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Alpha Two testing is currently taking place five days each week. More information about Phase II and Phase III 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.
Comments
This is the sort of fast travel Ashes should have. It is what EQ2 had, though due to the insanely large size of the world after 20 expansions, EQ2 does have far too many teleport locations now.
IMO fast travel locations in Ashes should be specifically removed from the node system. They locations should exist where they exist, end of story. If players build up a node close to such a location, that is on them.
With a total of 100 or so nodes in Ashes, I'd want to see about 12 - 15 teleport points around the world - but I would want them to function in a way where you need to travel to one of these teleport locations in order to teleport to another location (puts in a trade off of building up a node near one vs far away from one).
A lot of people think something like WoW or ESO when they hear fast travel, and are adamantly against it. However, you don't need that level of fast travel in order to actually fulfill the function that fast travel is supposed to fill. It doesn't need to take you directly to your content, it just needs to make that traveling time more manageable.
there's some fast travel in EVE these days, but it is not as simple as in RPG MMOs, in eve you gotta send a guy alone against all odds and infiltrate enemy lines and then he lits a cyno, the cyno is like litting up a beacon that everybody can see and works as a one way magic portal. However, all your enemies will warp to your cyno if they want too, everybody can see the cyno on their UIs lol
you can also build a structure that works as gate travel, people can destroy it tough
so EVE, has a bit of fast travle, but it is limited to certain conditions, ship types, theres fuel consumption, there are also timers you cant just keep teleporting at all
This isn't a bad idea for a way to counter a zerg, tbh.
If guilds are given a 12 hour cooldown port to any location the caster is at, where once activated the guild members can port to it for the next minute, but anyone else can port to it for the next 5 minutes (and get a notification, and can see it on their map), this could actually be a type of fast travel that creates good PvP scenarios rather than bad ones.
It doesn't replace the type of fast travel talked about above where the idea is to get people to content in a reasonable amount of time, but it could be valuable to have regardless.
Mainly cause the current A2 map is 2/3 of the horizontal length of a continent and you can cross it fairly quickly even with the current mounts. Even just 10 teleports would mean 5 per continent, which would cover nearly the whole length of the continent, at which point you're roughly 10-15 minutes away from any point on the map, cause it'd be ~6-7 min to the closest Gate and then the same amount to your goal.
And while the dungeons themselves might (and should) take way longer to go through, this still doesn't stop zergs from gathering in one spot real quickly. And maybe you could add some throughput limitations or some "overloaded" mechanics, and some convoluted inventory restrictions - but then what's the good balance to let normal people use these frequently enough to not feel the super far travel impact as much, while also limiting the zerg's ability to just dominate the map.
what i would like at least, when in the case you being far away from your node and not aware it will get attacked, to implement something like an emergency waypoint ( like existed in gw2). You had to install it (which takes 3 minutes to spawn) and would create a temporarily emergency waypoint at the objective, once activated, it would be an uncontestable waypoint, which lasts for 40 seconds and can be reused indefinitely until it expires with a 20 minute cooldown. Even thought trolls and spies did exist and they did like to abuse and waste the ewp (it could be set to instead anyone can activate to only the person that installed and its guild members can activate it).
Also someone mentioned a situation involving a dungeon, well in throne and liberty there are few waypoints when a dungeon has multiple layers, you cant use them out of it only when inside and you need to interact with a respective one to select which floor you want to get to so then you can get to another (tl dungeons wps).
I think that'd break a lot of stuff. I'd use that way point to get across the map fast to gather and run back. I'd use it to attack a Node with my guild too that's across the map. Fast travel in this fashion would make this game suck. It'd be a never ending stream of massive attack after massive attack from enemies across the map. Distance would no longer be a safety variable. For guilds that want to focus on attacking and never build up Nodes this would be a great boon. I could find myself in a guild that would "abuse" this feature and I'm still against it. Attacking a Node far away should be a challenge more so than one in the same Zone.
