A Brave New Salem

[Kaios]

What exactly is a flotsam in H&H? And how does the botter prevent having their bot killed by other players?

It's essentially the same as Salem is currently. The "flotsam" is just a medium-tier curiosity which gives the player learning points after they have studied it for a short amount of time. (It's really short for that particular one)

As for preventing having it killed? They don't. However, the bots themselves are fairly easy to produce and even worse should a player come across one of these bots and kills it? Chances are those scents will be tracked and they'll suffer great consequences for that action.

[Frakked]

Both actually, if you aren't aware at how advanced the botting situation can really get perhaps I should refer you to the the Haven & Hearth forums?

I do anticipate we will be a bit over our head in regards to this. I wouldn't mind any direction you can point me in to research it further. Regardless, it is our understanding that the status quo was to do nothing. Therefore, the worst we can do is maintain. On the other-hand perhaps we can recognize a few abnormal activities, ban a few obvious cases, scare a few others into being honest. We won't catch everybody, I don't think any game ever does. The point we are looking to make without any claims as to how we plan to enforce, is if and when we catch it, we will discipline it.

Maybe it is just a bluff? Maybe we have no time/manpower/technology to find you? The question the botter would then need to ask himself is....

I have a goal for your devs- figure out how to collect all the map data from thousands of accounts (or 100's of alts per account, etc)... that is to say, log into each one for 5 seconds collecting their mini-map or 'freescale' map info then correlating it all together so you can determine where any new digging or pavement has occurred... then figure out a way to stop such from happening.

It's how Tribe had total control of Plymouth in last build; and how they know almost instantly when new folks show up around Boston and attempt to start claims... where they are and to begin the harassment.

If you can't sort this issue out- you will have lost the battle to increase population. Vets know better- but newbs will show up as easy targets for Tribe.

Add this to your high priority list.

Please

[JohnCarver]

It's essentially the same as Salem is currently. The "flotsam" is just a medium-tier curiosity which gives the player learning points after they have studied it for a short amount of time. (It's really short for that particular one)

As for preventing having it killed? They don't. However, the bots themselves are fairly easy to produce and even worse should a player come across one of these bots and kills it? Chances are those scents will be tracked and they'll suffer great consequences for that action.

Interesting. So this problem does seem a bit isolated in this scenario to a system where very valuable materials are very reasonably obtained by a very low-barrier of entry character no? I'm not drawing an exact parallel to Salem here as we don't exactly have the same situation. Outside of the Snake-Skull I can't think of what would be valuable enough that you would run a bot and risk loss of your account to mass collect?

Now when and if Bots appear that run sophisticated tasks such as menial labor like running smelters. That I could see as a larger problem. Does Haven have bots performing complex tasks like that?

I have a goal for your devs- figure out how to collect all the map data from thousands of accounts (or 100's of alts per account, etc)... that is to say, log into each one for 5 seconds collecting their mini-map or 'freescale' map info then correlating it all together so you can determine where any new digging or pavement has occurred... then figure out a way to stop such from happening.

It's how Tribe had total control of Plymouth in last build; and how they know almost instantly when new folks show up around Boston and attempt to start claims... where they are and to begin the harassment.

If you can't sort this issue out- you will have lost the battle to increase population. Vets know better- but newbs will show up as easy targets for Tribe.

Add this to your high priority list.

Please

I'm very skeptical there is validity in your concern here. Am I to understand you are claiming a faction was literally loading every map tile through the sheer hundreds of thousands of tiles necessary to paint a new picture? Even if this were the case, the smallest of timers after the first 100 unique characterID logins would quickly eliminate said problem. Not to mention we can easily compile as list of charID's that login to the server. Any abnormal activity like that would be super simple to detect.

[Kaios]

Does Haven have bots performing complex tasks like that?

For sure and it's not even very difficult for these so-called players to produce the scripts that perform such tasks. I could link several videos and more threads relating to this exact topic if I could just find them.

