Are custom clients considered *cheating*?

[Nightdawg]

I want legit opinions please, don't shitpost.

I was randomly reading the forums, and stumbled upon this:

Have you ever once considered that your personal viewpoint on what is a good or bad gaming experience might be horrendously out of touch?
If like 90% of the active users at any given point in the population are using badcam, I think it's safe to say that you are objectively wrong, don't you think?
This also goes for many of the custom client features that the vast majority of the player population take advantage of, but that you and jorb have been stubbornly and coldly against for years now.

Should we implement bot and scripting support as well? Wouldn't not doing so imply that we hate freedumb?

This is in regards to the vanilla client not having QoL features and other stuff that makes your gameplay more... advantageous I guess?

The implied features are, in a total random order: toggling the bad camera without having to guess a hidden console command, having a hotkey to *right click* the closest forageable object, hotkey to drink from one of the 25 containers in your belt/inventory without having to bind each of them to the action bar (also detect which one still has water in it), indicators to show how much liquid you have in said containers, auto-toggling stuff like tracking, criminal acts or swimming by default when you log on, being able to select what you see on the minimap (not limited to forageables and creatures, but also specific tree/boulder types, or other objects such as siege engines, etc.), being able to hide trees/boulders while only showing their hitboxes, being able to disable terrain smoothing to actually know which tiles are water or sprint tiles, being able to disable flavor objects (though new render client might remove the need to do this), being able to have a larger minimap so you can see where your party members are (outside of your range of sight), having extra buttons to destroy the closest crop on a treillis, to shoo animals, to fill smelters the right amount of coal without having to count everything, dismount the closest rider, easier to distinguish colors for openings in combat, adding 4 branches to the closest oven, auto-filet all fishes, seeing percentage indicators when crafting or doing other actions, percentage indicators to show the health of objects (especially mining beams and knarrs/snekkjas), being able to mine more than one tile at a time, alarms for objects/entities that pop on your screen, such as specific animals, red-marked hearthlings or unknown hearthlings, harvesting the nearest dream catcher, using a clover on the nearest wildhorse/auroch/mouflon, aggroing all nearby non-party players, aggroing animals without having to actually click on their model (I'd like to know if anyone can click bees, I managed to do it once), having a keybind to cycle through your combat targets, seeing people's openings and coins without having to target them specifically, showing line vectors that indicate the direction players are walking towards, drawing circles under party members, ACTUAL INDICATORS to show what stuff you have toggled on (tracking, swimming, criminal acts, etc.), highlighting drying racks that are finished, highlighting tanning tubes that are finished, highlighting empty chicken coops/rabbit hutches/throughs, showing some aggro radius for aggressive wild animals, showing attributes and softcap in crafting windows, curiosity completion percentage, showing arrow vectors, highlighting your current target in combat, displaying cooldown time in combat, preventing me to drop items while I'm over water tiles, selecting stuff to drop automatically while I mine, showing the radius of mining columns, showing what kind of ore/stone tiles are in my range of sight, showing the server time, zooming out beyond the limit, auto-selecting options from flower menu (such as "Giddyup!" for horses), livestock manager, show FEP percentages on foods, set my player speed to run on log in, having a hotkey to open/close the closest non-visitor gate, showing stage indicators on crops, showing growth indicators on trees, and probably more stuff I can't specify off the top of my head.

None of those features are bots, and we can chose to toggle them on or off (in custom clients).
The devs have stated the following:

Our philosophy has been, and remains, that we – rather than spend our time fighting losing battles – should focus on building a better game with fewer incentives to bot. We try to take botting as a sign of a broken game mechanic, rather than as a sign of broken players.

Although this is kind of ironic WHEN GLOBAL POOLS ONLY BENEFIT BOTS, let's ignore that fact, and focus on the "We try to take botting as a sign of a broken game mechanic, rather than as a sign of broken players." part.
By this statement, I chose to assume that botters are not cheaters, since the developers are not fighting bots at all, and not punishing botters, and introducing mechanics that benefit bots (I'm really salty about global pools, I can't have any of those objects cause I can't script a bot).

But if someone were to say botters are cheaters, am I also cheating for using those non-bot QoL features literally all custom clients use? What do you guys think?
Also where do we draw the line? Is cheesing animals also cheating?

[Ardennesss]

It depends entirely on what you're comparing custom clients to. Some custom clients are cheating compared to others, but most are cheating when compared to default. Ender's client is probably the most "vanilla like" custom client that exists, but the spectrum extends from there all the way to a gutted gameplay experience built around the concept of automation. Jorb isn't wrong when saying custom clients are like aimbotting when you compare what is capable of being done with them versus what is intended to be done using default client, but that is a result of tedium they've loaded the game down with partially because of the existence of custom clients in the first place.

