Remove and change everything for early player progression

[maze]

Im going to keep playing around with this idea in my head...because I know there would need to be a ton of work to even think about how this would be done...

Player progression from the early game should be removed-
rant

It's been years and we've watched player progression always get out of control way to quickly. the casuals work up 50-300 stats, the know hows 600-1k and the faction elite 1k-2k.
But that's not even the problem.

Progression demands giant farms, tons of hours, insane curio grinds ontop of trying to secure dozen of top Q meats, whale, pepper, truffle.
For years I pondered what the hell was wrong, I slowed down~ I became old. I used bots less and less.
I listen to the hermits and the new players.

This game is overly complicated and the infinite grind is only fun on possessions...
and the more I thought about it the bigger brain I felt.
Why player progression?
Player progression forces us to use alts because we need a crafter and a cook and a fighter and a hunter and a blacksmith and a PSY blacksmith....
Player progression stops use from pvp in the fear to lose a character.

So what is early game player progression?
It's the player "Base Attributes" and "Abilities"

But removing those would remove a core part of the game-
Yes...

The ideal~ move progression into player buffs that are either permanent onetime buffs (Beating Ant dungeon) or last X hours/days
Food - create a table of food, eatting the table would give you a 24 - 72 hours buff of stats (can only have 1 table feast buff active at a time)
City feast - Eat a table of food, buff last for several days (would still give you table feast buff, but last a lot longer)

Clothing- the main state gain and would be the hardest to raise. would likely have to go back and forth making clothing sets for everyone in the city to progress.
Alchemy - late game bonus stats buffs
Wounds - New wounds permanent wounds that would give bonuses to stats, and other wounds that hinder things
Events - more events like ant hill completions, beaver, bat dungeon.


Late game progression PLAYER progression - something to make you care more about getting your char wounded, things like Dungeon heart containers, Creedo's, Lilypad Lotus

Biggest change would be the curio system, with no stats to raise curios would need to be reworked. I would say they should still give LP, this would allow us to still buy creedo and skills with the same system, and feed claims.
But add ability's onto studying things.
Study shining marble - "chance to gain 1 phy for 24 hours"
Study Antler - "do 10% more damage to deer for 24 hours"
Lucky rabbit foot - "while crafting possible to get 2 items"
Troll skulls - "Gain 20 UA for 24 hours"
and so on.

[shubla]

Even if I cannot ever catch people who play the game 8 hours a day, I still find increasing my str to 100 and such satisfying, removing abilities and replacing them with odd buffs would change the whole game completely. After all, all systems are based on the fact that you raise your attributes and abilties.

[ErdTod]

Progression has been determined as a core thing of game design & what keeps people interested in the game. No progression - temporarily buffs will kill any game, not just this one. What you are suggesting is basically making this game a session game, like dota or overwatch but there are no matches that have start and end, which is why it's unlikely to be interesting enough in long-term. HnH is also an RPG, and stats and character development is crucial to RPGs.

[lordgrunt]

even shitties ideas can contain a grain of noteworthy improvements.
20min buff to deer Q after crafting 10th gazed grazier? neat!
5 min buff to ... after succesfully gilding Nth gild? neat!
X min buff to bear finding after slaughtering 15 slimes? neat!
ignore the op's need to wreck game, but rewarding players with buffs for achieving simple( or sometimes challenging) tasks would be really nice addition to game.
so far, everything in the game feels so distilled, so pvp-oriented, there is no room (or dev will) to add flavour mechanics.
like, why cant i stop in middle of wildernes and and pray to gods of nature or warfare for a worthy opponent? you can spend silly amount of time trying to find a challenge in the wilderness (bear,lynx, moose?)
why couldnt you make worthy offerings to the fey (sweets&milk) for the increased chance of seeing wonders? (dryads, ents)
stop at the shore and ponder at wonderful depths of the lakes, oceans or admire waves and be rewarded with a flock of swans...charging right at you.

so many ideas posted on these forums, so little happens.

[Fierce_Deity]

I don't think stat progression can be ripped out of the game to such a degree.

Components of this idea could work nicely with stat caps. Stat caps could be set at a decently high, but obtainable, level(100 ). If you need an edge then you go for these temp buffs.

[Zbyx]

Player progression from the early game should be removed-

So what is early game player progression?
It's the player "Base Attributes" and "Abilities"

How about only removing combat related stuff (PVP and PVE) relying on "Base Attributes" and "Abilities" ?
For example make UAC, Melee, STR, AGI not possible to raise with LP but only by other means (clothes,alchemy,food buffs, buff from dungeon or temporary buff from killing certain animal)

You could leave curio and food working the same for the most part then for mining/farming/crafting stuff etc.

