Dev Diary: Mad ramblings

Announcements about major changes in Haven & Hearth.

Re: Dev Diary: Mad ramblings

Postby stickman » Tue Jan 19, 2010 5:11 pm

KiT wrote:Considering archery, i believed real reason it shouldnt work on soldiers while working on animals is shields and armor. I am quite sure that people more commonly just block arrows with the shield instead of dodging. And with the "move to break the aim" system, it seems to me that large fights would just look silly as all the soldiers who are engaged in melee would have to run around constantly to dodge arrows. Looks silly and unrealistic, like, say, bunny jumping in CS.


I agree with this. Maybe this can be one of the benifits of a shield over say dodge? shield/armour has a % chance deflecting a arrows damage.

Also, when someone moves do they really have to start over again? What if it was something like... they move x distance from where you started aiming it reduces your chance to hit by Y. And you have a choice whether to shoot and have a high chance of missing or start over. Otherwise you will just see people jerking back and worth making sure no one can get a lock on them.
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Re: Dev Diary: Mad ramblings

Postby jorb » Tue Jan 19, 2010 7:48 pm

theTrav wrote:Sounds like there's still no deliberate thought being put towards encouraging / forcing players to hunt in groups (there may be benefits from doing so, but nothing in your post says "I want that to be the way it happens")


It is obviously not the case that you strictly speaking need a group to hunt IRL. It just helps. I think we can all agree that hunting could probably be rendered as a more immersive experience in many ways -- by the addition of things like tracking animals, driving them off cliffs maybe, trapping and shit like that -- but at the moment it's not entirely obvious how we would go about some of the cooler things, and nor is it a priority. Hunting in groups, sure, that's cool, but not as a strictly enforced behavior. I like playing the game more or less single player, and I think that should be possible. The important thing here is that -- per my suggested design -- we can both have the cake and eat it. We can have meaningful and good PvE, leading into PvP, while still retaining elements of realistic hunting. That is pretty cool, imho.

Another thing that bothers me is that IRL furs are expensive things, and one of the things I dislike about the current implementation is that fur is bitch ass cheap, not to say worthless. More good fur produce is definitely needed, but that needs to come in tandem with some changes to reduce availability of -- at least the better types of -- fur.

At first glance hearing you talk about just upping the damage from archery and letting a noob with only 50 skill kill bears sounds pretty damned awful to me for several reasons
1 - 50 skill isn't noob, it's a reasonable time investment for a new player (I don't need to hear from you old timers who can grind up 500k in a day, how long did it take you your first time)
2 - Having stats that affect ability to hunt just seems like it's going to be a grinding engine, especially as a barrier for entry (make 100 kuska's before you ride the bear hunt)
3 - If you can solo hunt then why would you bother hunting in a group?


It's definitely not the case that we're just upping damage. See loftar's more detailed post on the subject.

1) Good. Bears should be an investment of time and effort spent. My point was that 50 is not nearly enough to play with the big boys as the situation in game is right now.
2) I'm getting the vibe that you don't like character stats at all, and I'll address that further down.
3) Yes, why would you? You're the social type and like going hunting with a friend, maybe? Grouping will allow you to take on creatures that otherwise would be beyond your range, if nothing else. Like I said above: hunting can become more immersive, but that's not really the point here.

The talk about climbing the ladder of beasties is also something that I find pretty distasteful and gamey. Why do you need a linear progression of animal opponents? Why do you need to divide content into low level content and high level content?


If we have character skills that increase over time spent playing we obviously need to also have challenges to match the entire spectra of possible character levels. We might, perhaps not, need a linear progression of creatures, but we definitely need one for challenges in a more general sense. The fun of "Oooh, now I can take on boars, oooh now I can take on bears", that comes from a serious effort invested in a character is fun. Challenge and Reward, basic Csikszentmihalyi, right? You seem to be of the mind that we shouldn't have character stats, and that I simply don't agree with. Some bromides are bromides because they, fundamentally, represent fairly sound mechanics. Also, character stats are essential to the present quality system.

Bleeding and tracking of animals sounds good, it would be nice if you could have the animals slowed by their wounds as well.


You can do a lot with hunting.


