[IDEA] Treasure Hunting – Bottles, Maps, and Hidden Riches.

[beatwaster]

I’ve been thinking about ways to make exploration more rewarding and add a bit of 'pirate flavor' to the coastal areas. Here is a concept for a Treasure Hunting system.

Bottles with treasure maps, or treasure maps.

Where:
Picked up from floating debris with a slim chance (a bottle with a map), or from debris on the coast (just a map).

Alternative use:
Can be learned as a curiosity, but has a level that only affects the quality of the curiosity.

Intended use:
Can be opened and read. It appears as a small, static image of a coastline minimap with a small cross in the center, without specifying its location.

Search mechanics:
The player arrives with a map at a specific location they believe to be "the one" and begins digging in the sand. (Since the map is miniature, the cross in the center can cover an area of ​​30-40 individual tiles.) If the player has the map in their inventory (perhaps there's a more suitable location in inventory), they have a chance of digging up a chest. (The treasure chest only spawns at a specific coordinate if the player has the corresponding Map item in their inventory. This effectively prevents botting scripts from mass-farming the coastline, as digging without a map yields nothing, and the map itself serves as a unique key for a specific location.")

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Treasure generation principle:
The player picks up a chest. It could be a regular chest, or it could be something specifically designed for treasure. Perhaps a regular chest with some shabbiness.
The items generated inside the chest are the same items the player might fish out of the sea or dig up from the ground, possibly with a filter so that only items are dropped, but not branches, dirt, animal carcasses, etc.
Essentially, this is a chance to dig up a set of "random lost items" in one go, all of which can fit into a chest of a certain size.

Additional ideas:
Perhaps players could bury treasure themselves, which would generate a stack of existing "treasure maps." The contents would then be determined by the player burying the chest.

Bonuses:
Gives players the opportunity to create unique interaction methods. Encourages players to explore the world. Doesn't require the addition of radically new mechanics, but builds on existing ones.

[serVar161]

Good idea. Beautifully designed.

The main idea.
It might raise questions about its origin, unlike the trash that washed up on the shore. "Who collected all this stuff in chests, buried it, and even drew a map?"
But overall, this isn't a problem, and the idea is balanced thanks to the card drop chance and the filtering of chest contents. It's a sort of "beach trash version 2"—more interesting, with more loot.

Additional idea.
On the one hand, it would allow for new interactions between players, and there would be no question about the chest and map.
But on the other hand, players might start burying trash in chests en masse, so much so that they'd mostly be digging up or fishing for cards. This would negatively impact both the additional and the main idea.

There's no balance due to the lack of a limit on the number of buried chests and no filter on what can be put in them.

Reasoning and questions.

- The "problem" with trash in chests could be solved with a dedicated treasure chest with filtering by item and quality, but this adds complexity and artificial limitations, which is wrong.

- The problem with the number of player-generated cards and the potential trash in it could be solved by increasing the chance of getting such a card – for example, the chance of getting a card with the main idea is 66%, while a player-generated card is 33%, or 75% and 25%.

- And perhaps there should be a visual distinction between such cards, so that players can decide whether to pursue it or not. If they find a chest from a player with a branch inside, blame the greedy bastard who buried it, not the game.

- Perhaps need a mechanic so that treasure cards buried by players are shared with other players. After burying a treasure, is the card automatically added to the pool of other cards, or is there some other mechanic?
(by putting a card in a bottle and throwing it into deep water)

- How do you actually bury treasure? Perhaps you need a dedicated treasure chest with the "bury treasure" feature, or should it be added to all chests? Some other method?

- Can a player bury multiple treasures in one spot?

[Frogg]

The map should work like Rustroot Extract and guide you to the treasure location. With an image you could instantly find the cross location using that World Map website.

[Luno]

This completly goes against the theme that the hearthlands are an untouched land until some player interact with it. You might as well suggest finding old gear from the dwarves or something in the lowest cave levels.

-1

[r0ck4ev3r]

-1; You already dig up random shit, this is just extra steps so that we do the same thing on sand.

[serVar161]

According to the concept, this will be more interesting trash due to the filter or, due to the quantity, a higher chance of finding something interesting.

Especially if the player buried it (but that's not certain).
Question:

- Why would a player bury treasure?
Yes, it's possible for a pirate game or just as a way to give a random player a gift. But if the person doing the burying doesn't benefit from it, few will do it.

- How will they do it? It's still open.

- Will there be a single map for the treasure buried by a player?
It would be more interesting if several players could search for the treasure at the same time—whoever finds it first.

- Can you only bury it on the coast?
While it makes sense in the basic idea—a chest washed up on the shore and covered with sand—it's not so much for a chest buried by a player.

[linkfanpc]

This completly goes against the theme that the hearthlands are an untouched land until some player interact with it.
-1

yeah this honestly. the only way this could work is if the game somehow can decide, according to current world's age, what items that players have dropped constitute as "good" or "valuable", which is very arbitrary. that said...

You might as well suggest finding old gear from the dwarves or something in the lowest cave levels.

i'm not gonna lie finding dwemer ruins at cave level 9 would be kinda hype...