Kingdoms as safe zones

[Potjeh]

Recently there's been discussion in the new world announcement thread about the merits of permadeath. On one hand there's people saying that a lot of potential players are deterred by permadeath, and on the other we have people saying that high stakes PvP is what makes H&H exciting. Both arguments got merit, and I'd lean towards permadeath if I had to pick just one, but I don't have to. It's possible to have both - permadeath as it is now in non-realm areas and in contested realm areas, and reduced "death" penalty in uncontested realm areas. For the latter I'd go with Granger's idea - instead of dying you get teleported to HF with a debilitating wound that lowers all stats significantly, can't be treated and takes a couple of weeks to heal. However, I would add one exception to the no-death thing - a new "justice" permission that realm authorities can grant you and which lets you kill people inside that realm.

Now, the immediate goal is to make the game accessible to people turned off by permadeath (though "death" penalty should still sting). But what this also does is make realm borders a lot more important, as you'll want your foragers to be safe from death. So attacking and defending border cairns becomes important, hopefully generating lots of PvP. And since contested cairns don't give death immunity, this PvP would be as exciting as ever. The gist of the idea is to create three zones - inner realm as a safe zone, realm borders as PvP heavy area, and unclaimed areas as true wilderness.

What I'm hoping this does in the long term is make H&H a lot more social. Hermits would have a lot more incentive to concentrate inside realms, and more people living in the same area means more social interactions. Especially without the threat of permadeath hanging over every interaction. For the realms, getting people clustered like that would make it a lot easier to farm authority, so they would benefit too. And as the only ones with the power to kill they'd have to get a lot more involved with keeping the peace if they want to keep the authority farm going, and that should provide plenty of opportunities for interesting interactions. Also, these areas of clustered homesteads would be juicy targets for any nearby kingdom to claim, so we might see more realm vs realm for pure territorial control.

[Adder1234]

I had an idea that wouldn't make kingdoms safe zones, but would make it more dangerous to commit murders in them. viewtopic.php?f=48&t=52586

But yes, I agree that Kingdoms need some way of protecting their citizens

[loftar]

I don't have an immediate answer to such a complex topic, but I don't mind adding that (at least as for me; not necessarily speaking for Jorb) the goal with permadeath is not to have people dying left and right, but more importantly to ensure that there are real consequences to errors and mistakes, and I don't mind mechanics to "gradate" those risks more. I do think that the wound system has already done wonders for the game, for example in that receiving wounds that really kind of matter and take time and effort to heal makes me less apt to miss the aspect of Legacy where animals had a much greater chance of killing players.

In particular, I don't mind mechanics that make the progression towards death less chaotic, if you will (though I also wouldn't necessarily mind mechanics that make it surer, either). It is certainly much more fun to lose of I know that I died because of stupid and/or excessive risk-taking, or that there were several steps along the way where I could have done better, rather than if I die just because I happened to breath wrong at one particular instance.

That being said, though, I'm not overly fond of the idea of being teleported home instead of dying, if only for aesthetic reasons. Perhaps similar venues could be explored, however, such as, perhaps, that a player aggressor can't be entirely sure whether his victim died (so that if you get ganked by a player, there's a chance you might survive), or that animal aggressors have greater chances of converting existing wounds into worse wounds instead of killing. As for player gankings, I'd much prefer if players could simply be incentivized to not kill, somehow, though I know not how.

And yes, I don't necessarily mind the idea of tying some kind of softening of risks to realms, per se, though I'm not sure exactly what kind of mechanics to that effect I might enjoy seeing.

Also, not directly related to the thread, but on the general topic of permadeath, I would like to emphasize that it has always been a goal (though not a particularly well-explored one :P) to make Haven more about playing a "bloodline" than about getting attached to a particular character. Inheritance should be more of a part of the game rather than a consolation, and I would particularly like it if the pain of dying was accompanied by a feeling of "oh well, at least I can make a new descendant now".

[Ozzy123]

I'm too lazy to read the whole thread, but I just wanted to say that living on a kingdom is already some kind of protection becouse the kingdom owners will probably help you if you get killed. Or protect you from being killed at all.

And to be honest, I don't think people are dying left and right, or if they are, they should really post on the forums more becouse it is so hard to find any murder scents Back in the time we used to boat around for the entire day finding no scents at all. And if people are dying to animals.. well, that usually happens only once, then they learn.

[wolf1000wolf]

A lot of the arguments/complaints actually stem from perception issues.

Incidences of noob-slaying violence probably isn't rampant, but the perception that it COULD happen or HAS happened does quite a bit to deter other players from joining in.

