A game for newbies?

[CG62]

H&H is alot more fun to play when you have to struggle to survive. I've got an established settlement, some decent friends to camp with, and a good patch of forest to log and try to keep everyone out of. It's gotten to be a bit of a bore now that I've got all the skills I wanted (with the exception or ranging).

It was so much more fun going out to prospect for a good spot to Put up, frantically working to get the little fence up to keep out the animals, and logging to build my cabin. I actually had something to do. Now I just wait on my saplings to grow so I can replenish the forest, and wait on my leather to tan so I might be able to start a leather trade.


So yeah, enjoy the hardship. It's alot better than having it unbearably easy. I'm actually considering going off and starting a new settlement far into the wild, just so I can have something to do during the day.

[g1real]

Or maybe all new characters could be brought up to 1,000,000 LP. Of course, existing players would also get a similar upping to that value.

It'd let everyone get to the actual "gameplay" part.

[Jackard]

man this would be pretty dull if you started with a million LP

[Ai_Shizuka]

I really like how the "STFU noob, it's fine" guys:
- started with an already strong pg on this map
- are already part of estabilished communities.

I've experimented both sides of this issue and now I'm over the painfully irritating initial stages. The early game is BAD, period. It's a fact.

"It's taken me no longer than 30 minutes to find a cow" This is great example of bs elitist attitude. Are you kidding me? We are not talking about the Ubergodly Legendary Pimp Dragon of Sorrow. We are talking about fucking cows. BASIC food to raise con, wich is necessary to escape the central slums. Butter.
What exactly am I supposed to trade for it?

It's not my game, obviously, and J&L can do whatever they please with it. It's their creation. But spending a massive amount of time on a game, wich will be played by a little bunch of uber pgs? I don't know. Sounds a little bit discouraging.

If they want to keep it this way, at least put a message at the beginning: "Join a community or go begging, because you won't be able to accomplish anything by yourself for a LONG time".

[Yolan]

"It's taken me no longer than 30 minutes to find a cow" This is great example of bs elitist attitude. Are you kidding me? We are not talking about the Ubergodly Legendary Pimp Dragon of Sorrow. We are talking about fucking cows. BASIC food to raise con, wich is necessary to escape the central slums. Butter.
What exactly am I supposed to trade for it?

I am sympathetic, but it's worth pointing out though that we now have such a cow shortage because before we had such a tree shortage. A lot of people lobbied for forests as the 'default' terrain, and so we got it.

I agree that what was already a general problem in this game's structure has been exacerbated by the new map. But really, its not just the new map, so much as that its a map implemented without all the balancing features it requires such as bridges, boats and domestication. In the next few months we should get these things coming in that will help even out the experience.

It can be a pretty cruel heartless experience. Perhaps we should visualize H&H as a giant behemoth, slowly lumbering towards 'completion' by marching forward over the discarded corpses of our half-realised dreams and hopes. Anybody care to make a pictorial representation?

[Blaze]

The "Ubers" don't need a billion reminders of how horrible the beginning grind is. We've BEEN through it already. We got through it, and so can anyone else if they have the perseverance. Any idea that makes me have to go through that again gets an instant "FUCK NO" from me.

Do you have any idea how easy it is now compared to before?
Imagine:

Unstable server, expect rollbacks and crashes at least 6-8 times a day.
-There was also no save character button, the only way to save was to logout/login or gain a stat/skill.

No scent system, anyone with trespassing can go right on your claim, steal everything, dump all your items, and cut down your tree(s).
- Theft only allowed stealing items from another player's unconscious body/corpse.
- Did I mention trespassing cost 1,000 and yeomanry costs 4,000 back then?
- What does the thief risk? A massive loss of 6 HHP.

No trees around the RoB, they were all cut down by people. Trees everywhere else were rare.
-The only resource around the RoB was water and clay, boulders got turned into runestones by people grinding LP.

No ability to destroy items, people could grief you by building a drying rack in front of your cabin entrance with ONE branch.
-Not to mention the thousands of baskets cluttering the landscape everywhere.

No Civ system, all animal levels were based only on the distance from the RoB.
-Did I mention we COULDN'T SEE creature levels?

No Rage skill required to attack other players.

NO WALLS, so no way to keep other people or animals out. You had to improvise with racks/kilns and the devs didn't implement walls until AFTER item destruction was implemented.

