Why Haven & Hearth isn't popular?

[Grognak]

Long time casual sometimes-hermit sometimes-not player here. I've played with friends, with my wife, with strangers.

This game isn't popular for two reasons.

First, the forum community for the most of the life of the game has been extremely toxic. It's gotten a little better in the last year or so, but I assume that's because the playerbase hasn't really changed and is getting older. It's mostly constrained to the moot now. Mostly.

Second, no stat caps mean that casual players will never catch up and that new players can not ever catch up. The question of "why would I keep playing if I was at my cap?" for some reason outweighs "why would I start playing if I could never catch up?". Literally no other MMO has this attitude.

Every world boils down to the same people grinding with bots and performing off hour sieges on eachother, while new players join sporadically and play until they get demolished in a fight they mechanically can never win. I still don't understand why bots are allowed, but that's a whole different thing.

[Robben_DuMarsch]

First, the forum community for the most of the life of the game has been extremely toxic. It's gotten a little better in the last year or so, but I assume that's because the playerbase hasn't really changed and is getting older. It's mostly constrained to the moot now. Mostly.

I'll be honest, there's something to this.
I can't even comprehend roughly a quarter of the threads here, and like half of the ones in the moot.
Especially those sonic the hedgehog ones.

I know that Hedgehugs are like... former Odditown bloc players... but beyond that, it's all nonsense to me.
And I know these guys well enough to know that this isn't like some PR persona. That's how most of them act in game.
I can barely even communicate with Trollex. I need to speak to Onep or Bunzy for translation and shit.

Then there are people like Frost that you don't even have anyone to translate for you, because they'd just link you to a GIF of diarrhea on a keyboard.

Second, no stat caps mean that casual players will never catch up and that new players can not ever catch up. The question of "why would I keep playing if I was at my cap?" for some reason outweighs "why would I start playing if I could never catch up?". Literally no other MMO has this attitude.

Jorbtar, even if you are convinced that this isn't a major issue, it's certainly clear that the perception of this issue is a large one.
I'd love to hear if you were considering changes to progression.

[MagicManICT]

Second, no stat caps mean that casual players will never catch up and that new players can not ever catch up. The question of "why would I keep playing if I was at my cap?" for some reason outweighs "why would I start playing if I could never catch up?". Literally no other MMO has this attitude.

Jorbtar, even if you are convinced that this isn't a major issue, it's certainly clear that the perception of this issue is a large one.
I'd love to hear if you were considering changes to progression.

Might I point you to Eve Online where you will NEVER catch the guys that have been playing the game constantly since 2003? CCP (the publisher) still has a 300 thousand plus player base and always getting in new players. It's my favorite go-to for discussing success/failure in an open world, open PVP game. It's also the only one I know of that has continued long term success after more than a few years of going live.

I say that and do realize that each skill does have its limits. However, to max out some of those combat skills with just one specific ship can take a good six months with a cruiser, nine months for for a battleship, and over a year for basic capital ships--12-14 for dreadnaughts and 15-16 for carriers. (This was calculated using the skill planner EVEMon with a fresh character and maximizing attributes for the least possible study time.) That's not counting in extra skills that might be necessary to fulfill roles other than the one specific ship or for "fun" and profit. I'll also note that a swarm of goons can take out any ship in the game given proper tactical preparation in a gank situation. (They even got a special rule in place for using free starter ships to do so because they did so.)

Now, compare to Haven... the worlds only exist a bit more than nine months on average. W6 was during Salem development, and w7, still ongoing as Legacy, was running during the "Haven 2.0" recreation, both at over 2 years each (counting the start of w8 as the "end" of w7 when it became legacy), so I'll count those as "aberrations" and it brings the average world time to under 9 months. The majority of the "top" combat stats can be had in about 3 months from the start of the world (assuming your character doesn't die for some reason) and less time than that as the world progresses and quality levels go up. Jordan Coles actually presented a feasting session in his Twitch steam a week or so ago where he gained a ridiculous amount of strength in just a few hours. The hard part is generating LP as it is time gated.

I'm not sure if anyone has tested the limits of how many people a highly skilled character can take on before succumbing to numbers. If they have, they're not talking because they don't want anyone to get the drop on them and kill them. I don't blame them, either. Even if the time to recoup isn't horrid, it's a lot of effort in producing food and curios to regain lost stats.

I'm writing this up because this myth needs to be debunked. I know people like to think this because bigger numbers are bigger, but bigger doesn't always mean better. Also, don't take this as an argument against stat caps. I'm neutral on the issue, but I'm of the opinion it'll just lead to the use of more alts than is already being used.

