Camping Idea Thread

[Halaster]

I finished what I'm calling the version 1 of camping and ... I don't really love it.  The way it works is you "make camp", have a delay based on skill, and it adds the Camp and Safe flags to the room for some duration.  The bonus to regen of hps/stamina/stun that you get are based on the skill level of the person who made the camp.  You can remove the camp with 'break camp'.  This approach (intentionally) does not save across reboots.

This all works just fine, but it seems kinda boring and dull to me.  So I thought I'd ask for y'alls input on how it could work.

One alternative idea is instead of adding a flag, have it add a camp object, like a wagon object. You 'enter camp' and then inside you can rest and get the bonuses.  Drawbacks to that are that you can't really see out in a direction, you have to have some poor schmuck outside keeping watch (or not).  You have to worry about aggressive things coming and trying to destroy it.  One positive thing to this approach is that the camp object would save between reboots.  In either case, it would eventually have an expiration as we wouldn't want the world littered with campsites (or do we??).

Supplies / Materials / Tools:  As an add-on, we could have camp sites require supplies to build it.  These supplies could have different quality levels that affect the bonuses as well.  Supplies could be crafted by someone with the camping skill (or bought at a store).  The supplies could be required, or they could be optional.  If they're optional, it just means they'd have extra bonuses.  Maybe supplies automatically add a campfire.

Basically, I'm looking for feedback and ideas of how to make this idea less boring than my first version.  Unless folks think it's fine like it is.

[mansa]

What does the 'camp' and 'safe' flags mean?

[MarshallDFX]

are you able to see a camp from a distance, like a fort/obelisk or whatever?  Particularly at night if a camp implies a fire (does it?).

I've said elsewhere I'm a big fan of the idea of more coin sinks in terms of having upgrades to things, like a cooler looking camp.  RDR2 mechanics. 

Does the camp modify the room description or have an object with a long description? Could it even be possible to have a variety of combinations of items which would customise that description?

[Halaster]

What does the 'camp' and 'safe' flags mean?

Sorry, Safe just means quit safe (Quit).
Camp flag is what gives the regen bonuses.

[Halaster]

are you able to see a camp from a distance, like a fort/obelisk or whatever?  Particularly at night if a camp implies a fire (does it?).

I've said elsewhere I'm a big fan of the idea of more coin sinks in terms of having upgrades to things, like a cooler looking camp.  RDR2 mechanics. 

Does the camp modify the room description or have an object with a long description? Could it even be possible to have a variety of combinations of items which would customise that description?

Currently it modifies the room desc, like how restful shade does.
"An average quality campsite is here, nestles among the dunes" (messages is based on sector)

[MarshallDFX]

does it make any difference if a tent is set up inside a campsite

[Armaddict]

-Add some sort of interaction with maintenance that extends the duration, which can be done by people with lower skill but at a cost of the original bonuses.  Make the bonuses somehow adjustable based off of maxduration - grace period as the beginning of when the decay begins.  This makes camping in 'groups' mildly more sustainable, but it does require people to log in to 'refresh' the duration.

-As much as possible, work towards some ability for it to last through reboots.  I know that's a big ask according to history, but that's really a big step towards creating 'naturally decaying' hot spots of activity.  Thus, 6 people out in the wilds can actually do quite well at their chosen spot, but as people stop logging in, or die, the camp starts hitting a natural state of decay until it disappears and the save room is eliminated, naturally preventing the old 'stockpile no one is using' problem, but simultaneously allows players to create fake areas of their own for people to play in, but that naturally destroy themselves without activity.  Big movement towards player-created stuff without the big formality of clans.  Maybe a big step of player created clans that allows them to be wilderness based, allowing for more permanence as they follow that process and better upgrades into an actual, small, village object/desert compound.

-Make some sort of interaction between the camp and camping/wilderness survival objects.  You may not need a tent to make a camp, especially if there's a craftable shelter to add to the camp, but they increase durations/bonuses/other various boons/dilemmas, as you decide, based on how structured and useful you want them to be, and how much work to maintain/keep.

-Add interactions between weather and camp sites that have specific effects.  Same with different wildlife.

-Add 'stages'.  First stage is cheap/free and easy, but has a low bonus and duration.  Second stage requires materials/craftable addons, extends duration and increases bonus, etc.  Each stage unlocks different craftables to upgrade it.

