Why The Game Needs Fast Travel

I know it's been said that the game will not have point-to=point fast travel.

However, I feel like this is a mistake. The points of not having fast travel are o encourage world exploration and open world PvP. Given that there are PvP areas, large scale wars, and a node spawn system that is dynamic, these reasons are already covered. We will have plenty of reason to go exploring the world.

There's simply no point in making us take 20 minutes or more just to cross the map. This is further exacerbated by all the different leveling areas being very spread out and not having any kind of combined storage. If you add in the fact that the map is nowhere near completed, and you'll have players spending the bulk of their time just to get from point A to point B.

Case in point was making a group for Oakenhold tonight. We invited a cleric who was in the upper left of the map - it literally took him 25 minutes just to get over to us. That's a lot of wasting 7 other peoples' time.

At the very least, we need what EverQuest had - classes with the ability to create portals and gates to other locations. Druids and Wizards both had the ability to travel around, and at later levels they could do so for groups.

Many of your players are going to be people with limited time. We're going to want to spend the time we have doing what we want to do, not auto running and staring at your mount's backside.

So, please, consider throwing us a bone or two here.

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Apok

umm I would argue the complete opposite is true, this is why something like ESO forces you to travel the zones by collecting those POIs is part of leveling your character.

Not to mention the easier you make it to move around the map the worse off your economy is, games like NW and FFXIV have this problem where all your mats are either dirt cheap or super expensive cause everyone's just able to jump on the ones everyone wants or farm the hell out of basic stuff.

Ludullu

We don't need that. We need systems that let people socialize better. Those people with limited time can spend it just fine if they know the time that other people with the same interests play the game at.

We should also have better mob spawns around POIs and better mob strength spread within them, so that even incomplete groups can still occupy themselves with something while waiting for those 1-2 extra members that are late.

And once all of that is put in the context of fully-implemented artisan system and questing - you have yourself a game where you can be beneficially occupied at nearly all times w/o spending your time purely on traveling.

Teleportation would also not work well with resource transportation, because you need to put insanely strict limits on how, when and with what you CAN teleport, or else the entire caravan system is utterly pointless because everyone can just teleport wherever they want (and this includes being summoned/portaled by other players).

There's already the https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Family_summon system, that's gonna be either VERY controversial or very restricted. And the system itself is kinda meant to address your exact point, but I personally don't believe it'll survive testing.

Talents

Fast travel is shit in an MMO like Ashes for more reasons than just not allowing you to explore the world.

One such reason is Ashes has a heavy emphasis on open-world PvP, which naturally means there will be "zerg" guilds.

However, no fast travel fucks over zerg guilds. Lets say your guild plans a caravan run or an attack in a certain part of the map, and the zerg guild is spread around the map doing their own thing. With fast travel, they just fast travel to the nearest point to you in 2 minutes and fuck you over with no counterplay. Without fast travel, now they have to travel literal hours to all converge from around the map, by which point you've likely done whatever it is you planned to do. Ashes map is currently around 8% of the intended final size, and it already takes a fair few minutes to travel across the singular biome. Add in the Ocean and the other dozen+ zones, and you have huge map with no fast travel that fucks over those zergs.

Noaani

Ashes design in regards to PvP and the economy does mean that fast travel will screw other those aspects.

However, Ashes large world size means that no fast travel will screw over players wanting to run content. Its almost as if major decisions about this game are being made by someone that has never created a game before or something.

Ashes needs fast travel of some form to be playable as an MMORPG, as opposed to a PvP murderbox or economy simulator. Not the family summons - but something.

Volgaris

Fast travel shrinks the world and is a tool for attacking other players with zergs. Zergs don't need any more help...

There will be "science node teleports", "flight paths", "airships", and "fam summoning". I think this will be enough. It's a 15/20 minute to travel from west to east on the current map. Once the map is complete it could be a hour or more if done on a basic mount only. But with all the options it will probably be more than enough, too much I think. Traveling across the world should be something that can be done on a whim. It should be something you plan and logistically think about. Once travel becomes trivialized the world shrinks to loading screens and POIs. The game isn't met to be solo'd, it's met for guilds, guilds should be planning events and organizing people to meet their goals.

Probably the biggest reason you won't see any type of teleport fast travel outside the family summoning and science nodes is Intrepid put a lot of work into mounts. Teleport fast travel will devalue these mounts more than deepseek tanked nvidea stock.

