Suggestions

Edit: Changed the title as the suggestion is now much broader than just ways to find more tools. I am now using this suggestion as a sort of a compilation of different suggestions that have been made to lessen AAA frustration. If you have posted an additional idea in the thread, and I didn't include it in the OP, feel free to ping me. I'm quite scatterbrained. ------------------------------- This suggestion is [b]not [/b]about speeding up the process. Rarity, hard work, some RNG. That's all fine. Heck, it's even important in a game to make sure some items remain valuable. This suggestion is about the frustration resulting from the precious (and random!) few resources we get on a daily basis going to waste by being [i]randomly![/i] allocated to plots you don't even want to work on. I see comparisons to RNG elements in other parts of the site, and I want to make a proper comparison, to hopefully show where the frustration is coming from. The coliseum makes me encounter random enemies within a single venue, and those enemies drop RNG-based items. With the coliseum however, I have influence on in which venue I fight, and I decide for myself how many battles I fight. Baldwin gives random colours of a transmutation when reducing items. With Baldwin however, I have influence on what type of transmutation I get by throwing in a specific item. Plus, as long as my hoard lasts, I can try continuously. Gathering has limited turns and also rewards RNG-based items. With gathering, however I have influence on [i]both[/i] the region and the type of gathering I use my turns on. Imagine if the coliseum gave you 10 battles a day (Or even worse; you get a random amount of battles varying between 1 and 10, and there's nothing you can do to ear yourself more battles other then waiting for rollover). But not only are the drops from the enemies you defeat RNG-based, the enemies you encounter are randomly picked from any venue currently available. Or if your gathering turns were randomly spend in any of the 11 regions and any of the 6 professions. And how many gathering turns you get is random too. Or if Baldwin could result in goo, muck, slime regardless of the item you threw into it. You only get 5 tries a day. And if you wanted to brew a recipe, it just picked a random one from those you have unlocked. That is what Arlo is doing. My attempts are limited and random, and my efforts for my attempts are random as well. Plus in some cases the results are random. That´s too much stacked randomness to be fun. It feels like my futile and precious few attempts are going to complete waste without my control. -------------------------------- Alright, summarized the flaws with Arlo: [b]Stacked randomness[/b] - The amount of tools you get each day, is random. And if you're as unlucky as me, you end up with a single pickaxe. - The plots/tiles where your tools are used, are random (for pickaxes and notes, which make up the vast majority of tiles that are being worked on). If I want to work on a specific items, I can only use my magnifying glass for that, but I guarantee that 80% of the uncovered tiles are on plot I don't want to focus on. Even worse if is there's items in there I genuinely don't want. There is no way for me to stop my resources on being wasted on those plots. This is made even more frustrating by the fact that there's only limited amount of tools available, which, as I said before, is also completely random. - Finally, although this is the least worrying in my personal opinion. Some of the tiles reward the apparel bundles, which contain, you guessed it, random pieces of apparel! [b]Limited availability[/b] All this randomness combined with the limited availability of tools to begin with, makes Arlo one of the most frustrating features on this site. Randomness in and off itself isn't necessarily bad. Look at the results of Baldwin reductions, or drops in the coliseum. The main difference there is that I have a technically unlimited amount of supply of stuff to throw into Baldwin's, to make sure I eventually end up with the transmutation I need. Similarly for the coliseum, I have an unlimited amount of tries to get the drop I want. With Arlo, I have to make do with the sad amount of tools I can gather only once a day. The solutions: In general the solutions come down to a 'remove randomness from several parts of AAA. The main issue with Arlo seems to be the stacked randomnes on top of limited availability. The limited availability was discussed in the previous part, so here follow a couple ideas on which stacked RNG could be removed to help make Arlo a lot less frustrating. Below are several ways in which this can be done. [b]Obtaining more tools via site activities[/b] I think one of the main ways to reduce this frustration would be to allow us to obtain more tools through gameplay. I can imagine rarely finding pickaxes or magnefying glasses while [i]scavenging[/i], being able to brew them at [i]Baldwin's[/i], and being able to swap our plethora of paper-related items at [i]Swipp's[/i] for research notes. Heck, we could use the new feature where daily activities, such as bonding with familiar or hatching nests rarely drops an item to get more tools too. A specific suggestion made by Askurasaki on how this can be achieved is as follows: [quote]Dustcarve Dig also had us gather tools for the event (blasting powder, lantern oil, Study Beams) that were held in the Hoard. If you're like me, you have left over materials from the event. These materials are currently completely useless. As far as I know, you can't sell them in any shape, or reduce them down into new materials in Baldwin's. Best you can do is shove them into your vault and forget about them. My thought is, since they're already coded into the game, why not make it so they can be occasionally found while scavenging or digging, and then, similar to Hibernal Den, have turn-in tasks through Arlo where you can trade him your Blasting Powder, Lantern Oil, and Sturdy Beams for more tools per day? I feel like this should be limited in itself to prevent "speed-running", but lets say you could trade some of each item for extra