Current game mechanics support a shorter world

[magisticus]

Good post. Touches at the root of some of the problems in this game but I'm not sure I agree with you on what those problems are.

The concept of the game is supposed to be about survival and then developing societies of gradually more complexity. That stat and quality grind are so integral to the gameplay is I think somewhat of an error, but unfortunately is continually supported by updates which seem to be fire fighting control of the system rather than dealing with the fundamental problems of it. The speed at which you reach the various caps you talk of is of course dependant on the hours of gameplay put in, This I think is one of the greater issues, that this game rewards the player so much for either being sat in front of a computer for an unreasonable amount of time or else using bots to aleviate some of that requirement in order to compete with other players, as such I think that slowing down some of the progression would be appropriate. The formation and development of societies is hampered atm by the amount of influence of the current large factions, who can basically lock out everyone else from day 1 because the player base is not large enough to organise decent competetion, new people getting into the game is hampered by the crazy amount of mechanics and abuses of mechanics you have to learn and fast travel allows factions to put their foot on the throat of other players on the opposite side of the world to prevent them developing, in fact if you are not going to play along with the major factions you are better off staying as insignificant as possible to avoid being perceived as someone who needs to be eliminated. All this is unhealthy imo.

I think most of the community would agree that bone nodes are currently ridiculous and need significant rework, I have argued about this elsewhere but basically I think it was better in legacy when the best you could get to work with was a Q200 bear bone and all bears were the same until domestic bones were increased in quality. It is reasonable that all bears had (at least roughly) the same quality bones imo. Travelling the world to find high quality bones and then having to grind those bone nodes for crazy numbers of them to raise industry is just ridiculous. I am all for domestic bones being a more significant factor again and thus slowing this process down to the speed of domestic meat and farming development; Doing that would immediately affect most industry in the game and would put qualities in a bracket more consistant with the quality bonus formula, ie maybe you wouldn't jump directly to what.. *4/5 multiplier but would spend some time on 2 and 3 for some things.

Damaging metal spiralling the way they have is good progress I think but hasn't gone far enough. IMO cast iron should be excluded from the possibility to increase in quality full stop, allow one increase and that's it, and then reasonably competative metal is achievable by all with a reasonable level of time input.

Another major problem is that the current large factions, being a significant and vocal part of the playerbase, understandably want to keep their stranglehold on the game and thus are always pushing for mechanics that perpetuate it. I feel also that devs pander to them somewhat.

[ctopolon4]

here is kingdoms in 1-2 week after start world....
just kill snail by cavein, do 100q axe in day 1, do 40q spear at day 2, start abuse animal AI and combat system to get 200+200 str, go for 200q coal at lvl3, go for gold and silver...game ends here
(you have alsmost all types of resources and good fuel boosts all qualities to x4 multiplyer )...
only weekly timers for whole year awaits you... to make x6 multiplyer to grind further...

[ChildhoodObesity]

Good post. Touches at the root of some of the problems in this game but I'm not sure I agree with you on what those problems are.

The concept of the game is supposed to be about survival and then developing societies of gradually more complexity. That stat and quality grind are so integral to the gameplay is I think somewhat of an error, but unfortunately is continually supported by updates which seem to be fire fighting control of the system rather than dealing with the fundamental problems of it. The speed at which you reach the various caps you talk of is of course dependant on the hours of gameplay put in, This I think is one of the greater issues, that this game rewards the player so much for either being sat in front of a computer for an unreasonable amount of time or else using bots to aleviate some of that requirement in order to compete with other players, as such I think that slowing down some of the progression would be appropriate. The formation and development of societies is hampered atm by the amount of influence of the current large factions, who can basically lock out everyone else from day 1 because the player base is not large enough to organise decent competetion, new people getting into the game is hampered by the crazy amount of mechanics and abuses of mechanics you have to learn and fast travel allows factions to put their foot on the throat of other players on the opposite side of the world to prevent them developing, in fact if you are not going to play along with the major factions you are better off staying as insignificant as possible to avoid being perceived as someone who needs to be eliminated. All this is unhealthy imo.