Orrion

Apok wrote: »

umm I would argue the complete opposite is true, this is why something like ESO forces you to travel the zones by collecting those POIs is part of leveling your character.

Not to mention the easier you make it to move around the map the worse off your economy is, games like NW and FFXIV have this problem where all your mats are either dirt cheap or super expensive cause everyone's just able to jump on the ones everyone wants or farm the hell out of basic stuff.

Collecting POIs serves zero purpose if you have no way to return to them except hopping on your horse. It’s not like the area doesn’t show up on your map. There’s no fog of war or anything similar. I can see Oakenbane Keep on my level 6 mage despite never going down into that area. Going there for the Emberspring serves little purpose as well, since you automatically have the nearest Emberspring as a respawn point if you die.

Further, again, dynamic spawns prevent the economy from worsening. There aren’t going to be set spawn points. I would argue that without fast travel people are more likely to farm the hell out of basic stuff. What am I gonna do with my time - ride 30 minutes and farm a small inventory’s worth of mats and ride back or ride around Winstead and farm ash and oak, basalt and granite? Most people are gonna farm ash and oak, basalt and granite.

Sidebar while I’m at it - we have nowhere near the amount of inventory and storage space we need when every type of material has 5 different rarities.

Talents wrote: »

Fast travel is shit in an MMO like Ashes for more reasons than just not allowing you to explore the world.

One such reason is Ashes has a heavy emphasis on open-world PvP, which naturally means there will be "zerg" guilds.

However, no fast travel fucks over zerg guilds. Lets say your guild plans a caravan run or an attack in a certain part of the map, and the zerg guild is spread around the map doing their own thing. With fast travel, they just fast travel to the nearest point to you in 2 minutes and fuck you over with no counterplay. Without fast travel, now they have to travel literal hours to all converge from around the map, by which point you've likely done whatever it is you planned to do. Ashes map is currently around 8% of the intended final size, and it already takes a fair few minutes to travel across the singular biome. Add in the Ocean and the other dozen+ zones, and you have huge map with no fast travel that fucks over those zergs.

So.. you’re telling me it’s better for people to be unable to participate in content? That’s not a winning formula for any game I’ve ever heard of.

There are much easier ways to prevent zergs, such as limiting the number of participants for given events. This is 2025, not 1999. Plus, even if you take EQ’s mentioned method of a few classes having teleport capabilities, it’d still take a fair amount of time to coordinate getting everyone to the point of conflict.

That only 8% of the map is currently complete and we’re already taking this long to travel does not bode well. Players want to be able to spend their time doing what’s fun to them. Running around on your horse for hours on end is not going to fly. That’s simple fact.

This is, again, especially true when leveling areas are very spread out. We don’t have all the 5-10 leveling areas in the same spots on the map.

Plus, Ashes is going to run on group content. Playing solo for most classes is difficult, and you’re not going to be able to kill starred enemies anywhere your level. It is therefore in the best interest of the game to facilitate ways for people to group up, get to the same location, and get to killing.

I love the non-instanced aspect of this game, and the 8 person groups, and the support classes. It reminds me very much of EQ’s early days. But Ashes is going to need to modernize at least some aspects of the game if they expect to retain players, and when you have MMOs coming up on 30 years old doing something essential better than you do, you’ve got to address that.

TheDarkSorcerer

Noaani wrote: »

Ashes design in regards to PvP and the economy does mean that fast travel will screw other those aspects.

However, Ashes large world size means that no fast travel will screw over players wanting to run content. Its almost as if major decisions about this game are being made by someone that has never created a game before or something.

Ashes needs fast travel of some form to be playable as an MMORPG, as opposed to a PvP murderbox or economy simulator. Not the family summons - but something.

Finally you and I agree on something

I think New World here did a great job. There's wayshrines, but they're quite far apart from one another.

Volgaris

@Orrion

Getting an ember spring also allows you to set it as home. A POI like HH isn't going to give you anything. Either way I don't see how POI collecting gives any value to either side of the argument. The only thing you "collect" are ember springs for respawning.

As far as zergs go there isn't much controlled pvp content. Caravans or node wars... larger numbers will normally win. Anything that helps large groups of players quickly move from point A to B will be a massive advantage to those large groups.

I'd argue more like 15 to 20% of the map is complete at least size wise, filler content is lower.

I do agree they need to innovate or "modernize" but I don't see fast travel as something innovative, that's just the copy/paste from past mmos after they were over the hill. People will scream for QoL systems until the QoL systems are basically playing the game for them. dungeon finders, teleporting to dungeons and back to where you were when done. ect ect.

