Scant regard for stats

[Danno]

Put some caps on skill values and attributes so people stop grinding so much (or feeling tempted to macro). Not even year caps, make them reachable within a few months of playing or shorter. Alpha this, alpha that, world's been wiped before and it's going to be wiped again when we enter the new world, etc. When I started playing, my associate quit soon after because he heard rumours that the world would be wiped soon and he didn't want to waste his time grinding a character only to lose it. People are complaining about hunting becoming a worse source of LP than farming, so they threaten to protest by lagging us all with huge wheat fields and possibly macros.

Quality is an alright feature, but I really hope it isn't the direction this game's been aiming for from the start. I've had enough grind from nearly every other MMO I've played; I'm sure we all have. What I like about Haven & Hearth is the general humour (such as lifting a bear's carcass), creatively building things, the risk of permanently dying, the lack of human NPCs, and the complete absence of default cities - the world is as we, the players, create it. We can have an impact not only on the land, but on the gameplay of others and the political concerns of the world. It's really annoying in other MMOs when you get a situation like so:

I just don't want to have that witty blacksmith standing around the corner handing out swords and sending me on a quest to kill those rats in his basement

You kill his rats, he praises you as the greatest hero of all time, then he sends you to kill a single evil witch that's been tormenting the town lately. Coincidentally, everyone else is on the same quest and everyone becomes the single greatest hero by defeating that one witch forever. That kind of thing only works in a single player game; Haven & Hearth handles its multiplayer consistency perfectly. If I raid 3 towns, their citizens complain, and their chieftains send their rangers on a quest to kill me, only one person/village can attain that victory. It's great and the situation is real.

Anyhow, we're just testing until the next wipe. I think we've tested quality and grinding very thoroughly already and that no new bugs will pop up. We've already seen the general opinion that people dislike grinding and want more LP for their actions so they can grind faster (because that would be totally different from before). If some realistic caps were added, the people who already passed them long ago could be given a fancy hat so they can still have the satisfaction of having bragging rights for their grinding.

What we need is gameplay, not grinding. Until further gameplay can be added, the caps would encourage people to have nothing better to do than expand their territory/invade/raid, which would also result in people either moving far away and building a new home or fighting back (perhaps with an even chance if the cap is easy enough to reach and since they should have some advantage in their own homeland). Chieftains should have the option to set their own village on fire if they don't want the enemy to obtain their resources, automatically booting the chieftain from the village since he disowned it, but you should be able to put the fire out with buckets of water if the fire hasn't been going for _ minutes yet. We need people moving around and doing things rather than getting cozy in their grind hole and leaving the world without change - change is one of the single greatest features we are capable of performing in this vast world, but it's being highly neglected.

[Melgui]

Completely agree.

Don't let H&H become another generic MMO.

[Potjeh]

I think the problem isn't the infinite raisability of stats and skills, it's the effect that raising them has. I don't think that the square root function is the best choice for calculating actual power level from skill levels, IMO it should be a function with an upper asymptote.

[burgingham]

The most important thing the devs have been working on the last few months was a complete revamp of the LP system. Two testservers have been up since then, but it turned out the new approaches were far from perfect. Nobody knows what they will come up with next (Wyrd for example were completely off the table for some time, but I recall jorb saying that he might look into those mechanics again). Regarding this, your idea (although much effort was put into it and I agree with certain parts) is probably not very useful atm.

When this game some day far, far away reaches its final status, we have to consider the possibility of a world running for an indefinite amount of time. So there needs to be some endgame mechanic that keeps people playing. At least now even fully developed towns have some incentive to play, since they can raise their stats and q further to outmatch possible competition. This is far from perfect though considering the gap between new players and established ones will become bigger and bigger over time. It is hard to find the right balance between permadeath, open PvP and grinding, because it shouldn't be too hard to grind up a char in such a system, but make it too easy and permadeath becomes nothing but a hollow phrase.

I am kinda ambivalent towards stat caps for the reasons above. On the one hand I like the possibility of infinite progress, on the other hand it is kinda contradictory to the overall very harsh enviroment of the hearthlands.

The quality system however is great and I don't want to see it going anywhere.

[Melgui]

Maybe stat caps are not the most elegant solution, maybe they are not a solution at all, but I realise something is going wrong when people claim "how can I grind LP now?" in a game that pretends to be different from the others and have so much potential.

I'm eager to see and test that new LP system.

edit: we have to talk carefully of any kind of "cap" anyway, the concept is very close to "level", and the lack of leveling in this game is in my opinion untouchable.

[Phizuol]

... in a game that pretends to be different from the others and have so much potential.

The game is different. It's the players that are the same. You don't need to grind to be successful, but there's always going to be those players that have to do everything "the best". You always see those "What is the best way to..." and "What is the most efficient way to..." threads in every game that has a forum.

[Melgui]

... in a game that pretends to be different from the others and have so much potential.

The game is different. It's the players that are the same. You don't need to grind to be successful, but there's always going to be those players that have to do everything "the best". You always see those "What is the best way to..." and "What is the most efficient way to..." threads in every game that has a forum.

You are right, I know. I'm just saying it would be better if the game doesn't get influenced by that gameplay style.

[Potjeh]

Like I said, you can have infinite skill levels AND caps at the same time. Just make the maximum actual effect of skills an asymptote. If you don't remember your highschool math, this basically means that as skill value approaches infinity, it's actual effect approaches the asymptote power level, but never reaches it.

[burgingham]

You are right, I know. I'm just saying it would be better if the game doesn't get influenced by that gameplay style.

Actually I would quit if H&H ever took the opportunity from me to be better than others, no matter if by personal skill or just grinding time. For me the most and only fun in games is to be the best, to win. Not everybody might agree with me here, but there are just different types of players and so far I think H&H satisfies most of the common playing styles.

[Potjeh]

Beating players through player skill is a lot more fun than beating players through character skill.