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Scale - The problems without fast travel

Instead of saying no to fast travel.
Would it be wiser to say fast travel nodes are X km apart and no closer ?

So why do I sat this.
If the world is only 10km from end to end it wont be much of a chore to get from end to end.
If you are on a global that taks 100 Pi days to circumnavigate, reaching other people will be ...errmm...problematic.

So I would actually suggest a mesh of Fast travel nodes at a minimum distance apart.
They are too far apart for the zerg train issue.
But they are not too far apart to fix the never see my mates this year issue.

Thoughts ?

NB, you could of course have rides that take you from fast travel node to fast travel node rather than hyper space.
It would be much quicker, but wont bypass the scenery.

Comments

  • That wouldn't work, as you're suggesting it. I could just jump node-node-node-node, and use a bunch of smaller node hops to cross large distances, effectively creating fast travel.

    The only way to stop this would be to institute a cooldown on the short-range fast travel, but in that case you might as well just go there manually.
  • [quote quote=22264]Instead of saying no to fast travel.
    Would it be wiser to say fast travel nodes are X km apart and no closer ?

    So why do I sat this.
    If the world is only 10km from end to end it wont be much of a chore to get from end to end.
    If you are on a global that taks 100 Pi days to circumnavigate, reaching other people will be …errmm…problematic.[/quote]

    Yeah, but if I can travel to nodes that are 1 km apart, then in 10 jumps I can go across the entire map. Basically, fast travel with a little more clicking. If you were to institute this, you would probably have to put in a cooldown to prevent the zergs. But if you're doing short-range fast travel on a cooldown, you might as well just make the players go around manually.

    Also, bear in mind that the devs do have some ideas for limited fast travel. I read somewhere that a metropolis science node might be able to teleport you to other nodes in its ZoI.
  • Alternatively, you could have;
    short range 1 person waypoints (per 5 minutes)
    medium range 5 person waypoints (per 25 minutes)
    long range 10 person waypoints (per 50 minutes).
    More like a train distribution network I guess.

    This allows individuals and groups to travel but its limited by wait times and party size.
  • I think the idea of "no fast travel" has to be pretty foundational... and they can work out from that assumption in the design. This alone may dictate the size of the world (certainly be a factor!)

    But I suspect so many other aspects of the design rely on player interaction, that taking players off of the roads for any reason would go against most of them.
  • In the docgotgame q&a, they said they will consider allowing players to choose their starting portals (which are very very far from each other) so that they won't be race-specific, and friends can play together even if they would be from different races. That they would consider that rather than implement fast travel could be meaningful and I don't think it's just about the scenery. At the very least, it could create drama among friends if one friend really wants to stay in a specific node while the other really needs to go somewhere else. :P
  • I personally hope i can't just arbitrarily walk across the world... i want to make the decision to say "Hey... i havent see *node name here* I guess i can explore that way and see whats up... oh look a boat... ITS NOT A LOAD SCREEN? WOOT" something along those lines.
  • A game without fast travel actually sounds more intense, I like it. I understand the point that getting to your friend(s) could be a chore, but it would be an awesome feeling.
  • I'm strictly against fast travel of <strong>any</strong> kind.
    Reasons:
    <ul>
    <li>Fast travel will break the immersion</li>
    <li>You want to plan your caravans beforehand, secure the routes etc.</li>
    <li>It's a significant advantage over new players, who might need to unlock fast traveling</li>
    </ul>
  • Having played BDO for a while, I can say that no fast travel does actually work, and I think it suits it in what Ashes sounds like it will be tbh. (Although BDO players will know getting to valencia is a bitch :D)
  • Thanks for the comments.
    With those in mind I was thinking some more on the issue.
    Perhaps kill 2 birds with one stone.

    Latency is a major problem, especially in PvP.
    There no escaping the fact, the further two people are apart geographically, the worse the latency and the greater the number of routing hops.
    Oceanic players will probably understand that problem more than most.
    It is specifically why many begged for an oceanic server.

    The other side of the coin is that they would prefer to play with people more local to them, without the latency issues.
    So is it better to simply face facts and localise servers for best performance ?
    But if so, does that mean players across the world would/should never play with each other again ?
    I think that would be a bad road to start walking down.

    So, in combat we often have the notion of home advantage.
    And in a local server sense, local people would have the latency advantage.
    Which leads me to the following solution.

