Introduction
Today, I feel the exploration system is not really rewarded as it should. Increasing exploration mainly rely on recovery pouch instead of actual in-game work. Itself, the exploration is not a lucrative work either before levels where sunken ships can be recovered.
My idea is to propose a way to spend more labor in the early game and late game of the exploration, with a better reward system. The idea behind that could also motivate more naval wars.
Background Lore
Long ago, mercenary boats sailed on the seas, known as the "Golden Fleet". These boats were the property of a powerful man who was respected from both Nuian and Hanaris. No matter where they were on seas, people respected them as they feared them.
For this reason, they were selected to be the transporters of rare and valuables goods, which they made money from by protecting them along the way. Decades passed and even when pirates fought them, even when they lost ships, all the goods they transported arrived where it should. Up to one day...
A mystic sect called "The Reliquary" boat their services to move mysterious packs. Where were they moving? Nobody knows, but the boat never arrived where they should.
Today, The Reliquary members keep tracking any sign of what belongs to them, as they know the powerful lost artifacts may be misused in bad hands. It is not clear where they get all their money from, but a thing is clear: If you find anything related to the lost cargo, they will be ready to give you good money for it.
And for a good reason: These artifacts are former possessions of Dahuta. Who has them may unleash dangerous horrors in the world...
Mechanics
Sunken treasure chests have a chance (~20%) to drop a "Ghost memory" (10 silvers). This item requires a sextant to be used and will provide a position to go in the ocean. There, it can be activated to find a "Lost Reliquary pack" underwater.
Up to this point, there are 2 possibilities :
- Either return the pack to a Relic Merchant. 20g paid directly in base continents, 27g in Auroria, 35g in Friedrich.
- Either bring it to a member of the Reliquary (located in Diamond Shore, Solzreed, Two Crown, Solis and Villanelle) who will exchange them for 5g and provide a "Reliquary Recovery Stone", available for 6h. This has to be used on the former position of the Lost Reliquary Pack and cost 100 labors.
There, a new pack will spawn underwater (Ghost Reliquary Pack). This pack can be either sold to a Relic Merchant (40/54/70) or returned to a Reliquary Member.
In this case, 10g will be provided, with a "Reliquary Recognition Token" and an "Estimated Cargo Position". The "Estimated Cargo Position" is available for a week and provides a new destination (still in the seas).
There, it is possible to discover 3-5 treasure chest hidden under the sand, which shows bubble just like a sunken ship (just activate using F to discover them by spending 200 labors exploration). The treasure chest contains a "Rare Reliquary Pack", with "Reliquary Crate" which require a Reliquary key to be opened (see tokens). Content of the crate is displayed below and includes Dahuta's light Fragment (see details below).
The Rare reliquary packs can be either sold to a Relic Merchant (75/90/115) or returned to Relicary Member (20g rewards and 5 tokens)
Regarding the Dahuta's light Fragment: With 10 combined (100labors, exploration), the light can be either given to a Relicary Member, for 100g and 10 tokens or used overseas, necessary in a nonpeaceful area.
A message is sent to all players (just like when Delphinad ship is destroyed). 10 waves of lusca will spawn, 1 wave every 7 minutes. The light provides a buff to all members in the raid, Reducing damages from creatures of the sea by 50%. Once the wave ends, another wave could be added to increase rewards.
Sunken ships recovered by the exploration may also contain Reliquary Packs.
What the Reliquary Tokens could be used for (underlined part required for the mechanic, others are just ideas):
-
Reliquary keys, 15 tokens (Untradable, used to open Reliquary Crate for 100 labors, exploration)
- Reliquary Defiance, 25 tokens (Feet, plate armor, Increase swim speed by +50%)
- Reliquary Blessing, 100 tokens (Neckless, Agility 2, activation buff: Increase swim speed of +20% for 5 sec, 2min cooldown)
- Dahuta's blow, 100 tokens (A glider bound once equipped with an ability to be invulnerable to sea wind for 1min when used, 5min recovery).
