#Implement Additional Fuel Sinks (2) - Augments for Travel

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

dreamy tapir
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This is a follow-on proposal to https://discord.com/channels/760344898200666112/1271646562912829461

Rationale: Additional features to augment travel will create a more unique gameplay experience while raising the soft cap of how much fuel a player can theoretically spend per day in fuel, thereby increasing overall revenue from players who want to spend more during gameplay but currently cannot.

Almost all games have currency sinks that allow users with excessive currency to quickly spend it in one way or another in-game. This is why amassing currency is desirable in those games. E.g. Empowered Greater Rifts in D3, scrolling in BDO, orbing in PoE, and many others.

Illuvium should accommodate a wide range of players, both those with little resources, as well as those who want to spend much more than the average player, as both types exist in every game. I've personally spent many hours on S3 Auto-Scanned runs, and am not spending nearly as much fuel as I planned to. I'm sure there are others who want to spend even more but simply can't.

Augments for Travel
I propose an optional feature to "supercharge" a run with X amount of each fuel type to attract more rare encounters and large resource nodes. This could be a sliding scale multiplier with diminishing returns the higher you go. For instance, a run supercharged by 10x more fuel might only be 7-8x more likely to attract a rare illuvial (T5S3 or similar), and only have 7-8x more large mineral deposits. The player would still only have 5k energy, which forces them to make choices on what to mine/capture. On the other hand, this creates a more novel gameplay experiencing as each augmented map will be unique and unlike any other.

This increases fuel used while adding freshness and variation to travelling. This also enables content creators to create more unique and exciting content. For instance, popular videos for other games are often things like "I spent X gold doing Z and this happened".

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Risk Factors, downsides, and other thoughts:

  • This will inevitably result in an influx of rarer items and Illuvials, but at a diminished rate of return when acquired this way. The excess fuel overhang is unfortunately debt that must eventually be expelled, and this just helps speed up the process. Better to have players save/accumulate more fuel for novel runs than for fuel to eventually become worthless.
  • Mathematically, players who use this option will get a lower ROI on their runs due to diminishing returns, but the intent is to offset their lost monetary value with time saved, unique gameplay, content creation opportunities, etc. Some players may prefer to play for 10 hours with normal runs, while others would rather save fuel for one hour of highly condensed playtime.
  • Might make the runs too difficult, so I suggest not increasing difficulty much or at all, mainly just rarity.
    Implement in the simplest way possible to start, and make it more robust later.
  • May create room for exploitation (e.g., accessing supercharged maps without paying), so it must be implemented carefully and securely.
  • This could even the playing field with undetected bots/cheats that find ways to "speedrun" maps.
  • Needs to be balanced to avoid drastic differences from base gameplay experience or it could result in content saturation and player burnout.
  • There’s a lot of room for creativity in scaling and maximizing uniqueness of each run. A more complex implementation could be for each fuel type to boost something different, e.g., Crypton boosts Illuvial rarity, Solon boosts large deposits, etc.
  • Current and only augment (auto-scan) is lacking and should be improved if players are going to pay 3x cost for such a run — all assets should be visible and toggleable.
  • Probably many others — exact details can be discussed among council.
light swallow
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i like to have more perks

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maybe the team can share how much runs had used the auto scan.
i feel like the auto scan is too expensive to be attractive

ancient agate
light swallow
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ill do 2x

ancient agate
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you'll basically use it always if you only pay double

light swallow
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yea i will

dreamy tapir
dreamy tapir