Actual foraging and hunting mechanics are ridiculous

[Bogey]

Maybe just try to do something about the fact that now most of the players are looking at the minimap instead of the actual game. When player is foraging or hunting he must look at the minimap to see position of the herbs and other stuff as long as his client doesn't report that position to him in any other ways (and let be honest, most players use pretty standard clients just like Ender and looking at the minimap is their only way to see anything). For me it seems ridiculous, I would prefer to just walk in the world and minimap should serve just for checking your surroundings instead of looking at it every few seconds to see if there is any interesting herb around or just any player.

I have got idea to change the way herbs are actually seen, it's probably less natural but at least allows players to play actual game than look at the minimap all the time. So, exploration could point you to the herbs just like the scents or dowsing rod does now, but in less distracting way, so player can focus at actual exploration, by the way you can add here some additional use for the perception or exploration, just like the perception * exploration is used now in tracking.

And second thing is the same with animals, what about actual animals tracking skill (too used by perception and maybe even survival)? I guess that it would make some sense and make bots a bit useless if players could actually find their prey. I am pretty sure that it would make hunting fun, tracking your prey and then slaying it with your bow seems more interesting than boating like some fucking hobo searching bears on the shores.

And then we got the players visibility, this feels for me like quite broken mechanic which opens a lot of ways to overuse it just like auto-aggro and other bullshit. What if we would make that area where players actually see others much smaller? And maybe add there some players tracking skill too, but against the victim stealth (wow, we actually found some usage for that obsolete skill). Players spotted by you or just people in the same party as you would stay visible for much longer now (so you can still have these 3 hours long chases). And most importang thing which I feel like could change the whole game and make it more pleasant for new players is this that new characters would be much harder to track than more experienced ones. So if you are getting more and more skills then you are also more visible to the other players (so yes these 1000 uac chars would actually get ganked a lot and would be visible from a far - and what does it mean exactly - yes, no ganking for you). Less experienced players could see presence of some hardcore players in their area and also get out of here before they die (as long as these 1000 uac chars didn't get stealth too).

It could also work in such way that just the highest skill would be taken into the calculations, so having lots of alts for everything wouldn't be required. If the stealth is the highest then character can't be tracked by others at all (i am not talking here also about the scents). Would it even maybe destroy alts? Can you afford getting 300 farming on your alt and 301 stealth so you are not able to be tracked, or just one character on which you have 300 farming, 301 stealth and 300 uac and a bit of other skills.

I hope that Hafen is going to fix these issues

[TeckXKnight]

Items appearing on minimaps is not a default feature of Haven, that's a special feature added by custom clients. Stealth is already used to hide scents, which can be considered useless against massive factions but serves its purpose against players who are not well into the endgame. Player tracking is actually the exact opposite direction the devs want to take the game. The focus of the game is already too heavily on raiding and murdering everyone for the hell of it. This post and a few others after it elaborate more on it: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=37974&start=970#p507357

[Bogey]

Player tracking is actually the exact opposite direction the devs want to take the game. The focus of the game is already too heavily on raiding and murdering everyone for the hell of it.

I think that player tracking would act exactly opposite and make killing other players much harder. It would be quite double-edged mechanics, new players with weak characters could easily hide and remain untrackable for other players, but as soon as these players want to increase their skills then it's also much harder to keep that stealth as the highest skill level. Of course good players could forget about stealth at all and just increase their actual skills, but it would also lead to consequences of it.

Items appearing on minimaps is not a default feature of Haven, that's a special feature added by custom clients.

Yes I know, but first thing which people added to the Salem client was displaying icons of herbs on the minimap. As long as the mechanics are going to stay the same in Hafen then custom clients are also going to add that feature, and then we again have the same thing about the minimap.

[LadyV]

First of all this is a survival game. If you don't need to hunt plants and herbs don't. The foraging mechanics are rather nice in my opinion. If you do need to then collect them. The game is what you make of it.

As for being wary of players it's not absurd to be cautious of strangers. The only thing I will give you is the game should take account of terrain you are in when sending player data. If you in forest say x distance away you should not appear because you are in heavy cover. Same with being at the center of a mountain. If your lower you should not be able to see up easily. auto agro however is not a default client option. I will agree its an abuse of game spirit and mechanics.

No you ideas on highest stat are ripe for abuse.