-Obviously, as mentioned, craftable addons, maybe some of them skill dependent so that dune traders, specifically, make great camps.

-Not an idea, but a sidenote, the more robust this feature becomes, the more you likely want to adjust wilderness survival as a whole since this is obviously a pretty big boon for a relatively hospitable wilderness.

-If these sorts of expansions are made, and the playerbase flocks to them for a decent length of time to the detriment of cities, nuke allanak from orbit and make season 2 tribal-based with no civilization centers.

Some of these are larger projects than others, but this is just spitballed 'possibles'.

[Urbais]

-Obviously, as mentioned, craftable addons, maybe some of them skill dependent so that dune traders, specifically, make great camps.

Being able to buy something like "ceramic pots and pans" or "an animal hitching post" that provides additional bonuses if a camp is present, -OR- extends the duration of the camp itself would be great.

[Lizzie]

If this is available as a mundane skill, is there any point in a certain magick spell continuing to exist? I don't recall if that spell results in a quit-safe room but if it doesn't, maybe it should, given that this mundane skill does essentially the same thing.

[mansa]

Here's some general thoughts:

I like the idea of having camp stages:

stage 1 : lasts 30 minutes irl time
stage 2 : lasts 60 minutes irl time, then goes down to stage 1.
stage 3 : lasts 1500 minutes irl time, then goes down to stage 2.
stage 4 : lasts 4500 minutes irl time, then goes down to stage 3.

Anyone can make a camp at stage 1, and requires no additional items.
Heavy Winds will prevent people from making a camp at stage 1
Winds might "break" camp at stage 1.
gives good recovery rates

Stage 2 requires skills to make, OR people without the skill can use resource items.
Heavy Winds might "break" camp down to stage 1.
The recovery rates at stage 1 and stage 2 are the same.  The only difference is the length of time it exists.


Stage 3 requires resource items to make.  It lasts much longer, and has better recovery rates, and has an 'enterable' tent.  This tent gets destroyed after use. It makes the room 'quit'.

Stage 4 requires resource items to make.  It lasts much longer than Stage 3.


These resource items can be purchased in the city, or crafted with the tentmaking skill.  It gives more reason to make it.




Premise #1 - Anyone can make a campsite, which would make anyone in the room "regenerate faster".  Weather dependant.
Premise #2 - Those skillful or those who have "resource items" can make the room "regenerate faster" in harsher climates and last longer than a typical site.
Premise #3 - Very skillful people AND/OR very expensive "resource items" can add additional perks to the room, be that "regenerate even faster" or "quit" or something else - perhaps a permanent structure.
Premise #4 - Multiple characters can add to the "construction" of a campsite somehow.
Premise #5 - Weather / Animals can ruin a campsite and reduce the efficiency of them.
Premise #6 - Tentmaking crafting skill should be utilized to craft "resource items" for making camp - to give more recipes to that skilltree.

[dumbstruck]

-Add some sort of interaction with maintenance that extends the duration, which can be done by people with lower skill but at a cost of the original bonuses.  Make the bonuses somehow adjustable based off of maxduration - grace period as the beginning of when the decay begins.  This makes camping in 'groups' mildly more sustainable, but it does require people to log in to 'refresh' the duration.

-As much as possible, work towards some ability for it to last through reboots.  I know that's a big ask according to history, but that's really a big step towards creating 'naturally decaying' hot spots of activity.  Thus, 6 people out in the wilds can actually do quite well at their chosen spot, but as people stop logging in, or die, the camp starts hitting a natural state of decay until it disappears and the save room is eliminated, naturally preventing the old 'stockpile no one is using' problem, but simultaneously allows players to create fake areas of their own for people to play in, but that naturally destroy themselves without activity.  Big movement towards player-created stuff without the big formality of clans.  Maybe a big step of player created clans that allows them to be wilderness based, allowing for more permanence as they follow that process and better upgrades into an actual, small, village object/desert compound.

-Make some sort of interaction between the camp and camping/wilderness survival objects.  You may not need a tent to make a camp, especially if there's a craftable shelter to add to the camp, but they increase durations/bonuses/other various boons/dilemmas, as you decide, based on how structured and useful you want them to be, and how much work to maintain/keep.

-Add interactions between weather and camp sites that have specific effects.  Same with different wildlife.