[kobnach]

I
"It's taken me no longer than 30 minutes to find a cow" This is great example of bs elitist attitude. Are you kidding me? We are not talking about the Ubergodly Legendary Pimp Dragon of Sorrow. We are talking about fucking cows. BASIC food to raise con, wich is necessary to escape the central slums. Butter.
What exactly am I supposed to trade for it?

The basic food to raise con is bread. Made from wheat. Using water, and requiring tools made from clay, branches, and wood.

And as for cows, well, you do know it's possible to make your own cow-friendly habitat, right there near the RoB, if you care to work at it. Cows spawn on unclaimed grasslands. You cannot _claim_ it, except by using a village idol, which requires things you cannot get. But if a few of you were to take up farming, then use the lesser quality seed for making grassland, you'd have a common area where cows respawned regularly.

Idea - you Brodgar newbie helper types might want to do that. I might even help, when i have junk seed. (I just moved, so I'm short on seed again.)

[Rift]

Unstable server, expect rollbacks and crashes at least 6-8 times a day.
-There was also no save character button, the only way to save was to logout/login or gain a stat/skill.

No scent system, anyone with trespassing can go right on your claim, steal everything, dump all your items, and cut down your tree(s).
- Theft only allowed stealing items from another player's unconscious body/corpse.
- Did I mention trespassing cost 1,000 and yeomanry costs 4,000 back then?
- What does the thief risk? A massive loss of 6 HHP.

No trees around the RoB, they were all cut down by people. Trees everywhere else were rare.
-The only resource around the RoB was water and clay, boulders got turned into runestones by people grinding LP.

No ability to destroy items, people could grief you by building a drying rack in front of your cabin entrance with ONE branch.
-Not to mention the thousands of baskets cluttering the landscape everywhere.

No Civ system, all animal levels were based only on the distance from the RoB.
-Did I mention we COULDN'T SEE creature levels?

No Rage skill required to attack other players.

NO WALLS, so no way to keep other people or animals out. You had to improvise with racks/kilns and the devs didn't implement walls until AFTER item destruction was implemented.
Last edited by Blaze on Tue Sep 15, 2009 2:52 pm,

ee.. i shivered a bit just remembering some of those things.
Yea. compared to the insane freeforall it was before, its practically newb-friendly.

[kobnach]

- Stats are related to the animal problem. Str and Con are the most important stats for a newbie, I think. Easy way to get str FEP = boars. To kill boars the newbie has to train his melee/unarmed on increasingly rare foxes. Same thing for cows and Con. Except everything is like 10x rarer on this map.

Then, at some point, the whole system disproves itself. As the player goes through the mandatory hunting process (because hunting is the only feasible choice to get large amounts of LPs), everything becomes easier and easier. One has simply to go out hunting for a while to get insanely high amounts of LPs.

I have two characters. One is nature specialized, farms, and cooks. She generally has LP coming out of her ears. Her idea of "hunting" is to kill deer that wander right up to her ovens and get in the way. They are level I, of course, which is good, because her combat skills suck. The other is industry specialized, and spends a large portion of his time hunting. He's not so uber as to be taking down level X bears - and his LP gain is slow and tedious. Blessedly with crafting higher quality items giving more LP, he can finally get decent LP in tasks related to his profession - but hunting just hasn't been a good LP source for him. Sure, he gets several 100 at a pop - but then he's off hunting for more animals, for ages, while the farmer accumulates LP at a slow and steady rate. Add to this that the animals run, leaving him needing tea - which some nature character provides for him, gaining decent LP in the process. On the old map, he took to getting cured leaves from nature friends, and making his own tea, as a somewhat more reliable LP source.

Yes, one can get a lot of LP from hunting and leaving the meat, if one's in the rare segment that has little competition for animals - but in the mid ranges, I'd say it looks better than it really is. Once one can kill bears relatively easily, at a difficulty level where they are plentiful, it may be a different story. But that's my experience in the mid ranges.

[sabinati]

I
"It's taken me no longer than 30 minutes to find a cow" This is great example of bs elitist attitude. Are you kidding me? We are not talking about the Ubergodly Legendary Pimp Dragon of Sorrow. We are talking about fucking cows. BASIC food to raise con, wich is necessary to escape the central slums. Butter.
What exactly am I supposed to trade for it?

The basic food to raise con is bread. Made from wheat. Using water, and requiring tools made from clay, branches, and wood.