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Keenan

Depth vs Ease of use

Depth vs Ease of use  

264 members have voted

  1. 1. Do you prefer depth or ease of use when it comes to Wurm features?

    • Depth
      177
    • Ease of use
      87


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I don't really feel I can answer this as it depends from situation to situation... i love depth, but really can't generalize like that. Depth is one of those things that looks good on paper, and you think you want it, but you realize you don't really want it once you get it.

As for fishing i think it went too far to depth, although i might not mind it in the end if it atleast offered some sutable reward  for efford. I don't remember when o bothered to fish as results are mostly useless compared to everything else.

Archeology is another set of problems and it's far from perfect(no storage for fragments, random useless runes and enchants, i have over 99 restoration and i am yet to see extraordinary usefull rune/enchant combo on something i restored, once i get all statues, probably won't bother with it too). but yeah atleast it offer some decent reward for the pain in terms of statues and masks and ocassional easy rare tool if it doesn't flop to strange metal... 

So i don't know, things that went over in depth and offer nothing as good as reward are much worse to forgive than lack of ease of use i think. If you can't nail effort -  reward ballance, stick to ease of use. but correct answer is both(expecially with offering some depth but not overdoing it).

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3 hours ago, Explora said:

I'm going to agree with Madnath on the lack of reward from fishing but as I recall there were craftable fishing trophies added with the fishing update but they were bugged somehow and got hotfixed out - never to return.

Being able to display your best catches would go a long way to making fishing rewarding.

and that can be part of taxidermy 

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Both can be achieved through redoing your idea time and time again a skill with a lot of depth doesnt have to be complicated like your example of archaeology skills which are easy to get into but then take you on a multitude of paths to achieve a similar goal are fun and thats what you want to achieve fun is the player going to enjoy doing the skill or is it going to drive them nuts due to it previously being easy or due to it being a outlier in its field.

Lets take the imaginary skill of automation.
------------------------
On the surface its a simple skill there are 50+ items but the machines are easy to assemble for the player(not skill requirement or item quantity but they just make sense)
The skill requires both carpentry and blacksmithing items
The "power" source for the machines comes from 3 things
1. Hand powered cranks where the player right clicks the machine and a action starts giving body strength and body stamina and automation as a reward throughout its action but this can only be done once every 5 minutes and it has  2 min action timer(Great for starting the skill but not viable for alt abuse)
2. Water and wind based or animal based, where either you have a big body of water(50+ tiles) and you place the waterwheel 3 tiles of the nearest above water tile or make a expensive windmill and rely on the wind(same mechanic as boats) to provide power or you strap 4 horses/cows/bison/donkeys to a animal specific shaft.
3. fueled boilers for steam engines for sustained longer term use.

In this case 1. would be for small early on things(imagine a crank powered grinder for flour or a cutter to cut hot lumps into sheets) it would be the entry to the rest but it isnt viable yet easy to understand as the machine can be crafted with a few separate components, 10 planks 2 shafts 2 gears 1 hand crank 1 grindstone/cutting blade 4 large nails
To use the machine you gotta place it on the ground before opening it to load it with the desired items
2. would be a multi tile building 4x4 requiring 400 stone bricks and mortar 160 thatch 5 large gears 3 gear shafts 20 wooden beams 300 planks and the working machine of your choice (sawmill grinder cutter and so on)
3. similar in size to 2 but would require new blacksmithing items and individual pipes and boilers and so on but also 400 bricks and 160 thatch for boiler hut

1. takes damage over time and requires repairing of the tool you slot in and repairing of the box too which is done simply by using the correct item to repair it/heating up if its metal pieces before hitting repair action
2 and 3 require multiple part swaps from the tool being used to the gears and so on but a examine of the building will tell you what needs fixing and when
------------------------

In the above example 1 is a manual device and 2 being a local power source or next to the object kinda thing with no way of routing power elsewhere beyond its direct border(think horse mill next to a sawmill with a gear shaft connecting the two) where as 3 can push its steam power to a different machine located elsewhere so long as the pipes can reach but distance lowers pressure thus lowering speed unless supported with more boilers
------------------------

