Game Development: Starboard Bough

[Nightdawg]

It's the same thing you guys always do. You add some change without even asking people for alternatives.

What did I tell you to do anyway?


Now you got them fighting over it. The same thing you did with realms, they were meant to give us a purpose to pvp, but all it did was "let's find out how to exploit this system":
- Felix blocking the hitbox of their war flag with the knarr, so we are unable to bash it. YOU CAME AND ADMIN-DELETED THE KNARR YOURSELF.
- AD building 6987234987342 sign posts around a war flag to make it impossible to reach. YOU HAD TO ADD ANOTHER PATCH, WHICH PROBABLY DIDN'T FIX IT AFAIK LMAO
- A korean village(? I wasn't playing at this point, that's who I heard did it) claiming and building a palisade in a weird way to entirelly block a thingwall.

Why don't you guys ever accept some player opinions on things you don't even engage in? You know, players who actually understand said mechanics, things you yourselves don't even understand.
It's been how many years since you added this new combat system? I started playing in 2019 and I understand the combat system better than you, the devs? I didn't even pvp that much, which is the sadder part about me knowing more than you, the people who literally wrote the code.

Asking at random ONCE in discord, when there was literally no PVPer in chat, doesn't count as asking tbh.


I understand that you disliked this, and I agree, it's stupid:


But at least ask and listen for some alternatives.
I'm not giving you an alternative cause I know my fucking place. I didn't pvp for 10 years in your game, so don't listen to me for an alternative. But since you're not even asking the people who would know better, I mean, why would they bother to give you an alternative anyway? It's not like you showed how much you listen to them anyway.

Make a forum topic and moderate it. Delete posts from random retard hermits who never ever aggroed another player and only listen to people who actually have valid arguments.

[wonder-ass]

Why are u so biased to one side XD u know were not enemies in real life right? The game cant hurt u irl nightdawg.

[Nightdawg]

Why are u so biased to one side XD u know were not enemies in real life right? The game cant hurt u irl nightdawg.

I'm not saying either of you are right or wrong, I'm saying jorb refuses to listen to either of you.

IMHO in the perfect world we'd have no redhand but some non-cancer mechanics to replace it too or something, like the stuff you suggested with the scents.

[Pommfritz]

Listening to the community is a pretty big step and imo Jorb and loftar have been doing pretty great with that in the last patches. Just need to be careful that it doesn't get too much out of their hands. It's kind of like a ping pong match with some trial and error fixes and every patch some part of the community cries very loud and one part is fine. Then it repeats and eventually, way too many itterations later we are at equibrilium. What could have happened instead is that the fundamentals of the game are clearly figured out by them and the patches are tested in advance by a selected part of the community which only reports bugs and inspries with ideas.
If you have clear fundamentals (I mean calcing through every fkn situation and figuring out what the theoretical optimum is for what you want to archieve and not just slapping some generic formula on everything) that you are working towards it matters very little if some part of the community throws a tantrum because you made the game better.

2 examples for what I mean are:
-you want to have long lasting worlds and I think not really reset but there are mechanics like mining (non renewable ore) in the game that definitely force a reset at some point.
-bum burn wound is a great idea and works for the first 5-10 pieces of food but then just stacks retarded high for no reason (generic formula example)

I'm generally very happy with the patches just wanted to throw in my 2c

regarding the current red handed change, every crime that triggers red handed is handled the same (5min red handed) but they vastly differ in they impact (no idea how to say it, no native speaker but I mean murder is obv worse than stealing while also getting 5min rh). It's obvious that this can be exploited. before it was the same just with 1h rh which means that lesser crimes got a retarded punishment which also gets exploited in a way of too little lesser crimes = some retards without any walls or fence are too safe (or timewaste for the aggressor).
Edit: and also there is a difference between pvp for objectives and griefing/ nab slaying

[VDZ]

• Added "Sense Thingwall", Hearth magic. Points out the direction to the province Thingwall.

Nice, this will make Thingwall exploration more fun. It could be somewhat frustrating at times when it was hard to find.

By the way, for anyone who cares, the main site is now fully under the protection of the certificate mafia, so that HTTPS should "work" without any certificate modifications.

