Developer Thoughts on PvP

[Tonkyhonk]

Do people continually make new characters till they get lucky enough to spawn in a "lucky" spot where they will not be found?

people explore around to find a decent enough place to settle down first.
the biggest mistake new comers often make is just settling down where you randomly spawned without checking around.
as you explore, you find whats around you, you meet other players sometimes, who may be friendly or aggressive or neutral.
it is about your decision making and risk management.

"luck" plays a rather big part when you are new because you do not recognize what is valuable and what isnt, or what is offensive and what isnt, and so forth, when you started. also, raiders move around more to find prays, so you have more chances of meeting them than other players in the neighborhood that you may make friends with. and trying to get enough information is more important than the skills and stats you can gain/lose in the very beginning in this survival game. a death or two (or more) of a new character is, even though it is indeed shocking and heartbreaking for new comers, not very rare nor uncommon.

p.s.
remember that this world is huge.
http://havenmap.sabinati.com/

[AnnaC]

Yes, you can switch one die roll for another. :-\

People have lives to live as well. This is a game. When you work 8 hours a day, spend time at home, and have other social and personal hobbies, you don't relate with losing a couple hours of your time in a game to some advanced player who just enjoys sabotaging newcomers.

I mean if you want to talk about work ethic, get a life.

But there are no die rolls, except for maybe the initial spawn as I said before is not that big of a problem.

Bringing up no-life argument now? Great. Shows you know jack about the game mechanics anyway, as the curio system alleviates game time that has to be spent by the player to maintain Hearthling growth. With considerations to your needs and logistical planning, very little actual game play time is needed to maintain this growth (maybe 2-4 hours per week). (Of course some industries and quality growth considerations, along with security considerations, may require more playtime invested, but these objectives, like all in this game, are optional and about what your desires and needs are.) You're basically saying with this argument, you want the game to call you awesome for doing jack shit. As I said before, there's plenty of themepark mmos out there that already do that.

The game isn't about survival. It's about development. If people just wanted to survive, they could... do nothing.

It is much more a survival game than a development game, and always has been. Main thing is if development was the focus of the developers, than why are village and political mechanics so non-existent? Why have so many hazards for players just scraping by from the virgin wilderness?

Claiming "natural space" is an offensive action because it's an action that denies another another player a potential action or resource. You're the one extremely naive about everything about this subject, to be honest.

You can't deny what doesn't exist. Personal potential only exists in a person until it is acted in nature.

It isn't about potential, when you make a claim you enforce your will onto every other Hearthling in the world regarding the location of the claim. This is inherintly an offensive action.

I dunno how it works, but I'm assuming there's some growth element to it? The more you claim, the harder it becomes to claim more?

That map is hopeless too. You have to scan an entire graphic to find where you are to extreme detail.

Claim expansion takes nothing but additional LP investment in a linear scale for expansion, and for the power and permanence of that pink forcefield, the cost of Yeomanry and the LP for expansion is ridiculously cheap. You've obviously never come across a single personal claim that encompasses an entire mountain under it's influence.

Regarding the map, explore your local area, learn the landscape; being aware of your geography is an important skill that unfortunately modern humans are becoming complacent on. It's the onus of the players to make these observations and considerations, not the game to tell you. Again, this isn't a themepark MMO that points to your next objective and tells you how awesome you are for following the arrows, and it never should be. Personally I prefered it when games made you actually think about what you were doing in them to do anything.

[Nolidor]

But there are no die rolls, except for maybe the initial spawn as I said before is not that big of a problem.

Bringing up no-life argument now? Great. Shows you know jack about the game mechanics anyway, as the curio system alleviates game time that has to be spent by the player to maintain Hearthling growth. With considerations to your needs and logistical planning, very little actual game play time is needed to maintain this growth (maybe 2-4 hours per week). (Of course some industries and quality growth considerations, along with security considerations, may require more playtime invested, but these objectives, like all in this game, are optional and about what your desires and needs are.) You're basically saying with this argument, you want the game to call you awesome for doing jack shit. As I said before, there's plenty of themepark mmos out there that already do that.

Actually, the technical mechanics of the game are good. That's not the problem. The problem is social dynamics.

It is much more a survival game than a development game, and always has been. Main thing is if development was the focus of the developers, than why are village and political mechanics so non-existent? Why have so many hazards for players just scraping by from the virgin wilderness?

...because politics aren't mechanical? The authority system, now that I read about it, is a good touch since it simplifies the complexity of culture's influence in authoring law, but anything beyond that needs to be socialized over.

It isn't about potential, when you make a claim you enforce your will onto every other Hearthling in the world regarding the location of the claim. This is inherintly an offensive action.

The world is nobody's by default, not everybody's. You're not enforcing your will onto every other Hearthling because everybody else doesn't already claim where you're claiming.

It's only after people make a claim that their personal potential is established in the natural world.

Claim expansion takes nothing but additional LP investment in a linear scale for expansion, and for the power and permanence of that pink forcefield, the cost of Yeomanry and the LP for expansion is ridiculously cheap. You've obviously never come across a single personal claim that encompasses an entire mountain under it's influence.

Regarding the map, explore your local area, learn the landscape; being aware of your geography is an important skill that unfortunately modern humans are becoming complacent on. It's the onus of the players to make these observations and considerations, not the game to tell you. Again, this isn't a themepark MMO that points to your next objective and tells you how awesome you are for following the arrows, and it never should be. Personally I prefered it when games made you actually think about what you were doing in them to do anything.

In wandering, I found many claims. Some were big, others were small.

A linear system is problematic though. That should be exponential instead. Besides, exponential growth is realistic. It becomes harder and harder to manage and govern land for one person. Maybe the game could use a feudal lord-vassal system to hand land out and reduce claim and authority costs. It would be similar to how village claims overlap personal claims already.

Anyway, we're not talking about a "themepark" mmo. The question isn't about being taken by the hand and pointed in the right direction. The point is giving people the freedom to establish a reliable foundation instead of being ransacked and destroyed straight out of the gate. PvP is fun, but there's a difference between snuffing out a candle and blasting off a firework show.

[ghozzd]

Hadn't read all the posts in here, but still want to suggest my idea. Why dont make great debuff depend on you current SHP and HHP? For example, you cant run as fast as healthy one, after being chopped with giant steel battleaxe. But, as we know, criminal acts do make you lose HHP. So, for example, that criminal scum with 400 UA as was stated on first pages of discussion, aggroes you with 200 ua, but anti-criminal system makes him to loose great amount of HHP (because we want it to take criminal's HHP in percentage of victim's stats, will describe later), then he recieve debuff of health lack and debuff of combat stats, and now criminal is as strong as victim(or better to say criminal is now as weak as victim, not 1 to 1 stats but close). Furthermore, it would be awesome to calculate % of taken HP depended on combat stats(or smth like that) of victim's stats, so criminal become approximately as weak as his victim, and this will give a chance to victim to defeat the attacker if he's good at combat system, while his primary stats is far more less than attacker's stats. And this what gives you real advantage of being attacked. If you expirience some troubles with evil no-lifers or just long-playing players, you now may call you powerful friend and hide him in da house, wait until your offender come to mock you, and then when he aggroes you, and loses majority of his stats, you powerful friend comes out of his position and brings the criminal down, because he doesnt loose the stats while aggroing player that aggroed you(maybe new style of ranging system but can be abusable, so better to lower this friend's stats too but you still can beat the bully because there's two of you ). Thats what i think about filthy killing of noobz, peaceful players, or just raiding. Also nice reason to form groups of players.

Now about other shit like theft, vandal and stuff. When you steal or vandal you loose your HHP( 1% of HHP for every criminal act(not including tresspass, everybody hates shitloads of claims one after another), this will prevent ppl with massive amount of cons to use criminal acts thousands times). As i mentioned before that will debuff you (not only the combat skills but all the attributes)(The more HP you dont have, the stronger debuff will be). When you do have scents of smb, and aggro him, you wont recieve any HHP losage or debuffs, because you're seeking for justice and you're now good guy, instead of debuffing you, having scents in your inventory will debuff aggroed criminal(same shit as while aggroing noobs, he will become weaker if he's stronger than you), and maybe will take away his HHP, so now you're on advantage and you're the one who attacked. And we dont wanna touch summoning, it's good system too.

You will still need to have big amounts of UA to fight trolls, bears and other mobs. With my system you still can be bad-ass by collecting groups of raiders and kill noobs or raid not really worrying that single target can beat you. And one more idea - when you dont have rage skill you still have 1 combat action like slap that doesnt deals massive dmg so cant be abused for killing noobz, but to get rid of annoying ppl by hitting them. And only works on your claim or smth like that, so couldnt be abused by annoying persons to annoy you. This idea must be imroved.

That's not the all ny thoughts and post must be edited but im kinda tired.

[Nolidor]

That's a good idea, but it should be combined with an age factor. We shouldn't have players who are advanced picking on players that are just starting out, but it's possible that someone's weak who was just skill-less after playing the game for a long time. Those who are skillful after playing the game for a short time don't deserve to be penalized so much.

[Tonkyhonk]

guys, this is not your suggestion thread. make your own new thread if you want to talk about your own ideas. this thread is here so that new comers dont miss what devs said about pvp, it is not for each of you to start spamming with your ideas.

also, better try salem first, ghozzd, and see how things have been changed there and check with what you suggested.
p.s. please dont post when youre too tired. go take some rest and then come back so it is well organized for others to read.

[ghozzd]

guys, this is not your suggestion thread. make your own new thread if you want to talk about your own ideas. this thread is here so that new comers dont miss what devs said about pvp, it is not for each of you to start spamming with your ideas.

also, better try salem first, ghozzd, and see how things have been changed there and check with what you suggested.
p.s. please dont post when youre too tired. go take some rest and then come back so it is well organized for others to read.

Sorry for offtopic, but

Subforume name is "critique and ideas" and i saw some critique and..ideas in this thread, so i made a decision to express my opinion here, and not to clutter up forums by creating new thread while we have this one, used for discussions.

Dont really wanna check salem becuase in my opinion the game looks quite bad(why couldn't they make graphics like in crysis, just kidding, not really one of that graphics-fag), and HnH seems more challenging and realistic to me, and also more aesthetic, and that's the game i was looking for years.

In my idea i am judging on my own experience how i died, and how i killed, and what i noticed - fight is rare ocasion, usually people prefer to run, that doesn't satisfy my battlehunger, and also i dont wanna die from ppl who are destroying me in stats.

And the last, i wasnt tired when i began to write, i just couldn't deal with this tons of text, and quickly got bored and tired of it.

[Tonkyhonk]

then please dont bother to suggest to clutter an important thread especially with your unorganized off-topic idea when you cant even bother to check what devs may have on mind as of late.

[Irealys]

Extended Treatise on That Which Really Should Be Bloody Obvious to Anyone Above A Grade School Level of Mental Development

Is this the dev telling trying to insult people disagreeing with him?

The H&H game world attempts -- to no small an extent -- to simulate events and processes of the real world in a digitalized form. In so doing, it would be an object of abject failure if, along with the beauties and wonders of real life, not also some of the difficulties associated with it were to be emulated.

Really? Fine. Give me a mom and dad who will teach me to at least walk before throwing me in the wild. And I know technically speaking there are two people in the cave with you and they would fit as parents (and then there is that drunk uncle in the corner). But they don't do shit. I'm not asking for an 18 year old commitment out of these two but you'd think they could give me 5 minutes of their time. Parents aren't just about giving physical body, a name and throwing you into a forest. Well, most parents aren't. I don't know for yours.

