One of the areas of the game that’s been bothering me is how mindless mining is. I think “all” we need is more variety in how we find and obtain resources, in a way that breaks up the monotony.
So, here’s a couple ideas that, I think, fit pretty well into the Boundless sandbox. Also, none of these ideas are in any way final! I’d be curious to see if people have other ideas along these lines:
Combat + Mining: Metallic/Gem Creatures
No! Not creatures that drop metals/gems. I’m talking about creatures that use metals/gems in interesting ways. Each metallic/gem variant creature would spawn in the same location as metals/gems of that type (in caves, that is)
Metallic/Gem Hoppers: Upon death, rather than destroying rocks, they embed their resource in the blocks within their explosion radius. Adept players will try to lure these hoppers into tight spaces so that more blocks get the resource.
Metallic/Gem Wildstock: Whenever they ram some blocks, those blocks are converted into rocks w/ the resource of their type embedded in it. They loose health each time this happens (so you can’t farm them forever). Adept players will play like matadors.
Metallic/Gem Cuttletrunks: When they vacuum and throw a player, and the player impacts a surface, blocks around the player are converted into rocks w/ the cuttletrunk’s resource type.
Metallic/Gem Spitters: Periodically shoot gem bombs that both damage the player and embed their resource in blocks. There would need to be a limited number of bombs they can shoot so you can’t just farm them forever.
Metallic/Gem Roadrunners: Leave a trail of resources in the ground they run upon, up to some limited number of blocks. The loot goblins of Boundless
Some additional thoughts:
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Rather than having limited metallic/gem “ammo”, these critters could potentially convert back into a regular creature once they’ve exhausted their supply of the metal/gem.
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These creatures would probably need to be pretty aggressive with their abilities that spawn resources (e.g. prefer those abilities over others). It wouldn’t be as interesting if players had to have drawn out combat just to get all the resources out of the critters.
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Ideally, the spawn rates should be balanced such that a mix of mining + creature farming in caves is the optimal way to obtain resources.
Gathering + Mining: Metallic/Gem Plants/Rocks
Surface plants and rocks could have a chance to randomly spawn as metallic/gem variants of themselves. There might be multiple possible varieties:
Explosive Plants/Rocks: When broken, they explode out and embed their resource in blocks around them. Adept players would surround them with blocks before breaking them.
Heavy Plants/Rocks: When broken, a bunch of that resource drops for the player.