Speed Up Everything - The Hourglass is Evil!

[spectacle]

The other day, I was playing Minecraft while processing my latest batch of silk, when it once again struck me how much of our H&H playing time is spent AFK. Crafting, building, butchering, gathering, feasting, everywhere we're faced with completely pointless delays that reduce us to twiddling our thumbs while waiting for the opportunity to control our characters again.

Letting the player wait on arbitrary delays isn't good gameplay, it's not even bad gameplay, it simply isn't gameplay at all. The hourglass may have been necessary in previous worlds to balance the game when most natural resources were infinite, but now in world 3 we have to work for our resources, while inventories are bigger making the delays when crafting large batches of items more noticeable. The amount of items you can craft should be limited by how many materials you can prepare, not by how much patience you have for sitting at a computer and doing nothing.

A further issue with the large amount of AFK time in H&H is that it encourages players to play multiple characters at the same time, and gives significant advantage to players who are able to juggle several clients effectively. While there is nothing wrong with skilled players getting ahead, I'm not sure if multiboxing should be one of the essential skills for playing this game.

I can accept that some potentially destructive activities, such as destroying objects and chopping trees should still have a delay to limit how fast simple minded griefers can do damage. I also have no issues with waiting for stuff like ovens, leather, cheese and so on, because waiting for these doesn't take away the ability to control your character, so you can play even while waiting.

Removing the hourglass would be a quite dramatic change to this game, so here is my challenge to the developers: When the time draws near to the end of this world, then do an experiment - eliminate the hourglass completely for the last couple of weeks. This will let you see what elements of the game need to be tweaked to remain balanced, and after experiencing Haven & Hearth without annoying delays, I doubt that many players would want the hourglass back in world 4.

[Wolfang]

This is a good idea.

[aso11]

Would make paving the LC highways so much easier. But as a thought, how would *chip stone* work? Does it just instantly fill your invo? Also, that would eliminate the need for metal tools, would it not? Low Q metal/tool trades would take a dive, no?

[Potjeh]

I think the point of the hourglass is to give you time to chat with people. Though it would certainly be easier if things were done in bigger batches.

[Avu]

Dunno about completely removing it but some things need speeding up... grinders and cauldrons especially.

[sabinati]

i think the hourglass could be sped up on a lot of things. not removed outright. some things (chipping stone with vs without pickaxe vs digging on mountain, removing stump with axe vs shovel, harvesting with vs without scythe) are obviously intended to have different timing and thus, a clear advantage with equipment (p.s. fuck clay cauldrons forever). but shit like roasting meat, grinding sausage, really crafting just about everything could be sped up 1.5-2x imo.

alternatively, or in addition, make inventories fucking huge.

[Wolfang]

All hourglass times divided by 2? This would make the length of all timers relatively the same and would remove the fear that pickaxes & scythes become useless.

[spectacle]

Hourglass times divided by 2 aren't going to solve the problem, we'll still be waiting far too much, it will just be slightly shorter between when we get to click and do something. Divide by 10 and we're getting somewhere.

The various tools that currently speed up tasks could be given a different benefit in a delay-free game. For example, harvesting with a scythe could give more seeds per tile, digging with a shovel could give more pieces clay/soil before the quality drops, and so on. It's not hard to find ways to balance things in most cases by being creative.

The most annoying waits aren't the really long ones, since then you can just read the forum or whatever, but the times when you need to make a couple of actions every few minutes, and otherwise wait.

[hfacktor]

Making things takes time. For all the times "realism" and "historical accuracy" is brought up when discussing this game, I really can't see instantaneous crafting/building/gathering being welcomed with open arms, not matter how convenient it may be.

[Oddity]

Somehow, I can.