And this "problem" is no different than playing a game like World of Warcraft pre-dungeon finder on a PvP server and having higher levels gankcamp the summoning stones of lower tier dungeons favorited by the other faction.

[Robben_DuMarsch]

Might I point you to Eve Online where you will NEVER catch the guys that have been playing the game constantly since 2003? CCP (the publisher) still has a 300 thousand plus player base and always getting in new players. It's my favorite go-to for discussing success/failure in an open world, open PVP game. It's also the only one I know of that has continued long term success after more than a few years of going live.

As you point out below, skills in EvE do have defined limits that allows you to reach the maximum potential with a certain ship in a reasonable amount of time for most ships.
Once you've maxed out that ship, you've maxed out that ship.
Also, the game is exponentially front-loaded so that if you want to unlock 90% of the potential of a ship or module, you can do so in often less than half the time required to reach 100%.
Finally, you are able to fill niche roles in combat (expendable tackler in t1 frigate) that can make you useful in high end PvP within your first few days.

None of these important distinctions exist in HnH, and therefore an apples to apples comparison doesn't help justify HnH's current system. I do not doubt, however, that it could be a useful reference to refine HnH's progression. There are other things that I'd like to see introduced from EvE into HnH as well, specifically:
(1) The complex production chains that enrich the economy.
(2) The reliance on other players to source goods you need to function day to day (it's literally impossible to make everything you need for yourself in EvE even if you played it as a full time job, unless you limited yourself to newbie gear.)
(3) The depth and breadth of high end alliance construction and logistics of starbases and outposts, which would be a vast expansion of the current Kingdom system.

[MagicManICT]

I'm not a PvP vet here... might as well call me a noob, but I can always run numbers. And my point is that the perception of "never catching up" is just a cop out argument, and excuse for some perception that is incorrect.

In EVE, where it's a 1v1 situation, two factors need to be accounted for. First is fitting--who has the better one. It's not a guarantee of a win, but an outcome can be determined with a high probability based on fitting. Second is skill. If the fittings are equal or close to it, the pilot with the skill is going to win nearly every time. 90 to 100 is that much of a factor. That 10% may even be enough to pull a weaker ship through a fight to a win (albeit with extreme hull damage).

In Haven, it's mostly about numbers, though if you're better equipped and you catch some fighter out in foraging gear without armor, you might be able to make short work of them (just because no armor or big weapon... might happen... probably not though). Chances are the better stats are going to win, in most cases because there isn't that equalizing factor of mismatching types, "Rock Paper Scissors" gameplay.

You are correct in that most of EVE is centered around group combat, just like Haven. There, even a rank noob can provide pivotal roles with just a bit of training and a pilot that is willing to listen to fleet command. Here... well, you could in theory arm them with a bow and hope they hit the target and not a friendly, but archery was nerfed to total crap. It's another thing that needs to be addressed to keep player's attention and make combat interesting. I'm of the opinion more people would get the warriors to come out to play if combat was more accessible.

And in EVE, while an individual skill might have a cap rank of 5, there can be two, three, or more skills affecting a particular module that you need to train up to get to 100%, as they're progressively longer and longer training than the last. That's what sucks up the time. Here, it's the same exponential time curve to build up that stat. As I stated above, it takes months to even get a small ship to max efficiency, and our worlds don't even necessarily last that long.

I realize it's a poor comparison because of the mechanical differences, but can you name a better one that gets a point across?

Now, you do bring up valid points in that new players have little to add to an established group. This could use some more work, I think, other than being slave labor for a month or two until that player has pushed a skill up to required values. Some of the changes the last year or two have helped (realms, farming mechanic change, visitor flag), but it's not enough. I wish I could think of some other useful things that wouldn't lead to more labor alt abuse, but I have none right now.

[Robben_DuMarsch]

I've got plenty of experience in both HnH and EvE PvP, as I was a somewhat notorious EvE Pirate back when I was in High School, and later developed my carebear and newb-rearing aspect as a 0.0 Fleet commander when I was the CEO of a corporation that owned a 0.0 space station and starbase complexes.
I've also got plenty of HnH experience, and I may be one of the few people that has fought in large faction battles, commanded NEW players in those battles, and scored successful kills.

