The Ghost of Christmas Future, II

[Redkat]

if you want real life mechanics. Robbers etc was for the desperate mostly. It usually isnt all that much fun to live in the wild - starvation, cold, rough weather, etc. Bigger gangs simply couldnt live together due to lack of food. If too many people live in a certain area - game would be considerable less. However - farming could supply more people, so no reason to kill the farmers.

However soldiers would be supported by various rich people, nobles/warchiefs etc. to plunder something or to gain land. But then others nobles/warchiefs would band together and try to get rid of the problem. Both would try not to kill/destroy too many of the farming people/farms - because hence less income next year. In some situations of course - like civil war - it would probably be a bit like everbody fending for themselves. The last is pretty much how HnH works now.

[Potjeh]

There aren't much in terms of concrete mechanics yet (though villages will likely work better than previously), but the terms I tend to think in revolve around mechanics that try to correspond to "active playing" (the term being intentionally loosely defined) of a character being rewarded in various ways. I imagine that if even nub characters, through such rewards, are able to bring to the world valuable items that can bring benefits to more advanced characters (or advanced characters bringing rewards to other, differently profiled, advanced characters), that will bring more reward to keeping them around.

We have that already in form of pearls and other rare curios, but it's not really working due to the obvious issue of people botting those items. But I believe that the more crucial problem here was that trade wasn't localized, so local casual players were still more trouble than worth because distant casuals will do the job just as well without any of the downsides. In this I have high hopes for replacing the current teleportation with the upcoming road travel system.

But IMO casual hermits still won't be worth keeping as neighbours without reliable automated trade, because they'll always have very low quantities of valuable items for sale. Something as simple as allowing trade with stalls to happen at a distance (as in Salem) but requiring physical access to steal from them would work with the current shell defense paradigm. Though TBH I'd prefer to see something more along the lines of defense in depth, IMO it was a very promising concept that was never sufficiently explored in Salem.

[txtrung0]

I want to join the discussion. The alternative I think for wall is keeps. In medieval time when people have to fend off vikings, they build big castle with keep that only matter when the enemy come. Everything else is outside of the keep.
I imagine if we employ that structure, we can have every bast with one big keep with things to take and "indestructible" structures outside of it. (I mean structure that take ages to destroy but easy to "deactivate", making them unusable before they are fixed)

[Jackard]

regarding climbing cliffs, how does the topography of the new version work? is it voxels or something?

No, the map is still 2.5D with one layer where each "vertex" has height information, and cliffs "arise" due to the height difference between two tiles being over a certain threshold.

does this height difference affect attacks?

[txtrung0]

regarding climbing cliffs, how does the topography of the new version work? is it voxels or something?

No, the map is still 2.5D with one layer where each "vertex" has height information, and cliffs "arise" due to the height difference between two tiles being over a certain threshold.

does this height difference affect attacks?

Jump-evade leg swipe I want to believe

[LadyV]

if you want real life mechanics. Robbers etc was for the desperate mostly. It usually isnt all that much fun to live in the wild - starvation, cold, rough weather, etc. Bigger gangs simply couldnt live together due to lack of food. If too many people live in a certain area - game would be considerable less. However - farming could supply more people, so no reason to kill the farmers.

However soldiers would be supported by various rich people, nobles/warchiefs etc. to plunder something or to gain land. But then others nobles/warchiefs would band together and try to get rid of the problem. Both would try not to kill/destroy too many of the farming people/farms - because hence less income next year. In some situations of course - like civil war - it would probably be a bit like everbody fending for themselves. The last is pretty much how HnH works now.

Well i and others have suggested a level of government above village. If you add say kingdoms with massive zones of control and ways to expand them you create an us vs them situation where you really should foster those who live in your area to help you and or pay taxes/tithes... It creates government rather than raider mentality. Yes raids and combat will happen but it won't necessarily be on your own citizens.

[txtrung0]

I think a feudal system is better. Less complication, more sandbox.

[borka]

The alternative I think for wall is keeps. In medieval time when people have to fend off vikings, they build big castle with keep that only matter when the enemy come. Everything else is outside of the keep.

That was mainly in Britain, based on roman military traditions. You'll find so called "Wehrdoerfer" (fortified villages) or ringwalls often inmidst of reeds, swamps, moor or on lake islands. Sometimes you find them at river forks next to a ford at a trade route for controling it besides having a a safe haven for the surrounding farmers. Only few tower hills (Turmhügel / Motte) you'll find in the area the game covers.

