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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Tjaeden

NO FAST TRAVEL!

Except - Player made and run passenger caravans. Which cost 10x more than normal, carry 4 players max.

Noaani

Ludullu wrote: »

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.

I don't personally think these two things will have any impact on it at all.

Reason being, I don't think seasons will have enough of an effect on content for it to feel like "new" content. Rather, it will just be a slight change to what is usually there. As to story arcs, with the node system Ashes has, I am skeptical that these will even exist in a manner comparable to other MMORPG's, let alone in a way that will drive players towards content.

Keep in mind as well, in regards to things like seasons changing content, as it stands now the content team for Ashes is fairly small, and the amount of content they need to produce just to fill out the world once is large.

Creating content in a way where the same area has what players would consider different content just adds even more work to an already too small team. This is the primary reason as to why I am skeptical as to exactly how different content will be based on any of these things "dynamic" situations.

In order tomproduce the amount of content needed to make content actually different based on node state and season, the content team would need to be larger than the current Intrepid team.

Azherae

If Ashes is reviving the feeling of games from years ago, then it can just use the same limited fast travel systems as those games did back then.

Those added some meaningful decisions to gameplay, social interactions, and so on, and those games had smaller (technically, roughly the same size actually) zones/sub areas and travel times.

It's fine to add a little of it, and they know that already. Even the Family Summon type thing has an incredibly simple solution for any real 'family group'. Will it still result in 'zerging' and the resultant complaints? Sure, but not 'an amount of zerg that Intrepid actually has a problem with' (or they would have canceled the Family Summon entirely by now).

Ludullu

Noaani wrote: »

Creating content in a way where the same area has what players would consider different content just adds even more work to an already too small team. This is the primary reason as to why I am skeptical as to exactly how different content will be based on any of these things "dynamic" situations.

I mean, as I've been saying for years now, I highly doubt that Ashes will have the amount (or the update pace)
of content that would fit your standards.

But you're kinda saying here that you don't expect content to change all that much, right? Wouldn't that literally mean that any player can easily attempt to experience any/all content in the game? If content doesn't go away/change - time doesn't matter, when it comes to you experiencing said content.

And all the truly important content, that Intrepid want people to see, will be instanced, which means that everyone gets to experience it.

So, ultimately, the only real reason behind not everyone experiencing all the content will be (and always has been) owpvp.

daveywavey

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.

That's pretty standard here across the board, though. I logged in the other day to help some guildies with some Lumbermilling. And it took over an hour, cos of how the Processing Queues work. And I couldn't go anywhere more than a few minutes away from the processing station cos I had to come back and re-queue every few minutes.

Despite how quickly everybody's trying to powerlevel on the not-yet-balanced mobs, as was said above, Ashes is a slower-paced game. Whether or not it ends up that way, we don't yet know!

TheDarkSorcerer

I get that Ashes of Creation wants to make travel feel meaningful, but without some kind of fast travel, huge parts of the world are going to be empty. If an area is too far from a major node, people just aren’t going to bother going there.

Imagine this:
"Hey, can someone help me with a boss in X area?"
"Nah, that’s a 20-minute ride up north… I’m good."

That’s exactly what’s going to happen. People will stick to the more convenient places, and anything too out of the way will become a ghost town. No matter how cool or well-designed a zone is, if it’s a pain to get to, players will just avoid it.

If people know they can actually get around without it being a full-time job, they’ll be way more likely to:

Help each other out with world bosses and events
Explore more of the map instead of staying in one spot
Actually participate in trade, PvP, and all the cool systems the game has to offer
Right now, the game’s vision is solid, but if travel is too tedious, it’s going to hurt player engagement in the long run. A little balance goes a long way!

It's like some of you have never played an MMO and it shows.

Korela

Orrion wrote: »

Again, the way you stop large group advantage is limiting participants.

Can you elaborate? How does this prevent the zerg from taking up most of the limited slots so the fight doesn't happen at all?

Songcaller

There is a reason why fast travel even existed in swg. Again, all groups were locally formed. If one must take examples of actual successful 'biome diverse' environment where local groups are expected to form, you'd better guess no one will travel 30 minutes to wait in a region 6 hours because no one else wants to travel to the area. Your solution? Form groups in nodes and have group events node specific. Your biome diversity? Completely redundant for 99% of the actual game loop.

Orrion

Azherae wrote: »

If Ashes is reviving the feeling of games from years ago, then it can just use the same limited fast travel systems as those games did back then.

