H0i guys!
You may remember my very old thread from years ago, called something along the lines of PW can learn from GT.
Before making assumptions, please understand that I’m not trying to “turn this game into Growtopia”, or adding their events and items from there, or stealing concepts. I’m simply talking about game improvement as a whole, that every game needs.
This is a long thread, so if you aren’t a reader, just read it in parts once a day or something. This is open for discussion.
Also I will be editing it over time, as I accidentally posted it before giving it a proofread.
During PW’s beta stages, they seemed to have a more uncreative, unadventurous way of implementing items.
Their approach was not nearly as daring in comparison to our friend GT.
Things were always… Direct. Instead of wacky items, we have something people have already thought of before, like, a grey shortsword, or a strawberry block, or a hoodie, or a hair bun… Descriptions were also completely bland and thoughtless, a little too realistic in game all about super futuristic world travel with robots?
So, I made that thread back then, touching on the subject about how the game lacked creativity. I don’t know if I made a difference, but after that time, I’ve been seeing more unique things, like egg bazookas, animal sets, cool weapons like sabers, hellhound blade, epic PWR sets, and the amazing superhero update, so maybe they finally decided to be a bit more adventurous. But I think they’re not trying enough. Our PW forums are literally spoon-feeding them nonstop with how they can improve, with amazing ideas, but that moment doesn’t come.
Anyway, after a discussion I had on discord I thought I’d make a forums post, even though this most likely won’t get any traction.
In today’s era of PW, the devs aren’t truly thinking outside of the box like they do in other games. Yes, they have improved, but I think they’re still beating around the bush because nobody is vocal about it.
Do you ever notice how most of the ways you obtain items are by boosters, or spending gems in some way?
- Blueprints cost gems, which require shards, which cost gems.
- Superhero particles, require bytes, which can be exchanged for gems.
- Weather backgrounds, everything there also required gems.
We have the means to get those gems. Fishing, nether, farming and mining. But for many of us, that’s just not rewarding for us. There’s no surprise aspect to it aside from deep nether, which cuts off the gem acquisition completely.
When they add a new update, they usually abandon the thing they were previously working on, and go on the next update, instead of implementing new things to all the older features, new ways to obtain items, new ways to be surprised, new odd, different ways for it to be an intuitive, unique experience. They quite literally specified they aren’t doing anything to farming ever again.
These are simply examples, and aren’t suggestions to be taken literally but moreso the means of obtaining it and general idea to spark discussion -
-What if they added this aspect to farming? They added a rare whale pet from fishbowls, so why not build on that?
-Why not make it so many farmables have a chance to drop items, like a Spikebomb dropping a rare Spike Flail, or candy cane block dropping a candy cane pet, or BBB dropping an uncut diamond which can be used to make a unique set in an altar?
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Maybe an NPC that tallies how many blocks of a certain type you’ve broken and will reward you for that? So that people have more options to choose between farming, mining, fishing, something that will make players do them all without thinking one is better than the other all the time.
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How about nether flyers dropping nether goo and magma sludge to make a flaming halo, or lava wings?
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Abyss walkers dropping armor fragments that can be used to make an abyss walker set of your own?
-A weekly questline that allows you to catch a certain amount of fish in a deadline and get a unique item? Something similar to a tournament but not competitive. -
A fishing potion that increases strike chance, but requires nether souls or topaz to make?
It’d entice players to do these things for reasons other than “it gets me gems.”
Think about the winter update…
It’s literally just a booster that has one or two changing items a year with a few new blocks? In what world should we let them fool is into thinking it takes months to develop this?
Wow, there are falling snowflakes that give you a chance to get an item from that booster!
Oh wait. That’s literally what the Valentine’s one does.
- Why not let snowflakes be more common, and during this time players can get unique items from them, or maybe even a randomly spawning mob or event? But it’s always the same, booster. Use gems to buy this during this time. Gem discount. Or just buy it with world locks and make the gacha excitement of boosters completely obsolete because wasting gems in boosters is a waste anyway.
