Are devs happy/okay/satisfied with the player numbers?

[strpk0]

I think the current user numbers are a pretty damning indictment of our development and/or management, or perhaps of the game itself, tbqh, but -- while I can certainly speculate -- I don't know with any perfect certainty what the big problem(tm) is. I am concerned that recurring resets is an addiction that we're feeding which prevents any longer term commitments to the game.

Continued development is the best I've got.

The barrier to entry on a non-fresh world is gigantic, and the barrier to make a competitive village/character even more so.

Trading is basically dead, so a new player either has to join up with a large faction (which usually stops happening late-world) or wallow in irrelevancy for a few weeks until they get bored and quit the first time they get attacked by someone several dozens of times stronger than them.

Just look at what removing village idol teleporting did to trading, to me this would seem like an obvious enough reason to bring it back in some capacity, despite how "ugly" or "unrealistic" it may have seemed when it was removed.


I'll go ahead and plug my list again which I'm pretty sure you've already read. No disrespect intended, but I think you guys as devs severely underestimate how bot-heavy some of the mandatory content in this game is, which basically locks relevancy behind a "Do you have a village programmer?" requirement, and anyone who tries to engage with said content manually will inevitably burn themselves out and quit. The amount of things you need to do simultaneously to stay relevant has also rocketed since the legacy days. I wouldn't dare play without bots or without a HUGE faction of other players to make all of these tasks somewhat tolerable, whereas smaller (yet relevant) villages were commonplace back then.

I think in general a lot of compromises will have to be made along the way to make this game fun and accessible, and not a doomed venture from the start for newer players, which is important to keep worlds from dying out so quickly.

[Jalpha]

It seems obvious to me that Hafen is being used by the Devs as a testbed for the games combat system. A great majority of the development focus is intended to encourage PvP interaction.

If player numbers and player retention were the development focus instead of trying to build a bloodbath game I think by now the Devs would have submitted to the pve players and provided pve only spaces.

Of course as they have stated in the past PvP is their intended method of countering griefing. PvE areas would require GM interventions. The Devs have stated in the past that their real life commitments do not allow them the luxury of performing GM duties. I don't know if they even want GMs at all. They can't afford to pay a GM.

Other games have used volunteers but I don't know anyone in the community who could be trusted with GM powers. Different topic really.

It does seem logical to me that pve zones would enhance player retention but idk what anyone else thinks about that and I'm sure it's not something the Devs want. Certainly not as a permanent addition.

[wonder-ass]

I dont think it has to do with competition at alllll. People like legit dont know what to do in certain situations and it just makes them out right quit. 90% of the playerbase from what ive seen over the years are just super casual players they dont give a shit about q or who has the highest stats, they also have no clue how certain mechanics works so when they die instead of the game explaining “this isnt the end! u can regain a lot of the progress u gained back heres how” it pops you to the main menu and thats it they close out the game.

Dont starve a very unforgiving game that deletes your save if you die is wildly popular. However its also a lot easier to understand and play.

[WowGain]

they also have no clue how certain mechanics works

100%
I introduced three other people to the game this world and every one of them essentially required complete handholding to explain all of the esoteric and very unexplained mechanics in the game that they'd have zero ability to be able to figure out on their own with any reasonable expectations
A lot of hafens design clearly intends for it to be something that doesn't directly outline itself but you learn it by the process of playing, but the main issue with that atm is that many times, you will not be able to learn your way effectively through a game mechanic just by playing it

Reliance on a wiki which where most of the pages are either multiple worlds out of date or had edits made by a random dumbass just saying random bs on pages being so severe is a major problem

Ironically, one of the times where I did end up learning a lot about a system just by doing it was siege - but even in that case I benefitted a lot by being able to ask jorb about some of the details of it, since they were seemingly missing from every info source on siege available, including the update pages.
However, even getting to the point of jumping into siege requires understanding so many other gameplay loops which aren't easy to parse how to properly do them that very few people will ever get the chance to interact with it as one of the systems where just doing it helps you learn how to do it better in the future

[shubla]

Just look at what removing village idol teleporting did to trading

I think its quite naive to look at W5 trading and W13 trading and come to a conclusion that reason for less trading is village idols missing, while literally everything in the game has also been changed during that interval

Plenty of other reasons as well. Such as tokens. You literally cant buy anything nice without them, back in the days the currency was pearls, edelweiß, bluebells, bears even, and even noobs could get some easily!
I do have to admit that at least the bear thing is something that teleportation does prevent quite nicely.

[WowGain]

Just look at what removing village idol teleporting did to trading

I think its quite naive to look at W5 trading and W13 trading and come to a conclusion that reason for less trading is village idols missing, while literally everything in the game has also been changed during that interval

Compare W13 to W12 then

43 to 87 topics, and that's post addition of oceans to the game which was the final nail in CF ever truly being made again

[shubla]

I don't think that oceans are a major problem, you can easily cross them once and then use thingwalls?

