The Impossible Achievements of Sea of Thieves

regarded as impossible.

Not impossible, They just require...Time and Patience. Which a lot of new pirates seem to not have. They want to complete every little thing in a game that was built around playing long term.

With Season 11 came the ability to dive to voyages and world events, however with this, Rare removed the feature of scrolls in barrels.

Nowadays the only way to get these voyages related to these achievements/commendations is to meticulously (and very painfully), check every island for bottle quests along shores or mysterious journals. But that's not where the issue ends.

and? What the issue at stopping by a passing island, hop off and check it. Might find washed up treasures more than what voyages give you.

Previously you were able to vote down on voyages for delivering Gunpowder Kegs, but that is no more, nor is the possibility of being able to complete the achievement.

Possible future adjustment is required. But not impossible and they really shouldnt be voyages.

Much research has been done, and there is a much higher chance to get 'X Marks the Spot' voyages or Skeleton Captains than Fruit Crates, Wood Crates, Cannonball Crates or Gunpowder Kegs.

My own experience, I get them every 3rd bottle/journal out of 10. More common than one actually thinks.

Problem is two things.

1. Players expecting to finish everything quickly.
2. Rare needing to do simple adjustment to these achievements. That all.

Not impossible, just time.

@burnbacon, you talk about pirates not having patience, however I doubt most people would want to spend a minimum of 630h purely looking for quests and journals to complete 4 Merchant commendations, plus 2 of those contributing to achievements. How do you convince most pirates that they should spend that amount of time searching islands for these quests instead of doing the countless other activities this game has to offer. I get this game is built around playing long term, however there comes a point where the grind for something is ridiculous.

Furthermore, stopping at each island to check for bottles and journals becomes repetitive quickly. I do search the big islands for journals, as only big islands spawn journals, and I've memorised most of the spots they've spawned in. Even when I do find a journal, its either some story that gives nothing to me, or another bounty voyage.

The commendation requiring kegs to be delivered was fine pre-Season 11, however making it so discovered quests are the only way to find these quests was an odd choice, considering the discovered voyages require only 1 to be delivered. Kegs are a dime a dozen on the Seas, it really wouldn't hurt to add them back to animal voyages.

I'm not sure how your finding these voyages so often. Skeleton Captain Bounty Voyages make up roughly 50% of the quest pool, so when your trying to find these voyages, most of the time your ending up with a few radials full of Merchant quests

@guardian1502 said in The Impossible Achievements of Sea of Thieves:

@burnbacon, you talk about pirates not having patience, however I doubt most people would want to spend a minimum of 630h purely looking for quests and journals to complete 4 Merchant commendations, plus 2 of those contributing to achievements. How do you convince most pirates that they should spend that amount of time searching islands for these quests instead of doing the countless other activities this game has to offer. I get this game is built around playing long term, however there comes a point where the grind for something is ridiculous.

Those 630 hours solely looking for these quests is simple not true. You come across them when you're doing other things, such as doing OoS, GH, MA or AF quests on islands, in shipwrecks when you're after barnacled chests &c.

They could (& should IMHO) increase the chance you come across them or add them (and other quests) to barrels again. Sure for the latter it means just going through barrels with a resource crate won't cut it as you'll have to go into a barrel yourself to pick them up, but that's a small time investment.

Perhaps add a chance to have them be part of a MA Emissary quest instead of a cargo delivery.

I totally agree. These commendations/achievements are very unbalanced. I have been checking every bottle/journal I find and I am lucky to get one of the relevant quests a week. Highly RNG based quests/items with low number is fine and really common quests/items with a high number needed is also fine. High RNG plus high number required is brutal. I've completed every com for GH, OoS, Reapers and Hunter's call, so I have no problem with a grind. It just needs to be reasonable.

@burnbacon Time and patience, really? I agree that players wanting everything easily, as fast as possible is not a good thing, but after playing since launch (~2000 hours) I still havent completed the crates commendations. Saying that they just require time and patience is simply not true, new players might never be able to complete these if even veterans players cant.

Also youre just lying about the rates at wich you get quests for these. Looking at your profile tells that you only sold 28 kegs on time, and only 7 fruit crates on time in total. So yeah, you're just being contrarian for the sake of it, as always, while still admitting that Rare needs to change those, which disprove your point that it just requires "time and patience"...

@lem0n-curry I could not agree with you any more than I do with the barrel quests. Why they got rid of them in the first place is unbeknownst to me. Any way to give the player base more income for bottle quests, I am all for. And definitely do like your idea of having it as an emissary quest. Would give me reason to actually pick up emissary quests.

@nine2niner said in The Impossible Achievements of Sea of Thieves:

@lem0n-curry I could not agree with you any more than I do with the barrel quests. Why they got rid of them in the first place is unbeknownst to me. Any way to give the player base more income for bottle quests, I am all for. And definitely do like your idea of having it as an emissary quest. Would give me reason to actually pick up emissary quests.

That idea isn't originally mine, someone posted that suggestion in a similar topic. I liked it (when it's a possible quest, not standard)

As to why they removed them from (outpost) barrels, I'm not sure. Maybe because

• people complained crewmates were picking them up resulting in a full quest-wheel
• they were used less and less, probably because people using storage crates to empty barrels, leaving the quests behind

I liked those random quests on an outpost, I sometimes used them as a starting point for my session when sailing solo and didn't have any actually plans. Also looked at the quest board to see if there were any quests posted on the same island(s), but I guess that useage was a rarity.

Been sailing for years and years and have the same problem. My crew will drop literally anything we're doing, no matter how much gold it's worth, if one of us snags a bottle quest that has a crate delivery in it.

I'm still gonna be working on these comms even after I've upholstered my entire ship interior in Shrouded Ghost hides... 😁

This topic gets posted every single week and I’ve always wondered why people mention fruit crates and gunpowder by name, but usually ignore the wood and cannonball crates in their thread. I just realized it’s because fruit and gunpowder have a Xbox/Steam/PS5 achievement, while the wood and cannonball are only commendations inside the game. So people who like to 100% their achievements care about those 2 more than the rest.

They definitely aren’t impossible, but they are and have always been time consuming. I was at nearly 2k hours played when I finished mine in 2022. And that included me actively trying to find them. I ended up farming mysterious journals for most of mine, which was a lot of work still but faster than checking barrels and bottles for me.

After season 11 was released I got them and still get them all the time when I pick up bottles. Pretty much every time I play a session on land I get at least one delivery quest. I get frustrated at it because I’m looking for the other quests and instead I get ones I’ve been done with for years. I give away my ship every time though, to people I know who still need them instead of letting them expire.

I do think they could up the spawn rate of bottles a little to account for the lack of torn parchments. I think they removed them from the barrels because people were taking all with the storage crate, so they were being left behind all the time, but also because they planned to introduce a bunch more barrel items and having the parchments in the barrels still would make everything statistically rarer.