Is the game dying already due to group/faction murder hobos?

[Reiber]

He won't interact with it because the opposition is so far ahead that there is no point in trying to fight back vs running. this is the reality of basically all solo players.

yes, but being competent enough to not instantly die if you are ganked, is significantly more easy than most solo players would think, and is a main reason, why a big portion of all ganks, arent about, you getting chased down by some guy that came with a boat, but 5 guys, and 3 alts, trying to ambush you at a roadport, or in a shitty safepali, so they can acurately calculate your hhp, and opknock you for the execute, or collecting midges, or whatever.

hermit fighter chars have existed and still exist, and non incompetent solo players, have infinitely higher survival chances, than "jonny 50mc(cause you dont need more cheesing foxes) that refuses to take more than 1 waterskin, thinks armour is only for pvp players, and tryes to hearth when he sees a player. and dosnt move.

[thebacon]

This world came with its biggest influx from releasing on Steam, if the numbers collapse then the game is not sucessful if a world can't last more than a few months, so it's just 2 takes from this:

Population collapses = This is fine, nothing to see here.
Population collapses = Why and what can we do to keep the game active/growing.

I do not really understand why anyone should settle with this instead of working towards improving numbers, MMOs can last well over 10 years with active playerbase, this one needs to wipe yearly to get a few months of activity.

[matheuswm]

.

.

The funniest demographic to analyze is the one that pretends they're hardcore because they teamup whenever a world starts and then proceed to curbstomp everyone while claiming sieges and open faction war "are not worth the trouble", while only picking fights they could easily win. Crying about storm being op just because they were unable to win for once in their lives.

If you were all about the challenge, the game " being for hardcore gamers", and the tools of keeping up like the handicaps were enough we'd have faction wars until the world ends, but no, once they feel they're not ahead they quit and wait a new world or just resort to hunting spruces.



let's say jonny 50mc does learn how to do all of that, just to MAYBE have a chance against hermit hunters. he will still:

feel demotivated to leave his pali to explore the world and hunt, because hermit mchunter is definitely around
be unable to enjoy meeting people ingame because of low trust
have to work 2 different alts if he REALLY wants to, at least, protect his main from dying

Are all of these avoidable if he just "grit his teeth" and found a group to play? Yeah. Is he safe from griefers even after doing all of this nonsense? no. So what's the point?

[matheuswm]

This world came with its biggest influx from releasing on Steam, if the numbers collapse then the game is not sucessful if a world can't last more than a few months, so it's just 2 takes from this:

Population collapses = This is fine, nothing to see here.
Population collapses = Why and what can we do to keep the game active/growing.

I do not really understand why anyone should settle with this instead of working towards improving numbers, MMOs can last well over 10 years with active playerbase, this one needs to wipe yearly to get a few months of activity.

small games like this rely on player whales and devs become hostage to these people because they're the ones keeping the game alive, do you really think these 40 usd hats and tokens don't sell well? financially, the game is as successful as it needs to be due to the small overhead.

And i do appreciate them not compromising much on the view of making it hardcore and trying many varied things to make it work without alienating those who log every world and play like they envision the game should be, but that is completely opposite to what the larger part of this community sees as the game's appeal.

A while back, talk of dedicated clients would be completely shot down, but now they're saying it's not on the horizon YET. I think once they tire of developing this game they'll cash out on a dedicated server client or something like that. I wouldn't mind such a move because then we can play as we want, but it is clear to me that once they open this pandora box there is no way they can keep an MMO-sized playerbase on one server and that's probably why they refuse to do it. Once they pulverize the playerbase by allowing dedicated servers there is no going back.

[Reiber]

This world came with its biggest influx from releasing on Steam, if the numbers collapse then the game is not sucessful if a world can't last more than a few months, so it's just 2 takes from this:

Population collapses = This is fine, nothing to see here.
Population collapses = Why and what can we do to keep the game active/growing.

I do not really understand why anyone should settle with this instead of working towards improving numbers, MMOs can last well over 10 years with active playerbase, this one needs to wipe yearly to get a few months of activity.

cause
A. after a certain size, large playerbases do not contribute to the enjoyment of any single player.
B. at this point world resetts are part of the game, and other multiplayer sandboxes do this aswell, this has not as much to do with players getting griefed, but lategame and postgame content being not the focus, and not as entertaining.

this game has , so far, survived and thrived as an lovechild enjoyed by mostly its devs and a dedicated community of retards looking for an incredibly niche game, making lasting, and sweeping concessions with the main focus being increasing playnumbers at all costs, while theoretically possible might actually destroy the things, this games playerbase enjoy about it, not increasing, but just swapping out the playerbase.


