PVP: Alternatives to Stat Caps

[DaniAngione]

I want to start this thread by saying that I am a supporter of hard stat caps OR combat stat caps (what was suggested when W10 started: combat only considers your stats to a certain point but you can still raise them for crafting purposes)
I'd really love to see caps + a 'stat decay' system that someone once suggested.

The discussion about them is long and winded, however - and already belongs somewhere else. This thread is not meant to discuss stat caps further but, instead, bring up some very raw alternative ideas that I've been having that could somewhat help in solving the real problem.
The real problem is not about having huge stats, but how those huge stats can unbalance combat and make it a frustrating experience for most and a boring experience for the owners of the titan characters. The real problem is how the lack of something that keeps players on 'even grounds' makes combat an unworthy activity, a not fun experience and especially keeps the vast majority of players that are not willing to take the same routes and ways of the top 'hardcore' players with a sense of insignificance.

So, to tackle this issue without implementing caps, I think that we can have several approaches in several areas and I'll try to cover all the ideas I've had when thinking about it. For that, I'll divide them in 3 basic sections: Levelling (regarding LP gain and feeding for FEPs), Combat Tweaks (regarding changes and additions to skills, maneuvers and such...) and More Dynamic Combat (a whole section dedicated to larger, broader changes to the combat system)

So you can call the whole combination of most of these ideas an ALTERNATIVE TO STAT CAPS:

1. LEVELLING
This is the first bit but also a very important one. The thing about not having caps is that the difference of players' skills, ability (and resources) to improve their characters and grind qualities and the time they've started playing will make A LOT of difference in the longer run. This was always 'an issue' in H&H but we've seen it escalating exponentially with the addition of the rare localized resources. They are not a bad idea but they arguably could use several changes. There's a ton of threads on them so I'll just point out a few things and focus on other things.

BONFIRES
The first item here will be bonfires. They are amazing things to have but their benefit can also be questionably huge for very little effort/price. It's super easy for grinders and factions to get a couple of Charisma Alts up and then in a few weeks of game they can already reach ridiculously low hunger modifiers. That allows people to pump food in their stomachs like real machines and it just increases the gap between players.
Something that could work to prevent that is giving Bonfires a quality. Based, of course, on the stone used to make them. Make the quality work as a cap for the minimum hunger modifier you can achieve, in a way that one would require a q150+ bonfire to be able to have them work as efficiently as they do now, for example. That would give some time before they become that good, slowing down the early game a bit.

SATIATIONS
Now, now. I understand that the whole satiation system is currently... unhappy/messy and a complete overhaul on how food works is definitely necessary. Jorb has stated already that he's not happy with how the food system currently is and so we can definitely expect major changes (possibly on new worlds). But I also think it's kind of pointless to leave it entirely broken for so long; There are things that could be done to at least slow the system down a bit so it doesn't become a boring and abusable mechanic while it is not changed.
As of now, satiations are basically a very boring mechanic where you have to spend 5 minutes drinking an unbelievable amount of drinks until you pretty much have everything at 125% and the whole system becomes irrelevant.
So here's a couple of simple suggestions that could more or less try to control this for now, until the system is revamped:

- Add bad consequences for alcohol usage. Drinking debuff (that increases in % like hemp buff but lowers stats and maybe even character speed and such). Make it last long and be really severe the more you drink. After a certain % it should definitely start giving you wounds, long lasting and incredibly stat-damaging hangover wounds that, the greater they are, could even become permanent liver damage. I want to see people drinking barrels of beer and wine at once after that
- Change how satiations reset. Make it so that drink satiations can't be resetted but rather just slowly regen back to 100% over time. Drank too much tea? Gotta wait a week or two before tea is efficient again. Make good use of your satiation buff until then.

SALT, ICE & OTHER LOCALIZED RESOURCES
Localized resources are a cool idea but it is no secret anymore that the community has more than found ways to completely go around all their intended ways of being used
Salt and ice are particularly useful for raising stats/skills and such, especially in the early world, where most of them were 'dominated' by few people - which WOULD BE FAIR AND NICE if they actually dominated it with combat and such... but that's the exception. What usually happens is:
Resource is walled and/or an alt logs in, collects it and logs out to later deliver it to their main characters.

Resource timers were added to 'promote' conflict but the truth is that when salt timer hits, for example, all you see is a bunch of alts logging in to get salt and logging out before others arrive. Things like that.
This is just stupid (not to mention the walls) so here's a couple of changes that would perhaps make the resources nodes more 'democratically fair' and engaging again.

- Instead of a hard timer, create a 'spawn window'. You inspect it and: "Spawn window starts X hours from now"
That means that after X hours, the spawn window will open and last (for example) 30 minutes - and the resource can spawn at ANYTIME in those 30 minutes. It could spawn in 2 minutes, it could spawn in 27 minutes... but what it means is that if you want to get the resource, the characters will have to be there and hang there, hoping for no one else to arrive before it spawns and actually securing the resource if someone arrives.

- Create a red-handed like buff for when you collect a Localized Resource. Doesn't need to be so severe (just like 30 minutes), but it should prevent logging out and teleporting to HF.
That would serve two purposes: First, if the person still uses an alt to collect the resource, at least the alt can be easily intercepted. Second, it requires ATTENTION to go back/protect yourself, making it HARDER to have multiple clients collecting multiple nodes with multiple alts at the same time.

