Happy New Year everyone!
In this preview post I want to share more details about the upcoming Treasure Hunt activity.
My plan is to add more side activities to the game and this should hopefully make up for a good start.
Treasure Hunt should reward exploration and awareness. You have to carefully look out for buried stashes across the overworld. So if you've already had a hard time spotting medicinal herbs, this might not be for you ;) On the other hand Treasure Hunt is completely optional and not required to beat the game. However, there might be some interesting rewards waiting for the perceptive explorer!
Let's take a closer look!
Meet the Cartographer
If you want to become a successful Treasure Hunter you need to meet one of the new Cartographer NPCs. They can be found in all settlements and provide you with everything you need to get started... Which is a decent Shovel in the first place!
Start Digging
Once you bought your shovel you can set out to find buried stashes, which can be digged up and have a good chance (>50%) to contain Map Fragments. You need at least 3 of those fragments and hand them over to the cartographer who will be able to assemble a Treasure Map for you.
The more fragments you use, the higher the chance to get a high quality map, which also leads to a better reward at the end.
An X marks the Spot
With the assembled Treasure Map in your inventory you can always bring it up to get clues on where the treasure can be found. The map contains the related world map coordinate and a drawing of a formation in the environment. The rough position where you have to dig with your shovel is also marked with an X. Your task is to find this formation in the area!
The formations are all created by hand, so you won't end up looking for a random formation in a randomly generated level. This proved to be very hard to track ;)
So instead the system picks one of several unique formations for the related biome. Some will be slightly harder to find then others, but all in all it should never become unfair or tedious.
New Rewards await the lucky Treasure Hunter
The biggest challenge for me when developing this new activity was to find an incentive for all players to grab their shovel and start collecting map fragments :)
So I came up with a new type of item that you can only find in buried treasure chests: Talismans.
They can be equipped to a new talisman slot and will provide unique bonusses for talents and can also affect the quality of loot you can find.
The image shows a level 4, uncommon quality Talisman, which can be considered an early game item. With increased levels (based on the location it is found) and higher quality (luck or affected by the new quality bonus) you can find Talismans that can heavily improve your preferred build.
With the next update you'll also receive experience points for successful treasure hunts and for discovering new locations.
When?
It will be available within the next 2 weeks. All features are ready and I'm only testing and tweaking a few stats right now. Also I probably want to add the changes to health recovery as well in this next update. Any way, it won't take too long :)
If you enjoyed your time with Of Blades & Tails during the holidays, you may want to consider writing a short review on Steam. It helps a lot to increase the game's visibility.
I'm wishing you all a wonderful and healthy new year!
Cheers
Felix