    1. Massive game world....I mean global scale.
    2. The game world is mapped into game tile biomes.
    3. Local game servers are attached to those tiled biomes across the game world 1:1
    4. Players can cooperate or go to war with other servers (world biome nodes), But their ping would suffer.
    5. This enables a server transfer mechanism.
    6. As the game world is broken up into 100s of server tiles, they do not need to solve a massive world, with transit issues.
    7. That means traversing game tiles (server) can be done for exploration purposes, but would be impractical for combat.
    8. You can have a dynamic migration system in place with as 99% +-1% server population to enable tourism.
    9. Each Biome/server/tile can exchange or gather map information.
    10. Every game tile/biome/server story remains completely unique.

    What this means is you will have local economies within regional economies.
    But limited/regulated global trade is isolated by servers.
    Players can explore the whole world, if they so choose, but not at the expense of local server performance (ie <1% population).
  • Most importantly, each tile is economically, self sufficient for the most part.
    So players dont 'have' to trade with other servers.
  • While of on the topic... I'd like to see game time align with travel time. Let me explain :)

    Just last night I took a fishing boat from Ancado Harbor (Valencia) to Velia in Black Desert. It took just about 6 hours in "game time". The clock went from 6:45pm to about midnight by the time I arrived, and it was dark out.

    It might have felt like sufficient time had passed int he game world (even though only about 45 minutes had passed in real time.)

    But in a game like AoC, with seasons also clocking off time... is it conceivable it could take me "a winter" to travel somewhere? Conceptually, yes, based on the mode of travel and size of the continent.

    I dunno, just something that dawned on me last night. Size of world and time scale can affect perceived "travel time" as it pertains to the game time and calendar.
  • Originally for EQNext, I was arguing that fast travel was a must.
    After the 3 months it takes to build Qeynos, I would want to go help build Freeport next - or whatever other iconic cities have been discovered for us to build...even if they're on the opposite side of the continent.
    But, if I've spent 3 months building my home city, I better be able to return to it in 20-30 minutes to defend it from attack.
    Plus, when players or devs are having impromptu parties, like they did after Landmark Live streams, again I need to be able to get there in 20-30 minutes.
    That was a year before we got the reveal of how PvP conflict works. Fast travel was a forgotten subject by then.

    With the way node v node conflict works, I won't be quite so eager to help build every Metropolis. If I'm in Kithicor Forest protecting all Life. I'm not going to help the dark elves in Serpentspine Mountains build a stronghold that drains Life magic.
    And if it takes 3 months to destroy my home city, I don't have to rush back within 30 minutes to defend it from attack.
    I think impromptu parties are more likely to be local.

    And it looks like hanging out with the devs is more of a fru-fru p2w KS affair.
    I'm not paying thousands of dollars for that.

    So, I'm fine with fast travel being limited to the Science Metropolis.
    There are 4 Metropolis types and 5 Metropolises can be built.
    That implies that there could be 2+ Science Metropolises on the same server.
    Is it possible to have 5 Science Metropolises on the same server and maximize fast travel?
  • @Dygz
    I dont think there has been any stipulation that all metropolis 'must' be different.
    I guess it would be more of a question of ....what will you be missing out on, if you have 5 metropolis of the same type ?

    That probably doesnt matter if you are a competitive server.
    It probably does matter if you are a cooperative server.
    But its all guesswork at the moment.

    Could you appease enough PvE monster attacks without Religious metropolis ?
    Could you fend off competing PvP military metropolis without one of your own ?
    Could your city even sustain stage 5 without an economic metropolis providing materials ?
    Could you overcome weaponry or natural disasters without the knowledge provided by a scientific metropolis ?
  • @Lethality

    Yes... I was thinking about that having a global community as tiles on a full size game globe.
    That globes tiles would be at different latitudes/longitudes.
    Meaning some game tiles would be equatorial, tropical, polar etc.....and dependant on the time of year.
    The length of the day vs night cycle would also change dependant on latitude.
    Longer nights in winter..longer days in summer..equal day/night on the equinoxes
    Go above the polar circles and you could have permanent days and permanent nights at the solstices.

    So not only would you be travelling across biomes/tiles experiencing different fauna/flora you would also be travelling across seasonal variations and light cycles.
    Perhaps even aurora at the poles.
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