/

[jordancoles]

I've played around with the idea of removing combat-related stats like UA/MC/MM to make combat interactions always weighted equally, but you get into a tricky situation where alts suddenly become powerful and the way to get an edge comes in the form of gear and STR/AGI/CON. People who can stack attributes to the moon will still have an overwhelming advantage, but at the same time, that should probably be the case to distinguish a developed character from a fresh spawn.

Ideally weight in pvp interactions would sit more heavily on the deck you choose, and the points you invest into each move. Also, maneuvers should not take up slots on the combat deck and they should not have cooldowns to make way for more variety in setups.

Removing UA/MC/MM and leveling characters out across the board could be a fun thing, but I'm not sure if it would work with such a basic combat system where the person with more STR/AGI/CON wins if they just keep the pressure on with KITO in standing combat. The previously tested but never implemented movement combat rework could've worked well with this idea, but it came with its own flaws that couldn't really be avoided.

[shubla]

I've played around with the idea of removing combat-related stats like UA/MC/MM to make combat interactions always weighted equally, but you get into a tricky situation where alts suddenly become powerful and the way to get an edge comes in the form of gear and STR/AGI/CON. People who can stack attributes to the moon will still have an overwhelming advantage, but at the same time, that should probably be the case to distinguish a developed character from a fresh spawn.

Ideally weight in pvp interactions would sit more heavily on the deck you choose, and the points you invest into each move.

Removing UA/MC/MM and leveling characters out across the board could be a fun thing, but I'm not sure if it would work with such a basic combat system. The previously tested but never implemented movement combat rework could've worked well with this idea, but it came with its own flaws that couldn't really be avoided.

Formulas could just be changed so that you would get marginal benefit from having 1000 uac. Then people could still look the numbers grow but fights between 200 ua and 2000 ua would be even, and both would have a chance.

[jordancoles]

I've played around with the idea of removing combat-related stats like UA/MC/MM to make combat interactions always weighted equally, but you get into a tricky situation where alts suddenly become powerful and the way to get an edge comes in the form of gear and STR/AGI/CON. People who can stack attributes to the moon will still have an overwhelming advantage, but at the same time, that should probably be the case to distinguish a developed character from a fresh spawn.

Ideally weight in pvp interactions would sit more heavily on the deck you choose, and the points you invest into each move.

Removing UA/MC/MM and leveling characters out across the board could be a fun thing, but I'm not sure if it would work with such a basic combat system. The previously tested but never implemented movement combat rework could've worked well with this idea, but it came with its own flaws that couldn't really be avoided.

Formulas could just be changed so that you would get marginal benefit from having 1000 uac. Then people could still look the numbers grow but fights between 200 ua and 2000 ua would be even, and both would have a chance.

If 200 vs 2000 were even it would be better to just remove the ability to raise the stat completely and to shift the grind towards armor class, attributes, and combat deck selection. The main problem I see is that factions with insane weapon and armor qualities would dominate hard.. But that is already the case anyways, with the added benefit of being able to dwarf most people with their UA/MC as well

[Zbyx]

I've played around with the idea of removing combat-related stats like UA/MC/MM to make combat interactions always weighted equally, but you get into a tricky situation where alts suddenly become powerful and the way to get an edge comes in the form of gear and STR/AGI/CON. People who can stack attributes to the moon will still have an overwhelming advantage, but at the same time, that should probably be the case to distinguish a developed character from a fresh spawn.

Ideally weight in pvp interactions would sit more heavily on the deck you choose, and the points you invest into each move. Also, maneuvers should not take up slots on the combat deck and they should not have cooldowns to make way for more variety in setups.

Removing UA/MC/MM and leveling characters out across the board could be a fun thing, but I'm not sure if it would work with such a basic combat system where the person with more STR/AGI/CON wins if they just keep the pressure on with KITO in standing combat. The previously tested but never implemented movement combat rework could've worked well with this idea, but it came with its own flaws that couldn't really be avoided.

I would prefer to leave STR only for crafting/mining and make current STR/Agi into some diff stat for combat only to reduce the size of farms and hunting neccessary for making food.
Yes alts would become suddenly a lot more powerfull with gear but if you make the combat gear harder to obtain then that could make it worth it to hunt that person down, right now its not really worth the effort.
I think this would be not ideal ofc but a small step forward.