I just took a Sabbatical Period, here's why

[Kruzminator]

During the last weeks I have been commenting with my friend how we were getting bored with Haven and Hearth. This is not new. Since world 3 or 4 that I have been playing and this it happens every time. H&H is fun and exciting in the beginning, where you can feel a race to progress quickly and access most precious resources, but as you go you have less stuff to unlock and it starts to get boring.
If Haven and Hearth was designed to create a world in a middleage/viking era, then death and danger have to be right around the corner. However, the tendency of the game has been to protect people that do not want to fight or are away from the game due to RL priorities. Although I understand why this people want to see their investment protected. However I feel that too much protection of the peaceful players will in the end strongly reduce the possibilities for late game.

Last month I tried to be a bad boy. =)

I killed, robbed and vandalize a lot, however during this time we were never successful in delivering a full attack using the siege mechanics.

I don't even remember the last time I could log out, but the loot I got from all of these crimes was close to irrelevant (most lucrative crimes got me some low/mid level curiosities) and every now and then I would have some Nidbanes waiting for me on the next day who killed me or left me in pretty bad shape.

So once you get to mid/upper level there is not much you can do in game not even harass effectively other players.

I believe that if you want siege, in-game politics and real wars to happen there needs to exist a sense of fear in game that leads people to seek friends and allies to help protecting themselves and in this way create, villages, factions or kingdoms. Hermits have too much protection in this game. If you want to be alone cultivating your farm, then you have to have consequences like being an easy target or not being able to access the whole resources of the world (perhaps not even the majority of them). I have been playing this game for some years now, and I have never felt the need to be in a large village.

The reason for this is due to how unbalanced the efforts to attack in respect to defend are. As a defender I only need to build a palisade (which is fairly cheap) and as soon as I see I am about to be raided I can just log out (with my most precious items) and disappear. Then come back get some scents and send some nasty nidbanes to attack the raider.
As an hermit I could probably cause more damage to the raiders than the other way around which makes no sense.

SUGGESTIONS

Hermits have to loose defence power:
Increasing the cost of palisades or reducing their soak. So that they are good to protect you from weaker/equal players but they cant hold stronger players. If you want to be protected join a village with a nice brick wall and other players around to discourage random attacks.

Removing/changing Visitors debuff
At a certain point we killed a character holding his master key only to get inside his claim and then not being able to do anything due to visitors debuff... How ridicule is that? Perhaps this is a bug, but the visitor debuff is currently quite silly. In an age where you have master and slave keys, if I manage to get a hold of a master key through subterfuge (and the other guy's silliness) it makes no sense for me to be a visitor. You could have that chars that open a gate from outside with a master key are not subject to debuff otherwise the distinction between keys is a bit useless. Moreover, a trade as well as letting someone inside your place, should carry some risk. You are giving a certain level of trust to someone who might respect that or not. This debuff removes completely this dimension of a trade and inhibits sneaky low level attackers who should also have a right to exist in game. If you feel strongly about maintaining these debuffs you could consider implementing a "trade claim" that you provide visitors debuffs but have no shield and can't overlap with personal claims, for example.

Joining villages needs to be encouraged
Improve the possibility to join a village a bit more easily. like a sort of teleporting you (holding no items to prevent being exploited for trading) and your HF close to the Village idol
Increase the amount of LP required for maintaining a village. Most of the villages nearby are composed of 2 characters (plus some alts). If we ever felted the need we could have all created a bigger village of 8/10 real characters.

Raids have to be more dynamic.
If both attackers and defenders have a reasonable number of players online then breaking into a village should be faster. so you can force people to go into war or run away ingame

Remove/Change nidbanes attacking attributes.
Justice should be done by our own hands, not by some silly ghosts that will kill you for some stolen chickens. If you really don't feel like removing nidbanes consider altering their function. Instead of killing you they could haunt you for a period of time and while doing that you feel guilty and disgusted by your actions which in turn lowers your stats significantly. This way the victim of your criminal acts knows when it is a good time to attack you as you are weaker. and at the same time it prevents you from going on spree of theft, murder and vandalizing.
Also make scents last longer so that we can put a bounty on the forums and people do have time to make justice for you.

I really like this game and I enjoy the idea that the devs take into account our inputs. Please don't stop improving the game.
I hope when I comeback some of this issues have been addressed.

