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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Let's make professions more engaging
arismangree
Member
An idea to make professions more interesting:
Combining some good elements from other games I would love to see something like:
A “guitar hero” kind of mini game with series of keystrokes (like black desert fishing) that has low impact results so will probably be utilized only from min/max-ers and casuals won’t be missing out on too much. As an example, for Mining Journeyman there could be a 3 -key combo that if you played and “win” the game you could get mini buffs like: 0,5sec faster gather, 5% more rare resources, etc.
All the above can be also control by clothing. It would be great if different kind of clothing would offer (as a trait) what “buff” the mini-game would result into.
Taking this to master level, it could be like a larger/harder key combo that would be hard to accomplish.
Taking this even further, it could lead to more options like:
• Giving options in the combo that allows for you to choose the buff. As an example, in a 5-key combo the 4th key could be either X or Y and if you pressed the X you took a “speed buff” and if you pressed the Y you took a “+% rare mats” buff.
• For the crafting professions this could even change the weight of stats (like if you press X the item will have more crit than haste). Or even this could lead to an insignificant item level increase, but a very rare item. If -for example- the max item level in the game was 200, the master crafter that has made an item 203 out of the same mats, just by playing a very hard version of this mini game (lets say an intense 30sec of fast keystrokes) would be greatly appreciated and sought after. Not for the stats but for the rarity of those items.
• And this crafter could charge for this kind of effort. Like, 5k if customer wants base item or 7k if customer wants me to TRY to go for 203. And to make this even more interesting lets say that every time you play this minigame (the first 50 times) it becomes 1% slower. So your first tries will surely be fails (the speed will be unworldly) and after 30-40 tries you ‘ll start seeing some “wins” (if you persevere).
• This could even separate specialties. Let’s take weapon-smithing as an easy example: lets say that sword-crafting requires a mini game played with keys AWSD and F1-5 but axe-crafting requires an entirely different setup of potential keys like F5-F12 and arrow keys (so a very different hand setup). Master crafting (able to achieve this slight advantage of 3 item levels) in both specializations would be so much harder if you had to excel in both those “hand placements”.
The main idea would be that this is not mandatory and pretty much not required at all for the majority of crafters. All casual crafters will be able to reach master level crafting BiS gear (200 item level in the example above) and won’t miss out on much if they wont “play” the minigame. This game would serve the low level crafters as a spice for the time they invest on crafting and at high levels, as a purpose (/target) builder for profession min-maxing for those that want to excel and separate themselves from all others.
The minigame I proposed served just as an example done right. There could be more and funnier mini games.
What do you people think?
Combining some good elements from other games I would love to see something like:
A “guitar hero” kind of mini game with series of keystrokes (like black desert fishing) that has low impact results so will probably be utilized only from min/max-ers and casuals won’t be missing out on too much. As an example, for Mining Journeyman there could be a 3 -key combo that if you played and “win” the game you could get mini buffs like: 0,5sec faster gather, 5% more rare resources, etc.
All the above can be also control by clothing. It would be great if different kind of clothing would offer (as a trait) what “buff” the mini-game would result into.
Taking this to master level, it could be like a larger/harder key combo that would be hard to accomplish.
Taking this even further, it could lead to more options like:
• Giving options in the combo that allows for you to choose the buff. As an example, in a 5-key combo the 4th key could be either X or Y and if you pressed the X you took a “speed buff” and if you pressed the Y you took a “+% rare mats” buff.
• For the crafting professions this could even change the weight of stats (like if you press X the item will have more crit than haste). Or even this could lead to an insignificant item level increase, but a very rare item. If -for example- the max item level in the game was 200, the master crafter that has made an item 203 out of the same mats, just by playing a very hard version of this mini game (lets say an intense 30sec of fast keystrokes) would be greatly appreciated and sought after. Not for the stats but for the rarity of those items.
• And this crafter could charge for this kind of effort. Like, 5k if customer wants base item or 7k if customer wants me to TRY to go for 203. And to make this even more interesting lets say that every time you play this minigame (the first 50 times) it becomes 1% slower. So your first tries will surely be fails (the speed will be unworldly) and after 30-40 tries you ‘ll start seeing some “wins” (if you persevere).
• This could even separate specialties. Let’s take weapon-smithing as an easy example: lets say that sword-crafting requires a mini game played with keys AWSD and F1-5 but axe-crafting requires an entirely different setup of potential keys like F5-F12 and arrow keys (so a very different hand setup). Master crafting (able to achieve this slight advantage of 3 item levels) in both specializations would be so much harder if you had to excel in both those “hand placements”.
