Discussion - The Quality System

[Danno]

The value of the quality system is on a square root function. Getting from q10 to q40 has the same growth gains as going from q640 to q810. The bulk of your strength is from early on. The reason that you get raided has nothing to do with the quality system and everything to do with the fact that there are factions out there that want to raid players. The quality system neither adds to nor detracts from this unless you were a large faction of players fighting another large faction of players.

It all seems fine in theory, but people have cracked the system. I understand it's supposed to prevent higher level people from making much further progress. In theory, we might say that the quality players were meant to reach is 225, and that anything beyond that would just be a minor/negligible advantage gained from excessive grinding. However, you might have a player who went above and beyond and got to quality 900. Yes, it took much more time and work, but it's no longer just a slight advantage - their product is twice as effective as the person at 225. Then you're gonna get some nut who levels the quality up to 2025, which would be 3 times as effective.

A palisade was supposed to be a decent wall that would require 2 or 3 players with a battering ram to destroy it within a reasonable amount of time. Now people disregard palisades as being a waste of wood due to palibashers. The square root formulas aren't good enough anymore; they've rendered intended game features obsolete. So, does the quality system need adjustments, or should palisades be strengthened to serve their intended purpose? It'd all just be raising the bar to make the game require more months of grinding before you can access certain features. It's like inflation in an economy - we're getting less bang for our buck thanks to our beloved quality system. And palisades are just an example here, of course. All this grinding takes away from us in other ways, too.

While this is a discussion about quality, attributes and skill values are pretty much the same deal, which is why I'm mentioning things involving those, too.

It is actually entirely possible to have high quality items and not be in a major faction as well. If you know the right people and use the right words and actions, you might be able to obtain something quality that may be close to the highest quality they have. While not -the- highest, the diminishing reward will make the difference of little consequences. Once you have the right resources from them, you can be able to produce some good quality items yourself.

I don't think being a sub-par clone sounds too thrilling. Earning and discovering things for yourself in this game can be fun. I think the players and lack of caps hav taken these things to high extremes, though, which kills the fun. When it comes to stuff like high quality water and soil to make high quality trees, you'd have to be dependent on the village you got your goods from. In that case, you might as well just join the village and have all that handed to you effortlessly... which takes away gameplay value with establishing yourself and such.
Either way, you're still left with just grinding up your stats. Having high quality crops/tools will speed up the process a bit, but you'll still have a long way to go before you can become more than target practice for any villains that spot you. Also, anyone who decides to start from scratch (playing the game as intended) will be at a huge disadvantage. Why should every player who joins the game have to work around the flawed quality system in order to get anywhere?

[Arcanist]

The way I see it, the game is designed in a way that it is intended to be more reasonable. It's like if a fairly scrawny street thug (or perhaps 2) were to try and kill some body builder. The body builder would have a clear advantage in strength, but they wouldn't be invincible - they're still human and they still bleed. The thug could win the fight with weapons, superior tactics, abusing human weaknesses, etc. The current reality is that the body builder is an advanced cyborg from the year 4389 with laser eyes and chainsaw breath facing off against unarmed office workers. The quality system is good to some degree, but the square root stuff involved kinda loses its purpose when people get their stats several hundreds higher than the average less devoted player.
Extreme organization is also difficult when we have real lives to live. We play the game for fun, not religiously. We could organize occasions where 3 or 4 of us go to attack 1 super player, but I have a hard time believing we'd give them a run for their money, really.

Combat in haven is only half about the stats. There are many stories about 12UA alts KOing a dhelmer. I myself sparred someone much more adept at combat in my village. His alt had 15 str and 20 UA, I had 200str and 100UA

He won.

If all 4 of you were much better at combat than the 1 super player, then you would have a high chance at beating him, even in a 1v1. It's all about the movent.

The quality system meant that people who have been playing longer, have an advantage. I don't see anything wrong with that. It doesn't meant that these players are invincible. If you are smart, and they are stupid, then you can beat them.
Ofcourse since they have been playing longer, the reality will be that they are smart, and you are stupid, so they win every time. This does not mean that you cannot win, only that you do not.
The body builder is just that, a body builder. It's only in your mind that he's a cyborg.

