Game Development: Project Mayhem

[L33LEE]

The implementation of brick walls which require a ram or cannon or simply changing the trial timer to 24 hours of potential destruction time and you'll see a big change in the game just from that alone. If we had stable bases and livestock it would draw in a massive audience of people who are interested in the crafting side of the game. Currently it's just a game of who rebuilds their bases the most often and who summon killed who. You will not see an increase in server population so long as people cannot feel at least the slightest bit safe with their possessions at any given time. I should not be herded into a village just because there's a better chance of me lasting a little bit longer should someone decide to drop a waste claim. At least with a 24 hour timer it gives solo players a fair chance at breaking the trial themselves.

I'm not so much asking for instant gratification as I am saying that if you're going to make the game overly complex and apply a massive time-sink, the least you could do is add a legit defense mechanic so that it's not all done in vain should someone decide to piss in your cornflakes.

A person who actively admits he does not play the game, nor own a titan character, yet insists bases are unsecure or unsafe, and continues to make such claims on a game he has no ***** clue about which he no longer plays. Makes me laugh. Eitherway,

The current state of the game, braziers are well over powered, even admitted by the biggest factions, a Single hermit can easy buy a bell and make 30+ braziers IN A WEEK END, Once he has roamed around a little, and gained skills and found a nice place to settle.

It makes me sad to say, its only the player bases fault to blame for there mega ***** fail bases. I have Yet to LOSE A BASE EVER, I have lost several characters in PVP, but have yet to have a base destroyed or even breached. (I have abandoned several bases along the way as i learned the game, improved on design, location etc etc, its part of the learning process, but have never lost a base due to a raid)

I Remember when i was a hermit, i crafted 30 braziers in 1 Saturday when i went for a push in smelters then defenses. Only had 30 biles For Weeks, It was all i needed, when 2-3 people turned up to try and get in why i was online, i would stomp them, they run off. Its no different today, biles MEANS NOTHING, Braziers are stronger than ever, a 10 bile char with stomp, could push back 5 x 300 bile chars from raiding, as long as he has 30+ braziers defending his base in a small area.

I cannot be bothered to go into detail too much as i would be here making a x1000 huger wall o text to explain it to the simpletons of this game how this games combat and defenses currently work, needless to say, only Bad players get their bases raided, due to either mega bad design, or no defense.

The reality of it is, no one likes this game because it is far too complicated for the masses.

[Spazzmaticus]

Land should automatically be flattened when you put a structure down. I don't mean that it would just magically happen on its own, just that when you place a structure your pilgrim automatically starts flattening the land before placing the structure. Quite frankly there is no need for terraforming other than for building placement. I'm glad the digging option exists but I see no need for it to be such a tedious necessity if your camp is temporary and you don't really care.

[colesie]

What? Why you jumped sooo much? Describe it like in Salem, early, mid and late do not jump few weeks in 4th line!
You forgot you have to find hql water and clay and this can take few days.
You forgot that every group member would want to get curios in Salem different profs require different inspi, so you can split a bit and level up few people with different set of profs.

Ainran had their brick wall up and running like 60 hours into world 6. It's only a few weeks if you make it so.
You do not need to find high q clay or water at this point, you can simply buy it.
I have no idea what you're saying in this last line.

In salem if you drop 2xstone wall + 5 braziers you are safe for 2 weeks even without town bell.
In HnH try to destroy ram with your peaceful farmer

You are only safe in Salem if your base location is not known, or if no one feels like taking the time to break in.
What are you talking about? Rams can be broken with scout alts. Trials are much harder to break (though they've been nerfed since my last base fell pras)

Yes, if you found spot large enough for your base and without clifs that can not be destroyed and you should settle near swamps, so searching for different biomes with hql water and clay near by? Or you drop satelite camp near hql spots and port alt with goods to your town?

Porting alts back and forth is not exactly a fun mechanic, specially when it's not an optional one. If your computer is old you are severely crippled compared to others who can run many clients at once when it comes to things like porting lime.

