Silvermink said:Lotro has mounts. If the mount gets hit, it takes damage, if the mount takes too much damage, you're walking again. And it doesn't take much to get dismounted. Even with the store bought speed package, you can't run through high level areas or afk travel without getting dismounted.
All the stop and smell the roses, look around explore arguments work the first, fifth, maybe 10th time you run through an area, what about the 100th? the 500th?
Alright why not just make the game world smaller? You can achieve the same travel time without mounts. Even then, it's totally arbitrary because there is no 'perfect travel time'. It all comes down to whether or not you want players to be able to quickly bypass your gameworld or not, regardless of size.
On foot.
Walking a trail that fades into no path.
I do not want fast mounts to be used.
Give us pack mules or goats or some other beast of burden.
Nothing that I can ride as a means to speed up my travels.
If someone says they came from a far land I want to know they made a journey not pointed their horse at a waypoint and pushed auto gallop.
I prefer to travel by foot, land mounts, and limited teleportation. I also appreciate class speed buffs which help with travel times and return to bind abilities.
I don't typically don't like flying mounts in games. Final Fantasy 14 has been the only exception to this. I also don't like the ability to teleport anywhere and everywhere. I think that travel should be a meaningful experience within reason.
In Pantheon, I'm just looking forward to the travel experience in general. I am really interested to see how the mount system turns out and if there will be any additional perks tied into it.
How about when a player is on a path, that their movement speed increases. It would make sense you can move faster over a path than the wild terrain.
I fall into the walking category 99% of the time even with all other types available. I'm not in a hurry, real life is always go, go, go so I like to savor the moment when playing games.
Ground mounts are ok, but I don't like the constant upgrading their speed. It breaks immersion to me and looks silly and controlling turbo charged mounts is annoying.
Flying mounts are a huge no to me, they make the world feel empty as you see nothing but NPC's on the ground and it trivializes the zones and work that was put into making them special. Fast travel is something I almost never use unless it fits into the world/lore in some form and is on a longer cooldown.
As others have said mounts and fast travel on command cheapen the experience. Most travel should be on foot with some type of speed boost like SoW and levitation if you're lucky. If you want to travel across an ocean wait for a boat. A few classes with ports at higher levels is fine. EQ 1 had this down.
Fast travel should be counter productive to Horizal leveling. Yes fast travel has it own time saving benifits, but it should negate any benifts that you would normally get through the preception system. Also, allow classes to become the travel specialists embrace class-interdependancy. but you also have vertical travel option, above and below sea level. so really it plays into climbing and underwater systems. the lore and the physics of the world Pantheon should govern all of this.
"Alright why not just make the game world smaller?"
I don't think this really relates to Silverminks point. The point being that by the 100th time you take a particular route it doesn't feel like a large and interesting world it feels like a tedious and boring one. Making the world smaller would impact the first 99 trips which Silvermink has no trouble with.
Ways to deal with this valid concern could be (1) don't have long trips that need to be made over and over and over and over. For example have necessary services in more than one place convenient to where players are likely to be as they change adventuring areas. (2) Give means of fast travel that are unlocked after the character has made the trip 99 times. As in a frequent buyer club at a store that gives a teleportation token with certain major purchases (but good only from a specific location not anywhere in the world). (3) Have public transport routes between commonly used areas. But, as with the pony express, have them go through the territory between not over it or around it, and be subject to attacks by mobs with maybe a random chance of a bandit ambush.
dorotea said:"Alright why not just make the game world smaller?"
I don't think this really relates to Silverminks point. The point being that by the 100th time you take a particular route it doesn't feel like a large and interesting world it feels like a tedious and boring one. Making the world smaller would impact the first 99 trips which Silvermink has no trouble with.
Ways to deal with this valid concern could be (1) don't have long trips that need to be made over and over and over and over. For example have necessary services in more than one place convenient to where players are likely to be as they change adventuring areas. (2) Give means of fast travel that are unlocked after the character has made the trip 99 times. As in a frequent buyer club at a store that gives a teleportation token with certain major purchases (but good only from a specific location not anywhere in the world). (3) Have public transport routes between commonly used areas. But, as with the pony express, have them go through the territory between not over it or around it, and be subject to attacks by mobs with maybe a random chance of a bandit ambush.
If you look through the streams and all the posted developer round tables, I think you'll see that VRs design isn't the EQ1 version where as the content gets of a higher level you have to go further and further to get to it. Instead, VR has stated that zones will have content across many tiers. A single zone, especially given the size of these zones, could have content that could cover 30 levels or more.
Vandraad said:dorotea said:"Alright why not just make the game world smaller?"
I don't think this really relates to Silverminks point. The point being that by the 100th time you take a particular route it doesn't feel like a large and interesting world it feels like a tedious and boring one. Making the world smaller would impact the first 99 trips which Silvermink has no trouble with.