This applies to other aspects of the game. Loftar made a post somewhere about the 'trickle down effect'. Haven has a real tight knit community. You won't get into that community in a month, maybe not even in a year, but haven does have a trickle down effect.

[borka]

Old Trickle down effect post by Jorb?

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=4158&p=46021#p46021

[Arcanist]

Old Trickle down effect post by Jorb?

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=4158&p=46021#p46021

Yes, that's the one I mean. I thought it was by loftar, but it's by jorb

[TeckXKnight]

It all seems fine in theory, but people have cracked the system. I understand it's supposed to prevent higher level people from making much further progress. In theory, we might say that the quality players were meant to reach is 225, and that anything beyond that would just be a minor/negligible advantage gained from excessive grinding. However, you might have a player who went above and beyond and got to quality 900. Yes, it took much more time and work, but it's no longer just a slight advantage - their product is twice as effective as the person at 225. Then you're gonna get some nut who levels the quality up to 2025, which would be 3 times as effective.

A palisade was supposed to be a decent wall that would require 2 or 3 players with a battering ram to destroy it within a reasonable amount of time. Now people disregard palisades as being a waste of wood due to palibashers. The square root formulas aren't good enough anymore; they've rendered intended game features obsolete. So, does the quality system need adjustments, or should palisades be strengthened to serve their intended purpose? It'd all just be raising the bar to make the game require more months of grinding before you can access certain features. It's like inflation in an economy - we're getting less bang for our buck thanks to our beloved quality system. And palisades are just an example here, of course. All this grinding takes away from us in other ways, too.

While this is a discussion about quality, attributes and skill values are pretty much the same deal, which is why I'm mentioning things involving those, too.

The numbers you chose were pretty odd to be honest. 250 would be a value of 5, ya, then 1,000 would be a value of 10, and 2,250 would be a value of 15. I'm not entirely sure why you didn't go with round numbers.

I'm also not quite sure why you think that palisades are meant to be a major obstacle. Whenever there's a discussion it's whether or not players should be allowed to break brickwalls by hand or if we really do still need to require rams. This leads me to believe that you're still in the early stages of hearthling life or that you have not discovered higher tiers of production. The question is never about whether these things can or will exist -- the point is for them to. It's about the value of a character that has them. Yes, villages can eventually build a brickbasher but bringing them out for anything is so dangerous that unless you're raiding a faction you're just not going to.

The work and resources that you put into getting 5041 Strength is astronomical and gambling it is worse than just building 3 new characters that can do the job a bit sloppier, usually.

It's strange that you think the average player will only achieve ~200 in their stats, skills, and quality. Honestly even new players can break that in a few weeks. As has been pointed out, often they don't even have to on their own. You usually can just buy high quality goods for relatively little. The barrier to being competitive is small, mostly in that you're capable of not trying to play an MMO solo. If anything, the problem is often that you're going to break 200 strength too soon and you need bread so that you don't imbalance your stats too badly. Sure, you don't have the best materials but it's rare for you to be very far behind. In w3 the highest quality seeds were in the q1,200ish area and I remember villages selling q900 seeds. W4 only got up to ~q400 seeds I think? You could still buy q200 or so seeds on the market though. I'll be honest that I don't know the markets for w5 or w6 but I'm inclined to believe that they are similar. The fact is that you're only at a disadvantage if you make everyone your enemy.

Higher tier productions matter a lot too. A newbie living off of forageables and fish is going to have low stats compared to someone who got cows and vineage and started a cheese production facility. The same is true for someone who is able to manufacture decent curiosities; they will be better off than someone who just forages for them.

While theoretically a village could become monolithic in quality and production, never share anything with the rest of the world, and dominate everyone -- it just doesn't happen. There is always too much profit to be had from trade and no one is immortal enough to risk it all for stupid things like raiding newbies*.

* This is a blatant lie now that unbreakable vaults have made some characters effectively immortal. Barring this, it's always newbies raiding newbies and then the established villages get blamed for it.

[LadyV]

@Danno

I think you are making things far to complex in assuming a new person can't compete. If your new then no you wont match someone who's put a years worth of time in. This does not mean you can't catch up to decent levels. As you get higher it take more and more to improve stats and skills. Trees require specific resources to continue progress.