I think most of the community would agree that bone nodes are currently ridiculous and need significant rework, I have argued about this elsewhere but basically I think it was better in legacy when the best you could get to work with was a Q200 bear bone and all bears were the same until domestic bones were increased in quality. It is reasonable that all bears had (at least roughly) the same quality bones imo. Travelling the world to find high quality bones and then having to grind those bone nodes for crazy numbers of them to raise industry is just ridiculous. I am all for domestic bones being a more significant factor again and thus slowing this process down to the speed of domestic meat and farming development; Doing that would immediately affect most industry in the game and would put qualities in a bracket more consistant with the quality bonus formula, ie maybe you wouldn't jump directly to what.. *4/5 multiplier but would spend some time on 2 and 3 for some things.

Damaging metal spiralling the way they have is good progress I think but hasn't gone far enough. IMO cast iron should be excluded from the possibility to increase in quality full stop, allow one increase and that's it, and then reasonably competative metal is achievable by all with a reasonable level of time input.

Another major problem is that the current large factions, being a significant and vocal part of the playerbase, understandably want to keep their stranglehold on the game and thus are always pushing for mechanics that perpetuate it. I feel also that devs pander to them somewhat.

I do understand that jorb and some people consider the survival aspect a major part of the game, however, I feel like the game isn't really survival based at all for people who have played the game for a lengthy period of time or at a bit of a higher level. Other plays can't really even kill you unless they gain access to your hearth fire or unless you mess up significantly. I can definitely survival is an aspect of the game but in my opinion it's a very small aspect of it.

I feel like almost all games reward people who play the game more and that seems normal to me. I think people spending a very lengthy time doing something should be rewarded for it. I also think just based on all how the industries loop with each other that it makes it more of a fun mechanic than some boring thing that needs to be nerfed to appeal to people who can't play as much. I do agree that botting can be a pretty serious problem, however, I don't think it's overly major to the point where the game needs to be severely changed to combat it.

I do agree that the game is a bit hard to learn right off the bat and that many people who come into the game will never be able to compete with a top faction, however, I feel like the amount of people who mess with noobs are just a few people in each faction and that they're all relatively safe because they can just port to their hearth fire if they're koed and siege is too unrealistic to do to noobs or anybody. As long as a noob secures there village with a palisade and claim that stretches 1 tile out from their wall they should be safe. Fast travel nerfs just removes all fun from the game. It's not fun to spend the majority of your gameplay traveling between places and no one would ever PVP or anything with nerfs to fast travel because it would take hours to maybe encounter someone.

I think hunting is pretty lame, but I don't think bone quality being high is a problem at all with it. I think the main problem with it is that you just hunt the exact same area over and over again. It would probably be more interesting if every animal you killed and some bit of randomization to its quality. Even this doesn't sound like a great solution though. I think this needs to be fixed, but I'm not entirely sure on the best solution.

Domestic animals being better would be cool, I agree.

The one thing I'll never agree on that so many people want to push is time-gating things in the game to slow down progression. It's basically just encouraging people to not play the game, it sounds like really terrible game design.

[fairystyle]

In past few years usually it was so people from my group slowly quit in ~1month duration one after other at some point. While hermits from surrounding lands also suffer from group abandoning them are trying to reach each other they also often reached me as experienced mate. Was getting dozens of the same question: "Why are people quitting?". I always tied the answer with lack of pvp content, when the prerequisites for joining the fight run out of themselves and there are not enough reasons for fresh blood to start turning into pvpers it generates chain reaction of quitting. One quits - in a week 3 more quit, by the end of the month theres noone left. When fighters quit, crafters whos care was their wellbeing look in their direction and some are quitting too. The most steady find enough reasons to stay and play even solo to the end of the world.

