How fast do players progress?

[SlicingTheMoon]

My tip, start in a cave, build houses, put up a personal claim and a fence to stop noob theft.
You are much less likely to be discovered by the aggressive players, they mostly go for unnatural formations on the map.

[NeoBasilisk]

Noob here, started playing when world 12 came out. Were playing all day for 6 days and then got killed by 3 dudes in full armor with metal weapons on my own territory. I want to give this game another shot but i was wondering if this kind of stuff is common and people usually progress this fast. Day 6 and those guys had tresspasing/rage/vandalism/theft/murder and great equipment. Were I just unlucky?

Big thanks for answers and tips boys. Ima try to rush palisade now.

yeah If you're playing that much you should really try to get a palisade up quicker. I've been playing for years, so I have the advantage of knowing what I'm doing, but as a hermit, I had a palisade up at the end of day 3. This world, it was especially important, since everyone spawned on the same continent, as opposed to last world when people were much more spread out.

[Kabury]

So, I'm another noob here and wanted to ask something (thread related, I think).

I would guess most active hermit players that know what they're doing have about 500k-750kP at this point.

For the competitive players with large groups supporting them and feeding their fighters, it's probably about double that if not more.

This is something I can't even comprehend, yet I can see it with my own eyes. People with 40+ stats somehow advancing at what seems lightspeed often pass by the outside of my lowly base (some of them are quite kind, sometimes they would give me these super rare q50 curios that would net me lots of lp, like 15k. Thankfully none of them have raided my base) and I just feel I can't ever reach them. I have 2 neighbors that play together and their base is somehow about 30 times bigger than mine and they got metal.

The first time I played, it took me 2 and a half months to get my first ores (playing about 7-9 hrs daily), and the progress wasn't even mine (It was late world and I had made a claim in an old decayed base that already had crops, curios, and items), then the world got reset and I couldn't even make a bar of wrought iron.
The second time I played I managed to build by myself a full palisade, I had a chicken coop (q17 hens and eggs I might add) a farm (poppy as a curio, barley and hemp, and peppercorn, all about q22) and I remember this character had the highest stats I've ever managed (24 intelligence and 800 per*exp). Again by the very least 7 hrs daily. This took me 3 months but felt more rewarding because I raised everything from the ground and done everything myself. It was great, but another game caught my eye at the time and Haven grew a bit stale (I would only farm quality inside my 25*40 tiles base and occasionally visit a neighbor and help him with some errands). Now, these numbers are approximated (I don't exactly remember them, but have an idea).

The ongoing pandemic caused quarantine in my country and I remembered Haven and wanted to give it a shot. So last Sunday I downloaded the game again and this time I have binged more (10 hrs per day) and I have been trying to do my best. I have collected about 14-16 Mirkwood logs on my 580 m2 claim, a house, and some drying racks and tanning tubs. I'm about to build a palisade with q3 bone glue and ropes, q10 wood. My highest stat is 18 will and the highest skill is exp with 10.
So, since the beginning, I read sevenless guide, a lot of the wiki, the posts in the forum, release notes, and youtube videos. Somehow I think I'm missing everything.

From what I've read:
Mirkwood offerings are a good curio, and I have crafted them, but even my best q offering is at 250 lp per RL hour. Let's say I somehow get good q right now and raise that to 350 per hour. Even if I fill my desk with them and check they are continuously being studied, a full week would net me 7*24*350 lp, or 59k lp.
Worm eaten apples (my 2nd best curio) gives me 228 lp/hr. Add 7*24*228 or 38k lp to 59k and you get a total of 97k lp in a week from the curios at best. (Let's not consider I would run out of Mirkwood pretty fast, maybe even before the week ends).

Those are the "popular ones". I've heard that Barkboats and Sandcastles work for some, but for the love of God, I couldn't get them above 150 lp/hr. So I guess they are not what I should aim for.

