Having only seen a fraction of what the full game has to offer, it is unclear exactly what will make it into the final game. That being said, one thing that has been missing (in my personal opinion) is valuables to collect throughout the world outside of questing. Sure, the quests allow you to find valuables in the form of treasure chests, animals, and skulls (in full-release), I believe it would be nice to have other things to collect.
These valuables would be items you could find when on a quest, or when you are simply exploring the world. It would give some incentive for exploring when "off the clock." Examples of these kind of valuables could be gems and ores scattered across the world’s many islands. Or maybe giant clams under water with pearls to steal. Unique trees could be found growing on the islands that harbor wood ideal for crafting. These items could be sold for a little side gold, or perhaps be their own form of currency.
Perhaps these items could be used to obtain certain customizations for your character. If you want a pearl encrusted spy glass, or a ruby studded belt, you would need these resources to purchase them. Or maybe it is possible that these raw materials (referring to the wood and ore examples) could be brought back to outposts and transformed into bulk resources. Lumber from the trees could be milled down into 20x wooden planks or metal ore smelted into 20x cannonballs.
For how these resources act in-game, I believe it would be best if they function similarly to how chests and gun powder barrels already function. After cutting down a tree or mining some ore, a bundle of logs or hunk of rubble the size of a chest falls to the ground. These can then be picked up and thrown onto the ship where they can then be carried to the appropriate destination.
It would also be interesting if the non-questing valuables regenerated over time, meaning if you stumble upon an empty vein of ore, another player may have just been there. There could also be multiple spots per island where these valuables could spawn that would be randomly selected. This would ensure some effort has to be spent in finding them.
This wouldn't just improve non-questing adventures, but also quests themselves. It gives players a reason to search around an island rather than finding the "X," digging, and sailing away. Instead they could be hulling away much more.
The decision could also be made as to whether these resources are steal-able or not by other players. I could see both sides of the coin and will refrain from opening that discussion in this post.
Disclaimer:
This may have already been brought up by a fellow enthusiast or may already be implemented in the full game. In fact, in this video here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WB9hJNfMa5M) (4:38 mark) there is a clip of a player picking up a golden chalice from a ship wreck possibly hinting at a similar mechanic.
Let me know what you think.