The game is not perfect and probably never will be but as a whole it is rather nice and fun. Also realize any fixes work both ways if you think about things.

[DarkCristi2]

The things are nice as they are now,so don't need to change it

[Hasmond]

I think that player tracking would act exactly opposite and make killing other players much harder. It would be quite double-edged mechanics, new players with weak characters could easily hide and remain untrackable for other players, but as soon as these players want to increase their skills then it's also much harder to keep that stealth as the highest skill level. Of course good players could forget about stealth at all and just increase their actual skills, but it would also lead to consequences of it.

What will happen is that strong players with the backing of a powerful village will be able to increase their stealth skill so that it is their highest and be invisible to each other and to the new players.

New players will instead of seeing a very strong player and have a slight chance of running away will be attacked by an invisible player that they couldn't see because he could raise his stealth stat so high.

[Xcom]

And then we got the players visibility, this feels for me like quite broken mechanic which opens a lot of ways to overuse it just like auto-aggro and other bullshit. What if we would make that area where players actually see others much smaller? And maybe add there some players tracking skill too, but against the victim stealth (wow, we actually found some usage for that obsolete skill). Players spotted by you or just people in the same party as you would stay visible for much longer now (so you can still have these 3 hours long chases). And most importang thing which I feel like could change the whole game and make it more pleasant for new players is this that new characters would be much harder to track than more experienced ones. So if you are getting more and more skills then you are also more visible to the other players (so yes these 1000 uac chars would actually get ganked a lot and would be visible from a far - and what does it mean exactly - yes, no ganking for you). Less experienced players could see presence of some hardcore players in their area and also get out of here before they die (as long as these 1000 uac chars didn't get stealth too).

It could also work in such way that just the highest skill would be taken into the calculations, so having lots of alts for everything wouldn't be required. If the stealth is the highest then character can't be tracked by others at all (i am not talking here also about the scents). Would it even maybe destroy alts? Can you afford getting 300 farming on your alt and 301 stealth so you are not able to be tracked, or just one character on which you have 300 farming, 301 stealth and 300 uac and a bit of other skills.

I really like this part about higher stats creating a more bigger target. There should be a form of incentive to invest into stealth outside the use of leaving scents. The idea about visual distance could play a big role or rather a form of long range info could be sent to all clients based on your stealth skills. Something similar to the StarCraft radar tower appearing on your minimap far outside the maximum visual distance.

You could for example see there is someone approaching but not be able to identify or aggro said target. Riding a horse for example could bloat your signature and make you even more visible. You could as a noob in that instant hide in the bushes and hope they don't have a ranger to detect your presence or choose to prep for combat based on the number of signatures approaching. Higher stats would mean your easier to spot so the only way to counter it would be to up your stealth skill to counter your higher stats. A choice would need to be made where you balance stats and stealth depending on what type of character your trying to go for. A stealthy ranger who approaches swiftly and snipes his pray or ignore stealth and always ride in with the cavalry.

Edit: Clearly you will be 100% identifiable when you step into view range where both characters will be able to visually identify each other regardless of stealth.

[shubla]

We could have newspawn protection so they dont die on first day. But we cant have anything nice like that because it'd get abused on first day.

[TeckXKnight]

We could have newspawn protection so they dont die on first day. But we cant have anything nice like that because it'd get abused on first day. :(

God, imagine it. A swarm of freshly spawned alts hits you and surrounds you. Soon you're locked in place by 9 alts as another alt who had been fed a few pearls walks up to you with an R-Bow and begins to pelt you with arrows. You can't do anything since they're all effectively immortal for another 23 hours, 47 minutes and you can't break aggro or egress. You'll now die an agonizingly slow death as the R-bow chips off a few points from your armor's health each shot.

[Metruption]

We could have newspawn protection so they dont die on first day. But we cant have anything nice like that because it'd get abused on first day.

God, imagine it. A swarm of freshly spawned alts hits you and surrounds you. Soon you're locked in place by 9 alts as another alt who had been fed a few pearls walks up to you with an R-Bow and begins to pelt you with arrows. You can't do anything since they're all effectively immortal for another 23 hours, 47 minutes and you can't break aggro or egress. You'll now die an agonizingly slow death as the R-bow chips off a few points from your armor's health each shot.

No, it's another fresh alt with a q10 sling and 20 MM. It takes the entire 24h to kill you, and then once you are dead the bots move on to their next quarry