when you are a large studio you can just fuck over 9% of the playerbase annually to appeal to an new generation of "jimmy and his moms credit card" for aslong as you want, aslong as you manage to create enough new player influx through marketing, to leverage it against your existing playerbase loosing faith in your product.

haven is not that type of game, and the existing loyal playerbase is proppably here because, not in spite of that, they would have to be manic masochists if they arent (prop still a lot of them)


you talk like its popularity would have any influx on gameplay. if there was 100000 players online, and the world was 100 times larger, the only thing changing for you, would be that you get raided by someone with another hat every once in a while.

money is still an issue, and it would be great for jorbtard to get more resources to throw at the game, but the fact being that a waaay larger playerbase would increase effort and costs needed to maintain the game aswell, its proppably more efficient if you just buy a gold subscription, instead of getting 10 new players hooked.

[Kaios]

Bro is denser than a black hole... yeah they released on steam for fun it's not because they wanted to increase player activity.

[waga]

This world came with its biggest influx from releasing on Steam, if the numbers collapse then the game is not sucessful if a world can't last more than a few months, so it's just 2 takes from this:

Population collapses = This is fine, nothing to see here.
Population collapses = Why and what can we do to keep the game active/growing.

I do not really understand why anyone should settle with this instead of working towards improving numbers, MMOs can last well over 10 years with active playerbase, this one needs to wipe yearly to get a few months of activity.

The popuIation coIIapse because :
1) everyone enjoy eariy game when you have a miIIion things to do and concrete progress every days.
2) game become more and more grindy for Iess impactfuII progress
3) Iack of content past a certain point , you aIredy have everything.

This has been true for every singIe worIds, murders have nothing to do with it, if anything this worId the pIayer retention seems better.
Now I do agree they shouId go easy on the obvious new pIayer ganking but your main argument was so wrong I had to repIy.

[MightySheep]

This world came with its biggest influx from releasing on Steam, if the numbers collapse then the game is not sucessful if a world can't last more than a few months, so it's just 2 takes from this:

Population collapses = This is fine, nothing to see here.
Population collapses = Why and what can we do to keep the game active/growing.

I do not really understand why anyone should settle with this instead of working towards improving numbers, MMOs can last well over 10 years with active playerbase, this one needs to wipe yearly to get a few months of activity.

1500 players at start 1500 players now

I watched a poe2 dev interview the other day and I think its a pretty good point relevant to haven by top tier game devs https://youtu.be/dsrIEWXPHlo?t=2244

haven player retention has been op as hell this world for a ruthless game like this, wtf u guys talking about lmao

and in that interview I linked its the poe dev talking about how stupid the idea of thinking you have to have people play your game for eternity, its fine for people to come and go, if they get 1-2 month of gaming nothing wrong with that

there was a pretty noticeable drop when poe2 came out but in general the pop has been pretty damn stable this world

also steam "influx" is always over rated as hell its like 200 ppl at most, ive seen lots of games release on steam and they always think its gonna be mega and it never is

[Reiber]

The funniest demographic to analyze is the one that pretends they're hardcore because they teamup whenever a world starts and then proceed to curbstomp everyone while claiming sieges and open faction war "are not worth the trouble", while only picking fights they could easily win. Crying about storm being op just because they were unable to win for once in their lives.

If you were all about the challenge, the game " being for hardcore gamers", and the tools of keeping up like the handicaps were enough we'd have faction wars until the world ends, but no, once they feel they're not ahead they quit and wait a new world or just resort to hunting spruces.



let's say jonny 50mc does learn how to do all of that, just to MAYBE have a chance against hermit hunters. he will still:

feel demotivated to leave his pali to explore the world and hunt, because hermit mchunter is definitely around
be unable to enjoy meeting people ingame because of low trust
have to work 2 different alts if he REALLY wants to, at least, protect his main from dying

Are all of these avoidable if he just "grit his teeth" and found a group to play? Yeah. Is he safe from griefers even after doing all of this nonsense? no. So what's the point?

my man, i am not talking to you as a faction player here, that sits behind his pali all day, and feeds alts to the slaughter,
i have played and survived mostly alone or in small 2-5 man groups with personal friends, or been an satilite to middeling villages , with lone competent players. for multiple worlds now, my first world, i got vidol blocked in by AD, after they bashed my pali before, cause i didnt bother to realize i wasnt alone in a vast unclaimed world, but actually just a spruce setteling on a river, 4 minimaps away from a faction village,
and ever since, the only alt i ever use, is one to aggro mammoths, and another to click on dovecotes, or beehives.

i am still a massive scrub, days behind hermit mc hunter early, and 4 weeks in the game, i am 3 months of stat progression behind people that care,
and i am sitting here, larping on an unoptimized client, and yet , in those years, i have managed to be the hermit hunter on occasion, aswell as escape them a few times, got shit on in faction pvp, and survived b12 ganking squads. even fought off some people.

i have defenitely died more to animals than pvp,

100% agree to the retards bitching to much whenever something beats b12 beatdown though. that shit is retarded, "if anything but bunny slippers is viable that kills skill progression"

to your last 3 points: i generally agree about there existence, but i actually appreciate them:
- you should be scared to go outside, thats important for a survival game, bears dont manage to do that, but players do, and much better than creepers, or zombies you can cheese, or whatever other games offer.

