An overview on the fundamentals of Haven

[Archiplex]

Or at least, an attempt to explain what my crazy mind has been thinking up in the past bit of time.

I'll try to organize this by different topics and such, but right now Haven has (not including the most recent change) a lot of core mechanics that simply do not work alongside each other

The biggest of these is...

Permadeath and Infinite Progression

These are the two things we can probably look at haven and singlehandedly identify it for- a lot of people play Haven because it IS a permadeath game, and it is a game where the amount of time you spend grinding correlates with your maximum potential (and current of course.) If you spend months grinding every day at maximum efficiency, you will eventually hit 4x efficiency (160 stat/quality). If you keep that up, it will not be long before you hit 5x (250) and so forth. The scale of efficiency in this game is almost universally sqrt(Stat/10) = Efficiency modifier, which is a rather fast rate of growing in efficiency, and while it does get reduced gains the higher you go (Gaining 10 skill from 10-20 is MUCH more impactful than say, gaining 10 skill from 990-1000), it's simply not tapered enough when in considering how much time it will take a new player to reach this state.

So, with this concept of infinite progression (which i personally believe is incredibly unhealthy for the game entirely), almost every moment you spend raising your numbers is incredibly impactful, even in the "end" stages you can still easily glide above others in strength by spending each day on increasing them- which normally isn't bad, but the issue is HOW MUCH power you're gaining from continually rising in stats over others. A guy with 160ql gear is MUCH better than one with 90ql, to the point where it's just not a fair fight at all, even if the 90ql player is much more skilled he will likely not win a fight.

Then, we have the idea of permadeath, which makes life feel horrible if/when you lose a character due to how much sheer time you are set back from a death- and in a world where everyone is on-the-dot about their grinding, you will be set behind everyone for the rest of the world (though luckily we are lazy people usually) This is emphasized due to the idea of infinite progression (You die at 6 months, by the time you regain 6 month's work, the enemies are all 12 months, and as we know, the impact of 6 month's work is absolutely gargantuan in this game)

My solution:

The clearest and one i believe people might favor is to keep permadeath, but reduce the impact of infinite progression. This is done by either turning the "scaling" formula for progression away from what it is now (sqrt(stat/10)=modifier) into something more logarithmic that tapers off to the end, and is easy to reach a majority effectiveness.

For example, 1x effectiveness = 100, 2x = 300 3x = 700 4x = 1100 and so forth, this would allow people to keep their idea of "infinite progression" while having it be much less impactful for each little point, though this still carries the issue of time spent = power, and all those behind will never catch up.

So, the alternative idea for reducing the impact is to change it into a percantile quality system (Ala Wurm), where 1ql = 1%, and 100ql = 100% effectiveness. In this system it should be easier to hit ~70ql, representing 70% effectiveness, and striving for the last extra 30ql should be a challenge, of combined effort and time. 99ql should be very very difficult with few items ever existing at that stage.


OR, my personal favorite, is introducing a skillcap- however introducing a skillcap will remove an endgame "task" (however much people ACTUALLY enjoy infinite number raising, it's not something that should be seriously considered as an endgame task), and thus more activities will be needed to be defined. But, what is there to do and what could be done?

And hence, the next topic

World size and Player Interaction

Interaction is any form of players communing, fighting, trading or whichever with each other.

There's one rule, the game is dead if everyone can go out alone travelling many hours away from where they spawn in order to live completely away from the interaction of other players.

Player interaction is absolutely vital to Haven, and i'm sure everyone wants a world with a real history of interaction and watching the world change month by month- the easiest way to force player interaction is to have everyone be together.
To do that, we reduce the size of the world to a fragment of what it currently is- which is a fine act on it's own. The problem there now becomes the idea of quality nodes (before, we travelled until we got great nodes). I personally believe the world should have centralized nodes, for example 5 points in the world where all qualities are high, and taper off the further you get from these nodes. This would encourage people to fight for these territories, or trade for bulk assortment of goods of one quality for another.

Another thing, should be special resources only found regionally in parts of the world- perhaps this could become the new source of "rare" curios, bluebells, pearls, etc. only being found in parts of the world, and in order to use them for any items (arguably other fate curios should be used for crafting goods as well, on top of being studied for a big lp plus). This is as well in order to encourage interaction.

The river system as well, should increase interaction by making it simpler to reach others- ultimately though i feel like there should be no space for people who wish to completely isolate themselves. If you don't wish to fight at all, that's fine. There should be bastions of safety - kingdom capitals for example, that people can live in and feel at ease, until the kingdom is threatened by war- then everyone is equally effected. That's how I view it should exist, anyhow.

I'm pretty tired, but i have a lot more areas of concern that I believe should be changed, but I wanted to make a thread on the fundamentals of haven and how they should be seen.

I'll reserve a post though for when i regain my ideas.

