Stat Caps Should Return

[CSPAN]

make statcap and factions will be able to produce a lot of equal fighters that will just bring everything to whos bigger zerg here. it will be worse. death will be meaningless if you just change char/account to basically same character.

Death woundnt be meaningless with a high enough cap.
When I suggest that there should be a cap, Im talking about 1000, it still takes a good amount of time. Months for certain players. The question would then become, how much time would need to be spent on a character to give its demise purpose?

-1. I saw statcapped Haven decay, I saw unlimited growth Haven rot. Neither option is significantly better than the other, and both have inescapable flaws that ultimately make the game NOT INTERESTING ANYMORE after a relatively short while. Having an unlimited growth with indefinite diminishing returns and devs working hard on a "catch up mechanic" (i.e. slow the progression relative to achieved level) at least makes a world stay populated a little longer.

If anything, devs should look into "prestige" (or "recursion" or whatever name you guys have heard) mechanic as a flexible player-side statcap. But that's for a separate discussion.
A rigid statcap as a "final goal" is a hard pass.

I've pointed out some of the inescapable flaws of infinite character growth, could you give me the flaws that having them stat capped present? I'd love to compare a pros and cons list. Catch up mechanics arent going to help, if anything it might tease players into thinking they can get to a competitive level. It might help player retention, but will it allow people to take a break and come back?

Infinite growth is a form of player driven decay. Eventually q100 is worthless. When you are in a village, and people push the worlds max q above what you are able to produce, it is almost no different than having the effective q of your village simply decrease over time.

I fully understand why this is bad, and it pushes people away, but stat caps are not a complete solution. You can't simply remove end game content (no matter how boring it may be) and replace it with nothing. To say that people will just do something else doesn't seem fair to the people who like the grind.

To be completely honest, most stat cap discussion feels like people don't even dislike the infinite grind, they are just upset that other people grinding better than then makes it impossible for them to play. Being unable to play is a very real problem, but I don't think a stat cap will actually help them. People get ahead in this game because they work hard, then kick the ladder out from underneath then.

Well, you wouldnt be replacing it, the end game content or the idea of it would simply shift. Shift away from industry and into player interaction. How can you create end game content when player stats vary so widely? Infinite stat growth hampers the ability to develop end game content.

You can't honestly believe people don't dislike the infinite grind, you see that most people quit after 2-3 months because that is what the game becomes, right? Haven would be much healthier if it caters to everyone, not just those at the very top. [ img]berniesanders.jpeg[/img ]

-1. I think only battle related stats should be capped. You don't need very high stats to be a decent crafter and it's not hard to stay up to date with the industry if you trade.

So you're more in the middle, a +/-1. Trading really doesn't keep you at the level of the upper echelon, not even close. You trade for their junk. You are stuck in a loop of buying their junk-grade equipment. Which isnt a bad thing, but knowing youll be stuck having to trade for the same equipment forever, no matter how hard you work to make it on your own, just kinda sucks. Unless your not interested in that specific line of industry.

[Ants]

So you're more in the middle, a +/-1. Trading really doesn't keep you at the level of the upper echelon, not even close. You trade for their junk. You are stuck in a loop of buying their junk-grade equipment. Which isnt a bad thing, but knowing youll be stuck having to trade for the same equipment forever, no matter how hard you work to make it on your own, just kinda sucks. Unless your not interested in that specific line of industry.

You don't need to have top quality stuff for it to be relevant on the marketplace.. their junk can still turn you a profit.

[Hasta]

I've pointed out some of the inescapable flaws of infinite character growth, could you give me the flaws that having them stat capped present? I'd love to compare a pros and cons list. Catch up mechanics arent going to help, if anything it might tease players into thinking they can get to a competitive level. It might help player retention, but will it allow people to take a break and come back?

Simple enough: if you have a final goal, after you reach it, you get bored.
I play with a single character, zero alts. It's a choice. When statcap was 300, I took extreme precautions until I've capped all my stats, only then I took up some of more risky businneses as helping friends with trolls or in their PvP endeavors. And it bored me in two weeks. So, that's my personal experience.