I do wonder about the actual numbers though.

[loftar]

And to be honest, I don't think people are dying left and right, or if they are, they should really post on the forums more becouse it is so hard to find any murder scents :(

To be fair, though, to the extent that there's "too little PvP" (which sounds like what you're saying), then surely at least part of the reason for that is that people don't dare go out of their palisades, and that some form of implied protection could encourage such excursions more. Generally speaking, I'd like it if there were more PvP where the outcome isn't by necessity death.

[GamingRAM]

This seems far more like pressure to NEED to be under a realm's claim.


I think a better solution should involve scents. If you commit a crime under a realm, you're breaking the law. Maybe if a foreigner commits a crime in your territory, the scent can be seen by anyone regardless of Perception? Maybe if a crime is committed under a realm claim, copies of the scent will appear in front of the Realm Claim cairn thingy?

Also, not directly related to the thread, but on the general topic of permadeath, I would like to emphasize that it has always been a goal (though not a particularly well-explored one ) to make Haven more about playing a "bloodline" than about getting attached to a particular character. Inheritance should be more of a part of the game rather than a consolation, and I would particularly like it if the pain of dying was accompanied by a feeling of "oh well, at least I can make a new descendant now".

It could just be me, but I've never died. I've only ever played on 1 character and I've encountered and killed trolls, mammoths, suffered multiple head trauma, and never once was hungry.

I like the mindset of playing a "bloodline", but I feel in order to have that we need to well.... die at some point, or at least "retire" (maybe become a nature spirit or something?). There should be more ways to die is what I'm saying. Disease, bloodied feet from not wearing shoes, bugs and pests, bad diet, coldness, hygiene, mental illnesses due to poor sanity/happiness, death by old age?

To be fair, though, to the extent that there's "too little PvP" (which sounds like what you're saying), then surely at least part of the reason for that is that people don't dare go out of their palisades, and that some form of implied protection could encourage such excursions more. Generally speaking, I'd like it if there were more PvP where the outcome isn't by necessity death.

Shameless self-promotion here but I made a suggestion called "Enlightenment" that would encourage people to leave their walls in search for Localized Resources. It wouldn't really encourage PvP, but certainly leaving the walls more.
Maybe if there was an Arena style of building where anyone can make bets that might encourage a little bit of PvP?

I think part of the problem is how difficult it is to get into combat, especially PvP combat. Maybe introducing a training dummy would be a starting point for noobs?

[Ozzy123]

I'd like it if there were more PvP where the outcome isn't by necessity death.

I'm not really saying there is too little pvp, actually the amount of pvp we get would be great if not the weird crossroads system, but it doesnt matter for this thread. I mean that I really doubt that there are people that would literally slaughter noobs, all the debuffs you get are pain in the ass, but if you want people to spare others after PVP'ing then maybe we should have some kind of reward system for letting someone go? I know it could be abusable by knocking out naked alts and letting them go but maybe there is some way to avoid that. lets say, if you aren't outlawed you get a "Righteous" buff that stacks the longer you dont commit any crimes, increasing your LP gain? There are a lot of ways to make the killer think twice if its worth it.

Another idea

Make the state funeral a bit cheaper, or if the price stays the same, let characters inherit all the combat moves and recipes of their ancestor, that way dying won't be such a pain in the ass.

[ricky]

That being said, though, I'm not overly fond of the idea of being teleported home instead of dying, if only for aesthetic reasons. Perhaps similar venues could be explored, however, such as, perhaps, that a player aggressor can't be entirely sure whether his victim died (so that if you get ganked by a player, there's a chance you might survive), or that animal aggressors have greater chances of converting existing wounds into worse wounds instead of killing. As for player gankings, I'd much prefer if players could simply be incentivized to not kill, somehow, though I know not how.

would you mind elaborating more on your view of soft-deaths with HF teleportation? (to me) it seems like a reasonable idea to have characters experience a soft-death, dropping all equipment and items, and then teleporting back home. of course, accompanying this mechanic should be mechanics which allow permadeath, such as multiple soft deaths will result in permadeath, or criminal debuff results in permadeath.

[loftar]

I dunno, but the magical teleport home after being knocked out was one of my least favorite features of Salem, but as I said, mainly for aesthetic reasons. It just seems so inexplicable other than for purely out-of-universe mechanic-legalistic reasons, and it feels like a bit of a cop-out. I shan't hate on it all that much, though, I just think it's kinda ugly, but if there's some really good reason to do it, I guess I could suspend my disbelief. I've also gotten the feeling that Jorb likes it more than I do.