Game Mechanics NPC Incremental Gifts

Monkey

Monkey

Official Terrarian
Hey Terrarians,

I'm still fairly new to the forums, this being my second official post, so go easy on me ;)

Ok, so as the title suggest this would make it so the NPC's that you have saved and / or provided homes for would periodically provide you with gifts.

If you wanted a reason for receiving these gifts, you could think of it as gifts for providing them a home free of charge and / or saving them from the dungeon, spider's nest etc...

Now ill get down to details of how this game mechanic would work, obviously it would be irritating of them to be throwing these gifts on the ground, so the next thought would be chests, but this would also be irritating to keep going up to your nice and organised chests to find that it has become a giant mess due to the NPC's gifts. So my method of resolving this issue would be, to make it so that NPC's do not intrinsically give you gifts, they would only give you the gifts if you have assigned that specific NPC to a specific chest.

Now, the gifts themselves could be a plethora of items, but I would assume that these items would be based of the NPC that is giving them, adding to this maybe a little money on the side:

  • Guide - Very mundane starting items. Such as low tier seeds, maybe a very small parcel of building blocks, torches etc...
  • Merchant - Arrows, rarely potions (A loot table of low tier potions), rope etc...
  • Nurse - Healing potions

I wont list of all the NPC's, since I assume by now you understand the idea.

Only issue being I could possibly see this becoming OP very quickly unless integrated with extreme care. Maybe every 3 days, every week etc... for the gifts to be given , in game time of course.

Maybe the items that are gifted, could become slightly stronger once you kill the WoF therefore causing you world to become hard mode, maybe the gifts could become more scarce if you allow that NPC to get hurt.

Obviously there are many factors to be taken into consideration with this mechanic to not make it completely abysmal and to not make it completely OP. (This would be dictated by Dev's and "Beta" Testers.)

Either way, this may get lost in the see of posts, but if anyone see's this I hope you have a great day.

- Monkey​
 
Cool idea, but instead of putting it in a chest they could have a special quote proceeded by the item being put directly in your inventory, and to keep it from being op, each separate npc could give only one gift directly when they move into their first house, but let's say a nurse dies and a new nurse moves in, then she would give a new gift, so in order to get more you would have to murder NPCs
 
:D Abit Morbid haha, but I enjoy other peoples ideas. Multiple opinions on ideas is what makes a great product.
 
I would suggest making the time period between gifts long, and also random so that you have gifts coming in periodically. (Every 8-12 in game days?).

The actual gifts could be received like fishing quests, with a special dialogue option when the gift is ready.
 
We already receive gifts from the NPCs in terms of access to NPC-exclusive items (that we have to buy). Or in the form of the tax collector, whose payout increases with each NPC.

Also, what's wrong with using the same reward-giving system as the Angler?

Those aside, I do love the feeling of progressing up in the world. The Guide's gifts sound pretty useful in the early game (you'll need wood for a lot of stuff, and that copper axe is woefully slow at harvesting). For a progressing system, I would suggest... something that is both time-based and patronage-based:

Let each NPC have 2 meters: one for the progress to the next gift (Gift Meter), and one for the progress to the next *level* of gifts (Affection Meter). The Gift Meter gradually ticks up over time, averaging about one new gift every 2(±1) in-game days, but can be sped up by some actions. The Affection Meter only rises when something is done for the NPC (mostly just buying their stuff), but once it is filled, the NPC 'levels up' and now provides higher quality gifts. And possibly stackable price discounts as well.

I could add on more refinements, but this is the base idea.

I don't think giving gifts is that OP (just look at the Angler), it'll just make your coffers bigger. I don't want to encourage killing NPCs either. :( (Killing them to receive more gifts from them??? Such game logic. :S )
 
Jon Smitten said:
We already receive gifts from the NPCs in terms of access to NPC-exclusive items (that we have to buy). Or in the form of the tax collector, whose payout increases with each NPC.

Also, what's wrong with using the same reward-giving system as the Angler?

Those aside, I do love the feeling of progressing up in the world. The Guide's gifts sound pretty useful in the early game (you'll need wood for a lot of stuff, and that copper axe is woefully slow at harvesting). For a progressing system, I would suggest... something that is both time-based and patronage-based:

Let each NPC have 2 meters: one for the progress to the next gift (Gift Meter), and one for the progress to the next *level* of gifts (Affection Meter). The Gift Meter gradually ticks up over time, averaging about one new gift every 2(±1) in-game days, but can be sped up by some actions. The Affection Meter only rises when something is done for the NPC (mostly just buying their stuff), but once it is filled, the NPC 'levels up' and now provides higher quality gifts. And possibly stackable price discounts as well.

I could add on more refinements, but this is the base idea.

I don't think giving gifts is that OP (just look at the Angler), it'll just make your coffers bigger. I don't want to encourage killing NPCs either. :( (Killing them to receive more gifts from them??? Such game logic. :S )
Click to expand...

Again, I'm fairly new to this game as a whole, and I haven't seen anything like what I described other than the angler quests. Think of this a somewhat of a rework of the tax collector, just more intricate, also a gift is typically free, rather than just unlocking new items to buy, which is useful, I'd just love an intricate gift mechanic.

Regardless, I really like your idea, and it's like I said in the post before, a great idea is all about community input.

Thank you for replying with your take on this idea, greatly appreciated.

- Monkey
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Snork1213 said:
I would suggest making the time period between gifts long, and also random so that you have gifts coming in periodically. (Every 8-12 in game days?).

The actual gifts could be received like fishing quests, with a special dialogue option when the gift is ready.
Click to expand...

Thank you for replying, again community opinion is great. And not a bad idea.
 
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