Animal level's and such

[Potjeh]

I guess it could work with high character investment, which you could still have with focus capped skills. But I don't see it working with infinite character investment, because people will never feel ready for PvP since the other guy might have grinded even more.

[Oddity]

Just take a look at how D&D solved the problem of wildlife getting too easy to slaughter at higher levels

How did they do it?

[DatOneGuy]

Can you name an example where "all three lived decently well together"? Every indie game I've encountered the combination in has been plagued with problems and a low population. Their incompatibility seems obvious even at a glance - if you require that people grind their characters, the majority aren't going to willingly participate in mortal combat, they will avoid what is a core part of the game by any means possible. And should they fail to avoid it, they quit the game instead of starting over.

What exactly are you basing this belief on?

There are many taboos in the MMO world, Haven and Hearth seems to jump into many, like perma death, or infinite stats, I don't see a reason to start looking at the past examples of 'it's avoided' as a reason to not do it, instead we should be looking at it as "How can it be done?"


1)Permadeath isn't fully permanent as you can retain a good deal of what you grinded, as well as get a buff for dying if you do. This means 1)You don't lose as much ; 2)If you're the one planning an attack and wish to go all out, killing your character before hand can nearly double your stats and give you a much better chance to fight.

Example: If it's well known that the average fighter has 500 Melee, 200 UA, and the 'god tier' fighter has 1,000 Melee, 400 UA, you have 900 Melee 300 UA, you kill yourself before attacking you now not only wipe the face with the average fighter, but also with the god tier fighter, since you now have 1600~ Melee, 450~ UA, enough to decimate any of the other dudes.

2)The problem with 'infinite' or no caps, is that it requires two things:
A)Other things not have caps OR Have reduced yields, but not significantly, you need some way that even after you have 5,000 Melee if you spend your time the right way you can get what you want.
B)Things be able to be 'hidden' within the game. If everyone knows the best way to get XP, there will be what you can call an effective cap on it. You could say that someone having been around as long as this world 'could' effectively, playing 8 hours a day, have 4,000 Melee (random number), but how many do? No one, that's who.
These two things aren't there right now, but if people learn to keep information to themselves, hidden, things such as "The best team in battle are 2 melee 1 ranger in a squad", "You never need more than 40 Exploration", "'Going Martial is actually useful even for LP purposes", "Ways to protect quality spots","Proper resource management". This 'information' becomes power if information is hidden, some people will not know things that give you a serious advantage, others won't take the chance that something is there if it takes a long time to verify, like ranger's bows, they were seen as crap for a long time, and while they are a bit imbalanced still, they are not what anyone thought they would be.

Overall I think it can work, from a fundamental game making point of view, there's nothing to say it can't. From a Haven and Hearth point of view, I don't see why it can't.

What's limiting this community at the time is mostly the lag and crashing due to lack of funds (or at this point the funds are there actually, it's lack of good hosts for Sweden), most people are afraid to advertise because they know more people brings more lag and crashing, and they don't want to see lag or crashing any more than they have to, I see the base of people at least tripling if it can handle it, and I see a lot of these problems you speak of not being an issue if there are many more people.

As it stands the only reason to go to 'war' is if you need to, people prefer to 'raid' (war being kinda even, raid being 100% onesided, no chance of the other guy winning at all), because why risk if you don't have to. It's not so much that people won't because there is a risk as much as people will take the option with the least risk if they can, you time the other guy find out when not many of them are online, and attack.

I guess it could work with high character investment, which you could still have with focus capped skills. But I don't see it working with infinite character investment, because people will never feel ready for PvP since the other guy might have grinded even more.

Espionage will play some point in this, there is indeed always a chance that the other guy will have much higher stats and dominate you, but this is only a worry in infinite character investment v finite character investment if you are 'on top', if you know you're fairly new or only mildly seasoned, you will always have this fear.

No matter what I'll still have to say, I'm at a definite no for caps, as it stands now there is a 'natural cap' for most things, sure for LP it's unmatched, but I believe that as you stated, 'gaining LP from items' largely will remedy this if we see it, being able to trade, being able to hoard, finding a better way to obtain them, knowing which are best, this is great. The more complicated the system, the better, the more the variation between newcomer, dude who's played a bit, and absolute master.