Musters per day. For example, if you get 10 kegs of blasting powder, you get one extra Muster for the day, and can no longer turn in blasting powder until after roll over. Or take it a step further and make it so that Kegs of Blasting powder give more Rugged Works, Lantern Oil more Precise Works, and Sturdy Beams offer more Research Notes, that way people have more agency over the actions they could take? [/quote] A similar suggestion was also made by JavaMP in its own thread floating around the forum somewhere. [b]Allow us to pick which specific plots are being worked on[/b] Another additional change that could help reduce frustration, is being able to either lock certain plots out of being available for allocation of research notes and pickaxes, or completely removing the randomness there and allowing you to pick where you allocate them. [b]Allow us to manually reset a plot instead of automatically doing so[/b] For this specific suggestion there is also a separate thread floating around in the forum. Basically the idea is that when a plot is finished, we get to manually choose whether we want to reset it, or leave it uncovered completely. The goal of this is to not waste any precious resources on something we already have and don't want any more off. As a counterargument, it is often said that this would 'flood the market' with desirable items and lower the value. However, I much rather have availability of actual desired items at an affordable price, than my hoard/vault and the AH being swamped with items that I and others don't want. Which would properly tank the price. [b]Remove the random amount of mustered tools[/b] Some folks in the thread have suggested giving everyone a set amount of tools to work with daily, might also help alleviate a bunch of the frustration. For example, everyone always gets 5 pickaxes, 5 magnifying glasses and 5 research notes, period. Additionally it has been suggested that as your level increases the fixed amount of tools you can muster on a daily basis should also increase. [b]Increase the minimum amount of mustered tools[/b] Another idea that has been brought up was removing the chance to get just 1, 2, 3 tools. This would mean there would still be some randomness (a chance to get between 4 and.. 9, I don't what the maximum is rn), but avoid extreme unluckiness (and the frustration that comes with it) [b]Apparel bundles award ALL pieces[/b] This part is a little bit more specific and in and off itself nowhere near enough to alleviate all the frustations with Arlo. But having an extremely limited and random amount of resources that are allocated completely randomly as well, only resulting in an item that rewards random items, is a tad too much. If you've managed to uncover an apparel bundle, it'd be a lot better if it awards all pieces. (Or just make separate tiny plots of each separate piece, but considering the amount of apparel released, I realise that's a huge stretch, and will only make matters worse if the previous mentioned solutions aren't implemented) (I took the liberty of incorporating this piece of the suggestion based on a separately posted suggestion by [url=https://www1.flightrising.com/forums/sug/3102422]Recallback [/url]) With new insights, I'd also like to add that, if anything, the bundle should not be able to drop a duplicate within the same chest. Apparently that's possible, and it makes the randomness of these incomplete sets even worse. Ideally ofcourse, the chest would drop the entire set. [b]Exchange Rugged for Precise work and vice versa[/b] [quote name="Paraphrasing Melova"] Chiming in with another idea. What if you could trade 5 precise work for 1 rugged work or vice versa. That way you sacrifice some amount of randomness, but gain the ability to focus on the plot you actually want. The only drawback would be the time. 1 rugged clears 5 tiles in 15 minutes, while the converted 5 precise clears 5 tiles in 50 minutes. If you could exchange resources between rugged or precise the player would have to put more time in to the uncovering process. As in, do you want random tiles and quick work, but no guarantees. Or do you want precise work that takes longer, but guarantees you the result you want. Currently I really dislike how non-personal it feels. [/quote] [b]Smaller digsites[/b] Right now there are 16 plots in this single digsite. Especially as Arlo becomes older, that's a lot of potential plots you have no interest in, where you resources could go to waste (because of RNG deciding which tiles to uncover). Perhaps if the digsite was cut up into several smaller digsites, we'd have a bit more influence in where our efforts go. [b]Better rewards for sharing notes with the Guild[/b] Turning in 8 research notes in exchange for 1 measly rugged work, or even worse, 1 precise work feels incredibly unfair. Not only with regards to the amount of potential tiles that can be uncovered in this way, but also the amount of exp you gain. This heavily disadvantages those who prefer to play solo. Turning in research notes should give a better reward. If more ideas are brought up in the thread, I'll try to add em in.

[quote name="Kahvinporo" date="2022-02-08 02:32:31" ] I do think Arlo tools should be somewhat limited, so we can't just speedrun Arlo in two days. But I do think it would be nice to be able to get more tools to use by doing something. Perhaps through gameplay, or donating other items for the Guild in exchange for more tools. A little like hibden tasks but lower rarity things? So no scrolls, eggs or other rare gathering items. I think that if we got items at the same rate we get festival currency / event chests would be a little too high. [/quote] Agreed, the droprate for fest currency definitely would be too high if also used for the tools. And the goal also isn't to make Arlo speedrunnable, cause there are good things to say for a slower process and having to work towards it. That does give a certain sense of satisfaction. But at least something that we can put time and effort towards it to work more with Arlo. Cause rn I'm effectively locked out of doing anything with Arlo after about an hour and a half.