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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Consumable Item for Fast Transportation
zitrus
Member
One of the hardest things in order to do a dungeon run, is the travel time for all members to go to the dungeon entrance (unless you have a mage/warlock that can summon you with a spell, or a teleportation to an inn nearby the dungeon).
What if there was a summoning stone (a consumable item) that you buy, then you link it to yourself and give it to another player, and then that player has the possibility to use that stone in order to summon you.
In this way 1 player can stay in an easly reachable city, waiting for the rest of the far away members, while the others nearby, can go to the dungeon entrance, and at the end everyone will be chain summoned.
In this way the overall time will be far less and is all based on player's skills of management.
The stones can be crafted by players with a certain profession and can have limits for example: max 1-3 per inventory, or can be used inside the same node or 2 nearby nodes (more the nodes, higher the price of the stone).
If a player needs to go through many nodes, stones could not be used, and the best solution for travelling would be ships, caravans or mounts.
I can see it very useful among group of friends or guilds; for casual players is gonna be harder to use them at best.
The potentially broken part is that at least 3 players can create a personal transport system, in which they offer instant travel in exchange of money through a few nodes.
What if there was a summoning stone (a consumable item) that you buy, then you link it to yourself and give it to another player, and then that player has the possibility to use that stone in order to summon you.
In this way 1 player can stay in an easly reachable city, waiting for the rest of the far away members, while the others nearby, can go to the dungeon entrance, and at the end everyone will be chain summoned.
In this way the overall time will be far less and is all based on player's skills of management.
The stones can be crafted by players with a certain profession and can have limits for example: max 1-3 per inventory, or can be used inside the same node or 2 nearby nodes (more the nodes, higher the price of the stone).
If a player needs to go through many nodes, stones could not be used, and the best solution for travelling would be ships, caravans or mounts.
I can see it very useful among group of friends or guilds; for casual players is gonna be harder to use them at best.
The potentially broken part is that at least 3 players can create a personal transport system, in which they offer instant travel in exchange of money through a few nodes.
0
Comments
But what matters is that AoC has already stated, as @Azryil has pointed out, there will be no fast travel.
I also happen to be one of those players that doesn’t want fast travel.
You could make AoC have fast travel, but you'd have to redesign the entire economic system, incentives, and balance of node power and resource generation as a result. It's like making New World flagging PvP in a world and economy originally designed around open PvP. It's doable, you can make a fun game out of it, but it's changing a fundamental factor creating hundreds of design ripples.
It's basically rebuilding the systems design from scratch. We are at a point they probably could do that, but once Alpha 2 happens, it'll be far less of an option. And given how poorly New World went I doubt Steven will ever feel right switching horses on that big a core design parameter even if it is the more correct option (which in the case of fast travel specifically, it is not clearly 'better'.)
P.S. No I don't want fast travel. I think it makes the economy a lot more stale and less of a factor in gameplay.
As @JustVine stated, travel will impact the economy. The limited sorts of fast travel being planned are accounted for in their model for the game. They have even talked about teleportation to nodes in the ZOI of a scientific metropolis. But that's not teleportation anywhere, that's to specific places.
The only kind of fast travel they announced that I feel is a mistake is the "family summon", and that's a pretty controversial subject around here...
Me too want to feel the environment (which yeah it is a core feature of this mmo, that influences all other its aspects), and a living environment would be very, very cool to travel through.
It's just that I have bad memories of infinite runs to the dungeon, but if the game systems will work in AoC (they told about it in the last video of January), everything will be smooth enough.
For those who doesn't know, the hearthstone is an item in WoW that is given to every character which allows a player to teleport themself into their home inn from any part of the playable world. This item has a 60 minute cooldown so it can be used once per hour.
Personally I'm against fast travelling but I wouldn't mind players have one personal "hearthstone" for each character. They were useful when leaving dungeons or returning from a quest that was accomblished on another continent.
If this is the case and there is not a multitude of objectives to complete along the way then travel becomes stale. I also think what will determine my opinion is how intuitive the mounted travel within ashes is going to ultimately be, if it's fun like GW2, No problem, if it's press Tab for 40 minutes with nothing between point A & B being important / intriguing then I'd have to argue that the travelling between A & B is not engaging enough and the argument for fast travel is valid.
At this present moment in time I think fast travel should be extremely limited to that of the scientific node or an extremely rare form of fast travel that could very well be consumable but is not merely "purchasable" id personally say it would be for a single person and would be very difficult to obtain through crafted objects from multiple skills.
Every summoner 'No BRAD I have FISH to catch so unless you want everyone summoned on the beach or us to stop having sushi f-off and find someone else to summon the party.'
That’s how it will be except for the summoner part. With very limited exceptions you’re getting around on your own feet or with a mount. No teleportation powers from classes.
I agree that it is entirely a matter of opinion: if it takes me 100 hours of real time to get from one end of the map to the other, all filled with engaging content, I will be supremely pleased.
If it takes 200 hours with the same level of engagement I will be even happier.
If it takes me 1 hour to cross the map with no content to speak of, I will demand fast travel.
In other words, map size does nothing for me, it's the content that counts.
Why are you traveling?
What were the results?
Disastrous. It's one of the reasons why mmo-rpgs suck nowdays.
Just let the map be colossal and dangerous.
Yes it will be inconvenient (for some).
That's great.
Like me
Why is that a problem?
Thats what I'm wondering. Either he's box ticking, or wants to 'explore' but for some reason wants to be done quickly??
That is already considered. No family summon will be possible if it circumvents any of that. From Steven:
Oh dear.