Why are players leaving

[dagrimreefah]

Hello. We started playing with my wife together, we really liked everything in the game, until today, some villain, taking advantage of my wife's kindness, under the pretext of salvation, did not get into our territory and killed our characters. This completely alienated us from the desire for further play. I really didn't understand why there was so little online in such an amazing game, but today I understood. A high-level player broke in to us, two low-level characters, and just killed us. I just don't understand how such a thing could be allowed during development. we didn't attack anyone, we were taming animals and gardening, and someone found it interesting to kill our people. so he learns, either large enclaves or elders of the game can play the game calmly. singles and beginners have nothing to do in this game. I am very upset that such an amazing game repels new gamers because of the possibility of killing innocent characters. thank you for these three weeks of amazing gameplay, but I will never come back here in the future and I think we are not the only players who leave the game for the same reason. it was nice for me to play, but it's good that I didn't have time to start paying developers otherwise it would have been a stupid investment. have a nice day. good luck to everyone in the game.

sack up crybaby

[SnuggleSnail]

[vatas]

As tempting as feeding the troll might be, my opinion is that fundamentally, the game is at fault. Without reading forum/wiki you might not even realize that the Palisade is a thing, let alone know that you're supposed to build a safe area that you must walk through a Visitor gate to reach, with possible "airlock" system of regular gate in an outer layer to reach inside in case you're chased by an animal or a player.

[SnuggleSnail]

You should not encourage non-PVPers to have airlocks, TBH. They might get away because of it like 1% of the time, but using a safepali incorrectly is pretty much a death sentence a lot of the time.

I kindof agree that for the health of the game normal gates should not be a thing, tho.

[vatas]

there are actually too many ways to secure your claim. It is actually not hard at all anymore unless you're looking for trouble, the protection is overbearing to a point. If you want to sit around your claim and farm until the world ends you can.

I can mostly agree with this.

However, problem is that new player is given almost zero in-game guidance on how to combine these ways to build a base that will actually be safe.

Also, even if you build your base properly and stand inside it, you still may not be safe. At least one edge case of AIN'T NO RULE allows people not only to throw a spear in your face through open visitor gate, but walk inside and loot your KO'd character, despite Visitor buff, as well!

EDIT: improved format and phrasing.

[vatas]

I noticed that one of the likely first thing that new player reads is https://www.havenandhearth.com/portal/about and it lacks following:

*Any mention of PvP
*Any mention of full-loot
*Any mention of permanent death (even https://www.havenandhearth.com/portal/paq only has indirect implication of it)

I started writing a guide for new players and realized I have to start with a disclaimer that this isn't some Farmville/Harvest Moon/Stardew Valley game. Of course you can play it like one, but you have to accept that you may become content for people who seem to exclusively play this game for the fun of ruining other people's game experience.

I managed to get a streak of near-hyperfocus going and I have a raw text form of something that would likely be quite useful after some polish and nice formatting, but there would still be this gaping hole I alluded to in my first post to this thread:

Without reading forum/wiki you might not even realize that the Palisade is a thing

Constructive criticism: what could devs actually do that doesn't require completely remaking the game/socially engineering entire humanity to not grief in video games:

Add something as simple to the about page as: "Lots of people take the role of bandits and barbarians, but there are also friendly people on forums sharing advice on how to protect yourself."

[eliminator]

but walk inside and loot your KO'd character, despite Visitor buff, as well!

So thats how my farmbot was looted last world. But this is clearly an inconsistency

[wonder-ass]

everyone reached end game most likely and have nothing left to do other than grind numbers or pvp so they quit is the real answer.