What would an ideal endgame look like for you?

[Sevenless]

I've been thinking about Jorb's comment, that they'd like to know what we as the players want out of end game. Here's my proposal:

1) I'm asking pretty please that each person/account post to this thread once to keep it free of clutter. (I'm not going to post my idea in the original comment, when I'm ready to write my post I'll add it as a single reply)

2) Because everyone gets one post, this is about *your* vision for endgame haven not about responding to others. I'd rather see everyone post their ideas/desires unhindered than let this turn into a debate. I realize that many forum personalities can get argumentative about ideas they disagree with, myself most definitely included. Trying to get as many opinions as possible for the devs to read, and honestly we've had millions of debates about this type of thing in the past. It's brainstorming time not debating time.

3) I feel it would be most helpful if the ideas work as an overlay to what we have currently, not a replacement. Requiring a re-write of the fundamental mechanics of the game for your idea to work makes it very unlikely to be realistic.

4) If possible, include descriptions of other related games you've played long term and what their endgame was like (not just the good bits, but the downfalls that came with it as well).

[MrPunchers]

Well, personally I like how some games can create randomly generated things to make the game seem larger (Borderlands does this amazingly). I don't know how this could be applied to Haven and Hearth but in every game I've seen it it's great.

[LadyV]

I don't really see haven as an endgame type system. They have stated they want permanent worlds. That means there is no end. So in that case I must say they need massive depth. In order to achieve that the first step is to create specialties that they to have not wanted added. If everyone can do everything or achieve everything then what the point of ever exploring other build or paths. Where is the uniqueness that lets people grow attached to a play style or type that fits them?

To achieve the goals the devs have stated they will need about a hundred times the content they currently have. They will also have to update every week with a major addition every month in order to sustain such a permanent world. That is a lot of work for two people.

So my end game desires are scrap the unlimited path we are on with character development. Sure keep stats and skill levels open ended but create special skill paths and even perks and flaws. Make every path viable and every persons choices unique. To me that is the most important end game. The idea of only one path to win or follow for success leave me rather bored that I have to be like everyone else. I'd much rather choice my own path and specialties. Could you imagine a character who specialized in armor making and produced the best in the world? You add pride and a sense of achievement without having to insert artificial goals. Let people set their game path for themselves.

[sMartins]

Simply, endgame doesn't exist and Jorb was kidding us with that sentence cause he knows exactly there is not any real solution.
Trying to explain you why I'm saying this:
it's cause you can only raise higher and higher the content you can play but there will be always a limit and once you know how the game mechanics work there is no more game.
Many other games tried to extend the "endgame" and pretty much all of them failed...cause you cannot have an endgame mechanics made by a software that is limited by his own nature.
In my opinion the only way to extend the game time is with humans and humans interactions that are not limited and with endless possibilities.
The most succesful MMORPG that last over time are those where players can play with other players, cause like I said this is the only way to have endless possibilities....Ultima,Eve,MapleStory...etc..

So everyone has his own preferences, if you ask to me I like the market game, flipping the economy and that stuff....I'm sure many others here like to fight other people, kill, destroy, etc...some others like to play with people against a virtual (and easier) enemy, so pve togethere against bosses etc....

All this kind of interactions works cause they are driven by humans and could last potentially forever, untill you like to spend your time having fun with these other humans.

In conclusion, what I'm saying is that devs should focus to give their game more of the needed tools in order for players to play their game with other people.
Pretty much they are 3: Market,PVP,PVE....well really they are 2: Market and PVP are the same thing in a different way.

[iamahh]

Free Repeatable Player Interaction - some kind of alternative mechanic, maybe even created by the players, that doesn't feel expensive, otherwise people will just turtle in. Some MMOs had massive PVEs that united the server against one goal.

[bakalavr]

In my opinion, world cleansing is necessary and 1 year world reset cycle is fine. But what if we, players, could save some progress from the old world? In form of ancestor, or some inherited stats. That could motivate some to play the game even if it is already 8 month old instead of waiting for next reset.

[ricky]

End game content has that nasty connotation that the game is supposed to end, which I dont enjoy.