The items such as gears are either made of a single log or multi stage items requiring parts of gears that are fitted together with cogs and similar setup for the boilers and pipes
Skill is gained during creation of these items and the attaching and operating of such items with operation but creation will give minimal automation skill and more skill to the related skill(carp blacksmithing) to prevent item spam to grind the skill
------------------------

Now why this is here is because such a skill has 3 distinct stages from 1 easy to get into with a "hey we added this go check the search in your crafting window for how to make it" to 3 "This is a complex system consisting of multiple machines to perform a task" it creates a scenario where it is easy to get into yet provides a lot of depth even just in its power creation and basic handling of automation machines now the above example is just power gen and 1-2 basic examples of what could be done(the idea i have floating around consists of steamers to cook food, gas powered forges, transporting liquid metals from storage containers were its being kept in liquid form before being deposited in a connected forge and so on)
------------------------

But the point is such a skill provides a lot of depth to the game allowing for a vastly different playstyle that fits a village or a dedicated person more so then a individual yet is easy to understand as logically it makes sense
And that is the key part to look for "Does the skill make sense in progression and usage or is getting into it to difficult and shrouded in weird logic" and it often hard to balance between new content and it getting to complex


But in my opinion i want depth so long as it logically makes sense and isnt just repeating the same mechanic in 5 different flavors(looking at you fishing)

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22 minutes ago, wipeout said:

"WINDMILLS!"
[...]
But the point is such a skill provides a lot of depth to the game allowing for a vastly different playstyle that fits a village or a dedicated person more so then a individual yet is easy to understand as logically it makes sense
And that is the key part to look for "Does the skill make sense in progression and usage or is getting into it to difficult and shrouded in weird logic" and it often hard to balance between new content and it getting to complex


But in my opinion i want depth so long as it logically makes sense and isnt just repeating the same mechanic in 5 different flavors(looking at you fishing)


I'm not sure I'm ready to buy into this skill (especially not thematically for wurm), but I do like how it follows a sensible progression with increasing functionality rewarded for and gated by additional investment. Also that every component has a purpose and things arent just there to make sure you have five different colors of lizard tongues like a bad korean mmo.

Assuming the complexity of the tasks and materials made the outcome worthwhile it looks like a worthwhile goal to grind at.

 

Its certainly better than another fictitous skill, let's call it "jacks", where you right click the jacks and you attempt to bounce a ball and pick up an incrementing number of jacks with each bounce. Each time you get a success or failure message for the number of jacks you're attempting to grab, but after about 50 skill you succeed nearly every time anyway and there is nothing new to be seen. You gain only skill in Jacks when playing, and Jacks skill is only used by playing jacks. This is a very easy skill to use, nearly anyone can do it in almost any place, the tools required are minimal and easily obtained. However no one would spend time on this skill because it lacks any depth, reward, or mystery to be discovered.

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13 minutes ago, CreZ said:


I'm not sure I'm ready to buy into this skill (especially not thematically for wurm)

Well the idea behind it was mostly for a wu mod attempt to try and see if wurm could support the transfer of data from 1 object to another in huge quantities(liquids gasses energy values) and then make a fun gameplay mechanic around it that would make sense as to how people would progress into it plus who doesnt want to see a giant cave filled with pipes and the sweet hot red glow of liquid metal lighting up the otherwise dark chasm while hearing high pressure gasses escape here and there and the sound of metal hitting metal echoing throughout it.

Does it fit wurm? no but it would still be a amazing thing to see.

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10 hours ago, Reverent said:

Why not both?

 

**Easy to learn, hard to master

Indeed.

 

I voted "Depth" but in Wurm there does seem to be an issue sometimes where making something fiddly and difficult has been misinterpreted as making it deep.

 

A good examples of "both" is terraforming.  Flatten and level are extremely powerful, and at least in my opinion do not take away at all from the depth.  Dig and drop is slow and very specific and arguably deep but for me are really just fiddly and only useful for finishing touches etc.

