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Animal Harvesting - Meat, Bone, Hide, Sinew
Arkethos
Member
Hello all,
The concept of hunting & harvesting animals in RPG's has always interested me and I'm hoping we get something a little more in-depth in AoC than what has been seen in some prior MMO's (WoW & FFXIV come to mind as being pretty shallow).
Harvesting vs Drops
- I think it would be ideal for there to be a "Animal Processing" skill which has different sub-categories pertaining to animal groups, and allows you to harvest a wide variety of items from a single animal.
- Potential resources to harvest would include Hides, Meat, Bones, Sinew, Teeth, Claws, Feathers and so forth. More "specialized" items would become available once your Animal Processing skill achieved higher levels (and possibly Rare items would be only available if you've achieved a certain experience level of harvesting certain "types" of animals).
- Animal "families" or types (think Deer vs Hawk vs Crocodile) would have separate levels of experience under the general Animal Processing skill, that would improve speed, quantity & quality of items harvested as a player gains more experience in processing those particular animal families.
- So if you hunt and harvest giant snakes for weeks, you'll become faster and better at doing so (resulting in more materials & higher quality materials) than if you tried harvesting a boar for the first time.
- Drops (such as gold, items, quest items, etc.) would be part of a different loot table and not associate with the harvesting table. However, if you are on a quest for a specific "tooth" from a specific type of animal, perhaps the harvesting skill would make it much easier to acquire.
Visual Appeal
- I'd love to see something akin to the skinning seen in Red Dead Redemption 2. Additional animations of like quality could be part of the processing when targeting specific items to harvest (claws vs feathers vs hide, etc.). Despite being more graphic, it could have levels of elegance if properly done.
Building an Economy of Need
- With animal harvesting being mentioned as a part of the game, I think giving it both a bit of a skill curve (to achieve greater success in quantity/quality of items harvested from a single animal) with a mini-game mechanic and a not-insignificant time investment to perform the actions (with higher skill/experience taking less time) would create a sort of Animal Harvesting "specialist" player that would perform this task regularly (and get more efficient with it over time). Inversely, it would also dissuade other players from engaging in Animal Harvesting if the quality and quantity of items they would have access to would be lower than if they have a "professional" do it.
The concept of hunting & harvesting animals in RPG's has always interested me and I'm hoping we get something a little more in-depth in AoC than what has been seen in some prior MMO's (WoW & FFXIV come to mind as being pretty shallow).
Harvesting vs Drops
- I think it would be ideal for there to be a "Animal Processing" skill which has different sub-categories pertaining to animal groups, and allows you to harvest a wide variety of items from a single animal.
- Potential resources to harvest would include Hides, Meat, Bones, Sinew, Teeth, Claws, Feathers and so forth. More "specialized" items would become available once your Animal Processing skill achieved higher levels (and possibly Rare items would be only available if you've achieved a certain experience level of harvesting certain "types" of animals).
- Animal "families" or types (think Deer vs Hawk vs Crocodile) would have separate levels of experience under the general Animal Processing skill, that would improve speed, quantity & quality of items harvested as a player gains more experience in processing those particular animal families.
- So if you hunt and harvest giant snakes for weeks, you'll become faster and better at doing so (resulting in more materials & higher quality materials) than if you tried harvesting a boar for the first time.
- Drops (such as gold, items, quest items, etc.) would be part of a different loot table and not associate with the harvesting table. However, if you are on a quest for a specific "tooth" from a specific type of animal, perhaps the harvesting skill would make it much easier to acquire.
Visual Appeal
- I'd love to see something akin to the skinning seen in Red Dead Redemption 2. Additional animations of like quality could be part of the processing when targeting specific items to harvest (claws vs feathers vs hide, etc.). Despite being more graphic, it could have levels of elegance if properly done.
Building an Economy of Need
- With animal harvesting being mentioned as a part of the game, I think giving it both a bit of a skill curve (to achieve greater success in quantity/quality of items harvested from a single animal) with a mini-game mechanic and a not-insignificant time investment to perform the actions (with higher skill/experience taking less time) would create a sort of Animal Harvesting "specialist" player that would perform this task regularly (and get more efficient with it over time). Inversely, it would also dissuade other players from engaging in Animal Harvesting if the quality and quantity of items they would have access to would be lower than if they have a "professional" do it.
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Comments
If there is significant "value" to a single animal, in the form of processable items (quality & quantity), then this could lead to an interesting system of trade between Hunters & Processors. I especially love the visual of a player loading up a strange creature they've just slain, onto the back of their mount, and taking it back to their local Node for processing (rather than trying to do it in the field themselves, risking material loss potential).
And one last thought (for now) was regarding a "decay" timer on corpses & unprocessed meat products. Is it possible that an item such as "raw venison" would rot over time? Or will it be just as good 6 months after its harvested, sitting in someone's inventory? I haven't seen much on this outside of speculation, so I was wondering if this was a thing yet or not.
There could also be skill point distribution for tracking effectiveness, precise kills (to preserve 3-stars), maximize meat/resource extracted from an animal, wilderness knowledge gain, and identification of elite animals that could be hunted for epic mats / trophies. It's a rich system with a TON of customization & min/maxing opportunities.