Couple of ideas for improving playability

[Ceigo]

1. Alchemy could be used for making new metals made of specific materials, making final products have specific traits (farming tools boosting attributes, mining tools increasing mining strength etc.)

2. Make a limitation of how many villages can be placed in a province (and perhaps increase amount of provinces a bit) as Sevenless explained, this idea is not very good.

3. (actually was proposed already, but worth saying again) make realm citizens lose bonuses in other realms and/or make them an enemy of the realm that is currently challenging a thingwall. Lessen the penalties for crimes done against raiders.

[EDIT]
As for point 3, I guess it's not the core problem, and I just proposed symptom remedy. Leaving for further discussion if there is any.

[Sevenless]

1. Alchemy could be used for making new metals made of specific materials, making final products have specific traits (farming tools boosting attributes, mining tools increasing mining strength etc.)

2. Make a limitation of how many villages can be placed in a province (and perhaps increase amount of provinces a bit)

3. (actually was proposed already, but worth saying again) make realm citizens lose bonuses in other realms and/or make them an enemy of the realm that is currently challenging a thingwall. Lessen the penalties for crimes done against raiders.

1) It's been suggested in the past to give tools some sort of stat boosting options, fair enough.

2) Systems exist for that already. Basically the entire point of the PvP system is to give players an ingame method for settling "disputes". Hardcoded mechanical limitations are very prone to bug abuse and unpreventable griefing. PvP griefing at least, in theory, you can do something about.

3) Defining what a "raider" is isn't an easy task. You don't have to join a realm if there's a reason that makes it bad as a PvPer. Most pvpers live in established villages with other accounts doing crafting and mining. If a system caused enough trouble, fighter characters would just forego the realm bonus mechanic and there'd be more focus on building up secondary accounts (worth noting, many of these "other" accounts are also pve players who live with the pvpers). But that's not how the realm system works right now anyway, signing up doesn't give you extra gameplay privileges. If it makes you feel better, pvpers don't like realms right now. Most of the people who like realms are the PvE players, but mainly due to the social and buff aspects as opposed to interacting with its mechanics.

[MadNomad]

2. Make a limitation of how many villages can be placed in a province (and perhaps increase amount of provinces a bit)

and what would that improve?

[Ceigo]

2) Systems exist for that already. Basically the entire point of the PvP system is to give players an ingame method for settling "disputes". Hardcoded mechanical limitations are very prone to bug abuse and unpreventable griefing. PvP griefing at least, in theory, you can do something about.

I see, that makes sense. I was a little to hasty with mechanic changes, new things introduce new bugs. Perhaps if fighting system was improved it wouldn't be as problematic as it is now.

3) Defining what a "raider" is isn't an easy task. You don't have to join a realm if there's a reason that makes it bad as a PvPer. Most pvpers live in established villages with other accounts doing crafting and mining. If a system caused enough trouble, fighter characters would just forego the realm bonus mechanic and there'd be more focus on building up secondary accounts (worth noting, many of these "other" accounts are also pve players who live with the pvpers). But that's not how the realm system works right now anyway, signing up doesn't give you extra gameplay privileges. If it makes you feel better, pvpers don't like realms right now. Most of the people who like realms are the PvE players, but mainly due to the social and buff aspects as opposed to interacting with its mechanics.

Noted. Since buffs almost entirely affect PvE and industry it is understandable that generally PvE-only players enjoy them most, especially if they provide in the markets. I wish more experienced players expressed themselves on this subforum, so it would be even more clear of the opinions and the state of the world.

Though changes since last world improved the system, at least by a little.

Thank you for your insights.

2. Make a limitation of how many villages can be placed in a province (and perhaps increase amount of provinces a bit)

and what would that improve?

By enforcing people to interact more if they intend to play in groups.

My theory is that groups of player should earn the privilege to form a village by extinguishing rival groups (getting the right for village for themselves). Though it would require working pvp mechanics.

But as Sevenless noted, hardcoded limitations can prove even worse, so it's best to leave things as they are now, even if uneventful.

[Sevenless]

I wish more experienced players expressed themselves on this subforum, so it would be even more clear of the opinions and the state of the world.

A lot don't in part because haven is a game of secrets with relatively long development lag on some things. Giving away information can hurt you now, with possible design fixes being months off. Exploits are a bit easier since they can be reported directly, but if you're found out (or suspected) to have reported an exploit the hardcore community enjoys you're burning social bridges in a game that is all about relationships. I've been told directly that people don't share things with me, and in many cases people I play with will get kept in the dark, because I talk about mechanics publicly. How's that for making you feel good eh?

The other part is many of the hardcore community (haven is the kind of game where really only the hardcore will understand all the mechanics) don't feel the devs listen to them. That's a pretty complicated subject overall, huge number of variables. I can point out a couple obvious examples though. "Never removing content" is one. When winter was added and it purely took away from the game. The devs didn't roll back the change when this was blatantly destructive to the game's population it was so unfun. Instead they tried to slowly fix it, and even 2 world starts later it's still limping towards being a net positive to the game. "Out of touch with game mechanics, but won't listen to players about them" is another. The devs, despite our attempts over the years to show them, often don't understand (and rarely take advice/opinions on) what happens when the game mechanics are minmaxed. Despite the entire hardcore community more or less agreeing that whale is completely broken we haven't seen any nerfs to it. But because of the aforementioned "they don't understand minmaxing, and they won't let us show them" the hardcore community is also afraid any attempts at fixing things will potentially make them worse.

None of this felt good to say.