Faster Travel home binding
Isharya
Member
So i know (and i am happy) that there is no "Fast Travel" in this game. There are no portals or mass summoning or any of that. In interviews, Steve talks about "limited fast travel" which implies SOME forms of fast travel so i looked in the wiki and found:
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Mounts#Faster_travel
There are talks of public transportation (im curious about this since i haven't heard anything on it really), teleporting between metro nodes and such. But what about a long cooldown "hearthstone" that other games have? Something that you bind as your home point (can be an inn somewhere or only the node you are a citizen of) with a long 1-2 hour CD?
The example i am thinking of for a use case is really that you are out in the wild or in the middle of an open dungeon and you have to go for an emergency IRL. Instead of just logging out in the middle of nowhere or deep inside a dungeon to log back in and instantly die (since that contains a penalty) wouldn't a long CD fast travel that only effects you be beneficial? I am wondering what everyone's take on this would be? I know in other games that have this (like vanilla wow for example) with it being on a 1 hour CD it can be "abused" if you are power leveling / speed leveling if used at certain times but that is more the outlier.
And since it's possible that your home node could be sieged, make it so the item can't be used during a siege to fast return to defend. Though it seems for most sieges you have a couple days notice so it's not like it would be a surprise you should be able to get back to your node to defend it in ample time (if it takes a few hours ON FOOT to cross from corner to corner, and you have 3 days notice that you'll be sieged, i think ON MOUNT you can make it in PLENTY of time).
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Mounts#Faster_travel
There are talks of public transportation (im curious about this since i haven't heard anything on it really), teleporting between metro nodes and such. But what about a long cooldown "hearthstone" that other games have? Something that you bind as your home point (can be an inn somewhere or only the node you are a citizen of) with a long 1-2 hour CD?
The example i am thinking of for a use case is really that you are out in the wild or in the middle of an open dungeon and you have to go for an emergency IRL. Instead of just logging out in the middle of nowhere or deep inside a dungeon to log back in and instantly die (since that contains a penalty) wouldn't a long CD fast travel that only effects you be beneficial? I am wondering what everyone's take on this would be? I know in other games that have this (like vanilla wow for example) with it being on a 1 hour CD it can be "abused" if you are power leveling / speed leveling if used at certain times but that is more the outlier.
And since it's possible that your home node could be sieged, make it so the item can't be used during a siege to fast return to defend. Though it seems for most sieges you have a couple days notice so it's not like it would be a surprise you should be able to get back to your node to defend it in ample time (if it takes a few hours ON FOOT to cross from corner to corner, and you have 3 days notice that you'll be sieged, i think ON MOUNT you can make it in PLENTY of time).
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I geniuenly hope that will be bannable offense for this specific reason.
As a game design they just don't want players to be able to teleport around. There will be travel and 'faster' travel like they've mentioned: maybe a teleported only for scientific nodes to some of their ZOI points, an airship that also takes time, flight paths like in WoW which also take time.
Those choices however are left to the mayors of nodes and what they want to prioritize. There will most likely be a limit on how many free building slots a settlement has at each stage and mayors will have to decide - do i want to build a blacksmith and upgrade it or do i want to build a flightpath building, or an airship building.
They want to keep fast travel to a minimum and it to be a strategic choice, not a convenience system. If you log out in the middle of nowhere that is your choice
Well the "choice" part goes against my example of a RL emergency that you just have to go. But putting it on a long CD or making it only usable once per day (no CD but limited use) or be something you have to BUY (like the old scroll of teleportation in games like WC3) then that's fine too. different options.
Like i said im not asking for teleports anywhere / everywhere and i am perfectly fine with long travel times places ( i am currently mainly playing classic so long travel is what i do). But just seeing what the community would think of adding something like this as a category of "faster travel".
As for the family "exploit" i hope that isn't the case and something that happens a lot.. or gets resolved if exploited in the alpha / beta phases (or soon after launch).
The opportunity cost of that would be high enough not to abuse it for fast travel and it does save you the exp. That i could see working. Even tho its STILL abuseable.
For some people, wasting 2% exp because of death when they have limited playtime is annoying af.
Personally I agree there should be some kind of scroll / stone that gives you the chance to teleport once every x hours / days. Some people have kids and responsibilities that are not a once in a lifetime emergency but more so something that might feel like you wasted the only 2 hours of game-time you had in two days.
Thats why i agree saving exp is fine but you know, first of all we dont know if you just lose exp from logging out in the wild, except for resting exp and that shouldnt be a guarantee that u just expect to get anyways. But i think u should drop your gatherables because its too good otherwise. Sooner or later materials worth more than a scroll will be avaliable and you will literally run to get them and use a scroll to safely store them and thats not a good gameplay thing to have. Exp. whatever, not that important. Economy, very important.
Feelings of annoyance of people with kids, while i feel for them, have to come after ensuring the systems prevent abuse.
In your example, i am someone who plays, say, an hour 8 session. I have a fast travel home every hour (assuming a 1 hour CD) then i ride out somewhere (say it takes 30 minutes to get to your farming spot) then farm for 30 minutes then fast travel home and deposit it and repeat. As opposed to riding back for 30 minutes. I can understand that..
This is why one of my suggested was make it a 1 day CD. Or if it is intended for emergency OMG IRL moments then make it a 6 or 12 hour CD if not a full day. As it stands now the family summoning system seems more exploitable then this. If a "family" of 8 is all farming in an area, you just have some alts "back home" and summon the family back and forth.. in the family example,. they can even summon you back to the farming spot.
At least in my example (given adequate balance parameters like long CD, long cast time, and interrupted when taking damage, etc) This gets you to a safe place and not back out to where you want to go.
OR make it just travel you to the closest node (just outside the entrance or something) and you risk that it's an unfriendly node. with 103 nodes out there you wont be jumping too terribly far (not 30 minute distance) and if anything it'd be more like 5 minutes away.