Сritique: Hafen and Hearth development

[LadyGoo]

Eternal world: For more than 6 years now hafen population would face the imminent decay after a few months. We have dropped from 650 online to 240. Meaning, that the majority of the server plays it as a sessional game already. The remaining folk are either waiting for something good to happen and/or gonna quit sooner or later anyways. That is the established user-behaviour that has been persistent for years. IMHO, the game design should be behaviouristic, rather than try to fight it.

Further observations have shown that the money income (token trades) are also decaying even now, when not so many people are speaking about the wipe being close. So, the token/subs are rather related to the interests of the people, rather than them being afraid of the resets. The token whales (people that would sell a lot of tokens) have quit/almost quit by now.

IMHO, hafen could benefit if the game would be rather sessional (4 months long as max) and you would be able to carry out to the next world some perks, like unique hats/branding irons with what you have accomplished last world and etc. Maybe some sub bonuses for certain achievements.


Updates: many updates done by the devs required further fixes and have caused a lot of unhappiness from the community. Consider discussing what you are going to work on with the community and see whether they'd find bugs/possible abuses. Otherwise, a lot of energy and time gonna go to the sink and that has been the case in the past. It rather feels like you guys are spending quite a lot of time on repairing the consequences of some updates.
The recent update is a perfect example: you have got to remove the curio stacking, the new walkable objects are making it impossible to catch someone and etc.
At least, the combat updates are worth of discussing with the majority.

[Ysh]

This thread again?

[infectedking]

I'll translate for the rest of yous as I had been in Dis for a while and generally speak their language.

We have dropped from 650 online to 240.

Probably because Dis kept killing noobs so they quit playing "We want reset since our nub supply is running out"

Further observations have shown that the money income (token trades) are also decaying even now, when not so many people are speaking about the wipe being close. So, the token/subs are rather related to the interests of the people, rather than them being afraid of the resets. The token whales (people that would sell a lot of tokens) have quit/almost quit by now.

"My market isn't getting tokens anymore so I can't scam noobs so my people don't have to pay to be higher than them."

[Lyrroth]

But when at time I play I usually see somewhere of ~330 players. Something aint right here folks.

[dageir]

But when at time I play I usually see somewhere of ~330 players. Something aint right here folks.

At least half are bots.

[Tamalak]

It's rough. I play until I get bored or die.

If I don't take enough risks, I get bored.
If I take too maky risks, I die.
When I'm playing, I want the world to last as long as possible, because I feel my actions lack meaning if they don't persist.
When I'm not playing, I want the world to wipe asap.

I don't feel that more frequent/regular wipes will help, because then ennui will set in more easily. Rather, devs should focus on giving players who were killed incentive to rejoin. The main reason I don't rejoin, of course, is that I feel I'm hopelessly behind 'the curve'.

[dageir]

So your actions will not have meaning if there is no persisting result?

[viznew]

i sometimes feel there is a lack of goals

id like to see a way to mabye like set up village quest in a more structured way (can make village quest now but its all kinda freehand its better for more advanced quest but some basic forms might be nice)
something like current quest but the rewards are mabye exp from village presence

potential idea

quest are kinda preset in types
farming (plant 100 plants harvest 100 plants), hunting(place 100 hides on racks or tubs), crafting(make 100 ingredients, craft 100 items), ect (pave 100 tiles)
village leaders chould pick a quest set (mabye per group) (in village tab) and everyone in village will get a quest (helping orgainize efforts and give goals)

i think chould help keep some people around mabye (giving them easy goals to follow)

[Robben_DuMarsch]

This is my take:

What is currently wrong:

Clearly, there is a charm in a fresh world which for whatever reason fades away over time. Currently we have the "quality spiral" to drive new construction/development, as well as infinite progression of characters.

However, this has a few downsides:

- Content becomes somewhat obsolete (Most PvE is trivial lategame).
- Quality spiraling doesn't feel half as rewarding as the initial progression.
- Seeing your character progress to higher and higher numbers at slower and slower rates is less rewarding, psychologically, making one feel as if they were Sisyphus.
- Newer characters/players joining the world feel as if they need to play a huge game of catch-up before they can integrate themselves effectively, ESPECIALLY if joining existing groups.

In the past I've suggested the radical solution of old age/death, which clearly the community rejects. There is a more elegant solution that would probably result in extremely favorable response.

