Hey @Willard Willard. Good to see you here making us think this thoroughly.
I understand that the game team wants us players roaming around the map and visiting places time and time again instead of nesting somewhere.
What @Illutian has suggested wouldn’t harm the roaming as much as bots and campers are doing now. Let me explain why.
If we just stretch the example of farming materials to another resource (let’s say orichalcum nodes or elemental motes nodes), we see that most farmers are having to spread thin and wide enough to find secret and/or uncontested spots.
Taking the example of elemental motes, which is the most similar to skinning as OP suggested, we’ll notice that there’s a huge problem in the making.
We used to have a way to farm T1 motes and T5 motes, the latter of which has been deprecated recently (too bad IMO, as I was eager to find the elemental animals that would drop fire, death and air quints).
This deprecation has made farming T1 motes much more relevant, and as such, bots are running rampant and have fixed routes that prevent legitimate players from farming enough motes. Thus, most players are buying motes from the market and spend more time inside towns than roaming around and harvesting… Which defeats the purpose of you wanting us to explore!
Conversely, we currently have a way to farm refining hides (rawhide, thick hide, iron hide) that seems to be thresholded upon the level of the skinned creature. According to NWDB:
- Under level 42, it would yield rawhide.
- Between levels 42 and 52, it would yield thick hide.
- At level 52 or above, it would yield iron hide.
To make zone roaming more relevant, the dev team could build upon what has been enticing and successful before. Say, the idea of the elemental bears, wolves and deers giving quints.
Now, you want us to roam the map? Let’s make elemental animals great again! And of course, let’s spread some greatness to normal animals too. =)
Given that there are zone-relevant level-scaled animals
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Lower level elemental wolves, deers and bears (and new ones yet to add) would give T2-T3 motes and T1 raw gatherings: hemp, iron ore, stone, green wood (and new ones yet to add).
- Likewise, mid-level elemental animals would give T3-T4 motes and t4 raw gatherings, and high-level elemental animals would give T4-T5 motes and T5 raw gatherings.
This change would make sense as most bots and campers leave animals alone, just because it’s more time consuming than farming nodes.
If this was implemented, elemental animals could be an alternative source of raw resources and motes for people unwilling to contest with said bots and campers. And looking for the relevant tiers around the map is already a thing, as the current elemental animals are spread between Weaver’s Fen, Brightwood, Edengrove, Ebonscale Reach, Great Cleave and Shattered Mountain.
Likewise for regular animals:
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Lower level animals that already give rawhide should have an increasing chance to also give thick hide between let’s say levels 25 to 42, which would make hunting them all around the place in Weaver’s Fen, Brightwood and Cutlass Keys much more relevant.
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Mid-level animals (42+) that already give thick hide could have a chance to give rawhide on their lower levels, and iron hide when nearing level 52.
- Balance for that increasing chance would be needed so that 42+ animals are a better source for thick hide, and 52+ are a better source for iron hide.
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In a crazy move, high level animals could have a chance to yield all 3 hides in a spread like 20-20-60 from a total number of hides to yield, separated from the other yieldings as it is right now (Ragehide, Shadowfur and such, and also special leathers like scaly hide).
This could be based upon the idea that your character tries to leave nothing wasted when skinning, and some parts could have lost quality when hunting and skinning the animal.
What do you think?