A Plea for Decay (Character)

[Redlaw]

so lets say younger characters get a boost a bit when there fresh to gain states, then that decays over time till its subpar on how fast they can gain them? So as the world sees a q increase newer characters will just flat out and catch up. Its more of a soft cap for stats that for some will matter a lot. Though I can then see things to slow this againg up in dungeons, some other quests ect.... It would add a new level to the game.

[Granger]

It would be expired ingame time (being logged in or not) for a reason: to discourage pre-building alts that can be hibernated till they are needed.

The forumla I used to calculate the decay is (Level-SAFE)*(DECAY/100)^(DAYS*78.96)+SAFE (basically a simple interest calculation) with SAFE=10 (to keep the inital 10 levels out of the equasion) and DECAY=0.025 this leads to reducing a currently existing level to about 1/2 of it in 5 real-life weeks (35 days). Loftars calculation is correct in that regard.

The point about taking a break and tainting stuff might be true for hermit playstyle. But in the current regime it is at least true when playing in a village, even more extreme because (unless you share the specialized characters, so your farmer/carpenter/tailor/whatnot had been fed up by others while you were away to raise them on concert with the qualities of the village) you'll have fallen back without a reasonable way to catch up and be damned to eternal uselessness.

But honestly: taking a break for a prolongued timespan IMHO should have drawbacks, with good preparation (like putting seeds of current quality aside, setting animals into hibernation mode so they'll still be breathing when you return) the issue with tainting shouldn't be that big of an obstacle. Sure, for a time you'll suck (compared to before) - but you could catch up, which currently you can't.

I see the current approach as clearly not working beyond some months into the world, thus I think we need something that works without the issues. I'm not sure that having a softcap (and stat decay for everything beyond) would be the right approach as it still would enable to mass-prepare alts at cap level, plus the absolute numbers would most likely be higher (and my gut feeling is that stuff shound't go that much higher than q250, YMMV, to enable world balancing).

I honestly have no idea how to turn the math around to make it more palatable... that's why I started this topic: in the hope that someone will come up with something good that I so far couldn't come up with.

The recent idea (while I was writing this) of 'older chars get slower', 'younger get a boost' etc. IMHO don't solve the issues endlessly increasing numbers give. Plus, given what I have seen in player behaviour (short-time force-feeding), will likely be ineffective to keep the numbers within reasonable limits.

[Adata]

:/ I wish you wouldn't try to fix whats not broken.

[skltnk]

Seems that if I'd tell you that the god doesn't exist you would reply in the same kind of manner.

Which isn't necessarily a bad argument, mind you.

That being said, given some certain set of assumptions, it is certainly possible to prove the absence of various things, such as the absence of an end to prime numbers given only very universal assumptions about arithmetic.

Even so, however, I can present at least one alternative mechanic which would in many ways fulfill the same purpose, but wouldn't be "decay" per se, and as such disprove the uniqueness of decay as a mechanic. To wit:
Character aging and death is a commonly proposed mechanic. As an alternative to that, one might consider a character's "levling ability" to grow worse with time, asymptotically reaching zero. His stats would never decay, and he would never reach a point where it's impossible to level further up, but it would become easier and easier for younger characters to overtake him. At some point, it would make more sense to die and inherit, to level further up from there.
I'm aware, of course, that you could argue that inheritance is actually just explicitly triggered "stat loss" and thus decay in different clothes, but even so it wouldn't be decay per se. If anything, I myself like it more than decay just from an aesthetic perspective.

So you'll basicaly

1)Grind till cap.
2)Die
3) Cap++
4) Go to 1

It'll be an infinite progression as it is today but with dying inbetween?

[MagicManICT]

What is missing at this point is a way to test changes without compromising a world life span

I think HH has potential to have a classic RTS game mode, with short matches, like a hyper fast world

This has been discussed in the past. I know because I have participated such discussions on more than one occasion. A Travian, Stronghold Kingdoms, or other similar mechanic could be quite interesting in this game. Question is how to do it...

Overall, this whole conversation is moot until the FEP mechanics--eating and attribute gains, symbel and feasting bonuses, game bonuses based on attributes--are balanced properly. With proper balance, there isn't a need for such arbitrary rules such as this. I consider going to such an extreme as this to be contrived.

The only thing I could see is if you argue something about the average of the player base and characters and anyone going beyond the standard deviations get increasing penalties (over) or bonuses (under) the mean, median, or whatever measure used. Anyone extensively beyond a certain level would start losing points over time (stat decay). This would mean that you could super feast the night before a battle, be buffed, but over the next few days, start losing those advantages.

[TurtleHermit]

Limit how much food You can daily eat, increased by two times if there was any longer larbor done.

[loftar]

It'll be an infinite progression as it is today but with dying inbetween?

I don't know in what world the progression a_n+1 = ka_n+m is the same as arithmetic progression, but certainly not in the one where I live.

[LadyV]

It is a game and you should never erase character progression with mechanics. People may need breaks for whatever reasons. your reasoning so far complains about to much open ended ability and you burning out on things to do. This is and always has been an issue people have complained about. it is the result of the design choices of making progression to fast compared to challenge and new material. I can't fault Jorb and Loftar as being only two. They are doing well with their abilities.

The game needs a lot of main features still added to it. One of those being ways for groups to form their own challenges. Much work needs to be done to village and kingdom level events, abilities, and buildings. More varied resources need to be added to make these new things not so easy to achieve. Eating needs to be greatly curbed. When you can sit an eat a weeks worth of food in one sitting, if not more, you get run away stats. Honestly I like you get FEPs from eating but your physical body should only be allowed so much. Anything beyond that to rush a stat should come from you spending points. At least that is more honest as a way of advancement by showing Im spending my worldly experience on working on something.

