Credos
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- Implemented, in a blast from the past, Credos. Credos are a new, qualified skill type, resting on the icon of a particular profession -- hunter, farmer, forager, &c -- which you can only acquire through somewhat particular quests relevant for the profession in question.
- Each Credo has five levels, and each level of the Credo you unlock gives you a new special, qualitative, bonus, ability, or perk, which cannot be otherwise obtained. You pursue Credos one at a time.
- In order to complete a Credo you need to complete 10 quests per Credo you already have, so 10 for the first Credo, 20 for the second, and 30 for the third, and so on. The five special abilities of each Credo are linearly unlocked for every fifth of the total questline you complete. The number of quests you need to complete is reduced by ten every time you die, to the initial minimum of ten.
- Completed Credos are inherited in their entirety when you die.
- Initiating the pursuit of a Credo costs an amount of LP proportional, again, to the amount of Credos you already have, and the number of times you have died.
- If you abandon a Credo quest, you lose an additional quest completed in that questline. If you abandon the first quest of the Credo, you abandon the Credo entirely, with no LP refunded.
- We plan to add more, but, presently, there are three Credos implemented: Forager, Fisherman, and Hunter.
- Forager: Beneath far-stretched canopies all around you sing the abundance of the Hearth wilding, and, as if in a dream, you have sensed its vastness in life and form, yearning now also to learn its names, and ways. It is said that the Old Hearthlings drank the light of the sun, and that it was in reflection thereof that the gods made root and leaf to cover that first antiquity which saw them set loose. There is much wisdom in the sagas, and a scent on the wind invites you to remember more of the things which grow and crawl. Wandering the Forager's Path promises...
- Exploration +10
- Perception +10
- Speed bonus when chasing small animals
- Increased basline quality of herbs picked.
- A chance to double herbs picked.
- Fisherman: Far beneath the waves gleams a treasure of wisdom, and on the breath of a fish you have heard told the riddles of life and death. Since first your feet touched water, a siren's song has called you deeper, and deeper, and farther down, down into the yonders blue, to see the spired groves of kelp, where Roach and Pike play hide and seek, and the crashing waters where Salmon dance. A ripple on calm waters calls you to learn the names of the things which swim and dive. Towing the Fisherman's Line promises...
- Reduced risk for loss of fishing equipment.
- Better trash recovery when fishing.
- Increased chance of a rare catch.
- Increased speed when swimming.
- Increased baseline quality of fish caught.
- Hunter: In depths of woodland realms unchartered, the tracks too easily criss-cross back and over themselves, losing all meaning under shades of bush and fern, and only those who studiously read those glyphs of hoof and paw, may then follow them down wilder, freer, paths. For some time you have yearned to speak this strange and peculiar tongue of beast, blood and soil, and a beying echo from far away in the greenery, promises to teach you. Tracking the Hunter's Trail promises...
- Marksmanship +20
- Fleeing animals take more damage.
- Increased speed when pursuing animals.
- Gain more meat from butchering.
- Projectiles hurt animal qualities less.}
- The basic idea here is to deepen the much vaunted endgame, get people out and about, and to differentiate characters more.
- I'm fairly pumped for future developments. The Credos will of course be organized in a skill tree, so that learning some unlocks others (Forager -> Lumberjack, Farmer, &c), and, given that this type of character development -- running quests -- isn't trivial to just slap a bot on and call it a day, we can potentially tie in some pretty crazy abilities the farther down the rabbit hole you go. There is also the possibility to tie it to the usual skills, crafts, builds, hearth magics, and all kinds of things, which could go a long way toward, again, some meaningful character differentiation.
- It is debatable whether quest running is fun enough to support a bigger system like this, but perhaps that is also an argument to work to improve them. I've also figured that one of the reasons why the quests aren't more fun is precisely the lack of more qualitative and noticable payouts from running (some of) them, which this at least changes.
- I would like to develop the quest system significantly. Ideally, the quest-givers should have personalities, abilities, a conversation system by which you can interact with them to acheive goals and extract information, and the ability to tie together various, more complex, story archs of meaningfully related quests, based on the quest givers' relative likes, dislikes, and other relations to other quest-givers, and such. It's a huge project, and I'm not sure how best to approach it, but this at least creates a strong incentive to try.
- This, of course, was that bigger thing(tm) hinted at in the previous two patches.
New Implementations
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- Implemented "Cigar", smokable, and curiosity.
In the Pipe
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- The main dev focus is the client rendering rewrite.
- I'm (still) considering following up on this suggestion, and make palisades bashable if the claim shield is down. Let me know what you think!
- Time to... like us on Facebook?
UPDATE YOUR CLIENTS, and...
Enjoy!