A new system of VOLUNTARY generations providing unique perks, while playing through the same early game content:

- SOFT Cap skills at 100, in that the BENEFIT of Skills/Attributes/Quality above 100 diminishes returns at a far higher rate than it does now (without diminishing truly exponentially), but do not change the current formula for the amount of LP/Food required to progress past 100.
- Allow a Hearthling to "commune with the circle of life" once they reach 100 in three skills, and three attributes, or pass some other arbitrary point of progression.
- Communing retires their character and spawns a new, fresh, basic statted descendant with a permanent (and cumulative) perk that effects that character which is an absolute, niche/specialist bonus, sometimes transcending quality by providing special bonuses, sometimes acting as quality modifiers, and sometimes unlocking unique traits/skills.

- On each "respawn" the character can either pick another one of these bonuses (Dairy Master II, III, IV, etc or Call of Druidism I + Dairy Master I), or "respec" all their existing ancestor points to create a new "spec" of character while sacrificing an additional two spec points.

- Most items/economic improvements to land/tools/etc now have durability that is consumed on use, and thus need to be replaced over time through use, rather than through becoming obsolete via the quality spiral. (Things like Houses/Cupboards/Walls would not decay,
but looms/pots/picks/etc would.)

Examples of "Perks:"

Examples:
- Dairy Master: +5% to all FEP's provided by food prepared by this character that include milk as an ingredient.
- Call of Druidism: This character's ability to use metal armor and weapons is diminished by 5%, but gains 5% increase to damage done with slings and receives 5% better protections from leather.
- Master Armorsmith: This character produces weapons at a 5% penalty, but produces armor that provides 5% better protections, however durability is decreased by 3%.
- Dairy Master V (Taken 5 times): +25% to all FEP's provided by this character that include milk as an ingredient, and you may now ride a trained bull as if it were a horse. (-25% slower, but with 85% chance to ignore damage in combat and attempts to dismount you)
- Cow Tamer I: Aurochs you tame, as cows and bulls, have a 5% bonus to the quality of leather they skin for, and eat 3% less food.
- Cow Tamer V: Aurochs you tame, as cows and bulls, have a 25% bonus to the quality of leather they skin for, and eat 15% less food, and you may now train bulls to be ridden as if they were horses (although they no longer breed.)

What are the arguments in favor of this approach?

- Starting a new descendant is always voluntary, and on an individual players own terms.
- Progression would lose less acceleration for players as the world progresses, causing them to feel as if they were making considerable progress gains rather than suffering from Sisyphus complex.
- "Perks" even if they represent minor gains for the work required to obtain them would still likely appeal to players in that they are permanent, effect every descendant forever, give them a concrete edge, and give them progression in larger bursts instead of incrementally.
- New entrants to the game would be able to integrate into groups a lot more quickly, in that they could both catch up to existing players quicker, and would be useful in assisting with things like hunting animals (which could realistically become a group activity with the 100 cap).
- Specialization will further drive trade and player interaction, as with "specs", even if you can produce all base goods at home, you could probably get something better somewhere else.
- Once the herculean effort of implementing the system is accomplished, specs could make further gameplay changes and improvements easy.
- Players will go crazy with excitement and theory crafting when they see the possibilities, and huge hype will be drummed up.
- New players will be valuable to cultivate in most Kingdoms if specs are numerous enough, because unless you are botting like DIS, you probably won't run enough alts in your village to actually cover all the specs (but the bonuses aren't so great to the extent that you would feel you needed to, either.)
- More of the fun of a new world would be sustained over time, as progression is quick and fluid.
- Resettling would be less of a *relative* time sink, as you are no longer abandoning as much permanent infrastructure.
- PvP will be quickly accessible to new players ("titans" would be much weaker relatively) but the old players would still feel like they had real advantages worth their time investment.
- Durability loss on use would make it far, far, harder to effectively bot on an industrial scale like DIS does (are they really going to program bots that replace everything automatically?), but it would negligibly effect players that do not, or bot only with smaller scripts that automate simple tasks.

[apoc254]

The main reason I don't rejoin, of course, is that I feel I'm hopelessly behind 'the curve'.

There has never been anything more true.
Even if you keep playing you tend to fall behind the curve.... I have no idea how they could fix this though.