-Add 'stages'.  First stage is cheap/free and easy, but has a low bonus and duration.  Second stage requires materials/craftable addons, extends duration and increases bonus, etc.  Each stage unlocks different craftables to upgrade it.

-Obviously, as mentioned, craftable addons, maybe some of them skill dependent so that dune traders, specifically, make great camps.

-Not an idea, but a sidenote, the more robust this feature becomes, the more you likely want to adjust wilderness survival as a whole since this is obviously a pretty big boon for a relatively hospitable wilderness.

-If these sorts of expansions are made, and the playerbase flocks to them for a decent length of time to the detriment of cities, nuke allanak from orbit and make season 2 tribal-based with no civilization centers.

Some of these are larger projects than others, but this is just spitballed 'possibles'.

For as often as I disagree with Armaddict and his claiming to be a city playing socializer, this made my isolationist explorer heart sing. I love the idea of wilderness and the ability of any sort of players to affect meaningful change on things (as it's really one of the biggest boons of the medium), and I love every part of this suggestion.

I also love Mansa's post, though I would love to see it scaled up by time to 9000 for a stage 5 master camp, because that'd be just under a RL week and so many other things in the game are keyed to that time cycle (clan pay, apartment rents, etc) that I feel like it would jive harmoniously with preexisting systems in a way that felt fulfilling and intentional. Maybe if possible have a flag on the inside camp room that's flagged to autowatch/listen the outer room since you cannot watch directions.

[digitaleak]

I really love Mansa's post as well. The stages add flavor to the mechanic and also incentive for the player to either travel with someone who can make a good camp or learn how to make one yourself at a cost of either time or coin.

As a rule of thumb, I would not want camps to be permanent unless someone is actively maintaining it in some fashion (and even then, with the possibility of it being destroyed by weather or hostile forces). For me, it would break realism to walk around the wastes and see an abandoned camp site every few feet/every other room.

[MarshallDFX]

perhaps the existence of a camp persisting with "hunt" for a RL day or so?

[CirclelessBard]

I would love to see camp effectiveness and size scale with maintenance and resources in such a way that large and/or permanent camps are effectively only practical if several people work on the initial building and upkeep of the camp. It also should be possible for people without the required skill to contribute to the camp building process as long as someone with the skill is in the room leading the effort. A single person could make a big camp but would find it hard to do so. Make a "many hands make light work" effect where two people working on one camp can make it faster than those same two people building separate camps on their own. I think the stages idea mentioned would be a nice way to model this, where each stage has a minimum recommended builders value that makes reaching that stage more practical.

Basically my thinking is that the game should encourage group play whenever possible, but in a way that doesn't detract from solo play.

[Lotion]

I think exceedingly IC solutions to mostly ooc problems often don't accomplish their goals very well. Wilderness quit as it exists has only one major flaw imo: no mount stamina regen. Currently city characters can stable a mount, quit, and then come back to a fully rested mount. Mount feeding is not an adequate solution to this problem, as wilderness characters must still often rest their mount for long periods of time at either the beginning or end of a gameplay loop.

[papertiger]

Well heck. Now I want to be able to camp on a rooftop.

[mansa]

... Wilderness quit as it exists has only one major flaw imo: no mount stamina regen. Currently city characters can stable a mount, quit, and then come back to a fully rested mount. ...

Is there a way, with either wilderness quit or with camp, to update Mount stamina?

The situation becomes:
I logged out with my tired Mount at midnight.

The next day, I have an hour to play, so I log in at 11 pm with my tired Mount.  I spend 15 minutes having it regenerate movement points while I idle, and then I only have 45 minutes of playtime before I need to camp again.

[Lotion]

I really hope wilderness mount stamina mechanics can become more respecting of players' time. Way too many times I've typed gone netflix during mount stam regen and then still kept an eye on my mud client so that nothing happens. I can't remember a single time when something interesting has happened during all of those times.

[NinjaFruitSalad]

Maybe what you could do is have only a select handful of rooms in the wilderness able to have a camp. For example, one such room could be under a shaded outcropping, another example is by a small oasis (if those exist?), or within some ruins, or among some big rocks that just happen to be there. Something that isn't just out in the middle of nowhere in the sands, completely exposed.

Another thing about it being 'boring' .. it could be because of the 'safe' flags. Those often get abused don't they? I'd say just have no safe flags at all. When people log out (which is the purpose of camping in the first place) they're already safe.

