DeletedUser
Added: 26th Feb. Discussion for 7 days
Currently, most jobs in the game are completely useless. They pay too little, give too little experience, and as a result, no player uses them. Wasted effort on the developers' side because there is a massive amount of content in the game that isn't used.
Also, players always strive for the best paying job, and end up doing that as often as their motivation allows.
We currently have 2 mechanics in place that attempt to break monotomy:
- Motivation
- Quests
Motivation is there to make sure players don't continuously do the best job. They now have to switch between the best job and the 2nd best job. Slight improvement, but not enough by far.
Quests often demand items from jobs that you could already do a month ago. With this mechanic, the game attempts to get player to do jobs they normally don't do anymore. Also, this forces the players to focus on jobs based on product rather than pay/experience/luck. Excellent mechanic, but it is actually rather weak. That's because once you complete a quest, it's effect is gone for good. And with only 1 quest for every 3 levels plus some hidden ones, this will never accomplish the goal that they should have.
My suggestion will change this. We simply need a mechanic that forces us to do jobs different than the best one we can do. Something that once again makes us focus on products rather than income. That way, all jobs will remain usefull, and you will see a much better distribution of players through jobs.
The concept:
The merchant will have a demand, based on the size of the town. Small towns will often demand simpler goods and in smaller quantities. The player, who has to be a member of the town, can choose to provide the merchant these goods in exchange for a healthy reward. If no one grants the merchant his goods, he will stop asking for them and change to a different type.
In Practice:
When you click the merchant, there is a demand-list. It will look something like a shopping-list. It will for instance show:
- 15 wooden boards
- 8 tomatoes
- 2 handcuffs
- 6 shovels
And so on. Each line is a seperate quest. The amount of quests should be based on the number of players in a town. The difficulty by the level of a merchant.
By linking the amount of quests to the number of players, we prevent 1-player towns and promote people gathering in a town to get more quests. The quests should probably grow at a faster rate than the players. That will make bigger numbers better than smaller numbers. A 50-player town will have plenty for all, where 5 players will get some, but not many.
The level-limit by the merchant level will only work as a "cap", meaning that lower quests are always available, and better ones have a chance of appearing as soon as the merchant level reaches their requirement.
When you accept a request, it vanishes from the list, and you have 1 week to complete it. The merchant will have a new free slot for a request, and you have a new "quest" in your quest-log. Let's say we accepted the 15 wooden boards-quest. We now have a quest requiring us to get 15 wooden boards within a week. When we have them, we give them to the merchant to complete the request, and receive a reward.
If we fail to complete it, it will vanish, and leave a message that the merchant is no longer interested. It might give you a penalty, like a merchant-quest-ban for a week. This is a shallow form of motivation and more importantly a way to stop griefers from taking good quests so others can't.
The reward is at least the price you'd get when selling all the gathered items at the merchant. I am thinking about a bonus of 25% in dollars, plus a set amount of experience based on the difficulty and the chance of finding an item. The 15 boards could for instance easily supply you with 200 bonus xp, maybe more.
Another interesting addition would be that completing requests donates a small bit of the profit to the town treasury, as a bonus. This way, people will be really motivated to do those quest, and that will both be fun and helpfull for all the town communities.
The result:
This wil introduce a new dynamic game element that achieves the following things:
- Motivate players to do jobs they normally don't do.
- Generate a continouos motivation to check in at their town and take the challenge.
- Create an extra way for pure job-based players to generate some extra income and xp (duelers fight for their money and xp).
- Create an extra incentive to complete the merchant quickly
- Add a way of contributing a little extra to the town (when the town-element is also added)
- Create something to watch, rather than just monotonously do the same jobs over and over again, with the only exitement being the occasional find of some item.
I sincerely believe that this addition will make the west a more dynamic and interesting game. Values as mentioned are always open for discussion, as well as bonusses and the actual location of the "merchant". This could for instance also be done by the barkeeper.
What do you guys think? Please, be constructive.
Edit:
- I clarified that merchant quests in town A are only available to town inhabitants of town A.
