Where is the sandbox? My first impressions.

[sabinati]

What you seem to be taking issue with is the method of character development.

[Zamte]

As much as I dislike the inspirationals system, just as I disliked curiosities in Haven, the system is a lot better than the alternative. Back before this, you just gained Learning Points for doing stuff. People consistently figured out the best ways to get easy LP for minimal work and materials, and abused it until the cows came home.

On the upside, doing stuff that legitimately needed doing earned you progress overall. I made enough LP my first day in Nowa Codexia by paving the whole goddamn place to get most of the early skills I needed to get going. However, there were also days I needed some expensive skill, and because I wasn't planning anything at the time, I spent hours on end spam crafting the same items over and over again.

The downside, of course, and as has been said here, is that making it work that way means people can find ways to bot it. Botting was worse before I played, from what I've heard, but during world 3 when I started playing Haven, there was still botting going on. It's no fun when the guy on the other end of your sword was able to kill you largely because he automated the process.

Inspirationals aren't perfect. Certain skills so far are obtuse to raise if you're not in the right biome or don't have friends early on learning different things than you are so you have access to a wider range of stuff. I'll take it any day though over crafting ten thousand buckets or spending four hours paving roads or firing bricks.

As for the humours, Jorb has a bit of a thing about mysticism and mythology, and he likes to follow that type of stuff. The gluttony system does happen to work similarly to the old feasting system, but it's also "historically" (in the context of their beliefs) accurate and interesting. It might be based on pre-medicine hogwash, but at least it's based on something. It's a stylized world that asks the question "What if the world really was how they saw it back then?". As opposed to being a world full of nothing but gamey mechanics that don't fit at all, put in only to add structure to the game.