Petition to Jorb for Stat Caps

[SirTraveler]

Jorb,

Below are my arguments against unlimited attribute and quality stats. I want to go on the record that I love Haven & Hearth and look forward to World 11.

My concern is that the unlimited stats have a negative impact on the community.

First, characters with high level stats are less likely to interact positively with lower level characters as they cannot contribute to their game. A high level player wont take the chance of a new player messing up the quality of their industry with a new player's low attributes. So if they do allow a new player to live near them, they are relegated to menial work, that wont affect quality levels of things they are working on. However, typically, a new player is shunned or more often than not, immediately done away with. This creates an atmosphere of fear and loathing between players where a cast system develops and the only common ground is the Community Fair or some other location where trade is allowed. High level characters selling high quality wears to low level characters for a price.

Second, with no limit to stats, the game becomes a never ending grind. Don't get me wrong, I love a good grind. Games like Ultima Online, Runescape and Minecraft are some of my favorite grindy type games. However, each of those games have caps (Ultima and Runescape) or no stats (Minecraft). What that means is new players can interact with older players as there isn't too great a difference in capabilities between them. Or at least after some time the new player can level up in stats to eventually be on par with an older player. With parity in stats players are more inclined to work with each other and have positive interactions. With caps, if a player wants to act inhospitably, at least a new player, who managed to build up some stats and collect some quality items, would stand a chance against a violent player. However in World 10, without caps, a new player encountering a violent player, stood no chance against an older player with godly attributes and equipment to match.

My personal experiences in Haven has been fun. I enjoyed the vastness of the game as well as the fact you can interact with everything in the world. The scope is intoxicating and the greatest draw when I describe the game to friends. With World 10, after they added beacons, I managed to get my girlfriend and another friend to join me. We set up a nifty compound with all the industry we needed to support our adventuring. Soon we met another group of players that settled nearby. Like us, they were new to the game and together we supported each other.

Then suddenly we didn't see our friends anymore, we were sad and wondered what happened. Some time past and I came across a stranger outside their palisade. After a cautious approach I learned it was one of our friend's new avatar. He told me a sad tale of how they were out hunting when an older player on a horse happened upon them. They payed him no mind as they continued to hunt their boar, when suddenly the stranger attacked them. They were all killed rather quickly, standing no chance against the mighty older player. I offered to help them rebuild but he said his friends quit and he wasn't sure he wanted to start over.

My friends and I continued on, leveling the quality of our industry and upgrading our equipment as we went. More time past and after visiting the community fair, which at first we were excited to see, we soon realized how futile our efforts were. We found items that were ten times higher quality than the things we were producing. Soon my friend stopped playing, then my girlfriend. I forged on confident I could coax them back once I created enough high quality items to hunt high level creatures and/or do some dungeons. I was going strong until the grind wore me down. I would log on to play for a couple hours, where I harvested crops, cut trees, made coal, wove cloth, cooked, crafted curios, filled my study table, then logged off. I did this for a month or two until I decided it wasn't fun.

Again, I love this game, I want to play this game. I want my friends to play this game with me most of all. I am trying to convince them to try the new world with me and hopefully encourage more to try. I am fearful that if there are no caps, they will either not want to try or soon lose interest in the game as before. If I haven't made a convincing argument against unlimited stats, can someone who's read this petition provide an argument in favor of unlimited stats. I appreciate your consideration regarding my petition for attribute and/or quality caps Jorb. I also appreciate any feedback from the community either for or against said petition.

I look forward to meeting any of you in game.

Take care,

SirTraveler

[blinx]

-10

More advanced players will always strongly tromp smaller players. You would have to cap stats and skills and item quality. And if you did that, as soon as people hit those caps they would then quit and the lifetime of any given world's playerbase will be exactly as long as that takes.

Furthermore, If I play the same character for a whole year and your character of half that age is equivilant to me, I'd be pissed.

[dafels]

There is literally no reason to play the game when one reaches the stat cap. Solve this problem, then you can talk about stat caps being back again

[maze]

the amount of people who want statcaps vs people who don't.

it's pretty split.
the last pole was a 70/30% split.
Both casuals and hardcore's are in both groups.

I agree the game needs more end game, but there is plenty as is to make stat caps work again.
Also statcaps are much nicer and easier to balance then no-state caps game wise.

current endgame is~
clothing grinding, capturing world wonders, dungeons, credos, meteorite, making village buffs
to get past state caps.

State caps of 300-500-1000k were the benchmark subjected.

I'm one for 400 normal cap. and where all balancing is done. death is impossible bellow 400.
if you wish to go past 400 you unlock a quest and credo.
the credo will allow you to go to 600 max statcap.

this allows for titans in a sense, but if they are KO'ed they can die.

[Reyajh]

Stat Cap and you end up with a glorified chat room

[Granger]

There is literally no reason to play the game when one reaches the stat cap.

This implies that the game doesn't have to offer anything except grind to raise numbers, at least to a part of the player base that expresses this mindset.

