Introduction
It's been almost 15 years since WAKFU came out with version 1.0, not to mention several years of development before that. The project has evolved so much, just like its community. To us, Update 1.92 and Haven Paddocks represent a first step in going back to the early promises of the project.
This first step is a real challenge: The road is filled with various obstacles. Even if we do trip up, we don't plan on falling! We typically iterate in order to develop, grow, and improve things by assessing the community's expectations. As such, your feedback is essential – in particular, constructive feedback given with respect.
After this update, we know we'll still have a lot of work to do. We've got plenty of ideas for reworking the ecology system, along with the way you harvest resources and interact with the world and its creatures. We're convinced that we'll be able to add something really cool to WAKFU.
Concept
The Haven Paddock is a new personal space available to players. It's linked to the account and the server, so any character from the same account on the same server who accesses them will find the same content.
Haven Paddocks can hold resources, decorations, fences, constructions, and creatures in the world.
Breeding creatures and satisfying them will unlock rewards. Also, creatures have a limited lifespan. After a while they'll die, and you need to go get new ones in the world.
Haven Places, Haven Paddocks, and Sectors
A Haven Place is a "biome"; it is made up of multiple Sectors. Within sectors, you can construct whatever you like: fencing, constructions, or decorations.
A set of well-enclosed fences will generate a Haven Paddock: in the paddock, you can place a creature.
Certain constructions have an effect on the entire sector. Others will have an effect only in the paddock they're placed in.
For example, a manger must be placed in the paddock for a gobball to be able to eat in it. It can't access a manger outside. A radiator, however, will warm the entire sector and will allow gobbalrogs to thrive even if they're in two separate paddocks within the same sector.
Above is a graphical representation of the various concepts. A paddock is only valid if it entirely consists of fencing or doors, otherwise you won't be able to place a creature in it.
Resources, meanwhile, can be planted freely throughout the Haven Place. The planting and harvesting rules are the same as in Haven Bags. However, planting too many resources in a sector where creatures and paddocks are located could be detrimental to them. Creatures appreciate a clear and aesthetically pleasing environment, not farmers' Divi Divi patties!
Basic Rules
The Haven Paddock system is available to everyone starting at level 20.
An introductory quest grants access to the Emerald Haven Place.
Only the Emerald Haven Place will be accessible in Update 1.92.
The rules for planting resources in the Haven Place are the same as in the Haven Bag garden gem.
Access
The Haven Place can be accessed through the Haven Bag, or in the world via the shortcut Alt + H.
Creatures
How to Get Them
To get a creature, you first have to get a Souliquary from an Archmonster. The Gobball Archmonster has a chance to drop the Gobball Souliquary, the Tofu Archmonster the Tofu Souliquary, and so on.
Souliquaries can be traded.
A Souliquary can be used to learn a random creature from the corresponding family. There's no way to know in advance what creature will be obtained. Once the creature is learned, the Souliquary is consumed.
The members of a family have varying behaviors. A gobbly will be playful and immature, while a war chief will be aggressive and protective. Certain characteristics may be randomly assigned at birth, and others are related to the creature's species.
A creature's size is also slightly variable to help distinguish between two creatures of the same species!
In any case, creatures from the same family give the same rewards.
Understanding your creatures' personalities is essential for taking proper care of them and getting the best rewards you can!
In Update 1.92, the following creature families will be available:
Bow Meow
Gobball
Tofu
Larva
Piwi
Treechnees
Creature Inventory
Once in the Haven Place, you can check your creatures using a special button in the HUD: the creature inventory.
Creatures in storage have been learned via a Souliquary. From the inventory, you can rename them, release them (an irreversible action to give them up), or place them in a paddock. When a creature is in storage, it won't level up. It will no longer age, give rewards, or change moods. When put back into a paddock, it will be able to level up again.
Creatures placed in a paddock can be transferred to storage via this interface at any time.
When the player hasn't visited their Haven Place for about two days, the creatures are sent to storage to prevent them from suffering too much from unplanned absences.
Cycles
Creatures placed in a paddock continue to evolve even if the player isn't in the Haven Place. A player can be offline, in the middle of a dungeon, or showing off in the Marketplace; the creature will still evolve over time through "cycles".
One cycle lasts about 24 hours.
At the end of a cycle, the creature eats, drinks, rests, etc. if it needs to. Depending on the rancher's actions and the creature's environment, the creature will have a certain level of happiness. The creature's level of happiness will determine the amount and quality of the rewards you earn.
Rewards are given at the end of a cycle by the creature to the player, in the chest at the Haven Place entrance.