I'm going to only comment on two things from colsie's post:

1. Silver: It's supposed to be hard. If you want "easy" silver, buy it off the store. One could probably argue that this is the reason why it should be significantly cheaper. It's already too easy to farm once you get past 10-15 biles just farming rabbit skins and wandering the forest and collecting snake skins out of stumps.

2. Mushrooms: While having the debuff slows how often you can glutton, I just don't see the issue here. My only complaint is that Witch's Hats are the best and easiest source of black bile early. You can easily hit 15-20+ (and leave everything else at 5) if you don't think about what you're doing and make it harder on yourself getting everything else up to that point where hunting and farming would normally take over for plain foraging. Maybe having that fat debuff will discourage anyone from pigging out on these things.

1. I agree that silver is easy to farm, but that's also part of my point. Silver making methods in early game are fairly limited so it becomes a repetitive grind of killing the same creatures and looking on the map and clicking the same foragables. It's just not an entertaining task. You're constantly looking at the "goal" amount and it's very similar to being at work and watching the time drag on until you're finished your shift.

2. The mushrooms aren't bad for glutton, witches's hats were great for early regen food for seamless studying while out. Now they'll simply be avoided because of the debuff.

[colesie]

A person who actively admits he does not play the game, nor own a titan character, yet insists bases are unsecure or unsafe, and continues to make such claims on a game he has no ***** clue about which he no longer plays. Makes me laugh.

I feel like you missed the very first line of my post. Also L33LEE, you've been warned many times to keep conversation civil in announcements threads. Keep the name calling and accusations to HoB because it only causes derails and unneeded bulk to the topic being discussed.

[Shizen]

I agree in spirit, though not necessarily in detail with Colesie's post. For me, the grindy/"bad" parts of the game that make it much less fun to play are the constant need to search for better water nodes. What an insanely tedious process. And Alts. Water Alts. Lime Alts. Alt Banking. All absolutely vital to effective play, all really boring/tedious to deal with. Multiple characters is workable, but It's having alts that have to interact with each other that pushes it into the tedium category.

Beyond that, everything is far, far too ephemeral. I can't agree more with the disparity on time to create any aspect of a base, compared with time needed to destroy it. Not only is it bad design, it also just doesn't make any sense. Busting stuff up aught to take (a lot) longer. Not more p, just more time. A lot more time. What about all those materials? Why don't you have to lug pieces of broken wall out of the way? Those chunks should have to be hauled off (and be available for re-chipping for stone/lime, replaning, etc.). Do you spend the time to clear your bashing area properly, or leave it congested making it easier to box you in? When you bust down a wall, it shouldn't magically disappear, either. It aught to be damaged (and therein repairable). Raiders can then "climb" over it, like climbing a cliff. You want to remove it root and branch, it should take *a* lot more time, and that time should not be mitigated by having X biles. Biles don't make me dig faster, or haul dirt faster, chop wood faster or chip stone faster, but they do make destroying the walls faster. That's just inconsistent, but it's significant in any discussion of this aspect of the game. The same issues hold true with buildings and every other damn thing one builds for a base.

You shouldn't be able to port anywhere with stolen goods. You want to steal it, lug it out. And it'd be nice if there was some mitigation against spiteful raiding. I can't carry this, so I'm going to empty every container's stuff onto the ground. Server technology wise, things need to decay on the ground, perhaps, but in that place between simulacra fidelity and real world-game world compromise, just because you dump the contents of my cabinet on the floor, shouldn't make it all magically disappear in the typical gap between my login sessions.

The lack of defense and extreme time disparities in time to create vs. time to destroy, coupled with the increasingly location/grind based aspects of advancement in the game (trees & farms), means that once a faction loses its foundations (which against competent opposition will be as soon as they lose "the big fight") they are out of the game. They have no ability to rebuild, and the grind to get back there will take them months. During which time, for 0 cost, their opposition can swoop in and reset them. Scent system guarantees that whatever big fight occurs it will be the only big fight. Scent system also ensures that once one faction attains supremacy, no one else may play in their reindeer games (no one else can afford to leave a scent anywhere). In fact, scents become flares in this system, alerting the reigning group that someone is grooming a combat alt, and inviting them to come stomp it out. It's a flawed model.

