World 12 or "How I learned to stop worrying and love the..."

[Archiplex]

Oh noes ... just a reminder from a peanut brain:

Please avoid making grab bag threads with multiple unrelated suggestions. Give each idea its own thread so posters can discuss its merits, so that ideas aren't overshadowed by more popular ideas, and so that they might be found later using the search tool.

http://www.havenandhearth.com/forum/vie ... 48&t=41858

btw. Paizo is hiring ... and i guess you may have your own blog there ...

I don't see why you're here if you're not going to read the post or provide any sort of opinion or criticism. The suggestions are all interlinked as a general top-down view of what I think would be a good overall mechanic; and you'd know that if you actually read it.

Personally I would really dislike "scheduled" resets or resets as a core principle.

This. The causes for resets (apart from additions to the game mechanics that require data structures that incompatible with the current running world that there is no way to convert them) should be removed instead, the cancer of endless growing numbers has to end.

As I mentioned in the OP; the reason I think resets should be embraced is because endless worlds don't seem like a feasible thing that can be developed with Hafen's current design; the only way an endless world works is if there's a stat cap (flat or asymptotic )- but then that means there needs to be some other alternative reward for playing the game a long enough time. In this theoretical infinite world; what would you think should be the 'end' game? What should players who have been playing for a year be doing? what about 5 years?

[Granger]

Personally I would really dislike "scheduled" resets or resets as a core principle.

This. The causes for resets (apart from additions to the game mechanics that require data structures that incompatible with the current running world that there is no way to convert them) should be removed instead, the cancer of endless growing numbers has to end.

As I mentioned in the OP; the reason I think resets should be embraced is because endless worlds don't seem like a feasible thing that can be developed with Hafen's current design; the only way an endless world works is if there's a stat cap (flat or asymptotic )- but then that means there needs to be some other alternative reward for playing the game a long enough time. In this theoretical infinite world; what would you think should be the 'end' game? What should players who have been playing for a year be doing? what about 5 years?

I see it this way: While I completely agree with an endless world needing what boils down to be an effective stat cap... the game needs one anyway as the current endless growth creates way more problems than it solves.

Because as long as there is no proper way (and spending tokens on a market is none) to return to former glory (compared to the rest of the characters on the server) from character or even base death... the population graph will continue to look like the ones of all worlds we had so far, siege will continue to have to be near impossible (or it'll speed up population reduction by orders of magnitude) and people (the normal ones) will continue to be unmotivated to PvP as they know they have 'lost' for the rest of this world the moment the combat interface shows another character portrait. You find my argument about this here, in case you missed it.

Another thing needed for a permanent world is removing derelict structures, with this having been put in production (though arguably with 'wrong' speed, possibly stemming from it being implemented only in part as the map tiles still have to be loaded for it to happen - I hope loftar will eventually implement it fully so nature will 'correctly' reclaim hearthling made structures and re-forest areas that are abandoned and no longer visited) we're a step closer. While there is nothing to mitigate the results of terraforming yet this could be added (modeling erosion) at some point, as could be something to restore clay patches). What's currently completely unsolved is what to do about the underground, though some people have thought about ways how this could be done and throw ideas around at times.

The next thing is that quite some mechanics work too much in a first-come keep-forever manner, making the world somewhat static after the initial rush where people find their place in the world. Though the nerf to village authority (which the devs IMHO overdid a bit, it would have been better to change the authority influx side to require actual villge life, instead of just increasing the drain) changed that a bit. But there are quite some systems that in my opinion need mechanics that make things more dynamic... like giving kingdom cairns an upkeep that has to be performed on site (point made here, to turn kingdoms from winner-takes-all-just-claim-first toward a more organic approach that leads to kingdoms being in need of actual support from their subjects (instead of claiming them, should they want it or not, and be done with it).

What should be the 'endgame' (which currently is pushing numbers, if there is any at all) is a good question, one that hasn't really been discussed in deep as many on this forum seem to have difficulties to take a step back from their idea of things and approach such questions with an open mind that allows for new perspectives to be explored. I think that something revolving around fighting (including limited raids) could work quite well, but that would require reasonable way to rebound from defeat (character and base death) for joe average or it won't be palatable for enough players to make them want to pay to play to make (and keep) the game big enough so that the world dosn't feel empty. Also there are the monument projects which are somewhat incompatible with wipes (as the latter are likely to destroy motivation to sink time into the former), so a permanent world would certainly be better place for the kind of players who like these things.

Question in general is how to prevent static situations, eg. only having one and only one walmart like market in the world would be (in my eyes) a bad thing (except for the ones running it, along the famous Rothschild quote about not caring about laws as long as he is in control of the money) which effectively can only be prevented by not making the whole map available to a character on a whim through teleportation. You find thoughts on this here in case you're interested.

