Game Mechanics Progressive Warioware Prof

unique but extremely simple minigames played out in a little window for each type of gathering resource that become increasingly varied and complex as the player progresses through tiers in the game.
featuring bad concept scribbles !


Ingots: Click on the glittering stone repeatedly to unearth the ore.

Gems: Click on all of the stone pixels on top of the gem to unearth it. Clicking on the gem will damage it and fail.

Planks: Position the mouse at the correct vertical position, then click to strike the cut mark on the tree.

Paper: Click along the dotted line marked on the log to split the bark off. Straying too far from the line will fail the minigame.

Grains: Water the crop repeatedly by clicking above it, then harvest when mature by clicking on it. Attempting to harvest it too soon will fail the minigame.

String: Position the mouse at the correct horizontal position and click to cut the correct length of string. Cutting the incorrect length will fail the minigame.

Meat: Position the mouse on the fish and keep clicking it until it gets dragged to the surface. Failure if the fish escapes offscreen.

Oil: Aim the fishing rod at the fish and fire to nab oil off of it somehow. Failure if the fishing rod misses.



Progress Bar:
Since the minigames are extremely short, it should be completed multiple times in a row to amount to one gather, filling up a bar like how the gathering nodes currently work. Completing a minigame would be about 2x as effective as a second passing in the current system to even out to about the same rate. Profession Speed bombs would double the power of completing a minigame. Perhaps progress should very slowly decay to encourage the fast paced warioware-esque gameplay in place of the usual timer.
Refining Fail:
In this system, refining fails would likely be removed, and the scenario where a node is consumed but only grants xp would be reserved for failing the minigame instead.


Gathering Level Impact
Gathering level very simply increases the effectiveness of successful interactions on the minigame's progress bar. Once a player is 20 levels over a certain resource (gathering copper at mining level 20 for example), the minigame will not play and it will instead be auto-completed.


Resource Tier Impact
Each tier of resource will increase the required amount of success points, akin to increasing the time needed in the current system, as well as have some specific focus on mixing up and ramping up the difficulty throughout all minigames:
1-9: No change.
10-19: There will be two, less difficult miniature targets, instead of the one.

20-29: The target in the minigame will be smaller or more precise.
30-39: A sandstorm may obscure vision of the minigame for a few seconds.
40-49: The minigame can be frozen, requiring you to shake your mouse to break free and continue.
50-59: A reverse target will appear in the minigame and must be avoided to not fail.

60-69: Two targets will be present, but one is a decoy that grants nothing without failing the minigame.

70-79: Darkness may suddenly take hold, turning the target into a reverse target for a brief moment, telegraphs this prior.

80-89: The target may suddenly shift position, telegraphs this prior.

90-99: Many insignificant miniature reverse targets, themed like thorns and magma, will be present.

100-104: Gusts of wind will shake the minigame screen around.

105-109: Any of the prior gimmicks will randomly be present.
110-114: A miniature target will defend the primary target, and must be completed first.

115-119: A chain of three miniature targets will appear back to back, instead of the one. Miniature reverse targets will appear alongside the newly appearing targets.



Tool Tier Impact:
Tools still heavily impact the value of successful interactions like leveling, but also grants unique minigame bonuses:
Wooden: Negates fail conditions.
Stone: Makes targets larger or less precise.
Copper: The tool will magnetize away from the mouse slightly and onto nearby targets.
Bronze: Gives a second chance if a fail condition is met.
Golden: Grants a glittering light around the mouse that combats the sandstorm visibility debuff.
Iron: Simply clicking will end the freezing gimmick.
Steel: The tool will hesitate the first time the player tries to click on a reverse target.
Cobalt: Fake targets will shudder with this tool in hand.
Diamond: Can score critical successes, granting double progress on the minigame progress bar.
Molten: The first click will send a shockwave, hitting all targets and destroying all reverse targets in its wake.
Void: If the progress bar is half full, the tool will automatically clear the next target.
Dernic: Combines the effects of all prior tools except wooden.
Titanium: A phantom tool will fire out and instantly clear the first miniature target.


The big idea is that there doesn't need to be a big xp requirement change that might shake the crafting market in order to make it less of a snooze for everyone , you can just add more game to it ! Something meaningful to do that feels like actually progressing and getting better , facing bigger challenges and getting better tools to deal with those challenges

 

This doesn't feel super Wynncrafty, but it would definitely be a big improvement to the Profession system. (I maintain a position that a very effective and simple fix is to just drop XP requirements considerably.)