The main idea would be that this is not mandatory and pretty much not required at all for the majority of crafters. All casual crafters will be able to reach master level crafting BiS gear (200 item level in the example above) and won’t miss out on much if they wont “play” the minigame. This game would serve the low level crafters as a spice for the time they invest on crafting and at high levels, as a purpose (/target) builder for profession min-maxing for those that want to excel and separate themselves from all others.
The minigame I proposed served just as an example done right. There could be more and funnier mini games.
What do you people think?
0
Comments
1. after some time of playing these mini-games you'll get tired of them. it's nothing like mob grinding - you'll never make a minigame so interesting it will be fun after playing it for *period of time*. with no-minigame lumberjacking or mining etc. now you can at least click a button and move on to the next one after 5sec, with mini game if you want to gather 1k trees in a day - you'll start thinking about hanging yourself playing those minigames.
2. with rapidly growing AI adoption, you'll see people training AI to control a mouse/keyboard to hit buttons at the right time every time and there is no way you'll detect it (just google 'AI aimbot for CS' or something).
That's why these games should not be (/feel) mandatory.
You play them only if you enjoy active gathering/crafting (min-maxing).
It should be like "achievement rush". You don't need to do them, it just caters to those kind of people.
As for the "new wave" of automation addons, this argument can be used for all kinds of gameplay. There are already 1-button dps rotation addons on very well known games. So when those hit the market, game-developers will need to "take measures"...
I don't want the interaction matrix of a given profession changed because someone who wouldn't even like that thing irl wants to do it in game.
As one of my guild members says, it makes things 'itchy' when the game is constantly pushing you slightly out of the 'zone'. Maybe this only affects people like us, but it eventually does kill the 'comfortable nostalgia login' urge.
Industry only becomes fun and meaningful when paired with war.
All three types of gameplay should exist for every type of gatherable resources. So fish for example can be caught with passive afk fishing, OR with a more interactive fishing game, OR a fishing boat using a net and 3 other players all attacking the school of fish like it was a mob.
So long as the flexibility exists to collect any resource type (though not nessarily the top quality) through each style of gameplay then the existence of the 'interesting mini games' is not in itself bad, so long as the games are DESIGNED TO FUFILL the experience goals of that type of gathering and not to just distraction or waste time which is what people HATE about most mini-game implementations, they are just time-sinks ontop of another time-sink.
Treasure hunt minigames should be entirely about FINDING the resource, getting pings, traces, tracks, clues etc to know which way to go to 'hunt' the thing your looking for. Once the resource is found, no stupid waste of time 'barrier' in collecting it. Every interaction with the 'mini-game' should be me SAVING time vs the current wandering blindly trying to find things gameplay. The focus is on quality and sifting out the small, rare and faint signals of high value resources from the clutter of lower value resources. This player is mentally engaged and warry of being ganked because their high value resources drop so scanning for threats and remaining hidden can be substantial parts of their gameplay.
Abnegational players don't need a mini-game, walking and picking up things IS their mini-game and is all the mental engagement they are looking for, and for our fishers they are looking for even less as they just listen to a podcast or music while afk. Note that these players should be collecting completly different stuff from the Treashure hunter so they do not compete even if in the same space, the Agnegational player picks up a pebble every 5 seconds and 20 pebbles make a rock, or they pick sticks off of trees without chopping them to make stick bundles which are usable only as fuel. The low value of their gatherings should actually help to keep them safer from gankers and the amount that their sticks and pebbles that are lost on death could be made much lower then other gatherables to address the issue of them being easy targets, low risk should mean low reward for ganking player.
The loot Piñata gatherer gameplay starts only when in contact with the resource, nothing before that, the opposite of the the treashure hunter. Their systems needs the most extensive gameplay because it will be multiplayer and reactive, less complex then real combat but still substantial maybe even to the level of some simple trinity like gameplay (stamina regen rather then heal on party members, debuffing/softening the resource cache, applying big high 'damage' hits to break through 'twisted knots' or 'concretions' etc etc). Quantity and collection speed and storage capacity are what their skills, gear and gameplay focus on, the quality of the resource is already pre-determined they the nature of the Piñata they are hitting. It's all about bulk quantities, efficency and protecting the large 'haul' they get as they return home. Such groups have the safety of numbers but much like an open world raid boss they need to worry about other groups that want to let them do the most of the work and then steal their winnings so speed of gathering is also defacto safety for them.
1. You take it "abnegational playing" (zoned-out passive grind) is something people opt into most of the time. Sure many people do want to do this some times, but the vast majority considers this gameplay a required "grind". That 's why bots exist. If people enjoyed it, they would be doing it.
2. You are not considering the optional aspect. I 100% agree that you should always be able to phase out chopping some wood listening to celtic music. I just say you should also have the option to opt-in to a more active grind and get small doses of progression (/dopamine) instead of the feeling of time sink at the end of a gaming session.