There are no niches. It's a winner take all game, slow enough paced that hiding is not even a feasible option. The longer and more involved the game becomes, the more glaring all these flaws will become.

But hey, the rules to the game change faster than it takes to exercise those rules, so wtf.

[colesie]

I agree in spirit, though not necessarily in detail with Colesie's post. For me, the grindy/"bad" parts of the game that make it much less fun to play are the constant need to search for better water nodes. What an insanely tedious process. And Alts. Water Alts. Lime Alts. Alt Banking. All absolutely vital to effective play, all really boring/tedious to deal with. Multiple characters is workable, but It's having alts that have to interact with each other that pushes it into the tedium category.

Beyond that, everything is far, far too ephemeral. I can't agree more with the disparity on time to create any aspect of a base, compared with time needed to destroy it. Not only is it bad design, it also just doesn't make any sense. Busting stuff up aught to take (a lot) longer. Not more p, just more time. A lot more time. What about all those materials? Why don't you have to lug pieces of broken wall out of the way? Those chunks should have to be hauled off (and be available for re-chipping for stone/lime, replaning, etc.). Do you spend the time to clear your bashing area properly, or leave it congested making it easier to box you in? When you bust down a wall, it shouldn't magically disappear, either. It aught to be damaged (and therein repairable). Raiders can then "climb" over it, like climbing a cliff. You want to remove it root and branch, it should take *a* lot more time, and that time should not be mitigated by having X biles. Biles don't make me dig faster, or haul dirt faster, chop wood faster or chip stone faster, but they do make destroying the walls faster. That's just inconsistent, but it's significant in any discussion of this aspect of the game. The same issues hold true with buildings and every other damn thing one builds for a base.

You shouldn't be able to port anywhere with stolen goods. You want to steal it, lug it out. And it'd be nice if there was some mitigation against spiteful raiding. I can't carry this, so I'm going to empty every container's stuff onto the ground. Server technology wise, things need to decay on the ground, perhaps, but in that place between simulacra fidelity and real world-game world compromise, just because you dump the contents of my cabinet on the floor, shouldn't make it all magically disappear in the typical gap between my login sessions.

The lack of defense and extreme time disparities in time to create vs. time to destroy, coupled with the increasingly location/grind based aspects of advancement in the game (trees & farms), means that once a faction loses its foundations (which against competent opposition will be as soon as they lose "the big fight") they are out of the game. They have no ability to rebuild, and the grind to get back there will take them months. During which time, for 0 cost, their opposition can swoop in and reset them. Scent system guarantees that whatever big fight occurs it will be the only big fight. Scent system also ensures that once one faction attains supremacy, no one else may play in their reindeer games (no one else can afford to leave a scent anywhere). In fact, scents become flares in this system, alerting the reigning group that someone is grooming a combat alt, and inviting them to come stomp it out. It's a flawed model.

There are no niches. It's a winner take all game, slow enough paced that hiding is not even a feasible option. The longer and more involved the game becomes, the more glaring all these flaws will become.

But hey, the rules to the game change faster than it takes to exercise those rules, so wtf.

I agree with every word in this post. Even moreso when it comes to damaged walls and climbing over them.

[Mereni]

I agree in spirit, though not necessarily in detail with Colesie's post. For me, the grindy/"bad" parts of the game that make it much less fun to play are the constant need to search for better water nodes. What an insanely tedious process. And Alts. Water Alts. Lime Alts. Alt Banking. All absolutely vital to effective play, all really boring/tedious to deal with. Multiple characters is workable, but It's having alts that have to interact with each other that pushes it into the tedium category.

