-Related to territory corruption I do realize how hard it is to do, but I feel it's well worth it to actually do it. This is actually something that could be used all the time if implemented and it would have a great use on later acts, especially on zones that have already been worked on. Of course we can debate on if it's worth it to actually implement it, personally I do find it worth it and from a gameplay perspective it gives a new level to the game.
So, please, tell us how creating this big convoluted sliding scale/bar of corruption which fills passively unless you're constantly working every day to keep it down will improve a game where it is entirely feasible to just sleep for 98 days in a row after picking up the Amulet of Transference to pop 32 kids in and out of Kiyoko to max out her tail count, and the game does not even bat an eye? Not only is the game not built for timed quests/encounters/events except for when you deliberately trigger then (like Brienne's armor), it's pretty much designed for the polar opposite.
And even aside from that, on changing up encounters and stuff in territories themself, how would this sliding bar that needs constant attention be better than what we have now, where some encounters
do change already after certain events, quests, or level thresholds? If corruption would be making enemies in an area stronger, then why tie that to something that you could max out by sleeping for 98 days in a row and as such thoroughly fuck yourself by needing to fend off level 10 foes with a level 2 team, when you can do as has already been done, and change or add encounters after certain points, like the Painted Demon encounter appearing in low level areas after you clear the Winter city? I would rather more encounters be changed along these lines, where events that you actively experience change things up, rather than what you've suggested where you
not experiencing events would be what change things.
But well to end I would just say that the "it would be a lot of work" actually doesn't deny stuff, what should be debated is if that work is worth it. Personally I do believe that everything that goes towards making the world more dynamic and interesting is something to welcome, the problem with most sandboxes tend to be the lack of stuff happening and feeling that you can just stay there without doing anything at all and nothing will change. Best sandbox games tend to be those with events and stuff happening that complement the gameplay and experience.
The best sandbox games don't say "hey, an explosion happened 5 miles away, if you walk over there you may catch a whiff of the burnt gunpowder." They make it so that you walk through a forest and suddenly a guy hurls the explosive device in your face. You can have hints of a "living world" where things happen without the player, but when things actually happen completely devoid of the player, that only works if the game is S.T.A.L.K.E.R. or something similar, where the point is that you aren't special and you're just another one of the riff-raff struggling to survive.
On the time aspect it isn't that you are wrong but it's on a different line compared to what I meant. Let me show an example of how would it be what I said:
-Garth asks you to go to the farm and ask if everything is alright.
-You go to the farm and everything is okay but they tell you that there are too many cultists on the zone.
-You don't focus on fighting the cultists then suddenly one day you go back to the city, sleep and when you wake up one of the farm girls comes and is asking for you, the farm is under attack and they won't be able to fight for much longer. Now you have the timed part of all of this, you have 3 days to go rescue the farm from the attack before it falls to the cultists. Possible situations:
a) You help defend the farm:
1º You get defeated, the farm falls and you managed to escape and get a new mission, recover the farm.
2º You win. This event won't activate until 2 weeks later and it will stop activating if you defeat the cultist's dungeons in the zone.
b) You don't help: The farm falls and you get a new mission recover the farm.
This is the type of stuff I mean on general lines, you advanced a questline, you unlock some kind of stuff, if you just focused on cleaning the cultist dungeon after talking to the farm girls there wouldn't even happen an attack on the farm, but this event could actually be used on future acts when the more "warlike" stage happens by adjusting it.
About the effects of being captured by the cultists on act 1 it would be okay to be kind of like what happens with Nihara corruption, basically more lustful and pregnancy hungry characters and increasing a bit the zone corruption. By no means I mean something rushed that would drive a new player crazy. Still I kind of understand that when you talk to people about "timed stuff" it's easy to think about the worst case in which everything is rushed.
So, you see, I think that the concept of getting told "hey, the farm got attacked and we need your help" can be interesting. The problem is that you frame this as a punishment for not speeding through the Harvest Valley content. You do not want to be Cyberpunk 2077, where things that geniunely hold your interest will be interrupted by 12 overlapping calls which you are not allowed to reject telling you about a random encounter in which your job would be to sniff someone's farts. Honestly basically no sandbox game I can think of except for the Dead Rising series will have things strictly timed, and in Dead Rising that's because the timer is the whole point. The game is built from the ground up around a timer. If you take a game where things are built with the firm idea of "no strict timer," and suddenly start adding in strict timers and punishments for not doing things quickly, then that is going to clash with the game that is there and it will, in no uncertain terms, detract from the experience. Work with the core vision, not against it, just because what you think goes against it would be cool.
In tits we find for example Kiro rescue and the rescue of that princess on that cold planet (forgot the race name)
One: That's a different game with a different design principal. Even though "Events generally are not timed" is shared between the two, something being in one game does not mean it should be in another.
Two: The princess on Uveto, is a Korgonne named Ula. It takes 5 whole days for her to be removed from content, and this can be solved instantly if you have one of the several items usable there or with just a few hours walk since what she wants is sold nearby. It does not take heavy focus to constantly keep track of and manage several bars where you don't want them to fill up and you get punished for not keeping it at an absolute minimum.
Three: I dislike the Kiro Quest precisely because of this design decision. A timed quest is not inherently bad, but Kiro Quest feels like such a strict timer that unless you just teleport straight to the end I'm not sure how you would end it before Kiro can start getting transformed. Granted, you can still finish it whenever, if you don't care about the tf'ing, but if you think Kiro is perfect the way she is, you don't get to enjoy the quest/dungeon. You only get to speedrun it. There are permanent, scaling consequences based on time passed, like what you proposed as an area corruption mechanic, and that just does not feel good to me. But even then, it's still better than what you suggested, because you get notified that there's something really urgent, and then go straight into a dungeon where you can only focus on it and it alone, rather than just completely fucking over massive parts of your game because you didn't do one specific thing.