Et tu, Loftar? The LetsEncrypt root certificate expiration drama was just a month ago, highlighting that even in terms of practical use the system is flawed. I know this site is only a drop in the ocean, but I still dread the day when only certificate-approved sites will be accessible and they start refusing to give out certificates to sites they don't like.

• Cato the Elder's oft repeated shitpost that Carthage should be removed from the game was eventually heard. Do hammer us about your pet-peeves. We appreciate clear and persistent signal on changes you'd like to see made to the game, especially if they are low cost and high impact.

The three primary ones that come to mind are:

• Off-season credo quests, especially in year 1. The literally impossible quests have been removed (outside of year 1), but the 'eat/study/use-this-item-from-two-seasons-ago' quests are still a massive and unreasonable difficulty spike in an already frustrating and tedious system. It could be argued to incentivize trade, but in practice it incentivizes 'abandon quest' even moreso.
• Animal despawning/limited time frames during taming. I've stopped taming animals entirely because of this. Solo players simply cannot tame animals without planning their life around the game, locking them out of a significant amount of content. Due to logistical reasons trade in animals is not as feasible as trade in items, and you can only feasibly trade for animals with your neighbors, who don't have animals to spare because your neighbors are never large villages (it's suicide for a solo player to settle near a large village). Unlike steel, there's not even an 'economic value' argument to be made here as beyond the initial taming gaining more animals happens passively, and tamed animals are inferior to bred animals.
• Steelmaking is still a massive pain for the same reason, however. Fortunately, its impact is a lot more limited as steel is only used for optional upgrades, with one exception: the coinpress, required in practice for barter stand trade if there are no existing currencies in local circulation, requires steel. If that requirement gets removed (and nothing major gets added that requires steel) I'd be okay with the current situation (though I still consider it a bad mechanic, forcing players to play at specific moments to not lose progress).

<discussion about red-handed and disincentivizing griefing>

I've posted a relevant suggestion in C&I that could solve the issue of griefing having no real penalty without having the game arbitrarily punish players for their choice of gameplay style: Cursing criminals

Player interaction is beneficial to the game. Player interaction does not have to be positive. More often than not, negative events or close-calls are what define our journey in the game. We don't remember much about the random, dime-a-dozen trade we did, or the neighbour we said hi to. What truly defines the game is moments of strife, loss, and triumph. We should not shy away from those moments, nor should we put arbitrary barriers into the game to avoid those moments.

Sadly, the vast majority of PvP engagements aren't balanced to the point where negotiation is a factor as described in your example. Instead, a snekkja/knarr with three griefers comes on-screen, they aggro you immediately and 3v1 gank you while demanding you give them your hat. Those situations are far, far more common, and in most cases the situation is horribly one-sided.

Depending on the type of crime, make a difference in the duration of red-handed debuff, like outlaw debuff.

If the person demands the deletion of red-handed is not for bullying other players, but really for pvp, he wouldn't care even if the vandalism or siege penalty increased slightly than before.

The game does not, and should not, punish crime. Committing crimes is a valid way of playing the game and the game itself should not penalize players for doing so; instead, players should be the ones enacting justice. To my understanding red-handed was implemented with this idea in mind, making it harder to get away from other players who would punish the criminal for their crime. In that context, it makes no sense for some crimes to have longer or shorter red-handed than other crimes; any serious crime should allow for some window of opportunity for the wronged party to attack the perpetrator, and any detrimental results beyond that are unintended side effects.

and let's not forget about walls being able to cascade from non-claimed land to claim land.

I like those suggestions but I think that's not true, at least 2 times I tried that but it always stopped cascading at the claim borders. If that's incorrect please correct me xd

At some point there was a bug, exploit, quirk... where you extended off claim then waited for some soak to build on the pallisade. After a certain point the cascading would chain from fresh to fully soaked. Or something like that not sure if still live but sounds like maybe fixed.

Some time ago, a village was controversially raided using this method and people complained, but the devs deemed it a legitimate raid. I don't think I've seen any relevant changes in the patch notes since, so presumably it still works like that. Always extend your claim at least one tile beyond your palisade. (Players can't extend a palisade without vandalism permissions, even as a criminal act.)

Cato the Elder's oft repeated shitpost that Carthage should be removed from the game was eventually heard. Do hammer us about your pet-peeves. We appreciate clear and persistent signal on changes you'd like to see made to the game, especially if they are low cost and high impact.

