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Alpha Two Phase II testing is currently taking place 5+ days each week. More information about testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Will travelling be a FUN part of the gameplay loop?
Xeeg
Member, Alpha Two
Ashes is going to have a very large map, with long travel times and very limited fast travel options. Apart from resource gathering, mob killing, pvping, and running caravans, a player may spend a large part of their "played time" actually just running. After someone has been somewhere a few times and knows the place, the "discovery" feeling wears off and its just holding W down for 10 minutes straight while adjusting the mouse a little.
Is the travelling going to be fun at all? Any kind of cool mechanics?
Watching the Ranger jump across a canyon with their ability definitely looks like a fun way to travel around the map. But as a primary ability, its purpose is more strategic than a mobility mechanic based around regular travel. And who knows what level we get this.
Are we going to see things like gliders, or mount abilities that are fun to use and help get around difficult terrain? Maybe sliding down a hill and gaining speed like Apex legends. OR a grappling hook with rope that you can shoot across the canyon, or pull you to a location.
The recent discussion around "Utility" skills might have a good crossover with fun travel.
Are the fun ways of travelling only going to be allowed for higher levels or can there be some fun starting at level 1?
I understand that speed and distance are part of the game strategy and core mechanics. We want it to take some time to get from point A to point B, I'm just hoping that the character control part during this time is fun even if we aren't PVPing or engaging with the other mechanics.
Is the travelling going to be fun at all? Any kind of cool mechanics?
Watching the Ranger jump across a canyon with their ability definitely looks like a fun way to travel around the map. But as a primary ability, its purpose is more strategic than a mobility mechanic based around regular travel. And who knows what level we get this.
Are we going to see things like gliders, or mount abilities that are fun to use and help get around difficult terrain? Maybe sliding down a hill and gaining speed like Apex legends. OR a grappling hook with rope that you can shoot across the canyon, or pull you to a location.
The recent discussion around "Utility" skills might have a good crossover with fun travel.
Are the fun ways of travelling only going to be allowed for higher levels or can there be some fun starting at level 1?
I understand that speed and distance are part of the game strategy and core mechanics. We want it to take some time to get from point A to point B, I'm just hoping that the character control part during this time is fun even if we aren't PVPing or engaging with the other mechanics.
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Comments
and it will be a HELLA LOT Fun in your first Time playing and when you discover and explore the Area's for the very first Time.
Plus -> " Warp(?)Gates ", am i right ?
You will be able to use Teleporters later on in the Game. Presumably after reaching them first with your first Character - or you need to do this at least once with every single of your Characters.
Plus you will be able to use Ships to sail from Continent to Continent and from Island to Island ... ...
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Maybe i look after a Guild sometime soon
Yeah but the thing about aiming for "discovery/exploration" is that it is a one time experience. If we are going to make this game our home, then things that we are going to spend a lot of time doing should be fun. Getting around the map, itself, should be a fun experience.
I imagine that exploring close areas regularly, there will be little change but visiting areas intermittently and distant, there is the possibility of change due to the rise and fall of nodes.
Couple in day night cycles, dynamic seasons and changing mobs, hopefully there is a bit of variety.
In a typical MMO you quest at point A until the next quest tells you to go to point B. In Ashes, the vision is a bit more you group up, roam around and see what events *might* spawn. It sounds like a more organic experience and thus the traveling something you naturally do while just playing the game with your friends roaming around. The specified traveling might very well be more reserved for bigger events like your guild wanting to do a dungeon, or a node siege is about to happen next town over.
But who knows how it will play out in game.
If you choose to stake a claim in Verra, the lands surrounding your chosen node are going to become familiar and banal. The same as r/l.
Travel from your neighboring node to your node for the 861st time doesn’t have to be fun, but it’s necessary, because the same travel from your node to the complete unknown of the horizon IS a fun experience.
Fun travel will he more about what happens along the way. If world events and engaging spawns are encountered along the way, and there is a feeling of not knowing what to expect as you travel, then yes it can be fun long term.
Where did you get/read/hear/see this?
To my understanding, this is the *opposite* of what AoC will feature; There are presently only 2 forms of quick-travel planned, for the game:
1) Family-Summons
2) The "airship" that a server that has 2+ Scientific Metropolis Nodes will feature.
The second one's really only "kind of" quick-travel, when you consider that you'll still have to ride the airship, and it's only to go directly between the 2 Scientific Metro's.
But traveling will mainly be done on mounts. But I do hope that certain mounts has benefits like in GW2. The rabbit with extreme high jumps, the raptor for long distance jumps, the griffon for gliding, the roller beatle for fast travel etc.