SYMBEL BUILDS AND CHARISMA ALT USAGE
There are two absolute truths of symbelware that are also annoying right now:
1- Your best hunger reduction stuff will go to a table that will NEVER be used to eat. It will be opened by a high charisma character just to increase the hunger bonus.
2- There's a very boring math to symbel items that allows you to simply create "builds" of what's the best table for Hunger, what's the best table for FEP bonus, etc...

So I'd like to, again, suggest a couple of things that could 'easily' mitigate such misues of the mechanics:
1- Make symbelware a 'global' trigger around the same bonfire (as long as the table is opened) instead of a table-specific thing. That is, any opened table around a bonfire can receive wear damage to its items when people are eating.
That would have two interesting results: First, charisma alt symbel items wouldn't be eternal, also requiring maintenance/care. Second, the very usage of charisma alts would become a very boring thing since someone would have to keep an eye on their items while eating, possibly (hopefully?) making it less encouraging to use charisma alts at all.
2- Create some sort of "Symbelware matching/synergies/attuning", turn table creation a game itself, adding a lot of depth with simple changes. Yes, there would still be "builds" and such but with a lot more variety, possibilites and harder to come up with the best options.
I can think of 3 ways to implement that:
- Symbelware sets: for example, Silk Tablecloth + Silk Napkin could give a slight bonus when used together. River Pearl goblet + River Pearl cutlery could also get a small bonus, etc, etc... There are tons of different items that could form different symbelware sets, the Pottery Set, the Soft Metal Set, the Silk Set, Linen Set, River Pearl set... and so on (decorations, baskets, etc.) The set an item belongs to could be displayed on the bottom of the tooltip, and different sets could even have different, varied and interesting bonuses: For example, a full River Pearl Set could make Cheese FEPs particularly buffed
- Placement bonuses: Some items could be more (or less) efficient depending on the place you put them in the table interface. For example, there are several "center pieces" that could be highly buffed when placed on the center tile of the table but very poor when placed on the edges. This could be represented by a small bit of text in the tooltip like "+50% efficiency when placed on" and a small 3x3 square with the relevant bits highlighted.
- Similar Item repulsion: Having two items of the same 'type' in the same table could reduce their efficiency altogether. For example, having two plates or two sets of cutlery could make both less efficient.
These would make "Table building" an art on itself, with a lot more depth and potential.

ICE QUALITY
I think we all know how OP Ice is.
This is both cool and not cool
(joke about ice being cool totally unintended)

I mean, it makes sense for a difficult to obtain resource to be that powerful. But it's also undeniable how much of an edge it gives on the early world.
So here's an idea for ice:
Make the quality be based on a certain skill (like Rock Crystals, that can have super high qualities the higher the relevant skills of the person collecting are) and then make the Ice quality important for something on its usage.
I don't know what, could be anything:
Q = the maximum Mental Weight worth of curios it will instantly finish, a small cap on the amount of LP gained by the curios instantly finished, etc... Tons of possibilities:
Thing is, somewhat make the "early game ice" less efficient than what Ice currently does. Not talking about nerfing ice, after mid/end game it can still work like it does now - Just talking about somehow creating a limit to its efficiency based on its Q, so it would be limited in the early world only.

2. COMBAT TWEAKS
I think that changing the way some things work + adding a few couple things could make combat situations a bit more 'even', potentially making the gap smaller and the experience nicer.

WATER DRINKING
I'll probably get a lot of hate from this (xD) but the ability to drink from water containers inside belts inside your backpack is just ridiculous. Might as well allow us to carry buckets in our inventories again, as this restriction has become a boring hassle for crafting now.
It makes absolutely no sense that you can magically transform giant items (like 4 B12 axes) into a single slot item and fit that in your inventory and freely move/use them around, not to mention drinking water from them. Like, can you even imagine how can someone reach inside their backpacks, grab a belt, remove a water skin that is attached to the belt, drink from it and place it back in the backpack without even having to stop running?

Now, don't get me wrong. I like the ability to drink running and such, but I think that drinking from containers INSIDE belts that you are not wearing should be removed. In fact, I'd go ahead and say that you shouldn't even be able to INTERACT with belts that are not being worn OR inside a container (cupboard, wardrobe, etc...) You could still carry stuff inside belts (like a belt you looted with items, for example) but can't really remove or use the items in it unless you place it in an inventory or yourself.

That change has only brought Haven back to the time where people carried a lot of buckets, but now it's even worse. Just think this: with 10 silk belts you can literally carry 120 liters of water. If you have a character with nomad credo, merchant's robe, subbed and verified... even with Hussar Wings and no t-sacks (B12), they can still potentially carry 6x7 (42) silk belts with 4 water skins each, for a total of 504 liters of water.

I bet they can run across the world with that

NEW MANEUVER FOR UNBALANCED CHARACTERS
This is a slightly crazy idea but could somewhat work!
The idea would be a very defensive, almost cowardly maneuver for when your opponent is MUCH STRONGER than you. Could be called something like "Cautious Approach" or something...
How could it work: when you use it, you "cap" the enemy to your own skills. This only applies to your own fight, that is, this won't affect his skills globally (against others) but just when interacting (attacking/defending) with you.
This should not affect attributes (Agility, STR...) but only skills. The (in theory) much better gear and attributes of the "stronger" character should give him a fair and deserved advantage but at least in terms of UAC/MC you two should be the same, which would make their openings against you far lesser than they would be and maybe give you a chance to fight back/try to run away.