Too much still isn't in the game to really say it needs some travel QoL. Travel is part of the game and too much is built off of it, if you remove travel with teleports then everything will need to be worked. What everything is, well is still incomplete, a placeholder, or just not in yet.

oddstero

Heck no to fast travel! Zerg guilds will already destroy this game with the current mechanics. At least now Polar/Enveus have to ride across the map to have their 10:1 "war". There's nothing but the mild inconvenience of time to prevent this.

SmileGurney

Travel time is part of the sandbox experience, and is a big factor in the economy, the risk vs reward and pvp conflict. If anything I would say the flying mounts and stuff like the proposed family system which is supposed to allow for limited teleportation are too open for abuse and should not be in the game in the first place or EXTREMELY limited and restrictive.

Orrion

Volgaris wrote: »

Fast travel shrinks the world and is a tool for attacking other players with zergs. Zergs don't need any more help...

There will be "science node teleports", "flight paths", "airships", and "fam summoning". I think this will be enough. It's a 15/20 minute to travel from west to east on the current map. Once the map is complete it could be a hour or more if done on a basic mount only. But with all the options it will probably be more than enough, too much I think. Traveling across the world should be something that can be done on a whim. It should be something you plan and logistically think about. Once travel becomes trivialized the world shrinks to loading screens and POIs. The game isn't met to be solo'd, it's met for guilds, guilds should be planning events and organizing people to meet their goals.

Probably the biggest reason you won't see any type of teleport fast travel outside the family summoning and science nodes is Intrepid put a lot of work into mounts. Teleport fast travel will devalue these mounts more than deepseek tanked nvidea stock.

It is far more difficult to plan events and organize people if you can’t count on being able to get everyone to the same locale in a timely manner.

People have work, lives, families, emergencies, events, etc. If I have to log out at a certain time at night and we have something scheduled the next day a half hour from where I was, and I can’t log in a half hour beforehand, what are they supposed to do? Wait on me? Do they then wait on the next guy who is 10 minutes out after me? And the guy 5 minutes after that? What about everyone else who is already there because they had more freedom of time that day?

The fact is that limiting us in this fashion makes it much harder to organize events, especially anything large scale. There’s a reason WoW has scaled their raid sizes down from 40 initially to 25, then to 20 and 10 and started emphasizing 5 man dungeon content over the years.

The bigger Ashes wants events to be, the easier they have to make organizing those events. Otherwise people simply can’t or won’t participate.

As for the mounts, bah to that. WoW has travel capabilities and still a metric f***ton of mounts. Being able to travel places faster didn’t prevent me from hopping on my favorite protodrake all the time.

Again, we’re going to have to use mounts to get around and farm and gather. The node system they have encourages going out into the world to do that. Our mounts will see PLENTY of use, and people still always want the best and fastest mounts. I can teleport around in FF14. Did that make me want the special flying horse mounts from the Primals any less? Nope.

I’d even be happy with the equivalent of WoW’s flight paths - if that’s something that’s planned, point it out to me and I’ll be somewhat mollified.

Orrion

Volgaris wrote: »

@Orrion

Getting an ember spring also allows you to set it as home. A POI like HH isn't going to give you anything. Either way I don't see how POI collecting gives any value to either side of the argument. The only thing you "collect" are ember springs for respawning.

As far as zergs go there isn't much controlled pvp content. Caravans or node wars... larger numbers will normally win. Anything that helps large groups of players quickly move from point A to B will be a massive advantage to those large groups.

I'd argue more like 15 to 20% of the map is complete at least size wise, filler content is lower.

I do agree they need to innovate or "modernize" but I don't see fast travel as something innovative, that's just the copy/paste from past mmos after they were over the hill. People will scream for QoL systems until the QoL systems are basically playing the game for them. dungeon finders, teleporting to dungeons and back to where you were when done. ect ect.

Too much still isn't in the game to really say it needs some travel QoL. Travel is part of the game and too much is built off of it, if you remove travel with teleports then everything will need to be worked. What everything is, well is still incomplete, a placeholder, or just not in yet.

And what does setting an Emberspring as a home point actually do? Nothing. You can’t use it unless you die.

Again, the way you stop large group advantage is limiting participants. That’s exactly what you’re all arguing that a large map already does, so you might as well just put the limit on it in the first place and not punish player activity and convenience with a nebulous one.

