Thoughts and ideas on a yearly World Reset

[Dimlight]

A yearly world reset would be healthy for the game, community and player base. Whenever a new world is announced the population increases greatly with returning players, those players getting their friends to try out the game, and current active players getting a fresh start. Nearly everyone that I have met and known are always talking about what they will do NEXT world, what they will change, what they will accomplish differently, and meet new people of the community that they have not met before. It gives everyone new, fresh, goals to look forward to and accomplish. I think one reset a year at a set time would be great for the community and planning for game production.

Four to six months into a world usually sees a drastic decline of players due to many reasons. One reason that a lot of people could say is that they died and lost motivation to build back up. One reason can be because a community hub fell apart and people started to leave one by one. Another can be because progression and content became stagnant, this would mainly happen to hermits or smaller communities. Or some people just have IRL obligations and stop playing for a bit, and then fail to return to the game since trying to catch back up to the levels of the active players is near impossible.

A yearly reset would give that healthy return, an active 2-3 months of nearly 1000-2000 active players to interact with, as well as an influx of funds for the developers to progress the game and pay for the servers. For players that were active the entire world or those who have met certain milestones could receive, for example, a limited edition hat that is untradeable to mark their accomplishments, similar to ranked rewards in some games or tournament participation rewards to show off to future hearthlings, and maybe longterm rewards to encourage playing for longer than you would originally play. (Just an idea there, and maybe make cosmetic capes for this purpose to separate from the hats?)

How many players would be interested in a yearly reset, and also who would not want a yearly reset? Would love hearthlings to post their ideas about this subject here, why they would want a reset time to look forward to or not. Also post ideas that you think would make world resets great to look forward to.

[shubla]

I think it would be interesting to try 1 world with pre-assigned reset date for example after 1 year exactly. And then see how it would affect playercount, and then decide if it should be continued with.
The counter argument of course being that there will be even lower population than now 6 months into the world because no one wants to play as there is the time ticking down, reminding you about the inevitable end.

Some other cons maybe restricting devs to schedules/they'd have to implement something new on each world etc. instead of adding new things just when they feel like doing them.

[meus]

Catching-up seems not to be the cause for less and less active players as the world progresses. It's even the opposite - at a certain phase people just don't have anything more to do - they got their bases, tools, equipment, stats and skills at a decent level, crops and animals provided, the world explored, etc - all of which is the incentive to play in "early" world and what makes it so fun and competitive, with an influx of "new" (read: the same) players coming for each restart.

Now there will be the "tedium" complaints of course, but making the tools wear out as you use them, or the equipment deteriorate and lose quality, or the players not to be able to easily maintain high stats forever - this will be something that will present a challenge. Making the player actually benefit from meaningful player interaction is the key. Why does the game become stagnant? Well, because everyone can become self-sufficient in a few weeks, and there's just the quality pursuit (which is also limited) for the rest of the players that remain. Any activity whatsoever starts feeling a bit useless and of less and less value the longer a world progresses, just because it becomes more of the same - which you already have. No excitement from digging the mine one more level lower, no real significance of improving your tool just a tad bit more, no real effect of raising your foraging skills to be able to finally see a new object, etc. No happiness from claiming your plot and protecting it with a wall, or from finding that sweet gold vein, or making your first ocean trip.

So anything that is considered "tedium" by ones is considered the actual content for a survival game for others. The easier it becomes, the more and more people just see it as a chatroom. Once the game world presents no challenge and no benefit (think of it as risk/reward), it becomes dull and boring and not worth interacting with.

Just see all those threads where people complain about not being able to maintain a hundred beehives without alts, or not being able to raise 1.5k stats per week, or having to refuel their steel production, or asking how to solo a dungeon, or whether botting is allowed, etc.

[iamahh]

I think not knowing the reset date is better

a fixed date could possibly make resets less relevant, bringing less players

it's all about expectations, no right answer, but knowing the date is probably going to mess with active players too much

[Seriouskai]

If there was a set date for reset nobody joining the game after a certain time into the world age would play, imagine you find the game for the first time but there's only 3 months left of the world, you wouldn't really be motivated to play. Some might wait until after reset and then try it, but most would probably forget about the game because they found something else to play instead.

[telum12]

If there was a set date for reset nobody joining the game after a certain time into the world age would play, imagine you find the game for the first time but there's only 3 months left of the world, you wouldn't really be motivated to play. Some might wait until after reset and then try it, but most would probably forget about the game because they found something else to play instead.

It's a lot crappier to know that the world MIGHT reset after 1 month, or 3 months, or 20 months, but you've no idea so you can't make a real choice.

Imagine starting to play the game, playing for 3 weeks full-on, and then you get the news that the devs have randomly decided to reset the world. I don't understand how you find that a better experience for players.

[Seriouskai]

If there was a set date for reset nobody joining the game after a certain time into the world age would play, imagine you find the game for the first time but there's only 3 months left of the world, you wouldn't really be motivated to play. Some might wait until after reset and then try it, but most would probably forget about the game because they found something else to play instead.

It's a lot crappier to know that the world MIGHT reset after 1 month, or 3 months, or 20 months, but you've no idea so you can't make a real choice.

Imagine starting to play the game, playing for 3 weeks full-on, and then you get the news that the devs have randomly decided to reset the world. I don't understand how you find that a better experience for players.

So basically world resets in general are a turn off for new players, gotcha

[MagicManICT]

Two things:

A) this is an alpha game with a two person dev team. There's too many game mechanics that need to be added, iterated upon, or redeveloped to make this possible;

B)Large projects have a hard time fitting these schedules and staying on time. Don't expect it out a two person team.

Imagine starting to play the game, playing for 3 weeks full-on, and then you get the news that the devs have randomly decided to reset the world. I don't understand how you find that a better experience for players.

Imagine expecting the same results from two people that you get from a AAA production staff of 30 or 40 (or more).

Even if resets were scheduled, you still have the issues of new players walking in two or three weeks before a reset.

If there was a set date for reset nobody joining the game after a certain time into the world age would play, imagine you find the game for the first time but there's only 3 months left of the world, you wouldn't really be motivated to play. Some might wait until after reset and then try it, but most would probably forget about the game because they found something else to play instead.

I can tell you that this is a very wrong assumption. It might be true for you, but it generally isn't for gamers around the world.

[Seriouskai]

If there was a set date for reset nobody joining the game after a certain time into the world age would play, imagine you find the game for the first time but there's only 3 months left of the world, you wouldn't really be motivated to play. Some might wait until after reset and then try it, but most would probably forget about the game because they found something else to play instead.

I can tell you that this is a very wrong assumption. It might be true for you, but it generally isn't for gamers around the world.

Fair enough, maybe I should've said 3 weeks instead of months but my point was that it will turn some players away and probably already do, but I'm not saying everyone would drop Haven. It's noticeable whenever someone new in the chat asks when world will be reset that they're worried if it's worth spending time now, or wait until after reset.

Total amount of players overtime would probably be the same due to high population early game, but I don't see how a game heavily dependent on base building and time consuming tasks, many taking several IRL days to complete, would pull in very many new players after a certain world age if there was a set in stone date for world ending. I do tend to exaggerate in my examples though so that's on me

[Sevenless]

Advanced warning resets existed in the past, they cratered population hardcore.

Haven is in a hell of its own making. It needs the illusion of eternity to make the grindy crafting better yourself gameplay feel rewarding, but it also absolutely needs rebirth because the grindy better yourself mechanic shuts out late joiners from the "true experience". Take away either component, and the game falls apart.

Advance reset warning kills the illusion.