Game Development: The Danger Zone

Announcements about major changes in Haven & Hearth.

Re: Game Development: The Danger Zone

Postby Granger » Wed Jan 20, 2016 2:26 am

loftar wrote:Really, though, one of the main reasons we ourselves focus on it is because I think what the game really needs is more social interaction and happenings. People hermitting inside their walled compounds isn't very conducive to that, no matter how much content there is.

That not saying that we don't want to make content updates at all, mind you. It just seems like social dynamics is the real priority for the well-being of the game.


IMHO the biggest problem in balance the game has is that the older the world gets, the bigger the loss from failures and the harder to recover from them. Combine this with mass murdering sociopaths that will grief in whatever way possible, just because they can. In case some wall is breached, the enclosed area will be looted of all valuables (from attacker perspective), the rest of the items will be dumped to despawn, anything that moves will be killed and every object of slight value (either because of quality, or because it takes time to create) will be destroyed. Because they can. And with the current system, should a toon have taken enough damage from leaving scents (or weekly playtime runs out on that account) the next one is brought in to continue.

Please rewatch the videos from jordancoles (the horse destroying the base, and the new brodgar raid) to get this into your head, they nicely show the problem unfold.

Current solutions employed by players are alts, used as backups, vaults and throwaway one trick ponies. Valuable alts (farmer, crafter) never leave the wall and never login in slight case of danger, because to replace them is hard (up to impossible in an old world). Combined with remote location so no one ever finds you (which charterstones made easier since they are unable to be found by following something, compared to roads).

It also leads to a mindset of effectively farming for characters, with exploits like for combat alts to use an experienced fighter in good armor to lure an animal into an enclosure, lock the gate, make it flee and then parade am endless line of characters with 5* take aim decks along it to discover all possible moves from it in one sitting. And bots to feed that army with feps and curious.

In my view the current consequences of permadeath reminds me of a variation of realm of a mad god without respawning in the area with the low level monsters but where you died, plus leveling up taking weeks or longer.

This is bad, since it - from my perspective - takes away the fun of playing the game.

As long as it is easier to raise a freemium alt army than a single subscription character and the need to do it exists because one currently can't reasonably recover from death... I see systems like the nidbane unable to reach their potential since they can't be made to deliver working penalties to serial wrongdoers without being overpowered against small time criminals.

So death needs some form of recovery (to not end up with a useless character) working within a reasonable time-frame (to both deliver the penalty, and relief).

Character development needs gates that it is unfeasible to raise an alt by just feeding food and curios, the current xp system is a good basis for this and could be refined so that one trick ponies (like crafters never leaving walls) are impossible to make.

Goal should be that people can (and usually do) play with a single character, which dies from time to time without that being the end for the player. Then systems can be structured that theft, vandalism and murder are no longer feasible on massive scale and the victims have reasons to stay in the game.
No society can survive overboarding amounts of criminality - not even in a game, unless you have hordes or respawning NPCs to victimize.

Alternative is to convert the game to a RTS style where one can control a horde of peons without micro managing their actions by just placing building construction signs, and selecting what other colored peons to attack and structures to destroy. Which is where we are currently headed, enabled for tech savvy players through bots, which are rooted in the fundamental design decision of permadeath and an implementation that doesn't work for the play time H&H aims for per world.

tl;dr Address death (as you have posted while I was writing this) . my suggestion is to go for something that over a reasonable time-frame recovers the old abilities, should you want something that takes effort then I suggest you pick something that isn't just a resource sink that can an will be automated. Maybe discuss with community first (make announcement ingame when logging in linking to a thread on forum to include non-forum-dwellers) and code later instead of reverting after hard work?
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Re: Game Development: The Danger Zone

Postby Ethan » Wed Jan 20, 2016 2:33 am

jorb wrote:We've been developing, and here's what's new.


[*] Nidbanes now use the highest value of their target's Unarmed, Melee or Ranged values.
[*] A maximum of five Nidbanes can be dispatched against any given player. If you attempt to craft a new Nidbane Fetter against a player who already has five Nidbanes after him, a new Nidbane will only be added if the new Nidbane has better average stats than one of the five already aimed at the target, that same lower quality fetter being replaced and shattering.

Enjoy!



I think these were good decisions, for what its worth. However I still think combat against 5 nidbanes is almost certain death. Which means you need another character alt, or friend to kill them. Unless you happen to be (un)lucky(?) enough that you are online when they reach you.

Is it still possible to send 5 more when the first 5 are dead?
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Re: Game Development: The Danger Zone

Postby loftar » Wed Jan 20, 2016 2:35 am

Granger wrote:tl;dr Address death

Yes, I agree that this is a thing, at least. Just as it would be nice that a single defeat in combat didn't necessarily entail death, it would be very nice if a successful siege didn't necessarily entail completely and utter destruction. The problem is just the means by which to get to that point. :)
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Re: Game Development: The Danger Zone

Postby CSPAN » Wed Jan 20, 2016 2:42 am

give players 3 strikes like livestock duuuuuh
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Re: Game Development: The Danger Zone

Postby Granger » Wed Jan 20, 2016 2:50 am

loftar wrote:
Granger wrote:tl;dr Address death

Yes, I agree that this is a thing, at least. Just as it would be nice that a single defeat in combat didn't necessarily entail death, it would be very nice if a successful siege didn't necessarily entail completely and utter destruction. The problem is just the means by which to get to that point. :)


Use nidbane to deliver harsher consequences to the murderer than the victim had to suffer?
Like victim regains all stats over time (in addition to more fep/curio eaten with the new character), and can use nidbane to remove 10% of abilities (for murder scent, and for example) of culprit - as long as culprit dosn't have older scent of victim crafted into some form of defensive totem, so you can still freely kill people who fuck with your claim...?
Last edited by Granger on Wed Jan 20, 2016 8:24 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: typo fixed
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Re: Game Development: The Danger Zone

Postby DaniAngione » Wed Jan 20, 2016 2:56 am

jorb wrote:[...] Should be fixed, but there are siege updates to fail at.