I don’t see fast travel as playing the game for me. Starting at my horse’s ass crossing the map isn’t playing the game. It’s just preventing me from doing so.

Imanek

The game absolutely does not need fast travel.

This is precisely what makes Ashes of Creation so strong: its deliberately slower pace and structured approach, which add to its charm.

Imagine how easy it would be to call a guild when spotting a passing caravan – within just two minutes, 40 hungry players would show up for a raid. No place in Verra would ever feel like a pseudo-safe zone anymore; a single call could instantly mobilize a massive group of players.

In the end, the map will feel larger, allowing some players to distance themselves from toxic guilds or zergs that dominate many other games. Some regions will be calmer, while others will be more intense, reinforcing the essence of a true RPG world.

Take the time to enjoy the scenery and immerse yourself in the game. We are still in the early testing phases, and a mail system will soon be implemented to address some of the current minor inconveniences. But as it stands, the movement system is already well-designed.

Orrion

Imanek wrote: »

The game absolutely does not need fast travel.

This is precisely what makes Ashes of Creation so strong: its deliberately slower pace and structured approach, which add to its charm.

Imagine how easy it would be to call a guild when spotting a passing caravan – within just two minutes, 40 hungry players would show up for a raid. No place in Verra would ever feel like a pseudo-safe zone anymore; a single call could instantly mobilize a massive group of players.

In the end, the map will feel larger, allowing some players to distance themselves from toxic guilds or zergs that dominate many other games. Some regions will be calmer, while others will be more intense, reinforcing the essence of a true RPG world.

Take the time to enjoy the scenery and immerse yourself in the game. We are still in the early testing phases, and a mail system will soon be implemented to address some of the current minor inconveniences. But as it stands, the movement system is already well-designed.

I feel like none of you are following the thread.

Is the zerg strategy a legitimate concern? Yes, it is.

Is making the map so large that players can’t effectively zerg the only way to combat it? No, it isn’t.

I’m all for enjoying the scenery, but remember - some people don’t have all day to play Ashes. Players are not going to happy when they have maybe 2-3 hours a night to play a subscription based game and the majority of their time is spent traveling across the overworld to their destination for the evening. They’re going to go play something else.

I want Ashes to be large and successful - and for that you need players, casual and hardcore and everything in between. I currently see a big issue with the travel time. You may not, but it’s there.

I’ve already seen this exact issue be a problem in a few recently launched MMOs, such as New World. Granted this isn’t the only reason they bled players so fast, but it was certainly a factor. And that wasn’t even a sub based game.

Ludullu

Orrion wrote: »

So.. you’re telling me it’s better for people to be unable to participate in content? That’s not a winning formula for any game I’ve ever heard of.

Orrion wrote: »

I’m all for enjoying the scenery, but remember - some people don’t have all day to play Ashes. Players are not going to happy when they have maybe 2-3 hours a night to play a subscription based game and the majority of their time is spent traveling across the overworld to their destination for the evening. They’re going to go play something else.

Ashes is not a game where you're meant to experience literally all of the content in the game. You pick your home node (based on your own preference of reasons) and you operate in its vassal system.

Said vassal system will be roughly the size of the current A2 map, which will be crossable even faster than it currently is, because we'll get better mounts than what we currently have (due to husbandry and mount variances).

Orrion wrote: »

It is far more difficult to plan events and organize people if you can’t count on being able to get everyone to the same locale in a timely manner.

People have work, lives, families, emergencies, events, etc. If I have to log out at a certain time at night and we have something scheduled the next day a half hour from where I was, and I can’t log in a half hour beforehand, what are they supposed to do? Wait on me? Do they then wait on the next guy who is 10 minutes out after me? And the guy 5 minutes after that? What about everyone else who is already there because they had more freedom of time that day?

I already kinda answered this in my first comment in this thread, but yes, they ARE supposed to wait for you. That's the point of having a constant group of people that you play with. You all have roughly the same playtime schedules and you all have a close enough relationship to each other to forgive any member being slightly late.

This is also exactly why I said that POIs should support any size of parties within its region, so that the ones waiting could still do something useful while they wait. And sometimes having someone who's late is a good thing, because they might be able to bring a few consumables that someone else might've forgotten and/or see an updated situation on any potential enemies in the area, so that the party could be prepared beforehand.