 

I'll be honest, I didn't read the whole thing — more like skimmed through it — but I got the general idea.

The main problem with improving repetitive content is that you need to be mindful of how the change will feel over the long term. In other words, when you're making a proposal like this, you should ask yourself at the concept stage: "How is this activity going to feel on the 10th repetition? What about the 50th? And the 100th?"

Right now, to be honest, this looks like something people are going to get sick of pretty quickly.

Let me make a suggestion to improve your suggestion: instead of the activity triggering by default, it should have a 5% chance to trigger, strictly upon successfully gathering a resource. If the player successfully completes the minigame, they receive bonus resources.

Of course, we also need to consider Gathering Totem and how this would interact with it (your idea actually breaks it pretty badly, at least if the timer isn't supposed to pause during the minigame), but overall, I think the change I'm proposing should make your activity more appealing.

Theoretically, of course.

But overall, the idea is actually pretty good.

 

Firstly, I gotta say that I love the lil sketch explanations and I think everyone should be making lil drawings to go with their ideas, uh when possibly applicable lol. Please be encouraged to make more :D

Secondly yea I kinda agree with the comments above too :') I'd mostly worry that even though this looks a LOT more fun than the current system? method?, that people would eventually find it too repetitive as well once they get deep enough. I do like the suggestion to the suggestion though :o except I personally(aka absentmindedly lol) would say that maybe it should have a lil higher chance of happening, but it would just kinda start once you gather a node, and then depending on if you succeed the minigame, it would give you multiple of whatever you gathered (maybe even having a chance to give the better quality materials too? Idk I'm not as good at being cool and innovative as you guys lmao). I guess kinda think of it like landing a crit hit and dealing more damage, except you're landing a more-intensive task to get more stuff.? (I think it would help more if I said less awawawa)
Anyway yea otherwise :D I think something like this, with a bit of making sure that it wouldn't break other game mechanic stuffs, and of course some balancing and accommodating, would be very very fun :). Combine this with some other fitting / agreeable? proffa ideas and it'll be perfect :o (uhh surely surely, because eeeeyep thats how stuff works :'D). (I cant tell if I'm making sense or not awawa...)

OHOHOH I DO HAVE ANOTHER IDEA-
For gathering string, instead of cutting it from a spool- since it's being harvested from the ground, what if it was moreso a minigame about spinning the plant fibers into string? :) Could maybe use either like a drop spindle or a whole spinning wheel as imagery? hehehe

 

Actually, the percentages and when the event triggers depend on what end result we’re trying to achieve. If we’re talking about getting additional resources, then yes, I think increasing the chance to, say, 10% could be a reasonable choice. In that case, when gathering a three-star resource, the chance of triggering the minigame would be 0.1% (1% chance to obtain a three-star resource, and, roughly speaking, only every 10th gathering attempt would be “critical”). For resources of more common quality, that’s up for discussion. Personally, I’d completely disable these events for one-star resources, so we don’t make resource inflation even worse. Plus, it also acts as a safeguard against the "Oh God, a mini-game again? Please, just turn them off!" scenario.

As for increasing quality, I’d keep the chance at 5% for one-star resources and lower it to 1% for two-star resources. That gives us a 0.1% additional chance of getting an three-star resource (for a two-star resource with a 10% drop chance, this “quality event” would occur roughly once every 100 gathering attempts). That seems reasonable, since we definitely don’t want to cause inflation of high-quality resources.

But at this point, we should stop and ask ourselves: “Do we really want to keep this so binary? Why not allow the two effects to trigger together?” In that case, we’d have two separate checks — one before gathering starts (for increasing quality), and another after it finishes, upon a successful gathering (for increasing quantity).

And yes, I do think that triggering the quality event shouldn’t guarantee a successful gather. It’s a debatable choice (“I completed the minigame, but didn’t get the reward?!”), but only then do we get that feeling of excitement and anticipation: “Oh! I got the quality-upgrade minigame? Cooool. OOOH!!! I got the quantity one too?! OOOOOOOOOH!!! I got [amount of resource ***] from it! Lucky-lucky!” or something along those lines...