This has a LOT of potential to be abused - I'm not sure how, exactly - but it has. However it is an idea of a possible approach to try and make things more even, sometimes.
Alternatively, if you try to use it "against" someone that is actually weaker than you, you should instead "buff" them. That could possibly control the usage of this maneuver and make it really something that people would not use unless they realize they're not stronger than the opponent, etc... Or perhaps some other type of disadvantage could limit its use to the situations where it actually makes sense.

MAKE BODY BLOCKING AN ACTUAL MECHANIC
Body blocking became harder with the push-out system (since you have to perfectly center yourself in front of the enemy otherwise they'll just slip past you) but it is still possible.
But what if we could turn it into an actual, meaningful mechanic? (and that way make movement more important)

So here's an idea: instead of "body blocking", maybe create the ability to literally launch yourself in front of others (like a tackle), something that would stun (knock down without damage) both characters (like when you dismount someone)
The time they remain 'stunned' could be something like 4 seconds but divided between the two of them proportionally inverted to a comparison of their Strength attribute.
For example:

If both characters have 1000 STR, the '4 seconds' will become 2 seconds of stun for each.
If one character has 900 STR and the other has 100 (10% of 1000 (900+100)), the inverted proportion would be: 90% of the time to the character with 10% strength, 10% of the time to the character with 90% of the strength)
So the guy with 900 STR would be down for 0.4 second and the guy with 100 STR for 3.6 seconds. That would more or less nerf the potential for naked alts to be used to knock people down and instead make it interesting for real, strong fighters to try such a maneuver.

And it would work just like body blocking, if you 'launch yourself' in front of someone running with speed 3 or 4, you cause that. To prevent ridiculous usage of it all the time, that could also be limited to characters in combat

MAKE COMBAT MOVES/RESTORATIONS THAT WORK DIFFERENTLY BASED ON STAT DIFFERENCES
Get some of the less used moves, restorations and attacks and try tweaking them to make them useful for certain scenarios.
Make some of them acknowledge stat differences and be more (or less) effective according to stat differences;
Make some defenses recover more the weaker you are in comparison to the attacker, some attacks be more efficient if they're much stronger than you, things like that...
A spam of Opportunity Knocks from several strong fighters against a single strong fighter is a very common thing and it's a game changer; turn it into a 'support' skill, make it more efficient the greater the difference between the skills so support/weaker characters can have more importance in combat, etc...
There's a lot of specific tweaks that could be done if you start taking into account stat differences for the math, and I think that a good way to do that would be by taking a look on the least used skills and moves and try to understand why they are not part of the current combat "meta" and how they could be changed to not necessarily become the meta but to become viable, interesting options for the weaker characters to have better chances against stronger characters.

DAMAGE TYPES AND ARMOR TYPES COULD BE VIABLE, RELEVANT WAYS TO MAKE COMBAT MORE CHALLENGING AND EVEN
Single changes and additions could potentially make gear and combat decisions more important.
Things like spears giving super extra damage against mounted enemies, or blunt/pierce weapons being more efficient against plate (for example). Would everyone always use B12s if they were weaker against plate armor than a hammer or spear? Would people maybe use chainmail if it actually protected against certain types of damage, etc?

Make the armor class less relevant and the armor type more relevant; and then make them determinalistcally better according to their qualities. So a q300 leather armor is as interesting as a q300 platemail, but for different types of weapons/damage. That would completely redefine the meta, increase variety and make combat a 100x more interesting... But more importantly, it would make the chances you have in combat be greater according to strategic and logical decisions and just not skills and stats.

A bunch of noobs with spears should have a chance against a super strong character on a horse. This would be an interesting logic to go for; give back the essential aspects of combat to player decisions, skill and strategy; not some numbers.
The numbers should help, yes, but changes like this would give a lot more choice and potential to 'weaker' characters.

3. MORE DYNAMIC COMBAT
And finally, this is a whole idea by itself.
It's basically a big change to how combat works (although it could be easily explained) and that would substantially put back player skill and movement as two decisive factors for PVP combat.

The idea is very simple, essentially:

Whenever you have someone targeted, your character will always face that someone.
Just like when aiming a bow or sling, whenever you move you would move while still facing your targeted enemy. Whenever they move, your character would follow their direction.

Moving backwards or sidestepping should be limited to speed 2.
This adds an important element to 'medieval combat': pacing and stepping. Duels would be incredibly more amazing with a simple change like that.

But, of course, running is also important - so perhaps if you move by holding Shift, you would 'ignore' facing the enemy (allowing you to run away from them, for example).

That said, why would that be important? What difference would it make?
Well, it would only make a difference if this one essential change also happens:
YOU SHOULD BE WEAKER AND VULNERABLE IF ATTACKED FROM BEHIND.