Plenty of things to think about... my view is that aiming at a permanent world when thinking about how stuff could work leads to coming up with mechanics that will work better, regardless of them being implemented in a permanent world or a series of throwaway ones.

Also we have players that bot the life out of this to play in a more RTS style, while I agree with botting-be-gone being a good idea... I also agree with the perspective of the game being needlessly tedious (likely from missing an endgame, leaving only infinigrind to keep people busy) which I tried to combat with my support for suggestions like this.

YMMV on all of this.

[MightySheep]

can someone do a tl;dr of this whole thread?

[Vigilance]

its a giant fucking grab bag asking for mechanics to solve perceived problems

i dont think anyone save for the very patient have actually read this thread and if they get through it they've probably numbed their mind to the point they can't properly reply. friendly reminder that if half of the other posters still left on this forum would've wrote this, it'd have been locked and hel'd.

this thread is valid as a critique but shoehorns "Well, if things were THIS WAY"-isms in to the critique.

[Archiplex]

this thread is valid as a critique but shoehorns "Well, if things were THIS WAY"-isms in to the critique.

I won't bother with the 'grab bag' claim again since it's not one, which is obvious if anyone reads. I will however say that I personally hate giving critiques without suggestions; If the critique portion alone is enough to merit the devs look at a certain issue in closer detail, then that's more than enough IMO. I just don't like the idea of complaining about something being bad without presenting a solution and why I think that solution works to solve whatever problems exist.

can someone do a tl;dr of this whole thread?

There's one in the OP.

...

So, I'll definitely take a step back and say that maybe eternal worlds inherently aren't impossible; as you mention, if there were mechanics added to 1. Add an effective or flat stat cap, 2. Make 'returning to glory' or 'rebuilding' easier so that game can have a pvp focus, 3. add 'world' erosion and 4. create an endgame focused on fighting presuming 2 (see how there's several big points for this- like my OP?)- it might be viable, but I also think that designing around an eternal world, simply put, is much more difficult to balance and ensure people maintain interest in while having far less room for 'failure'- that is, if proposed system for an eternal world fails, inevitably that will result in a wipe just so the next 'attempt' can be had.

I'm not sure how vital erosion is to the endless world idea (even if it is something I'd personally like to see)- but even in a wipe-based system, a way to return to glory is necessary. I think that's at least something we both agree needs to happen whichever way the end design of the game is meant to be. Infinite growth actually isn't an issue in a system that relies on periodic resets simply because there is not infinite time to 'grow'; although I also think it's vital to couple it with a system that encourages risk-taking and PvE or PvP fighting (Grand quests that grant rewards to a group that would allow them to possibly become 'relevant' again, for example)

I also agree with the perspective of the game being needlessly tedious (likely from missing an endgame, leaving only infinigrind to keep people busy) which I tried to combat with my support for suggestions like this.

Maybe this is just the part I don't empathize with; It feels really odd to want a system that encourages watching a number go really high when you fully well know that eventually the world will be reset and that number will become 0 again- but you don't know WHEN that reset will happen. At least if I know the world will reset, I will not spend countless hours quality grinding instead of doing other activities the game has to offer (the suggested quest and competition system in OP). I think that's ultimately what the game needs after it solves the issues of combat and siege- a real, true endgame that encourages proper interaction. Not just meteors, but a proper event that pits villages against villages or realms against realms- localized, competitive quests work too.

[Vigilance]

hey archiplex the thing is that i did read and i deducted from the giant wall of text i could get like two points in to that this is another grab bag thread

there is nothing to discuss, as if one were to only address one or two concepts laid in front of them here it would turn this thread in to a jumbled mess of people discussing several different things that would be FAR better served in their own topics. this is a "Hey, that's an interesting take." thread, where you can only realistically tackle the entire essay as a whole point-by-point. fortunately, because the thread is already so drawn out and hard for our slower people to read (and for once I'm included here i guess) there's almost no one replying.

i do respect your justification for why you decided to quadruple the necessary text for the thread to send the message it needed to send, but i just really don't know what on earth makes this not a grab bag when its fundamentally a pile of suggestions to problems currently existing in the world. you could chop up and segment this post 7 ways to sunday and it'd make fully fleshed out topics that would ultimately be far easier to engage and tackle for outsiders that don't feel like reading your graduate thesis.

of course theres also the thing where other posters have made almost identical (though less verbose, which arguably made them BETTER threads) blocks of "This sucks, we should do X instead" threads and then they've been locked and or hel'd by Magicman because of the grab bag rule, but it seems our two trustworthy mods that have no apparent biases are more than thrilled to let this post go by.

dunno, i really don't even disagree with you on the actual text of this thread because a few of these points are interesting enough to think about. i like some of the conclusions you've come to ABOUT the problems, but holy crap can i not be bothered to read very long-winded breakdowns of relatively simple concepts. it reads like i used to write when i was in school desperately trying to hit word counts.

