Yearly Cycle Differentiations

[Zentetsuken]

So there is a huge difference between seasons, this is new and arguably fun.

What about differences between years?

There are many flora and fauna that have good and bad years.

It could be fun to have some animals or forageables spawn more and less during some year cycles.
Maybe even have animal and foragable NODES rise and fall each year.

example -
Imagine, you are hunting one year and see an excellent q200+ deer node, there are a fair amount of spawns in this area this year.
2 years later you notice a massive spike in deer population, but this node space now caps out at q100, the high population has worsened the quality of the deer, perhaps they even give less meat

a few years later the deer seem to be very rare, but you are finding them in higher qualities all over the place, the few that are around are prospering.


I also like the idea of having some rare forageables and animals only spawn for 1 single year and then never again, or maybe once every 5 years or something you know? Even if these things were heavily botted during the small windows that they spawn, they could still be seasonal or rare enough that they would remain as excellent trading goods (provided they were meaningful implementations) because of their rarity.

[Melkior13]

I agree that adding in reasons to leave your home after the first few weeks of a new world would definitely be an improvement.

As is, once you find the HQ nodes and garden the few valuable forageables, there is no reason to leave home, and the game loses a lot of excitement.

[Fierce_Deity]

A more actively changing environment then? I can get behind that. Would be neat to have the wilds change more. We got changes to make trees/bushes regrow, but what about something to kill them? Why should trees live forever if we don't axe them. Let them fall and rot, let mirkwood logs decay to make up for the natural wild generation of them. Biomes could more aggressively shift(although should perhaps always maintain a certain ratio in the world).

[Zepar72]

No idea if that's possible to make, but the Q of nodes could correspond to how often they're "used".
For example: each time the resource is taken, there is a chance (small for water/dirt/clay, bigger for things that "spawn") that their quality will drop. The dropped quality would then be given to the same kind of node, but in a different place, which has lower Q and was "ignored" the most (things despawn, water/clay/dirt aren't collected).
That way the world would be more dynamic, and force people to actually explore and prospect past the first spawn. And no longer would claiming that high Q node give you endless benefits.
Just noticed it's not really fit for this topic, just got carried away by the "Quality change" idea.

[Zentetsuken]

No idea if that's possible to make, but the Q of nodes could correspond to how often they're "used".
For example: each time the resource is taken, there is a chance (small for water/dirt/clay, bigger for things that "spawn") that their quality will drop. The dropped quality would then be given to the same kind of node, but in a different place, which has lower Q and was "ignored" the most (things despawn, water/clay/dirt aren't collected).
That way the world would be more dynamic, and force people to actually explore and prospect past the first spawn. And no longer would claiming that high Q node give you endless benefits.
Just noticed it's not really fit for this topic, just got carried away by the "Quality change" idea.

I could picture water nodes slightly moving or clay nodes wearing and shifting a bit over years for sure, however my main concern was huntables and forageables because it would allow for the devs to actively change the dynamics of the game based on how they are seeing it played. If they can see that bear nodes are huge for a few weeks and everybody is just abusing load/unloading bear nodes and raking in high q bones, they could literally just make bear nodes all shit for a few years. Hell, they could even make bears hardly spawn at all for a few years and it would actually be natural and organic. They could create brand new content that would only show up for limited time and drill forced rarity in to any number of items in the game, catalyzing trade across the world.

[Zepar72]

I could picture water nodes slightly moving or clay nodes wearing and shifting a bit over years for sure, however my main concern was huntables and forageables because it would allow for the devs to actively change the dynamics of the game based on how they are seeing it played. If they can see that bear nodes are huge for a few weeks and everybody is just abusing load/unloading bear nodes and raking in high q bones, they could literally just make bear nodes all shit for a few years. Hell, they could even make bears hardly spawn at all for a few years and it would actually be natural and organic. They could create brand new content that would only show up for limited time and drill forced rarity in to any number of items in the game, catalyzing trade across the world.[/quote]

Not sure if devs should interfere with how the world is running. Not only that's too much work for them, but also it's up to players if they want to hunt something. On the other hand, it could be more automated. For example, if animals are overkilled (very little time from spawn to death) then their spawnrate could go up, or quality down. That way better nodes would run out for some time.
The thing is, i think that's too much to ask for now. I still hope there'll be an overall animal rework, both in spawn and Quality, and AI.

[Ysh]

No idea if that's possible to make, but the Q of nodes could correspond to how often they're "used".
For example: each time the resource is taken, there is a chance (small for water/dirt/clay, bigger for things that "spawn") that their quality will drop. The dropped quality would then be given to the same kind of node, but in a different place, which has lower Q and was "ignored" the most (things despawn, water/clay/dirt aren't collected).
That way the world would be more dynamic, and force people to actually explore and prospect past the first spawn. And no longer would claiming that high Q node give you endless benefits.
Just noticed it's not really fit for this topic, just got carried away by the "Quality change" idea.

I think end result of this kind of system is all map have homogeneous quality.

[Zepar72]

I think end result of this kind of system is all map have homogeneous quality.

Yea, after thinking about it, got the same result. I guess the quality drop could just randomly go to other, unpopular node. maybe up to some set distance. No matter the quality there. That way quality would slowly move around.

[Zentetsuken]

Yeah the drops and rises in quality should absolutely be random as fuck.

However, again, the main focus of this idea was to change the rate at which certain animals and plants spawn in to the world on a yearly basis - to the degree of literally having some year cycles that spawn ZERO of certain forageables.

[Ysh]

Yeah the drops and rises in quality should absolutely be random as fuck.

However, again, the main focus of this idea was to change the rate at which certain animals and plants spawn in to the world on a yearly basis - to the degree of literally having some year cycles that spawn ZERO of certain forageables.

Yes, I think I do not mind more dynamic game in place where it is sense making. There is more logic in animal and plant quality/quantity change by year compare to clay and rock suddenly get very bad.

One of nice feature about season I think is that it is cutting animals into category. For long time it seem like every patch sees addition of new small animal. It is nice to see many kind of animal, but eventually it become very difficult to find specific animal you look for! If trend of add more animal over time continues, then varying also by year seems as good strategy.

I do wonder if game system can handle dynamic quality node though.