I don't care if it happens in the form of greater openings, extra damage, etc. Personally I'd say greater openings + less Armor class.
The thing is, RUNNING AWAY and just turning every now and then for a second to get IP/attack is currently a viable strategy in Haven - and one that benefits the strongest characters the most. By running away they avoid the opening buildup of several enemies that can be pursuing them, and by turning every now and then for just ONE attack, they can open far more because they are stronger.

I've seen it happen a lot recently, especially when we started being attacked and, before we organized our defenses, our enemies used to come in 2-3 people that were WAY STRONGER than 10 we could get and just by doing that, running away, they could "win" fights. This makes absolute no sense as it is something that definitely privileges characters that are already strong. And not aiming for realism, but in the "logical" sense, it's ridiculous that the actually more viable and interesting strategy for battle in a game is to run away.

So... if movement becomes very important again,
if awareness of your own (and your enemies') positions become very important again (you wouldn't want to have someone on your back)
and even weaker characters can 'exploit' opportunities like staying behind the enemy...

That could, potentially, give back greater importance to player skill and coordination - far more than stats or grindable numbers.

Added to that, we could have collective maneuvers that also work on player positioning and coordination more than stats or numbers.
A basic idea for that would be "Formations", shield walls that are more effective (in terms of defense multiplier %*) the more people you have in a line with shields; circles to protect the backs of each one, etc...

Anyway...
This is just a huge bunch of ideas mixed with personal opinions and suggestions.
I'm not saying these are the only or better solutions but I do think that some things I've said here could at least be useful or enlightening, I hope?
Anyway, feel free to discuss - just please remember, the idea here is not to discuss caps but those things (and other possible ideas) as viable alternatives to caps!

Thank you for the long read and have a good day =)

[DDDsDD999]

1. LEVELLING

BONFIRES

The first item here will be bonfires. They are amazing things to have but their benefit can also be questionably huge for very little effort/price. It's super easy for grinders and factions to get a couple of Charisma Alts up and then in a few weeks of game they can already reach ridiculously low hunger modifiers. That allows people to pump food in their stomachs like real machines and it just increases the gap between players.
Something that could work to prevent that is giving Bonfires a quality. Based, of course, on the stone used to make them. Make the quality work as a cap for the minimum hunger modifier you can achieve, in a way that one would require a q150+ bonfire to be able to have them work as efficiently as they do now, for example. That would give some time before they become that good, slowing down the early game a bit.

Limiting bonfire by quality wouldn't do anything. People don't grind FEPs super hard until they have drinks and high enough quality stone. Again, just another gap between the noobs and faction players. Bonfires are just dumb in general and need to do something completely different

SATIATIONS
Now, now. I understand that the whole satiation system is currently... unhappy/messy and a complete overhaul on how food works is definitely necessary.

yep

SALT, ICE & OTHER LOCALIZED RESOURCES

Localized resources are a cool idea but it is no secret anymore that the community has more than found ways to completely go around all their intended ways of being used
Salt and ice are particularly useful for raising stats/skills and such, especially in the early world, where most of them were 'dominated' by few people - which WOULD BE FAIR AND NICE if they actually dominated it with combat and such... but that's the exception. What usually happens is:
Resource is walled and/or an alt logs in, collects it and logs out to later deliver it to their main characters.

Resource timers were added to 'promote' conflict but the truth is that when salt timer hits, for example, all you see is a bunch of alts logging in to get salt and logging out before others arrive. Things like that.
This is just stupid (not to mention the walls) so here's a couple of changes that would perhaps make the resources nodes more 'democratically fair' and engaging again.

- Instead of a hard timer, create a 'spawn window'. You inspect it and: "Spawn window starts X hours from now"
That means that after X hours, the spawn window will open and last (for example) 30 minutes - and the resource can spawn at ANYTIME in those 30 minutes. It could spawn in 2 minutes, it could spawn in 27 minutes... but what it means is that if you want to get the resource, the characters will have to be there and hang there, hoping for no one else to arrive before it spawns and actually securing the resource if someone arrives.

- Create a red-handed like buff for when you collect a Localized Resource. Doesn't need to be so severe (just like 30 minutes), but it should prevent logging out and teleporting to HF.
That would serve two purposes: First, if the person still uses an alt to collect the resource, at least the alt can be easily intercepted. Second, it requires ATTENTION to go back/protect yourself, making it HARDER to have multiple clients collecting multiple nodes with multiple alts at the same time.

Creating a spawn window based on RNG seems annoying and just makes auto-collect bots outrageously op.

The red-handed buff could help, but I just see people setting up a shit-load of palisades outposts near resources for alts to go back into. Which really wouldn't be that much effort.

Also, *cough* shameless self-promotion *cough*.

SYMBEL BUILDS AND CHARISMA ALT USAGE

There are two absolute truths of symbelware that are also annoying right now:
1- Your best hunger reduction stuff will go to a table that will NEVER be used to eat. It will be opened by a high charisma character just to increase the hunger bonus.
2- There's a very boring math to symbel items that allows you to simply create "builds" of what's the best table for Hunger, what's the best table for FEP bonus, etc...