[czitcpkv]

Infinite worlds are the dev's utopian dream which contradict the reality of what the current game is. It's also obvious that the game would have more players if resets were more frequent, and resets always happen anyway, so it honestly seems like the devs are just incredibly stubborn about this issue.

Until the game mechanics are changed to allow long-term worlds to exist in a way that is actually fun, I don't see any reason not to reset more frequently.

It is incredibly frustrating to those of us who absolutely love the game but refuse to play post-apoc haven with hardly any players, random items strewn everywhere, and one faction steamrolling everything. Especially the closer it gets to a reset when we don't know if our time will be wasted if we start playing again.

Resets will allow people who love the real haven experience to actually...play the game the way its meant to be played, rather than sitting around for a year waiting for reset.

Devs are testing our loyalty, and yet we still come back again and again, even after being accused of not being "true players"

The problem is, millions of suggestions have been made of how to make infinite worlds viable, or alternatively, why resets are good. The devs don't seem to think this is a priority unfortunately.

[Archiplex]

...

I suppose ultimately it's just about what constitutes a 'grab bag'. I didn't consider this a grab-bag thread because the suggestions (except maybe the last bit about 'hey do something about bots') ARE interlinked; I wouldn't want to suggest a lot of them without the others being included, essentially; and creating multiple threads where you're more or less expected to also check in on the other thread because the idea is intrinsically linked (I found this as a bit of an issue with Granger's Plea for Decay threads, which I felt were basically both 'conjoined' and often referred to the other thread)

This, for example, would be a good example of a 'grab bag' thread. It's a bunch of disconnected ideas with barely any thought put into them. As the title says; it's an 'idea dump' rather than anything with any cohesiveness to it.

On the flip side, This thread could also be seen as a 'grab bag', but frankly- it's fine. It's several different ideas that combine together for a general suggestion for winter additions, and even jorb seems to have liked it. I don't think this thread is an issue because of the fact that all the ideas are grouped together under a general theme for something cohesive.

On the same idea, I don't think my thread is a grab bag because it's all a system of suggestions (many of which I wouldn't suggest on their own!) for an overarching gameplay loop, and the general idea of having periodic world resets, and how the various problems that exist in the game can be tailored to work with periodic resets.

That said, I am at least grateful you read over it all and I apologize for dismissing your earlier complaint under the assumption you didn't. Admittedly, half of my concern and the reason I wrote so much is because I don't think 'general' suggestions of ideas work well, and that Jorb seems to always demand very specific suggestions while ignoring generic ones (and dismissing any suggestion he sees an immediate flaw with because it's not fleshed out, basically). Might be a problem for people who don't read into things much, but oh well.

Infinite worlds are the dev's utopian dream which contradict the reality of what the current game is. It's also obvious that the game would have more players if resets were more frequent, and resets always happen anyway, so it honestly seems like the devs are just incredibly stubborn about this issue.

Until the game mechanics are changed to allow long-term worlds to exist in a way that is actually fun, I don't see any reason not to reset more frequently.

It is incredibly frustrating to those of us who absolutely love the game but refuse to play post-apoc haven with hardly any players, random items strewn everywhere, and one faction steamrolling everything. Especially the closer it gets to a reset when we don't know if our time will be wasted if we start playing again.

Resets will allow people who love the real haven experience to actually...play the game the way its meant to be played, rather than sitting around for a year waiting for reset.

Devs are testing our loyalty, and yet we still come back again and again, even after being accused of not being "true players"

The problem is, millions of suggestions have been made of how to make infinite worlds viable, or alternatively, why resets are good. The devs don't seem to think this is a priority unfortunately.

Yeah, I think a good portion of the challenge is also trying to convince Jorb that being open to world resets as a mechanic is just fine. I think it's always worth noting that the devs also have a large (maybe larger than other priorities) priority over what they want the game to have rather than what the game needs.

[czitcpkv]

I think it's always worth noting that the devs also have a large (maybe larger than other priorities) priority over what they want the game to have rather than what the game needs.

Most of the games I consider to have the most soul are developed this way. It's hard to create something in a practical way without sacrificing some of the inspiration driving you. At the end of the day games are just a story we participate in, which is why some of the most highly flawed games have the most psychological impact.