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Why The Game Needs Fast Travel

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Comments

  • exploring the world is interesting up to a point. When you learn everything, and this will happen quite soon, you will perform actions automatically. ignoring the environment. I played in others, no one reads the quests, no one looks around. no one cares. and this is a big problem. on the other hand, there is no fast movement - this is +. since you can kill players with resources, taking their loot

    Only when the game is bad as known as being "MMO RPG", but when the game is a sanbox or at least very sandboxy then everytime you travel is another experience
    PvE means: A handful of coins and a bag of boredom.
  • AzheraeAzherae Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    Arya_Yeshe wrote: »
    exploring the world is interesting up to a point. When you learn everything, and this will happen quite soon, you will perform actions automatically. ignoring the environment. I played in others, no one reads the quests, no one looks around. no one cares. and this is a big problem. on the other hand, there is no fast movement - this is +. since you can kill players with resources, taking their loot

    Only when the game is bad as known as being "MMO RPG", but when the game is a sanbox or at least very sandboxy then everytime you travel is another experience

    I'd argue that this is more about the dynamism of the environment and politics than the sandbox nature. I know you probably mean this too, but I'm just being picky about any potential semantics arguments.

    An MMORPG designed with a simplistic overworld doesn't encourage travel, and offloading dynamism to players I feel seldom works, personally, because most players just aren't that interesting.
    Stellar Devotion.
  • Orrion wrote: »
    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.

    I'd prefer a skill or spell for Cleric classes to add value to the team work and potentially selling the service. Let's tell 2 destinations to save maximum that you can learn with a quest (that requires some few items to farm/buy).

    The more there are quests that delete some items from the game, the more the economy will be good.

  • joeyohknowjoeyohknow Member, Alpha Two
    Orrion wrote: »
    At the very least, we need

    Who's "we"? Speak for yourself and don't presume to know what everyone else wants.

  • NoaaniNoaani Member, Intrepid Pack, Alpha Two
    edited March 12
    Tjaeden wrote: »
    Albion Online topped out over 350,000 BEFORE they released Asian servers.

    And that MMO is more PVP focused than most.

    Saying anything is "on it's deathbed" is so 2006 WoW.

    No, it's perfectly appropriate to say it, but people need to understand that a genre death takes years or decades, not weeks or months as was the case back then.

    As to Albion Online hitting a peak of 350,000 players - that is specifically for Steam. As of writing this, there are 7,458 players playing the game on Steam.

    Don't use Albion as an example of anything good for the PvP focused MMORPG sub-genre.

    As to your comment that the basis of this game is that PvP changes the world - I know, I was the first to phrase it like that (before Steven did).

    The problem is, PvE is supposed to build the world, and the PvE is shit. Why PvP over the PvE building blocks if that PvE itself is shit?

    Ashes core design - the one you are talking about where PvP changes the world - it requires thst Ashes have better *PvE* than any other MMORPG out there.
  • AszkalonAszkalon Member, Alpha Two
    It was "tough" before already for half a Year,



    but damn i am surprised if there is any Topic still where People actually truly want to answer on each other with the Main Topic addressed.

    Even the Meme Topic is as dried out as the Sandsquall Desert :sweat_smile:
    a50whcz343yn.png
    ✓ Occasional Roleplayer
    ✓ Maybe i look after a Guild sometime soon
  • REHOCREHOC Member
    I understand the concern about long travel times in Ashes of Creation, especially for players with limited time. But Ashes isn't just another MMO—it's built around a player-driven world where logistics, exploration, and meaningful travel choices are core mechanics.

    🚫 Why Ashes of Creation Doesn’t Have Global Fast Travel
    1️⃣ Maintains the Integrity of the Economy 💰

    In most MMOs with fast travel, markets become centralized, and resources lose value because players can instantly jump to farming hotspots.
    Ashes prevents this by making resource transportation an actual gameplay mechanic—you need to physically move goods across the world, leading to trade routes, caravan escorts, and PvP ambushes.
    2️⃣ Encourages Meaningful Conflict & Strategy ⚔️

    Without instant teleportation, wars and sieges require planning. A zerg guild can’t just teleport their entire force in seconds.
    This means guilds must strategically position their members, reinforcing Ashes’s vision of regional control and player-driven conquest.
    3️⃣ Supports the Node System & Player Settlements 🏰

    If everyone could teleport instantly, most of the world would be ignored, with players clustering in a few key areas.
    Instead, nodes develop based on where players actually live and play, making every server’s world unique.
    ✅ What Travel Options Do Exist?
    While Ashes doesn’t have global fast travel, there are several travel systems that make movement easier without breaking the game’s core mechanics:

    🔹 Scientific Metropolis Teleports – If a scientific node reaches metropolis level, it provides limited teleportation.
    🔹 Flight Paths & Airships – NPC-controlled transport between major hubs.
    🔹 Family Summon System – Limited group teleport for small parties.
    🔹 Mount Breeding & Speed Upgrades – High-tier mounts will significantly reduce travel time.
    🔹 Caravan & Ferry Systems – Transport not just goods, but players as well.

    🎯 Balancing Player Convenience vs. Game Depth
    I completely understand that some players don’t want to spend half their play session traveling. That’s a valid concern. But Ashes of Creation is built around deliberate, strategic travel, where choosing where you live and play matters.