Ways to deal with this valid concern could be (1) don't have long trips that need to be made over and over and over and over. For example have necessary services in more than one place convenient to where players are likely to be as they change adventuring areas. (2) Give means of fast travel that are unlocked after the character has made the trip 99 times. As in a frequent buyer club at a store that gives a teleportation token with certain major purchases (but good only from a specific location not anywhere in the world). (3) Have public transport routes between commonly used areas. But, as with the pony express, have them go through the territory between not over it or around it, and be subject to attacks by mobs with maybe a random chance of a bandit ambush.
If you look through the streams and all the posted developer round tables, I think you'll see that VRs design isn't the EQ1 version where as the content gets of a higher level you have to go further and further to get to it. Instead, VR has stated that zones will have content across many tiers. A single zone, especially given the size of these zones, could have content that could cover 30 levels or more.
Verical dungeons the Wellpond is an example. awesome stuff
Flying mounts just wreck everything, they are literally game breaking, they remove risk vs reward in terms of adventuring into new zones on foot that you're not familiar with, they make the world feel considerably smaller, and they make it monumentally faster / easier for players to consume the available content of the game (this aspect really is a killer). I don't dislike Asmongold, but the way he, his in-game minions, and other MMO players like him, consume content these days is very worrying for new MMOs. Giving people like that the aility to teleport around, fly wherever they like, when they like, will lead them to trashing the game in the same way they do WoW every single time an expansion is released and they've consumed everything within a matter of days. On the other hand, if you deny people like that flying mounts, or fast travel from day one, they will still s**t all over your game online anyway just because it doesn't satisfy their 'instant gratification / attention deficit disorder' mindset. Just watch what happens when New Worlds releases in the next few days, the content will be absorbed within a week, or two, and the button smasher hoarde will be out, patrolling the Internet trashing the game every opportunity they get.
Personally, I loved the fixed route boat / ship in EQ, it helped to link landmasses, and to navigate through a difficult ocean zone (OOT), but it didn't have the impact of making the scale of the world feel smaller. Lagging off of the boat, into the ocean after you zoned in was really painful, though!
I love movement speed buffs being valuable (requesting / paying for them promotes interaction / socialising with others), I love unique items, such as JBoots, that affect movement speed being highly valuable, I love the adventure, and subsequent discovery, that travelling on foot creates, and this is all lost when you introduce mounts, or easily accessible forms of fast travel. Levitate was also great, and yes, it allowed you to avoid some of the dangers in a zone, but since it wasn't permanent, it has far less of an impact than a mount that can be conjoured up from thin air whenever you feel like it. It doesn't increase your movement speed either, and if your class didn't have the spell, you had to interact with others to request the buff (more social interaction).
Teleports were awesome in the way that they were implemented in EQ, they were unique to a few classes, those classes couldn't access all locations around the world from the beginning, and since you had to group with the player teleporting you to another location it made them relatively difficult to find. Liaising with, and actually intercting with someone else in order to obtain a teleport is yet more promotion of the social aspect of the game.
Pantheon is making a huge deal about their climbing system, imagine the impact flying mounts would have on that system. They would literally render the entire system redundant, except maybe some indoor zones where mounts may not be accessible. If you take a look at the most recent development stream, the terrain leading up to the entrance to 'The Gate' has some pretty extreme vertical terrain, and given the fact that it's one of the higher end dungeons (correct me if I'm wrong), I'm guessing some kind of reliance on your climbing skill will be relevant to reaching that zone.
When travelling isn't at a click of a button, you have to prepare more (do I have everything I need from the bank before I set out?), you pay more attention to the environent (am I taking the most efficient route?), and that, in turn, makes the whole thing more meaningful. The sad part is, since fast travel is common in MMOs now, the idea of walking from point A, to point B being 'meaningful' is lost on most people. In fact, they would probably find the idea of it comical.
Shadowbound said:Personally, I loved the fixed route boat / ship in EQ, it helped to link landmasses, and to navigate through a difficult ocean zone (OOT), but it didn't have the impact of making the scale of the world feel smaller. Lagging off of the boat, into the ocean after you zoned in was really painful, though!
I like the fix boats to ports on coastline. Item and products sold on vendors should spill over to other destination port. Vendors at ports should have some items and resorces you might find from the upline and downline ports. Products, resources and goods can travel a little too, however, they should cost more the farther away it is from it's native continent. But you would have to make sure it not overly profitable to buy from a native vendor and sell to a foriegn vendor.
It really depends on what I want to do.
Air any winged mount: Pro: Flying is fun and mounts look great. Con: Bypasses content.
I love air mounts. It is fun flying around and you can get some lush looking mounts. If used though, the skys would have to be as dangerous and content filled as the ground and water. If you think about it, swimming is just flying in liquid, so there could easily be content and mobs up there to make it dangerous and interesting and not used as a content fast forward. I am not specifically advocating flying mounts, but I do like their concept.
Ground: I like mounts of any kind: Pro: Mounts can look really good. Con: Bypasses content or makes it trivial.
