Swirling Vortexes: Ideas, thoughts

[Reyajh]

One of my favorite updates to the game (Not sure when it was implemented) has been the swirling vortex. Some of the things that I have found about them are: 1) The destinations appear to randomly change about once a week. They all appear to change at the same time (Confirm.) 2) They rarely go over about 6 'destination strings' long before looping. These loops do not necessarily loop back to the 1st SV that you entered and loops are usually 2 to 4 destination strings long. 3) A fully repaired fully loaded rowboat with one player on board will take anywhere from less than 25% damage to 75% damage but rarely takes more than 50% damage. However, add another player/passenger to your boat and it may take 100% damage on just one jump! 4) The destinations can be as far as from one corner of the world to the other and distance appears to have no effect on amount of damage taken. 5) I have personally found approaching 70 of them this world and estimate there may be as many as ~90. 6) You can carry another rowboat over your head while in a fully loaded one and the one above your head will take no damage from jumps Could be a lifesaver you know :p

*Not sure if a raft or coracle can go thru. I tried loaded and unloaded raft and was unsuccessful.

As implemented I love them for the random exploration value and the temporary ability to have an early game route to somewhere far away. Early this world (before I knew the destinations ever changed) I found a route from basically the NE corner of the world all the way to AP (Near the SW corner) that took right at an hour.

Personally, (No surprise to anyone that knows me) I'd love to see them still the way they are but, have them, or perhaps some of them, go to different maps entirely. Say perhaps a map maybe 1/4 the size of the current world. These new areas would be only accessible thru a SV. They would have a few SVs in them that would be local in destination and function as the others but they would have 1 or maybe 2 that take you back to the larger world..

What could go on in these worlds? What could be different? Harder mobs/dungeons... Better loots, unique quests...? I think if done right it could add a lot of fun and many challenges. For instance: Can an SV currently be claimed?
Imagine the strategic battles over them if expanded upon in some way...

[Lyrroth]

Personally, (No surprise to anyone that knows me) I'd love to see them still the way they are but, have them, or perhaps some of them, go to different maps entirely. Say perhaps a map maybe 1/4 the size of the current world. These new areas would be only accessible thru a SV. They would have a few SVs in them that would be local in destination and function as the others but they would have 1 or maybe 2 that take you back to the larger world..

What could go on in these worlds? What could be different? Harder mobs/dungeons... Better loots, unique quests...? I think if done right it could add a lot of fun and many challenges. For instance: Can an SV currently be claimed?
Imagine the strategic battles over them if expanded upon in some way...

Expeditions that were proposed few times already, basically speaking.

[Lunarius_Haberdash]

What you want are nøkk dungeons.

[neeco]

For instance: Can an SV currently be claimed?

Yes. Both village and pclaims work.
However with the current knarr drift, I see no way you would prevent anyone else from using it. At most you could force vandal scents with knarr construction signs.

[Reyajh]

I guess Lyrroth is talking about this and this. Perhaps others, I don't know. I searched for anything on SVs only and found nothing. In my proposal I'm not talking about a temporary pocket world but permanent addition. I also would like to see it not just for more endgame content. Either way, yea it's about the same idea, I see. I don't know what nøkk Dungeons are...
More importantly, I'm not just interested in what my thoughts on expanding them are. I'd like to know if others have any different or whatever ideas on how to utilize them further. How do you see them?
I'd also like to know if J&L have any plans on expanding upon them further or not in the future, but for that we just have to see.

For instance: Can an SV currently be claimed?

Yes. Both village and pclaims work.
However with the current knarr drift, I see no way you would prevent anyone else from using it. At most you could force vandal scents with knarr construction signs.

That's cool! I don't like the idea of players being able to prevent someone from using them but I would like to see them become of more strategic value and perhaps another thing to have players/factions fighting over control of. I understand server count is too low for that right now. But this is about future development of them in general...

[Reyajh]

Here is a thought...

What about having a quest series that allows you to lock one or more down to certain destinations that you have of course already discovered? Perhaps having each one only have one other locked down (Always available just to that toon) and maybe still having the regular random destination available to that toon from that SV... A sort of taming the vortexes questline

[SaltyCrate]

I also like the vortexes and would like to see them expanded. However, I also find that the amount of times I wanted to use one is in single digits. Reason being the combination of annoynance of needing constant boat repair, inability of knowing where I end up (as connections change so often), and the lack of point being in another (random) point of the map.

So, at the very least I would like to see the following couple of changes:

• Slow down destinations change rate, to once a month or two at least. And/or make some vortexes stable in their destinations. Right now it appears that mapping your local vortexes in hope to utilize them later for fast travel is way too time consuming for the amount of time you can use such a map.
• Add a way to negate or serously mitigate boat damage. Maybe as a perk of some credo. Maybe add quality to boats and make it depend on quality.

These changes won't really make vortexes that useful in current world, but at least they will make me consider using some repeatedly on occasion.

Now, there are other ideas I thought would make vortexes more interesting. They can be roughly split in two parts, depending on what vortexes do actually represent thematically. My current (and I also think common) understanding is that travelling through vortexes symbolizes being swept in some underwater current which somehow only affect your boat. Based on that assumption there are these ideas:

• Add vortexes to underground lakes. If anything, being washed out underground would make even more sense. It may require having larger underground lakes, but it probably needs new map generation anyway (which unfortunately won't happen ). Having the potential, if only temporary, to explore parts of deeper levels without building mineholes can be interesting in the new world.
• Add the floating analogue of Beach Salvage and make it spawn only near vortexes, but with increased rate. It makes vortexes the points of interest for people who enjoy salvaging for random cool items. Similarly, increased rate of spawning peculiar flotsams would make thematical sense, but would be botted yada yada, so probably better not.
• Add the experience event to travelling through the vortex. Yes, I know that everyone love new obscure experience events, which make others appears less frequently as a result. But, thematically, being dragged underwater through half the world should indeed leave quite the impression on anyone, more so than most of other experiences. (also add it as credo's quest requirement)
• Tie vortexes and fishing. I am not fan of fishing myself and I am quite hazy on exact fishing mechanics so this idea is less thought out. I imagine that vortexes can always have fishing spots around them. Then they also can increase quality or quantity of fishes in the spot, or make it possible to catch greater variety of fishes than usual, or allow to more easily catch rarer or even unique fishes.

Following ideas have different premise to what vortexes are. What if they are magical in nature? That it's mischievous water spirits who make such teleports possible. Expanding on it, there are certain ideas:

• Turn vortexes into questgivers. They would represent different kind of spirits, which prefer to inhabit a body of water instead of mossy stumps or somesuch. They can be identical mechanically to other qestgivers, but they also could be not, leading to the more global idea of having different types of questgivers. Anyway, it create certain amount of questgivers in the world which can't be destroyed and can't really be walled off, which is a plus for some people, without adding too much of them.
• One simple differentiation would be adding quality increases from questing to fishes, but only to vortex questgivers. Maybe also water-based collectables. Or even maybe quality of water itself.
• As spirits seem to all know each other, It would be cool if after some point one could make enough rapport with the vortex questgiver to allow to choose destination vortex from limited options. Or maybe allow to travel to well-known questgiver instead. It could be simply tied to a number of quests done to a particular questgiver and is obviously character-based.

All of this ideas are made with the notion that vortexes are cool, if underused, mechanic in itself. There certainly exist a different notion of "why is this even in the game" and I understand it and won't argue it.