As for traveling being fun, probably sometimes? Exploring new things, random events, caravan PvP, etc. Other times it might suck a bit, but that's the thing about good games and good developers: They know players must also experience the suck in games, in order to appreciate the fun. Everything can't just be "fun". That doesn't make for a good MMORPG.
Have we seen something that would indicate teleportation? Yours truly was under the impression it's just to be the airships.
Yeah, here:
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Scientific_nodes
It talks about Teleportation being the Scientific node's superpower.
•The mount looks neat and has good animation.
•You have a place to go/you have a reason to travel (example, In the process of forging a better sword)
•It can happen something on the way over there.
•The mount levels up and get better the more you use it.
Steven have said they gonna have all of these. For me it's just up to them to actually make it happen.
Atm there are a few mounts that look trash with bad animation, for example the long-nosed, stiff, lanky, ant eater looking mount. Imagine traveling on that thing lol
I have not played gw2 much but it sounds fun as @TheDarkSorcerer said that different mount can be used for different situations. Hopefully they can make that happen aswell.
Best Comment here, hands down.
Yes. It has to become a Necessity. We will have the Advantage of Familarity with the Terrain - but we will of Course know the nearer Environments around our Node, like the back of our very Hands. 😁
* sigh * I miss You, dear Port-City of Khorinis ... ...
Thanks for mentioning this, in Case i got it all wrong. Also Thanks for listing the Travel-Possibilities here.
I mean the - well " Gates " (?) - that we will arrive at, in the World of Verra.
Maybe i have misunderstood it all since September 2023 (lol), but i got Wind of the Existence of these Gates,
when i read about the "Desert-People with Djinn-Heritage inside their Blood" -> and that they look very awesome for a Moment,
"when they step through these Gates or so" -> because it makes them look very magical, mysterious - and, well, "Djinn(?)-like". Glowy Eyes and silvery to blue'ish Skin.
Maybe i just misunderstand all the time -> but can we not use these few "Gates" to travel to ... ... ... well, the other Gates ? At least when we travelled to several of them manually ?
If this doesn't exist in the Game, i have nothing against that, either. It will give more Weight to the meaning of Travelling in general.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Maybe i look after a Guild sometime soon
I do beleive people will be travelling much less than they think they will besince node system tend to promote people staying in one area that they choose to call home and maybe venturing out to other neaby nodes will be typically game play i think for most players with the occasionally expetition to new part of the map for a week before heading home again.
unless ur heavily into the merchant/caravan life i dont see people travelling to far from there homebase very often.
People think the game gonna be like all the other games going from quest hub to quest hub from what ive seen which just wont be the case with AoC
Distance only mattered in Archeage for trade packs.
When you can spend an hour or so running trade packs, deliver them and then instantly teleport back to where you were an hour before, I would argue that distance matters.
Something like carriages in Skyrim. Maybe not even run by players, but NPC's.
That would give players a breather or a pause to get some snacks, use bathroom etc.
I could see something like this. It still fits into the "risk vs reward" if you have to pay for different tiers of protection. You want an NPC entourage that can defend a group of 4 max level chars while u afk? Gotta pay up. But if you get rolled up on by a group of 8 you are out of luck.
Thats even better. Yes, you can leave your PC and grab a snack or something, but are you willing to risk it?
Meeting random travelers from distant biomes during those travels would be interesting.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Maybe i look after a Guild sometime soon
The overworld map/level designers would have to spend a lot of time on special traversal mechanics that require or interact with mounts in a way beyond basic geometry.
I still don't know if it's 'summon anywhere' style for mounts, in the long term, but right now, it's implied that our mount exists in the world, so if you want to go to a mountaintop and jump off it with your gliding mount, it might not be a matter of mantling up there yourself the whole way first and then suddenly calling it.
If the Animal Husbandry and mount systems are deep, I assume traveling will be at least somewhat fun, but admittedly I've mostly only seen the Riverlands which doesn't feel that 'good' yet, for travel, personally.
what do you mean by this? T_T
You know how MMO characters can go up smaller slopes but eventually there's a vertical angle where they can't actually manage to go 'up' any more, and the character doesn't even actually try?
That's the 'basic geometry' type. So is 'this gap is too wide to jump across'.
Other stuff would be like Thermals, special handholds or climbable surfaces, etc.
I'd love it if Clerics could have a skill that could save the coordinates of a location and then open a teleportation portal.
To flat or so, possibly ? But i think we have seen high Hills or even Mountain-Range like Places.
I personally like it, when You can visit high-up Places,
look into the Distance - into Valleys,
go through those Valleys and/or alongside Rivers - at least i liked it very much in Skyrim.
Quite exciting to think, what for enormous, "ginormous" and mysterious Landscapes full of Beauty and Secrets Sir Steven and his mighty Crew will cast for us, to enjoy and spend our time in.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Maybe i look after a Guild sometime soon