Meaningful character development

[_Gunnar]

So as I understand it, part of the goal of Hafen was to provide "meaningful character development" where different characters had different experiences and was therefore qualitatively different.
I would argue that this has not in fact happened, sadly. And the experience system doesn't provide any sort of limit to development, and is quite easily gamed if you can be bothered.

The whole of the LP system is still essentially just watching numbers go up slowly.

One thing that is quite "nice" is the combat discovery system; but again, once you have unlocked all the moves your character is no longer different from any other dude wearing a sword and shield.

This thread is more of a question to Jorb and Loftar: do you intend on revisiting this issue sometime in the future? Are you going to move away from LP just causing numbers to go up in a wholly predictable way?

if anyone wants an actual "suggestion": There are lots of ways you could approach this: for example, in combat, instead of new combat discoveries giving you a copy of a set move, you could use them to upgrade your existing moves in many different ways: cooldown, weight, damage, etc. This would get rid of the need for UA and MC, essentially. Likewise when crafting, say, a pickaxe, you could get a crafting discovery that allows you to improve that particular recipe in some particular way which you could choose.

[jorb]

This thread is more of a question to Jorb and Loftar: do you intend on revisiting this issue sometime in the future? Are you going to move away from LP just causing numbers to go up in a wholly predictable way?

It has always been an ambition to have characters be more than just a set of numbers, i.e. something qualitative and personal, but I'm not entirely sure how we can actually realize that ambition.

[DDDsDD999]

This thread is more of a question to Jorb and Loftar: do you intend on revisiting this issue sometime in the future? Are you going to move away from LP just causing numbers to go up in a wholly predictable way?

It has always been an ambition to have characters be more than just a set of numbers, i.e. something qualitative and personal, but I'm not entirely sure how we can actually realize that ambition.

Personal beliefs baybeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

[_Gunnar]

Personal beliefs were too simple and there was a more or less clear "best" thing to do at different times.
Sad that there aren't any more ideas, anyway.

[abt79]

The only thing I can't stand about this world is the Hunger system, it is entirely feasible to rapidly lose HHP from "starvation" while you are too full to eat anything.

Bring back stuffed crawling Loftorb

[Clemence]

Likewise when crafting, say, a pickaxe, you could get a crafting discovery that allows you to improve that particular recipe in some particular way which you could choose.

The only way that could improve trade is specialisation.
But you need a specialisation that could not been grind, or every village would make a specialized toon in each field of activity.
For now the only things that cant be grind is finding good nodes ( clay, water, forageables ), but it fit best in a nomadic life, you dont need any structure to produce value.

I got an idea that is not compatible with the present system, but thats an idea :
- no more ressource quality
- the quality is create when you craft a thing, if you craft a cake with a good respice, you get a good cake.
- respices can be found randomely, like spiders when foraging, or black hole when doing cheeses.

So you are an hermit and make a carrot cake : then there is a pop up like the XP one that say : "you get an idea to improve your carrot cake, you just note the recpice you found on a paper"
And a paper pop in your inventory, with this words " carrots pie are quality 10 if you make them with that note in your inventory"
So you can either sell this respice, or become a carrot pie specialist and make a living by making and selling carrots pies.
There would be other people with beter respices, but they will be people wanting to pay less and buy your quality 10 pies instead of eating the quality 1 they can do without respice.

@clemence I agree to that theory, but it's too risky to rebalance the gameplay that works to try and improve a smaller part that doesn't.

Perhaps there can be some way to tune that idea to fit the present system.

Lets supose the respice say : " your carrot cake give as much constit as they give perception."
The hermit know that even if his cakes give a constit bonus, if the quality is poor he would not be able to sell them.
So he look to buy high quality ingredients to big villages, or pay high quailty floor with cakes.
Problem is nobody would sell him carrots, cause he could just buy high quality carrots 1 time and just plant them.
So the respice for carrot cake have to be change to use "slized carrot" instead of carrot, you can make slize carrot with a tool like you make floor with a stone grinder.
Or just make a tool that sterilize seeds and vegetable so you can sell them.

[_Gunnar]

Sounds like we had similar ideas Clemence, for different but related reasons (meaningful character development vs trade) -- sorry I missed your post!

[venatorvenator]

So as I understand it, part of the goal of Hafen was to provide "meaningful character development" where different characters had different experiences and was therefore qualitatively different.
I would argue that this has not in fact happened, sadly. And the experience system doesn't provide any sort of limit to development, and is quite easily gamed if you can be bothered.

The whole of the LP system is still essentially just watching numbers go up slowly.

One thing that is quite "nice" is the combat discovery system; but again, once you have unlocked all the moves your character is no longer different from any other dude wearing a sword and shield.

I like the idea of infinite skills. Murder, druidic rites, and deep artifice are very expensive, but they don't define a character as it doesn't take long to buy all of them. It would be interesting however, in the spirit of sandbox, to have further skills available, at increasingly higher costs, and they would reflect the characters lifestyle. A "Timberland Survivalist" skill could cost 800k LP and unlock specific actions and forageables for that biome, or new recipes exclusively pinetrees.

But there could also be quest-like requisites for such skills because these are not very bottable, such as touching all four borders of the world for a "Frontier Exploration" skill, or chipping every type of stone boulder for a "Masterful Masonry" skill, all with proportionate benefits. As a player accumulates these skills and decides to prioritize this one or that one, his character will develop his own story through those events.

The same with combat, which would have much rarer moves, or moves that depend on frequent use of other moves. So rare that only someone who actualy plays in a specific manner would eventually get them, like an "Impale" move that shows only while using spears against bears, or an intelligence-based "Fearless Stance" that can be only learned by fighting large animals while in 0/0 armor class and less than 30% HHP.

Visual changes in accordance to your higher stat and skill could also be interesting but I suppose those are difficult to implement (like a character with leading constitution being fat, and another with leading survival having green hair or some twigs stuck in it).