 

Needing to use a spindle for cotton and a spinning wheel for wool is not depth - it is arbitrarily fiddly.  Any "spinning" device - spindle, spinning wheel (which IRL includes a spindle), rope tool - should turn ANY fibre into the desired product.  Have the spindle produce small amounts of more variable ql and the wheel produce larger amounts of less variable ql (but less likely to achieve best possible QL or maybe even rarity).  That is depth, and gives those who want to delve the opportunity without being adverse to those who just want to get it done.

 

Generally, depth is not ONLY about detail.  It should also be about choice.  Cooking is entirely serviceable at the level of tossing a an edible item on a fire but also offers huge complexity for those who want to dig in to that element (almost 2 years in Wurm and I only recently discovered sausages! and bacon!).  Something that works simple end (so those whose interest lie elsewhere can just get it done) but allows more to be discovered (for those whose interests align) is what I would consider "depth".

 

Also, inconsistency isn't depth.  Cutting a tree into logs when it lies on the ground but picking it up to make masts/keel sections etc is not deep, it is inconsistent.  Using a large anvil on the ground but having to hold the small anvil and smack stuff with it is not deep, it is inconsistent.   Having the small anvil as a "basic" anvil that makes basic objects and then a large anvil that by default already does everything the small anvil does but also makes large basic objects and has a functioning hardy hole for tools required to make other stuff (so a player could specialize in top ql jewellery, or blades, or plate/sheet objects or just generalize at the cost of some small amount of ql) would in my opinion be deep.  Depth is offering the choice to get detailed about it.

 

Oh, also, "depth" doesn't mean having more windows full of text lists open.  This is the one major drawback of Wurm, and without a complete rebuild I don't know how it would be addressed, but there it is.

 

Probably not a helpful answer, but an honest one.

Edited by TheTrickster
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Oh, and it needs to be easy or simple to discover.  Most of what I learned about terraforming and cooking I learned in WU simply because the accelerated timers and skill-gains made it practical.

 

Lore in cooking is a good example of an effective discovery mechanism.

Edited by TheTrickster

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It occurred to me that maybe @Keenanwas not so much interested in the answer to this poll as making a conscious and conspicuous effort to engage as a developer with the users.  It also occurred to me that it doesn't matter! 

 

Either way, this is still a good thing, and appreciated.

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Let’s focus on ease lol.

When will the picture contest winner gonna be announce?

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11 hours ago, ChampagneDragon said:

All that needed to be done there was to allow each basic trait to be bred at a certain skill point. Say at 30AH you could get one draft or speed trait, 50 two traits, 70 three traits, 90 all four.

 

I must disagree there. This would mean there would be no actual breeding of the animals to build better animals. As it is now, you can get any of the desirable traits at very low skill, but the art of the profession is to combine the right animals as you build your herd. Your suggestion would take the charm out of animal breeding, reducing it to another weaponsmithing grind that I would never ever touch.

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I think the best solution is a compromise so should look at the skills that most people enjoy and try to keep it in that sweetspot :)

 

Everybody likes to work a little bit for it but if is too much it feels like a chore so i reckon 2-3 layers  of depth should be a good pick without counting the need to have a tool as one of the steps.

 

And that should provide ease and can improve the depth by adding more variations for the final product.

 

Take beverages for example: can make gin right? so you have the basic sugar+water+wheat i guess? not sure the recipe is not relevant. So you have few steps to get to it get the mats and put them in a cauldron.

 

Now if you add a berry or a fruit or something it changes the gin you get so you get normal gin that gives an affinity and then can get blueberry gin that has own afff.. and so on and so forth.

 

But what is also bad about beverages is the slowness of the stills... i think is ment to limit the ammount of booze ppl can spam but that is not a fun mechanic. Noone is limiting how many pizza's ppl can make and other ppl still looking for pizza's right?

 

So maybe should look into skills that have a chokepoint like that  and either reduce the quantity made but speed up the process or make it so you drop a whole barrel of undistilled you fire it and  is lit for 1 irl week straight.

