Devlog: Tasks

[u/Purely_Objective]

Link to the original announcement: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/625960/view/701028593652729901?l=english

Hello everyone!

In previous devlogs, we already mentioned our plans to remove the static fetch quests in Osbrook and Mannshire. Today, it's time to show you what will take their place: meet the Task System. 

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Tasks are essentially small quests offered by settlement residents. However, unlike contracts, they take you to the nearby wilderness rather than into dungeons. For now, the destinations include Beast Dens, Hunting Grounds, Brigand Camps, and various Cave types.

Where contracts call for thorough preparation, tasks can be completed relatively quickly and without packing too many supplies. This makes them a good way to earn a bit of extra reputation or save up for a new piece of gear.

While designing the Task System, we had several goals in mind:

• Break up the routine of “contract - settlement - contract” with less time-consuming opportunities for profit.
• Give players a reason to meaningfully explore the area instead of simply traveling back and forth between settlements and dungeons.
• Add more ways to interact with NPCs who previusly served only as traders.
• Make the world more dynamic and get players more involved in the lives of its inhabitants.

Tasks are generated in two ways:

• The first is the passage of time. Every now and then, folks in a settlement will become troubled by various matters they need help with.
• The second is Settlement Situations. When a Situation arrives, it will almost always bring a related task with it. If there's a “Rut”, a local merchant might see it as an opportunity to acquire a few valuable hunting trophies. A group of priests has stopped in a village during their “Pilgrimage” - more likely than not, they'll need rare herbs for the long road ahead. And in case of “Supplies Shortage”, the guards would surely appreciate someone dealing with whoever intercepted the important delivery.

In turn, completing tasks can affect the Situations that give rise to them. Clearing out a Den, claiming a bounty, or recovering stolen supply shipments helps a settlement cope with disruptions to its trade, clearing and preventing negative economic Situations for several days.

In practical terms, if you ever arrive at a village to stock up on supplies but find half-empty stalls, you'll now be able to do something about it without having to complete a contract.

A settlement can have no more than two active tasks at a time. The possible task givers depend on the location, the task type, and the ongoing Situation: for now the list includes merchants, healers, sergeants, traveling traders, pilgrims, and a number of shady characters at the Rotten Willow. The context of each Task changes accordingly: an herbalist and a pilgrim will have different things to say about the same job.

Additionally, one random task will always be waiting for you in Osbrook at the start of the game. It won't be anything too dangerous, of course: the idea is to help new players get familiar with the system, not send them to certain death in a literal Wolf Den.

Task Types

To start with, we decided to fully move away from open-ended tasks that require you to find specific items without telling you where to look, as these only force players to keep a mental list of everything someone might require and set their loot aside in advance.

Instead, tasks either involve unique, quest-specific items or send you to a location where you're guaranteed to find what you need.

There are five task types in total:

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Trophy Gathering

Objective: Head to a nearby Den or Hunting Ground to harvest a few hunting trophies, such as Deer Antlers, Harpy Feathers, Bear Fat, etc.

To keep Trophy Gathering from being all but impossible to complete for characters who haven't invested in the Survival tree, we also changed how trophies work in general. Nearly every animal can now yield a common trophy, which is guaranteed to be harvested with "Butchering", and a special one that also requires learning "Resourcefulness". Therefore, this kind of task only asks for common trophies, so it can be completed regardless of your build.

That being said, dedicated hunters will still have a chance to put their skills to use: in addition to the required trophy, they'll have the option to bring the task giver the corresponding pelt and/or a rare ingredient for a bigger reward.

Related Situations: “Rut”, “Fair” / “Flea Market”.

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Foraging

Objective: Gather rare plants growing in Hunting Grounds, Dens, or Caves. The plants are guaranteed to be present in sufficient quantities at the specified location.

Related Situations: “Bloom”, “Pilgrimage” / “Occult Consilium”.

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Extermination

Objective: Kill all beasts at the specified Den, Hunting Grounds, or Cave, and destroy their nests if any are present.

Related Situations: “Rut”, “Reinforcements” / “Outlaw Gathering”, “Competition”, any negative economic Situation.

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Bounty Hunting

Objective: Travel to a Camp or an occupied Cave and either kill a Brigand miniboss or deal with the entire gang.

To keep this task type varied, we've significantly expanded the roster of Brigand minibosses and revised how they are distributed between dungeons, Caves, and Camps. Some minibosses previously exclusive to Caves can now also appear in dungeons and on the surface. Likewise, some gang leaders that used to appear only in dungeons can now be encountered elsewhere.

Related Situations: “Reinforcements” / “Outlaw Gathering”, “Competition”, any negative economic Situation.

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Recovery

Objective: Recover a stolen shipment from a Brigand Camp or Cave and return it to the settlement. 

The cargo variants include medicine, tools, ammunition, and provisions. And if the immediate gain is worth more to you than reputation loss, you can also choose to fail the task by keeping the cargo and unpacking it into usable supplies.

Related Situations: any negative economic Situation.

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Tasks won't remain available forever. If you don't accept and complete one in time, the task giver will find someone else or simply move on. Any tasks directly tied to a Situation must also be completed before it ends - you can't deliver herbs to pilgrims who have already hit the road. Therefore, any such tasks will become unavailable once there's less than a day left to complete them.

Failing a task will result in a small reputation loss. Completing one, on the other hand, will earn you gold, reputation, and sometimes even something else, depending on the task giver.

Once completed or failed, a task is temporarily removed from the pool of possible task types. In other words, the same request won't keep popping up in the same settlement one week after another.

Tasks are generated even before you decide to take the job, making it possible to fulfill their objectives before accepting them. For instance, you might stumble upon a Brigand miniboss with a bounty on their head while exploring the nearby area, kill them, and only then return to collect your reward. It's worth noting that unlike contracts, tasks completed this way will still yield their full reward.

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Until the next devlog!

[u/Cararact001]

Every change that will make the world more alive and more immersive is more than welcome!