Excellent Job Goons

[Delamore]

Problem is that village management sucks monkey balls. You can't run such a city without it getting griefed out of existence by infiltrators.

This here is why the village interface has to be improved, I'm lucky as I can properly screen players to see if they're been on SA for X period of time but Potjeh has no luck that way.

[niltrias]

Can I just say for the record, I think it's crazy that you only keep 25% of your current LP. IMO it should set all of your skill values to 0 and give 25% of your total LP. Then you can just re-allocate the skill values and you still get back a portion of your investment in actual skills (Pottery, Plant Lore, etc) At least consider it.
So I said, but people were too blinded with outrage to actually consider the suggestion. Fools that will never rise above their own miserable and petty existence.
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2161

This. Totally this. Great idea there, Jackard.
Obviously inspired by this:
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1722

[MadAlice]

Further, and this is the important part, players like the goons will always exist; we cannot do anything about their existence, and, as concluded, we neither can nor want to police their actions. If their actions have to be dealt with somehow (which may well be true, if they cause the game to be boring), then we must, therefore, devise systematic prevention of their actions, viz., develop the mechanics of the game itself to discourage such action. Doing that is half of the point of the open alpha.

EDIT:

For the record, I really do mean what I wrote above that I do not condemn the goons. Theirs is one mode of playing, for the attainment of their specific goals, and half the point of Haven is to not let the game pass value judgements on its players. It wouldn't be Haven if there weren't conflicts of interest between the players -- the point of all the above is that it is our aim not to eliminate such conflicts, but rather to make them interesting elements of gameplay (for both sides, that is -- for the goons as well), and that there are many things lacking right now to make them truly interesting and fun rather than obnoxious, one-sided and frustrating. To re-emphasize: though it obviously frustrates people, Jorb and I must let these things happen so that we can study them and conclude how to improve on them.

Griefing needs to be taken care of programatically, and with game-balance and not through human interaction, as that just doesn't work.
Conflict in a game is essential, but without balance it's not conflict, it's just griefing. For a lot of us the game is about advancement and building, and a lot of hard work. Knowing that there's an unstoppable force in the game that can destroy every bit of your progress is a game-killer. It would be much different if there were systems in place to allow people any chance at all of defending what they'd built.

It seems to me that what's being said is, "Until we get the game designed properly to prevent griefing, we'll leave things as they are in favor of the griefers." I think in the interests of ongoing development and any real testing happening, it would be better to do the reverse - put in even a ham-fisted change to shut down griefing until the game design can handle it properly. You'd lose a lot of the conflict temporarily, which ultimately would have to be reinstated in a better way, but the current approach loses all the other aspects of the game in favor of the conflict.

You won't get them both until the game is much further along, and it's your choice in which one to support until then. In any case, you should acknowledge that is IS your choice and stand up for it.

[ryft]

For a lot of us the game is about advancement and building, and a lot of hard work. Knowing that there's an unstoppable force in the game that can destroy every bit of your progress is a game-killer. It would be much different if there were systems in place to allow people any chance at all of defending what they'd built.

THIS is exactly what I have been trying to say. Ultimately, you have to be one of the powerful ones or waste your time bribing them if you want to make it anywhere. Otherwise, you are going to be spending your time working just to have everything you have created ruined. Oh and I hate that "it's just a game" cliche. No.. it's a hobby. It's the same as some ass going up to a painter and stomping on a painting he spent months perfecting. It's someone ruining the experience of something you love to do and wish you could just enjoy doing.

[CG62]

To anyone saying the only way to deal with this is by "improving" the game, I scoff at ye.

yes, the combat and LP systems need a revamp, amongst other things. But if we start releasing anti-griefing updates that put arbitrary limitations on player actions, we're just gonna become another RuneScape.



And NO ONE wants to be a RuneScape.

[MadAlice]

Is that in response to my comment? If so, that wasn't really what I said.

Runescape has a lot of problems, the biggest of which seems to be that everyone in there is 8 years old.


There's got to be some anti-griefing built into the game if you don't want to go around manually solving player disputes according to some book of written rules. Nobody likes griefing except the griefers.


But griefing isn't conflict, or balanced combat, or warfare systems, or any of that stuff, which the devs said they want to implement, and which all make for a pretty good game.

The problem is what to do in the interim. You can either allow rampant griefing, and say , well it'll be different when the systems are in. Or you can shut off the functions that allow griefing and say, we'll open those back up when we have the systems in to make it balanced. At this stage you're not trying to balance the game or put in anti-griefing systems, you're just deciding what the game is going to look like while you finish getting all the rest in. Hell, you could accomplish it by making palisades and brick walls un-destroyable. No more large-scale griefing.

My points were that 1) I favor the second approach because it makes a more stable environment for alpha testing a game in progress. and 2) the devs should make a conscious choice about this and take responsibility for it. (This after reading loftar say in a somewhat detached manner that he spectates at these events and feels quite bad watching months of progress being destroyed..but oh, well, it's the fault of the game systems.) It's not the game systems..it's the conscious choice to allow this thing to happen, rather than allowing the other thing to happen.

[Potjeh]

Yes, and then griefers build undestroyable walls around people to grief them. Pretty much every conceivable anti-griefing measure can be used for griefing. It's impossible to eliminate griefing from H&H right now without scrapping 3/4 of the game.

[sikgamer]

One way would be to completely remove PvP and thief skills untils the devs come up with a way to keep it balanced, which I can assure you won't happen, because people will get pissed off.

[theTrav]

I'm pretty sure what the dev's are saying, is that having an evil faction like the goons in game is INTENTIONAL.

Not that they specifically WANT the evil, but they fully understand that is what emerges when you give people such an unconstrained game to play in.

There are options other than slavery to deal with them... Most of these options have even been mentioned allready.

1 - Band together in significant numbers. A village of 50 is going to have a far easier time than a village of 10, many settlements out there I've seen with maybe 4 or 5 people.

2 - Appeal to your regional force of good, in this case, xanadu

3 - Form your OWN regional force of good.


The small farm stead life is simulated in this game, and part of that life is being a little exposed to bandit lords. Do some research and find out how people from that era handled it in real life, see if you can map any of those tactics accross.

[CG62]

I'm pretty sure what the dev's are saying, is that having an evil faction like the goons in game is INTENTIONAL.

Not that they specifically WANT the evil, but they fully understand that is what emerges when you give people such an unconstrained game to play in.

There are options other than slavery to deal with them... Most of these options have even been mentioned allready.

1 - Band together in significant numbers. A village of 50 is going to have a far easier time than a village of 10, many settlements out there I've seen with maybe 4 or 5 people.

2 - Appeal to your regional force of good, in this case, xanadu

3 - Form your OWN regional force of good.


The small farm stead life is simulated in this game, and part of that life is being a little exposed to bandit lords. Do some research and find out how people from that era handled it in real life, see if you can map any of those tactics accross.

^This.

A war is pretty much inevitable at this point.