If you think about these individuals updates, it’s mostly consisting of, “there’s a feature. Use this gems or money to get this and burnout once you have it.”
For example, pet update. They add dogs, cats and slimes.
Feed them. They give coins. Use the coins to get some beautiful unique items. But there’s no surprise to it. We know everything in the update. Nobody gets to work together to find out the small niches and easter eggs that make an update because it’s all said in the video by Jake, with an untold bugfix or two. Nobody will find a rare drop to add to their guide world. Nobody gets to find any new recipes in their recipe book. No unique drops other than a graffiti. There’s no variety in how to get those things, just those things. There should always be more things that you can use other features for to improve older ones.
Perhaps a special Beast Orb that you get from fishing, that can instantly increase a pets obedience by 20, or maybe a rare chance for your dog to bring back special items or gear. Or how about an event that occurs in a world that spawns an item that gives you a free day’s worth of freeze for the pet.
Maybe even throw in the chance for your dog to have found a unique item from a specific planet you can choose if they’re at that level.
All features could drastically improve the game if they’re always build upon by using one feature to enhance the other.
Now, I’ll make an example from Growtopia. For their winter update, they not only added items in the store but a giant monster in a world that is grumpy. Presents randomly spawn in the worlds, and players have the option to open them and get a random item, or they can collectively give him presents and his joy will increase as more players give, unlocking new tiers of item recipes that can only be made during the event. Not just the typical questline. New items in the store, multiple exclusive items dropping from blocks, and random events.
Or how about the harvest festival?
Breaking trees drops mooncalves that are used to craft special items. The higher the “rarity” of the tree give a higher chance to get rarer mooncakes, and you can use those to craft special items.
Some items which would include new weather backgrounds, clothes, pets, and most importantly, using these items to craft different variants of other older items, or new items completely, thus giving players the decision go back to old methods of getting said items, essentially turning the useless into the useful.
Even when their team was small, they added dynamic updates that always surprised us. For example, pet battles, or expanding on PVP, or using “crossbreedable” cards to battle enemies that spawn in worlds, and then during events like St.Patricks or winter, unique sets from exclusive enemies that you can fight during those events with those cards. The issue was that with all this content comes confusion. The easy fix is a proper official guide, and a way to truly show everything you can do, which neither games do well.
That’s a small amount of obtainment methods these update have. They don’t just do one thing. They use all the other features and build it around the update. They improve upon old features, which is what every game should do.
So what’s an example of unique obtainment that we currently have in PW?
- During halloween, your pet has a chance to find a zombie arm that can be used to make a green retextured torch.
- When you fish, you have a chance to get a bone that can be used to make a sign that groans.
- The anniversary event. What do we have? A cake that drops from a block. Break that block and you might get another block.
- Cinco de mayo event? Literally the same thing but a hat instead of a block, but hey, at least the hat changes every year!
Our last Easter update. Added a Yellow PWR armor that was already designed 2 years before and added it in an update with barely any content to make it appear as if it has more content. The Easter booster had no new additions but the robochick set that won’t return, a bunny head on a stick, a resprite of a mask, and this update was a month wait.
Easter update in general? Finally a good little event. The egg spawns in worlds and has a rare chance to drop a unique item.
But why stop there? How about something like collecting different colored egg shards from them that can also be used in the altar?
Another way to get items that return every year and not just another way to implement a “booster”.
We do however have more methods of obtaining such as the dark stones from mining, but it’s solely obtained by nonstop hours of grinding. You know what you’re in for, tedious grinding, and the gems you got along the way.
- How about making use of the blocks in the worlds by adding a chance for that block to drop in mines, or maybe even nether mobs dropping the unique blocks from the nether, so builders can make their worlds? Jake hinted at that but where is it? Why hasn’t it been done yet?
There are many ways we can help open their eyes to having each unique feature they have become more unique just by making them hand in hand together, using most of the resources we have and expanding upon them. I just hope in the future they could try being more communicative with the community and open to our ideas and methods of obtaining things, other than just adding things to boosters.