- Changed the amount of quests appearing, and described the two factors: merchant level and player amount
- Added a bit about a penalty for people accepting quests and not completing them
Currently, most jobs in the game are completely useless. They pay too little, give too little experience, and as a result, no player uses them. Wasted effort on the developers' side because there is a massive amount of content in the game that isn't used.
Also, players always strive for the best paying job, and end up doing that as often as their motivation allows.
We currently have 2 mechanics in place that attempt to break monotomy:
- Motivation
- Quests
Motivation is there to make sure players don't continuously do the best job. They now have to switch between the best job and the 2nd best job. Slight improvement, but not enough by far.
Quests often demand items from jobs that you could already do a month ago. With this mechanic, the game attempts to get player to do jobs they normally don't do anymore. Also, this forces the players to focus on jobs based on product rather than pay/experience/luck. Excellent mechanic, but it is actually rather weak. That's because once you complete a quest, it's effect is gone for good. And with only 1 quest for every 3 levels plus some hidden ones, this will never accomplish the goal that they should have.
My suggestion will change this. We simply need a mechanic that forces us to do jobs different than the best one we can do. Something that once again makes us focus on products rather than income. That way, all jobs will remain usefull, and you will see a much better distribution of players through jobs.
The concept:
The merchant will have a demand, based on the size of the town. Small towns will often demand simpler goods and in smaller quantities. The player, who has to be a member of the town, can choose to provide the merchant these goods in exchange for a healthy reward. If no one grants the merchant his goods, he will stop asking for them and change to a different type.
In Practice:
When you click the merchant, there is a demand-list. It will look something like a shopping-list. It will for instance show:
- 15 wooden boards
- 8 tomatoes
- 2 handcuffs
- 6 shovels
And so on. Each line is a seperate quest. The amount of quests should be based on the number of players in a town. The difficulty by the level of a merchant.
By linking the amount of quests to the number of players, we prevent 1-player towns and promote people gathering in a town to get more quests. The quests should probably grow at a faster rate than the players. That will make bigger numbers better than smaller numbers. A 50-player town will have plenty for all, where 5 players will get some, but not many.
The level-limit by the merchant level will only work as a "cap", meaning that lower quests are always available, and better ones have a chance of appearing as soon as the merchant level reaches their requirement.
When you accept a request, it vanishes from the list, and you have 1 week to complete it. The merchant will have a new free slot for a request, and you have a new "quest" in your quest-log. Let's say we accepted the 15 wooden boards-quest. We now have a quest requiring us to get 15 wooden boards within a week. When we have them, we give them to the merchant to complete the request, and receive a reward.
If we fail to complete it, it will vanish, and leave a message that the merchant is no longer interested. It might give you a penalty, like a merchant-quest-ban for a week. This is a shallow form of motivation and more importantly a way to stop griefers from taking good quests so others can't.
The reward is at least the price you'd get when selling all the gathered items at the merchant. I am thinking about a bonus of 25% in dollars, plus a set amount of experience based on the difficulty and the chance of finding an item. The 15 boards could for instance easily supply you with 200 bonus xp, maybe more.
Another interesting addition would be that completing requests donates a small bit of the profit to the town treasury, as a bonus. This way, people will be really motivated to do those quest, and that will both be fun and helpfull for all the town communities.
The result:
This wil introduce a new dynamic game element that achieves the following things:
- Motivate players to do jobs they normally don't do.
- Generate a continouos motivation to check in at their town and take the challenge.
- Create an extra way for pure job-based players to generate some extra income and xp (duelers fight for their money and xp).
- Create an extra incentive to complete the merchant quickly
- Add a way of contributing a little extra to the town (when the town-element is also added)
- Create something to watch, rather than just monotonously do the same jobs over and over again, with the only exitement being the occasional find of some item.
I sincerely believe that this addition will make the west a more dynamic and interesting game. Values as mentioned are always open for discussion, as well as bonusses and the actual location of the "merchant". This could for instance also be done by the barkeeper.
What do you guys think? Please, be constructive.
Edit:
- I clarified that merchant quests in town A are only available to town inhabitants of town A.
- Changed the amount of quests appearing, and described the two factors: merchant level and player amount
- Added a bit about a penalty for people accepting quests and not completing them
Last edited by a moderator: