The grand problem of tedium

[AriZona]

There few elephants in the room: one is regarding players and other about the balance of tedium-vs-reward. All threads usually end up being fractured technicalities of bigger picture. But rarely touch the core, imho.

Tedium-vs-reward structure is structurally mess entrenched deep. There are so many imbalances in the game, like curious, tools, food, alchemy. Curious: 50% of curious is unusable, unless some items are requested quests. Imaging the time and effort needed to develop a character for a casual player to get mammoth tusks.. and study ivory figurines. Or, Suntheathers for example - ridiculous XP costs for items that can be of interest for early players by materials used; but these are useless bc of XP cost. Other weird curious like cave battery, etc. In my experience nobody used them ever as curious. Tools evolve along the development of metal industry: stone -> bronze -> metal. So how the stone axes become the main drivers of quality in metal age . Shouldn't quality of products be soft-capped differently ? Alchemy, which is supposed to be advancement and consumes so much time and resources, provide elixirs that have no superior healing times to foraged herbs ? The disconnect between tedium and product is also programmed the gap between fresh and established players. Because tedium value is not embedded into produced or foraged items, there is nothing fresh players can offer for trade and get integrated. Examples can go one, but the problem I believe is obvious: there are no rewards for trying harder. And that pisses ppl and they bitch. This mess fuels partially the other issue...

The threads to simplify the game lately are booming. This one is more complex. There are probably many reasons for why ppl ask for it, but one of them is the lack of the relation between the time u put into the game and what u get. I notice this extensive bitching to simplify game coming very frequently from PVP'ers. I understand they dont want farm, etc. and go straight to kick each others asses or abuse noobs bc their RL sucks. But I doubt that many casual players jumping into this wagon foresee consequences: with the reduction of tedium in the game they lose the single valuable assets to sell - their effort/time. Maybe specific aspects of the game simplification can take place, but there is higher risk of loosing the immersiveness of this game (which is one of the main features attracting ppl).

Sure, more stuff can be added, but I didnt want to dilute the points too much. Best.

[shubla]

All tedium is self caused people should realize and accept that they cannot be top in every aspect of the game. Yea maybe there will be that 1 no lifer who will play 36 hours every day to do that but thats his loss you can still have plenty of fun.

Something like multiplying curio durations by 10 and lp by 10 would be cool.

[VDZ]

Tedium is a symptom, and never a root cause.

tedium [ tee-dee-uhm ]
noun
the quality or state of being wearisome; irksomeness; tediousness.

tedious [ tee-dee-uhs, tee-juhs ]
adjective
1. marked by monotony or tedium; long and tiresome: tedious tasks; a tedious journey.

Any activity can be tedium once the player stops enjoying it. Conversely, any activity can remain fun no matter how repetitive it is. I never hear FPS players complain about how tedious clicking heads is, even though that's like 50% of what you're doing in those games. Dress it up well enough, and tedious activities become fun. This means the problem is never tedium, but rather whatever causes the player to perceive the activity as tedium (and that will vary per tedious activity; it's a broader discussion that can't be distilled down to a single catchy statement).

As for simplifying the game, I don't think this is a core problem. As you yourself point out, people enjoy the complexity. The only core problem related to this that I see is that certain non-optional gameplay elements are unintuitive and not adequately explained by the game to make up for that, with the combat system recently having been a notable example of such an aspect. This could be solved either by simplifying the system or giving better opportunities to learn about its workings...but this has already been discussed extensively and the devs are very much aware of this issue.

Curious: 50% of curious is unusable, unless some items are requested quests. Imaging the time and effort needed to develop a character for a casual player to get mammoth tusks.. and study ivory figurines. Or, Suntheathers for example - ridiculous XP costs for items that can be of interest for early players by materials used; but these are useless bc of XP cost. Other weird curious like cave battery, etc. In my experience nobody used them ever as curious.

I strongly disagree with this part. In stark contrast to the food system, the curio system does not punish the player for studying the 'wrong' curios. You'll have suboptimal LP gain, sure, and you may spend more XP than is necessary, but it does not cascade into a lasting disadvantage; you could abruptly switch from mediocre curios to top-tier curios, and immediately you would have top tier LP gain. This means there is no harm in studying suboptimal curios; you are merely wasting the potential for even greater yields. This, in turn, means that any curio can be viable if your standards are low enough. As you find yourself running out of good curios, you will naturally start studying lesser curios, which are still a lot better than leaving the slot empty. (Again, contrast with the food system, where eating garbage food is actively harmful and you're better off not eating anything.)

In addition, curios can have different value in different situations, which in my opinion is great design. You complain that some curios are worthless because of XP cost, but I think it's a good thing that some curios provide above-average LP gain at the cost of extra XP, so that they are worthless if you are low on XP but are great if you have plenty of XP to waste. Similarly, many people consider curios with long study times to be bad, but they're just what you need if you don't want to swap curios often; they provide set-and-forget convenience at the cost of reduced LP gain.

Another thing I find great about the curio system is that because you are always running out of curios and will have to settle for whatever is available, different curio recipes have different value depending on your situation. They're a fantastic resource sink. Have plenty of feathers? Make Feather Trinkets or Feather Dusters. Found high-quality Feldspar you don't have a better use for? Combine it with okay-quality clay and stone for Crude Idols. Decent Acre Clay near you? Toy Chariots can be nice if you're short on Attention. Nearly every curio can be viable given the right circumstances.

[Zentetsuken]

Every MMO and Survival game I can think of are built on the foundation of tedium

the drive to progress through trees of knowledge and develop your character

Haven's lackluster reward for putting in big hours is no different than a lot of games in this respect.
The most one can ever achieve is higher numbers than your peers, but the same can definitely be said for other games too.

This is why I have personally tried to sell the devs on achievements.

At the very least the added bonus of achieving titles and aesthetic rewards could add a layer motivation to the grind for some people. Especially if there are a mixture of long term and per-world rewards, it would be cool to have a fear of missing out on temporary trophies, and pretty fun to have a way to see progression on your account page. Having a little thing that even a noob or hermit can show off with could go a long way with making the grind worth while.

[iamahh]

Haven is great as a routine game, you login to have a coffee, watch video, while you do some maintenance, not to mention trying to mod the client with some crazy ides

there's always 2 or 3 village projects waiting to start, some curio infrastructure, architecture, gardens, if devs add custom-buildings and water-forming it will be crazy