Crime and punishent

[magisticus]

Problem:

The established player base and in fact just a small number of them have such an iron tight grip on the game at the moment that it is virtually impossible for new players to break into it. Crime for a large village with the ability to freely repel nidbanes and enough people to regularly check their walls can be commited without any comeback at all. So they are going around mowing down new players before they have had a chance to get any sort of stats up, communicate with other players to form their own groups etc or build defenses. Those that survive a while then end up penned in behind palisades with no chance of ever progressing to the stage that they can possibly challenge said established factions which means that the game is stagnant.

Suggestion:

Get rid of Nidbanes (good idea but don't work). Instead bring back something akin to the old slider system with sliders not being adjusted manually but instead being adjusted by the actions of the hearthling. Don't commit a crime for a while and your learning ability improves, the more crimes you commit the more it decreases. Possibly also add an aura around characters that have commited crimes such that other characters in their vicinity(or vicinity of their hearthfire) also have a negative affect on their sliders to encourage people to weed out criminals in their locale. Perhaps this way crime would be commited for a reason rather than just to grief new players into quitting the game?

[Ysh]

Problem:

The established player base and in fact just a small number of them have such an iron tight grip on the game at the moment that it is virtually impossible for new players to break into it. Crime for a large village with the ability to freely repel nidbanes and enough people to regularly check their walls can be commited without any comeback at all. So they are going around mowing down new players before they have had a chance to get any sort of stats up, communicate with other players to form their own groups etc or build defenses. Those that survive a while then end up penned in behind palisades with no chance of ever progressing to the stage that they can possibly challenge said established factions which means that the game is stagnant.

Suggestion:

Get rid of Nidbanes (good idea but don't work). Instead bring back something akin to the old slider system with sliders not being adjusted manually but instead being adjusted by the actions of the hearthling. Don't commit a crime for a while and your learning ability improves, the more crimes you commit the more it decreases. Possibly also add an aura around characters that have commited crimes such that other characters in their vicinity(or vicinity of their hearthfire) also have a negative affect on their sliders to encourage people to weed out criminals in their locale. Perhaps this way crime would be commited for a reason rather than just to grief new players into quitting the game?

So now after I rob and murder you with criminal alt, I park criminal alt next to your base to debuff you too.

[magisticus]

Wasnt exactly my thinking no. More that when a village consistantly commits crimes, the production elements of that village should be negatively affected by it too.

[isdel]

Place all your crime alts in a crime village away from your production, nobody gets debuffed. Major factions even have enough space to keep these villages within their own walls.

[Ysh]

Wasnt exactly my thinking no. More that when a village consistantly commits crimes, the production elements of that village should be negatively affected by it too.

Problem is twofold:

A. In general I do not like idea that crime should give you direct drawback from game. Sometime it is good to steal and murder from the men. If some man kills me and I kill him in return, for example. There is some nuance here. What is difference between justice and random aggression? I think no game system can decide this one. It must be up to players to decide what is just and to enforce his own justice. This is what scent system is trying to do.

B. There is not way to gain proper affiliation of player. Player already have separate crime characters operation out of separate crime locations. They do not leave scent from characters visibly associated with main village. I think it is large mechanical change necessary to change this way that it is.

[MrPunchers]

They could make all characters on one account spawn from one hearthfire, and the name of the HF would be the name of the account.

[beardhat]

Crime mechanics never work in any game, ever, to deter negative player interaction in an open gameplay system. (AKA open world PVP)

It either makes alting a thing, or makes the open player interaction less open, if not rigidly predefined.

I much prefer to have crime and punishment be based on how much power you can project as a player, or as a group of players, rather then an abitrary mecahnic that just encourages alting. I play EVE and have involved myself in 0.0 warfare (aka, no security what so ever except what you can project) and I find no security space safer then secure space, where suicide ganks are rampant and your shit is never safe, yet there is an abitrary crime mechanic in place that simply doesnt work.

The problem really is that there is little to encourage freeform player interaction, other then basic trading which dies out relatively quickly after the first month of a new world except between hermits.

[loftar]

The problem really is that there is little to encourage freeform player interaction

This is my analysis as well. If there were more reason to cooperate, I believe we would see people coming together and cooperating against evil, at least to a greater degree than happens now.

[ven]

Maybe the right question to ask is why people cooperate in real life, and then work out possible mechanics from there.

In my opinion that's because cooperation is necessary. In Haven it's not.

[GamingRAM]

The problem really is that there is little to encourage freeform player interaction

This is my analysis as well. If there were more reason to cooperate, I believe we would see people coming together and cooperating against evil, at least to a greater degree than happens now.

The current system more so supports evil more than cooperation.

Bots are needed to compete in the faction vs faction arms race, rather than actual player interaction and contributions. There is also little retribution or counter to bots, no report feature or player moderators.
The Realm Claim system is broken as hell. (Cheap for big factions to expand, smaller factions can't expand at all if another is claimed over theirs, can't boycott the EXP tax)
Combat is still confusing.
I see little reason to actually fight over territory other than realm claim (aka forcing EXP tax). Region based resources could help.

I like the idea of nidbanes personally, and would like to see them expanded upon a bit. Perhaps smaller spirits for lesser crimes (haunting to reduce stats?, spying on trespasser, etc?)

Small things could help more cooperation and player interaction. A strange as it sounds an in-game chess-board could help, since it would get people interacting and talking.