[rusherekk]

So you are saying that the game is boring and you achieved everything but you cant even raid a hermit huh XD

[stya]

Looks like you had a really poor experience and I feel sorry for you.

You tried to target hermits, found no good loot, got killed by nidbanes
Remember that the pali might be cheap but what's behind it might have cost dozens of hours and building a siege engine isn't hard

Your issues aren't issues, visitor debuff isn't a bug it's a feature

[barra]

Hermits have too much protection in this game. If you want to be alone cultivating your farm, then you have to have consequences like being an easy target or not being able to access the whole resources of the world (perhaps not even the majority of them).

The reason for this is due to how unbalanced the efforts to attack in respect to defend are. As a defender I only need to build a palisade (which is fairly cheap) and as soon as I see I am about to be raided I can just log out (with my most precious items) and disappear. Then come back get some scents and send some nasty nidbanes to attack the raider.
As an hermit I could probably cause more damage to the raiders than the other way around which makes no sense.

Trimmed because it's the bit I want to comment on. The risk is uneven for the attacker and defender, so the effort is uneven too. A completely successful attack costs the defender almost everything, but a completely failed attack might only cost the attacker some time and brimstone/hleather. "I raided a hermit and all I got was this cone cow" misses the victim's perspective.

[Kruzminator]

@rusherekk
I said I never succeeded to raid using the siege mechanics. Not that I did not have successful raids. I usually killed players and then entered their place but this is not how siege was expected to be done.
@stya
It is not just a a bad experience. I have been playing for a while and I think late game problematic are an old issue. Not just mine.
I do not agree with you about visitors debuff. It is completely artificial and goes against the environment that I believe devs want to create. Plus I remember making trades (and getting screwed) in older worlds and it was harsh but fun.
@barra
I see what you mean and I know that a defender risks his belongings. I do not think I am missing the victim's perspective.
I just think that this higher defence level should be achieved by getting a group of friends and create a village and not by building a massive palisade in one afternoon.
If I can have (and secure) everything on my own, why should I join a stranger and build something together.

The big villages to my knowledge are usually of people that already knew each other before the game and not because they have a common and more basic goal as survival.

[rusherekk]

The villages already have advantage over hermits.If a single man collected all the things and built all the stuff why should he be punished? Do you realize if hermitages would be heavily nerfed there would be no hermits because people would be forced to play in groups? I like the way it is now.A lot of hermits would take a big fat turd on your face if you tried to raid them (like the bob dole who alone reached more than most of villages lel )

[Kruzminator]

The villages already have advantage over hermits.

I can not remember a single clear advantage that one would get by belonging to a village other than the sense of protection which is what I would like to emphasize with my suggestions.

If a single man collected all the things and built all the stuff why should he be punished?

Why should he be protected? I would like to imagine that in a world such as this there is no right or wrong but consequences to your actions. the way it seems to me now is the conditions largely benefit the peaceful players with no reason.

Do you realize if hermitages would be heavily nerfed there would be no hermits because people would be forced to play in groups? I like the way it is now.

Yes and then we would have real villages (not groups of two) and perhaps strong trading routes or politics with more depth.
Plus I would not think you will always eradicate loners. but you sure wouldn't give them special treatment.

A lot of hermits would take a big fat turd on your face if you tried to raid them (like the bob dole who alone reached more than most of villages lel )

I am pretty sure they would and I would probably deserve it. but the truth is they never efficiently did so. and this was because I have never cause them real damage to force them to take action I only got a couple of ghosts that I had to deal with when I logged in. Or in case I got killed it was done at my place so I could recover most of my LP

[Ysh]

The villages already have advantage over hermits.

I can not remember a single clear advantage that one would get by belonging to a village other than the sense of protection which is what I would like to emphasize with my suggestions.

How high do you get before thinking this thought? Many players can do action many times more than one player.

[joseboda]

I have to agree on the visitor debuff.

If someone takes the master key out for a walk when he can use the slave keys, he should be accountable for it.

That all entries through a gate turn on the debuff by default is a clear favoring of the peaceful types. This is shown by the amount of exploits found and fixed around bypassing this mechanic. Perhaps there should be an official way of avoiding it

[sabinati]

did you even try the new siege mechanics?