Now to tackle quality.
Let's say for the sake of argument say I put all of my lp in survival to get high q. At the end of the first hypothetical week, I could achieve 43 survival with 94k lp. Now the thing is, all wild trees are q10, so all my curios (tree dependant) are going to be at best q10. To tackle this problem I'll try to get high-quality non-wood ingredients. For Mirkwood offering, 10q wood, 10q tree seeds, and 43q entrails would make 18q offerings. Applying the formula (base) 300*sqrt(18/10), I would get 400 lp/hr each. Worm-eaten apples would still be q10. I could now get 105k in the second week. Not much of an improvement, is it? (taking into consideration offerings could have ran out 1st week).
Why not just raise tree q? It would take 6 days to fully grow one, so we only have 1 shot to raise the quality. Using the tree formula from the wiki: (30*2+30*2+10*3+10*3+10*15)/25+-5 we get 13.2+-5(The formula I used assumes I somehow acquired q30 soil and q30 water). This translates to a range of trees with q10 to q18. Let's take the best case (as you can plant many trees). Now I have q18 Worm eaten apples (300 lp/hr). You also get an upgrade on tree seeds for Mirkwood offering, 22q (445 lp/hr). 125k for the whole 3rd week.

The thing is, your max q at this point would be 80q in the correct node only for survival dependant items. Most of your crafts would be soft capped by other skills you didn't invest in. You also don't have high exploration to see a lot of things, so it seems useless to go this route. I've run the numbers for other 3 routes (leveling per and survival equally, focusing on farming and raising high q crops, focusing on cooking and high q foods) and the best I could do was get to 440k lp a month, and at max 50 quality items (realistically). I'm trying everything: fishing, farming, foraging, doing quests, cooking good q, feasting on tables, searching for high FEP foods and reading about the game. It's just that I don't get the desired results.

There are people in the forums claiming (I don't doubt they can, I just can't find out how) they can get 3 stats to 400 in 3 months. Let's say these stats grow exponentially, so 200 in 2 months or 100 in a month. My hypothetical perfect month raises just 1 stat to 80, while these people get 3 to 100. Now I can't even figure how they get those cursed q150+ objects.

It's just that I feel stupid and dumb, as it seems impossible for me to get to a good point in the game alone and I can clearly see my neighbors and some hermits get much better results than me. I'm truly sorry for the long rant, and I'm aware I'm making it hard for you guys to help me, it's just that I can't condense more the information given. If the tone of the post is rude, arrogant or like I'm a know-it-all, I sincerely apologize, it is not my intention to cause any bad feelings on the reader. Thank you for your time and attention, have a nice day.

Tl;dr I can't figure out what to do to get the insane lp/q gains in the game. Help.

PS Sorry for my bad English, I'm not a native speaker.
Edit: Adjusted quote.

[borka]

If you're playing on your own and do everything yourself you can't compete with a group that shares the burdens ... and the bots ...

try feather trinkets and sears bones ... best from chicken already killed by fox and foxes already killed by badgers and wood grouse as they are bit better developed than a beginner hearthling

It's just that I feel stupid and dumb

go at your own pace ... have fun, enjoy, don't ruin it by thinking that way

[Potjeh]

I'm guessing your problem is wasting your hunger on trash food. Start fishing ASAP and get your Int to like 30-40 so you can actually fill up your study window. Don't worry about keeping your other stats level with Int in the early game, they'll be easy to raise when you have a farm going.

[Kabury]

If you're playing on your own and do everything yourself you can't compete with a group that shares the burdens ... and the bots ...

try feather trinkets and sears bones ... best from chicken already killed by fox and foxes already killed by badgers and wood grouse as they are bit better developed than a beginner hearthling

It's just that I feel stupid and dumb

go at your own pace ... have fun, enjoy, don't ruin it by thinking that way

Thank you for the tips, I will search for bones. I can't seem to be able to catch wood grouses right now, will try to get a horse. Special thanks for the encouragement to play on a better mindset.

I'm guessing your problem is wasting your hunger on trash food. Start fishing ASAP and get your Int to like 30-40 so you can actually fill up your study window. Don't worry about keeping your other stats level with Int in the early game, they'll be easy to raise when you have a farm going.

I have about 5 drying racks full of fish, the thing is they are q1. I've been fishing and already have q8, should I just throw out the ones I have right now? (33% done)
Also, it seems I can't fish INT fish, as I have no access to lure-based fishing yet. I will try soon if I get ahold of a piece of cloth.

[Sevenless]

Keep at it man Welcome to haven.

[borka]

I can't seem to be able to catch wood grouses right now

i meant you should pick up foxes killed by wood grouses ... stoopid foxes love to attack them and get ripped ... don't play fox

and with more ppl finding out how to hunt bigger game and do it as sport there will be more dead anmals lying around soon ...

[MagicManICT]

When you raise your skills a few points, always consider what the effort of upgrading equipment will be. A slightly better axe for butchering, saw for lumber, etc can make quite a bit of difference.

