Realism adjustments (teleportation, alts, and spawning)

[hearthling4]

Greetings hearthlings,

I did a quick search and didn't see anything arguing quite what I have in mind, but if I missed a thread please forgive me. It is my opinion that in a few areas current game should be modified to be more realistic. The areas I would like to modify are, in my opinion, interrelated and so an alteration of one would invariably break the others. For that reason I have combined them into a single post. All of these suggestions will make the world a little more dangerous, and so will not be received well by many hearthlings, but I believe they are in the spirit of the game.

Teleportation:
I have come to the conclusion that teleportation methods are actually devaluing the size of the world and making resource gathering artificially easier than it should be. Due to the ability to teleport people do not use gates unless absolutely necessary and boats are the best means of overland material transport; both of these are significant problems in my estimation. The use of teleportation for transporting goods renders existing game features like carts and wagons less effective except under very specific circumstances, and completely bypasses the need for gates in most situations which makes leaving your fortress safer by a huge margin, which I also think is a problem. I propose the elimination of the ability to teleport entirely. This will make claiming a distant resource less useful because you will have to travel both to and from that resource to access it, and in a conflict situation one party will not be able to teleport away so the distance from home and potential allies becomes more meaningful. There will be a login issue associated with this, as the log-in at your hearth fire option must necessarily be disabled. I think this can be resolved by allowing your character to move to the nearest open location in order to log in, and it will also allow the creation of jail cells for punishment purposes (something that I feel would expand the lawmaking capability of hearthlings).

Alts:
I believe the existence and use of alts is an issue because it allows you to make several conflicting choices simultaneously. The most common of these (as far as I know) is the nature vs industry slider and the safety of your walls vs going outside. It is my opinion that a player should either not specialize despite the efficiency benefits, or should join a group of other people who have specialized in order to divide labor effectively. I also think that leaving the house with your keys is an essential truth of daily life that should be dealt with. As such I believe that the use of alts for any purposes should be eliminated if at all possible. This one is difficult to get around because multiple accounts can be hard to stop. At the very least the game client could be limited to one instance per IP address, or some other method of preventing one from playing two characters at a time, and accounts should only have one character at maximum, and one account per email address. (These are not perfect solutions, but I believe you get my drift as far as the direction of this suggestion) As a result of not being able to teleport and not having an alt, players will be forced to either carry their keys on their person, hide their keys, or work with another person for safety. This is an issue if a key means permanent access to a walled fortress, so there should be a way to change the lock on gates in case of incident. (This is an acceptable solution to me because before that can happen a foe will be able to enter and loot the base, as it should be, and the especially paranoid hearthlings can reset the locks periodically to ensure safety) By removing alts the life of a character will become more important because it is the one and only character available, and that life will be more greatly endangered by venturing far from the safety of your walls unless measures are taken to make the safer through in-game political means.

Inheritance and spawning:
If characters must walk from place to place and also carry keys to enter and exit their safe home it will be much more likely that combat will occur in the field and your character will die. The meaningfulness of death is one of the most valuable parts of this game, and I think the inheritance system makes it less meaningful. I enjoy the ancestor element, and the ability to spawn at your ancestor's hearth fire, but I think the new character should start from scratch completely. This will eliminate the need for huge LP bank claims and allow one to kill an enemy without that enemy being able to spawn a relatively powerful character right away to come back and fight. This will make recovering from the loss of death more difficult, and also make the intentional act of murder more potent. When combined with the ability to imprison a hearthling the options and results of lawmaking process have more potential. With that in mind, a new character should not be able to spawn in a location based on hearth secret, and only be able to spawn by another hearth fire if that character was the descendant of a previous character, and hearth fires should be much more difficult to destroy. (they also should not have a collision box to prevent their use as a wall or gate).

I know this is a lot of suggestions for one thread, but they are aiming at a common goal of making the game a little more realistic, and a little more threatening. Whether realism should be sought is an argument for another post, but I look forward to your thoughts on these suggestions.

Again, I apologize if this has already been discussed in depth.

[MagicManICT]

All of this has been discussed in depth already. The default search functionality of phpBB is horrendous. You should learn how to use Google and restrict it's searches to a single site. (This site is fully indexed on Google.)

Don't try to change the core concepts of the game. Please read up on development philosophies as well as older ideas that have been presented. Just because you didn't find anything about the three subjects you posted doesn't mean you won't learn something useful by just browsing past threads.

In particular:

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=17900 Developer Thoughts on PvP

Next, try to read the forum rules regarding making suggestions and critiques.

[btaylor]

Realism = no.

[hearthling4]

Thanks for the tip about the search function.

Your link is exactly what I was referring to when I said I felt my suggestions were in the spirit of the game: they allow the players to make more decisions about things like crime and punishment rather than the interface making those decisions

Why not suggest changes to the core function of the game? Isn't this a suggestion section of the forum? Besides, my changes are not unreasonable changes to make in that they don't involve large complicated interfaces or new mechanics for the most part.

And there is a precedent for large portions of the game being outright removed or changed. See charter stones and the experience system.

[MagicManICT]

Teleportation: actually have dev comments about this. I expect major changes after Salem comes out later this year

Alts: another known issue. How do you REALLY stop people from making alts in a game that is completely free? A: You can't!! Short of some draconian efforts that would probably hamper legitimate players. Pre-world 5 (introduction of the curio system), people had alts, but it wasn't as severe as it is now. Nothing you said there hasn't been said already, though.

Inheritance and spawning: I'm not sure what you're getting at with this one. Again, everything you suggest has been suggested or recognized as a problem.

And there is a precedent for large portions of the game being outright removed or changed. See charter stones and the experience system.

