More depth to spark/maintain interest

[Sarge]

I know I need to word this carefully as I've seen too many others flamed for "stupid" ideas, so I'll start by saying that all this is meant to be constructive... and yes, it's full of holes, but I hope that it might spark a debate and fill those.

I was asking myself why it was that for the last couple of days i was all of a sudden not so keen to log in and spend a lot of time on H&H anymore and I came up with a "not so brief" list, but I think a pretty brief principle:

I get bored easily. There ar many people who isn't bothered much by repitition and predictability and some even thrive on it, but it doesn't work well for me for too long. I believe the game already caters for those that can handle or even enjoy this, so what if we can cover the rest, to a degree at least... might that not give the game a more complete feel and cater for a much larger audience?

So I jotted down a couple of things that would keep me more interested:

Attributes
Imho, the attributes greatly lack depth. Those that are actually usefull, are usefull for only a few things and it doesn't seem quite balanced. I would like to see attributes contribute to many more things so that it makes you think more about where to spend FEP (more on this below). A couple of examples,

- if strength adds to melee damage, why does dexterity not add to ranged weapon damage
- what if you could climb a "hill", but only if your dexterity and agility was high enough
- movement speed, agility, dexterity, strength & constitution
- Constitution might reduce rate of stamina drain when swimming, but what increases your max stamina?
- Chakravanti mentioned a great application in the thief vs ranger proposal for checks and I'm sure many others have mentioned great ones elsewhere too.

Special Areas/Events (Minigames)
- Areas, such as some special cave areas, marshlands, moutain ranges (snow?) etc. that are very tough to get through, but at the end or within lies special rewards (alchemical items, special creatures that drop special furs, claws, teeth etc, gems)
- Events (Minigames) such as unarmed fighting contests, archery, fishing, beer drinking, with entry fees and prizes per class (however that may be determined)

This one for last, that I really like a lot and hop you do too.

Communities & Character Specialisation
I'm not part of a community and I'm not particularly interested either, tbh. Why? Because there are no benefits of true value for me in a community (I said that as carefully as I could :p), other than that it offers me protection from the malicious, they have some better equipment than I do and there is simply too much work for one person in a settlement.

I do believe however, that this game could be great if there were true reasons why you would need to belong to a community and why a community would need you, and I think that can be achieved through a form of specialisation. This seemed to string all the aforementioned together for me.

I think specialisation should be incentivised somehow, almost forced. A rough idea:

Specialists examples:
Crafters, miners, seamsters (sewing), farmers, cooks, hunters, warriors, blacksmiths, brewers, inn keepers, builders, druids/alchemists, jewelers, butchers, merchants, herdsmen (livestock domestication) etc.

I believe these should reside under the list of skills to be attaned with LP (the list where pottery, cheesemaking etc. can be found). These should lie within the skill tree in such a manner that it is unlockable also by only unlocking another skill first, and quite a few skills within a specialisation line should also require a certain amount of attribute points.

Hypethetical example: Blacksmith = noob/base skills (tbd), then basic mining, then metallurgy, then basic forging, then basic smithing, (now only the really specialised skills) then armor crafting and or weapon crafting, then precious metal working. For the true specialist skills within the specialist field, eg. precious metal working, you should also have attribute/skill minimums, like minimum 50 smithing, 25 strength and 50 dexterity - thus creating value and sparking/keeping interest.

Noob/base skills above refers to: Noobs should prolly not be able to specialise immediately as the LP spent to specialise should be pretty expensive (so it "forces" specialisation and being a jack-of-all-trades is far less appealing). A nice set of base skills to be acquired first, before any specialisation is unlocked will buy the noob enough time to get to know the game and hopefully get to know a community they may wish to settle in and can then decide what he wants to be, by either assessing what the community needs him to be, or what he really wants to be.

Once you pick a specialisation you should maybe be titled as such and other specialisation fields are then locked out to you. You may then specialise in 2 more fields, but the 2nd will cost 2x the LP when the 1st is selected and the 3rd will cost 4x the LP. If you wish to undo your 1st to change it to something else, maybe you should be able to, but at a penalty (once for free for noobs?)

That should cover why the player would then become a specialist... now why the community would need specialists:

Certain items etc. should only be usable, wearable, craftable etc by a specialist. An anvil only by a blacksmith as example, or these can be used by all, if you have some base skills, but a blacksmith would get a distinct bonus if he is the one to use the anvil (quality of final product). If you have enough of these type requirements, a well functioning community will now need to have at least one, depending on workload, of each specialist.

This now creates a demand for specialist and a great blacksmith might decide to freelance, getting paid in whatever, as trade works now, for his services. This results in that no player is forced to belong to a community should he not wish to and might make that aspect very appealing for really good specialists.

Now if you create a lot of specialist types with deeper skill trees and add attribute and skill level requirements to a lot of those, then you have added a lot of depth and value to developing attributes and spending FEP wisely (and makes a good cook(s) a very important member of the community).

Now, referring back to the special areas mentioned earlier, fleshing that out: What if a certain snowy mountain pass had some pretty fierce snow leopards, you would need some hunters. To not ruin the rare snow leopard skin, you will need a herdsman or butcher to skin the leopard. But it also contains a very rare plant root that can only be seen by someone with high exploration + perception + intelligence, so you would need an alchemist/druid to accompany the party on this journy etc etc. And so a party of specialists will need to carefully plan and execute such a "mission" with teamwork.

And hopefully with all of this, you will have added a lot more variation to the game to keep those that are easily bored by repitition, also interested.

Apologies for the long read, I had a lot to say

[CG62]

tl;dr, but I get the gist of it.

Your bored with H&H. I haven't "logged in" since the last update. I generally only log in after updates to try them out, but unfortunately gameplay gets pretty stale once you've got an established village...

[Sarge]

Well, I started working on a specialists skill tree on Visio when I realised that:

1. It would be wiser to scrap it out on paper first
2. People might not like the idea and I'd be wasting my time
3. I might be stepping on dev's toes

so, I'll put it on hold unless there is a demand and an OK for it.

[Axehilt]

The game definitely needs some form of specialization. However I don't think it should be at the end of a very long progression. Players themselves should be valuable to the community, not just their LP count.

If it wasn't an alpha (and therefore free) I would suggest that players could specify one char as their "main" which would get a Hard Work ability on a extremely long cooldown (~4 RL days), which would be needed to run certain buildings like Post Offices or Waterwheels that provide benefits not just to the person running them but to an entire village. But you would end up needing multiple players in the village to keep multiple building types running and fully functional.

It would work in a game where accounts cost money, but in a game where you could just make alts to contribute Hard Work the intent would be ruined.

But I think there's room for similar twists on the idea, where players themselves carry equal or greater value than the LPs they've accumulated.

[Raephire]

I'm not sure it's really such a good idea, but how about reducing the cost of black skills and making unlocking them require attributes?

[Laremere]

The skill system will rely on completing quests once quests are implemented. Black skill quests simply need to be really hard requiring well played characters. (the murder path more so than the theft path)

[sabinati]

no need for a community? sure, i guess one can get by as a hermit. but you're at a disadvantage by yourself. the hermit lifestyle forces generalization. you're going to have to do everything yourself. in a village, at least in my village, each member has one or two main things that they do. only 2 of us do any farming, because only 2 of us have invested the LP into farming to get high quality crops. I don't mine, because I'm full nature. and i sure as hell don't do any metalwork, becuase i have 1 smithing skill. the whole point of the new incrementing skills was for specialization. it's better to spend a bunch of points in one thing than to be mediocre at all things.