A long time ago, in a sea far far away...
Banana Crate Quest Spawn Rates
It is 2018, I have recently restarted my character because I didn't like the character model and back then you couldn't just spend money and re roll your look.
From that moment, I made a promise that one day no matter how long it would take me I would eventually complete all SOT achievements, Now, I'm not talking commendations because hey that's like a future maybe that I might possible want to complete them if I have literally nothing else to do. What with new achievements like complete Athena voyage 100 times for some completely insane reason. Like, I am a legendary sea dog who helped two other people get to legendary sea dog and I seriously believe in my heart of hearts that whoever set it at 100 is the same person that chose the arbitrary number of 240 wins. Seriously, I just can't wrap my head around doing ALL the commendations.
Having made this solemn oath to myself I endeavored to search for banana crate quests whenever I could, wherever I could, and let me tell you it's 2022 and I am still just shy of halfway toward finishing this achievement. I have tried searching every barrel at initial spawn outpost then hopping out to main menu and then recycling till I find a quest, but this is so boring and goes against how I feel the game should be played. I therefore devised a strategy to multitask completing multiple achievements while going from outpost, to outpost, to outpost by putting down a voyage while sailing and stopping for shipwrecks to look for barnacle chests and more quests in a bottle. Thus, as more, and more, and then some more quests have been added to possible mandatory quests, the white parchment, the random quest in a bottle, etc. I Have been slowly unraveling as I spend now 6 hours on average with two full quest radials of quests in a bottle with no banana crate quests at all. Who thought on the developer staff that it would be a good idea to add to the random message in a bottle a chance for wood crate, cannonball crate, and gunpowder delivery when THERE IS AN EXISTING QUEST YOU CAN BUY TO GET GUNPOWDER DELIVERIES!
So, to make a long story short, I am 4 years in and am about to complete my barnacle quest achievement, mileage sailed while on a voyage for all 3 factions, and still less than halfway to completing banana crate quest achievement. I can live with bad hit registration, choppy server performance, lag at the worst possible moments, but this achievement has been systematically made harder each and every year. I only focus on it when I'm solo slooping which I haven't done the most of over the years to be fair, and have even gotten burnt out from lack of success finding said quest and opted to focus on another achievement. Well folks, that's coming to a close soon because I have 15 achievements left and I'm about to complete 5 of them soon... 1 is barnacle, 2 is finding hidden fort loot, 3-5 is mileage while doing voyages.
In summation, I know the developers will do exactly nothing to fix this as I stopped doing insiders because we'd submit all the bug reports in the world and 2 patches later the outlier bugs would still be there. I'm not hating on the people that still do insiders or the developers, this is my favorite game and I love everything they have done with exception of removing arena so I can hear another podcast of Mike Chapman saying (Trigger Warning for some readers that may find the following statement cringe inducing) "IM SO EXCITED FOR [thing I care about]" in lieu of PvP updates. The reason they will not do anything is because they are undermanned, outgunned, and overworked as it is and I am truly thankful for all the hard work they do and how much they obviously care about everything in the game including the sound of insects which I find terrifying that they refer to as "little ear snacks".
I would love to know your thoughts on either anything I could continue to grind while looking for banana crates or if you're comfortable sharing your own experiences working toward that achievement that you want to complete desperately. Because each and every night you go to bed you see your achievement and it's mocking you, judging you, to where all you dream about is the achievement. In my case, it's banana crates and they're staring at me with their wee beady eyes, laughing at my ineptitude to catch the illusive rascals. One day, revenge will be mine on all banana crates in this world we call the Sea of Thieves...
Banana crates don't care about Flame Heart or the Captain, no matter who wins, we lose.
We lose the banana crates because banana crates don't feel pity, pain, or fear and they absolutely will not stop until they drive you crazy.