So I'd like to, again, suggest a couple of things that could 'easily' mitigate such misues of the mechanics:
1- Make symbelware a 'global' trigger around the same bonfire (as long as the table is opened) instead of a table-specific thing. That is, any opened table around a bonfire can receive wear damage to its items when people are eating.
That would have two interesting results: First, charisma alt symbel items wouldn't be eternal, also requiring maintenance/care. Second, the very usage of charisma alts would become a very boring thing since someone would have to keep an eye on their items while eating, possibly (hopefully?) making it less encouraging to use charisma alts at all.
2- Create some sort of "Symbelware matching/synergies/attuning", turn table creation a game itself, adding a lot of depth with simple changes. Yes, there would still be "builds" and such but with a lot more variety, possibilites and harder to come up with the best options.
I can think of 3 ways to implement that:
- Symbelware sets: for example, Silk Tablecloth + Silk Napkin could give a slight bonus when used together. River Pearl goblet + River Pearl cutlery could also get a small bonus, etc, etc... There are tons of different items that could form different symbelware sets, the Pottery Set, the Soft Metal Set, the Silk Set, Linen Set, River Pearl set... and so on (decorations, baskets, etc.) The set an item belongs to could be displayed on the bottom of the tooltip, and different sets could even have different, varied and interesting bonuses: For example, a full River Pearl Set could make Cheese FEPs particularly buffed
- Placement bonuses: Some items could be more (or less) efficient depending on the place you put them in the table interface. For example, there are several "center pieces" that could be highly buffed when placed on the center tile of the table but very poor when placed on the edges. This could be represented by a small bit of text in the tooltip like "+50% efficiency when placed on" and a small 3x3 square with the relevant bits highlighted.
- Similar Item repulsion: Having two items of the same 'type' in the same table could reduce their efficiency altogether. For example, having two plates or two sets of cutlery could make both less efficient.
These would make "Table building" an art on itself, with a lot more depth and potential.

Global triggering symbel with bonfires would be so annoying no one would want to feast again, though it's probably necessary. I honestly think bonfires are just busted and need to be completely redone.

Table building just sounds like another "make finding the best option even more annoying." Hafen has way too much of this.

ICE QUALITY

I think we all know how OP Ice is.
This is both cool and not cool
(joke about ice being cool totally unintended)

I mean, it makes sense for a difficult to obtain resource to be that powerful. But it's also undeniable how much of an edge it gives on the early world.
So here's an idea for ice:
Make the quality be based on a certain skill (like Rock Crystals, that can have super high qualities the higher the relevant skills of the person collecting are) and then make the Ice quality important for something on its usage.
I don't know what, could be anything:
Q = the maximum Mental Weight worth of curios it will instantly finish, a small cap on the amount of LP gained by the curios instantly finished, etc... Tons of possibilities:
Thing is, somewhat make the "early game ice" less efficient than what Ice currently does. Not talking about nerfing ice, after mid/end game it can still work like it does now - Just talking about somehow creating a limit to its efficiency based on its Q, so it would be limited in the early world only.

Just goes back to salt and other resources not being rare enough, or require enough investment.

2. COMBAT TWEAKS

WATER DRINKING

I'll probably get a lot of hate from this (xD) but the ability to drink from water containers inside belts inside your backpack is just ridiculous. Might as well allow us to carry buckets in our inventories again, as this restriction has become a boring hassle for crafting now.
It makes absolutely no sense that you can magically transform giant items (like 4 B12 axes) into a single slot item and fit that in your inventory and freely move/use them around, not to mention drinking water from them. Like, can you even imagine how can someone reach inside their backpacks, grab a belt, remove a water skin that is attached to the belt, drink from it and place it back in the backpack without even having to stop running?

Now, don't get me wrong. I like the ability to drink running and such, but I think that drinking from containers INSIDE belts that you are not wearing should be removed. In fact, I'd go ahead and say that you shouldn't even be able to INTERACT with belts that are not being worn OR inside a container (cupboard, wardrobe, etc...) You could still carry stuff inside belts (like a belt you looted with items, for example) but can't really remove or use the items in it unless you place it in an inventory or yourself.

That change has only brought Haven back to the time where people carried a lot of buckets, but now it's even worse. Just think this: with 10 silk belts you can literally carry 120 liters of water. If you have a character with nomad credo, merchant's robe, subbed and verified... even with Hussar Wings and no t-sacks (B12), they can still potentially carry 6x7 (42) silk belts with 4 water skins each, for a total of 504 liters of water.

I bet they can run across the world with that

meh, belt drinking is better than carrying a bunch of flasks imo. Should honestly just implement a high-tier flask, or increase the amount of stamina gained per drinking tick. I really don't see much of a problem here, it's pretty rare to run out of water in a fight(main issue I have is carrying enough food to keep energy up) with or without belts. It's just so you save a bit of inventory space.

NEW MANEUVER FOR UNBALANCED CHARACTERS

This is a slightly crazy idea but could somewhat work!
The idea would be a very defensive, almost cowardly maneuver for when your opponent is MUCH STRONGER than you. Could be called something like "Cautious Approach" or something...
How could it work: when you use it, you "cap" the enemy to your own skills. This only applies to your own fight, that is, this won't affect his skills globally (against others) but just when interacting (attacking/defending) with you.
This should not affect attributes (Agility, STR...) but only skills. The (in theory) much better gear and attributes of the "stronger" character should give him a fair and deserved advantage but at least in terms of UAC/MC you two should be the same, which would make their openings against you far lesser than they would be and maybe give you a chance to fight back/try to run away.

