New Year: 2018 -- Loose Roadmap!

Announcements about major changes in Haven & Hearth.

New Year: 2018 -- Loose Roadmap!

Postby jorb » Thu Jan 04, 2018 12:25 am

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So, we're back at work from restive holidays since yesterday, but unfortunately due to planning and discussion haven't made quite enough progress yet to push a meaningful patch this week, so I figured I'd instead just drop a short note delineating what we're up to this year.

Big Projects
  • The first order of business this year is finishing the client rendering rewrite that I have been harping on about for some time now. It's still a fair ways in the distance, and it's a big deal(tm), but loftar is making progress. We have high hopes for this change in terms of performance improvements for the client, improvements I also perceive as much needed, especially so in some critical aspects of performance, like large and crowded scenes. Our impression has been that, for example, large PvP scenarios involving many players are more or less impossible for many people due to poor client performance, and that breaks a lot of the game's high-end political potential in ways which do not sit well with us at all. Performance has been an ongoing complaint for some time, and we'd like to take the issue seriously. Besides the more cardinal rewrite there are quite a few smaller and other ideas for performance improvements as well, so this might be an ongoing theme throughout the year, but hopefully we should be able to finish the big ticket item significantly sooner.
  • The immediate next project after the client rendering thing is a project we have taken to calling "object controlled objects". Basically the idea is that game objects -- a house, for example -- should be able to own and control other objects, rather than -- as is the case now -- always "belong" and be defined in relation directly to the map. The gist and beauty of this change is that it would allow us to do a couple of things which we have wanted to do for some time, including getting rid of pocket worlds for houses, implement bridges, and ships and vessels which you can actually walk on, rather than simply be attached to. The somewhat longer term ambition for this change is to implement an ideally very powerful freeform building system, which would get us away from predefined houses entirely, and on to player designed buildings. This is one of the things we feel could potentially extend the creativity, fun, and longevity of the game by a great deal, and it also feels as something that Haven should simply have. My goto thought on the subject has for some time been that we really have no excuse for not having the strongest freeform building system available, and we really should aim for that. If we get even a tenth of the way there, that could be great.
  • I expect those two items to take the majority of our development time this year, but if I had to pick a third wish-list item it'd probably be seasons.

Intermediate Projects
  • For our weekly patch efforts we have a couple of smaller things we want to do.
  • Redesign the combat system. This is a recurring theme in that we apparently have to do it every now and then since we aren't satisfied with how it plays out, but balance in a delicate matter like combat is perhaps hard to strike, and that should be expected. There are a couple of things we dislike about our current implementation, perhaps chiefly that it has a lot of complexity which adds relatively little to how combat -- especially PvE -- actually plays out, in that combat still largely consists of spamming one or two moves and attacks until the target dies. The combat redesign is our immediate priority, and after a fruitfult discussion on it yesterday, we believe we have a pretty good and iterative way forward which we are now pursuing. The changes we aim to implement are directional attacks, getting rid of necessity of the four color-scheme for attacks, getting rid of hard soak for armor, more area of effect attacks, and attacks which themselves involve and imply movement of the player. Instead of the four color scheme we also intend to add local cooldowns to certain attacks, so that you can't spam only a single attack (besides base attacks) for reasons of cooldown. I think this line of thought will produce a simpler to understand and more interactive combat system, and that's what we're working on now.
  • Redesign the siege system. Again, a common theme is that the siege system always needs work. We haven't talked this through in any detail yet, but my main line of thought is primarily to attempt to get rid of shields, and implement something with less forced structure. Siege should not be a clunky minigame around game concepts, involving rasing additional shields in various confounded ways.
  • Go over the food system in all aspects, get a proper grip on the levling implications of all the various food buffs, and put them all on an intended track. Satiations, hunger, symbel, feasting, &c.
  • Dungeons. I'd like to add at least five dungeon types before the year is out, but I think we could potentially end up doing a lot more. I'm hard at work drawing up the next one as we speak.
  • A small conversation system for NPCs is on my wish-list.
  • Wolves & Dogs.
  • I'd like to add at least one game changing system in the vein of something like credos, realms, or dungeons. Haven't thought of one yet, but I hope I will.