[boreial]

I will equate custom clients to automobiles, is it cheating if I drive a 2020 car with heated steering/seats, quad control heating and air, aotu braking. vs. someone who drives a 1970 with no power steering, no antilock brakes, no AC? We both get to our intended destination. One more enjoyably so than the other. IF the standard client had Comparable features, to relive multiple clicking, movable UI's, full camera controls then I would use that, as it stands when all Custom clients are unavailable I don't log in at all since I find the v-client to be non-enjoyable to use, And I play the game for enjoyment.

(just my 2 cents worth, maybe just 1 cent even)

[Robben_DuMarsch]

On Botting as "cheating:"

Look, the fact of the matter is that the devs get to decide what is cheating and what is not cheating. Their past posts on the matter have made it clear that although they very much dislike botting, they are taking a laissez faire approach to botting because the amount of energy spent combatting botters would be better spent addressing the underlying issues that give rise to botting in the first instance. The real life analogy would be the "war on drugs." Jorb and Loftar would prefer to let everyone take as much meth/PCP as they want while trying to address the systemic poverty and other issues that cause people to use meth/PCP in the first instance.

Has it been successful? Well, botting may or may not be slightly more prevalent than it would be otherwise because there are no social mores against botting when the devs have clearly said on record it's fair game. However, it's rather undeniable that they couldn't effectively police botting, so if it were outlawed, it would have largely been similar it would have just driven botting underground. That might make the problem less visible, but when encountered, would result in a lot of fingerpointing and accusations of unfair play that would be just as toxic.

What is the underlying problem?

Look, Haven is a truly wonderful game that has seen much labor of love and tens of thousands of man hours of work on it by a skilled two man team. There are things that Haven does that are not matched by any other MMO, or game, ever released.

But the progression gameplay loop is fucking broken.

There's no getting around that. The infinite growth of X, Y, Z, stats while somewhat finite growth (my understanding of the current state of the game, but I haven't followed closely in quite some time) of A, B, C resources in QL is just a trap, in combination with the approx. 1 year long world resets. MMOs with competitive aspects virtually always follow one of three flavors:
1. There is a finite cap to character progression, with new content released in waves increasing this cap.
2. There is a less than finite growth potential to character progression but games are marked by short seasons, or gameplay sessions, or by resetting your character as part of a gameplay loop.
3. Character progression is theoretically infinite but exponential curves to growth potential cause something approaching a hard cap.

Haven without a doubt falls into category #2. But it does so with undefined seasons, which is also not much of an issue, but they go on for ~1 year or so, far past when most serious players have unlocked all the content and have nothing new to really do other than spend hours trying to experience the really slow paced Haven PvP.

Where could the game go instead?

This is an array of solutions, none of which are definitive and none of which lack their own shortcomings, but which I propose (if properly built around) are preferential to status quo:

1. Shorter "world resets" (Resets are timed to theoretically, or actually, coincide with when a certain threshhold of the playerbase is reaching the "max level" of development. This would break the game into a definitive early, mid, and lategame, followed by reset.)

2. Infinite "world with no resets", but with characters/resources having finite lifespan and therefore resetting during the larger gameplay loop. (Your character can be a jack of all trades, or specialize in a field and reach heights that would be unavailable to non-specialists. Your character, and the things you make, eventually wear out, break, and die. You gain dynastic experience that you retain forever, but these perks aren't gamebreaking, but do give you an edge. Think of Crusader Kings 3 style.)

3. Infinite "world with no resets," and no loss of character experience (except on perma death), but characters can progress to maximum in a specific area (which is an of itself a viable way to play or contribute to a larger community) rather quickly. However, they can then laterally progress in some other area unlocking other potential or gameplay styles, however unlocking "everything" would take so long it'd take years of play.

What else is needed?

No matter which of the above 3 options the devs pick, the game needs to move away from the "build a palisade bubble and live in your own insulated world 99% of the time" way of playing (otherwise get raped by the next travelling ganker). This is an MMO, and any new formulation of progression should heavily lean on maximizing the rewards for interacting with other players by essentially nerfing the ability of any one player to complete everything. Unfortunately, this is more than just a gameplay problem - It also involves the free access to any number of simultaneous accounts with characters that can quickly be botted up to complete most tasks.

I'd highly suggest addressing this by making learning points be more timegated and giving premium players a large premium to their timegate, or something equivalent, which heavily disincentives alting, in combination with the alternative gameplay progression schemes described above.