Those added some meaningful decisions to gameplay, social interactions, and so on, and those games had smaller (technically, roughly the same size actually) zones/sub areas and travel times.

It's fine to add a little of it, and they know that already. Even the Family Summon type thing has an incredibly simple solution for any real 'family group'. Will it still result in 'zerging' and the resultant complaints? Sure, but not 'an amount of zerg that Intrepid actually has a problem with' (or they would have canceled the Family Summon entirely by now).

I already said I’d be happy with something like EverQuest had - which is that the Druid and the Wizard had the ability to teleport themselves and groups to different zones. Not all of them, but enough of them. Also, EQ had a Bind spell that you could use to pick a town once you’ve been there and return at any time.

WoW originally had a half hour cooldown on the Hearthstone, which is basically the same thing as EQ’s bind spell plus the flight point system. That would also be completely fine.

We need SOMETHING.

Korela wrote: »

Orrion wrote: »

Again, the way you stop large group advantage is limiting participants.

Can you elaborate? How does this prevent the zerg from taking up most of the limited slots so the fight doesn't happen at all?

The original complaint was that if you have fast travel, everyone just ports to where the fight is and wins by mass numbers. That’s what a zerg is, isn’t it?

So you limit participants so mass numbers aren’t the problem. Which is what the current system of distance-from-event does, except it has a chance of not working and you don’t screw the rest of your playerbase who aren’t doing said events.

They could also very easily - because wars are node based and area based, right? - simply turn off the ability to use the surrounding waypoints around the war times. Inconvenient, perhaps, but less convenience in times of war is actually quite realistic.

daveywavey wrote: »

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.

That's pretty standard here across the board, though. I logged in the other day to help some guildies with some Lumbermilling. And it took over an hour, cos of how the Processing Queues work. And I couldn't go anywhere more than a few minutes away from the processing station cos I had to come back and re-queue every few minutes.

Despite how quickly everybody's trying to powerlevel on the not-yet-balanced mobs, as was said above, Ashes is a slower-paced game. Whether or not it ends up that way, we don't yet know!

There’s a difference between something being slower paced because things take time to to and just making it take longer to get anywhere.

People like to feel that they’re making good use of their time and accomplishing something. You accomplished something meaningful in your example - you were helping guildies and presumably enjoying doing it.

Now, if you’d spent that same hour just riding your horse to another town, would you have felt like you accomplished anything? I know I wouldn’t.

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.

Players were very outspoken about the travel costs in New World. And they made the changes for everyone - the Fresh Start servers were to reset the economy for people who wanted that. Originally there were problems with duping items, and they never dealt with bots effectively.

Ashes even now doesn’t sound like you describe, but maybe that’s because we don’t have the whole map yet. But still - how are you supposed to know which region you’d like to settle in if you can’t get to them? Is each region supposed to have their own leveling areas? Even right now that isn’t true - and the leveling areas themselves are spread out, so there’s no easy congregation of players around your level like in most other games.

On your “if we could teleport” section -

You won’t be able to instantly gather resources. There’s no guaranteed nodes. Further, the opposite is also true - a lot of people simply aren’t going to gather those resources if they can’t get to them in a reasonable time.

For caravans, simply put a cooldown or daily limit on your participation.

Dungeons - Yeah, that’s kind of the point. Should 7 people really have to wait for their tank to take a 20 minute horse ride? After probably already taking a while to form the group itself? Why? What’s the benefit of that?

Treasure maps - Disable fast travel when you’re on a map quest. Simple.

I agree that Ashes should be based on meaningful choices. I simply fail to see how travel time is a meaningful choice. If significant travel time is required for basically everything you do, then it’s not a choice, is it?

Imanek

I'm simply responding to your argument about New World. You stated that "players left the game en masse because of this." Now, once again, it seems that according to you, the game had other issues, and on that point, I agree. However, I have never heard anyone say, "I'm quitting New World because fast travel is too expensive." And if that's the reason someone stops playing an MMO, then honestly, it doesn’t take much for them to quit, and they’ll always find something to complain about in any game.

I strongly encourage you to research Ashes of Creation more thoroughly. A major feature of the game is exploration, with fog-of-war mechanics and map inconsistencies until verified. Since we are dealing with a dynamic world, a region you visit may change over time based on player interactions.

The goal is to maintain interest in exploration and discovery. Nodes will also be well-balanced in terms of content; otherwise, the entire player base would just cluster in the same spots.

Regarding the desert biome, simply playing the Alpha makes it clear that the desert is being enriched every week with unique settlements, exclusive resources, and distinctive crafting options. This diversity is what makes the game compelling, allowing players to settle in the biome that suits them best.