[Potjeh]

Well I'm sorry, but I just don't see how it's a good gameplay to make combat about who wasted more of his life on grinding in an MMO. Playing for excessively long time should give you no advantage beyond player skill, which should actually matter.

Oh, and Einherjer is a horrible thing and it needs to die, so let's not even take it into account when discussing the future of the combat system. In fact, I'm for removing ancestor worship altogether. Loss of 75% of skills wouldn't be all that bad if there was a natural (and flexible, as I described earlier) cap on skill values.

[DatOneGuy]

Well I'm sorry, but I just don't see how it's a good gameplay to make combat about who wasted more of his life on grinding in an MMO. Playing for excessively long time should give you no advantage beyond player skill, which should actually matter.

Oh, and Einherjer is a horrible thing and it needs to die, so let's not even take it into account when discussing the future of the combat system. In fact, I'm for removing ancestor worship altogether. Loss of 75% of skills wouldn't be all that bad if there was a natural (and flexible, as I described earlier) cap on skill values.

Einherjar is pretty cool man, it's not like it's overpowered or anything.

It's NOT good gameplay to make it about who spend more of his life on grinding, but unless there comes a way to make it so that someone who spends their time SMARTER and that it makes a significant difference, then there is really nothing to say about the matter, and it will always be about who spend more time, no matter what you do.

I would like to see there be a bit more dependency on what you know of the combat system and using it properly, and what items you have. You don't need to cap combat skills, just make UA/Melee less important.

[hfacktor]

If you're the one planning an attack and wish to go all out, killing your character before hand can nearly double your stats and give you a much better chance to fight.

Example: If it's well known that the average fighter has 500 Melee, 200 UA, and the 'god tier' fighter has 1,000 Melee, 400 UA, you have 900 Melee 300 UA, you kill yourself before attacking you now not only wipe the face with the average fighter, but also with the god tier fighter, since you now have 1600~ Melee, 450~ UA, enough to decimate any of the other dudes.

Einherjar is pretty cool man, it's not like it's overpowered or anything.

..........................................

[Jackard]

words

What a terrible game that would make.

[Avu]

Einh has been overpowered and fucking stupid ever since it was invented but we learned to live with it and abuse it to the best of our ability...

[Potjeh]

Einherjer encourages suicide. Death should always be a bad thing.

I've already stated like a billion times that it should be about controlling and developing strategic points such as mines, hi-q natural resources and infrastructure such as irrigation and roads. Let's go all meta, and imagine them all as springs of mana. When a faction fights another faction, whoever has the higher influx of mana has the edge, but player (not character!) skill in using that mana can tilt the scales. The faction that wins takes over the loser's mana springs. But just holding them doesn't give you any influx, you have to harvest that mana which means you need more people. Who knows, you might even let the loser keep his springs and just pay you a portion of their influx in tribute, since you don't have enough people to harvest their springs yourself.

The goal is to make PvP about having better organization and strategy. Sure, playing more will still give you an edge, but playing smarter will be more important, and the edge from playing more wouldn't be nowhere near as drastic as it is today (right now a single character with 5000 melee could take on the whole world at once).

I'm guessing the main problem with having caps is that people think there'll be nothing to do after you hit them. Thing is, you shouldn't actually be hitting them all that often, since death would be a lot more common in a world geared towards PvP, and even if you do hit them you're not likely to stay alive for months on end.

[DatOneGuy]

To be honest that sounds boring as all hell to me. Einher's suicide benefits may suck, and it may need tweaking, but it means you didn't lose everything and if planned it makes a good battle plan to die full trad, have a Numen area in a hearthvault to gain it fast and warp back to kill with einher. Is it used badly as stands? Sometimes. I don't see it as a smart tactic to suicide unless you are sure of the opponents stats anyway, a guy with 500mc who einhers only barely matches a guy with 1000 natural, he'd lose either way in
most cases.

In general though I don't see a need to dismiss combat levels entirely, but I see a big problem with creature levels.