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Suggestion/Idea Copium driven collector's paradise

Long read warning!

What I really liked about ESO is their approach to collectibles, skins and. sets. They had that highly categorized ingame menu with all the skins and mounts and effects and pets and armor sets and whatever. You could even try it on and see how it looks on your character in 3D whether you had it or not. It felt like browsing professional magazine in lounge. On top of that they had guidelines on how and where to get this or that thing. The latter is questionable though as it kills exploration spirit.

I would really like to see something along those lines in AoC.

Copium inhale...

Going beyond collectibles.


As the world of Verra is mostly unknown to our characters, I think that Scribes and Scientific nodes could play important role putting together and categorizing all the information about it. (Basically, it’s like lore, wiki and infocards all in one.)
Scientific nodes add a lot of mobility for its citizens so let’s put it to a good use and give scribes reason to travel far and wide.

Many players rely on external source of information aka metagaming anyway so why not make it available through ingame means.


Mechanics:
"Discovery journal" is a tiered item made by leatherworkers using some kind of paper if and when it is in game, leather from tanners, ink from alchemists and quill in form of feathers, whiskers, tusks or any other animal rare drop. Inks are made from fishing, herbalism and mining gatherables.

Scribes should witness (use profession skill with decent cooldown) entity (thing you discover) writing it down in "discovery journal" and submit it to Scientific node (as a part of the artisan quest for scribes, for node currency, daily quest etc.). This will bring the knowledge level of the node for that entity to a certain level.
• Level 1 basic info - Description, 3D image. Lore and visuals mostly.
• Level 2 useful info - Location, seasons, stats, mob active skills, resistances, loot tables. Meta in general.
• Level 3 passive bonus - Loot bonus, crit bonus, tame and harvest chance, crafting proficiency, mount speed etc.

Players:
Any player can learn it to the level that node have discovered. It takes subscription fee and offline time spent in library (like an inn for bookworms). That gives player access to "entity infocard" like a page in magazine.
That player knowledge is kept forever.
• L2 and L3 might require player to do stuff themself to gain xp and earn bonuses and knowledge. Like kill, gather, craft or clear location.
• L3 might have an xp, gold or glint upkeep cost(penalty) to maintain that knowledge for resource sink and specialization purpose.

Entity (thing you discover):
Could be location, creature, resource, biome, mount. Whatever basically that makes sense min-maxing or has lore value.

Node:
• Entity rarity = node level so only metropolis can hold knowledge on top-tier entities.
• Artisan quests for scribes could be generated for entities that this node "doesn't know" yet. Like: "discover azure lizard". Have fun finding it, sir!! You don't make great discoveries in your backyard. Ask people around and take next zeppelin!
• Once node is destroyed all the knowledge stored in the library is lost and scribes have to start from the scratch.

Example 1:
Winter corrupted dungeon opens at bloodmoon night only and the mighty "Winter corrupted dungeon boss" has to be slayed and "discovered" by scribes with tier 5 "discovery journals" and submitted to complete research, say 30 times per knowledge level to at least tier 5 scientific node. It might not be possible in one season. Tier 5 journals of course require leatherworkers to obtain desert wyvern hides from tanners, mithril ink from alchemists and a quill in form of whiskers of a rabid grave rat from any local rabid grave rat.

Copium inhale...

Once research complete, players have to pay for library (university at node level 5) subscription and spend 100 hours offline in library of that node to get "entity infocard". If node persists through all that time of course. Then they could start slaughtering that boss to gain xp and start getting bonuses to damage and loot.

Another one:
10 entries on wheat per knowledge level to complete wheat research in tier 3 scientific node. Tier 1 journal which is a wolf skin, black ink and feather. Nothing fancy. Player spends 12 hours offline in the village library and get their infocard. Now you go farming and enjoy you harvest bonus.

TLDR:
Scribes game loop goes like:
Get journal, find thing, click it, return to node and turn in journal and get reward.

Players:
Go to library, select what to learn, pay, log off, log in, play, go to library, log off, once learnt get xp as you normally play. Enjoy your lore, meta and bonuses in one menu.


Pros:
• Scribes get their usefulness.
• Node destruction is a server wide calamity.
• Great offline time and some resource sink. Like you have to spend a couple of years offline to learn everything.
• Players probably have to live through several rises and falls of scientific empires to learn all they want.
• New content to discover with each update.
• Great time sink for collectors, completionists and mid-endgame players in general.
• Non-game changing activity. (almost)
• If made account based, could be a gamechanger for alts.
• The feeling of vast and unlimited exploration ground if get rid of "5 of 10 mounts discovered". Unknown is unknown.

Cons:
• Coding nightmare.
• The reason not to destroy node might be too strong as it is the "ark of knowledge" for the whole player community.
• Scribes’ gameplay might be a bit boring as it is described at the moment.
• Needs more clarification on what the entity is exactly and more solid stats for L2, L3 knowledge.
• Tulnars might have some knowledge right from the start as they are native Verrans iirc. But if infocards are account bound then it just makes no sense.
• Keeping track of everything might be a disaster for players. But who knows.

Comments

  • George_BlackGeorge_Black Member, Intrepid Pack, Alpha Two
    edited December 2023
    Collectibles/titles/achievement logs are signs of a game devoid of any real content.

    Plus there is 0 challenge in them. All it takes is not to be bored to kill 500/ of something or whatever.

    Learn to pvp.
    Learn to pvp because in order to progress you need to fight off other people, not tick off boxes for npcs and logs.
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