[mvgulik]

As strict free-account user I feel an even heavier price is going to be dropped on my character heads in the future.

[LadyV]

Their own words from Q&A.

https://www.havenandhearth.com/portal/paq

[shubla]

having a hotkey to *right click* the closest forageable object, hotkey to drink from one of the 25 containers in your belt/inventory

But why would you have 25 water containers? Not intended.

[Nightdawg]

having a hotkey to *right click* the closest forageable object, hotkey to drink from one of the 25 containers in your belt/inventory

But why would you have 25 water containers? Not intended.

Belts got changed to have more slots in order to remove the need of carrying 4 belts just for water. Also nothing is being done about every pvp encounter being 1-2-3 hours of running around. At the same time, dying because you ran out of water is probably the most stupid, unsatisfying way of losing your character in this game.
Therefore I think we can safely assume it is intended to carry 25 filled containers and 10 food items when outside your safe palisade.


; Again, I wish to make it clear that I am not talking about bots, but just quality of life options/settings provided by custom clients.
If we were to compare a bot in haven to an aimbot/wallhack in a shooter game, what would we compare the QoL stuff specified above with?

I'm not saying jorb is right OR wrong to compare those QoL things with bots.

Let me give you my perspective/story:
- I started playing hafen late game in world 10, I couldn't find a single soul (although I did not venture too far). I played for a few days, then I searched the forums for more info on the game. I figured out the best way to play this game is with more people (suggested on the forums). I joined 2 other players, and literally after 2 days of playing with them, I was told to try using a custom client, as it makes the gameplay more ENJOYABLE (not straight up making you a god without involving any skill, like an aimbot would do). So I started using Ember's client and played for around a month with my 2 hermit friends. We all decided to stop playing cause life was busy and stuff.
- I came back to the game a few months later, started talking in the realm chat and a guy asked me if I'd like to join him. He had a village claim and was happy to teach my-braindead-noob-self how to play this game, how mechanics work, and to answer whatever random questions I had. This man also told me that playing this game without a custom client is simply painful to do, and he recommended using Amber, as it had a few extra stuff that would prove useful, which Ender's didn't have. I hesitated to switch, but then I enjoyed Amber as much, if not even more than I enjoyed using Ender's. I stopped playing after 2 months, told my friend I would like to try playing at the start of the world, he was cool with it.
- World 11 is announced 1 month in advance: I go to the forums, find a group of people and join their discord. All of us were previously hermits, but most of them had many years of experience ahead of me, and again every single one of them taught me MANY things throughout World11. Even before the world even starts, literally all of them told me how much better the gameplay experience is while using a custom client. The group decided to be entirely against any sort of botting, which I couldn't care less about since I didn't even know what botting involved, and believed it would be cheating anyway. Throughout the world I was hesitant to meet/talk to other people, as I had learned from the forums (and from our neighbors lmao) that most people in hafen are aggressive and will try to knock you out on sight. I would like to believe that playing with this group of experienced players, in all of the fields this game provides, pretty much accelerated the rate at which I learned the game. I started to talk to some people every now and then, later in the world, and literally EVERYONE was recommending using custom clients to all new players, so I started doing that too.
- World 12, same group, more competitive style, still no bots (this time just cause we fucking had none, not because we didn't want to use any). I'd like to consider myself a *decent* player now. I'm not the best at this game, I suck at pvp, but I understand 95% of its mechanics to a higher extent. This world I am not hiding from anyone, I kin most people and tell them I'm friendly, I try my best to answer other people's questions, from my own knowledge, and try to teach them from my own mistakes. ONE OF THE MISTAKES I'M TEACHING THEM NOT TO MAKE IS TO USE A CUSTOM CLIENT. I have never once thought that loftar is purposefully not adding said QoL features to the vanilla client because he considers them cheating. I've seen some of those features being added to the vanilla client over some updates, so I figured it's alright to have them in custom clients. I've never thought of comparing those features with bots, and never thought loftar would code bots into the game, but rather change mechanics to benefit bots less (as an example: I've heard that you used to have to manually dig/level terrain one at a time, there was no survey tool. Holy shit?!).

Should I simply not playing this game cause it would be cheating to play it the way I (and 95% of the community) actually enjoy playing it? I don't want to be a cheater, I have some OCD or whatever that literally makes me feel zero pleasure if I were to cheat in any way. I hate cheaters, always hated cheating, and I would simply feel no satisfaction in playing the game just cause *I'd be cheating*.
This is why I ask where we draw the line.

wall of text, tldr KEK

[czaper2]

You ask me these bots everybody is so worried about don't even exist.

[WowGain]

You ask me these bots everybody is so worried about don't even exist.