Downtime Activities

Downtime. Ah, downtime. It used to be a minor aspect of the game, often overlooked. Perhaps a few characters would chat, or someone would sharpen their sword—nothing significant happened. 

That’s no longer the case. After we fixed static leveling, we realized players needed time to train their skills. This led us to consider: what do we do during downtime? Or, more interestingly, what would we do if our lives were in danger every day and we needed to stay sharp to survive? 

Thus, the downtime pillar of play was born.

Currently, there are 16 downtime activities—and the list is growing. Each of these activities is crucial for your character's progress and adding depth to their story. We believe that how you spend your free time shapes who you are. So, who will you become? 

Let’s explore these activities to discover how you can enhance your downtime.

1. Attune

You take time to connect with the energies of a magical item. This attunement can reveal the skills or knowledge contained within it. However, be cautious! The process of attunement can be dangerous— the more powerful the energy, the more it may resist your efforts.

2. Cooking and Crafting

You can successfully cook a recipe with the right ingredients and know-how. This means you may need to buy, forage for, or harvest the ingredients to prepare your dish. The time and effort you invest can lead to significant rewards. Properly prepared food can cure ailments, revitalize your allies, and even poison your enemies. However, if you make a mistake with the recipe, you might also end up poisoning your allies! I wonder who will be brave enough to take the first bite...

Crafting is much like cooking but yields alchemical items, contraptions, glyphic items, and more! Gather, refine, and craft! Combine them in new ways to see what you can make!

Then, perfect your recipes to take them to new heights!

3. Experiment

Do you want to try out a cool new skill or cook a soufflé but feel uncertain about your ability to succeed? Don’t worry—experimentation is here to save the day! You can attempt to learn a new skill without a trainer or instruction manual. While this approach can be risky and may lead to wasted time, resources, and even ruined clothing (darn fire glyphs), each failure provides valuable experience, making your next attempt more likely to succeed.

In fact, some skills require experimentation to level up. You won't learn how to pick higher-tier locks without experiencing some failures along the way! Interestingly, you continue to learn through mistakes even when you're out adventuring, but that’s a story for another time.

4. Explore Relationships

Take some time to connect with that special someone. You might want to develop a deeper friendship with your teammate, explore a possible romantic relationship with the shop owner, or strengthen your bond with your new pet. 

Exploring relationships is essential for enhancing rapport and creating a more fulfilling gameplay experience. Share your vulnerabilities, teach them something new, or, in the case of your pet, see if it enjoys playing fetch! 

Success in building these relationships can unlock new conversations, abilities, quest leads, and more. On the other hand, failing to connect can decrease your rapport with them, causing them to grow distant, leave the area, or even side with a conflicting faction. 

Building deep relationships takes time and effort, but the rewards are well worth it.

5. Forage

Have you ever wondered about that flower you passed a couple of hallways back? Do you remember seeing some juicy fullberries growing by the side of the road? Or perhaps you simply want to explore and see what you can find!

Foraging is a fantastic activity for gathering useful ingredients for cooking, crafting, and research. You never know, you might stumble upon something unexpected that you can identify! The world is full of vibrant life—so go out and explore!

6. Identification

That silver rod looks like it's hiding something. That slimy mold looks like it miiight be a useful ingredient. Emphasis on the might.

It's time to whip out your tools and figure out if that rod is just shiny, or if it's a powerful artifact. The mold will probably just kill you. Maybe.

You identify an object by using reference items, tool kits, and an inquisitive mind to poke and prod until an object reveals its true nature. Hopefully, the mold doesn't spring to life and try to eat you. It probably won't.

7. Recuperate

This is what most adventurers think of when someone says downtime. Everyone needs a rest sometimes, especially when you're literally fighting for your life every day. Near-death experiences can take their toll.

Recuperating can clear the Fatigue and Daze condition. But you do not automatically regain health. Dun dun DUN! Yes, you do not regain health on any type of rest, unless you're taking a couple of weeks to regain your strength. There aren't many skills to heal your friends, either. But more talk on that later.

Pick up a meditation skill to find incongruencies in your body and fix them while you rest. Eat something to regain your strength. Sip on a steaming mug of coffee to recenter your focus. Oh yes, there is coffee in this world. The world can't turn without it.

8. Research

If you don't feel like sitting around to refill those pesky resources, deplete your focus instead while researching! Take time to learn from an item with the information tag.

The name and description of the item can lend a clue to what you’ll unlock. You won’t know what is inside until you read it. Unlock new skills and recipes. Level up knowledge-based skills such as negotiations, history, creatures, politics, and more!

9. Review

There's something bugging you about that room you passed over. Or perhaps you want to figure out Molgren's tactics so you're more prepared next time you meet one!

Take the time to review your experiences to gain new insight into creatures and locations. Name an enemy or location that you interacted with today. If you choose a creature, you may learn skills, stats, or tags relative to the time spent. If you choose a location, you learn if you missed anything. You do not gain particulars. Instead, you might feel you haven’t uncovered all the secrets there. 

10. Salvage

You attempt to salvage a unique piece of equipment or creature for parts. Salvaged items are usually named ingredients that come with a skill check (more on those in another one!)

Salvaging is a wonderful way to gain resources for your other ventures. Be forewarned, though. Failure might break the item you're trying to save!

11. Share a Meal

Breaking bread with someone else really means something. Tales are told, tensions are broken, and laughs abound. Sharing a meal can increase your recovery times, heighten food benefits, and it can be a roaring good time! You can take this activity while you recuperate, review, explore relationships, and strategize. Talk about multitasking!

12. Strategize

Often overlooked by novices, strategizing is incredibly useful both in-game and out. Take the time to review the facts and plan your next steps. Everyone must participate in this activity to gain initiative and insight for your next foray into the unknown!

13. Train Pet

That cute little fluffball killer looks up at you with those enormous blue eyes, silently wishing you would teach it a new trick. Or at least that's what you think it wants.

You can train your pet companion to unlock a new skill or level up one of its actions. You might want to get some treats so it doesn't gnaw on your hand when it gets hungry.

14. Teach Skills

Speaking of training others, you have the ability to teach skills to other characters! You take on the role of a teacher, guiding someone to become a bit more awesome. Together you earn experience, hopefully becoming a stronger team in the process!

Remember, there are no classes. That means no class requirements or class restrictions. Your pupil only needs to have the foundational knowledge to learn the skill alongside you! Now, the student becomes the teacher!

15. Train Skills

Before you train others, you need to learn the skills! Training is crucial to your progression. There are no static levels in this game. Either you decide to develop your skills or you spend your time elsewhere. That's up to you!

Practice your skills to make them more effective, or learn new ones! You might not level up a skill in one session, but you will gain experience every time. Be careful, though, as training can use valuable resources you may need later!

16. Unlock Secrets

The last one (so far). Sometimes, you pick up an object that refuses to spill its secrets. You chuck it in your bag to mess with it later. Now is that time. The secrets are calling. 

You're in for a treat if you have an item with the puzzle tag. Every time you sit down with the item, manipulating it and pondering it, you gain more insight. At the end of each session, you may be awarded a new clue to solve the puzzle. 

You can then make three guesses to complete the puzzle. If none are correct, you can try again later. Probably when your brain hurts a little less.

More Brewing!

Just wait - we're not done yet! These activities open the door to unique opportunities for discovery and interaction. We're excited to see what else we can come up with! While you wait, check out how a chat with your fellow NPC might unfold!

We'd love to hear what you think! Do you have any downtime activities you'd like to see?

If you like what you're reading, share this post with a friend! Happy roleplaying, and see you in the next one!