As per a suggestion by me (Dev approved :-) ), this thread's created for any missions/stories suggestions/improvement ideas you would like to be put in the game as side quests.... So, tell away!!!
An open world, base-building, adventure survival game with quirky humor and Llamas! · By
First one's from me!!!
So, I've the trade system right now is unique but basic (you put thing up for sale/buy & people come & trade).
But what if a once in a while a trader would come to the based & say something like "I got robbed on my way here, be a lamb and destroy those raiders & I'll reward you!"???
Or traders could sometimes (for a price!) tell the player where to find a particular weapon/upgrade/resource cache (assuming those will be put in the game)?
I think both of these kinds of quests can compel the players to do more exploring/fighting thus adding to total game play hours.
Yeah this seems pretty cool, also could nerf the trading system a bit by slowing down traders while the raiders are still patroling the area - and a trader coming in to tell where a location is (like Anchor Rage) for a price might be a really good idea if the player hasn't found a place yet after a long while. Pretty nice
A quest about planting seeds - hear me out.
It could be activated by the game checking if crops are planted at the "orphange", your base, and maybe Steven's Ranch (if you are able to access the crop place in the future); along with you selling an amount of seeds and/or vegatables at your base (the specifics can be made less or more specific to make it more or less likely, but I feel like you should plant crops at other locations other than your base(s) and sold an amount of seeds)
After a random amount of days (like 5-7 but could probably be sped up by selling more seeds and vegatables) a special trader could come to a seed or vegatable stand and be able to be engaged in conversation which could go something a little like this -
Special Trader/ST -"Yo man! I heard you be selling seeds and planting crops all round here - I'm not having to worry bout food as much cause all the stops have it"
You - "Okay?"
ST - " I just had to come and thank you dawg, bout died three times from people bein' too stingy with their veggies, glad someone is makin' it to were they don't have no excuses for letting this dude starve"
You - "Okay?"
ST - "Yeah man its been nice now"
You - "And?"
ST - "OH, bout forgot! Just wanted to let you know I've been able to set up a [trade/rest stop/bar/carvan] place [east/south east/ south] of here that you can [trade at/refill your strength at/learn how to brew and cook at/find deals at] and chill for awhile."
A place could then show up/be found on the map that "ST" is over, could be a bar that you learn to brew a drink at or learn a recipe (if it is added), be able to find temporary deals at (like traders or traveling shop owners), or be able to completely refill your food and water at. I just think this would be a nice addition to 1. Be funny (cause some rando be like "thanks for all that food over the place, now I can have a shop without worrying bout starvation and that jazz", 2. Reward you for your generosity of planting crops at peoples places, 3. Potentially being really useful for adventures, traveling, and/or building and 4. Being in the grim comedy circle like the rest of the game (guy about starved to death three times, but is also telling that to a random stranger that planted crops)
A problem with this might be that the setup is too vague (planting crops at others peoples base), I actually done this in my first playthrough of the game (cause I'm weird) but a few hints might make up for it (like the caretaker at the orphanage saying "man I really need crops, luckily the indestructable child don't need them.") (also the dialouge of ST being a bit long)
I think it would be nice and fun (and something cool you could sorta stumble on without a clear mission marker saying to "plant crops at so and so and also sell seeds")
A random encounter with an old run-down shack will shelter a frail old man, barely able to stand. He goes on about his dog (Once dogs are implemented because he just needs animations) who wandered off. He is clearly off his rocker, literally and figuratively, but begs you to find him. Not having offered a reward yet, you can refuse or accept. If you find the dog (Will spawn randomly and literally anywhere) and return, he will give some endgame materials or gear OR you could keep the dog and leave the old man lonely for the rest of his days.
Note: This quest can be extremely easy or downright impossible because the shack and dog can spawn anywhere.
Suggestions?
I think it would have to be a "special" dog, like a dalmation or chihuahua (is that how you spell it?) because if you where wanting to have it be a certain dog - and not a dog a person can "build" - it would have to be something different so the player can easily see that it's what they are looking for; however, if you would change it to were you can "build" a dog and bring it back to the Old Coot - I wouldn't suggest endgame gear or I would suggest more challange, which I'll explain:
If it is finding a specific dog, I wouldn't do a completely random spawning, I would make it to were it could spawn in towns/revisitable locations (like the ranch) because speedrunners might want to have something other than "click the explore button 30 times" - Now if you make finding the specific dog a set location (like one of the shacks in Anchor Rage) I would suggest having a little girl have it/found it and you have to take it back - either diplomatically (like a trade of microchips so she can make a robo-fido) or by stealing it while she is gone (which would mean stealh may need to be implemented).
If it could be "building" a dog and giving it to the Old Coot, I would suggest a mini-boss fight (cause he is off his rocker) or another side quest for it (like getting microchips for him because he needs to make it a cyborg or something). A mini-boss fight would be cool, like skelly-dogs coming out of the dirt around the house (which could be explained with the Old Coot saying "looks like the other ones are jealous") or a mini-boss fight with the Old Coot, but I don't how you would explain it other than "oh he's CrAzY who would of known?!". Now having another sidequest like getting microchips for him, by getting more dogs (which may be a bit too remincient of the cat lady quest), or by defeating roaches/a raid at his home because "my dog don't feel safe with so many bugs around".
Now a raid at his house whenever you give him a dog would be a good idea, with all the enemies/roaches/sand crawler/other bugs targetting the dog you gave him (this could be for either finding the dog or building the dog for him, but if it is building the dog you can try again). Obviously you would have to do quite a bit of monsters to justify end-game gear for a dog, and you would have to do good walls/defences/build that isn't suspious to the player before the raid happens so it is fun to do the raid by dodging and ducking between walls and stuff. You could also have it to were only the player deals with it (no help from any partners) by making the Old Coot say "I'm not gonna give you that reward sonny boy - if your posse are around to see it." Handling a major raid by yourself could be a really cool thing, especially if the stake is a dog (and your reward of course)
Both your ideas are good, but why not have both? So you could either build a dog and try to deceive him, or just find the dog. In the case of you building the dog (when I say building an animal I mean something along the lines of creating llamas and farm animals) you would have to do something like roll for deception or add a new feature to the SPECIAL system, and if you fail the Old Coot provides a surprisingly tough fight. Or you could just find the dog with ways such as yours, but not trading microchips if there is no endgame gear and resources to make up for it. However, I still think there should be a quest based completely (or at least mostly) on luck.
Okay, I like the idea of trying to decive him or either find the actual dog, and for a quest that is completely random could work, but if we are thinking of speedrunners, it would most likely be a turn off from the game. Now if there was a point of the game (like the second to last main quest) where you still haven't found what you were looking for - it would automatically be there, so you wouldn't still be searching for it for ages at the end of the game.