A Plea for Decay (Character)

Thoughts on the further development of Haven & Hearth? Feel free to opine!

Re: A Plea for Decay (Character)

Postby Granger » Thu Apr 18, 2019 11:46 am

shubla wrote:Of course, the charts above are quite optimistic... People who play the game for long time would still have better ql things so they would gain advantage over new ones. BUT one could argue that the advantage gap would be a lot less.

I argue that the advantage gap could be closed, which currently isn't possible.

What if you want to have a break from the game? A nice month lasting trip to some big island country? Its not nice to lose all of your stats!
Currently this happens:
decay.png
decay.png (43.52 KiB) Viewed 517 times

While you're not losing in absolute numbers you get permanently stunted relative to others that don't do holidays, as the absolute ability is a simple function of cumulated playtime a latecomer has 'lost' before even starting.
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Re: A Plea for Decay (Character)

Postby terechgracz » Thu Apr 18, 2019 12:35 pm

All you're proposing here is skill cap, just annoying one. Why not use simple max function and start adding endgame content? You'll still need to keep your industry going because of permanent death.
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Re: A Plea for Decay (Character)

Postby Granger » Thu Apr 18, 2019 12:49 pm

While the following would happen without endless growth
character_decay.png
character_decay.png (38.48 KiB) Viewed 522 times
which, while putting you back for a while, dosn't stunt you in relation to the ones who don't do holidays.

Hrenli wrote:Basically stat caps at X according to the picture.

This is in case you evenly distribute all LP over all 13 attributes, a more specialized one will and at a higher number.

The diagrams are ment to illustrate the different effects on progression that result from the current vs. the suggested mechanic so that everyone should be able to at least 'understand' that stat decay would allow you to catch up with the first guy where currently (endless growth) you can't. The numbers for the effective level in the diagrams are meaningless for the discussion anyway so I removed them (also from the prior ones).

terechgracz wrote:Why not use simple max function and start adding endgame content? You'll still need to keep your industry going because of permanent death.

A simple max function can't be bargained with (with decay you can grind harder than others to be better), asking for endgame content in a sandbox is a kind of conundrum and endless growing numbers for industry has the same problem as in all other areas (especially as the crafters usually don't die).
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Re: A Plea for Decay (Character)

Postby Ardennesss » Thu Apr 18, 2019 1:06 pm

Why bother even playing at world start if I can just pick up Haven at any time and compete with everyone else? What's the incentive for everyone else to actually stay active? All of these proposed systems are great at closing the progression gap between latecomers and allowing for people to take vacations, but it's basically video game welfare. Is that a system that we think is actually going to be beneficial to player retention as a whole? Sure, Johnny sprucecap will be happy that when he plays haven for a month and quits that he was competing with the big boys during his month, but isn't that also just going to encourage all the big boys to quit because some nobody hop scotched into the game and caught up to their 6 months of work?
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Re: A Plea for Decay (Character)

Postby Hrenli » Thu Apr 18, 2019 1:08 pm

Granger wrote:This is in case you evenly distribute all LP over all 13 attributes, a more specialized one will and at a higher number.


Also the picture implies fixed and the same LP/hour gain for all. Which is very questionable assumption to say the least...

For me personally having a fixed amount of hourly LP maintenance (call this effort whatever, but it is required maintenance) just to be able to progress doesn't feel healthy. Yes, it is low you might say. But it is still enforced on you. You would be required to always study, always keep up. Just log in not very often and do silly stuff (wandering around or chatting with others) or to learn the game at your own pace wouldn't be viable anymore as you wouldn't be able to progress at all.

If anything, any system limiting character active life span sounds better to me. Doesn't matter how often or seldom you login, you have (maybe variable to an extend) certain amount of time to enjoy. And then start (almost) over. Character spiraling etc.
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Re: A Plea for Decay (Character)

Postby terechgracz » Thu Apr 18, 2019 1:21 pm

Granger wrote:A simple max function can't be bargained with

What do you mean? I don't understand that.

I thought that adding endgame to sandbox game will encourage players to start larping, building stuff and starting more faction wars and sieging.
I propose stat cap as max function because it's simpler to grasp and implement. I think decay as you proposed is okay but should only be able to kill your 10% stats so it will encourage keeping your industries after being limited by capping, while real cap would be made by max function.
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Re: A Plea for Decay (Character)

Postby Granger » Thu Apr 18, 2019 2:11 pm

Ardennesss wrote:Why bother even playing at world start if I can just pick up Haven at any time and compete with everyone else?
What would be the actual problem with this? And in case there actually exists one: would it dwarf the upsides of being able to join at whatever age of a world and be able to be meaningful?

What's the incentive for everyone else to actually stay active?
Same as with the current permagrind system: stay at the top. Only difference would be that taking a break wouldn't boil down to 'you lost, wait for a new world in case you want to get to the top'.