 

Because now ppl just get frustrated with the stills no matter what: they fuel and light them when they remember and sometimes they realised they forgot the stills again.. or they fuel them but forgot to check for teh undistilled thingy in all of them.

 

That is a way of implentation of skill that should be limited in the future in my opinion.

 

 

 

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I think the best answer has been depth with solid ways of learning in-game. Wurm usually does wind up in one of two camps: Absolutely necessary to do or not worth the effort. 

 

Personally, I like something that is worth the effort, but makes that journey easier through the use of lore function, easy to understand mechanics, and then the ability to adjust and tweak and explore. 

 

Wurm has struggled with being "broad and shallow" more than anything else, you don't need six skills for six different types of shields, the mechanics are all the same (with minor variances that don't justify a different skillset) but there's so much dedicated to it on the surface level. 

 

Cooking is a great example in terms of depth and breadth, there's a lot to explore and play with that's easy to learn and have fun with, without needing to know a ton of different values or busy work in order to achieve a relatively normal result. 

 

Fishing has great depth, but requires a lot of value knowledge, and tweaking/busy work to achieve a normal result, which is where it misses the mark. 

 

Hypothetically, if something like coffee were to be added into a game, I think having to harvest the cherries, pit them for green beans, then roast them to get coffee beans before you can drink it is a bit too deep, unless the reward is worth that work. 

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I get how depth and ease of use sometimes is clashing but how about make changes where they don't?

 

Let's look at that fishing example you mentioned, Keenan..
In which universe does making bait, floats and other fishing consumables  (flies, fish bits, what have you) be bulkable (=raising ease of use) make fishing less deep? One big issue with fishing is that the reward isn't worth the effort for rod fishing. So, how about not raising the reward and instead simply not force people to to do 30min-1h of prep before each fishing trip because the consumes you gathered for the last trip has decayed away (or not forcing people to put their prep'd tacke box in an LMC, which I currently do, to be able to skip that step).

 

Imagine having a bsb/fsb renamed to "fishing" where you spend a minute or two filling up the tacklebox and then just go fish. Imagine being able to go fish for just half an hour. At this point, it kind of feels like it's part of an unachievable dream world.


Also while we're at it. I wouldn't mind if a BronzeLib rune worked on fishing equipment, but hey, beggars can't be choosers lol.

Tich would be sad if she knew what happened to her fave skill and how ignored its blatant issues has been and how (assumably) easy some of them are to fix, such as my examples above.

Edited by Borstaskor

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I would argue if cooking has depth if one bite of pizza is enough to fill all bars (hunger, nutri, calories, carbohydrates, fats, proteins) and adds affinity.

 

Fish are useless therefore the players do not want to use this skill.

But if there was a limitation in which a given player could only cook pizzas with affinity for only 10 skills, then this player, instead of grind anything, would explore game by creating pizzas (and other meals) for himself and trying to discover for which skills pizza gives him affinity (I know how the current system works and this should not change).

After discovering affinity, it would be added to pizza in recipe list.

Later, if another player would be looking for affinity for e.g. blacksmithing, cook would still prepare a pizza with these ingredients system that it is working now for a given player, but the pizza would give affinity only for skills that are on the cook's list for pizza.

 

With such an extensive list of dishes, it would not be difficult to achieve?

Each cook would offer an almost unique dish-skill set list, so the player would have the choice of either ordering multiple dishes from one cook or looking for a cook who can make pizzas with few affinities he needs in just one item.

 

Similarly with bars, with many types of meat each character should be "born" with a favorite meat type for a given bar.
In this way, for example, for one character, a meal containing fish could fill the calories bar completely up to 100%, but other bars only to a minimal extent below 10% even on highest ql level of meal.

For another player, a fish-based meal would fill carbohydrates up to 100%.

 

Each player would have to explore different types of meat to find out what is best for him and then have to find a cook who will prepare him with such a high-quality meal and preferably with the right affinity.
This is how I would see the depth and meaning of having many kinds of meat and dishes.

