Suggestions

Okay, idea:

Gathering now has options to fine-tune to regions within each flight's respective territories. You choose one item to focus on gathering, which gives you a higher chance to get the item but sacrifices x amount of lower tier or same tier resources to obtain. You get less resources but your yield is getting you more of what you wanted. This also means that you should be guaranteed at least 1 item of each rarity tier, and the rest of the items you get are randomized. For those that play Monster Hunter, think quests but you can sacrifice some of those rewards to get a higher tier (or perhaps lower tier) reward.

This also means the overall pool will be lower and, if new regions are added, we can lower the pool. That aside, item focus should be able to avoid that being necessary (ideally).

Simplified Example:
Everyone is guaranteed one rare-super rare item and two uncommon items. The remaining items you get are randomized. You can choose one item to focus gathering. You're sacrificing the rare-super rare reward to gain this specific item. The chances are heavily increased (varies with desired item rarity). If you sacrifice the uncommon item/s, you get a small increase. Sacrificing all three could get you a drastic increase in specific item yield. Basically, sacrifice what you are guaranteed for what you actually want. That is a big idea behind what I am thinking.

This also means that gathering level could be tied to other things such as how many guaranteed items you can get (perhaps low levels can only have one guaranteed uncommon item, level 10 is two, level 20 is three and a rare, and level 40 is three and a rare-super rare item). You can go a few different directions with this depending on the end overhaul's execution.

I recognize there are flaws in this idea but I think it's a decent start at the bare minimum to the issue we have with gathering. There are probably much better ways to do it.

Edit: Make assumptions the example is at max level.

[quote name="Corn" date="2021-03-22 11:39:39" ] Honestly, I wasn't expecting this much discussion on such a bland idea, haha. I don't see specifying items being something staff would implement, but specific rarities, maybe! Guaranteeing a rare item each turn would be wild too haha, I think they roll for which rarity tables they draw from? I'm not actually the Most familiar with how it works. [/quote] Considering it would only be one item, I don't see why not. The items wouldn't really be guaranteed unless, perhaps, you are sacrificing ALL of your guaranteed items for some common item or whatever (which I could only see happening for a common Hibden item). Otherwise the chance increase wouldn't be overkill (we wouldn't want to make rare items really common, for instance). Certain items could be exempt from the table of guaranteed items as seen fit, too. If you mean the current system, I don't think you're guaranteed anything. It's pulling from the available pool at whatever % drop chance the items have. The quantity also seems completely random but I can't confirm that since I haven't paid THAT much attention to it. However, I think that guaranteeing x amount of items per gather turn is a way to start off the bare minimum of an overhaul. We need less RNG on the system while keeping the core aspects.

I think the best way is to take the item rating into account.

Like, each star is worth 1 point. 5 star item, 5 points. Rainbow=6 points. When you start at level one, you can only get, say, between 1-6 points worth of items. So you could pull 6 1-star items, or 1 rainbow star item.

As you move up the levels, you get more points per gathering turn. Say you're guaranteed at least 20 points at the highest or something. So you're still pulling from a larger pool, but you also have more *opportunity* to pull items from that pool.

If a level 1 person is trying for a specific 2 star item, well, they've got 3 chances per turn. If a level 40 person is trying for that same item, while they're pulling from a larger pool, they have ten chances per turn of getting it.

Nothing too fiddly, or requiring users to chance things up. But still actually rewarding players for leveling up by actually making their dragons better at gathering.

I agree that some type of gathering revamp is in order to ensure items are more accessible as it’s silly with my level 40 scavenging that I get 1-3 times some turns

I like this idea.
I personally dont think getting low level items less often was an intentional design,

I remember a long time ago some users were trying to collect certain items
Weirdly-Written Textscroll a level 1 item like these.
and they weren't able to collect them, themselves because of their high gathering level, making it so rare it was basically impossible for them. they had a thread where they were trying to find new users who could collect them.

[quote name="Trix" date="2021-03-22 13:01:03" ] I think the best way is to take the item rating into account. Like, each star is worth 1 point. 5 star item, 5 points. Rainbow=6 points. When you start at level one, you can only get, say, between 1-6 points worth of items. So you could pull 6 1-star items, or 1 rainbow star item. As you move up the levels, you get more points per gathering turn. Say you're guaranteed at least 20 points at the highest or something. So you're still pulling from a larger pool, but you also have more *opportunity* to pull items from that pool. If a level 1 person is trying for a specific 2 star item, well, they've got 3 chances per turn. If a level 40 person is trying for that same item, while they're pulling from a larger pool, they have ten chances per turn of getting it. Nothing too fiddly, or requiring users to chance things up. But still actually rewarding players for leveling up by actually making their dragons better at gathering. [/quote] I think this is interesting and has possibilities. I do think that gathering desparately needs an overhaul, but I am afraid that an overhaul might make higher tier items way more common than they need to be (bringing down those items prices) Something like this would still allow players to get more items at higher levels, while still hopefully keeping higher tier items relatively rare.

As always when gathering updates are suggested my preference is to increase the minimum number of pulls and minimum number of items in a stack of stackable items you can get as you level up. This would mean as you level you get more chances overall which will help to counter the larger pool size. It would also eliminate the possibility of a single item when you're fully maxed

Another possibility, which would be useful when searching for a particular item, is after a certain level add the option to focus on a certain item which would increase the likelihood of that item being chosen, if it's star rating is pulled and you are gathering in the appropriate region and you have the appropriate level. (so if I am looking for an unhatched fire egg, if I am scavenging in fire and I pull a five star item, there would be a higher chance at a fire egg compared to the other level appropriate items. If I didn't pull a 5 star item RNG would proceed as normal)

Honestly I'm not sure if being able to gather in a lower tier would do much as it's not a steady decrease as you level up, because only items of the same star rating compete against one another (so a 1 star item being added will only affect your chances at getting a specific 1 star item). The only level that a new item is added in the platinum star for digging (for gilded chests) is level 7 (which means from level 7 onward you have a 1:3 chance of getting a gilded chest instead of a 1:2 chance). For eggs, the only time new items are added to their star category are level 17, level 20 and level 31.