Instead we need a lot of dynamic systems which allow players opportunities to achieve goals or interact with the world that are not always available. currently, the world is _completely_ static upon generation. there is no living, breathing environment. trees dont die, animals dont migrate, plants dont grow.

The easiest way to explain a system that fits my idea would be seasons (where's my dead horse at??)

each season would be 70-100 IN GAME days. each season would have its own set of challenges such as heat,cold, travel limitations
ideally, winter would have longer nights and summer would have longer days.
certain crops would only be able to grow during certain seasons (limitations of what is available)
certain plants would only be found during certain seasons (limitations of whats avilable)
certain animals would only be found during certain seasons (" ")

this would create an actual demand for out of season objects as well as a reason to stockpile certain items or grow certain things.

a good system to compare this to is don't starve.


certainly after setting up a large enough kingdom, scarcity would no longer be an issue. the next focus of true 'end game' content is infrastructure. currently there is no incentive to build sprawling cities. you could in fact argue it would be a disadvantage to build a town too big. there is no reason to connect towns via physical roads, only charter stones. after building a stone tower, you're done. there's absolutely no incentive to work on megaprojects (it's also basically impossible as a hermit)

ultimately, I personally feel the best direction for HNH to head is towards a more dynamic world which limits resources (either through seasons, events, or another system) as well as a emphasis on city building and infrastructure in order to have a goal to work towards.

[Attas]

I believe that initially the game simulates a state of wilderness, in which we slowly discover new technologies (like hunting and mining) in a civilization-esque progress towards the future. In fact, before the addition of realms, there were only villages, compact poles of civilization in a wild world with a very loose sphere of influence. Now that we have realms, we're slowly leaving the early middle ages kingdoms (in which the citizens barely knew the name of their liege) towards a late middle ages sort of kingdom, in which each person living under the realm could identify as part of it.

That being said, what I'd like to see implemented:

- extended trade system. Barter stands work very well nowadays (see Community Fair or even the infamous market of Sevilla), but it would be nice to see some new stuff related to trading, such as: banks, coin purses, trade outposts (for newbies to use).
- as an extension to the extended trade system, create new localized resources. But not localized as the way they are now - I mean resources that are very hard to extract, and who occur only in certain regions of the map (perhaps the same way that seeds were in early w10, except that those resources would be non-vital for progress). For exemple, it would be nice to see some seeds that would be found only on the southern regions, allowing to make some wonderful recipes with another ingredient found only in the north. Or even a rare metal, found only in certain regions, also not vital for progress but desirable nonetheless.

in terms of realms, it would be nice to see not only impositions of the elite of the realm to their citizens, but also demands of the citizens towards the capital, a sort of democracy. Maybe the villages could decide on the buffs the realm is getting, or even allow them to use some features like the realm chat. On the other hand, the realm should also be allowed to adopt some policies, like closing the borders (not allowing anyone unoathed to the realm to found new villages inside the realm), creating taxes (a sort of stand in which people have to deposit some stuff and be not considered as a lawbreaker), etc.

tl;dr create new mechanics and incentive trade in late-game, create new mechanics for realms.

[Immatricious]

This is the first world I truly played through the game and some of following ideas might be based off weakly supported observations because I wasn't there to witness correlations and evolution between worlds and the progression and activities in them.My explaining might be a bit vague too.

I've been playing since the beginning of the world and kept a lurking eye on the local and global in-game politics and once the current quality-spiraling hell that is endgame settles, things slow down; there seems to be less incentives for interactions to happen between groups of all scales for reasons other than trading/marketing or localized resources. Because of this, The world feels very stale and unchanging.

The game needs more activities that brings players from polities of any size to have to work together or against each other for the common advancement or hindering of the general progression of all individuals. Activities such as world events where factions would have ally to complete a goal and bring a new feature to the world, or a global (less obscure) faith system where all players have their say through rituals or specific behaviors.

For example, activities where groups would have to complete a massive task and the feature reward could be the expansion of a side of the world, access to a new cave layer, general higher fertility of soil or things as such (Even perhaps some update features?). Pushing this further, giving a choice of global features to the superior alliance would be a reason to compete.