Also, if you can only play for 1h a day and you're afraid that half of that hour is taken up by running to a spot - sadly, this game might not be for you. Or, at least, it won't be for you if, even though you have that kind of tight lifetime schedule, you still expect to achieve something great in this game in any amount of time that's anywhere near the hardcore players.

People can still more than enjoy Ashes evne with 1h of gameplay a day, but they have to be realistic about their goals in the game. You'll be able to do quests, gather stuff, kill some mobs solo or with a pug or with other casual players, etc etc. But all of that will be on a much slower timeframe than any hardcore player who can do all of those things at a much bigger scale every day.

Also also, afaik there's remote desktop programs that allow you to control your PC from your phone or another PC. And god fucking knows I've seen waaay too many "busy people" that constantly watch streams or do random shit at work instead of working. So, if you're scared that you gotta run for 30 minutes in game - do that shit from work on your phone. We literally have autorun for that.

Chuck Zitto

I know it doesn’t matter cus the game is going with the local banking no fast travel route but I will give my 2 cents. The best mmo I have ever played was ultimate online. You could mark anywhere on the map and put a rune in your book to single recall to that spot or open a gate for 10 seconds that anybody could go through. Why did this work so well. If the area I’m in has nothing going on I can gate my group somewhere else. Looking for pvp gate to a dungeon. Nobody there gate to another dungeon. Fight the people inside farming. Gate to where you want to farm. Gate to where other people farm and fight them.

Arya_Yeshe

Fast travelling helps farmers to farm faster and this makes the game tasteless, all the danger is diminished, all the commitment diminished, etc, what is left is just grinds and magic travelling. People would also dodge dangerous areas and many situations with the fast travelling, people would also enjoy less the beautiful landscape Intrepid is creating.

Travelling 30 minutes is nothing, specially if a lot of opportunities for content can be met along the way.

Imanek

Orrion wrote: »

Imanek wrote: »

.....

Let’s take the case of New World, if you will.

They already had a fast travel system that was expensive. Then, they launched Fresh Start servers with free fast travel. Yet, they still lost even more players. Clearly, fast travel wasn’t the main concern of New World players, since they abandoned the game even faster.

In Ashes of Creation, the game is designed around a settler-like experience.
You settle in a region, develop it, explore its dungeons and points of interest. The game isn’t about zipping across the entire map effortlessly. Plus, we already know there will be fast mounts at the Master and Grand Master levels. We’re talking about a mega-server with a large population—so it’s actually a good thing if players are spread out.

If you want to teleport instantly from one place to another with no effort, that’s simply not the vision of the game. That’s not what has been promised, and I sincerely hope it won’t change. The entire design revolves around long-distance travel. If you remove that, you might as well throw half the game’s features in the trash.

I could instantly gather resources from every region.
I could attack caravans in any region with no effort.
I could jump into every dungeon and farm whatever I want.
I could complete treasure maps all over the world with no challenge.
At that point, the game loses its depth, just to cater to players who want everything instantly.

Ashes of Creation is built around meaningful choices—and that’s exactly how it should be.

Noaani

Ludullu wrote: »

Orrion wrote: »

So.. you’re telling me it’s better for people to be unable to participate in content? That’s not a winning formula for any game I’ve ever heard of.

Orrion wrote: »

I’m all for enjoying the scenery, but remember - some people don’t have all day to play Ashes. Players are not going to happy when they have maybe 2-3 hours a night to play a subscription based game and the majority of their time is spent traveling across the overworld to their destination for the evening. They’re going to go play something else.

Ashes is not a game where you're meant to experience literally all of the content in the game.

It is also not supposed to be a game where you can only run a small percentage of the content due to travel time.

There is a very large amount of space between what Ashes is now, and a game where players would feel they can see all content.

Ashes needs to aim to be in the middle of that space, as opposed to being on the edge of it. The game still needs to ensure people spend time in the open world rather than just fast traveling around different content pieces, and the game needs to maintain the integrity of the economy, but it also needs to ensure people can get around in a reasonable time.

Right now they are only doing two out of three.

Ludullu

Noaani wrote: »

There is a very large amount of space between what Ashes is now, and a game where players would feel they can see all content.

I think this depends more on how fast storyarcs finish and how long the seasons last.

If there's, say, 3 month a year of irl time where you CAN experience the same content - I think that should be enough time for people to go and attempt it. Obviously the chances of casuals actually doing all the available content is somewhat low (cause pvp for valuable spots/bosses and all that), but the ability would probably still be there.

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