But now that we have 2 main industries heavily capped there are even less reasons to stay. If you are not farmer - there is literally nothing you can progress on after 6 month into game.
To ignore it is to just sit with eyes wide shut

This games auditory has 2 obvious camps. Eager to progress people and eager to peaceful casual life people. Both groups are wide and i will subjectively call the first group as more loyal players following the game from world to world (not claiming here the 2nd group isn't, it's just entiriety of the first group are old loyal players, for the 2nd group its just some % of it). And bcs of the reasons described in the thread 1st group has no reasons to stay in the game for long but a lot of reasons to spam "deadgame" and "newworldwhen"
It is hard for me to predict if these solutions will help the problem without creating few more small problems but the existance of the problem is so obvious and bold that its weird to just ignore it and sit quietly until the wave of "#deadgame" will come again

[fairystyle]

I think going back into the w10 all trade leads to the two faction's anvils would just make the game worse. Even if it isn't as extreme as the q5000 anvils then, it still has the same problem of the two factions being able to easily shit out top tier gear that other groups can't hope to compete with, so you either have to ally them or be nothing.

I think you dug too deep into the history. In world 11 when the crazy rat race of first months for quality calmed down a bit there were plenty of traders of top quality metals, people simply collected enough currency/resources to buy some GOOD anvil and turn it into a TOP anvil with spiralling. Maybe you just missed it. Literally everybody who would create a goal to have a good anvil could have it in range of 100-200q from server's top nerds'.

The formation and development of societies is hampered atm by the amount of influence of the current large factions, who can basically lock out everyone else from day 1 because the player base is not large enough to organise decent competetion, new people getting into the game is hampered by the crazy amount of mechanics and abuses of mechanics you have to learn and fast travel allows factions to put their foot on the throat of other players on the opposite side of the world to prevent them developing, in fact if you are not going to play along with the major factions you are better off staying as insignificant as possible to avoid being perceived as someone who needs to be eliminated. All this is unhealthy imo.

Metaphor about "to put their foot on the throat of other players" is way too exageratted, like how? By giving to the game more hours of their life?
If you are saying that faction people are attacking nabs, that's true and that's frequent but still there are bunch of ways to not die from it and to safe your hermitage from possible raids, you don't need to abuse any mechanics or have insane qualities to prevent yourself from death or being raided. There are always bunch of people in the world who are calmly hermitaging and not getting raided or kiled once from the start of the world through its entiriety. If you are speaking of how top factions are blocking nodes of high quality animals or other resources - the world is huge, if few nodes are blocked you can find more. Well ideally it would be changed into some randomisation, or even bear system you mentioned (but with highter qualities than just 200). What else in your objective opinion top factions are supposed to do other than fight for the resources? Isn't that the same for every possible MMO, and only in Haven people are actually complaining about it?

Also devs are rather playing along to nabbish part of playerbase or they would not ever nerf all what is nerfed and remove all they removed. Level 9 everyone were crying about now requires 10 troll bones? Isn't it ridiculous, its is not the forbidden apple anymore. What are we talking about?

And more in general.
Whenever qualities related topics are brought in - it is irrelevant to speak about people who aren't doing enough efforts and just dreaming good quality to airdrop in front of them and complaining about life calling it all unfair and unhealthy.
I don't know why are we always heavily separating top factions vs other world calling them rich and poor, or terror vs victims of world's inequity. When the most accurate would be calling them fanatics vs lazy people, or obsessed with progress vs obsessed with peace and calm pace. And whenever first are climbing too high the second are always choosing the way of complains on forum and pleas for nerf rather than to calm down jealousy and actually try somethign out? Why are they always not honest with themself? If you like calm pace, why are you enviously staring at neighbours' quality? Maybe you actually eager to progress too? Why to complain instead of joining people with the same goal then? Playing in community is fun, and you don't neccessary have to play 10h a day to be part of decent group.
The tendency "we want better results for smaller efforts" to be closer to the world tops is ridiculous, they will always be above because they are fanatics and you are not, they are putting maximum efforts (including creating communities) to be competetive and you are not. And if high efforts are not rewarded more than low efforts it liteally means that system is not balanced

[magisticus]

Umm, no that isn't what I was saying.

