An idea to reintroduce Adventures (Update)

  • Now I know what you're thinking and NO, I'm not suggesting bring back the monthly release of adventures like they did before (That method was tried and flopped respectfully). So instead, I thought "Why couldn't adventures be tied to events in SOT".

    For example, imagine an event introduces some temporary world changes like the adventures before, like the storm on the map has miraculously changed into a blizzard, removing the violent swaying for reduce mobility and we'd get 1 or 2 or even 3 adventures within the event period to explain why this change has taken place in the lore, say the Dark Brethren or Reapers Bones have been experimenting with some ancient items to create the blizzard and now we have to help the Pirate Lord undo the damage? However, like I said before, these won't be monthly releases like before, instead these adventures will be spread evenly over the event period, for example if an event is 2 weeks, the 1st adventure will be playable on the first week and the the second will be playable on the second week, providing you've don't the first adventure as well. This could be used to progress the story of SOT, this won't replace the subtly world building, but go hand-in-hand with it, like having world building leading up to an adventure arc that'll setup the next season.

    We could even reintroduce decision points with this method and we can fight to makes changes occur within SOT again. Or we can repurpose the decision point techniques to add more competitive events. For example, during Fight Night, we could have an adventure that sees us us fighting over the sea forts again, but instead of fighting for a chance to change something, we'll be fighting to get our desired faction in the lead as the faction in the lead will receive a rep boost and maintain it as long as they stay in the lead. And like Lost Sands, you'll actually be able see WHO'S in the lead on these conflicts.

    You could even have reoccurring filler adventures, that would give you a basic adventure with big rewards afterwards. This could be used to give us something to do and fill a slot in case a 'story' adventures needs more time to cook.

    On the other hand, you could have adventures that tie into seasonal events like festival of the damned, think Fate of the Damned with a new coat of paint. These would be reoccurring adventures that would be playable every year around the same time. An example of a season adventure could relate to the Festival of Giving, like in the adventure itself a shipment of decorations owned by the Pirate Lord has gone missing and you have been tasked with retrieving and delivering them to an outpost of your choice. And at the end of the adventure, the Pirate Lord gifts you a chest with a chance of humble or generous gifts as thank you for your services.

    Of course, the real issue with adventures is you can't replay them (yet). Seasonal adventure will have the benefit of being seasonal, but what about story adventures? Well, I'm proposing a new method that'll allow you to replay them with the help of Umbra, on her travels she'll have met other chroniclers who'll set up shop on the other outposts while Umbra remains on Sanctuary Outpost. If you missed an adventure and want to catch up, you can go to one of these chroniclers huts, select an adventure to replay and they'll give you a lantern similar to Belle's lantern that will play ghostly memories of the events that transpired in the adventure you selected. Or you can be given access to the Sea of the Damned to replay these adventures, the Sea of the Damned is a land of memories after all, you could even have it set up so the needed islands are closer together to minimise sailing for these recaps compared to playing them in adventure mode, and cut straight to the point so you can be caught up. Once completed you'll get the item originally rewarded during the adventure, but with a ghostly aura about it similar to ghost chest as well as a different title that's been altered for this variant of the adventure, for example 'Victor of Golden Sands' will be renamed to 'Memory of Golden Sands' or 'Remnant of Golden Sands', this give new players the cool rewards while giving something to those who took place in the original events.

    I know I'm just spit balling ideas of how I'd like adventure to come back and they might not come back. But I really liked adventures, even if a lot of people didn't. So tell me what you think, do you think this could be a good way to bring back adventures? What could be changed to make adventures more enjoyable for you? And what adventure would you of liked to see if they were brought back?

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  • Imo they should remake them as a solo tall tale, that takes place either in Safer Seas or have you go through a portal to go to a solo realm. They are for the most part one of the biggest part of SoT lore and story and it is a shame to see them be reduced to time limited events. It is also worth mentioning that their commendations and rewards should make a comeback as well if they are ever to return...