- low trust shouldnt make you unable to enjoy social interaction, infact that is social interaction, and you shouldnt trust somebody who only dosnt fuck you over because they cant.

- never used alts, rarely died.

[matheuswm]

The funniest demographic to analyze is the one that pretends they're hardcore because they teamup whenever a world starts and then proceed to curbstomp everyone while claiming sieges and open faction war "are not worth the trouble", while only picking fights they could easily win. Crying about storm being op just because they were unable to win for once in their lives.

If you were all about the challenge, the game " being for hardcore gamers", and the tools of keeping up like the handicaps were enough we'd have faction wars until the world ends, but no, once they feel they're not ahead they quit and wait a new world or just resort to hunting spruces.



let's say jonny 50mc does learn how to do all of that, just to MAYBE have a chance against hermit hunters. he will still:

feel demotivated to leave his pali to explore the world and hunt, because hermit mchunter is definitely around
be unable to enjoy meeting people ingame because of low trust
have to work 2 different alts if he REALLY wants to, at least, protect his main from dying

Are all of these avoidable if he just "grit his teeth" and found a group to play? Yeah. Is he safe from griefers even after doing all of this nonsense? no. So what's the point?

my man, i am not talking to you as a faction player here, that sits behind his pali all day, and feeds alts to the slaughter,
i have played and survived mostly alone or in small 2-5 man groups with personal friends, or been an satilite to middeling villages , with lone competent players. for multiple worlds now, my first world, i got vidol blocked in by AD, after they bashed my pali before, cause i didnt bother to realize i wasnt alone in a vast unclaimed world, but actually just a spruce setteling on a river, 4 minimaps away from a faction village,
and ever since, the only alt i ever use, is one to aggro mammoths, and another to click on dovecotes, or beehives.

i am still a massive scrub, days behind hermit mc hunter early, and 4 weeks in the game, i am 3 months of stat progression behind people that care,
and i am sitting here, larping on an unoptimized client, and yet , in those years, i have managed to be the hermit hunter on occasion, aswell as escape them a few times, got shit on in faction pvp, and survived b12 ganking squads. even fought off some people.

i have defenitely died more to animals than pvp,

100% agree to the retards bitching to much whenever something beats b12 beatdown though. that shit is retarded, "if anything but bunny slippers is viable that kills skill progression"

to your last 3 points: i generally agree about there existence, but i actually appreciate them:
- you should be scared to go outside, thats important for a survival game, bears dont manage to do that, but players do, and much better than creepers, or zombies you can cheese, or whatever other games offer.

- low trust shouldnt make you unable to enjoy social interaction, infact that is social interaction, and you shouldnt trust somebody who only dosnt fuck you over because they cant.

- never used alts, rarely died.

I do think your experience is valid, but just take into consideration:

How many hours has every time you died WITHOUT A CHANCE TO FIGHT BACK (excluding animal deaths of course) set you back?
How many hours do you play per world to stay remotely within range of being able to fight back?
How long would a player take to even recuperate a 50% loss to his attributes if he plays 10h a week?
Should 20h/week minimum be necessary for this game to be enjoyed?

-People say lategame in this game is boring. Sure, if you're so overfed that every dungeon is cheesable by having high stats you'll never face a problem, but most people don't even reach enough stats to do dungeons. The lategame isn't boring, you're just complaining that you got to a lvl 60 encounter while being lvl 99. Mythic dungeons in WoW might be your thing if you need something to occupy you 50h a week for marginal improvement.

-I'm very confident most people claiming this game's combat is baby-like and boring in order to complain about us who don't care about PVPing with their beefed alts never pick unfair fights with trolls, wolfpacks, mammoths or even players, using their mains. You need INSANE stats time-wise to fight them fairly.


Player interaction
-The fact visitor gates and similar mechanics have to exist so we have central markets such as WB is proof you do need this type of mechanic to allow for peaceful cooperation and growth, just like complex societies need laws to function. Being unable to have even a single place to interact safely is detrimental, and the burden was on the community to maintain such environment, but what happens when nobody wants to put in this effort?