Porting is great for getting to friends, quickly but also bypasses content. In a game like Pantheon, I am not sure this is good or not, it would certainly be easier, but could easily be exploited.
I thought there was only foot travel and limited porting in pantheon's plans, so I wasnt looking forward to any of the above really?
It really depends on what I want to do.
Air any winged mount: Pro: Flying is fun and mounts look great. Con: Bypasses content.
I love air mounts. It is fun flying around and you can get some lush looking mounts. If used though, the skys would have to be as dangerous and content filled as the ground and water. If you think about it, swimming is just flying in liquid, so there could easily be content and mobs up there to make it dangerous and interesting and not used as a content fast forward. I am not specifically advocating flying mounts, but I do like their concept.
Ground: I like mounts of any kind: Pro: Mounts can look really good. Con: Bypasses content or makes it trivial.
Water: Swimming based mounts might be interesting, lol. Same pros and cons as above.
Porting is great for getting to friends, quickly but also bypasses content. In a game like Pantheon, I am not sure this is good or not, it would certainly be easier, but could easily be exploited.
I thought there was only foot travel and limited porting in pantheon's plans, so I wasnt looking forward to any of the above really?
My favorite method of travel is on foot with a group of friends. "Let's go see what's over there!" Exploration!
If we're simply talking about getting from point A to point B because getting to point B is the goal then I'm not sure what my answer is. Running isn't necessarily fun but it is so important to keep the world feeling like a world rather than a bunch of segmented areas that you can magically go to and from at will. If running is the price to pay to make that happen then I'm all for running. I'd prefer not to have mounts of any kind; I've never liked mounts in any game I've played so far...but I suppose it's possible to implement them in a new way. I am not opposed to teleportation, as long as it's kept in check and based on player abilities rather than just running to a magical portal.
chenzeme said:It really depends on what I want to do.
Air any winged mount: Pro: Flying is fun and mounts look great. Con: Bypasses content.
I love air mounts. It is fun flying around and you can get some lush looking mounts. If used though, the skys would have to be as dangerous and content filled as the ground and water. If you think about it, swimming is just flying in liquid, so there could easily be content and mobs up there to make it dangerous and interesting and not used as a content fast forward. I am not specifically advocating flying mounts, but I do like their concept.
Ground: I like mounts of any kind: Pro: Mounts can look really good. Con: Bypasses content or makes it trivial.
Water: Swimming based mounts might be interesting, lol. Same pros and cons as above.
Porting is great for getting to friends, quickly but also bypasses content. In a game like Pantheon, I am not sure this is good or not, it would certainly be easier, but could easily be exploited.
I thought there was only foot travel and limited porting in pantheon's plans, so I wasnt looking forward to any of the above really?
You bring up great points here about different types of gameplay. It reminds me that there are many types of gameplay features in many kinds of games. You could create a list hundreds if not thousands of ways to play and enjoy games, many of which are built around those features.
But when we step back and look at this list we created of gameplay feautres - do all of those features belong in every game?
A core piece of Pantheon is social interaction and social gameplay. I think the features that are on this list that get added to Pantheon should have that as a core component. In general, fast travel is fine with me but make it a social interaction - have some classes have abilities that help with fast travel that cause players to want to speak and work together!
chenzeme said:I love air mounts. It is fun flying around and you can get some lush looking mounts. If used though, the skys would have to be as dangerous and content filled as the ground and water. If you think about it, swimming is just flying in liquid, so there could easily be content and mobs up there to make it dangerous and interesting and not used as a content fast forward. I am not specifically advocating flying mounts, but I do like their concept.
That would make for some unnaturally crowded skies, also hard to have much if any points of interest in the air so it would look especially strange having tons of mobs just floating around up there for no reason.
Iksar said:chenzeme said:I love air mounts. It is fun flying around and you can get some lush looking mounts. If used though, the skys would have to be as dangerous and content filled as the ground and water. If you think about it, swimming is just flying in liquid, so there could easily be content and mobs up there to make it dangerous and interesting and not used as a content fast forward. I am not specifically advocating flying mounts, but I do like their concept.
That would make for some unnaturally crowded skies, also hard to have much if any points of interest in the air so it would look especially strange having tons of mobs just floating around up there for no reason.
Good points Iksar, but it wouldn't have to be just mobs crowding the sky's, there could be climate changes, clouds(slow you or visibility), cold/warm front's, lightning, hail(damage), fly too high and your too close to the sun (heat damage), or low on oxygen. Perception pings when you get near some of these front's or the edge of where the sun starts to burn (requiring high heat resistance to go further). It could be much more than just a sky crowded with mobs.
Player vs. Environment
I really don't want flying anything. I really want limited teleports. Like from zone A to next door zone B. Teleport from zone B to next door Zone C. I'd like the destination of the port to vary from cast to cast. It should only be consistent at a high level. I don't want teleports from zone A to Zone G. I definitely don't want ports from one continent to another.
I like horses, but I'd want their speed to max out at SOW type speed. I'd like a horse to carry two knapsacks, for goods.