Before posting my opinions here, I would like to explain my experiences with this game. I would estimate that I started playing Haven 3 years ago, though I don't remember exactly. I played on a different account, back then, one that I never really used on the forums. I started off playing solo, and played through worlds 8, 9, and 10 in that way. I didn't play for 11 but joined in on 12. This time, I was playing with a few friends. I got a lot of enjoyment out of the game and spent quite a bit of time working on my base and starting a small village.
My point with this is that Haven has a very engaging early game. I enjoyed building a base with some friends. We had a few animals, and some decent q crops. Then, more or less, we stopped playing. We would maybe get on once a day to replace curios and feed the animals, but after a while, even that stopped. Once our base had been completed, there was little to do in the game. We could work to get further and go on a tedious grind to increase q, but to what end? The players at the top would always be significantly better than anything we could achieve, and our little corner of the world was filled with nothing but other player groups who slowly went the way of our village. Since we did not join within the first few days of this new world, we were stuck.
Recently, the update logs have been full of tweaks, but it is hard not to feel frustrated when tweaks are only geared at the few factions of end-game players. The game's seige system could certainly use some work, but for a large part of the player base, boredom with the game is far more likely to cause us to leave than the seige system. I have similar feelings about the death and knockout system.
I am aware that most of this is whining, and will be seen as such by most of the users of this forum. However, I cannot help but feel that this is the issue causing Haven's player numbers to trickle away, until only these end-game players are left. I am personally not a game designer, but I do not feel that this issue can be fixed with simple game tweaks.
For fear of this post becoming too long, I will end with this. I personally believe that the developer's unending focus on the few end-game players will, eventually, drive away everyone except those players. For my fellow peasants and small village owners, how do you feel about this issue? Does the game hold your interest? What changes do you think could be made to prevent similar tedium? Thank you for reading.