Yesterday, we had a conversation with Will about any potential competitions that would or could yield a diamond-shovel or two.
The primary issue we had during our talk was that we are unaware of current possibilities for the game as a whole. Traditionally, one of the core reasons for having so vastly few DS's in the game is the actual lack of any "specifically digger-tailored" option, let alone chance for an event. Mining out oreputties? Nah, just buy them off the market. Put as much silver as possible into either the bank or market? That, and any other silver-based idea can be circumvented by so obvious means that it may not even be worth considering. That leaves us with three main ways to go
1. "Fill-up-contest".
Perhaps the best, and most fun version would be to actually have a new activity for diggers. Trying to keep it as simple as possible development-wise (and this is where the issue of not understanding our current options of implementing anything new at all without FoD's active participation), while providing new possible, maybe perpetual options for the game. The following idea is a direct rip-off from the hungarian version, and while it should be fairly easy to implement, if we are left with no development-power, then this idea is as good as dead.
The concept, though:
A new tile would be added to TA. Diggers, or any character exceeding a certain luck threshold can participate in "activating" the new tile as a fully functional TA-block.
How it's done?
You basically have to mine a new kind of resource introduced to TA, and dump it into the new tile, thus both progressing towards the goal, and making xp in the process.
A new type of ore, "superputty" is introduced. It weighs 1 kg, can be found from, say, 30-50 luck, and this is what has to be accumulated from any and all areas that can produce the regular oreputty. So, no digging (shovel-splashing) on the sea, Larki island doesn't count, and any non-putty-yielding blocks on TA fail to produce Superputties as well. In terms of development: copy-paste oreputty, adjust weight, adjust luck threshold, and if necessary, adjust appearing amount limits. The latter may be important as in deciding if 1 should be the max limit a char can find (like hyperium, etc), or be it like oreputty, with the limit being the sky (5-6 putties a round). The latter version supports established pure diggers, the earlier supports newer players and other char classes. The process itself requires to fill your pack as much as possible, before moving to the location and adding your payload to the forming tile. The hungarian version required you to do this by sea (the tile was still submerged and for the duration of the event was a simple "sea-tile" that could be sailed across just as any existing tile), but another option is just to add in an extra block to the land. Either way, once the method of access has been implemented, all there is to do is to meet the fillup-requisitions, similarly to construction, or to the clearing of a splat target. Once the counter, initially set to a high number, hits 0, the event is concluded, and the block is activated. Either by "surfacing": appearing finally as an accessable tile, or the already accessable tile can now be used for monstalogy, and, as the potentially difficult part of development, be overrun by armies, etc. Putting the tile to a very safe location on TA (FAAAR from frontlines) may help.
The ultimate objective: Any character contributing at least XXX fillups is automatically entitled to a shovel, or if it really has to have the competitive nature (this is dangerous due to the fact of incredible click reserves on some diggers and would punish active players), the top x would get the shovel, and the runner-ups would still be happy with the boosted exp gains from fillups compared to (or in addition to) digging, and nail-farming. Ultimately, there could be more iterations to such a competition, multiple runs, but it all burns down to how much the core code of the game can be touched.
2. "The splat competition".
Perhaps the most blunt and boring option we can possibly have, but given the circumstances, this may be the only real way to go. Absolutely no development would be needed whatsoever, and to top it off, it can still actually be applied to this very festive splatting event.
The ultimate goal is exactly the same as above: either best performers get it (although at this stage with practically 4 of us participating in a hardcore or semi-hardcore fashion, it really would make things a bit too exclusive, while incredibly tilting the favor towards who has more clicks to spare), or to have a set level as to how many splats have to be accumulated before a guaranteed DS.
While this is a fair method, with potentially well-established goals, motivation, and event duration, there's one big issue. What exactly would count as fair? Any number coming up would be highly subjective at this moment.
- For a splat-suitable, but not-yet-optimized (and un-boosted), maybe non-subscribed character, a 24-day-plus-giveandtake period would only allow for about 1200-1500 splats from 12k clicks. A sub can do about 2k.
- 7500-10k kills seem appropriate at first glance as a reward, for a dedicated player who can designate 3-4 chars to the cause. These are also nice numbers, and while requiring dedication already, would perhaps still not apply a too taxing goal to the extent it interferes with IRL life too much.
- On the high end, naturally, larger numbers also come into play. According to my calculations, if I can muster the time for it, my fleet holds a potential of performing north of 30k splats within the 3-week-span of things, and even this is nowhere close to the reserve-based and char-count-based potential of either the Eze,- or the Krystal-fleet. While such a competition, is by all means, really thrilling, and honestly inspiring to me - to all other eyes, this would be bordering insane, or simply impossible due to the lack of click reserves on their respective accounts.
Either way, it'd be a hard call that has to be made. Will and I would suggest against making it internally competitive among the currently active veterans, but rather make the reward not only available finally to the broader public, but to the extent that such an event could possibly be held annually, and would allow more casual players to prep up properly in advance.
As for goals, a suggestion may be to reward all 10k+ achievers during this splatathon, but, and this is only my personal view, I might actually suggest putting a DS-reward-event on-hold until the current festive splatting event concludes (seeing as the rewards, if they are what we think they are are already incredible, combined with the fact that for exactly said reasons, most of us are going to hammer our click reserves anyway, providing for a more fair competition next time), and do the "guaranteed DS reward for XXX splats" on the next (or even later) target block.
Obviously, I'd be very happy with either option! But such an event has a very nice extra aspect to it: it has the potential to reinforce the community with some hype and a great reward as a goal. It even has the potential to bring back any old veteran who accidentally stumbles on this forum, and after reading says "wow, an easter event offering diamond shovels? Cool, I'll be here then!". While also having the potential to motivate currently casual players to more dedication in terms of getting one or more chars to a splat-ready state, and prepare well-in-advance, knowing when and how to get the reward.
3. "Character Mastery" event.
A fun, but potentially hard event exclusive to the more hardcore playerbase would be, in short, to take a digger, and do things with it that would under normal circumstances not occur to any sane person. This way, new feature development would not be necessary. For instance, get 1000 splats on a pure digger, get to lvl 100 robbing skill, etc. It would require some more thoughts, though, starting from what kinds of characters would even be eligible (splatting with a mage-digger is just too simple, for instance), through event-length to actual activities, etc.
4. "Misc."
These options would all take existing opportunities into account, completely avoiding new development, and doing something possibly unheard-of, while having fun along the way! All the while making sure neither event is too long.
- Levelling race: Register a new acc/character, and get it to lvl 20 as fast as you possibly can. Some rules may apply.
- Croco-craze: by any means, aquire as much crocodile skins as you possibly can. Or hydragen-carbids. Or any low-level comp, yet-to-be-decided. Some rules may apply.
- etc
TL;DR version of ideas
1. If developmental possibilities allow it, create a new in-game feature, and use it to host possible multiple competitions for diggers in the future.
2. Splat competition:
- Any player who lands 7.5-10k splats during this splatting comp could recieve a DS
- Set up, plan ahead, and advertise well-in-advance a future splatting comp where the reward is a guaranteed DS for a set amount of kills. One per player, and once a year, with months of prior notice to maximize potential of returning players, and satisfaction/inspiration for active players.
3. Hardcore feats of strength, unconventional tasks for diggers, using current game mechanics/opportunities.
4. Random competitions featuring relatively short durations and simple tasks, but advertised also well-in-advance.