As for fast travel, here’s what we know:

- Scientific Metropolises will be connected to each other to facilitate travel.
- Starting zones will allow friends to begin playing together through a portal system.
- The Breeder profession will be crucial, as players will be able to develop faster mounts, including terrestrial and maritime ones, using genetics.

So, once again, Ashes of Creation is built around an exploration-based system, and I encourage you to read the wiki if needed. As many have pointed out, we do not want fast travel. And without making too many assumptions, I believe the developers are well aware of this. Otherwise, why put so much effort into creating unique, detailed regions if they were just going to add a teleportation system that would make half of these features irrelevant?

Much respect for the work and the originality of this project. As Lord Bodd mentioned, they will not change such a fundamental aspect that makes AoC unique.

Noaani

Ludullu wrote: »

If content doesn't go away/change - time doesn't matter, when it comes to you experiencing said content.

Time always matters.

If it takes me 2 hours to travel to a 2 hour piece of content, and 2 hours to travel back, that is a 6 hour piece of content.

If the rewards for it are that of a 2 hour piece of content, everyone that had to travel 2 hours each way will inherently be disappointed by it. Players will go in to this content knowing it is a 2 hour piece of content, but will still be disappointed - and this disappointment only drives them to not bother traveling for such content again.

So, what players will be left with - in terms of what 90% of players would consider reasonable access - is a small amount of content that will only ever have minor, insignificant changes to it.

Orrion

Imanek wrote: »

I'm simply responding to your argument about New World. You stated that "players left the game en masse because of this." Now, once again, it seems that according to you, the game had other issues, and on that point, I agree. However, I have never heard anyone say, "I'm quitting New World because fast travel is too expensive." And if that's the reason someone stops playing an MMO, then honestly, it doesn’t take much for them to quit, and they’ll always find something to complain about in any game.

No, that’s not what I actually said. I said it was ONE factor, not the deciding factor.

I strongly encourage you to research Ashes of Creation more thoroughly. A major feature of the game is exploration, with fog-of-war mechanics and map inconsistencies until verified. Since we are dealing with a dynamic world, a region you visit may change over time based on player interactions.

There is no fog of war or map inconsistencies at the moment. I can see everything on my level 6 mage despite not having been much of anywhere yet. There is a lack of general information, but I attribute more to the alpha status of the game than I do the design goals.

In all seriousness, this exactly the time to point out potential issues like these. I’ve been playing MMOs for over 25 years. I know what makes them rise and fall.

The goal is to maintain interest in exploration and discovery. Nodes will also be well-balanced in terms of content; otherwise, the entire player base would just cluster in the same spots.

That’s just it, though. By making exploration and discovery a chore, they are going to force the player base to cluster.

I have no issues with a big open world. I have no issues running around an area hunting resources or crafting materials, or needing to get to a dungeon for the first time, or discovering hidden secrets and lore.

What I have an issue with is simply the amount of time wasted not being able to do those things.

Regarding the desert biome, simply playing the Alpha makes it clear that the desert is being enriched every week with unique settlements, exclusive resources, and distinctive crafting options. This diversity is what makes the game compelling, allowing players to settle in the biome that suits them best.

And that should prevent them from being able to do anything outside their biome? Even in-biome travel time is currently nuts. Yes, some of that is that we don’t have easy access to fast level mounts and whatnot. However, I do not see why I should have to spend a half an hour getting to my dungeon group, or them to mine.

As for fast travel, here’s what we know:

- Scientific Metropolises will be connected to each other to facilitate travel.
- Starting zones will allow friends to begin playing together through a portal system.
- The Breeder profession will be crucial, as players will be able to develop faster mounts, including terrestrial and maritime ones, using genetics.

So, once again, Ashes of Creation is built around an exploration-based system, and I encourage you to read the wiki if needed. As many have pointed out, we do not want fast travel. And without making too many assumptions, I believe the developers are well aware of this. Otherwise, why put so much effort into creating unique, detailed regions if they were just going to add a teleportation system that would make half of these features irrelevant?

Much respect for the work and the originality of this project. As Lord Bodd mentioned, they will not change such a fundamental aspect that makes AoC unique.

Exactly how does fast travel make features irrelevant? If anything, it makes players more willing and able to go exploring new areas and discovering new things - because it doesn’t take them forever to get over there and start doing it.

I want to be doing things in the game. Not waiting to do things in the game.

I am willing to wait and see what we get in terms of future systems. That does not preclude me from sounding an alarm on a potential issue.