As for global faith, same as activities, gives the choice to the most dedicated group or depending on the type of casual actions and/or rituals carried out in the world. Say, for every time livestock starve, a slider that goes from +X max crop q gain per harvest to +Y% more metals from ore shifts towards the latter. Rituals or resource sacrifice could be completed to move the sliders around, but could still be slightly affected by mundane actions.

With such mechanics, reaching endgame could be faster or slower, but even when endgame starts showing up, there should still be motivations to befriend or make enemies with other groups, keep track of happenings or even just keeping oneself active.
(This idea of an endgame ended up more like a suggestion, oh well.)

I can't quite think of any MMOs that have a global rewarding system implemented as a main feature and a not an abstract side effect of something else.
I might add on to this post later, ideas are quite jumbled.

[qoonpooka]

I am looking for end game to be about territorial politics. Finite, scarce resources that lead to meaningful human conflicts which you attempt to resolve through mechanics be that travel, siege, theft, diplomacy, whatever. Tribalism does most of the work for you.

I have come to appreciate and enjoy the world resets. yes, you lose all your hard work and built up stuff, but a) it's just stuff and someone could come siege it down anyway, and b) A fresh start gives a chance that new folks will take a dominant position this time. I know that right now resets are part of the development cycle, but I feel like they contribute to end game content in a way that few other games are willing to: the game actually ends.

I think the possibility for a world to exhaust its resources and begin to go into a decline eventually culminating in the devs calling a time of death on a world is a fine way to go.

An alternative would be a mature end-state where kingdoms/realms are meaningful things and conflict between them - as well as between unaligned villages and individuals - is also meaning. I'm envisioning the possibility of mercenary bands bringing home spoils to their villages to build the next generation of soldiers; border squabbles between nations over key resources.

This would require incentives for:

Realms to want more villages in them,
Villages to want to align with a Realm (but also have reasons to stay independent),
Individuals to want to join villages AND Realms...

...and reasons to fight. Conflict drivers from tribalism won't get you a mature end state like this, you need to introduce some reason to fight (something that can be won) and a reason to defend (a cost that can be incurred against the attacker, and possibly something to be won by a defender beyond simple survival).

I play EVE Online a LOT, have played for 13 years now (JFC...) and played in a lot of places. The end game of EVE Online is when you can fly basically anything (only one ship at a time), and afford it all. The fun of the end game is that you can basically do whatever you like, build the giant space sand castles if you have enough friends, and go knock over other people's sandcastles. There's a need to constantly produce ISK/Stuff so that you can keep playing, playing has in-game costs, so you keep logging in and keep starting fights in part because their fun but also in part to get more stuff. (In truth these are different fights.)

The downside, really, is a general maturation of the pilot and ship stocks. When Capitals became a thing, everyone was flying massive capital fleets. Titans were supposed to be rare, but now if you don't have 20-40 Titans, don't bother showing up to major null-sec battles... the biggest, rarest thing soon becomes massively commonplace because democratic principles demand that everyone can build one.

I think truly massive artifice in H&H, stuff that represents, basically, moving into the next historical period, should be the mature end-game but it should require the efforts of many villages to produce. I think Realm bonuses shouldn't apply to anyone who happens to walk across the border (that just encourages everyone to support the creation of a single realm with massive bonuses for all), but rather offer a resident/defender some kind of advantage - give someone a reason to want to contest it beyond just flipping a flag color.

I've also played Puzzle Pirates off and on for a while, and the end game there is Island ownership. I've never been part of a landholding flag so I can't say if that's worth it or not, but it certainly is a thing I keep kicking around the idea of organizing a group to go claim, because the rewards seem awesome.

Rambly, but these are my ideas.


EDIT - Character age. Simulating aging in a game is fraught with problematic things because ageism's a thing but consider the driver of conflict in real life: Sooner or later, we all die. In H&H at present, characters only improve, until they are killed, and there is therefore always a highest-person-on-the-server and that person is that until they are killed, basically, or they stop playing.

If characters were (perhaps long lived but) temporary by design, it could create churn in a game where the world didn't necessarily end. That said, 10,000quality swords and armor and such isn't a thing I want to see.