- Reliquary Breathing Device Design, 200 tokens (Charge time 60s, Base breathing time 20min, swim speed increase +35%)
- Reliquary Dive Helmet, 60 tokens (Head, plate armor, Allow you to breath 2 minutes longer underwater)
- Reliquary Compass Design, 500 tokens (Can be equipped on merchant schooners, small and medium warships, and destroyers). Display ships and drydocks on the map, with an added ability: detect shipwreck (1 use/5min).
Content of the Reliquary Crates (rates impacted by exploration proficiency):
- 50s to 1g (100% chance)
- Red/Blue/Green Archeum Dust (75% chance)
- Reliquary lost book (sold 2g, 20% chance)
- Dahuta's secret history book (sold 5g, 10% chance)
- Reliquary secret history (sold 20g, 5% chance)
- Dahuta's light Fragment (untradable, 5% chance. See mechanics details)
Ideas behind the scenario proposed:
- Implementing Reliquary system would push people into exploration if the reward is worth the risks.
- The Dahuta's Light generates multiple Luscas spawn which can value this system for the Enoan blueprint. Even if the first waves should not be that hard to control, it becomes far more complicated after tens of minutes when other PVP ships are coming to hunt your luscas (and you!).
- Other rewards from the Reliquary may diversify the possibilities of this system, as people would be able to monetize their work.
- Keys are sent untradable, to make the Dahuta's light creation harder. This "path" should be taken mainly to increase the possibility to make the Enoan, as the other helps to make money (like Commerce, but with a stronger risk since necessary in the sea).
- As the pack rank increases in the process, the choice between "making money" or "go to the light" should be even harder to make, creating more opportunities for players.
- The choice of setting a Reliquary Member into Vilanelle is to support the Haranian side: With Solis being on the south of the map, it makes otherwise more movement required from Haranian to reach the Reliquary if they are sent in the Arcadian sea.
- With the packs available in the sunken ships too, it makes even more interesting to look for sunken ships once possible.
- This new system requires some coding, but no extra work based on graphics as previous design could be recycled here.
- By creating a more viable farming of gold with exploration, increasing this proficiency would make more sense. (However, this is an opinion, since the
Questions to be addressed (and personal opinion of the author)
- Make the Dahuta's light tradable? Could be sold on the market or given to other players once finished.
- Make the keys tradable (or the Dahut'as light Fragments) could increase the potential value acquired by the explorers but highly simplify the rush of Enoan. I personally do not support this idea (this is the biggest boat, I think it should remain a challenge to get it even if this system does help to get it).
- Setting a minimal quantity of Reliquary Packs in the sunken ship boat to support this system? This would help higher proficiency level to keep working with the Reliquary system.
- Provide merit stars/vocation badges/gilda once a day to push people into exploration if they bring back a Reliquary pack? I personally think the rewards are sufficient enough this way.
- Only 1 light can be used at the time in the world? This would lead to more PVP... but could also remove the strategy possibilities to voluntary start another one in another area to split potential pirates.
- Give a message to nearby people when the treasure chests are recovered? This would lead to more risks... as nearby pirates could be tempted to take them.
- In the case of the Reliquary Compass, should we only display wreckship always (and then no other ships) or keep as proposed? I think having the compass showing shipwreck overtime would be too much, even more, when the drawback can be overcome with another boat.
- Adding an extra boss at the end, like another spawn of the Kraken? This might make the system too interesting, even if the Light would probably not appear every week either. Still, this could increase the "pirate" affluence to the area.
- Instead of Vilanelle, maybe use Ynystere to find another member of the Reliquary? This is an idea. However, since Ynystere can be a conflicted territory, I did not find this idea to be the most "fair" for this side. Maybe adding a member of the Reliquary to all point where there is a Cargo buyer could be another alternative.
- Why not just adding more shipwreck in the sea? I personnally think this would lack coherence. Having a sea full of wreck is not really pleasant to see and the actual dispersion is fine enough. Increasing rewards seems to me a better option.
- What about the pirates? Adding a reliquary on their island sounds a bit incoherent with the lore... But this could also be a way for them to pay back their infamy. Just an idea, I didn't think much about this part of the game I'm not familiar enough with.
- Why would we play with an exploration more lucrative when safe commmerce on continent is lucrative enough ? I think it only provides more opportunity for players, even if commerce is powerful enough to make money.