I have sent many random alts out in the world to have fun and have never had a problem achieving success. Whether it is day one or day 1,001 you will always have to watch out for raiders and griefers. Someone will probably always be better or more determined than you. This is true of any MMO style game.

Creating caps dumbs down the game. It certainly does not reward those who have chosen to play from the beginning. If you chose to play after world start you have to be realistic in your goals. If you chose to trade or make friends who have better things you can very easily jump in quality very fast.

The system is not to blame for anyone joining late.

[Danno]

@Weak alt with superior combat knowhow: I don't see how that could be done unless you let them get a ton of free IP, or if they had some amazing gear. Let's take, for example, me fighting a fox. If I set my maneuver to "Bloodlust", I'll kill it in 2 hits without any need for using moves. There's no longer any need for skill or strategy - I've surpassed its stats. You beat me with 2 shots of a sling, so I don't see how you can argue that stats are only half the battle (unless the other half is having a full inventory of high quality water).

@Battering rams: I don't think palisades need to be invincible, but I do not think an individual person should be able to come along and kick it down with little to no effort. If you put hours into building the wall, building your village, collecting goods, etc., it'd be nice to get a little notice before it gets smashed to bits (i.e. being warned by the presence of a battering ram or something similar).

@TeckXKnight: I just went with square root numbers as is rather than using the game formulas. Either way, same idea. There are lots of insignificant (and inactive) settlements that have brickwalls, so a brickbasher could target those for their raiding ventures. If they've already raised their stats that high, then hey, why not? Time investment and potential risks never stopped anyone from becoming a palibasher.
We've got cows, sausages, baked goods, cheese, fish, low hunger farm products (like peas) simply to reduce the FEP required to level. We forage and craft curiosities and have necro cloaks and wine to study beyond our limits. We may not be professionals, but I think we got the gist of how to play the game (other than our foolishness in not trading for q9999 seeds and tools).
I don't expect to be unstoppable or whatever, I'd rather just be fighting on a more level playing field (preferably without investing 3 months in the game first). When has excessive grinding ever been a good thing?

@LadyV: We aren't just going out and getting raided and murdered or whatever. Perhaps you would consider us successful, too, since we have succeeded in surviving, building a home, and acquiring whatever we want. We'd probably be bored of the game by the time we caught up to "decent levels", though. Creating caps doesn't dumb down the game, it just changes the focus. Rather than spending all their time raising quality and stats, players would go out and do something else. Certainly, though, the reward for playing a long time would be drastically reduced, but why should someone be rewarded for discovering the game first or having more free time? You might as well let people pay $10 a month for access to special features if you believe one group should be rewarded over another. If anything, I think giving imbalanced advantages to groups dumbs down the game; the advantageous group requires less thought, skill, and effort.

Well, I suppose my friends and I must be the worst players this game has ever seen since we've been playing close to a month this time (with past experience and most stuff from the wiki memorized) and I still haven't been able to rank up from "complete newbie" to "inadequate shit".

I guess playing the game for 4-8 hours a day isn't good enough unless you sell yourself as a slave to a powerful village in exchange for food that gives high stats very fast.

[TeckXKnight]

I think I must agree with LadyV here, Danno. You're making this very personal and in doing so complicating the issue.

With every new post you're turning more towards pathos and we cannot tell you that you have not experienced the things that you have, which makes it bothersome to argue anything with you at all. No one is here to say that you are a good or bad player.

I would agree with you on the fact that you have been less than optimal with your progression as a group though. Investing more time into the game does not mean playing efficiently. Historically in Haven many groups have joined late and gotten ahead of current ruling factions. These factions had players who could invest a lot of time into the game, yes, but they were also willing to explore the system, the world, and the people who play Haven.

Whether or not anyone likes or dislikes AD is irrelevant, they make an excellent example here. AD was founded fairly late into world 3 and they were able to not only become a political force, they managed to garner quite a bit of economic might as well. Admittedly their military might was abysmal back then.

The way curiosities work and the growth times on most things, playing more does not mean you're getting the most out of your time.

By the sounds of it, you're railing more against the fact that you can be raided than against any one system in particular.