Make it so others can raid or destroy the camps, and setting up a camp requires at least a tent and a lot of supplies. So let's say you set up a camp, it's a bit of a lengthy in game process. Then you're done. You can rest and recover there (not safe) but you can also log out. Now maybe someone else can come upon your camp. They could choose to rest there as well (logging out) or they might raid the camp, which lets them loot resources from it and effectively destroys the camp. Alternatively, they could just raze the camp, which leaves nothing useful there.

When someone logs back in, a number of things could happen. We can assume that the reason they weren't harmed when the camp was raided or destroyed was because they were actually 'out' doing something. But either way, they return to the site, and if no one raided or razed their camp, it's still pretty much as they were, it's still a recovery room, and they could still choose to log out there again. If the camp was raided or razed, they'll log back in to the mess and a room that can no longer be camped in.

[Riev]

The idea of making a "new room" has its merits, as it kind of flags it like <certain spell I'm thinking of>. It can also, in that manner, create a few different kinds of camp with different levels of regen.

I would personally avoid making a "camp" anything more than effectively a couple tents and a campfire for light. If you want something more permanent, maybe someone with high levels of camping skill could petition staff but that seems outside scope here.

Having a quit-safe area in the wilderness is nice. For people who don't have it, it can be a real hassle to use your quit ooc. Also, the camps are more often for the mounts to rest moreso than the people riding them.

I guess my main question would be "What is the intention of making camps"? Is it to make quit safe rooms? To make mobile social areas for nomadic-type people? Is it to have high-regen areas for when a sandstorm is just too tough to navigate? Heck, is it to eventually camp in the same spot for 2 RL months and ask staff for a 'perm' camp to be set up?

[Lotion]

Maybe what you could do is have only a select handful of rooms in the wilderness able to have a camp. For example, one such room could be under a shaded outcropping, another example is by a small oasis (if those exist?), or within some ruins, or among some big rocks that just happen to be there. Something that isn't just out in the middle of nowhere in the sands, completely exposed.

We have that already in the form of quit rooms.

[Halaster]

I guess my main question would be "What is the intention of making camps"? Is it to make quit safe rooms? To make mobile social areas for nomadic-type people? Is it to have high-regen areas for when a sandstorm is just too tough to navigate? Heck, is it to eventually camp in the same spot for 2 RL months and ask staff for a 'perm' camp to be set up?

It's to make quit-safe rooms, to have higher regen rates for people out in the wilderness, while removing many of the wilderness quit-safe rooms.

[Riev]

Tents can be destroyed by random aggressive beasts. Is there a way to code in a specific offense or skill level that would allow a mobile/PC/NPC to destroy a camp?

What would happen if someone quit out at a camp that then was destroyed? Do they still login at the same spot? Does the camp become "a destroyed camp" and not allow a new camp to be created there (or maybe requires a higher level of camping to make it again?)

Just trying to get the scope of it, because what you have accomplishes your goals, but the biggest benefit so far really is the regeneration it would allow to people inside.

[NinjaFruitSalad]

Maybe what you could do is have only a select handful of rooms in the wilderness able to have a camp. For example, one such room could be under a shaded outcropping, another example is by a small oasis (if those exist?), or within some ruins, or among some big rocks that just happen to be there. Something that isn't just out in the middle of nowhere in the sands, completely exposed.

We have that already in the form of quit rooms.

That's not really what I said.

I'm talking about a room that has a POTENTIAL to be a quit room out in the wilderness, but first supplies have to be spent and a camping skill has to be performed to make it so. And with an attack it can be reverted back to a non-quit room.

[Lotion]

I do not think we should be requiring an expenditure of non virtual in character resources in order to log out in certain situations. Logging out is a purely ooc construct. My understanding of contemporary wilderness quit is that characters with the ability to wilderness quit are able to do so because the character can virtually survive in the wilderness.

[Lotion]

If camping does come into existence I would prefer if it can be used to solve a real problem faced by wilderness characters: inventory management. If camping allowed a player to create a secret stash which cannot easily found by other players (search skill?) then I think its existence could be justified.

[Brytta Léofa]

I do not think we should be requiring an expenditure of non virtual in character resources in order to log out in certain situations. Logging out is a purely ooc construct. My understanding of contemporary wilderness quit is that characters with the ability to wilderness quit are able to do so because the character can virtually survive in the wilderness.