As with everyone else it seems I dislike the ivy idea... Maybe you should only be able to attack them with your wind blades, and perhaps you could collect sun beams to forge into a shield of light which protects you from the living plants... (sarcasm alert)


No need to be snide. We're building one of the least magic-tripping games out there. But considering that the ivy was mentioned as an aside to a major policy statement, I suppose I should be satisfied that people take issue with the ivy. ;)

I like the idea of crafting and civilization being worth more, I dislike the idea of troll hunting being only high level content and yielding massive LP bonus. Primarily because it means you're still focusing on LP as the reward mechanic and not thinking about real gameplay/environment impacting changes, which are harder to implement but far more fun.


I agree that the learning rate part is the weakest part of the schemata, but I want players to feel that they have clear incentives to bring civilization to new lands, and as it stands I haven't been able to think of a better motivator. It is worth noting, though, that even though I use the term LP here, we still have every intention of getting rid of LP. The new system will however, most likely, be able to support a learning rate, as per the present system, per some mechanic, and that's really the point here.

Jackard wrote:poison ivy would be more interesting as walkable plant clusters that you either avoid or take a debuff

more undergrowth in general for forests would be cool - you could do the same sort of debuff with brambles, or have thickets forming weak natural walls that you can hack apart


Yes. There is legitimate concern about draw rates and shit, but yes.


prey should be weaker than predators but aside from that animals should be made different by behavior and weaknesses not simple stat boosts. like how you would hunt boar/bear with spears or chase them down with dogs


Oh, yes. Obviously. (?) -- But... I mean... a bear is still a bear, right? As in stronger?

also just setting all predators to level 10 sounds dubious - shunting people into archery, grinding up melee, trivial/impossible combat


I think it could be a good base line to start experimenting from, at least.
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Re: Dev Diary: Mad ramblings

Postby theTrav » Tue Jan 19, 2010 8:53 pm

jorb wrote:
theTrav wrote:Sounds like there's still no deliberate thought being put towards encouraging / forcing players to hunt in groups

Hunting in groups, sure, that's cool, but not as a strictly enforced behavior. I like playing the game more or less single player, and I think that should be possible.

Fair enough. As you say, if you take out group hunting as a priority the system you're describing should be a vast improvement on the current one

jorb wrote:Another thing that bothers me is that IRL furs are expensive things

Where they always cheap? Or are they just cheap in contrast to manufactured goods while there are animal rights activists going about disrupting the market? I don't know either way that's just something that occurred to me.


jorb wrote:It's definitely not the case that we're just upping damage. See loftar's more detailed post on the subject.

I did read that and thought it sounded pretty good, I originally intended to comment on that but must have forgotten somehow...

jorb wrote:
The talk about climbing the ladder of beasties is also something that I find pretty distasteful and gamey. Why do you need a linear progression of animal opponents? Why do you need to divide content into low level content and high level content?


If we have character skills that increase over time spent playing we obviously need to also have challenges to match the entire spectra of possible character levels. We might, perhaps not, need a linear progression of creatures, but we definitely need one for challenges in a more general sense.
...snip...
You seem to be of the mind that we shouldn't have character stats, and that I simply don't agree with.

I agree that character stats work well with respect to the quality system, however the quality system doesn't block off content to players who have not made 10,000 kuskas.
I guess I'm not a big fan of character stats, but at the same time I can see how they have a place. I just don't think their place is: "you must be this tall to ride the hunting game" which is what it boils down to if you're going down the linear progression path.
Mostly I don't like linear progression because it turns into fighting the exact same mechanic with a different skin 100 times, and once people get to the top of that ladder, there's no-where else for them to go and no appeal in any rung other than the one they're currently on, so they get bored and quit.
I suppose they could go and do crafting/mining/non hunting parts of the game, but I would have thought you'd want to make the life of a hunter a meaningful way to play the game in and of itself.

jorb wrote:No need to be snide. We're building one of the least magic-tripping games out there.

Heh, sorry, you are indeed making a game with very low magic levels, and I appreciate that. I just really, really hated the wind update :P maybe I'm still a little but-hurt about it.

jorb wrote:
I dislike the idea of troll hunting being only high level content and yielding massive LP bonus. Primarily because it means you're still focusing on LP as the reward mechanic and not thinking about real gameplay/environment impacting changes, which are harder to implement but far more fun.