  • I think the biggest problem with the original adventures was the lack of permanent change, other than golden sands, how is the world different. We got a new little rock near sea dogs tavern, we got some scorch marks on shipwreck bay, we got a painting at the Reapers hideout, that's pretty much it. All of these are such simple changes that can be completely overlooked. Even golden sands turning into port Merrick is just a make over, there is nothing actually new there.
    This was there biggest flaw that I don't think a lot of people realize, everyone talks about how the gameplay was lackluster and the limited time aspect with long development time but it was the fact that nothing actually happened to the world (again excluding golden sands make over). Some simple things they could have done is like in the shrouded ghost adventure they could have left the stationary boat on the rocks and made it a new sea post, but no, they just left the rock.

  • @jojo-buddy-v2 Honestly I have to agree with you on the lack of permanent changes, especially Merrick's ship. That could have, like you said, turned into a sea post or something else, heck they could simple left it there as a landmark or even a tactical stop if the barrels and cannons were still usable. Same thing with stuff like, the vegetation in the Wilds from Rouge's Legacy or Secret Wilds. Like come on, that could have been a minor decision point in the future, like we could have fought to either empower the plant life to make the Wilds green again like it was according to lore or let it return to it's original state (Though I think the outcome would have been obvious if that did happen). And don't get me started on the relic room under Port Merrick or the adventure to the Shores of Gold we'll never get now that adventures are gone.
    I'm sorry for the rant. I just loved the adventures for what they hand, even if they weren't perfect, and I was sad to see them go even though I understood why they needed to go.

  • @magolor101
    Honestly, you've just practically described how adventures worked except the tie with seasonal events, honestly I find it sad that the adventures are gone because they did 2 things they gave a time limited mechanic test and they gave us lore that we could shape.
    @jojo-buddy-v2 said in An idea to reintroduce Adventures:

    I think the biggest problem with the original adventures was the lack of permanent change, other than golden sands, how is the world different. We got a new little rock near sea dogs tavern, we got some scorch marks on shipwreck bay, we got a painting at the Reapers hideout, that's pretty much it. All of these are such simple changes that can be completely overlooked. Even golden sands turning into port Merrick is just a make over, there is nothing actually new there.
    This was there biggest flaw that I don't think a lot of people realize, everyone talks about how the gameplay was lackluster and the limited time aspect with long development time but it was the fact that nothing actually happened to the world (again excluding golden sands make over). Some simple things they could have done is like in the shrouded ghost adventure they could have left the stationary boat on the rocks and made it a new sea post, but no, they just left the rock.
    I like to believe that our choices had more impact than the town makeover or the painting of Pendragon's loss.
    I mean if Pendragon had won instead of flameheart we might have not had the big guy here and instead of the burning blade we might have had either Athena's fortune or Pendragon's ship or not have a big ship to fight over at all.
    The biggest issue with the adventures on the development side is that you had to prepare for 2 different outcomes and the worst part is you're coding something to be experienced in less time than it took to develop it and it's consequences.
    Adventures wouldn't feel like such a waste of resources if they could be enjoyed for a longer period of time.
    Biggest problem with adventures is that it capitalized on fomo which is a good way to make your audience to feel like they are being forced to play the game and at the same time feel like if they missed it then there's no reason to bother with it since they already missed the adventures.
    Heck, adventures died with the Monkey Island tall tales which honestly the last adventure being an Ad for Monkey Island left a bad aftertaste.
    Another thing to remember is that when adventures were going on seasons were getting overstretched outside of the desired/promised time by the devs.
    Choice based adventures meant you had to develop for both results or you had to develop for the winning result after the points are tallied, that means best they could develop before the results are announced is the victory dance of each side so it gave a small immediate feedback before they started shaping the world and lore according to the results.
    The game also seems to be in a lot of technical debt with the space the game takes over the hard drive and the performance issues that keep happening.
    TLDR: except for the seasonal events there would be too much development debt and people prefer to have new tools for their sandbox than another lore dump and since there's just not enough devs for both, outside of the seasonal events that can be tweaked to be more complex, best thing they could do was bring back non-choice adventures as tall tales

  • I'm perfectly fine with adventures being just text to read. If the lore is interesting, I don't mind sailing just to read a page. It's like reading a book. You read books, right? It's a minimal effort, easy to implement. We could collect those notes into pages in a book. I would be fine with that. When adventures were a thing I thought they are too complex and cinematic. The cost was too high and community didn't appreciate adventures. So they took it out. I say bring them back in a smaller form.

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