Possibilities:
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- Nestor-exclusive very rare trinket that grants 10% extra job experience per day, i.e. +11 instead of +10 experience each time a job is performed.
- Nestor-exclusive very rare trinket that has a 5% chance of tripling job experience, eg. 5% chance of gaining +30 experience instead of +10. On average, this will result in +11 experience each day. It's nearly identical to the above suggestion - same average result but with more variance.
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- An entire new class of trinkets that are job-specific and only grant bonuses to a specific job. For example, one trinket would grant +2 experience per day (for a total of +12) only if the cat using the trinket is Fishing, and another trinket would grant +2 experience per day only if the user is Scribing. These trinkets would be very rarely obtained through the corresponding jobs, eg. the Scribe +Exp trinket can only be found as a very rare Scribe drop.
- An identical option as above, except trinkets can only be very rarely obtained by crafting the corresponding building. For example, every time you craft a Mine Entrance item, you have a 5% chance of obtaining a Mine +Exp trinket. If you craft a Garden, you have a 5% chance of obtaining either a Gardener, Herbalist, or Farmer +Exp trinket.
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- Introduce both sets of trinkets (generic Nestor-exclusive and specific job trinkets), where the job-specific bonus is higher than the generic bonus.
Pros:
- Takes advantage of the fact that job experience is scaled up by 10.
- Encourages specialization at the user level; a user benefits from putting a large chunk of their cats on the same job rather than putting an equal number of cats on each job, which leads to more market interaction and resource buying/selling - at least until the max level is reached, which is pretty far in the future for most users.
- Encourages specialization at the cat level, unless a user wants to commit time to shuffling trinkets every day.
- Provides a mechanism for cats with lower natural talent for a job to "catch up", since levels provide extra job skill.
- Creates incentive to craft buildings even after all jobs are unlocked. Many buildings are quite expensive, so users craft them once then never touch them again. Since a lot of (probably) desirable trinkets would come from jobs unlocked by resource-intensive buildings (Library, Apothecary's Workstation), this also serves as a resource sink.
- Adds spiciness to the existing trinket system.
Cons + abuse potential and mitigation
- Users can move trinkets around between executing jobs, so theoretically they can apply the effect of one +Exp trinket to every cat they have once they obtain even a single trinket. <--> Users already can shuffle powerful trinkets around between their cats each day to maximize job outcomes, and honestly if they're willing to commit the time to that manual labor, they probably deserve to reap the benefits.
- Snowball effect, where the high-performing cats become even higher-performing. <--> Jobs are capped at level 5, so eventually all cats will be back on the same playing field regardless of how fast they get there.
- Snowball effect, where earlier-joining, rich users get richer. <--> This will be an issue every time a new set of rare, job-obtained items gets introduced; only Nestor-exclusive items dodge this plague. (As an example, consider the recent release of collectable doodles/plushies/books.) If users are seriously concerned about this, I'm happy to brainstorm potential mitigation techniques (eg. a user can obtain at most one of these trinkets every 5 days, regardless of how many cats they have).
Nerfs
- There are (potentially very large) nerfs that can be applied if this sounds overpowered. A cat carrying a +Exp trinket could be penalized with a negative skill modifier, so they are gaining more job experience at the cost of sacrificing immediate job payout. For example, a cat carrying a Scribe +Exp trinket could have a -2 Scribe skill modifier applied. Users would have to decide whether they value the long-term or short-term benefits more.
All numbers in this thread are, of course, off the top of my head and fully adjustable. As always, I'd love to hear feedback, comments, or any thoughts in general. Thanks for reading!
P.S. If you are here, check out my other economy suggestion!