Gathering could be so much more...

Harvesting need not be mundane. They could be mini-quests in and of themselves. These special harvesting nodes would be rare -- they'd be as exciting as a treasure goblin in Diablo... but if you find one, dare you attempt to harvest it?? It led to your death before... are you strong enough to take one now? (Insert Dramatic Music)

-- GLOW NODES/NODES RESPONDING TO DAY/NIGHT CYCLE/KNOW YOUR NODE: Perhaps some nodes that glow so you can find them MUCH easier at night and are near impossible to find during the day. If you douse your torch, you'll even find them MORE easily. But in all that darkness... come the creatures. ANNNND it just so happens, SOME CREATURES HAVE GLOWING EYES which resemble the node. Muahahhaa. OR, FOR AN INDIRECT METHOD.... the node itself doesn't glow. But the particular mushroom you are looking for is virtually undetectable during the day BUT it attracts a particular firefly at night... so just look for the swarm of lights. Hmmmm, but I wonder what else is attacted to those fireflies??? The concept of finding a node via other signs surrounding the node could give harvesting almost a feel of being like a tracker, herbalist, botanist. To find it, you must know its nature. (ONE PLAYER, pairs nodes to monsters, night/day, environmental conditions, enhances nighttime adventures)

-- NODES GATHERABLE BY INTRIGUING SKILL INTERACTIONS: these nodes are shy or require a certain ability to be used prior to harvesting. Like a CLAM SHELL SNAPPING SHUT TO PROTECT ITS PEARL, but if the gatherer is invisible, they can sneak up and grab it just in time. Or you see a small plant, but if you cast a particular life spell upon it, it grows and bears fruit, allowing for it to be picked. To harvest the petals of a moonflower, perhaps one must cast moon magic upon it first, at night, to get it to blossum, etc etc etc. (ONE PLAYER, pairs nodes to skill interactions, adds more diversity to who can gather what)

--NODES GATHERABLE BY MULTIPLE INTRIGUING SKILL INTERACTIONS, NODE WITH MULTIPLE STATES, CIRCLE OF LIFE: This is essentially a multi-stage node, in essence. Once harvested, it becomes a different type of node. This makes one type of harvesting character essentially planting the fields for another type to come along. Circle of life stuff. Perhaps two unrelated skills (to encourage likelihood that 1 character does not possess both, encourages teamwork). One person used life magic to grow the tree to pick the fruit, but another can come by at a later time and cultivate that special life magic imbued wood with another skill to make magic arrows or something. (ONE/MULTIPLE PLAYERS, pairs nodes to skill interactions, adds diversity, for single player mode, all versions of these nodes would need to be scattered in case they don't have all necessary skills (or perhaps they eventually reset to the original state))

--NODES FULLY REPLENISHED BY PLAYERS, "CIRCLE OF LIFE", NODES WITH MULTIPLE STATES: To continue playing off the tree scenario from the eariler idea... Some nodes might not need to stop with 2 steps of interactions. Why are we always harvesting? Couldn't we have druid type characters, mages, herbalists, who instead of taking from nature, give something back? Using night/day interactions help to interrupt WHEN this occurs and makes the various steps to node transformation harder to complete as a single player PLUS adds additional benefit to night time adveturing. Essentially, another player AT NIGHT can imbue the stump with moon magic, which reenergizes the stump to grow anew the next day. But what do they get? Outside the box type rewards, such as the harvester receives dust from a thankful tree sprite--you know this because an emote triggers, "You hear a tiny giggle as a mysterious hand reaches into your sack, leaving you a gift for your kindness." So in this instance, you didn't harvest something, you were rewarded for restoring nature. I wonder how many nodes could have the "Circle of Life" concept applied to them. What if one of these replenishing skills was not all that popular?? I'd imagine giving a less popular skill this ability would give those few players who excel with it, more importance in trade and commerce. If you end up liking this idea, I'd love to brainstorm the Circles for sure. Also, COULD SOME TYPES OF HARVESTING AND REPLENISHING AFFECT VIRTUE? (ONE/MULTIPLE PLAYERS, pairs nodes to skill interactions, adds diversity, could assist with your respawn woes)

--NODE REQUIRING SIMULTANEOUS MULTI-SKILL USE: what if a node required two players to use two different skills upon it simultaneously in order to harvest it properly? This forces teamwork for these rare type nodes. Sun and moon magic used in conjuction during dawn or dusk?

--NPC REPLENISHING THE NODES (WARNING, COMPLEX, I'M DREAMING): Imagine too, just like you have the guard lighting the lamps at night in town, and to augment players restoring nodes in the above mentioned CIRCLE OF LIFE concept, NPC's roaming the wilds at night replenishing the nodes? Rock creatures could leave a biproduct which results in restored nodes. Earth burrowing creatures could appear to be revealing new nodes. Woodland protectors/druids use moon magic each night on the plant stumps that were tore down during the day... And what if you killed one of these????? Virture damage galore, but what treasure might they have? If the nodes will not be replenished if they die, would people protect these replenishing NPCs? (COMPLEX, PROBABLY TOO HARD TO DO, could assist with your respawn woes though)

-- GROUP CHALLENGE NODES: Rare group player nodes with an incredibly long harvest bar (lets say 10 minutes if you tried it solo) and the likelihood of nearby difficult creatures interrupting your harvest is practically guaranteed. BUT, each additional harvester on this special node QUICKENS THE HARVEST PROGRESS BAR... PLUS YOU'LL NEED PROTECTORS while your harvesting team works. You really don't want those critters interrupting your harvest progress? When it becomes harvested, 1 piece of that material plops into the bags of each group member hopefully. This would encourage large groups to harvest that special item, and large search parties to find this elusive rare node. This could even apply to opening/lockpicking a difficult chest... bashing down a door that's stuck while monsters are swarming you... bending portcullis bars... lifting gates... i think if done correctly, a lot of interesting features could share this same "multi-participant progress bar reduction" concept.)

