Goblin Squad Member
|
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
In Shadowbane, the politics of a server would reliably collapse into two factions within a matter of months. A large part of the reason for this was that the size of the map was small enough, and there were enough fast travel options, that anyone could, and did, participate in a battle anywhere on the map with just a few minutes notice. So, the outcome of any given battle was dictated, not by how many allies you had nearby, but how many allies you had anywhere in the world. Game theory says that this scenario will inevitably devolve, like American democracy, to a 2-party system: small factions merge in order to gain advantage over slightly larger factions, who find allies of their own to get the advantage back; meanwhile, the independent faction over there sees this spiral and looks for allies of their own out of self defense. Soon, the whole map is either blue or red.
In Eve, sheer logistic distance makes this sort of political collapse impossible. Your friends on the other side of the map are literally hours of travel time away; they're not part of your political dynamic in any useful way. You can't be an ally to someone in a space where you can't project power.
Based on the travel numbers in early blog posts that you could run on foot across an old large hex in about 3:45 and that fast travel was 5 times faster than that, that means each of the hexes on the current map is about 15 seconds of fast travel time. If that's correct, we'll be able to travel corner to corner in less than 12 minutes. I don't think that's enough to prevent a 2-faction collapse.
I'm not sure there's a way around this other than either building a significantly larger map- even the big map is only 20 minutes corner to corner if I've done the math right- or to simply get rid of fast travel altogether.
And I think that would be a good thing. If you can fast travel from Fort Inevitable to the Emerald Spire in 3 minutes, the landscape in between becomes flyover country; people have no reason to know or care about local politics or services at a destination when home is just a few minutes away. The longer it takes to get from point A to point B, the more likely you are to find something interesting along the way, and to stay longer once you get there. You're more likely to spend most of your time in and around a smaller local region, and long journeys become adventures rather than routine commutes.
Please consider eliminating fast travel, both for the sake of preventing Katamari Dacy politics, and for the sake of keeping the world large enough to be wondrous.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Travel speed (on foot) isn't as fast as you've mentioned. Stephen ballparked movement speed (on foot) as 4.44 m/s, and a hex takes about 2.5 minutes to cross at such a speed. Currently hexes are 680 m from side to side or 780 m from corner to opposite corner. A while back I ballparked the time to travel across the whole OE map corner to corner as over 3 hours - assuming moving in a perfectly straight line while walking with no encumbrance. Obviously moving across the whole map in a straight line is unrealistic, so likely it would take longer. Probably closer to 4 hours.
It has been mentioned roads may speed up movement in the future (no specifics yet).
Mounts would obviously do the same (again no specifics).
Numbers are very subject to change, but the key point is that normal movement is definitely time consuming to cross the whole OE map. As in a few hours to do so.
If we assume fast travel will be ~5x as fast as normal movement, then that's the better part of an hour to cross the whole map. At such speeds a hex (current hexes, not the old hexes) would take ~30 s to cross.
Edit: to be clear by OE map I mean the one in this blog, where I assume the river is uncrossable.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Also this quote from Ryan:
In EVE, it takes a minute or two to travel from one star system to another. That's about the pace I like for Pathfinder Online. And like in EVE, the place you want to go is likely a lot more than one segment away from where you are. If it takes 10-15 minutes of travel on a regular basis, I think that sets a good pace and gives distance meaning without asking people to forgo an afternoon to get somewhere interesting.
I also remember something about fast-travel being 4 or 5 times faster then regular running, using roads and most likely using scripted horse rides such as they had in DAoC and LOTRO. Can not find that quote though.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I agree with you your goal completely, Guurzak. Here's how I've been thinking about fast travel in PFO (besides thinking along the same lines as the above posters):
The geography is such that there are only a handful of chokepoints at which to access another 'elevation,' which increases the number of hexes needed to travel to reach a destination. It also potentially increases the risk of bumping into bandits.
Bandits will be able to Ambush people out of Fast Travel (this used to be a function of the now defunct hideout structure, but I think bandits can still do this). I also seem to remember mention of NPC monsters from nearby escalations possibly being able to do the same, but I could be wrong there (in which case, add it, GW! Another good reason to have a strong force of PvEers in your settlement: clear escalations from major highways!)
I hope there will be ways for settlements and/or POIs to affect fast travel in their areas.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
One way I can see to limit Fast Travel some is to make it where Fast Travel can't be used for Siege Weapons.
And if an army tries to build siege weapons at the site they want to attack, it should take time to do with the risk of the defenders either delaying the construction or even destroying the siege weapons before they are finished.
I personally want travelling to take time. Going from one end of the map to the other end should not be easily done in one typical online session. (2-4 hours, I'm guessing for the normal session for the normal person).