 

 

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13 hours ago, nitram20 said:

Depth is fine but the rewards need to be useful and worth it. And as others have said it needs to be clearly and thorougly explained on how it works and supposed to work and then communicated to us if something is intended or not. But of course that’s like asking for god to come down from the heavens. 

Pretty much this. 

The only issue I had with the fishing system is the same issue I currently have with the AH system.

 

Basically an overcomplicated system with the same rewards as the prior mechanics. 

In case of fishing...it's just fish man. Really. Why do we need X number of baits, hooks, etc just to catch the same things as before? If there's one skill I enjoyed afk grinding while doing chores around the house, that was fishing. Queue up 6 actions of fishing while I wash the dishes. 

 

Same as with the AH update. Basically you've given us a huge RNG pool, half of the traits are useless, a few don't even work right and for what reward? The same reward? 

 

If I'd have to pick one, I'd simply say ease of use due to 2 main reasons

 

1. Unless we poke through the code, we have no idea what to do with indepth systems. There's so much misinformation either on the wiki or in the general chats because Wurm has some obscure systems everywhere. 

2. As long as rewards aren't balanced out with complicated systems, then yeah...please ease of use every time. 

 

I'm generally a "hardcore" player (whatever that means these days) in the sense I enjoy learning about how a game works, what mechanic does what, what statistic is influenced by Y variable, etc. But Wurm has so many obscure systems and annoying mechanics these days that I'd prefer to go ease of use, simply because it's harder to screw up than complicated mechanics. 

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Easy to learn - hard to master rule seems to always been the best way in mmorpg.

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2 hours ago, Borstaskor said:

Let's look at that fishing example you mentioned, Keenan..
In which universe does making bait, floats and other fishing consumables  (flies, fish bits, what have you) be bulkable (=raising ease of use) make fishing less deep? One big issue with fishing is that the reward isn't worth the effort for rod fishing. So, how about not raising the reward and instead simply not force people to to do 30min-1h of prep before each fishing trip because the consumes you gathered for the last trip has decayed away (or not forcing people to put their prep'd tacke box in an LMC, which I currently do, to be able to skip that step).

I totaly agree on this, and thats ease of use that wurm desperatly need over depth, thats ease of use that makes depth fun. Imagine lore on a water tile with fishing equipment filled with bait and activated that would tell you what you can expect to catch, imagine also if we could bsb sausages, bread, bread crumbs, minced meat(mind that you can fsb diced meat and fresh meat but can't mince, it's ridiculuous) and all other mid step ingridients, imagine if we could chip bricks directly from bsb to bsb without boring moving to invetory and combining, thats ease of use i would like over depth anytime. 

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3 hours ago, Borstaskor said:

I get how depth and ease of use sometimes is clashing but how about make changes where they don't?

 

Let's look at that fishing example you mentioned, Keenan..
In which universe does making bait, floats and other fishing consumables  (flies, fish bits, what have you) be bulkable (=raising ease of use) make fishing less deep? One big issue with fishing is that the reward isn't worth the effort for rod fishing. So, how about not raising the reward and instead simply not force people to to do 30min-1h of prep before each fishing trip because the consumes you gathered for the last trip has decayed away (or not forcing people to put their prep'd tacke box in an LMC, which I currently do, to be able to skip that step).

 

Imagine having a bsb/fsb renamed to "fishing" where you spend a minute or two filling up the tacklebox and then just go fish. Imagine being able to go fish for just half an hour. At this point, it kind of feels like it's part of an unachievable dream world.


Also while we're at it. I wouldn't mind if a BronzeLib rune worked on fishing equipment, but hey, beggars can't be choosers lol.

Tich would be sad if she knew what happened to her fave skill and how ignored its blatant issues has been and how (assumably) easy some of them are to fix, such as my examples above.

 

If only the tackle box just worked like a bsb/fsb, with the difference that you can carry it around with you in your inventory. It would be a massive ease of use improvement without changing anything depth wise. That's currently one of my main issues with fishing and why I don't bother with it all that much.

Does the LMC actually prevent decay on all the contents of the tackle box these days? Last time I tried that a few years ago the fishing lines in it still seemed to be decaying even with the box inside an LMC.