What's that about? The last mention of word "Carthage" on the forum is from 2015

Carthago delenda est. Some Roman dude ended literally all of his speeches with this phrase ("Carthage must be destroyed") to push for a war against Carthage. Rome eventually attacked and destroyed Carthage.

[Pommfritz]

you could post your coords here and see how optional steel is ^^

and your suggestion regarding crime is also just to stay in your base for either side and basically nothing happens (or use vandal alt)

[Jalpha]

Carthage was degenerate. The world is a better place without their culture and their god. Why is Moloch coming back.

Really just wanted to say that it really is a failure of the community that people like snail persist. I think everyone can agree on that, even snail.

[steelman]

Depending on the type of crime, make a difference in the duration of red-handed debuff, like outlaw debuff.

If the person demands the deletion of red-handed is not for bullying other players, but really for pvp, he wouldn't care even if the vandalism or siege penalty increased slightly than before.

The game does not, and should not, punish crime. Committing crimes is a valid way of playing the game and the game itself should not penalize players for doing so; instead, players should be the ones enacting justice. To my understanding red-handed was implemented with this idea in mind, making it harder to get away from other players who would punish the criminal for their crime. In that context, it makes no sense for some crimes to have longer or shorter red-handed than other crimes; any serious crime should allow for some window of opportunity for the wronged party to attack the perpetrator, and any detrimental results beyond that are unintended side effects.

Since it is a different type of crime, different conditions must be given. Victims of battery can immediately inform to other people, but theft or vandalism is hard to do unless they were watching at that moment. But if there is a better way to replace redhanded, there will be no need to talk about the duration of redhanded.
I think one of the ways is to make chasing the criminal easier. For example, when someone uses the scent of serious crime, give him a message about the name of the province(thingwall area) where the criminal is located, or speed of the opponent so that the chaser can guess if the criminal is on the move or what vehicle he is using.
If chasing becomes easier in this way, the chaser can be able to catch the target without a long redhanded period. Then active chasers will appear and punish crimes as someone wants.

[SnuggleSnail]

Hey, I actually wanna flip-flop on my argument about red hand not significantly preventing griefing. I thought about it for a long time and I think it makes it worse. Whenever I red hand my myself by killing some pleb in their base, instead of taking the 5 items I want I yeet the entire place and destroy HFs/lift beds because I'm going to be there an hour anyway. Usually I even destroy exactly one GH/Tower, because redhand timer starts when you commit the crime, so if you start bashing a GH with like 2k strength 45 minutes later it will finish being destroyed and you'll have 15min left of your timer.

Likewise, the very small number of instances where I've not killed ppl because of red hand are FOR SURE counteracted by the number of times other people have stumbled on me randomly while I'm afking. viewtopic.php?f=40&t=70509&start=140#p888402 there have genuinely been dozens of times this has happened. This is for sure a personal experience, though. Most of my village is like this but its nigh impossible to know what a village is like without living with them.


Also, I rly strongly agree with the people suggesting more detailed scents. For example you could even give how much HHP/SHP they have, which will make it WAY more likely for criminals to die to people tracking them, and also just help in the fight because you know when you can start 10/10 cleaving to get their last tiny sliver of health. It would also make faction PVP in general a bit more deadly since everybody would know how much damage to do to kill. Not dying would be a bit more skill based and a bit less luck based.

[Pommfritz]

Hey, I actually wanna flip-flip on my argument about red hand not significantly preventing griefing. I thought about it for a long time and I think it makes it worse. Whenever I red hand my myself by killing some pleb in their base, instead of taking the 5 items I want I yeet the entire place and destroy HFs/lift beds because I'm going to be there an hour anyway. Usually I even destroy exactly one GH/Tower, because redhand timer starts when you commit the crime, so if you start bashing a GH with like 2k strength 45 minutes later it will finish being destroyed and you'll have 15min left of your timer.

this xD

before the last update I caught some guy that was outlawed I think but he was logged out, outside of his base, instead of just KO'ing him and then fucking off I was stuck there for an hour and for some reason he was KO and I could carry him around so I drowned him and did a few experiements. same with the random griefing like destroying hf's and lifting beds to kind of protect myself while afking