Combat...no one will ever be happy with it. It has to be balanced and drawn out. I do think a more medieval style and system is appropriate. As I had said much in the past variety and uniqueness is what is needed. I know the Devs are against skill gates that block paths but when everyone can do everything why do they need others? Why should they care about others? I still think if you want a feature then specialize in it. Some abilities and skills should only come with long term dedication. If you ar e amaster archer you spent a long time dedicated to that and that alone to get to that skill level. No one should be master in all things with super stats.

This brings me to the last thing. Long term rewards should come to those who play longer. ie. those abilities, stats, and even new recipes for their specializations.

Decay of any character is a poor game choice. You arbitrarily punish someone for not playing. When in fact not playing is its own detriment. People catch up, claims expire and get raided, and relations break down. There is no need for decay. There is need for game improvement. Haven is a wonderful project. It has much to do yet before being complete.

So much is possible knightly, warrior, raider/thief orders, village and kingdom level buildings that give perks or abilities, New combat forms mounted, waterbourne, subterran... Reanalysis of weapons and armors to be more relevant and usable instead of the same I use the best of everything philosophy. Lets be honest the concept of a master archer using full plate is a bit ridiculous. Fielding an army of full steel heavies should be more costly. I could go but we have a C&I full of these things. My point is to get this balanced will take time. There is no magic fix and you should not punish players for inactivity.

My suggestion is pick 1-3 things that the vast majority say need worked on and then ask for them to be handled first. If players who get supercharged and bore din a month or so maybe progression needs to be looked at. New activities and items/skills need to be added. Also noting it comes form both sides maybe players need to stop thinking of this as a game to rush. If you slowed down and savored the system you might enjoy it longer. In the extreme maybe we need a second world or special area in game for things. Maybe even a test server for players to play and give feedback.

I don't have all the answers but I do know character is not the option to be taken.

[Fierce_Deity]

I'm in support of Grangers view on decay for characters. To me, the thought of the decay is completely palatable. Keeping the decay at a fixed percentage has it function as a nice softcap, and players would find a sort of sweet spot they work to stay in. Taking a break and coming back to reduced stats seems reasonable to me, and its not as if credos decay. I want a world where both PvE and PvP combat can be balanced and rely somewhat on skill. A world where item quality does not increase forever and beyond. Decay lets the grind stay, but does not throw balance out the window.
Derail
I feel like haven should shift its focus from the infinite progression & grind to something that revolves around a world full of rare items, ingredients, recipes and blueprints. Player stats would still be important, but there would be a new dimension to the world & combat revolving around unique play styles and items. Unique combat abilities, one time use crafting recipes, strange dungeon rewards, special structures and buildings you can find a one time use blueprint for. Picture it like this: Going on a troll dungeon raid to find a unique blueprint for a special forge that lets you craft swords from troll bone. Allowing you to compete with that pesky man selling gem studded B12''s. Or fishing up a talking fish, that promises fortune if you let him go, but if you kill and eat him you halt your decay for a week. Or butchering a bear that was uncommonly powerful, and receiving his heart that when eaten grants you the 'enraged' combat trait when at low health.
Tools and armor would have to break too, with uncommon and rare things having no easy way to repair them.
Sort of a silly derail I guess, and one thats not really feasible from a developer standpoint, but its what I think would make for a truly fun and interesting haven. Everyone character could potentially be special in way, unique buildings could make for prime targets in a siege, special items keep the fun of exploring and dungeoning intact, and to top it all off, there would be some semblance of balance due to the decay. A boss character could exist that would always be a challenge, not just being a matter of grinding a few hundred more stats to grind him under your shoe.

Derail aside, decay seems like the only way to begin to approach a sustainable world. Grinding stats is addictive, not fun. The fun in the game should come from other places, with maintaining and increasing stats being a side goal to allow you to continue exploring, raiding, looting, questing...playing.

[Aceb]

So I think the FEP system is not broken (might need some value rebalance here and there).
The broken aspect only is how much can You eat. I've "finally" reached a point, where with quality table stuff, I can eat pretty much cupboards of cupboards of food for relatively low cost (symbel repair 250XP), I just can nearly make never ending feast with my party. The only aspect is how long it takes to prepare food.

Now, I belive the simple way to fix that, is to put a limit on how much a Heartling is able to digest each 8 hours. Let's say that when in-game day passes, You stomach can again regain abiliity to digest 33,3(3)% of total food possible to eat. In real-time day, it replenishes by 100%.

Now let's say that You can ate I don't know... 100 pieces of meat/vegan food and for dessert 48 pieces of cake or so and 24 pieces of rest of stuff. And that's your day limit. It could actually make people forced to eat different kind of foods to get the best result instead of chuging that drinks to set your best satiations for meat, pies or whatever You need atm. Also, it make it harder to make quick titan. From the other hand, it would be harder later to make such fresh titan to fight old titans (if ever happens).

For stat cap, I would propose similar thing to heart container. Putting Either a statcap like 500 points slow progression barrier to make it a less significal past this point in end product. Or put solid 500statcap that can be only tresspassed by using nasty XXX container (something like with existing heart containers). So people go out in parties, explore, conquer and divide.

Or the longer character lives, the longer it takes to develop new abilities or getting better at already existing one.

I will keep my opinion about decaying character that is double punishes "casual" players over those "hardcores" who just simple have time or life doesn't hit them hard. Being unable to be active for whatever reason is already a punishment as other people will escape with quality and abilities. Decay won't hit active people that much how it will hurt less-active.