Beyond that, everything is far, far too ephemeral. I can't agree more with the disparity on time to create any aspect of a base, compared with time needed to destroy it. Not only is it bad design, it also just doesn't make any sense. Busting stuff up aught to take (a lot) longer. Not more p, just more time. A lot more time. What about all those materials? Why don't you have to lug pieces of broken wall out of the way? Those chunks should have to be hauled off (and be available for re-chipping for stone/lime, replaning, etc.). Do you spend the time to clear your bashing area properly, or leave it congested making it easier to box you in? When you bust down a wall, it shouldn't magically disappear, either. It aught to be damaged (and therein repairable). Raiders can then "climb" over it, like climbing a cliff. You want to remove it root and branch, it should take *a* lot more time, and that time should not be mitigated by having X biles. Biles don't make me dig faster, or haul dirt faster, chop wood faster or chip stone faster, but they do make destroying the walls faster. That's just inconsistent, but it's significant in any discussion of this aspect of the game. The same issues hold true with buildings and every other damn thing one builds for a base.

You shouldn't be able to port anywhere with stolen goods. You want to steal it, lug it out. And it'd be nice if there was some mitigation against spiteful raiding. I can't carry this, so I'm going to empty every container's stuff onto the ground. Server technology wise, things need to decay on the ground, perhaps, but in that place between simulacra fidelity and real world-game world compromise, just because you dump the contents of my cabinet on the floor, shouldn't make it all magically disappear in the typical gap between my login sessions.

The lack of defense and extreme time disparities in time to create vs. time to destroy, coupled with the increasingly location/grind based aspects of advancement in the game (trees & farms), means that once a faction loses its foundations (which against competent opposition will be as soon as they lose "the big fight") they are out of the game. They have no ability to rebuild, and the grind to get back there will take them months. During which time, for 0 cost, their opposition can swoop in and reset them. Scent system guarantees that whatever big fight occurs it will be the only big fight. Scent system also ensures that once one faction attains supremacy, no one else may play in their reindeer games (no one else can afford to leave a scent anywhere). In fact, scents become flares in this system, alerting the reigning group that someone is grooming a combat alt, and inviting them to come stomp it out. It's a flawed model.

There are no niches. It's a winner take all game, slow enough paced that hiding is not even a feasible option. The longer and more involved the game becomes, the more glaring all these flaws will become.

But hey, the rules to the game change faster than it takes to exercise those rules, so wtf.

Your solution, though, would make it impossible for anyone to raid. As things are, it's already very difficult.

You want walls and things to take a lot longer to destroy. Well, brazier fire gives a strong raider about 10 seconds of work before they have to run away. Many people on the scene increases that time by a few seconds a person, just enough time to do some damage. If you want it to take several minutes to destroy a wall, well, the BB drain from committing waste alone is enough to force even a strong raider off the claim in a few minutes, plus all the extra crimes, time and effort to carry chunks of wall out of the way would drain a lot as well. To add a mechanic like this, braziers and torchposts would have to be removed. Maybe that's okay. Trade quick, highly coordinated, high risk attacks for much more slow and safe attacks that run the risk of alerting defenders and becoming dangerous? I'd take that trade. A lot would probably have to change though. It wouldn't be fair if it's possible for a single small hermit to stand inside the walls repairing them quickly while half a dozen raiders toil away outside, unable to make headway because walls take so much effort to bash.

The idea that destroying a base takes less time than building one is false. A single raid actually takes quite a bit of time. Days worth of scouting looking for places. Time scheduled for everyone to be there which may involve days or weeks of waiting. Hours running from home base or boston to get to the target. More hours setting up the raid. More hours still actually Doing that raid. It can take 12+ hours Straight JUST for that part, most being the very boring running off crimes. Then there's the removal of any loot gotten, which is sometimes not much thanks to waste claims giving such an obvious warning. How much can a dedicated hermit build in the 40+ hours it can take Just to meet up, coordinate, execute, and wrap up a raid? How much in the hours spent scouting, the days of time spent building the raider, and maintaining it thanks to brazier drain?

I don't think the scent system itself allows anyone to be the strongest forever. You have to find those scents, after all. Evidence may sometimes last months, but the scents themselves only last a few hours. Your strong faction has to go out and wander the map looking, or have allies to give them locations, which means making people who might be your allies happy. This is all very hard work. And the map is huge. IF someone really wants to challenge the leaders, it can always be done. It's just a matter of effort and willpower.

