Everyone has experienced this at one time or another. You load your game, you're ready to get out on that water and find that treasure! But wait...you have to stock the ship...
Depending on your luck, maybe this only takes you 5 or 10 minutes. If you're solo, maybe it takes longer. Regardless, most players would agree that the initial stock-up is a bit of a chore and one we could do without. Wouldn't it be great if we could start with our ship having 50 Cannon Balls, 50 Fruit and 50 planks?
Enter the Merchant Alliance. We spend countless hours delivering Chickens, Pigs, Snakes and all manner of Crates to them...but do we ever see them sell them? No.
I would like to propose, for RARE's and the community's consideration, an upgrade to the Merchant Alliance's business model. While they will continue to accept full crates for coin, now they will sell these full crates back for profit!
Here's how it would break down in my mind:
- A new text option would be added to the Merchant Alliance NPCs that opens a new purchase menu. Something like, "I'm in need of some supplies..."
- The new menu will show you any of the crates capable of holding supplies: Wood, Cannon Balls or Fruit. Each crate will cost a certain amount (for this example let's say they all cost 3,000 gold coins).
- The pirate can click on the crate they want and similar to the Quest page it will ask for confirmation. Click yes, and the Crate will spawn where it normally would if you were picking up an empty for a Quest, only this one is completely full.
DESIGN NOTES
- The Fruit Crate could potentially be a randomized assortment or (for balance-sake) it could only contain Coconuts/Poms/Bananas.
- It is important to note that since this is still a turn-in crate, the cost to acquire a full one should be at least double the value of a turn-in. After all, Merchant Alliance is about profit first... (joke aside, it must be higher than turn-in cost to prevent an infinite farming loop)
- Once you empty out the crate, you can keep it (and refill it) to turn it back in when you are done your journey. This will provide a small return on investment if you can hold onto your empties.
- The price could potentially fluctuate depending on how many of a specific crate pirates on the server have turned in. For Example: if everyone turns in a bunch of fruit, the cost to buy a full Fruit crate might drop by a % for a while due to over-supply.
The main goal of this suggestion is to help remove some unnecessary drudgery from the game and add some new purpose to the Merchant Alliance.
