Okay, i have no clear idea of what should be done but i want to at least explore the whole issue. Welcome to my ted talk.
There are some posts about safe-palis being bad which i agree with to a certain extent, same as snekkjas not being great for pvp as they are basically a mobile safe-pali unless the other side has a bunch of their own nearby.
You know what also sucks for pvp and ganking? Fast travel.
And before you screeech let me elaborate. Conflicts in haven as it stands are fully global. You attack one person from a group and their whole group pulls up in less than 5 minutes (maybe except like the week 1-2 when travel weariness is an issue). If it's under their village it's like yeah, ofc they gonna pull up why wouldn't they, rarely if ever do group limits their numbers for the sake of a tougher fight. But that shouldn't be the case on the other side of the world, there should be some isolation in combat, having basically both groups have to fully port for every engagement makes it a pure numbers game and every fight is basically at the same odds other than people missing a fight and that's kinda boring no? I feel like open world pvp encounters should be chaotic af, a group of 2-3 can never gank 1 person from a bigger group out in the open (ofc exceptions apply like the bee dungeon funny or timezone metagaming) bcs their whole group will just pull up, and unless you literally catch someone with their pants down doing smth like naked swim (retard) you probably won't be able to catch up and KO them before the reinforcements arrive if they are even semi-competent at running.
This also extends to small group conflicts, any conflict between 2 hermit-ish groups usually ends the moment one of the groups reaches out to a bigger group to help them out, and since traveling there costs nothing they are happy to help as they'll probably get paid on top of getting free loot from some shitters. I wonder if this would be just as common if going there actually took some whirlpool traveling (arguably whirlpools should be 1 to 1 so you cannot keep going into the same whirlpool until you get wherever you want) or actually sailing there with a knarr. Hermits should be allowed to beat each other with a stick for a 10ql carrot without the world police ruining their fun.
On the other hand, nobody believes the myth of a traveling merchant, so fast travel is actually good (arguably hard to achieve as a hermit) to make markets more accessible.
So the whole issue is a bit complex to solve, because a lot of things that nerf it for the pvp aspect also will nerf it for trade (which is what concerns 99% of the playerbase honestly).
I'm gonna just throw some ideas out there none of which are really thought through to a major extent especially not meant to all be implemented:
-Make some of the thingwalls a Great Thingwall (a few per continent, idk 4-5?), a great thingwall has some subservient thingwalls and can be used to teleport to all of them (not the other great thingwalls). Any thingwall can be used to teleport to a charter (or just bring back porticos and fuck that). This post is not about kingdoms but i was also thinking that only great thingwalls could be conquered so there is a lot less space for kingdoms and each thingwall fight is REALLY impactful. Ofc that would make settling near one of these VERY advantageous but i don't see that as a problem tbh, there aren't that many big groups to compete for those. The whole idea basically breaks when we consider just making charters near each great thingwall, which is probably quite achievable and there isn't really any way to limit charter spam other than increasing travel cost or making maintenance a lot higher (and both of these just suck), so maybe if someone is actually willing to setup a whole network of these they should be allowed to enjoy it idk.
-Make thingwalls travel cost higher, I assume travel weariness is exponential based on distance (didn't test correct me if i'm wrong, can be tested by placing charter next to a thingwall and testing both a thingwall and charter tp). Hence many short quick travels with thingwalls cost less than one big jump with charter. Jumping around the world with charters not only requires you to set them up but is also a lot more expensive travel weariness wise. Arguably hermits travel mostly to charters (other than the quite frequent case of "oh its too costly i need to port with thingwalls, oh i dont have thingwalls sorry ill come closer with a boat") so that wouldn't hurt trade nearly as much. (once again charter spam breaks it)
-Allow kingdoms to close their borders (make hnh great again or w/e) disallowing people from porting in from outside using charters or thingwalls, only inside travel. Yeah doesn't matter for huge realms, also doesn't matter for the first 5+ (a big + at current challenge rate lol) weeks of the world. But would allow for some cool scenarios like only extending your realm around your own continent so you can close the travel to it from outisde, forcing sailing or whirlpools to get to it (fucking markets ofc but that's up to the kingdom owner who is also probably a market owner, but maybe some cool stuff like a trade free zone would be setup with another kingdom). Would make conquering one of the provinces on that continent very valuable for travel but also would be challenging due to the travel requirement. Might make kingdoms a bit more stable and focused around natural borders which sounds cool imo. The kingdom system requires a lot more changes to be cool tbh but that's above the scope of this topic.
-Snail is gonna screech about this one, I don't think you should be able to carry a ready to go snekkja in your pockets, make it dry for at least like 20-40 minutes or smth, you can still go and build a snekkja in advance wherever you want and it'll be ready for later but you cannot just build it wherever you want the instant you port there. I'm sorry but i just think setting up infrastructure should be incentivized so if you want a snekkja whenever you go to X continent you better setup a port there or fuck with whirlpools.
-Whirlpools should be 1 to 1, currently you can keep going into the same whirlpool and repairing your ship to basically get to any other whirlpool (not accounting for smaller loops in the set, it's likely you can get close enough to wherever you want anyways). What should be the case is that whirlpools always lead to the other exit making them still pretty good for fast traveling huge distances, just not basically a "get wherever you want now" card. Ofc they can still change overtime, maybe allow kingdoms to stabilize them or smth (costing auth overtime) if they want a consistent teleport between two points they own.
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