, but when you have a boat full of chickens....
Anyway TLDR Merchant is super boring. Make it less boring or make it a bit less grindy. Pretty sure you are losing players that want to hit Legend over this.
Merchant grinding is straight miserable
@kazuya69 Every grind is boring (wait until you grind out OoS 45-50 :D)
I compiled a short list of tips that might help you out.
Actually: the MA grind is the fastest of all 4.https://www.seaofthieves.com/forum/topic/62988/merchants-quests-take-to-long-to-complete/11
Stick with it, mate. You can do it :)
Thats been my focus the past couple weeks, im lvl 47 now. I cancel out quests in favor for better ones frequently. If i dont get what i want from one outpost i sail to the next one, i rarely settle for less than 2 gold animals. Its less exciting but i have found they are the fastest and provide the most gold as a gold animal gives between 1000 - 1900 gold. Ive found them best to do solo, the other two are better with crew.
Altogether the grind is what irritating. Feels awesome when youve upgraded a new title but then you realise you have to go throught that again. Once im done with alliance i wont need to worry about it anymore.
Yea I would have to agree, I’ve been avoiding them personally as well. I know theyre easy and all but I just feel like a filthy merchant doing them, lemme run crates of stolen weapons and grog to different pirate hideouts or...anything but livestock lol.
There’s a lot of great suggestions in the forums about voyages, I hope Rare considers.
Until then or if not, skull forts and sunken ship grind for this pirate.
@kazuya69 What is the quickest way to increase merchant rep would you say? Is it simply just grinding away at the voyages?
Probably says more about me than I'd care to admit, but merchant is my favourite out of the voyages. Suits my solo nature (don't tell me crew).
My advice would be to anybody who doesn't enjoy them, is roll them first, if you get an exceptional one like 5 golden animals+ then go for it, otherwise do another type of voyage and try again later.
This was my strategy on the road to PL. It applies to any voyage you don't really feel like doing, often an exceptional voyage is enough to turn it into something enjoyable.
I dont mind helping with a merchant grind and have done some work to make it go faster, i have the locations of the docks, a route between 2 outposts with no more than 2 block deviation to either side of straight line distance. I am working on compiling a spreadsheet with all this information as of now its just on a sheet of paper. If you ever need someone to assist with it hit me up!
@norloc i will skip missions until i get that but also skip missions, when starting, unless there are proper islands in the route.....unless.....its one of those miraculous 5 golds like i had the other night and go with it. I take all the crates and load up when i hit islands . There is also a level cap on what chickens they require at certain rep levels e.g. only red, black, and gold for higher level chicken missions
@skybrid 1 choose ur voyage ( at least 1 golden animal ) 2 look where the delivery and make a ez naviguable way to reach 2 or 3 island on way to delivery 3 play safe use sail and flag too show ur not agressive and raise ur cannon 4 play safe always keep a eye on sea
So after recently hitting legend the best way to go about it is.
- get a crew everyone buy three merchant voyages. cycle through and only do the ones that have gold animals i.e. chickens are the easiest and fastest ones.
- get all the crates before cancelling. that way once you turn in you can throw down another quest quickly and not waste time grabbing crates again.
- check shipwrecks and beaches there is always something lying around you can use to catch an animal or sell a crate of.
- as much as i hate to say this skull forts. they often give good merchant items for the same amount of time you spend sailing from one island to another to find animals.
- if you land on a random crew with a legendary voyage stay and grind it out the merchant rep reward pay out is good for lower level players.
Anyways good luck!
@personalc0ffee said in Merchant grinding is straight miserable:
Merchant is money.
Agreed! Most profitable quests out there : )
We were just picky about it constantly throwing down and cancelling missions until we got mostly golds and blacks and it wasn't that bad.
i didn't actually mind it in end (went super fast and was last grind I needed for the PL)
it was very profitable, the tactic we used was get max crates from your crew till you cant buy any more. then just go to crooked masts (or islands that have chickens and snakes) then just bounce from out post to outpost, if you need pigs pick up on way, if done right your just going in a big circle and it can speed up very quick the rep (downfall is the getting ready to grind at start)@calissedecrisse said in Merchant grinding is straight miserable:
IDK why some peeps says merchant is the most boring when GH is basically the same.
Also MA is the fastest and best money.
You definitely did not reached oos 45+ yet, THAT is a real pain if your solo and still s*x if your group is noobish.GH doesnt require me to spend 10 minutes loading crates on the outpost, use a 3rd party map to identify where to go (or sail aimlessly for purists), arrive to the island that has required animals, possibly discover specific animal color isn't present, and have to look through more backup islands, all while avoiding PvP at all costs because being sunk loses crates.
GH is way better then MA.
@skybrid maybe these help out a bit. https://www.seaofthieves.com/forum/topic/62988/merchants-quests-take-to-long-to-complete/11
@nwo-malice said in Merchant grinding is straight miserable:
I plan on killing and salvaging sunken ships to max. I'll be dam*** if im playing a pirate game to be some chicken herder.
That made me chuckle
@ohendogo Would love some help if you are ever bored. 50/50/47 right now and so close I can taste it. Merch is killing me.
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