Aside from the regen thing, seems like camping is just sharing wilderness quit with PCs who can't wilderness quit. It's no more of an OOC concept than wilderness quit already is.

I'm not a complete fan of the ways we gate wilderness travel (with stamina cost = regen time, with quit locations), but I don't have a better idea either.

[Halaster]

Compiling some ideas, having to exclude some due to code constraints or it going beyond the vision for this skill.

--------------------

Proposal:


1) Only someone with the skill can make any sort of camp (sorry mansa).
2) You can make the camp with or without supplies, to different outcomes:


Without supplies:
- designates the room Quit-safe and Campsite, gives small-to-moderate regen bonuses, based on skill (already coded)
- certain areas (detectable with hunt or camping skill) will give a naturally higher bonus


With supplies:
- creates an enterable campsite that gives small-to-high regen bonuses, based on skill.  This means the campsite can persist across reboots/crashes (same code as wagons).
- campsite is set with 1-way exits that you can't move through to the directions outside the camp.  The purpose of this is to let people inside "look east", etc. So if you create a camp in a room with an East and West exit, then inside your camp you'd be able to "look east" or "look west" as if you were outside the camp.
- requires someone with camping skill to keep it running
- how to deal with expired camp but someone quit out inside?
    - when it expires, make the inside a "destroyed camp" that gives no bonuses.
        - can be rebuilt with higher skills
- destroy-able like a tent.  Need a certain offense(?) to do so.  Can't destroy while people are inside logged in
- stretch goal of optional addons, such as a hitching post that gives faster regen to mounts, or fire pit that gives bonuses to cooking


Misc.:
- high winds prevent creation of camps at low skill level
- high winds have a chance to tear down low-quality camps
- multiple people can add to the campsite, increasing duration (to a point) and bonuses (to a point)


Unresolved:
 - what to do with old, destroyed campsites


Thoughts?

[Lizzie]

Regarding the "look [dir]" suggestion:

Room you're making camp in has whatever directions available. Call it all four. NSEW

If you have equipment, you get all the benefits of that, EXCEPT you have to
make camp east

and then you can look east, once you're inside your campsite, to see east.

Reason: if you're inside a tent, you're surrounded on three sides by the walls of the tent. You can look out, and whatever is ahead, in the direction the tent flap is facing.

if you put your camp at a dead end, it's not a big deal. But if you don't, then you have to make choices.

[Riev]

I like the realism angle in Lizzie's response, but it seems like using supplies to make a camp is prohibiting and lessening the skill of camp making.

It seems the idea is that without "supplies", your camp is unlikely to be more than a basic sit-down spot with low regeneration and high chance to blow away in the wind.

WITH supplies, you have a better chance at a more permanent camp.


I think it is just a description thing. If you have a camp made with supplies, at no point should you be "inside a tent". Unless you can add the ability to put a tent in a camp/wagon object in which case, Lizzie's concerns are negated.

[mansa]

* Campsites should be viewable from 2 rooms away, or just 1?
* Supplies are created by high forage / tentmaking / NPC restock ?

[Dresan]

I have two thoughts on this, but generally I don't think the idea is lame but its just not impactful due to the current state of the game. I want to break my feedback into two points, the first being the state of the game with makes a number of skills less impactful and then the skill itself.

1. The state of the game

• Above 50 percent HP  you regen health instantly.
• Under 50 percent, you only need to sleep to regen
• Stamina becomes more of an issue with mounts
• Despite its description, bad weather is annoying but not deadly

I can go on with some additional thoughts on wilderness challenge. However, my point is to try to offer a different perspective.

What if health:

• Did not regen outside of campsite, towns and cities. Inside civilized or home tent sites things would still work as current
• Over 60 percent, in the wilderness you can rest in a camp
• Between 30 and 60 percent health, in the wilderness you can sleep in a camp to regen
• Under 30 percent, you need sleep and a bandage to recover in a camp

Sure this would mean sponsored byn sergeants might get bandage as a special added skill but certainly changes the dynamic of venturing out of the games. Those tregil and chalton bites don't hurt, but they would add up over time. Any camping skill becomes less lame but more a important tool in a setting like this.

