Is Haven Sustainable?

[Robben_DuMarsch]

The obvious answer is yes, of course Haven is sustainable. Gameplay can continue forever, and it is up to the players to provide meaning and "fun", for themselves and for others.

But lets evaluate some serious facts:

1. After the first few months, every serious faction has every resource, and the only they left for them to do is mass pearls, gold, and constantly repeat the same actions to raise quality ad infinitum. This isn't nearly as much "fun" as the starting out.

2. A core component to Haven is the concept of loss and interaction between players. Game play mechanics as they are make interacting with other people less efficient and more dangerous than keeping things in a "closed circuit." Once people get resources they lock them down, and only interact with other people with alts unless they are involved in some mostly meaningless exercise of combat designed just to "keel your enemies" without serious repercussion for either side (with the sole exception of the rare siege that actually does real damage.) Personal interaction *is* important to the META game of Haven. But that all happens on Skype, and is involved primarily with dealing with your allies and gaining intel about your enemies. You never need to (nor should you to be most effective) use your character to interact with others in the actual game.

3. Player retention is poor! Moving on from gameplay facts, the majority of people that end up playing Haven don't keep playing long term. Many of the long term players also only play in spurts, because they have been everywhere and seen most everything, and there is little else for them to do. Is there something we can do to make the game more fun in the long term?

I don't think this discussion is pointless. If we are going to have this discussion, it might as well be now, when the developers are working on Hafen and what we, the community, suggest may ultimately give them a few ideas as to how to remedy some of these problems.

[Robben_DuMarsch]

For my two cents, I feel like one of the ways in which maintaining "quality" can be a more fun and less repetitive task would be to integrate it into exploration and trade. How do you do this?

Quality of resources should change dynamically - Nodes should move, and regularly. The length of time between node movement isn't as important as the fact that they are no longer static. Finding new clay, soil, water, should be a regular thing. Once they are depleted once (it could even operate as nodes currently deplete), they should be gone forever, until they respawn somewhere new.

Further, rewrite the way that you increase the quality of goods to be tied to raw input of these now rare resources. This should make trade more important.

Trade should be changed, by removing the idol hop system we currently have. Introduce another form of fast travel, that is tied to (non-bot-able) character development. Make people meet in person to exchange goods.

Finally, fundamentally change the way in which combat occurs. Risk should be constant in Haven. If you do something, people should be able to *get at you* if they can find you. I don't think brick walls are in keeping with what Haven really is and should be.

[Kaios]

1. After the first few months, every serious faction has every resource, and the only they left for them to do is mass pearls, gold, and constantly repeat the same actions to raise quality ad infinitum. This isn't nearly as much "fun" as the starting out.

This is my opinion as well but also what I hear all the time from many players. Early to mid game seems to be where players enjoy themselves the most. I know why I enjoy it so much but I'm not exactly sure of their reasoning as to why this is the case. Like you said though there is a serious lack of player interaction, especially later on and perhaps that's why the early game is so much more fun. Unless you're a hermit you're pretty much interacting with the people you're working with on a regular basis and chances are you'll have some run-ins with others as well.

2. A core component to Haven is the concept of loss and interaction between players. Game play mechanics as they are make interacting with other people less efficient and more dangerous than keeping things in a "closed circuit." Once people get resources they lock them down, and only interact with other people with alts unless they are involved in some mostly meaningless exercise of combat designed just to "keel your enemies" without serious repercussion for either side (with the sole exception of the rare siege that actually does real damage.) Personal interaction *is* important to the META game of Haven. But that all happens on Skype, and is involved primarily with dealing with your allies and gaining intel about your enemies. You never need to (nor should you to be most effective) use your character to interact with others in the actual game.

Building your walls, idol, searching for resources, many of these early game activities are all about player interaction and are certainly way more enjoyable with it. Even if you're a hermit, there's a high probability you'll run in to at least one person during this point in the game and the experience will most likely be a positive one considering there's quite a lack of murderers compared to later on.

The noob wars that also sometimes take place can be incredibly fun as well which is a good example of a time when players might experience a loss but have fun anyways regardless. Unlike when one is simply stomped by some top-tier players because they're bored.

3. Player retention is poor! Moving on from gameplay facts, the majority of people that end up playing Haven don't keep playing long term. Many of the long term players also only play in spurts, because they have been everywhere and seen most everything, and there is little else for them to do. Is there something we can do to make the game more fun in the long term?

I'm definitely one of the people who play in spurts. I enjoy this game a lot, especially the early game but like you've already stated later on things just start to get rather mundane and it just seems like you're repeating the same routines every day. As an example, this routine is what I remember doing quite often and is likely a popular one as well: Log in > Farm the quality shit > Hunt for curiosities/Maybe some animal hunting > Eat food > Log out.

[sabinati]

it actually isn't because there is a finite amount of metal

[Robben_DuMarsch]

it actually isn't because there is a finite amount of metal

This is entirely true, but perhaps not in the spirit of the point I was trying to make

[MrFreed]

random claims spanning endless screens with no buildings in them need to be cut down

its really friggin anoying

or random claims on caves again with no structures at all
way to common

[popfor]

random claims spanning endless screens with no buildings in them need to be cut down

its really friggin anoying

or random claims on caves again with no structures at all
way to common

too*

[Potjeh]

I don't think it's sustainable because it doesn't have a real endgame (quality grind doesn't even come close). PvP could serve that role, but it doesn't really happen because of brick walls. But just nerfing the defences would make the game even less sustainable, because grind investment in combat characters is too damn high.

[ramones]

I'd add a feature where resources would drain after a certain time and new ones would spawn or be present. This would demand constant action in exploring and you wouldn't win the game just by capping highest q clay in the world, like it is now.

[APXEOLOG]

I'd add a feature where resources would drain after a certain time and new ones would spawn or be present. This would demand constant action in exploring and you wouldn't win the game just by capping highest q clay in the world, like it is now.

I like this idea. But 50% of world will be filled with spot-defending forts then.