Volgaris

@Orrion

Travel info can be found here. You should check out the wiki a bit for anything else that concerns you.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Fast_travel

Anyway you slice it easy, fast, teleport like travel shrinks the world. I think Airships, flight paths, ect will be enough to appease you (maybe?). It's hard to judge the when 90% isn't in and the 10% we're "testing" is just a placeholder.

How fast should you be able to travel from edge to edge? I don't care if it's 8 hours or more. It might be if you're running a basic caravan from corner to corner lol. You'll just never make it there lol. That'd be a hell of a guild event though.

Volgaris

I left new world because the city war was bugged and lack of meaningful endgame content, yay lets zerg run these elite zone bosses. dungeons were expensive to run too, at least that first few months. Should have stayed a survival game. I wasn't a fan of the fast travel system, didn't they even sell the travel juice you needed for real money? New world would have been fine with some mounts.

Ludullu

TheDarkSorcerer wrote: »

I get that Ashes of Creation wants to make travel feel meaningful, but without some kind of fast travel, huge parts of the world are going to be empty. If an area is too far from a major node, people just aren’t going to bother going there.

Sounds a whole of a lot like a great casual-friendly feature. If there are locations that are so free to farm that you gotta make a group specifically for them - that means that casual (or non-pvp) players are free to do exactly that w/o being too much afraid of getting instaganked or not being able to experience the content due to pvp contests.

Noaani wrote: »

Time always matters.

If it takes me 2 hours to travel to a 2 hour piece of content, and 2 hours to travel back, that is a 6 hour piece of content.

But content in Ashes doesn't exist in a vacuum. Especially once full vassal systems are set up. If you need to spend 2h to travel somewhere, that means you're traveling from literally one end of the map to the direct opposite end. That means that you'll see completely new gatherables, mobs (with new loot), events, quests, locations, bosses, on top of the content that you came there for.

In other words, you wouldn't be going there purely for the 2h content. And if you ARE going there purely for that - you're bad with planning out your limited gameplay time and are going out of your way to make the whoe travel experience worse by only concentrating on a singular piece of content in a huge game.

And, obviously, if Intrepid fail to set up the systems I mentioned above in such a way where it IS valuable enough to not only do the precise 2h content you were looking for - the game will have much bigger issues than "omg, it takes me some time to travel from place to place".

Ludullu

Orrion wrote: »

Exactly how does fast travel make features irrelevant? If anything, it makes players more willing and able to go exploring new areas and discovering new things - because it doesn’t take them forever to get over there and start doing it.

You're thinking from the standpoint of only experiencing POIs, as if there's no content outside of that. This game is not built only around POIs, so travel lets you see all the other stuff in the game, instead of just TPing to your little cave and only farming it for a few hours.

Orrion wrote: »

I want to be doing things in the game. Not waiting to do things in the game.

And when the world is fully built out and populated - that's exactly what you'd be doing. And the same will be true for the group that's waiting on someone.

You use the argument of "well, irl shit happens, so people have limited gameplay time". But that irl shit could also mean that the person is late to the preestablished gathering time. Would your group immediately say "nah, fuck that guy, we ain't waiting for him"? Or would you immediately quit the game if you have to wait for someone to join you?

Travel times is not the issue here. Variable content availability is. And the wow-like "only dungeons matter" type of design is exactly what leads to the thoughtprocess of "oh damn, I gotta go all the way to that spot?". When there's only one way to play the game and that way requires only a precise number of people (let alone composition of classes) and THEN they also have to travel - yes, that's a design issue that should be resolved with faster travel.

But when the game is built around open world locations, big living world and pvp interactions - travel is one of the most meaningful parts of the game, because that IS the game.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think EQ also revolved around dungeons as main POIs of the game where everything else didn't matter as much. Was there no difficulty variance in mob/boss composition at/around those POIs? What would a party occupy themselves with if one of their members were late to the gathering?

Tjaeden

How do we explain why Fast Travel does not belong in this game?

If you live in Joeva - all your crafting and gathering is there. You like the weather. You know what spots to grind for glint.

WHY would you want to go to Sunhaven?

It's like driving to Florida to visit grandparents, you do it rarely, once a year.

If you live in New Aela, but want to grind in Carph, guess what? You are visiting/staying in Mireleth for a week.

The TRAVEL is part of the game.

When the Riverlands Oak becomes the biggest export to the Tropics, or Sandstone comes out of the Desert, the gathering and trading of materials - the MOVEMENT of goods, IS a core loop of the game.