[Patchouli_Knowledge]

@Weak alt with superior combat knowhow: I don't see how that could be done unless you let them get a ton of free IP, or if they had some amazing gear. Let's take, for example, me fighting a fox. If I set my maneuver to "Bloodlust", I'll kill it in 2 hits without any need for using moves. There's no longer any need for skill or strategy - I've surpassed its stats. You beat me with 2 shots of a sling, so I don't see how you can argue that stats are only half the battle (unless the other half is having a full inventory of high quality water).

Fighting an animal and fighting a human are entirely two different things. Foxes always does the same thing on different conditions so results are rather static. Humans are more dynamic. One player may have higher stats but is quite inexperienced at fighting while another with lower stats can be able to deal with the former well enough. There are some various methods in making stat differences less relevant in a fight (maybe too much so?)

@Battering rams: I don't think palisades need to be invincible, but I do not think an individual person should be able to come along and kick it down with little to no effort. If you put hours into building the wall, building your village, collecting goods, etc., it'd be nice to get a little notice before it gets smashed to bits (i.e. being warned by the presence of a battering ram or something similar).

We've been discussing about shell defenses for a while where the outside is very tough but once you pierce that, the inside is vulnerable. We also been talking about how results of invasion tends to be on the two extremities, either the attacker completely annihilates the village or the village is virtually untouched. While there are a few instances where between results occur, it is not nearly as often enough in occurrance.

Either way, same idea. There are lots of insignificant (and inactive) settlements that have brickwalls, so a brickbasher could target those for their raiding ventures.

You can no longer strike down brickwalls without a ram now, that was added in world 3. Arguably there is bugram but exploits is another matter though.

Well, I suppose my friends and I must be the worst players this game has ever seen since we've been playing close to a month this time (with past experience and most stuff from the wiki memorized) and I still haven't been able to rank up from "complete newbie" to "inadequate shit".

I guess playing the game for 4-8 hours a day isn't good enough unless you sell yourself as a slave to a powerful village in exchange for food that gives high stats very fast.

A lot of the game is knowing what to do is progress that a higher level of a sort. This is partially the reason why veterans have an edge when reset occurs. This is not just on Haven and Hearth alone but prevalent on all MMOs and not strictly RPG either. It seems a lot of your problems are from elements not from the quality system but from other elements that is around many different player games.

[LadyV]

@LadyV: We aren't just going out and getting raided and murdered or whatever. Perhaps you would consider us successful, too, since we have succeeded in surviving, building a home, and acquiring whatever we want. We'd probably be bored of the game by the time we caught up to "decent levels", though. Creating caps doesn't dumb down the game, it just changes the focus. Rather than spending all their time raising quality and stats, players would go out and do something else. Certainly, though, the reward for playing a long time would be drastically reduced, but why should someone be rewarded for discovering the game first or having more free time? You might as well let people pay $10 a month for access to special features if you believe one group should be rewarded over another. If anything, I think giving imbalanced advantages to groups dumbs down the game; the advantageous group requires less thought, skill, and effort.

Well, I suppose my friends and I must be the worst players this game has ever seen since we've been playing close to a month this time (with past experience and most stuff from the wiki memorized) and I still haven't been able to rank up from "complete newbie" to "inadequate shit".

I guess playing the game for 4-8 hours a day isn't good enough unless you sell yourself as a slave to a powerful village in exchange for food that gives high stats very fast.

Danno as I said you need to set realistic expectations. There are many good people in this game who can help or advise you how to do things better. You have to be the one to seek them out. All that said though, the part that concerns me with your above statement is you would probably be bored of the game by the time you caught up. No one can help you with boredom but yourself.

Haven is a wonderful game with many different challenges and options that should be able to sustain you for a very long time. It's up to you to set those for yourself. Do you want to be a great farmer? A raiding warrior? Maybe a profitable trader? Maybe you just want the best apples in the world. All of those are possible. You just have to remember the only measure of success is your own.

Having payed village life and hermit I can tell you Teck is quite correct. You don't have to be a slave and you don't have to spend 4-8 hours a day. You do have to learn how to allocate your time and what to do. Please seek out help if your frustrated with your progress.

Best of Luck!