Edit:

http://www.havenandhearth.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=36045

http://www.havenandhearth.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=33805

http://www.havenandhearth.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=31235

[Dallane]

Now when and if Bots appear that run sophisticated tasks such as menial labor like running smelters. That I could see as a larger problem. Does Haven have bots performing complex tasks like that?

Oh yea. Should check out some of the hnh clients. The public bots need some tweeking but you can get a majority of your industrial jobs automated. Silk is a prime example of this.

[JohnCarver]

Oh yea. Should check out some of the hnh clients. The public bots need some tweeking but you can get a majority of your industrial jobs automated. Silk is a prime example of this.

Do they randomize the tasks? Or are the input streams methodical? Too much iteration of the same interaction to the server should be fairly easily detectable as well. I will tell you thus far that we have been overwhelmingly impressed with Loftar's Code and capabilities. He takes great pride in his work and it shows by the sheer flexibility we are finding we have in what we can do with the server.

[Frakked]

I'm very skeptical there is validity in your concern here. Am I to understand you are claiming a faction was literally loading every map tile through the sheer hundreds of thousands of tiles necessary to paint a new picture? Even if this were the case, the smallest of timers after the first 100 unique characterID logins would quickly eliminate said problem. Not to mention we can easily compile as list of charID's that login to the server. Any abnormal activity like that would be super simple to detect.

It's possible that Tribe was just very lucky in the old world- locating new players.

You are or will be going to great efforts to make this game a success. I'm pointing out a method that Tribe kept the Plymouth server's population so low (<35 active players) they had to branch out to other servers to have any fun.

I'm not a Java programmer- I assume someone or several among Tribe are. I'm telling you how they 'bragged' about dominating the server... knowing I could do nothing about it. The method- you figure it out... you are the developer. The end-result? Surely you have access to the population history for Plymouth (where Tribe was based) vs the other two servers... numbers speak for themselves.

My methodology is surely suspect, (again I'm not a Java programmer), but Tribe's success and accuracy was more than just fortunate. You ignore me at your peril. YOU are the one going to great lengths to improve game play. Shame to see it all go to nothing...

Two Cents.

[Dallane]

Oh yea. Should check out some of the hnh clients. The public bots need some tweeking but you can get a majority of your industrial jobs automated. Silk is a prime example of this.

Do they randomize the tasks? Or are the input streams methodical? Too much iteration of the same interaction to the server should be fairly easily detectable as well. I will tell you thus far that we have been overwhelmingly impressed with Loftar's Code and capabilities. He takes great pride in his work and it shows by the sheer flexibility we are finding we have in what we can do with the server.

Don't have my hnh clients on this computer but there are tons of examples and vids of the more sophisticated bots on the hnh forums.

[JohnCarver]

You ignore me at your peril. YOU are the one going to great lengths to improve game play. Shame to see it all go to nothing...

Two Cents.

I appreciate the stern warning. You will just have to trust me that we are capable of identifying several hundred thousand login attempts and simultaneously capable of putting a system in place to stop it.

Don't have my hnh clients on this computer but there are tons of examples and vids of the more sophisticated bots on the hnh forums.

I will put somebody on poking around them a bit and opening them up under the hood so to speak. Keep in mind all of this is predicated on the fact that we ourselves as developers will not be able to get our hands on the same bot tool that plagues us. Once we do, it should be much easier to see exactly how it interacts and it down. This will mean the botters then be in a constant state of having to update to avoid detection. Again. Given the population, and lack of current incentive to run such things here, I feel like we might be working ourselves up a bit premature. As I said though, I guarantee we will not enforce against it any less than SeaTribe so we can pretty much only improve in this area.

[nonsonogiucas]

What mechanics and features do you believe people are quitting over?

I suppose my first answer is boredom and frustration. Then to pinpoint those into systems.

Frustration that they cannot achieve 50%+ Purity.

Boredom that they have all skills.

Frustration that many proficiencies cease to matter on their values.