I feel the game could do more to make exploration a rewarding but challenging experience. Promoting slow death over just encountering something nasty that can kill you before you can flee.

2. The camp skill

I think the skill would serve the current game better if it was broken down like this:

• Basic camp-- This turns the room into a quit room.  No materials and low skill needed. Does not last long. Purpose:RL is important, gives people open to quite the game without OOC quitting
• Decent camp-- Almost no material needed/depends on skill level. Turn the room into a quit room and allows good regen for people. Moderate length of time Purpose: If someone is hurt or team needs rest, this is a good option assuming you aren't staying for more than a RL day or two
• Good camp-- Turns the room into quit room. Regen for people. Protection from weather. Regen for mounts. Some materials needed, including option for camo. Purpose: This is a good option when whether is bad, your mounts need rest and you are going to be staying somewhere for two or three rl days. Camo can be seen from a room away like camo tents.
• Excellent camp. --- This creates a stealth campsite. Both mounts and people can enter, even if you can't see it, just type 'enter camp'. The campsite can be noticed by raider scan . You should get notified of stuff going outside of the camp from inside. Of course regen/protection from weather Purpose: This adds protection from animals more than from people. Some animals would still be able to sniff the camp out or scan it, but they would need to go into the room and begin searching, allowing people to run or get ready for a fight

Again while the stealth of the last option sounds strong,  its mostly protection against some annoying animals breaking the tent before you can turn them into paste. People can still find you if they stumble upon the camp, while you can't peek inside the camp, you can destroy it from the outside. The campsite should take a number of materials with some found only in towns and being used up when creating it. It would not last more than a two to three RL days. This would be mostly to prevent people from playing like hermits in the middle of nowhere all the time, which the game should discourage. 

[Armaddict]

Dresan, you're a savage.  Hardmode wilderness or bust.

I generally will entertain all ideas making the wilderness as inhospitable as possible to make hunting an act of daring and travel an act of necessity.  That being said, there are some points I'd like to respond to!

Did not regen outside of campsite, towns and cities. Inside civilized or home tent sites things would still work as current
Over 60 percent, in the wilderness you can rest in a camp
Between 30 and 60 percent health, in the wilderness you can sleep in a camp to regen
Under 30 percent, you need sleep and a bandage to recover in a camp

The bottom end of that I find pretty extreme.  I can actually be at least tentatively on board with the first parts, because pushing forward while -untreated- wounded is an act of desperation.  It's not a wise decision.

I'd make bandaging more relevant earlier in the wounded process.  I'd make it more relevant to normal maintenance out there, not just for the 'almost dead' scenario, but also loosen those scenarios a bit.  However, I'm guessing this would be far too harsh for the PvE enthusiasts out there, even if I do think PvE should be against the entirety of the environment instead of...just mobs.

It would not last more than a two to three RL days. This would be mostly to prevent people from playing like hermits in the middle of nowhere all the time, which the game should discourage.

I'm okay with them lasting longer than two to three days, even to near persistence, as long as that requires maintenance.  But the real reason why I don't particularly agree with 'discourage remote hermits' is that I'd welcome people trying to beat the challenge, as long as it IS a challenge.  Keep in mind that this can promote content such as caravans and actual, realistic raiding, while also giving that alternate, wilderness play experience that some people crave.  It shouldn't be easy, no, but it's certainly not something I'd put out of bounds entirely.  The concept of certain things being only available in the city is not particularly relevant to me; naturally, maintenance would already require venturing out for 'chores', or importing of goods from cities via caravan already.  I'm pretty certain some would try to ignore that or get around it, but if the wilds are sufficiently dangerous, that turns into a less reliable gamble sort of situation.

Mostly, in my head, the wilds is a big shift towards a survival game.  The gameplay loops change entirely.  The concerns and activities differ drastically from the in-city loop, where survival is easier, but you have entirely separate minefields to navigate where it is less of a survival game and more of traditional rpg.

Cool ideas though.  Eager to have other people chime in.

[Dresan]

I admit I do like survival and rogue-like games and I routinely play my games in the hardest of modes.

However the reason I am suggesting these new systems is not because I want to turn this into a survival game but rather it is to address some of the gaps when comparing this game to the content of other games.

