Terrain Influenced Travel Speed

Attar

Will players, mounts and caravans travel differently on different terrain types like roads? Will there be crafted customizations to change preferred terrain for different speed bonuses?

CaptnChuck

Allowing different mounts to travel differently on different terrain is interesting. However, I disagree with having this mechanism for players and caravans.

If caravans travel slower in swamps or other areas, then players will never level a node in that area as it just gives enemies longer time to attack the caravan.

Similarly, movement speed is an extremely underrated stat, especially on players. Just being faster than your opponent has a lot of hidden benefits. So introducing a mechanic like this will make it so that players that go to contest content in other nodes will be at an inherent disadvantage.

So overall, I disagree with having this in game as it just creates too many problems for no real benefit when it comes to realism. You're never going to notice your mount travelling slightly slower or slightly faster on certain terrain, so it doesn't increase realism by much.


EDIT- There will be mounts that are better for different situations, based on info from a content creator called Jahlon.

"And.... Ashes is doing just this. Different mounts will have different specializations.

There will be better mounts for caravans, riding, different situations.

Going over a lot of land to water transitions, well they make a mount for that
Have a lot of hills, mountains, and cliffs? They have a mount for that too?"

Beekeeper

To be fair, if a node is isolated in a swamp or other terrain that's difficult to traverse, that makes it easier to isolate progress to that specific node, ergo easier to progress with fewer other nodes competing to become the top dog. Isolated nodes also means further travel, which increases prices of wares you get to or from the node. If travel is slower and more prone to bandit attacks, that will also make anything that does get through that much more valuable.

Considering there are definitely going to be these different terrain types, different mount types, and confirmed land and water-based caravans, it's not far-fetched to imagine caravans more specialized for certain terrain types.