[WowGain]

I don't think that oceans are a major problem, you can easily cross them once and then use thingwalls?

W10 - 261 threads in trade
W11 - 159 threads in trade

why do you always insist on saying things even you know aren't true

[Pommfritz]

Haven & hearth is a pretty hardcore game meaning that you can get robbed etc and there are real consequences for not securing your stuff propperly etc -> that already leads to a lot of people ditching the game but it also leads to the people who are left over, really liking the game.
Also to me it looks like Haven is an unmoderated botfest and of course people are not sticking around after finding out about this, EXCEPT:
-they are botters and have fun playing the game like this
-they very much love the game and care about their own enjoyment playing the game over their progress compared to whoever
-they are confident they could play the game and be sort of relevant not scripting or botting

The last one can barely function without the 2nd one. So the traits of your audience are very very specific and tbh having 100-200 players consistently show up like this and play a game you created aka being your core audience is really good already.

This is not ment to sounds offensive but what do you expect in a situation like this?

No normal human being is gonna stick around except they exactly fit into one or more of the player types I wrote above.

I think to solve some issues regarding player retention you need to think about how to move from a very specific audience to making the game appealing for a little more broader audience.
Things that could work are:
-Fighting bots through making it less necessairy to bot (which i think you have done a great job with in the last patches) and actually dealing with scripters and botters, which you already said you don't wanna do but maybe someone has the capabilities to do that.
-Improving the client for a much better user experience, this probably offers no value to people who already play the game and have their custom clients so it's really hard to pull this off without getting shit on by the community but for example this default camera you have is just something that no game uses, for good reason, it's shit. It immediately makes the game look outdated. make :cam bad :cam good.
I can't remember everything form the default client but one other thing that sticks out was the crafting menu. It required so many fucking clicks to craft something with a few sub recipes and as a noob you don't know exactly where everything is either it's ridiculously tedious. example: you want to craft something, realise you need a different craft first, you need to close the menu click through it again and craft that thing, close the menu craft your desired item or repeat for another few sub recipes that are required by the thing you want to craft. Instead why not open the recipe you want to craft, click on the items that are required by it opening different crafting tabs so you can quickly craft them 1by1, go back to your main tab and craft what you want, like idc if this would require a whole new client but this is how it should be like. Even custom clients deal with that pretty badly and the action search is just a bandaid that no new player really figures out quickly.
another thing is that your 1-5 keys get deleted in combat and genreally the hotkeying is pretty fucking weird.
another thing: no filter for map markers and btw I think this already gets to far from the goal and serves your core audience more than it is relevant to people that start playing the game.
server lag/ frame lag idk what it is but the game runs like dog shit at times, I want to play a game that runs smooth like baby shit.
-making the game more casual/ family friendly etc this is an option, I don't say I like it and more casual is probably not equal to a more family friendly experience but both sort of results in more whiny plebs playing the game and being fine after months of working on their progress in the game even if they get griefed and therefore broadening your audience. it's not a black and white thing but some things could potentially made a tiny bit more casual. examples that are on my mind right now (so probably more relevant to me than to new players):
steel cruicible reload time to 24h instead of 12h
an option to activate a holiday timer for 1-2 weeks where you can't get sieged and no one can do crime on your claim unless you log back in during this time. pretty relevant for people who sometimes go on holiday (who would have thought xd) and can't check their virtual posessions every day for a period of time, nevermind having time to defend a siege while visiting their family etc. (I think some browser games had this option where it was possible that you could be raided etc)

there is also another problem with token trading which is basically pay 2 win driven by the community instead of just making a cash shop with highq items for $$ and it sucks but this is another topic imo


just my thoughts, hope it helps xd

[Procne]

I am concerned that recurring resets is an addiction that we're feeding which prevents any longer term commitments to the game.

That might be true, but I think it's also that large part of the playerbase doesn't want to play the long game and doesn't want to be competitive. Not looking for another EVE or Wurm online.
For me the best part of the game is the early stages, with building up the village, exploration, unlocking skills and industries. After a month or two there's nothing left from that and all that remains is grinding numbers.

Arguably, I could re-start the game from scratch at any moment, and I did so in the past, but now that I play in a group it's less feasible, because other people would have to want to play at the same time. Somehow, with new world everyone is back with newfound will to play. Add to it small things like being at the mercy of almost everyone because of stats and infrastructure difference, most good locations and resource spots already taken and late game economy where you can trade / find abandoned stuff way above what you can make yourself, therefore boosting you / circumventing part of development progress

For me the perfect solution would be timed worlds, like in Travian games or the Salem expeditions. World lasts several months, with the end game where the factions can fight for glory, and then a scheduled restart.