-- TIMED/SHELF-LIFE NODES/BUFF/DEBUFF NODES: Some harvested nodes have a timer (shelf life) after harvested. BUT PERHAPS DON'T WASTE TIME trying to make a mechanic for items to decay with time. Simply have a character receive a buff when they "harvest" this special rare perishable. This causes the character upon claiming the item, to dash to the location for crafting with it (could be a special location with opposition present, could be the start of a quest, or could just be a regular crafting table etc). As for shelf-life, I'm not talking "you have a week to craft it." I'm thinking the rarer the item? The shorter the shelf-life. Perhaps scaling potency can be considered as shelf-life degrades. Imagine a potion, if all the ingredients were very fresh and quickly crafted, a higher price could be fetched for the freshly made more powerful, rare product. If the ingredients are about to spoil, it would be a weak potion. A flat rate 7 day shelf life, for example, is not a fun way to execute it. "The clock is ticking... hurry! Bring the water to a boil, or the potion might not be strong enough to cure poor Elsa of her pox!" Quests could require crafted items of particular quality to succeed and perhaps have varied results based upon the quality of the product provided. You could fully cure Elsa, partially, or perhaps Elsa dies at your unskillful hands. Using the buff system for this is key, In my opinion, because it could tie harvesting a node into so many other factors of the game. Imagine many nodes having odd buff/debuff properties?? I'm also thinking a lot of these complex interactions I'm describing can probably jsut gateway through the buff/debuff system. (ONE PLAYER)

-- POISONOUS NODES: (applies debuff) Imagine you're harvesting a rare but poisonous herb and there's a slight chance you could prick yourself with its thorns as you harvest it and thus poison yourself. The poisons themselves could vary in effect based upon the node. Some could be simple health trickling down, others where you cannot gain health until cured, others which lower your strength and probably making you encumbered, others were you're inflicted with narcolepsy and pass out periodically (hopefully not while you're running from a monster) etc etc. Perhaps each type of poison requires a different type of player magic to cure (encouraging player interaction with harvesting indirectly). Of course, these poisonous nodes yield a very valued reward, the risk makes it tricky. (Could probably use existing debuff system and existing spell effects on player from debuffs already created.)

-- HEAVY NODES: Better empty those sacks and wear cloth armor, because this harvested item is extremely heavy. And too bad you left all your gear back in town to carry this back with you, because now a kobold has spotted you! Where's your sword argh! This will probably require this person to need a protector since they will not be able to protect themselves, encouraging yet more player interaction with harvesting. And imagine this node being in a pvp zone? Imagine ANY of these special nodes in a pvp zone and how different the interactions could be when you have other players thwarting your efforts?? Imagine integrating all of these node concepts into actual PVP objectives utilizing the same mechanics?

-- EXPLOSIVE NODES: uses buff/debuff system to do effect tracking, probably. You pick up a Fireseed from a Fire Lotus... first stack of debuff forms. 10% chance to explode for 10% of your health, but you did it! You retain the first seed. The second seed is gathered... cross your fingers... yes! 20% chance now, but you're still unharmed. Each time you gather another, the risk of triggering them increases and your risk of greater damage increases, etc etc. Eventually you either explode (with the seeds) or you make them back to the crafting table. Perhaps casting a fire shield upon you can mitigate the damage? Or would it be an Ice Shield? OTHER THINGS TO TRIGGER EXPLOSION: failed gather attempts=auto-boom, jumping perhaps, falling damage, combat (better have protectors!)

-- NODE CACHES: The harvested items can be discovered in caches made by other creatures or humanoids. We're not the only ones who harvest. Many creatures horde shiny things. Some need harvested items to build nests. Some horde them for the winter. Find rare cache nodes which give you a larger amount/variety of already harvested items such as bird nests, badger dens, squirrel... um... stashes, bandit camps, corpses of NPC scavengers, corpses of adventurers, ransacked merchant carts. (Seen these in other games, nothing new here, BUT perhaps some harvested items are ONLY FOUND in a particular cache type. Could harvesting from some of these affect Virtue?)

-- CREATURES THAT LOOK LIKE NODES, LIKE CHEST MIMICS ETC: Just as you attempt to harvest the rare stone from the boulder... the ground trembles and an irritated stone giant bursts from the ground. You were attempting to mine a piece of its body which was sticking up from the ground and boy is it angry!

Any other ideas for spicing up a normally mundane process? Perhaps there are some other posts out there already on this, but so far from what I've seen, harvesting is similar to most other games and nothing sets it apart just yet.

Thanks for your input folks.

 

beautiful

 

I don't much care for the ideas presented. Don't a lot of folks complain that it's already hard enough to mine as a strictly noncombat character?