[Robben_DuMarsch]

So far HnH has proven that it is kinda of impossible to impose such "soft" standards on people in an online game, as they do not really need to fear any consequences if they do not follow a certain kind of code.

To be fair, I think there is a case to be made for the sometimes-made argument that other players in one's area is too much of a liability and too little of a benefit to keep around. If there were more real benefits to having Farmville-players around oneself and they presented less of a liability, I think it would be more reasonable to expect at least some of the more combat-oriented people in the area to protect them.

Even if there was incentive to keep them in the area, what methodology do you have to protect them?
Currently, I see no method to protect yourself from others except air-tight insulation.

With New Brodgar, I had All of AD and a splinter cell of top tier PvPers on call to defend, with direct access via cross-roads. The defense was there, even if the incentive to defend had no particular reward.
Even though they could instantly teleport over (which, I hear, yall are trying to reduce in Hafen) it was still extremely simple for two griefers to run into the city, kill one or two farmers, and then run out.

In less than a minute they destroyed the "Farmville" players character that took weeks effort to develop.

Ultimately, it was effectively impossible to punish them for their actions, because they were vaulted.

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There should be some practical way to enter peoples places for retribution that commit murder and other acts. The cost/benefit should not weigh so heavily in favor of randomly murdering everyone you see that is unable to fight back.

[Avu]

You'll probably hate this because realism but what if you had tiered government system: hedge knight, landed knight, barony, countship, duchy, kingdom (don't actually have to be named like this or at all the structures could be enough if you want to larp democractic states). Every level has their own defensive structure: hedge knight has a camp fire, landed knight has hearthfire, barony has a fortified tower, countship has minor keep and can build minor walls, duchy has a major keep with walls and towers and the kingdom has a full grown castle with better towers and walls. As long as your biggest structure is up and running you cannot be permakilled. You can be rendered unconscious you can be robbed and your character development can be put on hold for a period of time. You declare allegiance to some structure and if you're accepted you're protected by it and at the same time it gains more hitpoints/more damage for the defensive parts. Here's the kicker if your subjects get messed with aka rendered unconscious their property stolen or vandalized then your place loses prestige which lowers defensive bonuses so there is a reason to both want neighbors and to not just add them to your system without actually having to interact with them. The closer you are to the bigger structures the bigger the bonus you get defensively (maybe even include how long it takes for the arson system to ruin your stuff). This would concentrate players would force them to interact peacefully with their neighbors would force them to protect said neighbors.

The lower tier structures make you safer than the big ones say you take 7 days of bed rest (very severe stat/skill penalties) no xp/stat gain etc if you lose campfire/hearthfire and fortified tower but you're still under the influence of a castle but you only lose 6 hours if you get knocked out if you still have your heartfire but of course it's easier to destroy the small ones.

Walls would be climbable, defensive towers would be able to "kill" attackers if the kingdom behind it was strong enough and it wouldn't matter all that much since it wouldn't have to be fair you don't lose months of work you just lose some time for char development (bigger better kingdoms being the death of you would just put you out for longer time). The bigger defensive structures would need to be very expensive but also need mostly low tier materials so your influence could help out with it. How you convince them to help out should be left to the particular kingdom imposed taxes enforced by fear of exclusion, communism, whatever the kingdom and the people in the area decide. Walls would keep out faster means of vandalism: battering rams, catapults whatever but some wall jumper should still be able to set fire to your house and it slowly burns away. Repair costs should be the reason why you would care to bring in a ram or catapult or whatever.

Stealing natural resources, harvesting not your fields etc should still be possible but it would need more time if done against a bigger/better kingdom (you declare your intention in some way then you wait until you can actually do it). Stealing already harvested resources / high value items should be the preferred action of a criminal (remember legal wall jumps) and the removal of teleportation shennigans outside roads would take care of carting away entire bases worth of resource. As for how to handle dumping on the ground of all containers maybe way longer despawn times of items coupled with some sort of gather all crap on ground interface option and maybe a trash pile structure with basically infinite inventory if you want to get rid of stuff (would maybe have arson length timers as well as dumping stuff on the ground but you wouldn't have to see the stuff).

Kingdom size should also boost bonuses since it would be easier to just build a high population fortified stacked area and ignore or drive out other neighbors otherwise.

Ranging would be possible and encouraged just wall jump the perpetrator and put him out to pasture for a while. His kingdom will take a prestige hit and everyone is happy until they come for you or your peasants then you keep going back and forth.

Would this remove permadeath practically? Yes I guess so but I don't think it's such a huge loss I mean we haven't had it since forever due to alts let's not pretend we're actually losing something that we had.