The land which I have claimed, you cannot claim. The basket that I am carrying, you can not carry. The apple that I have eaten, you can not eat. [...] When one adopts and understands this perspective, it becomes clear as sparkling morning dew on a well mowed lawn that there does not exist a clear divide between offensive and peaceful actions.

Are you saying you are incapable of seeing a difference between eating an apple and killing an unprepared and unequipped newbie? That... explains a lot about the game actually.

As a child I often enjoyed and participated in a fun little game called "The Air is Free". [...] The game -- which is more an act of playful fucktardieness than an actual game -- consists of doing every annoying thing in your power without actually touching the other child.

Also explains a lot.

I now ask you to conjure up the vilest demons of your most cruel, childish imaginations. If the air was, indeed, free. What is the worst you could do?

Why do you want that from the players playing your game?

New players, I would also like to add, should be, and are, particularly easy to target.

Absolutely fucking not. What the hell is wrong with you? New players shouldn't be targets! Those are the building stones that might one day make this game fun and it's community interesting. Why do you want to make them targets? Is it because you are too lazy to come up with a survival game where the world is your enemy? By making unprepared players target and douchebags boss fights?

Imagine, if you will, what you could do if new players were untouchable for the first 12 hours of game time. Jeez-louise, that would not be a pretty sight.

And in return I'm asking you to imagine a world where new players would be afforded the chance to understand the basic mechanics of your game before being thrown into the wild. A world where a newbie would be at least warned of the dangers he's about to face and the tools and skills he will most likely need to survive. Imagine a world where douchebags wouldn't have unprepared newbies to kill or at least the newbies would have the basic knowledge and equipment to defend themselves. You are right, that wouldn't be a pretty sight.

Enjoy

I can't. Douchebag destroyed my stuff and stole my shit. Killed the chicks I had in a crate and left the bloody mess in there. And took the time to not only leave me a message that my shit was bad but also took the time to put into my crate a feather duster... probably to help with the cleaning up I'll have to do. Because... well... at least it was kinda funny I guess. Still makes him an asshole... just a funny asshole.

And even if I'm ready to agree that you want to make a game for douchebags because of your childhood or because you think it's a much better game if you can't decide if you want to live in the PVP world or the coop world (I know... a world where douchebags would only have to face people who WANT to face them... that is scary) your opinion on how the game HAS to work is exclusive and not inclusive. No effort are made to try to bring new players to a level where the game can be fun and rewarding. You rely solely on wikis. That's lazy and bad. I shouldn't have to close the game and google information as simple as what are those colored bars? What are beliefs and why do I care? Why can't I cut that tree with my axe since lumberjacking says it would only help me cut them faster?

But that wasn't the point, your point was: everybody should be killable and newbies in particular should be an easy target. How about two separate worlds then? The normal one and the tutorial one? One where you'd give a new player an X by Y plot of land to learn to farm, cut trees and other basic stuff without being harassed? Make this world limited, the originally claimed (given by the tutorial) land being completely safe in a limited world without too much resources and once someone has done all the basic stuff a popup goes off and says"now you are ready for the real world". Or does it not go with what you want for your game?

Preemptive answers because it's predictable

- That was a metaphor for a tutorial which, if you thought about it for a second, you could have understood by yourself.
- I couldn't care less what your opinion is of me
- If I could fuck myself, I'd never leave the house
- Yes it was funny, doesn't make it right or fun to experience in your 4th hour of game or so
- No, the fun of a game isn't to read a wiki. Yes, the job of a game is to prepare the players for the challenges ahead.
- There is a difference between hand-holding and a basic tutorial. It wouldn't kill those two assholes in the cave to tell me this game is about getting LPs from discovering new stuff, that I should be aware of my starving meter and to be ready to defend myself. And even that wouldn't really be enough to give newbies a chance against douchebags but it would at least be a fucking start.

[Ninijutsu]

can u pls leave kid??? this is obv not the game 4 u