The_Lich_King wrote:Tamalak wrote:I would truly love for alts to cost money. It would do wonders for the balance of the game. However, the game's population is already too low, that change would be too dangerous.. for now.
Honestly, the devs really should focus on making the game's learning curve easier (tutorial quests, info boxes etc), make the default client equal to Ardennis, and then release the game on Steam already. PvP is still not balanced but some part of me thinks balancing that is still about a decade off and the game doesn't have that much time.
Releasing the game on steam will probably have no effect on the population of the game. It is a seriously hardcore game, where grinding and competition make up the vast majority of the gameplay with excedingly hardcore themes such as permadeath(even if nobody dies anymore) and pvp/griefing which you can do to anyone within the world. Games on steam with permadeath (like rust) are games where building back up is easy, and there is little consequence to death. In haven death has consequence and everything takes a longass fucking time. These are critical aspects of the game that cannot be removed (even if they get played with alot) and that people on steam would be abjectly averted too and that only a small populace of people will be willing to tolerate. In the end, if we put the game on steam more people might try it, but the population of the game in the end would be the same. Just a handful of hardcores and hermits
#hermitlifebestlife
There's plenty of people who want to play a hardcore MMO. Just look at Ark/Atlas, Conan Exiles, Life is Feudal, New World, etc. They just never seem to get it right.
I often bring up Haven in discussion groups for these games. Haven does a lot of things right. Claims, permissions, crimes, resources, quality, etc. are all very ingenious, yet simple features for a sandbox MMO. But, the new player experience has gotten worse and worse over the years.
First, Hafen's artstyle is horrible. The charm of the original is gone and I've never seen a new player compliment the game on its graphics. There's no aesthetic, the screen is way too busy, and the color pallette is absolutely gaudy. The original artstyle had a much more palatable look for a new player.
Secondly, the game is getting really bloated with mechanics. It seems like things are added just to add things without taking gameplay into account. Were quests really necessary? Credos? Satiations? Those are a couple of examples of mechanics that don't really seem to add anything to the game. They're just there and another aspect a new player needs to learn. I think Hafen is when things started getting out of control. I started playing during world 3 and everything just seemed really intuitive. Now, even as a long-time player, some things just don't immediately make sense to me anymore. I imagine the feeling is much worse for a new player.
Compare the original hunger system to what we have now. We used to have a hunger bar - eat too little and starve or eat too much and become bloated. You became hungrier whenever you regened stamina. Easy so far. Here's the kicker - different foods increase different character attributes just like the nutrients in real life food. Wow! What a simple, intuitive, yet ingenious mechanic.
Except, nowadays there's also a energy bar and the hunger bar is hidden in your character menu. You no longer starve from low hunger. Now, low energy makes you starve? Wtf? That makes no sense. Whatever. Food increases both bars at different rates. That kind of makes sense, I guess. Food has both energy density and nutrient density. Oh, but there's also satiation. I guess energy density and satiation are technically two different concepts, but does separating them really add anything to the game? But wait, there's more. Every different type of food has a different satiation level. I have no excuse for this one from a realism perspective and it definitely does more harm than good for gameplay.
I don't want to get on a tangent about the hunger system, but that's just one of many examples of mechanics that have gotten out of control in complexity.
Third, the new player experience just isn't taken into account at all. The game seems to revolve around whatever Jorb thought of in the shower and what the top 10% of players cry about. No one seems to care about the gameplay experience of a nomad despite there literally being a Credo for it. Or the life of a hermit which the vast majority of new players become. Or even smaller established villages who struggle to stay relevant. All anyone cares about is playing farmville with their 10 botted alts in the safety of their day-1 village.
There's almost nothing a hermit or small village can offer a large faction nowadays. The whole playstyle is irrelevant now. If you're not in a big faction, you're not playing the game. Stuff like cavebulbs used to be a hermit or small village's ticket to trading for higher quality seeds, tools, resources, etc. Now, those factions stay holed up in their village unless they get bored and want to steamroll people.
Speaking of Farmville, I used to describe this game as a low-fantasy Eve online village-building sandbox. Politics, trade, and territory control was the game. Now it literally seems like a farmville clone since 99% of things can be done within your walls, requiring no player interaction.
Fourth, no one likes to see bots and alts so accepted by the developers. Most people want to focus on their character and feel disadvantaged by not botting and alting themselves.
Lastly, and probably Haven's biggest problem, is the mass exodus of players after a few months into a new world. This has been an issue from the start and never seems to be on anyone's radar despite Jorb claiming that world resets aren't meant to be the norm. Haven is like Rust except on a longer timescale. Instead, Haven should strive to be more like Eve. The thing that makes Eve different is that there's no infinite vertical character progression. All skills have a cap. Instead, players focus on horizontal character progression by expanding into different roles and then participate in politics and territory control as end game content. New players shouldn't feel like they have no chance against other factions. Enough skilled players and a few weeks of hard work should be enough for a village to compete with another that's been around for 8 months.
You'll never hear anyone support that, though, because the only people still playing are the ones that like the Farmville nature of the current game state.
So sadly I have no time to play. 
