Thoughts on quality--meet in the middle?

[Beezer12Washingbeard]

It seems that most of us are in agreement that tri-quality should go. However, single quality seems overly simplistic for a game such as this, which tries to give you (or force you to make) meaningful choices. That aspect of tri-Q I liked, even if it didn't work in practice the way it was intended. But what if, instead of single Q, we went down to bi-quality? Two qualities, that can be abstracted to represent whatever is necessary, but for the purpose of this post I'll call 'em Substance and Essence (with the idea that Vitality is folded into Substance).

With only two Qs to worry about, the math describing their interactions becomes MUCH easier, especially if you want to make it so that increasing one has some kind of effect on the other. The core idea is to have branches of development for given materials or objects, where you can focus on raising one Q for faster gains at the cost of the other, or you can try to raise both about equal to each other, but at a slower rate than specializing in one.

Depending on implementation and assuming good balance, this could lead to substantive and interesting gameplay changes & player choices. When planting crops, a player would have to decide if they wanted to plant two separate crops for Substance and Essence maximization, or to plant a single field and try to raise both at the same time. The first choice would work great for the more hardcore players, who wouldn't have any reason not to double-specialize, and the second option would be for the more casual or lazy players who don't have the time or energy to focus on Q micromanagement.

A few examples off the top of my head how this might work:

• Barley - Similar to two-row and six-row barley IRL, high Essence could be better for malting and baking (low protein/high sugar), and high Substance could be better for animal feed (high protein).
• Metal - High Substance = better weapons, armor, tools, anything that requires metal to be strong and hold an edge or form. High Essence = better curios, symbelware, etc.
• Wood - High Substance could mean better constructions, maybe higher soak or HP for palisades or other buildings made of wood, while high Essence could mean better curios, food, or anything non-construction-related.
• Cows - Dairy & beef quality. Cows bred for dairy or meat would give excellent Q for their given products, but middling at best for the other. High dairy Q cow = bonus to milk Q, penalty to meat Q, and vice versa. Similar concept would apply to other animals.

This idea came to me because I was reading about the dichotomy sliders in the old, before-my-time Haven, and they sounded pretty neat. I figured taking a similar concept and applying it to quality could help fix the tri-Q problem while also being in line with the spirit of H&H. The examples above are just scratching the surface of what's possible, and maybe if I get some sleep tonight I'll have some better ideas to elaborate on tomorrow, hah.

What do y'all think?

[LadyV]

No we have enough math and calculations to do in Haven. If we remove tri-quality lets go down to single and just enjoy the game a bit more.

[Saergof]

As far as I understood devs in "Happy new world" topic, it's not the similarity of the effects of three aspects of quality that causes the problem, it's the current absence of various mechanics for raising the three dimensions of the quality that makes tri-dimensional system unnesessary. Three various numbers did good job in influencing various aspects of all the man-made stuff, but they were raising all using the same method in every field, all variety came from RNG.

I would be very interested in seeing the system where tri-quality is remaining and works as was planned in a first place: when you should grow your crops in some various ways and therefore choose, which aspect of the quality you are going to buff up, and do so in every other aspect of hearthlands shores.