Yes, there has been, and after Salem is released, we have already had Jorb and loftar both state there will be some massive changes to HnH incorporating many of the designs from Salem.

Realism = no.

While it makes for a poor argument in these suggestions, realism is never a bad argument in any game. The goal of any game should be fun and playability. When trying to apply a modicum of realism, those things should be balanced. I find true simulations to be fun, namely flight and driving sims. Life sims not so much (I can go and live my own life, plus life is so complex no computer model can create a good sim--note that I don't include any of the Sim<> titles in here. Those were more game than actual simulation.)

[hearthling4]

Inheritance and spawning: I'm not sure what you're getting at with this one. Again, everything you suggest has been suggested or recognized as a problem.

I'm saying that LP and skills should be completely lost upon death, and that new characters should not be able to spawn at a hearth fire except for the one their ancestor previously owned (or at a claim, that works fine too).

[btaylor]

While it makes for a poor argument in these suggestions, realism is never a bad argument in any game. The goal of any game should be fun and playability. When trying to apply a modicum of realism, those things should be balanced. I find true simulations to be fun, namely flight and driving sims. Life sims not so much (I can go and live my own life, plus life is so complex no computer model can create a good sim--note that I don't include any of the Sim<> titles in here. Those were more game than actual simulation.)

It is a delicate line between realism and enjoyability. I will take some examples from the OP...

Teleportation:
I have come to the conclusion that teleportation methods are actually devaluing the size of the world and making resource gathering artificially easier than it should be. Due to the ability to teleport people do not use gates unless absolutely necessary and boats are the best means of overland material transport

Have you ever even seen how big the world is? Boats are the best means of overland material transport? I get the feeling you've no idea what you're talking about and should not be making any suggestions, let alone suggestions about changing core game functions before actually playing the game yourself.

The use of teleportation for transporting goods renders existing game features like carts and wagons less effective except under very specific circumstances

People will always choose the easiest way to do things. If you're hauling logs from a logsite to your village and you have paved roads, you're going to load up a cart or a wagon and drag that sh*t home rather than walking a boat out there and teleporting back. Nothing is being made less-effective. They're made for specific jobs.

I propose the elimination of the ability to teleport entirely.

Alts:

I won't even touch on this subject. Everyone knows there is already problems with the alt system. You either learn to use them like everyone else or you don't. However, only in one choice will you get your ass knocked out and your palisade keys robbed. It's happened to me. It's happened to everyone.

Inheritance and spawning:I enjoy the ancestor element, and the ability to spawn at your ancestor's hearth fire, but I think the new character should start from scratch completely.

So the person who was mobbed by 10 guys with no way to fight back and can't teleport back to safety will have to start from scratch? Even better, now he'll have no way to recuperate himself and fight back because he has to start completely over. This means a group of the strongest players in H&H can roll around doing drive-bys in their gold-plated wagons with spinners and keep people from ever being able to do anything about it because THEY HAVE TO START OVER LOLITSREALISMPROBLEM?

With that in mind, a new character should not be able to spawn in a location based on hearth secret, and only be able to spawn by another hearth fire if that character was the descendant of a previous character, and hearth fires should be much more difficult to destroy.

1. Friends can no longer play together.
2. What would the purpose be of making hearth fires harder to destroy? You can't destroy them anyways if they're on their owner's claim, and only destroyable if someone claims the land your hearth fire is on.




In summary, you have no idea what you're talking about, I doubt you've ever played this game for more than a day. Kindly lurk moar before making such ridiculous suggestions.

[TheTylerLee]

H&H can roll around doing drive-bys in their gold-plated wagons ]

nice effective quote there
=]

[LadyV]

Teleportation: It can and is abused. However securing ones gates has to be reworked before any consideration of removal. Even then it is a bad idea as this is a game and people can only play so much and travel times should be balanced for such.

Alts: Again they can be abused and you can choose not to use them. Specializing alts is a balance for single or small groups of players. How they work should be reworked but not necessarily their use.

Inheritance: No! I have to disagree. Death has you lose plenty even at full tradition. Starting over from scratch is not a solution and only makes new problems.

As the repeating issue you have through this post is keys, I have to agree on that. They should be changed. Loss of gate keys should not mean permanent loss. Stolen keys of a structure on a personal or village claim should have a timer before they are considered changed and the old keys are useless.

Your desire for realism is nice but also remember in the abstract there are not average people about. If we implement this realism what about the argument we can hire guards or gate keepers to defend our walls? Peasants would tend crops and pay us tithes... Realism is fine to an extent but doing everything in the life of this time period would keep you busy for days on one task and not be very fun. Instead of people we would have bots doing jobs.

[TeckXKnight]

I'm not sure why these ideas are getting such harsh criticism. While they have been addressed before, certainly not in this light and the ideas are well thought out, at the very least.
Sure, I disagree with aspects, primarily regarding imprisonment, jailing, and number of character limitation but overall it is sound.

Teleportation is, at some point, going to go. Not for the sake of realism or for the spirit of the game per se, but because it's a lame mechanic that lets you work around most of the other mechanics in the game. Not to mention everything that was mentioned, as these are real concerns.
Fuck alts.
Fuck inheritance and the sliders too. They both need to go, in my opinion, though it is likely that inheritance will be around in some shape or form no matter what. It's not like they're terribly meaningful at any point; either you're full tradition and so gimped that it doesn't matter if you get anything back anyway or full change and you'll be getting less than nothing back. The bulk of the lp you gain back after dying will be from your industry, allies, and experience. It's very easy to bounce back not because you got to keep so paltry a return on your old life but because you now have the production and facilities to regain massive amounts of lp rapidly.