Small Projects
  • I've been reasonably happy with our efforts last year in keeping a bit of a rotation, again for our weekly patches, on adding more curiosities, foods, credos, furniture, clothes, gildings, experiences and small creatures, so I intend to keep chugging along. If anything there are some areas I think we could try to touch more often, like, perhaps, skills, instruments, and realm blessings, and if combat ends up in a good spot we could weave in new content there as well, like moves, attacks, and weapons.
  • Supress the C&I and Bug forums by reading them and keeping them in the read-and-green regularly. Will try to stick to that and kill my backlog.
  • Do one live stream each month. Will announce one shortly.

Apart from the big ticket items, the plan is intentionally kept loose and agile. If we come up with great ideas we both can and shall drop everything and pursue those.

I hope that sounds like fun, and we'll catch you next week for the first patch!

The picture is me in next week's patch hat -- The Highland Bonnet -- among wolves and strange new pillars, the latter intended for the next dungeon I hope to add. Feel free to guess the dominant creature in it!

Happy new year!
"The psychological trials of dwellers in the last times will be equal to the physical trials of the martyrs. In order to face these trials we must be living in a different world."

-- Hieromonk Seraphim Rose
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Re: New Year: 2018 -- Loose Roadmap!

Postby ChildhoodObesity » Thu Jan 04, 2018 12:28 am

HECK YA
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Re: New Year: 2018 -- Loose Roadmap!

Postby Zesto » Thu Jan 04, 2018 12:30 am

New World Plox <3
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Re: New Year: 2018 -- Loose Roadmap!

Postby dafels » Thu Jan 04, 2018 12:31 am

jorb wrote:Intermediate Projects
  • Redesign the combat system. This is a recurring theme in that we apparently have to do it every now and then since we aren't satisfied with how it plays out, but balance in a delicate matter like combat is perhaps hard to strike, and that should be expected. There are a couple of things we dislike about our current implementation, perhaps chiefly that it has a lot of complexity which adds relatively little to how combat -- especially PvE -- actually plays out, in that combat still largely consists of spamming one or two moves and attacks until the target dies. The combat redesign is our immediate priority, and after a fruitfult discussion on it yesterday, we believe we have a pretty good and iterative way forward which we are now pursuing. The changes we aim to implement are directional attacks, getting rid of necessity of the four color-scheme for attacks, getting rid of hard soak for armor, more area of effect attacks, and attacks which themselves involve and imply movement of the player. Instead of the four color scheme we also intend to add local cooldowns to certain attacks, so that you can't spam only a single attack (besides base attacks) for reasons of cooldown. I think this line of thought will produce a simpler to understand and more interactive combat system, and that's what we're working on now.
  • Go over the food system in all aspects, get a proper grip on the levling implications of all the various food buffs, and put them all on an intended track. Satiations, hunger, symbel, feasting, &c.


Noice, I really like where the combat changes are going.... but please no moves that slow the opponent down...
Last edited by dafels on Thu Jan 04, 2018 12:33 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: New Year: 2018 -- Loose Roadmap!

Postby Redlaw » Thu Jan 04, 2018 12:32 am

Looks good, hoping we get a lot of new Credos threw the year as well. A lot can be done with them.
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Re: New Year: 2018 -- Loose Roadmap!

Postby DDDsDD999 » Thu Jan 04, 2018 12:36 am

dafels wrote:Noice, I really like where the combat changes are going.... but please no moves that slow the opponent down...

Yeah, any crowd control effects are gonna just lead to gank-squad dog-piling where people just get DUNKED. Rest sounds cool, I want a pet doggo.
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Re: New Year: 2018 -- Loose Roadmap!

Postby Kirche » Thu Jan 04, 2018 12:54 am

I look forward to the dev stream!
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Re: New Year: 2018 -- Loose Roadmap!

Postby blank » Thu Jan 04, 2018 1:00 am

DOGGYS!!!!!!! YASSSS i cant wait to have a doggy on the game!!!!! so freaking excited :D :D :D

edit: here is an idea. i thought of it a while back but what if we had a skill/ability to find dens easier kinda like how we track scents :D let it rely of explore or will or something or the sort? what do you think?
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Re: New Year: 2018 -- Loose Roadmap!

Postby captainmorgan » Thu Jan 04, 2018 1:08 am

Excellent but... we need a banjo and it must be usable while sitting in a rocking chair, smoking a pipe, this way I can tell people to get off my land properly. Perhaps a shotgun would be useful here too :p
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Re: New Year: 2018 -- Loose Roadmap!

Postby NineWorlds » Thu Jan 04, 2018 1:19 am

With you guys stating you want to work on more customized building can we probably see some cool additions to decor?
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