Copy and pasted:
for late end game I thought what if as players become more legendary with ultra high stats, kills collected, authority collected, etc, they themselves can become sources of interest? In the same way that high level players have better valuables to collect, but expanding on that: What if when these people are killed they drop unique items like trolls do (edit: exactly like hearthling skulls)? Eg someone who has slaughtered many innocent hearthlings during their lifetime, when killed by a player will produce a 'heart of darkness' which may be a curio, material for new items or features, whatever. Im thinking a unique 'dark' set of armour/ weapons. Same the opposite way as well, where people who kill many murderers will grow hearts of justice, or a 'Paladin,' 'Heroic' or 'Righteous' heart. The 'light/dark' level of the heart can be calculated by ratio of innocents to murderers killed during their lifetime. Like gem system, there are two variables that affect hearts. How light/dark they are and how powerful they are (their quality probably) (like hearthling skulls). Minimum requirement for heart to be extracted is like (-very high-) and min combined attribute and skills to be high as well per hearthling so that actual players are being hunted not just making alts and farming them.
So, as you become overpowered and conquest you build an exponentially larger target on your back as your own heart becomes exponentially more valuable. Might have to be careful that you have really good friends
. Doesnt have to be that heart idea, it could be, more simply, that you can harvest players organs and they become more valuable in the same way. And that they have unique uses. Really the idea being that you yourself become a tasty morsel even as you get stronger, so you're not as safe as you are now as the game is (I assume).
Would that stimulate PvP incentive?
I personally like the idea of long term progression, and Im thinking what if in the end game magic becomes more relevant? Like how smithing is useless for new players, really its only relevant mid to late game (I assume, Im not very experienced), lore could be used for late end game. Im thinking that basically players unlock the ability to commune more and more with the mystical part of haven and hearth. Performing some communal ritual on trolls, wherein you have to withstand a long drawn out battle (like taming) or something else you can think of. Should be a real challenge for high end players.
Now you have a few options once youve established communication telepathically with the troll and calmed it down. You can summon it to the surface world, maybe for a limited time until the sun turns it to stone and it will fight for you, acting as a massive seige weapon and menace for your enemy.
Or, you can probe it and analyse its mind for a long time and you will learn about the lore of trolls and, the other realms in Haven and Hearth. Trolls come from some magic domain, and that domain can be accessed by hearthling with high lore, psyche, intelligence, whatever. Like the daedric realm in elder scrolls or the magic realms in Berserk.
So that could be a whole rabbithole to fall into.
Magic in general has a lot of potential probably, but the only thing I want to suggest is portal creation.
The accuracy of portals is dependent on stats, so you need very high stats to make a portal that wont just send you into a random ocean. Maybe portal making needs expensive equipment to make a gateway (rare metals and whatever) (Like an Oblivion gate in es:oblivion), and maybe portal creation is only limited, as in you can set up the gateway but you need 1 or maybe more magic users to actively channel the portal open.
Or maybe you make the gateway, the portal needs to be channeled open and then on the other side you build the other gateway around the other portal, making it more accessible to both sides (so pros and cons).
I am aware that portals would be very powerful and make the other forms of transportation obsolete so obviously theyre going to be the most expensive things/ most difficult to make.
Can Hafen deal with Warband or Total War style siege battles? Would it work? I can see thick, traversable stone walls with multiple layers, and large stone structures within them defending against hearthlings running with ladders, some slowly pushing a siege tower and others behind with ballistas and crossbows (and a rampant troll beating on the gate). Imagine customisable defences with traps laid out, boiling oil ready to be discharged unbeknownst to the attackers (the attackers cannot see the top layer of the wall, only 1 tile thick outer edge, where the rest is clouded over/blacked out. Only the defenders can see that top layer where a large boulder may be ready to drop, or players are waiting to line up along the edge at once and rain down arrows.
Idk about the issues surrounding unique resources being claimed. I dont play this game much to know the ins and outs, but maybe unique resources can have unstable land which makes claims under a certain radius from the resource unclaimable? Lotus leaf gives off some peaceful aura which prevents barbaric land claims, clay pit's soil is too harsh or some bs idk. People could still claim around that radius but it would make it a lot more expensive and tedious.
I was thinking about using EXP to perform some legendary act, much like magic is now. Sacrifice 50k EXP to make a unique weapon for example. Or "Create book" on a high still or attribute of yours, that when studied give a large increase in stats in that field, but only for those players whose level in that stat is lower than the author's was when he made it. The weapon could have unique elements in it, where the type of rock and tree and string affect what kind of weapon it is (bonus to armor pen, what movetypes it has, whatever variables a weapon can have anyway), like how different food give different FEPs. Maybe limit this to be craftable once a week or month. These would be very precious commodities. The quality of the 'legendary' artifact created is dependent on stats. To make a good sword you need high smithing etc.
Housing blueprints. Have the ability to design houses and make blueprints, which are then traded to other players to study and they can replicate themselves. The more complex and demanding a house the more stats they need to research it, and of course the more resources for it to be built. Maybe high Intelligence, Will, psyche, idk.
Loremasters can commune with nature and through some ritual or another like burning of curiosities a treant can be summoned from a tree (becomes treant) and for more exp loss and some ritual it can be directly controlled (movement, attack, etc).
Trees of high quality can be strategically placed in villages in this way as a defence against raiders.
Customisable buildings with customisable signage, plus indoor building overhaul (adding indoor work stations like kitchens, workbench, counters) allow for commercialised buildings in villages. At the door there may be a daily entrance fee or not. Inns, blacksmiths, tanneries, professional kitchens and shops can be created and run by players.
'Monster Hunter' like hunting quests emerge when eventually conditions are met for high level magic users to commune or open rifts into the other realms. Unique, powerful world bosses will spawn, they need to be tracked down through some unique tracking system, maybe some puzzle solving. These bosses will be raids in themselves. Maybe they'll automatically terraform a large land mass to their unique zone, like their zone spilling into the world. Maybe they'll spawn their own dungeon like Naxxrammas from WoW. Maybe they'll summon their own island in the middle of the ocean.
Last edit: Why not a much less extreme version of this but with rare animals? Or dungeons like the ones in the game that appear temporarily in the world?
End game magic users can be able to terraform and spread, destroy and create biomes. They can raise, lower land into and out of water.
Magic to walk on water.
