DevStream 2021-12-20, 20:00 UTC

[wolf1000wolf]

kinda dumb that 40 minutes of a bi-yearly stream gets taken up responding to blatant trolls requesting the removal of PVP : P

I for one enjoyed the discussion from jorb and loftar on their view of PvP as a conflict resolution mechanic. Sure, the balance and implementation isn't where they want it to be but at least there's a clear vision.

If you want to learn more about how devs view PvP, you can read this post from 2011 that has been stickied for over 6 years now that explains what they were saying on the stream in more detail.

I have read that before. What I found useful from the stream tonight was the nuance and to make it clear their thoughts haven't changed too much.

Key takeaways I got was: They're 100% against game moderation hence the need for an ingame conflict resolution mechanism. They recognize PvP as currently implemented is not ideal but can't think of a better alternative. They are open to ideas though.

Another takeaway I got was the feeling that the route of private servers and whatnot is not 100% closed. Maybe if I win the lottery I'll throw enough money at jorbtar to make it worth their time.

[loftar]

I wonder if by server parallelization you meant dividing the same world into multiple computers or that currently everything is done with just 1 core in server and you'd want to use multiple cores?

In the first place, using multiple CPUs (or """cores""" as you like to call them ), but the solution I have in mind may come to scale across multiple computers as well.

[ducklingSandAlt]

Good stream, amazing devs

It would be a great change to make stat/gear differences matter much less in PVP. It's good for the absolute majority of players. It's also realistic - it's ok when a farmer is ganked by stronger outlaws, but not when a farmer is ganked by an invulnerable cyborg in comparison. It's like having an m16 and a tank in a game about Middle Ages. It's just a plea for realism.

It will also make much smaller difference between people who started the world earlier and those who will start later. So it would be a great step towards longer worlds. You don't have to wait for a wipe if you want to play H&H!

Of course some part of the community who abuse the current system will be against it because they will lose their PVP power - there are many voices of them on the forum with hundreds of messages and many years in the game. And there are not many voices on the other side.

[shubla]

using multiple CPUs (or """cores""" as you like to call them )

Oh please. Next time I'll just say multiple threads.

[NeoRed9]

Very much enjoyed the two hour discussion about removing pvp. Hopefully next stream will be a two hour talk about removing curiosities in favour of the old labour system.

[SnuggleSnail]

I feel like it says something bad that I feel this way, but I get progressively more pessimistic about development when you guys haven't streamed for a while and immediately after I always seem to be pretty optimistic. Anyway, some points I wanted to make after rewatching it:

• Pursuers aren't favored in PVP, people just trying to escape should almost always get away within a few minutes given equal skill because of speed buffs & being able to chase kritters for longer - especially when they're already further ahead. Exceptions mainly come when there are many people + horses + snekkjas involved where the inverse is true and the victim should only really escape if the pursuers fuck up badly
  
• Adding bum burn to pepper when used as a spice will make it 100% dead content, but not really fix the problem of botting in that area. Sage/yhyme/whatever garden pot spices are actually better in a lot of recipes - people just use botted pepper because the difference isn't so big, and manually cooking from a pepper barrel is nicer than filling cupboards with sage. If you just fuck up pepper the pepper bot becomes a garden pot bot. Also the change to pepper as a sprinkle you guys did made it completely worthless for that purpose, which by extension made ancient roots worthless for trade. Nab deaths involving it have been a semi-consistent judging by realm chat recently xd
  
• It's very trivial to consistently kill very inexperienced players from full HHP with just cleaves in murderous rage. I would say I kill about 9/10ths of the people I run into. However, I would point out that I think this is an issue the comes about mainly due to the lack of PVPers around to gank murderous rage nab slayers. It was very rare for anybody to pop Mrage when the server was active, even when chasing down enemy faction players 20v3 after winning a fight
  