Behaviors
Each creature has a list of behaviors. Most of these are not exclusive to specific creatures. A creature's are randomly selected from a set of behaviors meeting certain criteria:
eat (if it hasn't yet)
drink (if it hasn't yet)
play
play with another creature
wander around
do nothing
etc.
The creature is considered busy for the entire duration of the behavior; it won't be able to perform another behavior during this time.
Interactions
Various actions can be performed with your creature.
Unlike behaviors, actions are not executed automatically: The player has to trigger an action on the creature. Most actions have you right-click on the creature, but certain actions can be done with the use of items, for example. The creature is considered busy for the entire duration of the action; it won't be able to perform another action during this time.
Death
Creatures have a limited lifespan. They live, flourish, and eventually die before joining the reincarnation cycle of the Krosmoz. We're committed to this radical concept, as it gives the feature an ethos and an identity. The cycle of life and death is inextricably tied to the themes of the WAKFU universe.
The death of creatures also ensures that resources are destroyed, which strengthens trade, while ensuring returns on the rewards for players who are involved in breeding creatures.
To continue breeding creatures, you need to get new Souliquaries.
Rewards
When a cycle ends, rewards are distributed to the chest. These rewards may be miscellaneous resources, breeding-specific resources, or equipment.
A new type of equipment can be acquired: Lucky Charms.
Lucky Charms may have a level and a rarity. For now, six Lucky Charms are available. More and more Lucky Charms will be added as future updates come out. The mount and pet systems will be transitioned to the new reward types in a later update, once the system is fuller.
Constructions
Constructions can be obtained and placed in the Haven Place. These are essential for building Haven Paddocks. They may influence creatures' well-being, and in some cases, they are necessary for creatures' survival (e.g., mangers).
Fencing is a special type of construction. As explained earlier, fencing lets you mark out the construction of a paddock. There may be multiple types of fencing. All the fencing that makes up a paddock must be the same type (wood, stone, etc.).
It uses the same system as the one for placing standard decorations in a Haven Bag or Haven World. You simply learn a construction item in order to use it an unlimited number of times for free across the account/server.
Different constructions are obtained in different ways: recipes, achievements, loot, etc.
Construction Types
Haven Place constructions can work actively or passively:
Passive-effect constructions
improve the well-being of creatures in the Haven Paddock
meet the needs of certain creatures
contribute to the entire sector's comfort level
Constructions that have to be activated or used by a creature or player
manger or drinking trough
toy
and so on
In the case of mangers, this construction type must be filled with resources before it can be used by a creature. A manger can be filled with food (meat, grains, or fish), while a drinking trough can be filled with water.
Future
For the time being, constructions may only be placed in the Haven Place – but we may at some point extend their placement to Haven Bags and Haven Worlds to take advantage of their cosmetic quality.
Please note that the decoration catalog, which is separate from the construction catalog, is also available in the Haven Place.
Archmonsters and Dominants
In Update 1.92, the archmonster system will evolve. We wanted to make archmonsters more accessible and allow for deep battles that can be adjusted via the Stasis system. This system, based on the Neo Servers, will also enhance combat against dominants.
After you defeat a boss in their dungeon, an archmonster stele will appear (only in competitive mode). The stele can be activated to fight the archmonster of the same family. This stele will only appear if the dungeon is done in competitive mode. The archmonster will benefit from the dungeon's Stasis (characteristics and bonuses).
A special new resource can be obtained from dominants: Masks.
You need masks to craft the keys that activate archmonster steles: Archispheres.
Lastly, archmonsters have a new loot item: Souliquaries.
The old archmonster system (spawning in the area within a given period of time) is still active, and Souliquaries are available from archmonsters in the wild as well!
The Bow Meow Souliquary, meanwhile, can be obtained from any fight in Astrub.
Conclusion
The idea is to continue iterating on this feature fully in the next few updates. We want to add a lot more creatures for breeding, as well as interactions, rewards, constructions, and biomes. It will also be necessary to manage transitions, make quality-of-life changes, and keep listening to the community's feedback to achieve an acceptable final product. In fact, we're using an approach similar to the project dealing with interfaces. That project was one that we iterated on a lot, and which was a real treasure trove of interactions between the community and the development team!
We hope that you'll like the Haven Paddock feature. Some aspects were left out of this devblog – you'll just have to discover them in game! For that, the whole WAKFU development team will see you when Update 1.92 comes out.
Haven-Paddocks have not yet opened their doors, but their atmosphere can already be felt. Let yourself be carried away by their musical theme in this exclusive preview!