It's hard to say what the game needs because so much is missing or a placeholder, and it's a mistake to compare it to other games, or say that Ashes needs something from GW, TL, WoW, or whatever. Because we don't know what it needs yet really. Fast travel has a purpose in some games, but in general it waters down the experience. It'll turn a massive open world game like Ashes into a Lobby/Loading screen game. Some people want that lobby based system to quickly get to the action, and that's a fair point, but others don't want it. And when you have so much of the game's competitive systems based around travel, if you implement fast travel that solves your problem then why even have the travel problem for the player to solve?
The emergency waypoint could only be utilized by citizens/defenders from that node not like anyone out there can utilize it, that do be absurd, far less people who decide attack it. Well i can tell you didnt play gw2 wvw so you not familiar how it worked, very simple the name says it all tho, used when an emergency thats it, definitely couldnt be utilized by who ever was attacking/enemy only by the people of that server in this case citizens/defenders from that node; its pretty much a defensive waypoint that can be submitted when in case there is very few people around to defend the node, needs to be activated and only lasts a short x time (in the case 40 seconds, although for the node concept maybe a minute wouldnt be a bad idea) wvw maps and population were far smaller in comparison with aoc scope) and then also has a long cooldown to reactivate it, can only be activated in the period of when a siege happening or a war over the node. *looks like you got everything backwards of what i said tho*
Why have a fast or flying mount if you can just teleport everywhere? It just reduces mounts to a mere cosmetic... do you understand yet?
That is what the goal should be. There is no reason an entertainment company that operates in an online capacity should demand more than 10 minutes of a distinct lack of entertainment before the entertainment starts. I don't sit through a lecture when I go bowling.
In regards to zergs, if they have to travel 10 minutes from a teleport to get to the last known location of a target, they won't bother. The only way it would be viable to zerg with this paradigm would be if your target moved close to a teleport and you were all ready for it, or if you had someone following said target.
I would think things like disabling teleports during a war would be a given, and adding a cooldown on being able to join a caravan attack or defense would be possible (not the biggest fan of this, but it would be effective). With these in place, I don't really see what people could complain about in relation to zergs.
What specific feature do players THINK they need?
Flight paths? You never need to leave your node.
Hearthstone? What CD/cost or limitations is acceptable?
Teleport Spells/Summons? We don't even have the Family system in yet OR the summoner (kind of joking).
Like, what *exactly* do pro-fast-travel players want to skip?
Skip PVP? Why?
For the most part, the reason people want some amount of fast travel is because actually traveling around a game world isn't enjoyable, and people play games for enjoyment/entertainment.
You are right in that the specifics of what people are after should shape any such system, but you are also kind of missing the point, and are also basing your suggestions on versions that you hae seen as opposed to thinking about what Ashes needs.
For example, flight paths, why would their existence mean you never need to leave your node?
Or Hearthstones, why would they need to have a cost?
The point is to reduce the monotonous aspects of the game, which is largely travel (in this situation). Flight paths could do that - adding 4 or 5 points per continent would reduce travel times from a potential hour or more down to perhaps 15 - 20 minutes to get to any location. The notion of putting flight paths from nodes directly to (for example) dungeon entrances is not what anyone is asking for (or, not what most are asking for), but cutting travel time down to a situation where it is never unreasonable should not be, well, unreasonable to ask.
The ability to (probably once a day) gather together with close ingame social connections for content even if you were delayed in getting to play that day.
If true, lack of flight paths is acceptable to those I know.
Can be once daily, if necessary, otherwise https://ffxiclopedia.fandom.com/wiki/Warp
The inability to coordinate due to 5-10 minute differences in schedules, and of course would like to 'skip' the misery of having to call off entire plans because one member's internet went out for 4-10 minutes.
For some weird reason even people who don't 'cry about unfairness' seem to have this dislike of 'losing stuff because of being outnumbered because someone had to leave suddenly and calling it a night for the adventure means they either have to log off in-place or strand that person'.
