Game Design Better Resource Gathering [updated]

Thanks to the criticism to my previous suggestion I have thought of some different ways to make resouce gathering more fun. Everyone seemed to think that I wanted to make resource gathering even more boring. Just increasing the time between resource respawns, what has been my previous suggestion would have made it more tedious. So my suggestions below are based on the critique I got.

Walking in small circles around a lake to gather fish or from rock to rock to gather ores is pretty boring. One could say If you do a lootrun, isn't that boringly walking in a circle too? But there are some differences what makes a lootrun more fun than grinding at one Location for hours. When doing a lootrun you have some variety. Not every chest contains the same loot and some are better than others. You sometimes have to take effort to get a good lootchest and everyone can make a good route for his own lootrun and optimize it over time.
Now lets have a look at the new resources. Every resource gives exactly the same amount of one, so no variety there. For every resource you can go around between 8 resources to gather again, so no effort (except time), no optimization and no thinking is needed. If you find one single resource at the bottom of a cave you're not glad at all and there is no reason to be. It would be even a mistake to get that single resource because it just wastes a slot in your inventory. If you want that resource you just go to your favorite grinding spot to waste your time there.

In order to make gathering more fun and make it possible to reach someones "goal" of reaching a Level >100 (what according to this feed is the only reason people play the game, even if it is not fun doing so) in about the same amount of time here are my suggestons.

1. Not every resource should give the same amount of raw materials. Maybe a random amount between 1-10 or increasing chances for more raw materials with your gathering level. In order to balance the other suggestions they also should give more xp (so reaching "YOUR GOAL" isn't harder than before)

2. In order to make it impossible to harvest the same 8 resources again and again I would suggest the following.
First there are spots for every resource where there can be a harvestable resource but it not always needs to be.
For example, in a mine are 30 spots where an ore could spawn but a maximum of 20 will be filled. When you gather one of them it takes some time (~1min) until randomly one of the free spots will be filled. You can easily apply the same to grains and fish. The distribution could also be for the entire map. Like 200 spots to find copper ore but only 150 will be filled up. But there I'm not sure if the distriution should be locally or globally.
Yes people would still gather in (bigger) routes or circles. But the possibilities would be greatly increased. It would be possible to combine gathering different resources to find an optimized route to get both. You even could combine it with a lootrun or you can be glad to have found a resource at the bottom of a cave you didn't know before. It also would feel more like a profession to need and to have the knowledge where to find the resource you are harvesting.

3. Now I see that there's a Problem with trees in a forest. I think that not every tree in a forest should be the special tree you want to gather, just like not every grain is one that you can harvest. There should be spots in a forest where those trees can be, just like in the example for the other resources above. Those harvestable trees should be visually distinguishable from the other trees. But there should be more spots in forest than outside.

Am I wrong and people actually want to grind absently at the same location just like some people like to play cookie clicker?
Thanks for reading and have a nice day :)

 

While the current system does feel a bit unrealistic, I feel like this would make a slightly tedious thing into an even more tedious thing. It'd also be quite unbalanced if it was implemented in this exact way, due to how different resource types are spread out. Take for example:

Farming:
*Get 5 wheat*
*Wait 30 minutes or swap server*
*Get 5 wheat*
*Wait 30 minutes or swap server*
*Get 5 wheat*
*Wait 30 minutes or swap server*
...

Woodcutting:
*Get 200 wood in a forest*
"Aight I'm done"

 

I think this comes from how the xp curve for higher levels of prof is exponentially growing.

 

Yes, but I think you should collect the resources and go somewhere else to collect more. Waiting to collect the same place over and over is not how it should work. I think you should be forced to collect resources from different places.
Higher quality resources should be rare and be worth a lot more xp.

 

Aight, then:

Farming:
*Get 5 wheat*
*Spend 2 minutes walking to another spot*
*Get 5 wheat*
*Spend 2 minutes walking to another spot*
*Get 5 wheat*
*Spend 2 minutes walking to another spot*
...

Woodcutting:
*Get 200 wood in a forest*
"Aight I'm done"

 

Not every woodtype has a forest like oakwood does :D

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A longer respawn time could be combined with different resource qualitys. If you gather from trees in a forest you get 1 wood from each tree. If you have to search for a rare tree and there is onely one you get like 10 wood from that tree.

@Aarontti Do you like to gather resouces endlessly walking in circles?

 

Not really, but I do prefer it over walking in longer circles and spending more time to reach the same end goal

 

The end result of slower respawns is that people will make "routes" that have the most resource spots
so people will still only walk in circles

Also, it would make it way too hard to level up gathering skills

 

I think I had false expectations. This mechanic is not about having fun while playing. It's about who has the most time to spend running in circles to reach a "goal" while not having fun. As long as it's not essential to get each profession to >100 I can safly ignore that mechanic and focus on the aspects of the game that are fun.

 

Wow, this is a really bad suggestion. Please don't make the game even more tedious than it already is.

 

I couldn't really agree more with what Aarontti first said. Yes, it's a little unrealistic, and in games like World of Warcraft, materials are scattered a bit more and take longer to respawn. However, it also takes longer to level up in World of Warcraft once you get to a certain point, than it does in Wynncraft. There's a lot of complaints that the new 1.18 update has added an absurd amount of grind that sort of leaves the casual player who isn't into that sort of thing, in the dust. I think making it so it's appealing to even less of an audience would be poor design in this case.

However, if you do want to play it differently and force yourself to go around to different areas or different servers, that's totally up to you. The system is flexible and that's why I think it's best now. It doesn't force one specific play style. It's not a bad suggestion, I don't feel like there's ever an issue in putting your thoughts out there. It just doesn't feel too right for the setting of Wynncraft currently :)

 

You already can go explore more locations to gather your resources, at the end you will be running in bigger circles to gather materials, reaching the same goal with longer time.