Prelude: World 15

[Den4X]

In fact, haven’t you yourself been tired of playing with the same people for about 15 years, practically not giving newbies a chance to get used to it? This game originally had a low barrier to entry, but now it seems incredibly low. I don't have access to statistics, maybe this is just my erroneous opinion.

[HasseKebab]

Why do you then not bring water and cry?

I'm not crying or complaining, I'm just trying to find a way to solve the problem of an empty server three months after starting. All new or less experienced players do not have time to find the optimal strategy and will be killed. The last few worlds I quit the game after a couple of months because it becomes boring to see that there is no life around, most of the newcomers are killed and looted, and only those who are afraid to even say hello through the fence survive.

I see in that case we should work on informing the playerbase on how the game works thats really the core of the issue here. This game does a terrible job on explaining of how anything works, it really is a trial and error learning experience when it comes to things like damage, life, how you probably shouldnt be running around with no HHP bar and that they can just teleport back to HF after being KO'd, things like wounds are terribly explained as well. Without any kind of input from the wiki or forums i dont think any new player would stay in this game for long after having terrible experiences with animals KO'ing them or players griefing. Only the developers can aid this issue and they could do it rather easily as well, a really half assed no effort solution would just be a popup at the start of a new character that links to guides on the forum.

There was a time when the top players purposefully didnt bully and grief sprucecaps but those times have now gone and especially after the not removing winter because of sprucecaps terrible larp ideas for gameplay fiasco.

[Aerona]

The forums are even more hostile than the game itself, I don't think sending new players here would necessarily reduce the number who get scared off. Especially since some of these guides themselves have the tone of berating players rather than explaining things to them.

Also, have you noticed how some players use 'sprucecap' as a general term of abuse toward everyone who doesn't prioritize PvP/griefing to the exclusion of everything else? That's for sure going to put a damper on the server population, if players who have any reason to play the game other than bloodlust are seen as an obstacle to it.

More in-game explanations would help. It's intuitive to me that when your hearthling is injured it's time to log out and come back another day, but the wound descriptions make it ambiguous how healing works, sometimes they imply things will heal with time, sometimes not. And there's no way to find out how to treat wounds without acquiring the items needed to do it first, which makes some sense but doesn't provide much hope to someone who doesn't know about them yet.

Regarding the water thing, I just found out last night that it's still possible to drink water to recover stamina while sprinting in this version. I'd thought it had been patched so that drinking halted/blocked movement so it was only useful in long endurance chases. Whoops.

[Dawidio123]

The forums are even more hostile than the game itself, I don't think sending new players here would necessarily reduce the number who get scared off. Especially since some of these guides themselves have the tone of berating players rather than explaining things to them.

Also, have you noticed how some players use 'sprucecap' as a general term of abuse toward everyone who doesn't prioritize PvP/griefing to the exclusion of everything else? That's for sure going to put a damper on the server population, if players who have any reason to play the game other than bloodlust are seen as an obstacle to it.

I think the term sprucecap is still better than calling them noobs or newbies (You don't have to do pvp to not be a sprucecap btw, a lot of people have played for over a decade, know their shit and play in small-ish groups/hermit and nobody calls them sprucecaps because they don't spew bullshit, you know who you are chads).
Also it's kinda on them for wasting all the good faith a lot of us had when we started participating in the forums. I'm just done being nice to hermits who give the same excuses every time and don't learn. I know some might be new but at this point i don't care anymore. You can only explain the same things so many times before you lose patience.

[Aerona]

Well, yeah, the only thing wrong with the term (or the alternatives) is that it's used as a slur. So it's not word choice that's the problem, it's the demonic steretype. Being hateful toward new players means being opposed to having a large and robust playerbase, whether that's intended or not. It's equivalent to 'the beatings will continue until morale improves'.

It makes sense to lose faith in someone who's disappointed you, but not to apply that to everyone "like them". It's not necessary to be nice to anyone, but it's not necessary to be caustic either. Open vitriol doesn't give anyone an incentive to change for the better, it just creates the motivation to cut it off at the source.

[jacob232]

I dont know what everyone is talking about barrier for entry, with fast travel via thingwalls, central markets thanks to charter stones. Tutorial Quests and the map being so big PvP has to be sought out half the time.......I'd say very sprucecap friendly.

Even since W3 i usually stop at the bear killing stage combat wise and havent died since W8 or 9

[dagrimreefah]

"OMG THE TERM 'SPRUCECAP' IS A DEMONIC SLUR FULL OF HATE" *pretends to be outraged*

Bro, this is a video game. You're clutching your pearls... over a term in a videogame used for noobs. Get a life, you morally bankrupt weirdo lmao

[Aerona]

I dont know what everyone is talking about barrier for entry, with fast travel via thingwalls, central markets thanks to charter stones. Tutorial Quests and the map being so big PvP has to be sought out half the time.......I'd say very sprucecap friendly.

Even since W3 i usually stop at the bear killing stage combat wise and havent died since W8 or 9

It's mainly that the way PvP works - especially how moving/running away in PvP works - makes so little intuitive sense that the average player would have better odds surviving a Tsujigiri from a time-travelling Mushashi in the parking lot of their local grocery store than the average H&H "PvP" encounter. The features you mention make the game more convenient and less time-consuming to play, but they don't make it make any more sense. Making the game less time-consuming is no help if the progress the player has made in their time in-game just gets burned away in what appears to them to be random chaos or an insurmountable gap in character abilities.

[HasseKebab]

Usually the term sprucecap is used to desrcibe people that have no clue on how this game actually works on the level where you actually have a developed base and interact with most mechanics of the game. Only suggest the dumbest takes on issues they have no clue about, like how you are completely clueless about the development of this game the past few years and whine about good ideas in Critique & Ideas like the good sprucecap you are.

[Aerona]

You could have just written "blah blah blah dumb dumb dumb" and your post would have contributed the same amount of content to the thread. If all you've got to say is abusive, then all you've got to say is that you are a problem, plain and simple.

Not everyone uses the term 'sprucecap' as a term of abuse, as implied by the term itself. It arises from the one hat that can be created from gathered resources without hunting or farming. By association, it refers to players who haven't started to progress in those industries.

The reason that 'sprucecap' and 'hermit' are overused and generalized to describe those who are more advanced or not in deliberate seclusion is because a lot of 'hardcore' players are just looking for any way to code their targets and put down more casual players. They find it easier to co-opt these terms for the purpose than to use new ones and risk being the next ones to receive abuse for non-conformity to their in-group.