I lol'd :oops:
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Re: Game Development: The Danger Zone

Postby pheonix » Wed Jan 20, 2016 3:07 am

Another idea, add trebuchets and let us quarry boulders to go into them or stones for sprinkle damage.
Takes 4 hours to dry and then you can start flinging stones (10+ minutes per loading as the ropes slowly tighten back up) each hit does damage to surrounding structures and walls/people/animals.
defending towns can have their own setup ready for any sieges or if too lazy build one during siege.
trebuchet takes damages if hit at brought down to 50% it shuts down and needs repairing (can only be repaired when at 50% and then takes 2 hours to be repaired).

This gives us a way to have sieges and also fight back, make the trebuchets require a certain strength and stats to fire so you cant use a fresh alt to fire so that if that character gets hit and goes down no worries about a new char being respawned to take place.
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Re: Game Development: The Danger Zone

Postby loftar » Wed Jan 20, 2016 3:08 am

Astarisk wrote:I've done far more time consuming things for a raid, such as building a 10+ hour road to zox's this world. Generally the effort involved is equal to how good the loot is, and the chance it'll succeed. Most cases in legacy hafen, anything worth that amount of effort had every counter measure to almost guarantee it'll fail. i.e: it's on an island, they have counter rams, patrol bots are used etc.

Coming back to this, I do have to ask: Why is it that brickwalls are considered completely impenetrable as it is now? I mean, if you're willing to go these lengths to raid someone, why is guarding the ram for 24 hours a non-starter? It doesn't seem like that inhuman a task to me. Is there something I'm missing?
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Re: Game Development: The Danger Zone

Postby strpk0 » Wed Jan 20, 2016 3:13 am

loftar wrote:
Astarisk wrote:I've done far more time consuming things for a raid, such as building a 10+ hour road to zox's this world. Generally the effort involved is equal to how good the loot is, and the chance it'll succeed. Most cases in legacy hafen, anything worth that amount of effort had every counter measure to almost guarantee it'll fail. i.e: it's on an island, they have counter rams, patrol bots are used etc.

Coming back to this, I do have to ask: Why is it that brickwalls are considered completely impenetrable as it is now? I mean, if you're willing to go these lengths to raid someone, why is guarding the ram for 24 hours a non-starter? It doesn't seem like that inhuman a task to me. Is there something I'm missing?


Well it's mostly that the idea of looking at an object for 24 hours straight and making 100% sure it isn't touched is very unappealing to most players. Not to mention some simply can't afford to spend that long doing something like that. A road, on the other hand, can be done over the course of several days.
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Re: Game Development: The Danger Zone

Postby LadyGoo » Wed Jan 20, 2016 3:20 am

loftar wrote:
Astarisk wrote:I've done far more time consuming things for a raid, such as building a 10+ hour road to zox's this world. Generally the effort involved is equal to how good the loot is, and the chance it'll succeed. Most cases in legacy hafen, anything worth that amount of effort had every counter measure to almost guarantee it'll fail. i.e: it's on an island, they have counter rams, patrol bots are used etc.

Coming back to this, I do have to ask: Why is it that brickwalls are considered completely impenetrable as it is now? I mean, if you're willing to go these lengths to raid someone, why is guarding the ram for 24 hours a non-starter? It doesn't seem like that inhuman a task to me. Is there something I'm missing?
Yes.

RISKS: Only big factions can perform something like this, since there are huge risks involved. Any middle-tier raiders will be wiped out, once the village owners will plea for help. Moreover, the big factions are also hesitant to camp something, since people tend to go afk during camping, get bored and leave for real-life reasons. Therefore, you will have a disorganized and tired group against fresh and concentrated reinforcements, who will in 90% of cases outnumber you.

LOOT: People inside of the village will alt-vault everything valuable, transport key instruments, curios and food to elsewhere. You will land no kills, and will get no loot as well. You might destroy some ovens and cupboards, but they are easy to restore as well. You cannot do anything to the village idol.

BRICKWALL: Any large village has a plot-based system + external wall. This is the major reason why they are considered unbreakable. Let's say you have camped the ram for 6 hours, broke the first layer, then rolled the ram and need to camp it for 8-16 more hours to reach the nearest plot. This is why it is impossible. People cannot stay online 24/7, therefore the ram will be brocken and the walls will be repaired. You might keep coming back and destroying the freshly-repaired walls, but you cannot place a new ram inside of the place.
In previous worlds we would have brick walled pockets for the rams, which could be built inside of a village, which is being sieged. And we would have alts, who would be able to summon us inside of the pockets.

Result: high risks and no reward. It does not even hurt the enemy, considering how much time you have spent sieging the place.
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