Here are some off the top of my head. They are mainly set with the goals below:
- To get players to visit more of the beautiful maps which are mostly players uninhabited
- Provide some form of side distraction for players, apart from just logging in and grind for gears/levels
- Utilise more of the vendor trash (why waste good item sprites)
Idea 1 - Crafting gimmicky items
Gimmicky items are items like the welcome signboard, teapot set that the players got from the fishing event previously. It will be really great if the players can craft a number of such items in game using materials dropped from monsters. If crafting isn’t good, an exchange npc will do too.
For example, we can craft gimmicky items like school tables and chairs, blackboards that we can write using the “!tag” function. Allow players to use up to 3 gimmick items at the same time (of course with restrictions on which gimmick item to use, like players can’t hold a teapot while holding a signboard for example).
What this does is it adds more poses and opportunities for roleplay in game. It also bring players maps which are usually not visited at all to farm monsters for materials required for such items. Lastly this will give IMC the potential to sell more Goddess Blessed cubes if the cube costumes and accessories are “on theme” with some of the gimmick gears.
Like the kToS farmer costumes, wouldn’t it be nice if players can craft stuff like “heap of hay”, “pull wagon”, “chick herder” (a row of 3 chicks will follow you whenever you move when use the item for 30secs)? This will boost sales of the farmer costume and pitchforks too.
Next is on enticing players who want some benefits alongside the gimmick items since just gimmick items alone only entices players who want cosmetic stuff.
Idea 1.5 - Gimmick items sets that provide small boosts
The boosts are casual at best and don’t affect competitive play much. Remember the above proposal of being able to use up to 3 gimmick items at a time? The set boost pertains to that. Here are some of the set examples:
Gimmick items: Alchemist blackboard, Table of flasks, Sphere of colored liquid (random names thought up)
Effect: When using the 3 gimmick items together, decreases Tincturing and Magnum Opus production time by 20%.
Gimmick items: Furnace, Bucket of Water, Smithing Gloves
Effect: When using the 3 gimmick items together, there is a 10% chance of not reducing potential of equipment upon failure when using a normal anvil. Costs of using the anviling will increase by 300%.
Idea 2 - Expand fishing and add Cooking
Fishing is a great casual content added to ToS, but the limited catch makes it leave more to be desired. Fishes caught also have little to no use besides randomly checking for biggest size and feeding the cute cat :3 in Khaipeda.
Proposal is to increase the variety of fishes that can be caught, with more fishing areas spread throughout the numerous ToS maps. Also allow more ingredients to be dropped off monsters. Such ingredients and fish can be used for the new crafting skill which all players can access, Cooking.
Cooking, not to be confused with Squire’s refreshment buffs, is the buffs it provides is different. Foods produced by cooking lasts for 10mins and increases 1-3 base stats by 5-30 points. Each player can only have 1 food buff at any one time. A food buff can increase INT and SPR by 10 each for 10mins or a CON/STR/INT combination by 8 points each.
What this does is it introduces a new consummable that players can use to improve on their gameplay yet don’t give too much of an impact. A +30 dex food buff can suddenly propel the player to next tier of attack speed for example. Like the previous idea, having to farm for materials to make such foods also give players more things to work for.
Idea 3 - Crafting past cosmetic effects from goddess blessed cubes
IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: I’m not an advocate of the concept of Gacha, I rather see it gone. But since this is the model of monetisation IMC has chosen, I’ll work to improve it so it is better for both sides, us and IMC.
One interesting thing to explore for game companies who rely on freemium model of monetisation is the pros and cons of rarity through limitation.
For example, the devil wings is only available via 1 particular set of Goddess blessed cubes. While this makes the items rare where players who want it can only get it via that particular gacha, it makes such items “non recyclable”, where it is hard to reintroduce them in a future gacha where the target audience had already acquired them and have nothing of interest to get from the rereleased gacha. Players who joined the ToS family later also loses the chance to acquire past premium items.
Hence I propose a new type of item that can be released in Goddess Blessed Cubes. Can’t think of any fancy names for it so I called it ItemX for now. ItemX has a drop chance similar to the tier A items in the Goddess Blessed Cubes but it is a material for the previous gacha premium effects/wings/books.
Premium Effect/Wings/Books recipes are released via the Medal Exchange shop and can be exchanged for 450 medals. Recipe release time is the same as how costumes are made available via the Exchange shop, 2-3 Goddess Blessed Cubes iterations later. Each recipe will require 1 ItemX and a different number of materials which the player will need to farm. Like for example the Devil wings will require 666x Drake Films to craft too.
What this does is it allows players to acquire premium TP paid items which they are unable to get previously (due to luck/financial limitation/date started ToS). It also give players the reason to buy the cubes even when nothing in the current iteration of goddess cubes caught their fancy, so that they can acquire a past item which they missed out.
With ItemX being sellable in market it also gives players who don’t want to pay a chance to acquire some cosmetic item they really like.
Hope I don’t get shot cuz of idea 3…