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2 hours ago, elentari said:

Basically an overcomplicated system with the same rewards as the prior mechanics.

 

Same as with the AH update. Basically you've given us a huge RNG pool, half of the traits are useless, a few don't even work right and for what reward? The same reward? 

 

 

 

It seems to me that this is a wrong approach, if every change will make it easier to get the same thing (more rewarding) , then after a few updates game will turn into a facebook-flash-game.

 

Some mechanics can make it difficult to acquire/achieve certain things, but how far some things should become more difficult or other easier it is a matter of overall balance.

 

In my opinion, the reward is not a most important matter, but a secondary one, the first thing that matters is the usefulness of item, if usefulness is high then need for possession is high, players may struggle to get it, but their effort will be bearable for them anyway. The problem with AH is that in PvE usefulness of high trait horses/animals is low, so from breeder's point of view, amount of work he has to put in to achieve 5-speed is unprofitable.

Like any other problem, this problem can also be solved in several ways, either simplifying AH or by increasing demand for high trait animals.

 

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For fishing, I dont see a problem of having both the old and the new system in place at the same time.

 

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Start with simplicity for for basic usage of items and mechanics, bring depth and perks later with higher ql and skills.(putting option to spice difficulty helps players grind skills, else we end up breaking characters like parent/sub skill 20 range, etc)

Further usability from items and perks could be brought from improving to certain ql, fusing runes, imbue, enchants, combinations(?), ... plenty  of space to expand the wurm lore, where it makes sense.

 

 

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I haven't read the replies, so someone else might have mentioned this.  Depth and Ease of Use do not have to compete with each other.  I think most of us love the depth of Wurm.  The problem is the clunky clicks and mechanics involved with each step.  The crafting window did a lot to clean this up, but there is more that could be done to improve the clickiness of the application.  I am on a dev team maintaining a very large business application.  The #1 complaint about our product is that it is so dialog-heavy with tons of clicks to get stuff done.  That has taught me the importance of UI design.  The same principles can apply with a game.  I am not talking about macroing.  I am talking about clever design that reduces clicks but still retains the steps needed to enjoy the accomplishments of complex depth.

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2 hours ago, Eyesgood said:

 The problem is the clunky clicks and mechanics involved with each step.  The crafting window did a lot to clean this up, but there is more that could be done to improve the clickiness of the application.  I am on a dev team maintaining a very large business application.  The #1 complaint about our product is that it is so dialog-heavy with tons of clicks to get stuff done.  That has taught me the importance of UI design.  The same principles can apply with a game.  I am not talking about macroing.  I am talking about clever design that reduces clicks but still retains the steps needed to enjoy the accomplishments of complex depth.

ugh please no more giant crafting windows or ugly icons on menus. Just leave our text menus alone.
 

12 hours ago, Archaed said:

Cooking is a great example in terms of depth and breadth, there's a lot to explore and play with that's easy to learn and have fun with, without needing to know a ton of different values or busy work in order to achieve a relatively normal result. 

yeah, but ...
its like a bioware game where you have choices but every choice gives the same result. I mean sure I guess its fun to RP making a roasted meal or a pizza instead of a meal, or maybe you really like bangers nad mash (or the ingredients it uses), but once you find a recipe you like theres not really any reason other than the journal or just general completionist OCD to keep exploring the feature.  Theres no benefit or reward to making a vareity of food types (and rare+ recipes are laughably unuseful too).

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I would lean with Depth, more Depth in skills that should matter, like swimming and jumping.  Tomahawks, I should be able to throw axes or daggers, not just spears. Change the mark rewards system, I have to buy five years of game time just to get any decent amount of marks. I do love the game and always find myself intrigued by the things that can and can not be done in game. Crossbows....? 

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What depth are we talking about.. depth like Cooking/Fishing/AH?🤔

Who wants that much content depth, utility for most of the content is none, only a setup or 2 for fishing works for mid-late game, same with food 1-2 recipes are used, rest are RP content; ah is still waiting it's yet another fix with unclear intended features.

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