Feedback on Curiosities System

[LadyGoo]

The current curiosity system SWOT based on the W8 history:

Strengths:
- Experience partially makes it harder to bot multiple alt characters;
- People, who use their main characters never have problems with lack of experience points in order to learn curiosities;
- Fated curiosities system has removed forage botting on mountains and swamps;


Weaknesses:
Crucial problems:
- Experience system has not removed grinding multiple alts at the same time. It is possible to gain enough experience for a few days just by spending around 10 or less minutes on actions, that trigger the experience gain;
- The fated curiosities are a way too rare and bad for consumtion in terms of lp/time+experience;
- Glimmermoss is being botted massively. I have been able to pillage Ainran's vault, since they had no authority in it. Have discovered an underground level under the vault, used for botting the curiosity (a few cupboards of glimmermoss);
- The current curiosity study system is quite boring and encourages mass-botting/production, rather than qualitative approach (in comparison with the a bit raw but really nice curiosity update, which has been removed).

The curiosities which have been underused/unused during the world:
- Leather Ball curiosity is a way too expensive for the lp it gives. Basically, no-one produces or uses the curiosity in early-/mid-/late- game;
- Primitive Doll, too expensive and time-consuming to craft in comparison to other curiosities;
- Horrible knot, too expensive and time-consuming to craft;
- Golden Teeth: quite bad in terms of experience cost, lp and time (silver rose is much more profitable)
- Rattle-Tattle-Talisman too expensive and time-consuming to craft in comparison to other curiosities;
- Silken Ribbon: a way too expensive

Opportunities:
- Fate curiosities could be much more rewarding in terms of lp, like finding a golden egg. That way noobs would be able to trade them for better goods + developed villages would always have a need in better curiosities;
- Some low-tier curiosities could be re-considered and improved, so that they could be used at least at some stages of the game (early, mid, late). The list I have provided above represents the least popular curiosities. In fact, I have crafted them once and never again. Moreover, I was the person who was producing craftable curiosities for my entire village.
- Re-considering the experience system mechanics, so that gaining the experience should be much harder. Or remove the experience system, since it does not prevent grinding multiple characters at the same time;
- Contrary to the previous point, there could be some curiosities which would give a lot of lp, but consume a lot of ex.p. Like mirkwoods. So, active characters could potentially gain much more lp, than idle characters on low ex.p. curios.
- Glimmermoss could be less rewarding or harder to find (or have a chance to accidentally spawn a bat or something like that);

Threats:
- People, who can bot/have bigger villages will always be able to produce better curiosities in bigger amounts. As a result, this will lead into a gap between the large and small villages/hermits. Maybe, that is a fair way to go about it. But having an option to get legendary curiosities if you are doing nooby stuff (fishing, foraging fields or other biomes and etc.) would be nice.
- Glimmermoss botting will allow you to buy better good for doing nothing, while for the noobs it takes a lot of time to forage them. Same works for learning points and etc;
- There will be a lack of diversity in curiosities at some point. Villages, normally, have basic set-up for their study. Abacii, glimmermoss, poppy flower, teddy bear, bronze steed, straw doll and etc. Basically, if you do not have good metal industry (metal curiosities are among the best craftable), your characters will be falling behind. In my point of view, there should be a wider diversity of curiosities, so people of different occupations could maintain themselves well, without relying too much on mining.

[sabinati]

good analysis. i agree.

[jorb]

Awesome. Big thanks for this. Helps a lot!

[boshaw]

- Glimmermoss is being botted massively. I have been able to pillage Ainran's vault, since they had no authority in it. Have discovered an underground level under the vault, used for botting the curiosity (a few cupboards of glimmermoss)

To give some insight that was one character doing it for less than a week, and then we stopped since we realized we didn't actually need that many to do what we wanted to do. So imo far from massively.

The mechanic for spawning curios is simply to easy to take advantage of to collects lots of a foraged curio with or without bots.

[DDDsDD999]

Signed

[loftar]

Just for the record, both curiosities and hunger are things we have set in our sights to reform. It's not the very first priority, but we plan to get around to them sooner or later.

The interaction between certain foraged items and fate (which seems to be a large part of the focus of this thread), on the other hand, is already being reworked for the reset.

[overtyped]

I agree with all of this.

[Ethan]

Just for the record, both curiosities and hunger are things we have set in our sights to reform. It's not the very first priority, but we plan to get around to them sooner or later.

The interaction between certain foraged items and fate (which seems to be a large part of the focus of this thread), on the other hand, is already being reworked for the reset.

I am interested in what the current priority list/roadmap is, sadly I can see why you don't share it though. As I suspect it will only provoke destructive criticism.

[vatas]

My idea for glimmermoss improvement would be that server would count the glimmermoss that is foraged from certain area. If its foraged only once a day or even less often, you should find at least one glimmermoss every time. Foraging the area often should reduce the spawn rate. Or what I kind of was thinking that area would have some sort of "pool" of glimmermoss that would run dry fast if it was botted. Right know areas can generate new glimmermoss every half an hour, am I right?

[MagicManICT]

A most excellent summary, madam.

I will say that I did find myself with exceptions to a few of your points, but they were rare exceptions except for the knot. Since I lived a hermit life, I didn't have need for a ton of cloth so always had extra string around. It was actually a fairly easy curio to keep one or two of around in case I was being lazy and needed a filler.

Other than that, with loftar and jorb's replies about fate and such getting reworked for the restart, I don't think any of my opinions would be valid until we see it.