Azherae

Tjaeden wrote: »

How do we explain why Fast Travel does not belong in this game?

If you live in Joeva - all your crafting and gathering is there. You like the weather. You know what spots to grind for glint.

WHY would you want to go to Sunhaven?

It's like driving to Florida to visit grandparents, you do it rarely, once a year.

If you live in New Aela, but want to grind in Carph, guess what? You are visiting/staying in Mireleth for a week.

The TRAVEL is part of the game.

When the Riverlands Oak becomes the biggest export to the Tropics, or Sandstone comes out of the Desert, the gathering and trading of materials - the MOVEMENT of goods, IS a core loop of the game.

Even for those of us who absolutely believe in the vision of a game without Fast Travel, some people also believe that Developers need to eat and sleep, and we are almost certainly not getting:

1. Massive content supplied, so much so that I don't really need to travel more than a node or two from my home to have good experiences (or can easily do that)
2. Meaningful travel experiences so that fast travel is not only not required, but not even gearing multiple alts is the meta
3. Healthy developers of the two things above.

So if you tell some people to pick two, some will pick 1 and 3.

Obviously there will be people that say 'It's up to IS to make all 3' and maybe even a few that will go '1 and 2, 3 is someone else's problem'. But I don't think those people are ever going to agree.

Urlic

I don't know. "Fast Travel" always seems like it guts the tone of the story for me. People popping in and out of areas and crowding around the NPCs needed for questing, having 50 people pop in and kill a mob for a guildmate that you also need or just to strip the crafting resources is really more than a tiny bit annoying. I feel like it's one of those 1,000 tiny cuts that games die by.

Noaani

Ludullu wrote: »

But content in Ashes doesn't exist in a vacuum.

Indeed it doesn't.

However, people will still evaluate the value of running content by time spent vs rewards gained.

It doesn't matter what situation the content is in, that is the baseline that every player considers.

For example, if you are in a situation where you can run three different pieces of content that has zero travel time, and you expect each one of these to take two hours, or alternatively you can travel for two hours, run one piece of content for two hours and then travel back home, which would you run?

If we make the assumption that the rewards (in what ever manner you wish to be rewarded, gear, coin, fun, experience, what ever) are all the same for each two hour piece of content, would you opt to run 1 in the time you have, or run 3?

It makes no sense at all to ever spend the time traveling to run that content. There is never a point in time where that is what players would want as their first choice. Thus, the only reason players would do it is because they have exhausted the local content of all rewards (again, in what ever manner they consider a reward).

What that breaks down to is that travel to arrive at content in Ashes exists for people that are already bored. You are bored, so now the game will make you spend more time in order to get less reward.

That means that you'll see completely new gatherables, mobs (with new loot), events, quests, locations, bosses, on top of the content that you came there for.

No, you won't.

You'll see more copper, more oak. Even if Intrepid do somehow manage to make it so that there really are region specific raw materials like you are thinking, unless that is what you came for, you won't bother getting them. Why would you - you're about to get involved in some form of content that is likely to see you killed at least a few times.

You'll see more quests that are as mundane as the ones where you came from. The game worlds design limits the kinds of quests the game can have - you won't find some amazing new thing, you'll find more "kill 10 rats" quests - that you won't bother taking because you are heading towards a specific piece of content. Why would you stop for this kind of thing?

You may see mobs with a different skin, but they will still drop glint. It may be a different glint, but it still functions the same. Since you are again heading somewhere you are expecting to die at least a few times, there is no point holding things up to get any of this glint from these mobs in skins that are new to you.

The chances of running in to an event is probably going to be exceedingly rare. Even if you did run in to one, it isn't as if you care about the local area at all anyway - and you have some content you are wanting to run. Why would you hang around for that event?

You'll not see bosses, but evenif you did you would already know about them, because everyone will know about them and their loot before the game is launched, so all you will see are the spawn location of bosses.

If you look at things in an ideal kind of way, if you have rose tinted glasses, then yeah. However, if you understand how MMORPG players actually work, how the game will actually go, the limitations Intrepid will have on content with this games design, then what I'm talking about above is what you know will be the case.

An even bigger issue than the game having content that people need to travel for is the game having content that people need to travel for, but then throwing in all these distractions along the way.

When you run an MMORPG and you have a group of players that make up a full group, that have the appropriate class breakdown for a full group, are of similar enough level and gear quality so as to not have anyone making things too easy or too hard, and where the players all want to take on the same piece of content at the same time, you want to facilitate in those people doing that - you don't want to throw shit in their way.

Child Item