[fairystyle]

Umm, no that isn't what I was saying.

Well i'm sorry for reading it wrong, but what did you mean then

I can not imagine the possible way of how progress of top factions influences other player base to not develope in a pace they want
Or especially I have no idea how is fast travel related to the topic at all

[Vraatjuh]

Decrease the maximum quality of animals/ore/stone at the start of the world. Make the world improve quality of everything over time.
Infinite quality growth for everyone and easier catch-up mechanics for new starters as quality rises over time. Also keeping every aspect of the game (foraging/hunting/mining) relevant, as quality keeps rising.

I most likely overlooked something that makes this a shit idea.

[azrid]

The anvil and hammer quality doesn't boost the metal industry.
This change while making it so you don't need to spend as much time mining the same low quality metal, has essentially completely capped out the industry grind and also killed trade.

I think you are a bit off when saying "trade is dead" because last world there was a boom of trading. Every corner of the world had a big market.
Just looking at people trading right now there are plenty things that can be sold to the big boys that anyone can make.
What current quality increase system did to trade is reduce the tokens/hats that get sold to big factions because there is no steady infinite quality grind.
Tokens only have any value because they can be resold at the black market.

I can say with confidence having played on both sides of the major factions that in the worlds where spiraling was really big people were not botting mining much at all. Most people were boosting their industry from trade or manual mining.

I personally encountered mining botters in that world. Just because you don't see it or some who decide to close their eyes doesn't mean its not happening. You can't know where the massive amounts of pepper and iron came from if you don't ask any questions.
Having someone bot in some corner of the world and them selling the botted goods at a favorable price to the faction is still botting. Trade does not make these bars of iron fairly gained suddenly.

There needs to be more reasons to fight.
There needs to be more reasons to have community events like Aurora and CF had in w10.
All mmos thrive on player interaction. I think the goal should always be to increase all types of player interaction.
There needs to be more things like morels that factions can buy.
More foods that can be crafted for combat stats that require getting materials from noobs. More foods create more different things to satiate so you can increase stats faster.
There needs to be a new building system so there is always something to do like create cool looking structures.

I believe the developers intentionally want to get away from the steady infinite quality grind as its an ugly way to have an endgame.
It would be a bad thing for haven in the future if it got stuck into having an endgame like that.

Good post, prob won't get the attention it deserves. Game feels more like a tedious chore than it ever has imo.

W10 was as tedious as any other world.
You just became more intelligent and aware.

[Sevenless]

Hasn't every world been tailored for more or less 2-4 months for 90% of the playerbase?

I feel like there's a design challenge in that the vast majority of people who play do so for a fairly short stint. Infinitely spiralling mechanics ensures they have "no chance of rejoining the world later" possible returners claim. (I don't actually think enough of them come back though, regardless of what they claim and how stat capped the world is). So you get this weird pull where longterm supporters want mechanics that go infinitely, while early worlders want a game they can... "beat"(?) in their 2-4 month playtime. Credos being shorter definitely fits into that, now early worlders can complete their credo path before they burn out.

I think the biggest problem remains that haven's never found an endgame other than numbers go up. Numbers go up, hermits slowly quit or get slaughtered by PvPers many of which don't really seem to want to fight each other. "Realms shouldn't have mechanical benefits that force us to care" aka we don't want to be forced to fight, but without those people just stop fighting and sit in their bases or go raid hermits. Realm system has plenty of problems, not claiming it's actually working properly. But some of the arguments against it are pretty bad at hiding their actual viewpoint.

Game keeps yoyoing between which playerbase to cater to. But I really don't think there's a compromise that makes everyone happy. The game needs the illusion of eternity for the number go up systems to work, but most people will never play any kind of eternity.