I like this thread. I don't know if I agree with it (because I'm not experienced enough with MMOs to quite grasp it), but it seems to be raising a good point.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
If fast travel is to be implemented at all (and I would rather it NOT be implemented at all), it should be VERY limited in access, be VERY expensive to use, and be a rare thing for the typical citizen to ever see, much less us on a regular basis.
Fast travel ruins the most detailed world. Players port across continents for little to no cost, never have to stake a claim to a zone or region, and can support their friends and allies from hundreds or thousands of miles away (of KMs, or light years, or whatever).
Fast travel collapses the largest world into a tiny area with a portal in every populated location. Please avoid all but the barest minimum for fast travel, or you might as well put us all in one hex and forget the rest of the world.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Do not forget that Fast Travel does not mean, instant transportation. You are still in the world, just travleing a lot faster (on a horse). Also, you need to reach a Fast-travel-location first, before you can make a "hop"; I expect Inns to be such a location, and possibly PoI's. They can tweak this big-time.
Bandits, blinds, and elevation-passes make it more complicated still.
|
Goblinworks Game Designer
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
We haven't discussed it in much detail, but 4-5x is probably WAY faster than we plan on. Right now, your standard "hustle" speed feels pretty fast if you're not encumbered, and 4-5x that would feel crazy fast. We're thinking right now about not more than double your fastest running speed for the fastest mounts, but we'll have to see how fast that feels once we get that far.
But, with those numbers, probably not much less than a minute to cross a (current) hex even with the best fast travel options with an optimal route.
I am kind of wondering if teleporting wizards will become a thing later on. Talk about redefining the battlefield.
Ha! No, too slow, Kemedo!
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
But, with those numbers, probably not much less than a minute to cross a (current) hex even with the best fast travel options with an optimal route.
Based on this and the planned size of the 'initial' map for OE, I don't think we need to worry about fast movement making distance irrelevant any time soon... especially since mounts likely won't even be in the game until some time after OE.
That said, I could see teleportation type spells being an issue if they are ever implemented. Still, with a few restrictions on how many people you can teleport and how often you can do it that could be kept under control too.
Making passengers come at the highest levels, putting a limit on how many, and instating a hefty cooldown would probably do the trick. At most, you could bring maybe 3-6 guys to the battlefield. Enough to make some difference, but not enough to change the tide of war.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
We haven't discussed it in much detail, but 4-5x is probably WAY faster than we plan on. Right now, your standard "hustle" speed feels pretty fast if you're not encumbered, and 4-5x that would feel crazy fast. We're thinking right now about not more than double your fastest running speed for the fastest mounts, but we'll have to see how fast that feels once we get that far.
But, with those numbers, probably not much less than a minute to cross a (current) hex even with the best fast travel options with an optimal route.
Doubling 4.44 m/s (ie. 8.88 m/s) gives ~77s to cross a hex from side to side or ~88s to cross from corner to opposite corner, assuming movement in a straight line.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
One of the problems is the map is constant speed anywhere to equal even hexes for productivity? But wilderness should be slow for all so patches of density that carve up the world into isolated pockets perhaps more reliant on roads vs off-road then?
Hope that thought is not too densely conveyed.. but if you had a heat map of connectivity you'd have these wide blue expanses vs these short red connections such as roads and then variable around these.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
There are ways to solve the problems presented without making the game world huge and travel time consuming.
You can limit how massed battles work. There have already been some comments about formation movements which to me indicate there may be could be some limitations on how many people you can bring to bear at one time. Making siege equipment have to be built at a staging area outside the target settlement fixes that sort of problem too.
You can make it so that caravans still need to travel the normal time which makes them a game session activity instead of a quick/passive thing. A full trip might take several sessions. This might be good for the economy anyways.
I believe they already plan on restricting fast travel to roads which limits how far you can go with it. If the road system can be extended by players it should be of significant cost to extend it and there could be a limit to prevent it from webbing everywhere, but enough to connect large settlements and create logical paths.
If you implemented all those things or something like them, the only thing fast travel does is get you and what you can personally carry around faster. So long as you can't carry a ridiculous amount of stuff (and you shouldn't run around by yourself with a lot of costly stuff anyways cause bandits) I don't see the problem at letting people explore or get to their friends in a reasonable amount of time. If I have to plan my play schedule out 3 days in advance because my friends want to go run around the Emerald Spire and it takes me 8 hours to hoof it there. Well, I know what I'm not doing.
There is nothing wrong with identifying things fast travel could negatively affect, but if the only decision is yay or nay on fast travel then 'problematic' scenarios are likely to occur regardless of your stance.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I am kind of wondering if teleporting wizards will become a thing later on. Talk about redefining the battlefield.