[linkfanpc]

Tl;dr I can't figure out what to do to get the insane lp/q gains in the game. Help.

I love your enthusiasm for the game, keep it up and you'll go far.

First off, all the big villages who say they can get their stats in the hundreds after a couple months abuse the ever living butt out of alts and bots. They have computer-run characters that can independently go out and forage the best foregables for them. They also use alts for all heavy labor meaning they never eat and waste hunger to gain energy, they only gain hunger when feasting on their best food for stats. Also, said big villages can have anywhere from 8 to 20 characters, and the speed at which you can progress increases significantly the more hands you have.

Personally, what i generally do, as a solo hermit that never uses alts or bots, is earn enough discovery LP from picking each individual berry, fruit, nut, and seed off every tree and bush, each giving 50 LP. (70, actually, for me, due to me having a verified account.)

This is generally enough to buy Yeomanry and allow me to set down a claim.

Within the first week, hopefully as close to day 1 as possible, i spam kill every chicken and squirrel i see to gain enough bones to make a study table. (4 bone glue, 40 bones.)

In the first couple days i increase Exploration and Survival to 10. UA and MC to 10 soon after that.

After a few more days i increase all my Abilities to 10 so i'm no longer softcapping anything i craft below base quality, 10.

Within the first week or so i'll increase all Abilities to around 20, except for UA, MC, exploration and survival, which i'll increase to 30~.

From there i increase my survival, farming, sewing, etc as needed to no longer softcap things i craft. I use spare LP to increase UA and MC for self-protection.

For the first month, i generally always study mirkwood offerings, feather trinkets, seers bones, odd tubers and emerald dragonflies, and then stuff myself with anything else i find that's good, IE glimmermoss, bloated boletes, ruby dragonflies, etc.

Mirkwoods take 6 mental weight. You know how to make those. 300LP/H at q10. Can be easily increased to q12-15 with entrails.
Feather Trinkets take 5 mental weight. 2 feathers, 1 stone and 1 string. 225LP/H Can be easily increased to q15-20 with feathers.
Seer's Bones take 6 mental weight. 5 bones and 2 beautiful dreams. 300LP/H Can be easily increased to q15-20 with bones.
Odd Tubers take 2 mental weight and are occasionally dug up. You get lots from terraforming and flattening an area to make your base. 100LP/H
Emerald Dragonflies take 2 mental weight and can be found in swamps. 220 LP/H

Odd Tubers are directly related to soil quality. Therefor, raising Survival can increase the ql of them, as can it increase the quality of entrails, feathers, bones and dragonflies.

But considering them all as q10, that's still 1145LP/H. Increased by 20% due to my verification, that's close to 1400LP/H. That's over 230,000 per week. Again, that's just my base study, the stuff i always keep on along with other good curios that aren't easily mass produced.

You may ask how to get the 21 mental weight required to study all that. All i can say is obliterate the entirety of the world's fish population. Fish is by far the best early game food. Pig out on them all the time, as long as you're below Content. If you do hit content, stop for a while until you go near famished again. Never eat fish roasted. Never eat anything roasted.

IMO the best things you could do is live off a diet of fishwraps, spitroasted fish, boiled mussels, and other fish products. Some other pitbaked items as well as lizard on scales and similar primitive foodstuffs are fine too, but fish are by far the most efishient. NEVER, and i mean NEVER eat fruit, berries, nuts or seeds of trees or bushes. They're a complete waste. Never eat any animal meat except for perhaps spitroasted boar. Roasted meat fills 4% hunger for very little FEPs. Spitroasted animals makes them give more FEPs and only 2% hunger although i still consider most fish to be superior.

Perception and Intelligence are probably the hermit's most important stats. Try and get them up pretty quick.

Other goals include:

40 CON makes you have 200 max health, double the starting health.
40 AGI is enough to fight most animals up to boar.
25-30 STR is enough to mine most minerals you'll find.

This game has a very steep learning curve but once you peak it you begin to understand it more and more until eventually you can pretty much do as best you can alone. Regardless there is always more to learn. I came back from a long break this world and forgot about the importance of protecting your Ravenous hunger level, and wasted the entirety of it on roasthoppers, rat-on-a-sticks and wood strawberries.

I felt exactly as you do a long while ago. Just keep at it and you'll get the hang of it a lot faster than you think. Best of luck.

Should also mention for whatever reason there's been far more crime this world in the first couple weeks than i've ever seen. You might get robbed. You might get murdered. Be careful.