Boredom that animals almost always drop the same exact thing every time.

Frustration at the early-game in general and the learning cuve.

Frustration you can't be a witch.

Boredom after raising turkeys given no other animals to keep and maintain.

Our project timeline was carefully selected in an effort to mitigate either boredom or frustration in an attempt at higher player retention. This is why I have been having a hard time committing to what are obviously great ideas but may not be things that are directly hurting the game at this moment.

I'm not a veteran. I'm far from having experienced the fullness of the game as it is. However I feel the cause is a bit more systemic then what, at first glance, seems you are referring to.

I'll try to explain, if I fail at that feel free to ignore me completely. I just want to clarify in advance that I'm actually trying to be constructive in the attempt to extract a "design analysis" (I know it sounds pretentious... sorry about that) out those statements.

1. Frustration that they cannot achieve 50%+ Purity.
Why? I mean, why should I want to achieve "50%+ Purity" so bad that I'm frustrated I can't? Is there some meaningful end-game content that I cannot experience or it just is too hard to experience without items of 50%+ purity? What should, say 70% purity on items, give to a character?

2. Boredom that they have all skills.
If I have all the skills doesn't it actually mean that I can experience every single aspect of the game? Isn't it a bit like saying that, apart from character progression, there is little else to do in the game?

3. Frustration that many proficiencies cease to matter on their values.
Same as 2, does it have to matter? Will it make a huge difference? If I find that raising a proficiency (or any kind of stat in any game) just doesn't give me any significant benefit I just stop doing it and I concentrate on something else... tactics perhaps? Growing a community with a goal maybe? I still believe we are saying that there is not much to do here apart from out-growing all other characters stat-wise and that isn't even beneficial cause from a certain point onward is just higher numbers really...

4. Boredom that animals almost always drop the same exact thing every time.
I hope you are referring to quality of the drop... but wait isn't purity of the drop already a quality indicator? You are not saying you want wild animals to drop random equipment or silver right? (I'm actually kidding on this, I'm sincerely convinced you are not )

5. Frustration at the early-game in general and the learning curve.
I totally agree on this and I'm thrilled to know how do you plan to facilitate the early-game experience.

6. Frustration you can't be a witch.
I admit it, I'm totally ignorant on this subject... what should I be able to do as a witch? I kind of grabbed an earlier post where witches were described as the "paranoia inducing element" of the game but I fail to see how this will translate in gameplay terms. Will the witches be some kind of solo players hunted by everyone else? Or maybe a faction of their own with a different agenda and a specific reason for infiltrating towns (but then you can't really wear a pointy hat can you..)? Or is it just some kind of spellcaster "class" so that each town will have their own witches?

7. Boredom after raising turkeys given no other animals to keep and maintain.
I'm ok with diversity. I'm also ok with giving players diverse reasons to engage in the game so thumbs-up to the "farm mini-game" expansion.
At the cost of looking rude however, I would just argue that unlocking content is just another form of charcter progression, gameplay interaction is what matters to me the most. If every different animal/crop needed an, even slightly, different minigame to engage in and then in turn was used to unlock some kind of different mid- or end-game mechanic (maybe combat stances supported by food types? going wild with imagination here...), now that would be really interesting imho.


Now I will try the really difficult thing, and probably cover myself in shame even more in the attempt: Is it correct to say you are implying that frustration comes from (A) a weak correspodence between charcater development and unlocking meaningful ways to interact with the game and (B) a substantial lack of meaningful gameplay to engage in altogether when character development starts to become a slow crawl?

I totally twisted your words didn't I?

Thing is I have this idea nagging at me that the only thing that really unlocks by raising proficiencies is the ability to raise humors and raising humors is needed to physically beat up other players (ok breaching walls and then beat up other players)... and that's what the game is all about right now am I right? (which is not necessarily a bad thing, maybe in the current state of things is just not that interesting after a while)


Cheers to the new devs! YAY!