Treasure Hunters, Assemble!

[AMGLime]

Alright folks, I want to make a system for my game based around hunting Treasure Chests down. if you've played Final Fantasy IX, the items you found in Choco Hot and Cold, the items Zidane stole, and the Treasure Chests you found added up a hidden score and talking to a late game NPC he told you how much of a treasure hunter you are and once you passed a certain point you got a Rare Item that didn't do anything but tell you that you're an awesome treasure hunter. The way my game works is there's multiple types of Chests, simple Wooden Chests, Blue Chests, Red Chests and Metal Chests. What is inside of them, tends to be obvious by looking at the chests. Wooden gives you normal items and currency. Blue Chests are what gives you equipment, Red Chests contain a Monster that guard good equipment and Metal Chests are unique to Side Dungeons and require a Key found in said dungeon to unlock, but give REALLY good equipment. So every wooden Chest increases the Treasure Hunter total by 1, Blue is by 2, Red is 3 and Metal is 5. 


Now where I'm torn and what I want to discuss, is the rewards to this. Do I make it a one off item after you get a certain amount of points like FFIX did? Or do I make a whole ranking system, that rewards you each time you rank up. The total score itself will be hidden, but you can have a rough idea of how far along you are through the ranks. Secondly, would people find this interesting, or actually bother checking in with an NPC for potential rewards. What are the pros and cons of this system.

 

[Wavelength]

In a vacuum (without any further info about your game), I would recommend taking the NPC (mostly) out of the picture and having the Rank Ups and Rewards happen immediately once you pass the (visible or hidden) points threshold.  This will create the most immediate connection between "I found a hidden treasure" and "I was rewarded for finding lots of hidden treasure"; it will also save your player the trouble of having to constantly return to a certain NPC for what might or might not be a new reward.  You can still introduce this mechanic with an NPC (or guild or otherwise) but I'd try to make it a mandatory plot point or at least an extremely obvious place to go, so that players don't miss this important and fun mechanic entirely.


And in case I wasn't crystal clear about "rewards for each rank up" versus "one reward for a very high level of points" - rewards for each rank up is the better way to go.  You could also have one or two unique and very special rewards at certain levels, but there's no drawback to having smaller, more common rewards along the way as positive feedback for your player.

 

[AMGLime]

I thought about not having an NPC when I first thought of the idea, but the idea of getting for example a Belt of Super Human Strength or something, pop out of thin air into my inventory bothers me. The game itself, you spend a lot of time at a Tavern in one city, there are other smaller towns and the like, but you're always returning to this Tavern in this town. The Playable Characters are all part of a Mercenary Company, and their base of operations is this Tavern. So the NPC I've mentioned is a retired Treasure Hunter who drinks his riches away at the Tavern. I figured that wouldn't be so bad, because you return to this place constantly, handing in a Contract which is the name for this games Side Quests? Off to the Tavern you go. Story development and the group is having a meeting? Off to the Tavern you go, got beat up outside the city, to the Tavern you go, cause you use that instead of an Inn when you're in your home turf.


That said, I do agree with you on multiple rewards over just one. More... shall we say, rewarding lol.

 

[Basileus]

I also think that getting rewards out of nowhere is strange and takes me out of the game. If the reward is something intangible (like a skill or bonus EXP) then it would be fine, but popping items into the player's inventory is weird. 


I would go with the NPC - I've done a lot of quests where you have to check in with NPCs to increment stages of the quest and they have worked and felt just fine. Have the NPC force-stop the player when they first get to the town where the NPC is (make sure it is somewhere early in the story that the player has to go to) and trigger a conversation that explains the Treasure Hunter quest. Then have the NPC say where he'll be and let him wander off so the player can continue. If the player wants to do the quest, they will do what the NPC says and find him, if not then they will continue on and ignore him. LOTS of RPGs do minigames and long-term sidequests this way.


Multiple rewards can be cool, but don't make too many ranks or else it can be tedious. If there are, say, 100 chests in your game then I would go with 4 ranks at 25 chest intervals. It'll take the player a couple dungeons + the chests on the road and in towns to hit each rank, but that level or work means you can hand out something cool and unique for their effort. For the love of God, don't make the rewards potions or consumables. Those kinds of rewards always feel terrible since they are either common and useless or borderline unique God-tier consumables that the player is afraid to ever use. Equipment can be good, but unless you give out character's ultimate weapons this way (and you shouldn't, except maybe for the very last rank) then it would feel bad for the cool reward item to be useless not long after you get it. Accessories, however, can be awesome since gear that grants special non-stat bonuses like immunity to status effects or certain elements are very cool and can stay useful all game long - there is never a time in Final Fantasy that getting a Ribbon (nulls all status effects) as a reward ever feels bad. If you plot out the numbers and accessibility of chests, then it is also possible to makes the reward gear that greatly helps against the upcoming dungeon/boss if they get every chest up to that point. Making sure that there are enough chests accessible to reach Rank 1 before, say, the third dungeon means that you can make the boss weak to magic but cast Silence a lot to cripple your mages, then give the player an accessory that nulls Silence as a reward for diligently getting every single chest up to that point. The accessory will still be useful for mages later on, but getting it right before a major boss fight where it is super useful is a great way to reward the player for getting all of the hidden chests up to that point. Getting it sometime after said dungeon might feel a bit like a slap in the face, but it's also a signal that they may have missed some treasure, especially if you do this pattern for every rank so it becomes obvious what your design intent was.


That said, I've always been partial to skill rewards so either directly teaching a certain character a skill or giving the player an item that can teach certain characters or any character a skill can be a fun reward. How useful they are in combat is up to you. Give the player a skill that helps with finding hidden chests at Rank 1 then more useful stuff at later ranks, or utility skills like party-wide buffs that are nice but not essential if the player doesn't get them. Or go the "Magikarp Route" and give out interesting but seemingly worthless stuff that becomes God-like at the final rank - like a weapon that is very weak but has a handy on-hit effect or skill attached to it that gets more powerful at each rank (though always weaker than whatever the party should have to make using it for its effect a tough choice) until the final rank where it becomes the character's ultimate weapon.


As you can see, I'm more of a long-term planner and I care more about a good reward for total completion, but as long as the player feels that doing the quest at all is worth it then you should be good.