Tracking Upgrade

[Etherdrifter 2,518]

Currently tracking is almost entirely useless on PvE servers, and I don't think it would get much use on PvP ones either.  A common complaint on steam was the lack of mobs on the new cluster, and in some areas on the old cluster they can be hard to find too so...

 

Mechanic: "Flushed Out"

Any animal with the "Flushed Out" modifier will be unable to breed, will despawn once there are no players within 70 tiles of them (or if they have been around for more than 30 mins).  Each player may only have one "flushed out" creature in existance at a time (attempting to "hunt" for another creature while one is still around despawns the current one). 

 

"Flushed Out" creature corpses work a little different when butchering (butchered products go straight to a pile on the floor and the corpse vanishes); the corpses of hunted animals decay away in 5 minutes to avoid clutter.

 

New actions:

Right click a tile - > Tracking ->...

 

Tracking 15 - Rat Hunt

Usable once per (60 - (Tracking/2)) minutes, spawns a "flushed out giant rat" within (51-(Tracking/2)) tiles of the user (only functions off deed and will only spawn offdeed, the mob will remain stationary unless "spooked").  This can be hunted as per normal for food, and is particularly weak to hunting arrows (they inflict (tracking skill/10)x the normal damage).  This rat is non-hostile and will not aggro (essentially an easy way for newer players to get a pelt); for free players the cooldown is always 1 hour to avoid server crashing spawn amounts.

 

Tracking 30 - Pheasant hunt

Usable once per (60 - (Tracking/3)) minutes, spawns a "flushed out pheasant" within (40-(Tracking/3)) tiles of the user (only functions off deed and will only spawn offdeed, the mob will remain stationary unless "spooked").  This can be hunted as per normal for food, and is particularly weak to hunting arrows (they inflict (tracking skill/10)x the normal damage)

 

Tracking 60 - Deer Hunt

Usable once per (60 - (Tracking/6)) minutes, spawns a "flushed out deer" within (60-(Tracking/6)) tiles of the user (only functions off deed and will only spawn offdeed, the mob will remain stationary unless "spooked").  This can be hunted as per normal for food/materials, and is particularly weak to hunting arrows (they inflict (tracking skill/10)x the normal damage)

 

 

 

 

[Drayka 485]

Cool mechanic Etherdrifter!

[LionIX 354]

Bump. Exploration update mentions something about less used skills being improved. Hopefully tracking gets some love. Neat idea here.

 

I think it should also give a lot more useful info for players to do detective work. Add a search for human tracks which sees info from 24 IRL hours. Information can be detailed if you’re on your own deed or perimeter (Player name walked on this tile x hours ago, planted x sign, etc). Off deed it can give more general info (You see tracks which look x hours old, etc). 

 

Then a new tracking option could lead you to new encounter sites (like rift scout combat sites) (also maybe have some non-combat content). Have them provide useful information across the map (so it’s more useful than just riding around on a fast horse and/or maybe have some stuff hidden until you reveal through tracking). 
 

Add a new item (maybe jewelry smithing) magnifying glass to use when doing all this stuff to keep menu clutter down and allow for skill grinding tweaks (leave a basic non-glass tracking option). Maybe use a different object, but that’s just 1 idea.