I’d like to start a discussion on the topic of the current drive towards the tier 2 building templates. While I fully see the point of building templates, I see them only as a nice to have, almost polish feature in the game.
This is how I currently see Tier 2 templates, please correct me if I have got any details wrong or missed out something massively important.
Upon completing a quest statue, you unlock a selection of Tier 2 templates. There seems to be no benefit other than visually to building these templates and nothing stopping players manually building a building of exactly the same architecture before unlocking the template.
I would propose two suggestions which I believe would make these important to gameplay with the first in my opinion the better.
One.
Upon building a quest statue you are awarded templates and the ability to build a Carpenters Shrine (or object of some kind) for instance. This shrine would appear in the carpenters’ tier 2 building template as well as being craftable but a level 5 carpenter. This shrine provides a positive buff to carpenters which use the workstations within the building template but can also be crafted and added into player designed buildings.
This gives purpose for building places specifically for workers rather than just leaving their workbenches outside. It also means that the Tier 2 building templates automatically are better than Tier 1 versions.
Two.
This concept is similar to #1 but I believe allows for less creative freedom from players. The Tier 2 Carpenters workshop template would give a positive buff to carpenters upon building or when crafting within the building.
Buffs.
These could be things such as 5% higher chance of fine quality, or maybe 1% chance of a legendary quality, 10% speed bonus for crafting, less waste chance, etc.
The main reason behind this is I cannot see the benefit of these templates currently being added over other content or features.
Idea 2 does limits creativity however Tier 2 templates are seemingly pointless otherwise if players can build an identical building manually prior to unlocking the templates. The idea of the templates giving buffs or unlocking an item that grants a buff would give players a real reason to unlock them.
I like this thought…not only adds further structural bonuses (for instance) but changes the aesthetic of the town in general to make it look more sturdy…if that makes any sense
I think tier 2 building materials would work out pretty great, like your carpenter shaping your logs into planks, or your mason fashioning the loose stone mined from the mountain into stronger bricks.
Tier 2 unlocking building materials would make sense to me, using the system to apply a buff to craftsmen in some way could also work but doesn’t seem to be as fitting for the ‘tier 2’ nomenclature.
As the OP says I don’t see much point in making templates unlock at tier 2 which the player can readily design at tier 1, except perhaps as a polish feature (and even then it’s a bit tenuous to me given that this is in large part a building game)
Keep in mind guys, even though we “can” build anything, not everyone has the ability to do so. I for example can’t create anything better than the templates.
So having them as unlockables is super cool for me. My town is just filled with templates, either those shipped in the game or from the sharing site. I have only two builds I did myself in there.
My building skills are super basic as well, so I tend to maybe tweak a template building a little bit and then save it off so I don’t have to do that minor change each time…but ultimately, building is my weak point.
The issue here isn’t specifically the templates themselves as a feature but the fact you unlock them. Think of it this way, you could simply import a custom template from a sharing site that is identical to a tier 2 template and then there is no point to unlocking the tier 2 stuff.
Its more about making Tier 2 something to aim for otherwise their is no drive to build the statues other than the visual appearance, at least for me. This is why I suggest unlocking an items that could give a buff to a carpenter or mason or whatever that would be unlocked at Tier 2 and could feature in the Tier 2 templates.
Interesting point, but I’m not sure that it’s quite as pressing as it seems at first glance. The player who isn’t comfortable building it for themselves but is also willing and able to seek out and import the identical template online seems like a real minority. It strikes me that the players who aren’t in a position to build from outside the templates wouldn’t be the ones to jump at the opportunity to import stuff made by other players - not for a lack of interest, but they’re probably not as integrated into the game/community to get access to stuff like that?
Put another way, the people who just play and end up getting access to the “cool new unlockable tier 2 stuff” probably aren’t going to actively seek out the community where they might find stuff like that. It seems like you’ve gotta work to find a lot of templates, because as much as people post pictures of what they’ve built, not as many put up the actual templates. On the flip side, someone who plays with either the intention of building or who is on a second/third/whatever playthrough will either build with templates from the beginning or wait to commit to an aesthetic until they have access to the buildings they want to use, or get user created stuff online.
Yeah, I actually like the fountains more than anything T2 has to offer. Doesn’t help I also play with the sound off so the appeal of “Oooh, city music!” is totally lost on me xD