Something about 'the quality of the PvP', whatever that means.
"For what...?"
"Just about everything, really."
I didn't play GW or GW2 for long. Felt to arcady for me. People seemed to like them. At the end of the day, there's going to be Fast Travel methods added to the game. And they might be enough to get you back to help defend your Node in time depending on your distance. If not though, then I'm still on the side of no portals, teleports, ect. Outside what they already have planned, even then I think it could be too much. But I am someone who plays Hard Core modes for open world games where fast travel is disabled.
i used to play AoC (Age of Camelot)
fast travels were not there, BUT...
There was a good solution for that...
u used to pay (npc) few silver, and
Your Horse (the one from the npc) was doing the travel following the road from one city to another...(automatic)
you don't win time (cause the way is the same) and you could stop the run when you wanted...even if you could get attacked...
this could be an alternative between the "Tp" that could break the game...
and ... nothing...?
But i understand the way for "no fast travel" it won't make difference to me...
Thanks to read till the end, sorry for my poor english...
People who have war targets on the way to their destination may simply pay someone to take them to their destination by traveling around the continent safely by boat
Caravans for passengers has been brought up - a lot of people like that idea.
While this could be an interesting aspect to the game, it does nothing to solve the issue of "I have a group of people that want me for some content, but they and that content are 45 minutes away".
Disagree completely. You seem to want to do everything, all the time, quickly. What about the entire idea of an adventure? Needing to travel to a far away land and explore. You will have plenty of things to do but dont expect instant gratifications, we have plenty of those games, we dont need another.
The idea of AoC is that you wont be travelling from the top of the map to bottom every day. That will be a journey days if not weeks in the making. And its good, we will get living breathing world with literally empires on opposite sides of the map.
NO FAST TRAVEL.
This is 2025 and not 1990. Great point! Notice how the MMORPG genre is on its deathbed for the last 20 years. Do you not see the correlation? Stupid point.
Fast travel doesn't exclude the notion of exploration.
In fact, in most games, it requires exploration. If you can't fast travel unless you have been to the location, exploration is mandatory. In this situation, all fast travel is doing is removing the monotony of needing to travel along the same road all the time.
The MMO genre is not on its death bed.
The PvP focused MMORPG sub genre kind of is though.
The MMO genre is on its death bed since social networks appeared.
People used to play to communicate and interact. is no longer relevant now. only competition and pvp save
PvP focused MMO's count their playerbase in the tens of thousands.
PvE focused MMO's count their playerbase in the millions.
You are stuck in a bubble of like-minded peers, and can not see out of that bubble.
And that MMO is more PVP focused than most.
Saying anything is "on it's deathbed" is so 2006 WoW.
Ashes is based on "pvp changes the world."
If that core tenement doesn't pass your metric for a good game, then I hope you find an MMO to your liking.
If you have bugs to report or ideas to make the game better, then please stick around to see what this will be. We are all going to be blown away.
I will agree the mmorpg genre is in a downfall. Part of this is because the simplification of the genre for accessibility, another big reason being the greed and scamming sale models (ptw, ect), which Intrepid has indulged in. "Ashes of PreSales". We're selling, we're not selling and we won't again, hey we're selling you better buy if you wanna get into alpha, hey we're not selling. Very much playing to the FOMO, which most mmo player's are weak to.
I do not agree that pvp and competition save an mmo. There's a reason New World switched to flagged PvP, because the vast majority of players don't like. Look at any MMO with PvP and PvE servers, there's more PvE servers everytime. One reason New World failed is because all it's mechanics were based off the game having open PvP, which now didn't work because players could just not flag. Also some massive game breaking bugs in the war system, and lack of end game content.
People still play to interact with others, some of the best times is hoping into a new discord and chatting with new people as we kill monsters.
And you would be teleported to the dungeon, if you are not with your party.