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Player Driven Treasure Hunting Concept
One of the more ‘sandboxy’ aspects of ESO that I have really enjoyed is the Treasure Hunting. Finding a map and running around a zone to find the right location is really fun. It would be even more fun if players were allowed to bury their own treasures around Tamriel.
I have a really detailed explanation of this concept with percentages and numbers but I realized no one wants to read that so here are the highlights… with some numbers.
Player Motivation
- Players can bury chests as a gamble with the possibility of XP and gold return based on the value of the items buried and the length of time the chest is hidden.
- Players who find a treasure by following a map would get the contents of the chest plus an amount of XP determined by how long the chest has been buried.
Creating the Chest
- Players should be able to build a chest by independently crafting the Chest, the Lock, and the Map.
- Chests can be crafted in different motifs and quality, which could impact XP and gold return.
- Locks can be crafted with different levels of difficulty and can be enchanted with glyphs for traps.
- Maps can either be bought from a merchant or could be crafted, depending on how complex the system needs to be.
Burying the Chest
- After a player has the three components, they can choose a spot to bury their items. Players who bury treasures will receive a Master Map of their treasure map and a key.
- The map is created by the player choosing a view a specific distance from the treasure. ZOS would have to really work on this so that players couldn’t just make a map of a bunch of leaves or the side of a house, obscuring the view of the chest.
- The Map should be a screenshot that is converted to “Sketch” or “watercolor” style automatically by the system with the treasure being indicated automatically.
- Players should be able to name their treasure or the system could assign it a name based on a predetermined list of words. “The Mysterious Bounty of Kalin Thundershoe in Glenumbra”
- Once buried, a copy of the treasure map will be randomly dropped by a mob in the zone. The longer the treasure goes un-found more maps are dropped.
- The lock could deteriorate over time, making it more susceptible to seizing (as outlined in my Advanced Lockpicking suggestion, which can be found here http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/146487/advanced-lockpicking-concept-suggestion).
Treasure Yield
- The possible XP return, which is determined by the quality of the chest should be up to a 1:1 conversion of the value of the items in the chest.
- Initially, 100% of the XP yield is rewarded to the treasure finder, if the treasure is found on the first map drop.
- For every additional map drop, the XP pool skews toward the treasure hider. Example: If 10 maps have been dropped, the treasure finder gets 50% of the XP pool and the treasure hider receives 50% of the pool upon their return.
- At any point, the player that buried the treasure can return to their booty and claim their XP and gold return (they should receive an equal percentage return on their gold). If the treasure hasn’t been found, the player receives all that they placed in the chest PLUS the XP and gold yield. If the treasure was found, they receive the percentage of the XP pool that the finder did not receive an equal percentage of gold yield.
Additional Mechanics
- Once a treasure is found, no further map copies are dropped and all copies of the dropped maps crumble to dust and fragments in player’s inventories, letting players know that treasure has been found. The Master Map owned by the player that buried the treasure remains intact so they can return to the treasure to claim their gold yield and XP. That player will not know if their treasure was found until they open their chest to claim their prize.
- If a player holding Master Maps and keys is killed in PVP, the player that defeated them will be able to steal the key and a Master Copy of the map. The victor can then find the treasure and claim whatever the treasure hider would have been entitled to. If the treasure had not yet been claimed the victor would claim the contents, and the XP percentage and gold yield that would have been awarded to the treasure hider.
- When the treasure is found by a player holding a Master Map or a Master Copy map, the key for that chest will break, letting the player holding the key know that the treasure is no longer available.
- Master Copy maps and Keys should be bind on pickup. This is to prevent players from burying a treasure and then giving maps and keys to their friends to allow their friends to get an immediate XP boost. Maps dropped by mobs, however, could be sold or traded to create a sort of treasure-map trade.
Guild Treasures
A slight alteration of this concept could allow guild leaders and officers to also randomly mail treasure maps to members of their guild. The rate of random mailing could be more frequent and the map could be mailed to multiple members at once. This mechanic could unlock when a guild has 200+ members. The large number of members required is to prevent possible system abuse.
So that’s an overview of the concept. Any thoughts? What would be a good way to monetize this for the Crown Shop? I already suggested in my Advanced Lockpicking Suggestion (
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/146487/advanced-lockpicking-concept-suggestion#latest) that an Awl and Hammer be sold in the crown shop to allow players to bust open locks. The Advanced Lockpicking coupled with this suggestion could lead to a really robust Treasure Mechanic for ESO.
Complete treasure kits could be sold in the crown shop or players could craft the kits themselves.
Thoughts?
Edited by Gidorick on September 25, 2015 2:27AM
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That's right...
Horse.
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Concept Repository!