[Archiplex]

~Reserved

Stuff i need to go over

- why teleporting is bad and reduces player interaction, not needed in large world
- islands, continents
- quality node system needs to a-gogo
- clarity for new players
-please stop using weird formulas for everything loftar pleASE
-reward/risk taking for raiding and general criminal behavior (skull increase in lp etc)
-shamanism and convenience for endgame (using souls/spirits and magical stuff to create things like enchanted gates that do not need keys, a mail delivery service for singular/small items and not bulk goods, etc)

[venatorvenator]

There's one rule, the game is dead if everyone can go out alone travelling many hours away from where they spawn in order to live completely away from the interaction of other players.

That's a flawed assumption and sounds rather like an opinion. Travelling many hours can be fun by itself and it's certainly more challenging than sitting behind a brickwall. Many of us have done it, alone or in groups. There should be some incentive to stay in the center, such as higher quality nodes, but hermitting shouldn't be forbidden. I don't even think one thing follows from the other. For example, Emerald's caravan adventure. Is that not interaction?

I'd rather say that the game is dead when people stop playing it. Now the reason why they do so vary, but I don't think shrinking the map would fix it. It might retain the users who are happy with the extra pvp targets that provides, but the players who want to avoid faction politics and want live hours away with their friends would just quit for another game.

ultimately though i feel like there should be no space for people who wish to completely isolate themselves.

What I would say is that that's a narrow-minded thing to say. In a sandbox everyone should be allowed to play the way they want unless it harms the game.
But what I'll say instead is gg, that's exactly what devs seem to want despite claiming there should be freedom and that in this game players are "surrounded by a vast and somewhat unforgiving wilderness".

So basically what I read from the second part of the post is that you think hermitages and long exploration trips should be removed from the game.

[Bowshot125]

I just dont understand why we cant isolate ourselves if we dont want to pvp at all. Some of us dont enjoy it, and just play the game for fun/quality grind without the needless death. We shouldnt be "forced" to fight battles that we most likely will not win.

[Redlaw]

Some people think if this game as a PVP only game, like we should answer if we are into that and if we are not we should not be able to play unless we pay a fine type of level of it, it feels at times.

I enjoy farming, cooking, growing my states and that of my products. Just enjoying the game that way.

[Granger]

I just dont understand why we cant isolate ourselves if we dont want to pvp at all.

Then just do it?

The world is big enough, has been and always will be.
Unless Loftar makes a typo and we all end up on the one single tile the map generator returned because of it, but that would get fixed quickly

[Archiplex]

I just dont understand why we cant isolate ourselves if we dont want to pvp at all. Some of us dont enjoy it, and just play the game for fun/quality grind without the needless death. We shouldnt be "forced" to fight battles that we most likely will not win.

The idea is that you should be able to avoid PVP if you want to, but that isolating yourself and effectively removing yourself from the game shouldn't be an option at all.

It's my belief that everyone should impact and change the world in whatever way they want, but nobody should be able to exclude themselves from it.

[Turtlesir]

-please stop using weird formulas for everything loftar pleASE

what? no. complexity is great. figuring out how things work is one of the major reasons i play this game. i guess there could be more transparency about them, but they've already done this in a big way by displaying the softcaps.

i am also often tempted to go with Bowshot and Redlaw's views, i don't PvP don't gain anything from it, why should i be subjected to it? but think about that for a while guys. while it sucks to lose, it adds a thrill, and it holds a mirror for human nature. these things make the good times so much better. that feeling of achievement is so much greater if you survive. that anxiety you feel when you run into someone turning into relief when you connect with them and realize they're not out to get you. this is what makes this game stand out, you could never get this emotionally involved in something like Harvest Moon (which does have some great versions). the world is fuller for it.

maybe jorb&loftar should do a short "crafter's paradise" PvE world as an experiment. if it's successful, there could be two servers for every world, one PvP and one PvE, there should be plenty of space anyway with the smaller worlds. but i doubt it.

my problem with the world getting smaller again is the ruins. you can't go very far at all without bumping into some abandoned claim, paving everywhere, grassland scars in forests caused by people cutting too many trees (just take a look at legacy now). you won't be able to live in the wilderness, which is a shame for how beautiful the world has gotten.

[abt79]

I just dont understand why we cant isolate ourselves if we dont want to pvp at all. Some of us dont enjoy it, and just play the game for fun/quality grind without the needless death. We shouldnt be "forced" to fight battles that we most likely will not win.

The idea is that you should be able to avoid PVP if you want to, but that isolating yourself and effectively removing yourself from the game shouldn't be an option at all.

It's my belief that everyone should impact and change the world in whatever way they want, but nobody should be able to exclude themselves from it.

What's wrong with hermits? You can't really hide anyway, someone with the time could find you no matter where in the world you are.

IMO shrinking the world and fixing rivers was a bad idea, loftorb should have really chosen one or the other

[Kalacia]

maybe jorb&loftar should do a short "crafter's paradise" PvE world as an experiment. if it's successful, there could be two servers for every world, one PvP and one PvE, there should be plenty of space anyway with the smaller worlds. but i doubt it.

Would love two separate servers... but... we need a higher overall population to pull this off.