All of these proposed systems are great at closing the progression gap between latecomers and allowing for people to take vacations, but it's basically video game welfare. Is that a system that we think is actually going to be beneficial to player retention as a whole? Sure, Johnny sprucecap will be happy that when he plays haven for a month and quits that he was competing with the big boys during his month, but isn't that also just going to encourage all the big boys to quit because some nobody hop scotched into the game and caught up to their 6 months of work?
I think it would be worth it, as the amount of Johnny sprucecaps is way higher than the amount of big boys. Also I don't see big boys quitting as some nobody would need to be a whole group that does their 6 months of work to be on par with them. I think even less big boys would be quitting as their amount of targets could replenish (by new groups emerging), which it currently dosn't because it can't (regardless if it being physically impossible or just because people are too discourated to try).

Hrenli wrote:
Granger wrote:This is in case you evenly distribute all LP over all 13 attributes, a more specialized one will and at a higher number.


Also the picture implies fixed and the same LP/hour gain for all. Which is very questionable assumption to say the least...
Sure it is, it's just to illustrate that you can't reach an older character that has the same LP/h than you under the current system, while you could with the suggestion.

Effective level a character stabilizes at would be a function of the LP gains in the more recent past of the character, not just the total sum over the total as we currently have (which gives the problems like death being seen as a reason to quit till a new world or characters that at some point are able to PvE kill everything without real effort or risk).

For me personally having a fixed amount of hourly LP maintenance (call this effort whatever, but it is required maintenance) just to be able to progress doesn't feel healthy. Yes, it is low you might say. But it is still enforced on you. You would be required to always study, always keep up.
Please try to wrap your head around the fact that the same happens currently, with the difference that you don't see it in your character sheet but the penalty being permanent as you can't recover from it. With stat decay it would be the opposite: you would see it, but it wouldn't be permanent.

Also, in case of it also being applied to FEP (note: making the whole eating more lenient so you can stuff way more that currently possible would be a required part of that package) would make even fuckups like Kebab a non-issue, as the overpowered stuff could be correctly nerf'd and the ones that exploited them would decay to a sane level. Which would be a first for Haven: being able to scale down effects of mechanics without permanently gimping hamstringing everyone who didn't exploit it to a maximum.

If anything, any system limiting character active life span sounds better to me. Doesn't matter how often or seldom you login, you have (maybe variable to an extend) certain amount of time to enjoy. And then start (almost) over. Character spiraling etc.
Feel free to come up with something along that, as long as it's able to solve the issues with endless growth of numbers, among these also that the world getting irrelevant as characters get too powerful for PvE to still have a meaning, all of which character spiraling certainly won't be able to solve but more likly cause.

terechgracz wrote:
Granger wrote:A simple max function can't be bargained with

What do you mean? I don't understand that.
A simple max function means that you can't get higher than x whatever your do - implementing a ceiling with stat decay allows that you to get as good as what you currently (averaged over the last $timespan, length depending on the numbers used to implement it) keep doing: you can grind less but get a bit weaker, increase the grind to get a bit stronger, take a break when you want to and have the option to come back later up to your former glory (relative to the others) or get even better than before your holiday.

All not possible with a simple max function that everyone will reach at some point, with the ones being there first complaining to the devs that the game sucks as they're out of things to do (like it happened with the flawed fixed cap implementation they once tested for a very short while, especially as they didn't adjust the rest of the game).
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Re: A Plea for Decay (Character)

Postby Hrenli » Thu Apr 18, 2019 3:14 pm

Granger wrote:Please try to wrap your head around the fact that the same happens currently


No it doesn't. The stone in that wall is of certain quality and to get full of it I need the same amount of masonry. I can login half a year later and it will be the same.

Please try other perspective too. Just for a moment, step back from "me vs bigbois" point of view to "me vs stone wall" or "me vs a bear". Quite a few people don't even know about titans or what their stats are. They are just trying the game. Which is quite fun to learn for the first time on your own and at your own pace. Which is usually ridiculously slow (from our usual perspective) for first timers. Why that pace has to be regulated?
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Re: A Plea for Decay (Character)

Postby Fierce_Deity » Thu Apr 18, 2019 3:19 pm

So you are against decay or some effective stat cap because you want new folks to be able to hit rocks or kill bears after long extended breaks? Meh. People adapt to the systems of a game, if this was part of it then they would take their break knowing that upon their return they would need to grind stats for awhile to get back to their previous high. A recovery mechanic on previously attained stats should be implemented with this idea to help ease the burden of this. It should be easier for a decayed character to reach the max than it should be for a brand new character.
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Re: A Plea for Decay (Character)

Postby Hrenli » Thu Apr 18, 2019 3:31 pm

Fierce_Deity wrote:So you are against decay


Yes.

or some effective stat cap


No.

because you want new folks to be able to hit rocks or kill bears after long extended breaks?


No.
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