    Rather than teleporting to any dungeon instantly, players are encouraged to establish local bases, use guild coordination, and plan their adventures—just like in a real living, breathing world.

    🔥 Final Thought: Would Fast Travel Kill the Experience?
    MMOs like New World and ESO rely on convenience mechanics, but at the cost of world depth and immersion. Ashes aims to create something different—an MMO where travel isn't just a loading screen, but a meaningful part of the adventure.

    It’s not for everyone, and that’s okay. But if Ashes of Creation can successfully balance travel mechanics, while keeping the world engaging and dynamic, it has the potential to be one of the most immersive and rewarding MMOs in years.

    Would love to hear thoughts—what travel mechanics would feel balanced to you without ruining the game’s depth? 🚀
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  • DolyemDolyem Member, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
    Fast travel and flying mounts make MMOs with open world PvP awful. If it were only a PVE game, fast travel would be more or less ok, though itd still effect the economy. But this is a PVX game, so fast travel (and I would also argue any form of flying, even as limited quantity as it currently is) would be one of the worst things to add. Fast travel would end up enabling massive guilds to quickly move around to map to claim areas and resources and quickly respond as a whole unit to war declarations while also allowing them to spread out across the worlds nodes instead of staying together. It would also result in players quickly traveling to any world boss, and jumping back and forth to different resources theyd otherwise have to rely on others to gather and transport across the world for profit.

    TLDR: All forms of fast travel are bad for PVP/PVX games
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  • OrrionOrrion Member, Alpha Two
    edited March 30
    Dolyem wrote: »
    Fast travel and flying mounts make MMOs with open world PvP awful. If it were only a PVE game, fast travel would be more or less ok, though itd still effect the economy. But this is a PVX game, so fast travel (and I would also argue any form of flying, even as limited quantity as it currently is) would be one of the worst things to add. Fast travel would end up enabling massive guilds to quickly move around to map to claim areas and resources and quickly respond as a whole unit to war declarations while also allowing them to spread out across the worlds nodes instead of staying together. It would also result in players quickly traveling to any world boss, and jumping back and forth to different resources theyd otherwise have to rely on others to gather and transport across the world for profit.

    TLDR: All forms of fast travel are bad for PVP/PVX games

    Fixing the "it ruins PvP" situation is pretty damn easy. You simply prevent anyone from engaging in PvP if they've utilized any method of travel aside from their mount. The amount of time would depend on the distance between you and wherever you're traveling. Problem solved.

    Now you can't engage in war unless you hoofed it the entire way at some point, and I don't have to spend the large majority of my time staring at the map and my mount's backside.

    Edit I will say this right now - this is still my number one issue as to why I'm not playing much at the moment. "Oh hey guys, where are you leveling at?" "We're in the south desert." "Great, I'm at Winstead. I'm gonna go play something else, call me if you go somewhere that isn't 30+ minutes away."
    s0b3it wrote: »
    Fast travel is cope. It would destroy fundamental systems in the game. Everyone would reside around a specific city, town or location. and the large majority of the map would be empty. ESO is so mind numbingly boring because of how easy it is to travel everywhere and zones feel pointless and lifeless aside from the major town hubs. Exploration is so underrated, people want everything handed to them on a platter leaving nothing to the imagination.

    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?

    As opposed to now, where I'm residing around a specific city or location because it takes too long to get anywhere else?

    Plus I want to stay around where I'm a citizen anyway?

    Further, without some form(s) of faster travel the last majority of the map will be empty anyway. Look at New World's start where fast travel cost was prohibitive, and we all walked everywhere. Everybody congregated around Windsward, Everfall and Brightwood. Why? 'Cause they were in the center of the map, they were where everyone started, and they were the first places that got built up and had any chance of staying that way. Places like Ebonscale were ghost towns. Nobody wanted the far away nodes, nobody built them up, and there was no economy in any of them. You can see a similar thing happening in Ashes already - you go to one of the desert towns and you see, what, maybe 3-4 pages in the market on the high end? But when you're at Winstead, you have 40 pages.
  • fast and flying mounts existed in gw2 and far prior to them waypoints and there was absolutely no conflict what so ever with any of it at all, and all the mounts had their own function and no they didnt got reduced to a mere cosmetic if thats what you are afraid of...; some regions or locations being more populated than others will always exist independently if there is or not fast travel, so unreasonable excuses yall trynna bring into the table. To the matter of pvp open world well yes i do see/understand why flying mounts are only allowed to mayors (although it still sucks, everyone wants a flying mount tho but not everyone wants to be mayor), there would be issues if everyone could own one, related to pvp, unless...for exemple in gw2 there was locations/places where flying mounts were disabled (you would get a warning popping up in your screen telling you that so and you only had 2 options land or go back before getting dismounted mid air followed by a very possible death fall) could do for when a siege or node war happening (maybe everyone could have the possibility of owning a flying mount like this, not being only exclusive to mayors) i've also seen some people asking for mount perma death i would only agree with that in this specific case which is flying mounts); also mayors could then be the only ones allowed to trespass these interdict flying locations as of to the rest of the players; players could simply not be allowed to use a flying mount meanwhile corrupted; there could also be the case anyone who flags for pvp cant use a flying mount and even if they flag mid air same situation as i described before warning, land or dismounted mid air, fall and die; seas as being lawless zones same situation because you get automatically flagged so none flying regions.
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