The obvious questions are if these are identical to the group that quickly levels out of the number range in which the world makes sense (as from a certain level a character can kill everything, mine through everything, ... without the effort/risk that makes actions meaningful/rewarding), if they would stop getting bored would they be unable to out-level the world and if they would be missed (player count and revenue wise) should the game be no longer for them by endless growing numbers being removed (which BTW doesn't imply endless grind being gone).

My guess the answers to this would be yes, maybe, not really. The problem (my experience so far) is that these users are usually unable to look beyond their plate, so for them anything that even slightly threatens the only thing that they see as good in the game (the endless raising numbers) is evil by definition, leading to many of them being incapable of a rational discussion about this topic.

[Chebermech]

I'm one of those people who consider themselves to be pro-stat caps, but for completely different reasons that stated in OP. Main 2 reasons for stat caps imo are balance in pve and ability to have more free time outside of hnh. And one thing to point out, I would like to see stat/skill caps that affect combat only, so just as an example, you could raise your stats and skills indefinitely but once it reaches a certain point, say 1000, then whatever goes past that will not affect your combat performance, apart from clothing, so with full gear and buffs on u could have max of 2k of each combat stat and skill. Note that those numbers are just used as an example. In any case here's what my thoughts are on such caps and why it could be benificial:

I would really love this game to be more difficult in terms of PvE, to have challenging early game where people will drop like flies to some of the animals that will hunt you and not the other way around, to wounds and sicknesses, and hunger, even though its in the game, its nearly impossible to die from it unless you try really hard. It would also allow to add late game creatures and monsters that will be impossible to defeat solo and will require a real team work. Getting killed in pvp is another thing that i'd like to happen more often, but I would also like for people to restore their characters much faster, which is why i kind of liked the idea of the new combat system that got scrapped, to have some of the abilities that you would find in MOBAs like dota, lol, hon and others, a combat system that usually wipes one side during an encounter, rarely without any casualties. If dying becomes a normal thing and something easy to restore from, then i believe more people would be willing to try it more often. Even though I don't mind the KO system we have right now, its still possible to die in combat when people use a specific strategy, so maybe if combat was a little bit different there would be an even easier way to kill people that would require a little bit more effort than just knocking them out. Also if you wouldn't need to spend most of your free time every single day by grinding your industry and your character to stay fit and relevant for # years non stop, it would really be a relief and even though it might anger some of the real hardcore players at first, it will attract more people into the game, and if pvp is fun enough, people will still play it, just for that. Just like in mobas where you don't have to spend months or years grinding, but play the game for pvp only, where your player skills are more important than your character's. But how much stats for a stat cap is enough? Thats a very difficult question, all depends on the balance of the game, but I'd say 4-5 months of casual progress from the world start, that some hardcore players might reach in about 2 months would be fair imo. What about industry and crafts? I think that part should be left as is, for the most part, and keep growing as the world goes on along with other qualities, perhaps making it slightly easier to raise your character back up to max.

[omocho]

In an ideal world, infinite stats should not be the only source of content. That's currently the problem. The only argument people ever have against stat caps is "People will hit cap and quit" because apparently without infinite stats, there's nothing meaningful to do.

I think that reflects more on what needs to be fixed than anything else.

Jorb and Loftar hate bots (well, don't we all?), but at the end of the day infinite stats will always, always entice people to create bot networks to have an edge. At least with caps, that edge isn't impossible to overcome.


What I think this game needs, is reasons for high level players to fight. Tangible goals. Unique relics that benefit kingdoms, special materials that can make powerful items, etc. If ore were to be capped, and unable to be spiraled to ridiculous quality then people would also covet and fight over high-quality metal equipment as well. It would create land conflicts (securing high quality veins until you can effectively mine it) or just conflicts in general from people who want your good shit.


Infinite progression is cute but you do reach a point in every world where people just get bored and quit because infinitely raising your numbers stops having a point after a while.

Giving players reasons and goals to keep playing will become the key to sustaining worlds. Obviously right now resets still need to happen for major changes but eventually, you'll want to get to a point where worlds can be maintained indefinitely. Events for special items and resources would be a good first step to that. Giant bosses, natural disasters, there's all sorts of crap that can be done.

Soft caps are another solution that allow people to still jerk off to their high numbers but also only be like, 5% better than someone at softcap. It'd create safety nets for death as well.

None of my thoughts really pertain to solo players (though there's nothing saying you can't help your kingdom to attain special items) but I think it's bad practice to shape major features around solo players in MMORPGs. That's how most MMOs fucked their content. (and I say this as a primarily solo player)

[Pan_w_okularach]

OP, cut your friends off they sound like dead weight, you need a group who will be equally passionate about Haven as you are. Btw that guy who killed your neighbours, was it world 10? Do you recall he was on a black horse, with a two handed axe, right? I think that might've been me.

[jorb]

I feel you OP, but I also don't like stat caps. They are pretty arbitrary impositions, and I have never enjoyed them in a single player game (I distinctly recall quitting Fallout 3 when hitting it, for example). I recognize that there are balance implications to stat caps.

Some people will, however, quit regardless of which option I choose.