Should there be Exploration Dungeons just for Gatherers and Crafters?

[Azuri]

Sounds awful. Gathering is a nice downtime activity that is something I do whenever there is a short amount of time between other things. Having to sit in a dedicated instance just to gather wasn't particularly fun in the Diadem and it won't be fun in some random dungeon.

[Boblawblah]

I'd love something different, right now I'm just finishing maxing out the last 3 of my crafters and seeing some of the ingredients requiring maps of all things is a bit disappointing. Having something dedicated to crafters/gatherers would be awesome

[Hanayumi]

I mean... dont we have one already? Daidem...

[DPZ2]

The current Diadem is built on top of the Original Diadem, where those rare plants and ores were collected in the same space that monsters were being killed. So, it's been done before. Wasn't particularly successful until the repurposing for the Ishgardian Restoration.

[Packetdancer]

*No one remembers 1.0's hamlet defense mode*

Eh... I mean, I think hamlet defense was a really neat idea, but I feel like it wasn't a great implementation. It never felt -- to me, at least -- like you could really just do it "on a whim"; there was never any "I think I'll just go do a quick bit of hamlet defense", it was "we've got a bit more than two RL days to shore this up, and then about an RL day of it being under constant assault". The DoH/DoL side of it felt to me like grind for the sake of grind... just with an added "do it within this time limit". (And I will cynically note I felt like the "meld materia onto gear and then turn the gear in to the quartermaster" option struck me as being primarily a way to artificially drain materia from the player economy.)

There's maybe an argument to be made that something similar -- where DoH/DoL and DoW/DoM jobs all have a role to play in achieving some bigger goal -- would be really cool; that I'd agree with fairly readily. I'm just not sure I agree that hamlet defense is the model to pull from.

[Soge01]

They're not likely to do that. It's easy enough to just pack your bags and go somewhere. A little inventory management goes a long way. I like to keep all the top tier materials in my saddlebag, so I can easily craft those recipes.

I spent the third Eden raid tier doing my food/pot crafting on top of Kugane Tower, for some godsforsaken reason. I definitely got in the habit of keeping the current tier crafting mats in my saddlebag. ;P

(Terrifyingly, I was not the only one; there were about four of us up there doing that. Two are still on my friends list!)

I tend to keep the basic essentials on my character for crafting, though you both have a point. Its just such a pain in the arse to get all my other essential crafting material organized and ready for use. Mosty because of all the crafters classes I havr unlocked, but I know that's no excuse. x'3

Never thought to go to places like atop of Kugane Tower to craft, lol! I tend to always forget something I need for crafting, I tend to stick near the summoning bell.

Rowena: That's feel real estate.

Oh no... xD

Sorry, EQ2 was EverQuest II and was Sony Online Entertainment's (now it's like Daybreak Games) sequel to EverQuest that took place 500 years later down an alternate timeline.

Its no problem; thanks for the explanation. Though why does EQ2 take pkace in a different timeline. Did something happen in the original EQ to cause some sort of time split?

My gut reaction is "no", but that's mostly because I feel like any system along those lines... you'd want the materials to be useful for something. But if they're useful for something that confers some sort of meaningful game advantage, the Gatherer dungeons become functionally mandatory. (At least, given the way we as a player community tend to approach things.)

So you want something useful to do with what you gather -- something that draws people back in more than once, instead of just ticking 'well, I collected that' off of a checklist. But you want it not to be so useful than it becomes mandatory in some way.

I feel like that's the key problem that needs to be solved first. I actually like the idea, mind you; it's just that that feels like a pretty key element to be lacking.

Then maybe it can be stuff that purely cosmetic. Furniture, glamour, miniins, mounts All of which is only obtainable by going through exploration dungeons as a gatherer and crafting. Would that fix things and keep a healthy amount of people to keep coming back to exploration dungeons?

[Soge01]

I don't know about solo crafter dungeons, but I had an idea awhile ago to create "Ocean Fishing" versions of events for the Miner and the Botanist.

A gold mining company out of Uldah hiring day labor for mining their new mine with variable cave locations based on the time of day.

Similarly a deep forest tour out of Girdania with variable clearings to harvest things from with the same 2 hour tour schedule as "Ocean Fishing" tours.

Since there are no baits for these gathering classes I would suggest using a select-able tool interface similar to the former jigs the fisher used. The three for miner could be trowel, pick-axe, hammer or dynamite for specific mining returns. And the three for botanist could be gardening shears, handsaw, and Axe or Hatchet for specific botany returns.

*No one remembers 1.0's hamlet defense mode*
Eh, that's about right. Though I don't trust the current devs to make something that fun. lol

Don't know why the devs never thought of bringing this back. All the expansions have the perfect themes for this kind of content. Plus it would make the world outside the city hubs feel more alive. :/