This has a LOT of potential to be abused - I'm not sure how, exactly - but it has. However it is an idea of a possible approach to try and make things more even, sometimes.
Alternatively, if you try to use it "against" someone that is actually weaker than you, you should instead "buff" them. That could possibly control the usage of this maneuver and make it really something that people would not use unless they realize they're not stronger than the opponent, etc... Or perhaps some other type of disadvantage could limit its use to the situations where it actually makes sense.

I don't see any way to balance this without it getting abused to shit by alts. imo weak characters already have enough to contribute to group fights with op knocks and maneuver fueling if they're familiar with the combat system. Shitty characters don't really deserve equal footing with titans. Could have some way to invest your character's stats into more defensive option so shitty characters can stay alive longer and try to provide more to a fight without dying.

MAKE BODY BLOCKING AN ACTUAL MECHANIC

Body blocking became harder with the push-out system (since you have to perfectly center yourself in front of the enemy otherwise they'll just slip past you) but it is still possible.
But what if we could turn it into an actual, meaningful mechanic? (and that way make movement more important)

So here's an idea: instead of "body blocking", maybe create the ability to literally launch yourself in front of others (like a tackle), something that would stun (knock down without damage) both characters (like when you dismount someone)
The time they remain 'stunned' could be something like 4 seconds but divided between the two of them proportionally inverted to a comparison of their Strength attribute.
For example:

If both characters have 1000 STR, the '4 seconds' will become 2 seconds of stun for each.
If one character has 900 STR and the other has 100 (10% of 1000 (900+100)), the inverted proportion would be: 90% of the time to the character with 10% strength, 10% of the time to the character with 90% of the strength)
So the guy with 900 STR would be down for 0.4 second and the guy with 100 STR for 3.6 seconds. That would more or less nerf the potential for naked alts to be used to knock people down and instead make it interesting for real, strong fighters to try such a maneuver.

And it would work just like body blocking, if you 'launch yourself' in front of someone running with speed 3 or 4, you cause that. To prevent ridiculous usage of it all the time, that could also be limited to characters in combat

Just...no. Ganks would be so fucking effective, you get dog-piled once and you're dead. Body blocking was so annoying without path-finding, and people still get body-blocked.

MAKE COMBAT MOVES/RESTORATIONS THAT WORK DIFFERENTLY BASED ON STAT DIFFERENCES
A spam of Opportunity Knocks from several strong fighters against a single strong fighter is a very common thing and it's a game changer; turn it into a 'support' skill, make it more efficient the greater the difference between the skills so support/weaker characters can have more importance in combat, etc...

Holy shit, no. It already works like that, it doesn't need to be stronger.

MAKE BODY BLOCKING AN ACTUAL MECHANIC

DAMAGE TYPES AND ARMOR TYPES COULD BE VIABLE, RELEVANT WAYS TO MAKE COMBAT MORE CHALLENGING AND EVEN
Single changes and additions could potentially make gear and combat decisions more important.
Things like spears giving super extra damage against mounted enemies, or blunt/pierce weapons being more efficient against plate (for example). Would everyone always use B12s if they were weaker against plate armor than a hammer or spear? Would people maybe use chainmail if it actually protected against certain types of damage, etc?

Make the armor class less relevant and the armor type more relevant; and then make them determinalistcally better according to their qualities. So a q300 leather armor is as interesting as a q300 platemail, but for different types of weapons/damage. That would completely redefine the meta, increase variety and make combat a 100x more interesting... But more importantly, it would make the chances you have in combat be greater according to strategic and logical decisions and just not skills and stats.

A bunch of noobs with spears should have a chance against a super strong character on a horse. This would be an interesting logic to go for; give back the essential aspects of combat to player decisions, skill and strategy; not some numbers.
The numbers should help, yes, but changes like this would give a lot more choice and potential to 'weaker' characters.

Spears definitely should destroy mounted enemies, but everyone dismounts off horses if they get close in combat.

I don't really like armours having different efficiencies. It kinda just makes combat into rock, paper, scissors, which is just a stupid system. It works for pokemon because you get 6 pokemon. It doesn't work for haven because you only control one character.

3. MORE DYNAMIC COMBAT

Whenever you have someone targeted, your character will always face that someone.

Just like when aiming a bow or sling, whenever you move you would move while still facing your targeted enemy. Whenever they move, your character would follow their direction.

Moving backwards or sidestepping should be limited to speed 2.
This adds an important element to 'medieval combat': pacing and stepping. Duels would be incredibly more amazing with a simple change like that.

But, of course, running is also important - so perhaps if you move by holding Shift, you would 'ignore' facing the enemy (allowing you to run away from them, for example).

Seems like cancer for group combat, the targeting system is already ass.

YOU SHOULD BE WEAKER AND VULNERABLE IF ATTACKED FROM BEHIND.

I don't care if it happens in the form of greater openings, extra damage, etc. Personally I'd say greater openings + less Armor class.
The thing is, RUNNING AWAY and just turning every now and then for a second to get IP/attack is currently a viable strategy in Haven - and one that benefits the strongest characters the most. By running away they avoid the opening buildup of several enemies that can be pursuing them, and by turning every now and then for just ONE attack, they can open far more because they are stronger.