• I don't think PVP is really ever used for actual conflict resolution RN, unless you consider me not wanting other people to be alive as a real conflict. Average players are unreasonably terrified of even trying, even verse other average players or nabs. It's my pretty firm opinion that it's the biggest balance issue in the game. People need to be /forced or tricked/ to learn at least the basics. No amount of catch up mechanics or safety nets are going to save somebody who's played for a decade but doesn't know how to lower their red or run away

[Vraatjuh]

[*] Average players are unreasonably terrified of even trying, even verse other average players or nabs. It's my pretty firm opinion that it's the biggest balance issue in the game. People need to be /forced or tricked/ to learn at least the basics. No amount of catch up mechanics or safety nets are going to save somebody who's played for a decade but doesn't know how to lower their red or run away

I agree with this 100%. The only real way to learn the basics of pvp is to go out and pvp. But the downside of potentially getting killed is so big that most 'nabs' are not going to risk it. Thus being defenceless when they accidently do stumble upon somebody who means harm. Lower the punishment of getting ko'd in pvp (max losing XX items or something and no death when above 90% hhp) and increase the punishment for getting killed by the world. I miss the fear of stumbling upon bears but at the same time hate hearing the alarmsound of an unknown player because of how little you can do against being ganked by multiple people.

[Procne]

What would that change? For most of those people PvP simply equals getting ganked. Whether they die, lose items or just get injured it doesn't matter much. It's always something where they suffer. The skill difference alone (not to even mention stats / gear) will always make them unable to protect themselves. Unless they spend time to learn and find someone willing to teach them. But then, what's the point - they play to build homes and plant crops, not to fight or do the "eye of the tiger" to beat the bad guy.

It will always be like that - new player comes to build stuff, at some point gets destroyed and loses the will to play. Sometimes he will complain on forum, bringing joy to the "veterans", gets shat on and THEN loses the will to play.

[SnuggleSnail]

Death is already nearly impossible if you're competent, and the punishment for dying is trivially small. I want higher stakes, personally.

There are a lot more reasonable ways to tutorialize it. When people join our village, even people who've never played the game before, they're given a bad character to practice on. We chase them 5v1 until they can at least semi-consistently escape on comparatively understated chars.

In most cases it only takes a few hours for them to be good enough to escape consistently from everybody except the top ~10-20 PVPers, and still inconsistently escape top few. The minimum skill needed to function even verse high level players is so trivial that average players being taught it passively by regular PVE encounters or similar seems like the best option to me.

It's sad that people who've played the game for less than a day in our village would dunk >90% of the people who've played since legacy

[Vraatjuh]

What would that change? For most of those people PvP simply equals getting ganked. Whether they die, lose items or just get injured it doesn't matter much. It's always something where they suffer. The skill difference alone (not to even mention stats / gear) will always make them unable to protect themselves. Unless they spend time to learn and find someone willing to teach them. But then, what's the point - they play to build homes and plant crops, not to fight or do the "eye of the tiger" to beat the bad guy.

It will always be like that - new player comes to build stuff, at some point gets destroyed and loses the will to play. Sometimes he will complain on forum, bringing joy to the "veterans", gets shat on and THEN loses the will to play.

Speaking just for myself; if someone on our area Discord shouts that there is someone with a B12 running around, I stay inside my palisade because I have little experience in PvP and don't want to die, basically. If I know that the worst that can happen is that I lose some gear I might just gather a band of unfortunate souls and try to KO the guy. What do we have to lose, other then some cheap ass gear we can put on? We even gain some PvP experience to kick his ass next time if we can outnumber him. And I am that legacy retard that Snail is talking about that plays for 10+ years already but just can't be bothered with PvP because of the possible outcome. Not worth gaining valuable PvP experience concidering the possible costs.

I know for certain plenty people in my groups feel the same. And therefore I expect a larger portion of the community feels this way.

Currently you just avoid anyone remotely dangerous at all cost, because the possible punishment is too big.