Not only statcapping would cater only to those players who see endgame as their only goal (and even those don't spend much time playing after they're there); the more time passes - the faster an average new player would reach said statcap 'cause of overall world developement. Most likely, major factions would be able to just mass-produce statcapped characters very fast very soon. Much like World of Warcraft circa 2017, the game will become not about the journey, but about jumping to endgame and taking on challenges there - but there are little to no endgame challenges in Haven.

Then again, the implementation and balancing WILL NEVER be good. If the statcap is low - it'll be reached too fast; if it's high - it won't be much different from how it's now; if it's equal for all the stats - it'll cripple the industry, If it's differentiated between stats (e.g. max STR is 500, max DEX is 5000) - the world will accelerate into an ugly alt shitshow in weeks with constant "rebalances", crutch fixes and "damage control" patches because there is too much variables to consider even for experienced players, not even speaking about the devs who barely play the game.

But the ultimate downsize would be the screeching halt of character progression at some fixed point. Haven isn't MOBA, where you raise your stats and skills just to show how good you are at max level. Don't try to turn it into one.
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Again, indefinite, unmitigated progression is cancer of this world's sustained playability as well, but not nearly as deadly to it as implementing a statcap. I insist on some "prestige" mechanic. Developed your character to endgame level? Die of old age and spawn an all-new "prodigy" character with no inheritance whatsoever, but with a meaningful, cumulative bonus. Insist on developing a high-end character further? Here, have a 80% penalty on learning ability and FEP events (but you still can progress!). Something along these lines won't be a "statcap" per se, but it will allow players to choose and differentiate individual progression levels around the world.

[Lalaxx]

-1.
I saw statcapped Haven decay, I saw unlimited growth Haven rot.

haven decay because of limited gameplay time not because of statcap.
+1

[MrPunchers]

I respect the effort in the post, but do you play the game? Other than weird roleplaying hermit tribes endless grind is all the game is.

[Granger]

Other than weird roleplaying hermit tribes endless grind is all the game is.

Which obviously is a problem.

The question if changing this would be easier with or without the endless growth (that we're used to) remains.

I still think that unbound character growth is (in addition to the problems with PvE becoming meaningless above a certain threshold) incompatible with open PvP, unless a game goes the route of EVE Online where more experienced characters are limited in what they can do to lesser ones - implemented through the bigger and more powerful the ships (that only higher trained characters can man) there are, the less effective these perform against small vessels (simply from being no longer able to target and chase these). H&H is basically the opposit of that as bigger (and 'better': knarr quality) vessels are faster than smaller ones and 'lighter' characters don't have a speed advantage that allows them to get away from heavier ones.

The zerg problem can't be solved without making a game single player, discussing this is moot and should be skipped.

[korn2]

Just add stat degradation when playing so much on values larger than X. It might be simple to grow to some stat border, but significular harder when you go deeper in stats (overstrength hardlabored char debuf their int, etc).

[MooCow]

Again, indefinite, unmitigated progression is cancer of this world's sustained playability as well, but not nearly as deadly to it as implementing a statcap. I insist on some "prestige" mechanic. Developed your character to endgame level? Die of old age and spawn an all-new "prodigy" character with no inheritance whatsoever, but with a meaningful, cumulative bonus. Insist on developing a high-end character further? Here, have a 80% penalty on learning ability and FEP events (but you still can progress!). Something along these lines won't be a "statcap" per se, but it will allow players to choose and differentiate individual progression levels around the world.

This perfectly summarizes what I want to see from this game. I am glad I am not the only one.

[Ganhart]

-1.
I saw statcapped Haven decay, I saw unlimited growth Haven rot.

haven decay because of limited gameplay time not because of statcap.
+1

You are wrong, statcaps were introdused in world 9 and the only world with a limited gameplay was 8th one.

[tyrtix]

i'll tell everyone a secret: catch-up mechanics sets a statcap equal to the maximum level of the best player skills/stats.
In the end, those mechanics makes the same thing (but worse) as just setting a statcap, and in the end, having no statcap or having it, simply didn't remove from this game (or other similar games) the necessity of alts.