I've seen it happen a lot recently, especially when we started being attacked and, before we organized our defenses, our enemies used to come in 2-3 people that were WAY STRONGER than 10 we could get and just by doing that, running away, they could "win" fights. This makes absolute no sense as it is something that definitely privileges characters that are already strong. And not aiming for realism, but in the "logical" sense, it's ridiculous that the actually more viable and interesting strategy for battle in a game is to run away.

So... if movement becomes very important again,
if awareness of your own (and your enemies') positions become very important again (you wouldn't want to have someone on your back)
and even weaker characters can 'exploit' opportunities like staying behind the enemy...

That could, potentially, give back greater importance to player skill and coordination - far more than stats or grindable numbers.

Added to that, we could have collective maneuvers that also work on player positioning and coordination more than stats or numbers.
A basic idea for that would be "Formations", shield walls that are more effective (in terms of defense multiplier %*) the more people you have in a line with shields; circles to protect the backs of each one, etc...

Thing is that people running away are legit running away so they can defend themselves, while their team-mates chase their attackers. If this was implemented, people would get MOWED down.

Haven just can't function with formations in its current state. The targeted combat system does not mesh at all with it. Maybe if you changed the combat to Salem's aiming AoE attack thing (idk if it was changed or something) it could work, but I just don't see something like this working in the current combat system.

[Potjeh]

An alternative to capping stats would be hardcapping the actual delta.

[jorb]

Thank you for the read. I agree that symbel needs to be redone.

[blank]

SALT, ICE & OTHER LOCALIZED RESOURCES
Localized resources are a cool idea but it is no secret anymore that the community has more than found ways to completely go around all their intended ways of being used
Salt and ice are particularly useful for raising stats/skills and such, especially in the early world, where most of them were 'dominated' by few people - which WOULD BE FAIR AND NICE if they actually dominated it with combat and such... but that's the exception. What usually happens is:
Resource is walled and/or an alt logs in, collects it and logs out to later deliver it to their main characters.

Resource timers were added to 'promote' conflict but the truth is that when salt timer hits, for example, all you see is a bunch of alts logging in to get salt and logging out before others arrive. Things like that.
This is just stupid (not to mention the walls) so here's a couple of changes that would perhaps make the resources nodes more 'democratically fair' and engaging again.

- Instead of a hard timer, create a 'spawn window'. You inspect it and: "Spawn window starts X hours from now"
That means that after X hours, the spawn window will open and last (for example) 30 minutes - and the resource can spawn at ANYTIME in those 30 minutes. It could spawn in 2 minutes, it could spawn in 27 minutes... but what it means is that if you want to get the resource, the characters will have to be there and hang there, hoping for no one else to arrive before it spawns and actually securing the resource if someone arrives.

- Create a red-handed like buff for when you collect a Localized Resource. Doesn't need to be so severe (just like 30 minutes), but it should prevent logging out and teleporting to HF.
That would serve two purposes: First, if the person still uses an alt to collect the resource, at least the alt can be easily intercepted. Second, it requires ATTENTION to go back/protect yourself, making it HARDER to have multiple clients collecting multiple nodes with multiple alts at the same time.

lol MEH then there would be even more walled off resources if what you said went into effect. tbh wallin a resource isnt that big of an issue? the player who walled it off took the time out of his day to actually wall it and protect it? its not like you can claim a resource all the way so that makes it super easy to break a wall. it all depends on if its worth it or not and if you have vclaim

[maze]

- Instead of a hard timer, create a 'spawn window'. You inspect it and: "Spawn window starts X hours from now"
That means that after X hours, the spawn window will open and last (for example) 30 minutes - and the resource can spawn at ANYTIME in those 30 minutes. It could spawn in 2 minutes, it could spawn in 27 minutes... but what it means is that if you want to get the resource, the characters will have to be there and hang there, hoping for no one else to arrive before it spawns and actually securing the resource if someone arrives.

- Create a red-handed like buff for when you collect a Localized Resource. Doesn't need to be so severe (just like 30 minutes), but it should prevent logging out and teleporting to HF.
That would serve two purposes: First, if the person still uses an alt to collect the resource, at least the alt can be easily intercepted. Second, it requires ATTENTION to go back/protect yourself, making it HARDER to have multiple clients collecting multiple nodes with multiple alts at the same time.

Would add a Auth Drain onto localized resource. the more valuable one taking 50-100k a day. a claypits taking maybe 5-30k. Something that a alt can't keep up with basiclly needs to be the drain. Ice it's should take 3-5 people. auth pretty much a joke right now as is.

After an update like this. it would be necessary to see how people fight.
I can see people putting up unclaimed walls or bunkers nearby.
but honestly anything is better then what we have right now.

[mdsanta]

Would add a Auth Drain onto localized resource. the more valuable one taking 50-100k a day. a claypits taking maybe 5-30k. Something that a alt can't keep up with basiclly needs to be the drain. Ice it's should take 3-5 people. auth pretty much a joke right now as is.

Leave the resource as is, make a v. claim around it like a doughnut.