I can say with confidence that the key to scoring victories with new players in EvE Online is by training them to fulfill a role, explaining that role and the mechanics of the game to them thoroughly, then integrating them into your larger strategy.
I can say with confidence that the largest reason why I was successful with new players in HnH was because we were able to catch our enemies by surprise (usually by dropping ontop of them unexpectedly with our full force, or showing fewer numbers then rallying around a teleportation objective with our full force) then when they saw the full numbers they shat themselves and fucked up. Even if your numerical advantage is small and you are outskilled, it's quite easy to beat an enemy focused on running away rather than fighting back. In a real standup fight, I'd not have bet on us

In group spar practices where there isn't the emotional shock component, lower skill players can largely be neutralized if you manage your movement patterns to make it so that if they are going to engage you, they will clip or cause the larger skill enemies to pathfind around them. Unlike in EvE, players can very much become a liability very quickly in certain circumstances. We would often run 1v3s to illustrate this point, with myself or Bob Dole demolishing a bunch of newer militia members. The primary contribution of a lower skill player is to follow on a flank, try not to interfere, and look for an opening to drop opportunity knocks, which is admittedly useful in close fights if you have a new player perform just that with excellent execution. But they *need* to be supporting higher skill players. If there is one group of highly skilled players, and one group of low skilled players, those opportunity knocks aren't going to matter as the high skill players can literally facetank and wreck them.

Reintegrating ranged and mounted combat to viable, defined roles, may allow lower skill players to contribute to combat in a greater manner.

That said, basic "viability" in combat for new players is only a very small part of this total equation. Even if they'd be able to "fulfill a role" in combat, they would still need to be attached to an existing fighting outfit.
What about other alternative styles of play? Players that want to play semi-competitively with their own group of friends? Casual players that don't want to affiliate with a faction? These kinds of players can't meaningfully access higher end content without at the very least a factional affiliation. Furthermore, these factions tend to be notoriously opaque, closed, and the like. Even trade relationships with these larger factions is extremely limited, because what objects of value could they truly offer that the faction couldn't easily make at much higher quality?

We desperately need a fundamental overhaul that redesigns the disparity of wealth and combat potential between factions, non-botting independent villages, and hermitages. Additional mechanics should also be implemented to introduce greater economic reliance on other parties. I don't actually believe that a hard-cap for skills and attributes is the right route to take. But compressing the disparity between the aforementioned groups would likely be helpful for the game's population and long-term health. I stand by my two previous proposals.

[Granger]

Main differences between EVE and H&H:
1) You're never useless in EVE, at every level you are able to do something productive, be it mining base minerals, hauling stuff, scouting or fill support roles in combat. In H&H a new character is useless for basically everything that is a tad more complex than shoveling dirt and carrying stuff from A to B.
2) Clones in EVE turn PvP defeat into materialistic loss instead of a character based one. You get blown up, hop into another ship and continue - hopefully not forgetting to buy another clone insurance first. In H&H you're back to 1), though the KO mechanic has turned this quite a bit toward the EVE model (which is good).

[Aglaeca]

I think first of all H & H is a second life game - it's a real time game, with significant penalties for not logging in if your rl intervenes. So you have to be someone who needs a game to hide in. You have to be the kind of player who has a minimal real life and is prepared to make a substantial time and emotional commitment to your H & H life.

But then due to game mechanics you are generally up against completely uncontrollable forces that do not provide you with a sense of challange or competition. For example right now I am a low level character who has managed to get a decent sized claim with two houses, a farm plot and a few nascent industries. I am attempting to get enough leather to keep myself well supplied in replacement leather and nettle poultices so that I can learn to hunt animals. But there is someone in my area who makes periodic visits to my claim and steals all stored leather, drying hides and materials that are needed to make leather. My leather and hides are darned close to the paltriest of noob trash, but it is worth this person's while to come and clean me out.

There is no obvious and reasonable solution to this problem other than "suck it up" . I am a ways from being able to track thieves, reluctant to build a palisade when in the mid-term run I will be relocating to an area with better resources rather than my starting spot, and I certainly can't out compete this individual as they are both ahead of me now, and for the foreseeable future I will be subsidizing them. I can't store hides in an alt vault while drying or tanning them....

I would think that this helplessness against fate is the reason why most new players would drop out. H & H offers a real world level of frustration, not the kind of frustration that you get in games like World of Warcraft where if you can't defeat a monster yet, or succeed at a quest there is a clear path to doing so. For most players the problem I am up against will not have a solution. I might be lucky enough to live near a town that will help me. I might be lucky enough to be laid off so that I can play more hours a day and put in more of a commitment to H & H than my thief. But for most payers the game will just end up leading them into a place where they are blocked from playing effectively, and may take a social penalty as well, if they feel like they have been defeated, or are frustrated by ending in the role of a victim.

[Gensokyo]

There's enough korean daily grinders that most people won't notice the small java based not-korean grinder

[linkfanpc]

Iirc it's actually decently well-known in the hardcore sandbox pvp genre. It's just very different from many games, has a hard learning curve and is generally more slow-paced than the more popular things like Rust, DayZ, H1Z1, Unturned, etc.