- Could we increase the number of packs found to push the player to by an additionnal pack place for a clipper/a speed boat/a shooner ? I really like the idea, but the question which is next is all about balencing. I am affraid this system, even if it makes more risks for the player (can be easily detected by the other boats, risks to pay the shattigon sand to repair, etc...) it means also more rewards. Following this idea, it could be possible to reduce the price offered by the Reliquary and Merchant for each pack.
- Consider more tokens and gold for a packet delivered to the Reliquary on Friedrich ? I would say I like this idea, but I tried to keep simple a system which is already complex enough here.
- Adding a token at each pack returned ? I like this idea too. As shown in the maths below, the value of a token is approximately 23s (based on the Dahuta's light returned). Adding 1 of them in the first step and maybe 2 on the second (or 3) may not do a great difference from a gold aspect but could support risky behavior to keep running the Reliquary task. As a drawback, this makes easier to collect the crates obtained (and thus, the Dahuta's light).
The maths behind it
The following data have been gathered empirically. They may not reflect the exact reality despite all efforts put into it. They also lack on the Haranian side. Any help acquired to improve the data about the actual game is welcome. All computations details are available from the python notebook attached.
The purpose was to compare the rewards obtained through commerce and compare them with exploration. Based on these statistics, different rewards can be established to balance the system.
If we consider the classical trade run Gwenoid forest to Solzreed (one of the most done from what I could see ingame), we estimate at 10.63h the time required to gather enough gold from the farm cart to the farm wagon. From this point, 4.95h are required to go to the hauler, 3.48h more to go to the freighter and 22.93 to get the costume. Voluntary, commerce has been computed to minimize results (since all packs are not at 130% all the time, price is decreased to 13g)
In comparison, getting the submarine with the schooner required for the expedition is 8 times more than all the previous added (349.42h)... but we can understand this comparison is not fair and does not bring much. Commerce is made to be lucrative and even if this proposition is thought to make exploration a bit more, we can keep this ratio under the commerce efficiency. Still, today exploration is not really made as it is not lucrative before the shooner and the submarine. This path tend to propose another way to proceed, giving more possibilities to reach this point, with maybe even more player "interactions" (=PVP)
As an average of 5.54 chests per hour, the exploration brings today an average of 11.23 gold per hour (computed over 72h of pure exploration with multiple people). We can compare this to the hourly profits of the different cart in the trade run :
- Hourly profit for farm cart: 89.14
- Hourly profit for farm wagon: 155.19
- Hourly profit for farm hauler: 221.24
- Hourly profit for farm freighter: 287.29
- Hourly profit for farm freighter with costume: 431.67
With a ratio of 0.2% drop rate for the "Ghost Memory" item and 5 chests/hour on average, we can estimate 1 memory/hour. The rest is established with the Reliquary runs.
As we can consider most of the packs returned on the continent for safety reason (we compare the safe trade runs, so we examine the safest estimation first). This means 20g for the run. With the sea cover, let's consider an arbitrary 20minutes (low estimation) to reach the pack, and 20 min to deliver it. This makes only 23.7433g with the additionnal classical 20min, but already double the hourly profits of the explorers... and this also remains approximately 4 times less than the lowest commerce cart (24g vs 89g).
If the character wishes to earn more with the Reliquary, its profits are decreased to 5g+20 min at 11.23g. This makes an expectation of 8.7433g for the first hour.
The next hour is considered as only hunting the Reliquary second packs, within 40 minutes.
This leads to either 40g by selling, and restarting the process at the rate of 11.23g for the 20 min remaining (43.7433g of this hour, still half of the basic farm cart).
Taking this into consideration, we can establish the following incomes rates based on "Reliquary" or "Merchant". Please note that everytime the player select option "merchant", he restarts his expectation:
Considering the prices in AH, we obtained an average value of 3.4433g/crate opened (which requires previous runs for the Reliquary). From this point, we obtain the value of around 23s/token obtained working for the Reliquary. Last hour is not considered entirely (about what goes in the remaining minutes, since travel time can be highly variable).
We see this system tends to remain less lucrative than the "safe" commerce system, except when taking very high risks in comparison.
See these examples:
