Hermits, how do I hermit?

[WigglyWoo]

I played a couple of worlds before (around 2015?) and both times I tried starting a little community it inevitably be ransacked for lols so I decided to return playing with steam as a hermit. Please enlighten me, how to survive?

How do I make sure my place isn't found or at least deter unwanted interest from me?

[VDZ]

Start in a cave, ideally one not visible from a river, outside of view range from an entrance (custom clients can show view range). (Ideally also avoid caves with multiple entrances, or at least none close to where you're claiming.) When you have a dried palisade in the cave, try claiming the outside of the cave or another accessible outside location (do it quickly, ideally immediately activate after the 8 hour dry time) and build a second palisade there, then you can start living there. (Alternatively, you can live primarily in the cave and only use the outside for things like farming.) Keep in mind people might be able to enter your base through the cave, so secure the entrance too.

In all of this, don't leave any traces. Don't drop items near your cave, don't chop trees near your cave, obviously don't pave, dig or terraform near your cave, don't do anything near your cave that indicates someone is living inside there.

Also a useful trick before you have a palisade up is building a cheap fence (no gate unless you can lock it) on your claim outside of your stuff; it will require Vandalism for criminals to touch your stuff (not just Theft; Vandalism costs more LP to buy and has a harsher penalty) and they won't be able to rummage to see if it's worth committing crimes even if they do find you.

Above is what I do. It's not the only way, but in general the key rule for early world hermit survival is: Don't draw attention. Don't draw attention before you have a dried palisade, and you'll be fine. Once you have a palisade, you'll be safe inside your claim because nobody bothers sieging hermits unless they have personal beef with them. (Obviously that also means you shouldn't commit theft, vandalism or assault yourself, as that's an easy way to get beef with someone.)

[Kasiornis]

Out of sight - out of mind. Bad guys can't hurt you if they can't see you.
As a rule of thumb - staying at starting continent in the middle of a map is a bad idea, one day or another someone bored enough will break your camp for lulz cuz you're two steps away from them anyway. Being in some god forbidden arse of the world will be a much safer choice.

Also yes, at the start - everyone will want safety. So everyone will want palisades. So if anyone stumbles upon your drying racks or tanning tubs - they'll grab your stuff without second thought. Cuz they also need it. Thus hiding in some random cave, in the middle of nowhere, without any traces of you ever being there - is a good idea in general.

All you need to do is to be stealthy at the very start.
Everything else after that will mostly depend on your luck and playing skills.

[McFuzz]

These days, you can't palisade bash by hand unless you own the claim and sieging is only done by attackers who either really want to stick it to you or know they're going to get something very valuable from doing so.

Most PVP encounters these days end in you getting knocked and looted unless you get stuck, drowned, juked into a PK animal, or have no idea how combat works and let them put sky high opportunities on you and split you like a melon. You may lose everything on you but as long as you keep your property and your life, you will carry on.

I never do anything to reduce my footprint as the above guys suggest, and the only real PVP I got into is last world Snugglesnail (probably) said something odd about Hitler outside my walls then they left lol. If you're doing something obnoxious like stealing a boat or taking something that clearly belongs to someone (like a horse, containers left by their gates, stuff left in stockpiles in their mine; no claim=fair game) or scaving high quality limited resources like clay, dirt and local resources: do it FAST, leave no traces, and don't get memorized. But if you want to play the safest haven imaginable, settle far away from large villages and don't explore in their direction, and if you see any player on map; bolt it.

TL;DR, the PVP is not the death sentence it used to be in 2015 and earlier; yeomanry and a palisade will protect you from almost anything these days, just don't do anything to upset larger villages and you're peachy.

Also, like, I've never met a player who doesn't love a good tribute. You want to ransack me but sir how will I continue to give you free stuff if you kill me? >:) And now they want to protect you so you continue to give them free ♥♥♥♥ it's a win win lol.

[Noogia]

LMK you wanna link up for the start of world its not hard just pick a area far enough from water and maybe cave and rush leather for palisade

[axusgrad]

Start of world (November 1st?) is different from 1 month later. The very first day, nobody will have unlocked murder yet. For hours there won't be theft, but it's not enough time for leather. You want hide drying racks in cave (not too close to entrance) but you can start mapping your area before that. Filling in my map, meeting (plus memorizing) the neighbors and collecting crops is how I plan to spend day 1, when I'm not putting hides in caves.

Very important for a hermit is to live apart from murderers and have a safe path to the big teleport tree (Thingwall). As the map has over 100 Thingwalls and less than 50 Very Murderous Villages, your odds are better than even of having an acceptable location. If someone warns you to leave, set up a spot in a new province and then carry your stuff over. Ideally you will move before investing the resources for a palisade, otherwise you'll need to save up for another palisade before you move. Never live in sight of a travelled path (mostly rivers).

If you starting past the first week, you might ask to join a village and then move out to hermit once you've contributed enough for a fair trade. As time goes on, the rate of hide/tub theft goes down.

You can use the evolutionary method: keep creating characters in random locations, each one trying to produce leather -> palisade in parallel. Even if two are robbed, the third one gets a palisade up. And there's a chance he doesn't live near thieves, when it's been proven the other two did :P

[Kasiornis]

Oh, I like the last idea. Just keep throwing resources into the fire, what's the worst that can happen, innit? Surely they can't steal all of your stuff, right? RIGHT?

[Ghost314]

What if I simply become the thief?

[dixie2238]

I had to break up this on the fly beginners guide into two parts as it got a little too long. I feel it is worth it to invest the time into doing this here because of all of the potential new players who may read this before finding the HnH forums and wiki (ringofbrodgar).

First part is my recommendation against hermiting if you are new to Haven and Hearth and my recommendation to join a village. Second part in the post after this one is about how to Hermit.

Joining a Village:

If you are new to the game (even if returning after playing many worlds ago like I did) I do not recommend starting your first main character (you can have alts by the way so that your main character remains safely offline most of the time) as a Hermit. Once you learn the game it becomes pretty easy but the learning curve can be very steep for a first timer. There is just so much to learn and so little time to learn it all in the brief time you have at world start before experienced players gain the ability to murder you. All it takes is one experienced PVP in your area and you will most likely become food for worms if caught out in the open.

Granted most of my experience is from the much more dangerous time in the early single digit 2d worlds (5-7) but from the short time I've had to reacquaint myself with the game in world 15 I would still not take any chances. So I recommend all first time or inexperienced players to go to the haven and hearth forums and search there for a village that is recruiting and join it before the world starts.

Ill make it easy for you and recommend the one I will be joining. It is called WHATEVER BAY. Look it up on the haven and hearth forum, they have a recruitment thread there and there is link to discord where you can join. It is huge and protected by experienced PVP fighters. You will most likely share a decent sized plot with a few other new players and that plot will have its own palisade that only you and your plot mates can enter. They have been recreating and running the same giant village for the past few worlds and so they know what they are doing.

Around all of the plots is the main village palisade/wall which will be thrown up after only a couple days at world start. Once all of the experienced PVP factions get on their feet and start seeking out targets this village will certainly be one of the most targeted but like I said there are capable and dedicated PVP fighters in Whatever Bay who basically only play for the opportunity to fight other players which they get plenty of due to the just mentioned large village target factor. If the threat from invaders is bad enough most villagers who arent fighters just log out till the fight is over. As far as I am aware the village always managed to prevail and repel every invading army.

All you need do is keep you main character inside the village [always] and only use easily replaceable alts outside the village and you are golden. In such a large and friendly village you can easily replenish what you lose when an alt dies. And both survival and leveling up new alts is not nearly as long and painful a process as it is when you are a hermit.

And if you still feel the strong desire to experience the real survival challenge of a hermit there is nothing stopping you from doing that on the side with a different character you spawn randomly somewhere else in the world. Or you could spawn an alt in the village and take it out into some area near the village and start your hermit life there though I would recommend somewhere far far away from village since it is such a huge and well known target of PVPers, it isnt safe anywhere outside its walls, especially right outside the walls or nearby.

See next part about how to Hermit if you dare.. ;)

[dixie2238]

My recommendations FOR HERMITS starting out:

First priority is palisade. For that you just need a bunch of tanned leather, a couple gobs of glue and a bunch of wood blocks cut from logs which require lumber jack skill and stone axe to cut down the trees and split logs into blocks.

Open every squirrel stash you can find, eat the nuts and take any squirrels hiding in them. Easy bones and hides for your first palisade. Need to build tanning tubs and gather enough river, or acre clay to craft cauldron for boiling bones down to glue.

Have the Ring of Brodgar wiki on a tab in the back ground at all times while you play so you can quickly look up recipes and the requirements you must meet in order to open up access to new skills or new building and crafting recipes which you cant see when you start out.

To acquire these skills you need to buy them with Learning Points (LP) which in the beginning are gained from just clicking on everything you see and discovering everything. The first time you craft anything also gives you LP. So first go around discovering every kind of tree and every kind of tree seed and leaf, dig dirt/river clay/acre clay, chip a rock from a boulder and take a branch from a tree and craft a stone axe.

Pick any plants you see. You will see more when you unlock the knowledge of foraging. Then the more you raise your exploration skill the more you will see on top of that. And then the more you raise Perception attribute from eating fish and other stuff the more you will see on top of that. It all compounds like most things in HnH.

Anything you find that can be studied put them in your study table in your character sheet. This gains LP points over time. Do not remove anything from study window or the time resets. Same with things like drying racks for drying your fresh squirrel and rabbit hides on. Also buy hunting knowledge asap to be able to chase and pick up rabbits for bone and hide. Cook the meat from squirrels and rabbits over campfire.

Verify everything Ive said here on the ringofbrodgar wiki and be sure you understand it all before you even start out. The less you have to afk looking up something outside of the game the better. Ideally, you should NEVER AFK while your character is out in the open or anywhere that another player might stumble upon you. Always go hide somewhere far from river or populated area or log off while you look up stuff or go to the rest room or eat a snack or stretch because youve been sitting staring at a screen waaaaay too long! ;)

With that I wish you good luck and I hope to see you in world 16!