Please let me explain:

While there have been some effort to try to improve exploration of the game with sim-desert and...sim-spider cave(?), all in all, this is just not a game about exploring, finding loot or completing quests. The times staff decides to reward you, it will mostly be with something that is not controversial like coins. Getting the best gear is all about being friends with a salarr merchant, and for a long time getting the best poison was all about logging in at reboot and buying stuff from a shop.

While the game revamps areas(grey forest, rinth) and add new areas (rooftops) its a slow process which is not very common and is mostly done as a quality of life improvement to routinely visited spots. The map is generally static and I've seen people create throw away characters to just map a section of the game like the silt sea, which they accomplish and disappear. Additionally exploring the game map really only poses three 'challenges', none which really feel that good: 'nasty monster/thing you cannot run away from', insta deathtrap room and finally annoyed staff. 

Other than reading a new exotic room description, there is rarely anything to find or achieve other than losing your character in a cheap feeling way.

The ideas I am promoting begin shifting the game towards one that doesn't kill you in a cheap way, instead its one where you screwed up somewhere and killed yourself....slowly. By making it progressively more challenging the farther out you get, it also makes it easier for staff to develop a reward strategy/policy instead of a punishment one. With seasons maybe going as far as put secret caves that awaken a touched-level spell/mana-regen before collapsing and disappearing forever as an example.

I have more ideas but baby-steps is the best approach. The idea is not to discourage people from venturing out, or make it into hard mode but instead to make the most out of the fact this is a perma-death game, using that to taunt the players when they decide to risk it, but also one where risk and reward can exist in a meaningful way.

[Lizzie]

Last time I paid attention to critters that fled (or that I fled) during combat, I noticed:

They immediately start regenning stamina, stun, and HP. That's no matter where they are. They're usually fully recovered very quickly. HPs they don't regen right away if they're critical or near death, but everything else, within minutes. If you're damaged the same amount at the end of the fight, it takes you MUCH longer to recover.

I'd like to see that disparity adjusted.  One possible solution:

Make it so that you recover a fraction of your damage DURING combat. If a critter is only nicking you 1 hp at a time in various parts of your body, and the fight is taking more than 2-3 minutes, then you should've recovered most of those HP losses by then. A bramble scratch scabs over within a minute once the blood comes to the surface. Those are the kinds of grazes that are causing 1-2 hp damage.

If it's a 10-point hit, maybe you can recover up to 4 points of that during combat. You're still taking on more damage, but each hit comes with a recovery opportunity.  If you get hit twice in the same spot before the first hit recovers fully, then maybe you won't recover from THAT spot.

In other words, provide recovery during combat, and make it based on the location of the hit, the severity, and how often you're getting hit in that spot.

We have bandage code for specific spots now, we have damage code for specific spots, we should have more efficient recovery code for specific spots.

[Dresan]

We have bandage code for specific spots now, we have damage code for specific spots, we should have more efficient recovery code for specific spots.

I like it. I feel this requires it own thread so it isn't lost with the other ideas. Not to derail further but a late game heavy-combat warrior branch skill target skill that allowed people to take advantage of wound locations would be sweet to see.

[Yam]

I've done wilderness camp time with a lot of groups while playing Armageddon. It's great. The fun part of doing that is roleplaying with people. Talking, emoting. Making a scene. Tense vibes if you're in scary territory. The mechanics of actually making a camp, potential bonuses, or whatever are way down on the list of things that facilitate roleplay between people. Multiple people traveling around the wilderness already tends to get pretty time intensive. Adding real life time required to stop traveling, get a quit safe room, or just rest would stretch an already OOC time intensive activity out more. Would it be a good trade? I don't know.

Letting players make quit safe rooms or save rooms when they need to is great. Making that take additional time or resources I think somewhat defeats the point. It's okay for the mechanics of camping to be boring because that makes room for the game to play out.

Also isn't part of your reasoning for seasons to consolidate regions and players? This seems like it would encourage the opposite.

[perfecto]

Make it so that you recover a fraction of your damage DURING combat. If a critter is only nicking you 1 hp at a time in various parts of your body, and the fight is taking more than 2-3 minutes, then you should've recovered most of those HP losses by then. A bramble scratch scabs over within a minute once the blood comes to the surface. Those are the kinds of grazes that are causing 1-2 hp damage.

Big fan of this idea, I've always cursed under my breath at whatever I was chasing down when I needed to rest and it got to completely regen to full health and movement during that brief break.