I agree that the learning rate part is the weakest part of the schemata, but I want players to feel that they have clear incentives to bring civilization to new lands, and as it stands I haven't been able to think of a better motivator. It is worth noting, though, that even though I use the term LP here, we still have every intention of getting rid of LP. The new system will however, most likely, be able to support a learning rate, as per the present system, per some mechanic, and that's really the point here.

Does it need to be learning rate / advancement though? Why can't it be resources or a temporary ability bonus, or some sort of achievement system?
Tying more and more things into a learning rate just seems to be going down the path of linear progression, push the button, get a cookie, go on to the next challenge, wheras I'm far more in favour of making the mechanics interesting in and of themselves.
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Re: Dev Diary: Mad ramblings

Postby Potjeh » Tue Jan 19, 2010 9:04 pm

You know what would be cool? Persistent animal population, with a complete ecology sim (feeding, reproduction, etc). Then we could do a lot of cool stuff, like exterminating rabbits just because we hate foxes and want them to starve. Yes, it would be hard on the server, but it might be manageable with a much smaller number of animals (just a dozen bears in one pristine supergrid, to give you a rough idea). We have waaay too many animals as it is. It's ridiculous that you can just decide "oh, I want to kill some bears", go out into the woods and come back with ten bears worth of meat in like one hour. Hunting big game should involve days of tracking the animal and familiarizing yourself with it's behaviour so you can set up an ambush at the right place and at the right time. A kill should give much greater rewards, naturally, to compensate for it's rarity.
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Re: Dev Diary: Mad ramblings

Postby Alamarian » Tue Jan 19, 2010 9:23 pm

jorb wrote:We're building one of the least magic-tripping games out there.


I think many people like that aspect of the game, which might be why the poison ivy plant bit sticks out to them. It seems more Ragnarok Online than H&H, at least to me. H&H reminds me of Darklands, in the sense that Darklands featured fantastic elements based on the superstitions and beliefs of Germans in the Middle Ages. Praying to the ancestors, wearing bear cloaks to gain strength, etc seem to be in line with the things Scandinavian types did or would have believed. I find that to be an appealing part of the game and I'd like it to remain closer to superstition than magic where possible.
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Re: Dev Diary: Mad ramblings

Postby Chakravanti » Tue Jan 19, 2010 10:20 pm

You know it's 'fun' to 'spar' with your friends. Typically this is how people 'train' for PvP combat. I can understand that hunting might give some PvP experience but it's not really that relevant. It's a testament to prowess certainly but making people grind PvE before PvPing is every other MMO please do not do this.

Makes more sense that people would gain skill hacking each other to pieces on their home turf to gain PvP experience. This would make training much more interactive and support comunities. PvE shoudl still convey PvP skills but not as significantly.
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Re: Dev Diary: Mad ramblings

Postby sonerohi » Tue Jan 19, 2010 10:48 pm

We have sparring already, it is just a matter of whether or not J&L deem it an experience giving activity, or to keep it a simulation state like it is now.
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Re: Dev Diary: Mad ramblings

Postby Chakravanti » Tue Jan 19, 2010 10:57 pm

I makes fucktons more sense to give PvP experience for PvP activities than PvE.
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Re: Dev Diary: Mad ramblings

Postby Potjeh » Tue Jan 19, 2010 11:06 pm

It doesn't make much sense to make separate combat systems for PvP and PvE, though. But if I had things my way the discussion would be moot, because I think that combat strength should be about resources, not time.
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Re: Dev Diary: Mad ramblings

Postby Jackard » Wed Jan 20, 2010 12:02 am

jorb wrote:
prey should be weaker than predators but aside from that animals should be made different by behavior and weaknesses not simple stat boosts. like how you would hunt boar/bear with spears or chase them down with dogs. also just setting all predators to level 10 sounds dubious - shunting people into archery, grinding up melee, trivial/impossible combat

Oh, yes. Obviously. (?) -- But... I mean... a bear is still a bear, right? As in stronger?

I think 10 could be a good base line to start experimenting from, at least.

a bear should be roughly equal a wolf pack... and itd be nice if there was some way to keep them challenging no matter your stats

also, in terms of danger/strength enemies should probably be tiered more like

    prey < predators < monsters
with the last being maneaters
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