[Shizen]

I agree in spirit, though not necessarily in detail with Colesie's post. For me, the grindy/"bad" parts of the game that make it much less fun to play are the constant need to search for better water nodes. What an insanely tedious process. And Alts. Water Alts. Lime Alts. Alt Banking. All absolutely vital to effective play, all really boring/tedious to deal with. Multiple characters is workable, but It's having alts that have to interact with each other that pushes it into the tedium category.

Beyond that, everything is far, far too ephemeral. I can't agree more with the disparity on time to create any aspect of a base, compared with time needed to destroy it. Not only is it bad design, it also just doesn't make any sense. Busting stuff up aught to take (a lot) longer. Not more p, just more time. A lot more time. What about all those materials? Why don't you have to lug pieces of broken wall out of the way? Those chunks should have to be hauled off (and be available for re-chipping for stone/lime, replaning, etc.). Do you spend the time to clear your bashing area properly, or leave it congested making it easier to box you in? When you bust down a wall, it shouldn't magically disappear, either. It aught to be damaged (and therein repairable). Raiders can then "climb" over it, like climbing a cliff. You want to remove it root and branch, it should take *a* lot more time, and that time should not be mitigated by having X biles. Biles don't make me dig faster, or haul dirt faster, chop wood faster or chip stone faster, but they do make destroying the walls faster. That's just inconsistent, but it's significant in any discussion of this aspect of the game. The same issues hold true with buildings and every other damn thing one builds for a base.

You shouldn't be able to port anywhere with stolen goods. You want to steal it, lug it out. And it'd be nice if there was some mitigation against spiteful raiding. I can't carry this, so I'm going to empty every container's stuff onto the ground. Server technology wise, things need to decay on the ground, perhaps, but in that place between simulacra fidelity and real world-game world compromise, just because you dump the contents of my cabinet on the floor, shouldn't make it all magically disappear in the typical gap between my login sessions.

The lack of defense and extreme time disparities in time to create vs. time to destroy, coupled with the increasingly location/grind based aspects of advancement in the game (trees & farms), means that once a faction loses its foundations (which against competent opposition will be as soon as they lose "the big fight") they are out of the game. They have no ability to rebuild, and the grind to get back there will take them months. During which time, for 0 cost, their opposition can swoop in and reset them. Scent system guarantees that whatever big fight occurs it will be the only big fight. Scent system also ensures that once one faction attains supremacy, no one else may play in their reindeer games (no one else can afford to leave a scent anywhere). In fact, scents become flares in this system, alerting the reigning group that someone is grooming a combat alt, and inviting them to come stomp it out. It's a flawed model.

There are no niches. It's a winner take all game, slow enough paced that hiding is not even a feasible option. The longer and more involved the game becomes, the more glaring all these flaws will become.

But hey, the rules to the game change faster than it takes to exercise those rules, so wtf.

Your solution, though, would make it impossible for anyone to raid. As things are, it's already very difficult.

You want walls and things to take a lot longer to destroy. Well, brazier fire gives a strong raider about 10 seconds of work before they have to run away. Many people on the scene increases that time by a few seconds a person, just enough time to do some damage. If you want it to take several minutes to destroy a wall, well, the BB drain from committing waste alone is enough to force even a strong raider off the claim in a few minutes, plus all the extra crimes, time and effort to carry chunks of wall out of the way would drain a lot as well. To add a mechanic like this, braziers and torchposts would have to be removed. Maybe that's okay. Trade quick, highly coordinated, high risk attacks for much more slow and safe attacks that run the risk of alerting defenders and becoming dangerous? I'd take that trade. A lot would probably have to change though. It wouldn't be fair if it's possible for a single small hermit to stand inside the walls repairing them quickly while half a dozen raiders toil away outside, unable to make headway because walls take so much effort to bash.

The idea that destroying a base takes less time than building one is false. A single raid actually takes quite a bit of time. Days worth of scouting looking for places. Time scheduled for everyone to be there which may involve days or weeks of waiting. Hours running from home base or boston to get to the target. More hours setting up the raid. More hours still actually Doing that raid. It can take 12+ hours Straight JUST for that part, most being the very boring running off crimes. Then there's the removal of any loot gotten, which is sometimes not much thanks to waste claims giving such an obvious warning. How much can a dedicated hermit build in the 40+ hours it can take Just to meet up, coordinate, execute, and wrap up a raid? How much in the hours spent scouting, the days of time spent building the raider, and maintaining it thanks to brazier drain?

I don't think the scent system itself allows anyone to be the strongest forever. You have to find those scents, after all. Evidence may sometimes last months, but the scents themselves only last a few hours. Your strong faction has to go out and wander the map looking, or have allies to give them locations, which means making people who might be your allies happy. This is all very hard work. And the map is huge. IF someone really wants to challenge the leaders, it can always be done. It's just a matter of effort and willpower.

Even if one were to accept you're somewhat inflated numbers, the coordination issues for defenders are the same as for attackers. Except that the defenders have a 16 hour (at best) time table to organize themselves. It's always on the attacker's time table. Am I far away from you on the server? Well I damn well hope I am, I'm sure I went to a lot of work to plan it to be so. Or nature heuristically determined that I am, because the bases nearer were all wiped out already. The server size is supposed to be large enough to create a sense of territories. You're not *supposed* to be able to willy nilly raid bases on the opposite side of the server map from you. Again, because it is not desireable for one faction to dominate the entire server.

In any event, the sort of base that requires that kind of coordination is the culmination of months of work by likely a dozen or more players. So in 40 hours you're going to undo the work of 12+ players over 3+ months. That's not a workable exchange. The reality of in-game play shows that your numbers are highly optimistic in their attempt to present any sort of equitable exchange of effort between raider and defender. All the other flaws in the system remain unimpeached by your arguments. And, by the way, what sort of base do you think you could build even with 40 hours of effort?... The time it takes to loot people's stuff? Scouting the map? That's what forum Rangering threads are for. Why do you think you all do it? You don't understand your own mechanisms for control well, Mereni.

The idea that destroying a base takes less time than building one is true. Grossly, appallingly true by orders of magnitude and via any metric you care to use.

[ElCapitan1701]

The general public simply does not have the time.

Aaah! Right. At last.

Grind
But, you don`t need to dispose grinding completly. You need to reverse its importance. Every casual player should get the first 90% of any grind related value, but the last 10% needs to be very hard. The last 10% are end-game and for pro gamers. Atm the first 10% are hard, but if you have your start it accelarates - that`s why most players can`t keep up with it. And that`s why they get killed sooner or later.

Crafting MMO
Well there are a lot of pvp mmos - but no crafting mmos out there. So it is a shame, that Salem is more pvp mmo than crafting mmo. PvP should give some meaning to Crafting, in Salem, crafted goods (and players hoping Salem is a crafting MMO) serves pvp.

As someone who not played H&H, and came to Salem because it is advertised as a crafting MMO, this is what I expected:
Arriving in the new world
Discovering the unknown
fight against nature
finding a nice spot
building a small home
manage self-suply
getting expierience in some crafting goods
concentrating to get better in some goods
building new infrastructure to produce more things
selling those products to some market
adjusting my productions to products with high demand
getting together with others who supply me with things I don`t produce
perfect my skills to increase output or produce high tech products
building a city
connect to other cities
trade
expand influence
exploit rare ressources
prepare for independence
prepare to resist kings troops.

So everything after "manage self-supply" didn`t happen. Because everyone can everything. There is no demand, all ressources are everywhere. No market, no projects, just consuming food to skill stats....

[martinuzz]

With all the 1000s of new different items from the cooking recombinations, this would be a good time to create more stalls in the capitals for players to acquire. Let's start with 57 new stalls on each server, to celebrate the 57 different types of meat pie.