PvE idea: Raidable settlements

[LadyGoo]

Leanne 96 and I were discussing hafen's gameplay and concluded, that what could really draw people that quit and keep the players is to implement PvE settlements that would have some actual loot inside and were raidable in short period of time. That would provide some steady fighting experience source for almost everyone in the game and urge people to unite together.

Dwarven settlement
Has various sizes and number of dwarves that could attack you. Neutral until you attack one of them or start damaging their village shield. Cast raw-hide automatically, can break your rams/catapults and attack you.

With different size of village, soloable, triable, 10able, 20able, 50able

The village territory should extend for 125 tiles (avoid people bubbling around) + preferably you shouldn't be able to place pclaims too close too, to prevent the NPC to be kited. If their approach is blocked, they shower you with arrows and spears. Instant raw hide casts. You have to keep fighting and protecting your siege mechanisms for 2 hours in order to breach in. Once you break their idol (hand bashable), the dwarves will stop spawning and attacking you. Then you can process into looting the village, that might have the following list of items:
- gold and silver
- pearls
- salt & ice
- pit/cave clay q50+
- q150 water buckets/barrels

Any items that are needed by both large and small villages, basically. The quality of the gear changes over time, but some items are rare and got the high demand for all times.


Troll settlement
Almost the same as the previous settlement type, but got the trolls instead + troll huts. Overground trolls might have smaller size and give you mini troll scull curio, that could be compiled into a large troll skull. The settlement is aggressive and should spawn next to salt/ice basins. So it would be impossible to claim them without fighting the trolls first and removing their claim. + you couldn't be able to use the salt/whatever checker alts ran by bots, since they'd be instantly aggroed and killed.

[Trev]

So what happens when all of them are defeated and you are back to world end?

The world is not big enough to continuous spawn villages of trolls/dwarves.

Are you suggesting the walls/structures are permanent and the village respawns over time?

[strpk0]

This is some Dwarf Fortress shit right here, therefore I'm morally obliged to support this idea.
+1, sounds like fun
idk if everyone would agree with the loot mentioned in the post, specially when (yeah, not if) people find ways to exploit them and get easy raids.

[2d0x]

The world is not big enough to continuous spawn villages of trolls/dwarves.

Such villages can be generated endlessly and separately from the main world. These are the same dungeons (villages of gnomes and trolls, as described, or it may be some dragon or another boss).
You can get there, for example, by means of a charter stone, a portico or a new special portal (created by a player, generated randomly or located in the main world).
The portal can be opened at a certain time or randomly (for example, a system message).
There are a lot of options, but for sure many people would like such game events.

[viznew]

i like it but not sure if id want npcs like that

but if i did

id make them smaller more like camps and unique loot (dwarfs make unique stautes, pickaxes, shovels,ect) (trolls make unique stautes (i can't spell) axes saws ect) both chould have unique armor and swords but as for norm resources still gotta go out and get, the camps are more for unique loot

thats my veiw on it

[sMartins]

First we need to improve animals AI, once they will work how is supposed, without exploit,etc....maybe we could think at bigger AI projects.

[Grog]

i agree with sMartins

[Massa]

So what happens when all of them are defeated and you are back to world end?

The world is not big enough to continuous spawn villages of trolls/dwarves.

Are you suggesting the walls/structures are permanent and the village respawns over time?

Dwarves and trolls live underground.

Underground fortresses/mining operations? Breathe some life into those underground tower caps, various vegetations. Even some kind of strange farms for niche underground "crops" (artificial walls, like tressels to grow moss, for example).

Brings continuity.

[LadyGoo]

Are you suggesting the walls/structures are permanent and the village respawns over time?

They should regen once another settlement of equal strength is demolished elsewhere.

idk if everyone would agree with the loot mentioned in the post, especially when (yeah, not if) people find ways to exploit them and get easy raids.

It doesn't have to be in big amounts though. And efforts to get them should be equal to the time spent actually gathering the resources mentioned. The problem is that people wouldn't be interested in q50 steel swords at some point of the game. Therefore, the remain interesting for both developed and undeveloped players, the loot should be something universal. Constant NPC spawn and fight for like an hour already gonna damage a lot of your armour, hp and put you at risk if another group of players would ambush you during the siege.

The world is not big enough to continuous spawn villages of trolls/dwarves.

Such villages can be generated endlessly and separately from the main world.

Yeah, but would be fun to use that mechanic to fight login botting of salt and ice. It can be really fun to gather a party and fight over the resources, trust me. We have had several encounters over the nodes in the beginning of the world.

i like it but not sure if id want npcs like that

To be honest, there are not much incentive to fight people in hafen. You do not have the urge + a lot of people wouldn't want to conflict with other players (if you will have a conflict, you've gotta blend into some other faction, eventually). But might be interested in some fighting still and having a fighter character. Also, the experienced players would also want to have event and reason to gather together. We all know that doing something for the sake of doing it doesn't work. The game has to support it. The great example would be the inns. A lot of people attempted to do them. But since it is impossible to prevent your cutlery to be stolen, or the tables being destroyed by the eaters, or prevent people bringing their own food and etc. etc. it is impossible to have a meaningful inn (that would be profitable). Consequently, you do not see them in the game. Same with the markets. Hafen didn't have marketplaces until the mechanics made it so that trading via barters is more efficient than via face to face.
Also, it is extremely hard to come up with reasons for conflicts without making lots of people scream and bitch, since the actual reasoning to fight each other has to be related to something very important. Starting a siege is a 100% way to get a conflict. But the siege will lead to the base destruction. People aren't sieging much, because it is hard. If you'll make it easier, then sure, you'll get more fights happening. But more people bitching and quitting as well.

id make them smaller more like camps and unique loot (dwarfs make unique stautes, pickaxes, shovels,ect) (trolls make unique stautes (i can't spell) axes saws ect) both chould have unique armor and swords but as for norm resources still gotta go out and get, the camps are more for unique loot

Idk about the unique statues or whatever - not sure whether jerb would be keen on modelling and texturing them, not sure whether people would actually be bothered about them due to the quality differences. And I do not like the idea of making all the settlements small. Why? So the big factions wouldn't have their share of fun of gathering 40+ people for the raid?

First we need to improve animals AI, once they will work how is supposed, without exploit,etc....maybe we could think at bigger AI projects.

Simply, make the dwarfs or whatever to be able to bypass (climb over or whatever) any obstructions. That way you will remove the issue with cliff farming, object-blocking and etc. Then make them to shower arrows and whatever if they're actually being blocked by something unforeseen. Make it so they can swim. So here you go.

The biggest problem with animal AI is that they can be farmed via cliffs/boats and etc. and that can be solved by making them through stuff across the objects. Imho, the devs don't wanna bother too much with it, since fixing the issues above would mean actually working on the proper hunting system and defining how hunting should work.

First we need to improve animals AI, once they will work how is supposed, without exploit,etc....maybe we could think at bigger AI projects.

[2d0x]

Yeah, but would be fun to use that mechanic to fight login botting of salt and ice. It can be really fun to gather a party and fight over the resources, trust me. We have had several encounters over the nodes in the beginning of the world.

If the portals are embedded in the game based on the principle of localized resources (a la Ancient Windthrow, Clay Pit, Great Cave Organ, etc.), then this is quite possible. The positive aspect of portals is that you can generate different biomes and reliefs. And it will not affect the main world.