[blank]

Would add a Auth Drain onto localized resource. the more valuable one taking 50-100k a day. a claypits taking maybe 5-30k. Something that a alt can't keep up with basiclly needs to be the drain. Ice it's should take 3-5 people. auth pretty much a joke right now as is.

Leave the resource as is, make a v. claim around it like a doughnut.

shhhh dont tell people this XD

[Granger]

Would add a Auth Drain onto localized resource. the more valuable one taking 50-100k a day. a claypits taking maybe 5-30k. Something that a alt can't keep up with basiclly needs to be the drain. Ice it's should take 3-5 people. auth pretty much a joke right now as is.

Leave the resource as is, make a v. claim around it like a doughnut.

This way of thinking spawned a discussion a while back how village claims could get nerfed so that you can't alter the topology (meaning: enforce that they only have one border, so you can't build them with holes inside the claimed area).

[ekzarh]

Nice thread, thx for hard work thinking through and writing it.

1. Regarding ice -
Initial delay after world start like 30 days and ice will not make an early start gap.
1a). Localized resources disappearing and appearing in new places seems like a better alternative. It will incentivize travelling and more manual foraging.(discussed before a lot)
2. Another proposal regarding localized resources -
Give them the 'soak' wich increaes as the world ages. Further stat increase would cause faster collecting speed (like bashing a wall with higher str or better tool). Newbs will never get ice or salt anyway. IMO There is more chance we will see some real PVP for them this way.
3. Imortant one.
I keep saying it. It is not bonfire/satiations/drinks that make a huge gap between ordinary players and major factions. It is bots and alts which can produce unlimited supply of goods(of course with knowledge on how and when to use them). There are many great mechanics which would make Haven a great atmospheric and balanced game. And all of them are ruined with bots and alts.
Body-blocking for instance. With a script I can write in like 4-8 hours an army of 10 naked alts would follow my target and try to block it on land. With a large stat difference I can still lose, but it gives a huge unfair advantage.
Any combat change where stats mean something will make botted ridiculous stats owerpower legit players.
If characters are equalized in a way that you cannot progress more than X stats/day - 3-5-10 combat alts can be grown by the time legit player has 1. And with combat assistance bot they can be used simultaneously.
So this is the point where I disagree with Jorbtar. Alts and bots ruin the game way more than they think. And they can be dealt with by investing the reasonable amount of effort. Not entirely, but to an extent where remaining 5-10 bot users can be tracked down and banned manually. The thing is - game developer has a big advantage over hacker(meaning anti-bot protectin breaker/bot writer) in this struggle. And hackers don't earn money for their tools here in Haven(only in-game advantage), so they are much less motivated then people who break anti-cheats in major titles lik CS:GO and WoW. There were many advices and ideas regarding this topic and I'm willing to participate, when Jorbtar will decide to fight bots & alts seriously.
4. Water & B12.
Map objects (boats, logs) already have weight impacting speed. Why don't we add weight to inventory items? Then any penalizing 4 b12 carriers or 504l water carriers game rules can be done. Move speed/agi/cooldown come to mind. Out of combat weight penalties may be zero. Or may be not. IMO some common sense and connection to (c) meh realism (/c) mist exits.
4a. Time delay and speed penalty for using item on belt during combat is also reasonable. The most 'atmospheric' way is basing it on item 'weight' and placing. Using B12 from belt shd be like 5 times slower than a sword. Using a waterflask shd be way faster than a waterskin or bucket. Using item from inventory shd always be slower than from equipped belt. Using item on belt inside inventory takes multiplied penalty for weight, for inventory and for belt. Transferring items between containers in combat should also take time.
5. Capping stronger enemy sounds bullshit. Abusable as hell and kills 90% of combat related activities and mechanics.
6. Any idea to programmatically nerf overpowered chars made by strong factions will make these factions to create chars which will nerf your char(-s) by the same rules.
7. Facing target/backstabs/altitude advantage - suggested by others (incl me) many times. Nice addition but not a game changer alone. 8. My personal feeling for engame combat is:
In 1 second a player should: Perceive current situation, choose and perform a sequence of 1-3 keyboard clicks and 1-3 mouse clicks. After that there is a 'breather' 1-2 sec where less actions and more analysis is needed.
Early game combat should be 2-3 times slower.
Faster than that and ping begins to matter too much and it becomes 'a game of pings'.
Slower than that and 'dynamic' feeling is lost.
I would recommend to try (or at least watch videos) with PVP from other super-successful mmorpg games (L2, WoW, Archeage, TERA). You cannot understand a dynamic combat unless you try and feel it. And after you understand it - you can make even rock-paper-scissors game to brake a sweat after 20min playing session with proper cooldowns, buff & bonus actions and combos.
TERA online is my favorite in terms of combat dynamicity. It has great pace, distance controls (for approaching and running away), crowd controls, buffs, debuffs, different targeting modes.
2 things illustrate it well:
- binding WASD keys to xbox gamepad trigger and moving character with a toe (yes, on a foot) released 3 fingers and gave a large productivity boost in PVP.
- you can kill a mini-boss solo with some skill and reaction. While 1 sec lag kills you.
Back to Haven. Basically it is good to do PVP in other games. Same in Haven. Compare them, and then through tweak-try-rinse-repeat sessions get the best... feeling/impression/experience/memories from it. (will be continued in spearate topic).