Judaism wrote:How is the crafting, is it more complex? How is the trade-off in terms of items to craft, base-building, food recipes yada yada.
I generally do not know most of it, but I seriously do wonder in which aspects Salem is better than Haven and vice versa.
Dallane wrote:oh man you just opened a big rabbit hole.
I encourage you to check all of that out and see how things work because you will actually feel extremely rewarded once you get into it.
This.
But going deeper into details:
Developers committed to providing one small patch once a week. These patches are really small, like 2-3 new items, a new shop hat and some minor bugfixes, up to the point "add new bird" has become a meme. But "slow and steady" does work and these small patches accumulate over time creating a very complex world with lots of items, most of which can be more or less useful and even at this point it is next to impossible to experience ALL mechanics because of complexity and redundancy.
In most cases items have substitutes so not having one particular thing may be a slow down but can be overcome in one or more ways. Sometimes, in edge cases, these substitutes are even better.
Player made cookbook can give idea about food system complexity:
https://certainly-not-a-cat.github.io/cookbook/A lot have been improved behind the scenes, for example the way resources are organized, some gobid exploits that are possible in Salem (but have not surfaced yet) are not possible in H&H because gobids are randomized (per map load I guess). On the contrary global map id (hash) is available and maps are created server side so it is possible to implement GPS using map ids (see amber/ardennes client). In short, Salem has A LOT to improve to catch up with current server code in terms of QoL.
The mining system is different, all mine levels are linked. Mine hole cost is increasing with level now.
There is no dev-managed central town. There are towns made by players serving as trade centers. Thus there is no space for mechanics like stocks, developer shops, bank, post office etc. These has been introduced in Salem by Paradox as a part of monetization scheme and never have been a thing in Haven.
Fast travel is different. It has been heavily nerfed this world. Again, there is no dev-made central town so no need to travel there. There is a player made road network slowly developing. It is usually possible to teleport back to homestead except under crime.
There is no leanto teleportation of items.
There were made changes to pvp this world. In a way there is no permadeath, at least that's what some people cry. On the contrary it is entirely possible to die from drowning, wounds, and killing in combat is possible with relevant knowledge and skill. This world introduced a change so the chars with no Rage skill are much harder to kill but they cannot attack, except on own land. Basically a char is auto teleported (TBCed) from combat after KO but stuff can be stolen from it before it happens. Generally, YMMV disclaimer apply. There are leech related tricks which may or may not work depending on timing and on custom client settings.
There is a magic to make a horse rear so a mounted char cannot move for a longer while. That basically means mounted combat is avoided.
Due to some balancing it is now much harder to escape than it was in the previous world. Having an inventory full of water is still a thing.
Making clothes is a thing from very early stages of game. Slotting items seems nicer as you always can slot more stuff into any item, it is possible to open a slot on a closed item. It is just too expensive to be worth it in most cases.
Some server-side game automation has been added, for example it is possible to mark a field area to auto-harvest or auto-plant. Shaves a good bit of tedium from the game.
There is a lot of complexity related to q grind which has been mostly removed from Salem early Providence.
There is still a lot of similarities, even keyboard shortcuts are the same in custom clients except ardennes one, which allows for redefining anyway. A lot of user interface is the same in it's core as crafting window, inventories etc. Early game, say first hour, is still almost identical, that is get a branch, make an axe, make fire, gather cones/fruits/shrooms etc. Core claim mechanics is still the same, though details differ.
Way better than Salem at this point IMO though missing the mystery aura. It is different setting, based on Germanic and Slavic myths, rather than on North American ones, more about nature magic than dark magic.