Creatures = Animals or monsters!
Creatures as a part of the game can fulfill different uses for players. That makes it very valuable to create own professions /specialisations for them. Till know i don’t really know how you separate profession and specialisation. The current explanations of @ben didn’t explain them in detail yet, just roughly. So i try my best to find the right words.
Uses of creatures for players:
- pets (a simple decorative partner)
- fighting support
- transport option (either for yourself, other or several players or for goods)
- defenders (you have claimed territory you want to protect, so you can use your animal/monster)
- provision of special ressources either by killing or by production (for food, clothes/armor, alchemics or other special essences)
Since I probably didn’t catch all possible usages, I offered enough to show how valuable creatures can be.
Due to that introduction, it might be very nice to have professions / specialisations that deal just with working with creatures. The benefit can be high enough to live from it (by selling or fighting with them).
In this meaning I suggest to implement 3 specialisations (There might be others useful ones that can be added here):
Creature Breeder
tasks of the breeder should mainly be:
1.) giving the creatures an appropriate place to live
2.) providing them food
this results in creatures multiplying by reproduction.
It sounds simple, but you can infinitively complicate it in difficulty:
a) animals would need special surroundings to not run away (a worm that could eat stone, can just be kept if you have a place for him which limitations are made of special material).
b) you have to put special things in his environment, so he feels well and multiplies. (you can connect wrong environment even with death, i.e. like a fish that dies if it has no water).
c) you need to treat them in special way just a breeder can do (skills like “strive creature”, “play with creature” or “stimulate creature” )
d) providind food explains it’s complexity aspects itself
all these tasks you could work out to specialisation trees. The higher the specialisation the more different creatures you can breed.
3.) Further more he should be able to store them somehow to give away/ sell them. I thought of systems like a “pokeball” to make it more “logic” why you can put them in your inventory or for selling on a plinth (?).
It could be by the way be extremely interesting if we would be able to combine different natural species for new ones. That would make necessary, that some different species like each other even when other ones don’t.
creature trainer
As the name says the trainer should be able to train creatures and make them “stronger”. training means leveling up their “natural” abilities and giving them maybe some extra abilities. A horse for expample could be trained to run faster. A donkey could be trained to carry more goods (having a bigger "bag with more slots). if you combine this with breeder, you are able to train several creatures at once. If not you should just be able to train and own one creature at a time (to make things more diverse and combinations more useful). I think these few sentences are enough to create complex and big specialisation trees.
skinner
The skinner should be able to win recources of creatures (as described above). Since he should be also able to win milk from a cow, the name “Skinner” might not be appropriate and you probably finde a better word. Also the skinners abilities can be extremely specialised. higher level could make you get better recources of different species or increase the amount of species you can get ressources from or increase the amount of ressources you get. So also enough spectrum to make its own profession / specialisation.
I know i did not talk about catching / taming the animal. I think that’s no task for all of them. In my opinion just a hunter should be able to do it. what makes a mix of specialisation again more interesting the mix for the sake of healthy and diverse economy.
Hope you like the suggestion and feel free to add you ideas.