I'm hoping the only 'common' teleportation spell will be Dimension Door. Any of the long distance teleportation spells will be extremely rare (if available at all) and really expensive to use.
There are teleportation spells and plane shifting spells in pathfinder, of course there would be some form of fast travel....
|
Goblinworks Game Designer
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Yeah. We're going to be very careful with Teleportation, and it will be highly restricted if and when it gets in. Safely getting valuable goods across the map is also a major concern, on top of instant deploy of strike teams. If nothing else, it will probably heavily restrict how much gear you can travel with, probably very similar to resurrecting at a shrine (i.e., you may show up with only threaded gear).
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I believe they already plan on restricting fast travel to roads which limits how far you can go with it. If the road system can be extended by players it should be of significant cost to extend it and there could be a limit to prevent it from webbing everywhere, but enough to connect large settlements and create logical paths.
Beyond this Hill It Floods Rays of Hope has a picture of the terrain around Callambea that seems to show the network of smaller roads away from the NPC Patrolled Roads. I think this gives us a good understanding of how the road system can be extended by players.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
The problem with making teleportation expensive is that large settlements will have the funds to pay for it when needed. Eg. to teleport a whole army at once when someone encroaches on their turf. They'll be able to project power anywhere they want. Sure it'd add up to do it constantly, but just being able to do it when needed is what'll matter for controlling territory.
Expensive for a player does not mean expensive for a settlement or nation.
It'd be kinda neat if druids and maybe rangers could later get access to an ability that lets them do something like fast travel in the forests. It would make them desirable as caravan guards or smugglers—don't want to use the main road? Every team should have a druid who knows the area.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
There are teleportation spells and plane shifting spells in pathfinder, of course there would be some form of fast travel....
I think this is one of those cases where Goblinworks will be forced to change something so that it makes sense in an MMO that needs a vibrant economy with all the attendant risks of transporting goods over long distances. I remember very early on discussing ideas of how to make teleportation work without hampering the economy, but at this point I believe it's just too complex to spend precious developer/designer time on.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Yeah. We're going to be very careful with Teleportation, and it will be highly restricted if and when it gets in. Safely getting valuable goods across the map is also a major concern, on top of instant deploy of strike teams. If nothing else, it will probably heavily restrict how much gear you can travel with, probably very similar to resurrecting at a shrine (i.e., you may show up with only threaded gear).
I assume you can't thread both a T3 weapon and T3 armor. Can you thread a T3 weapon and say T2 armor? Cause that alone makes you pretty deadly against someone with T2 for both. T2 is what we're supposed to use most of our careers with T3 being expensive special occasions gear. A good sized settlement will almost certainly keep T3 in case of war or the need for a teleport strike force.
As an example with physical damage on both sides (since I don't have numbers for energy damage/resistance):
Using old armor values and two opponents of equal stats:
*A has top T3 weapon + top T2 heavy armor
*B has top T2 weapon + top T2 heavy armor
The only difference is the tier of their weapon (and a corresponding major keyword accessible on the weapon). Seems like it's close right? Nope. A kills B almost twice as fast as B kills A. If we assume that a good chunk of your attack and defense (ref/fort/will) comes from other equipment...say 50 for each, then instead of double it's still 1.5.
So even if all you can carry is a T3 weapon + typical (T2) armor through a teleport a rich settlement can have a deadly strike force ready to exert power anywhere that can beat opponents in typical (T2) gear.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I agree that Dimension door (which has limitations in weight and range) would be a mechanic I think could work but greter teleport as a insta-travel to anywhere safely should be almost impossible.
The mechanics of moving goods and the entire offensive/defensive PvP that is manifests is one of the things I think will be important to this game and settlement warfare should be well planned and not require people to just teleport to X when the call goes out.
I know it's been said already but I'm just adding my voice for the purposes of crowdforging.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I'm voting against any fast travel. It sounds like a good idea at first glance, but it makes large worlds small, and keeps players from playing in the world. The world should remain huge with obstacles, mountain passes, enemy territory, rivers that can't be crossed. burnt bridges that force you to go the long way...all the things that make terrain interesting. Going on foot is the way to go and to keep the world an interesting place to live.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'm voting against any fast travel. It sounds like a good idea at first glance, but it makes large worlds small, and keeps players from playing in the world. The world should remain huge with obstacles, mountain passes, enemy territory, rivers that can't be crossed. burnt bridges that force you to go the long way...all the things that make terrain interesting. Going on foot is the way to go and to keep the world an interesting place to live.
I can live with that and agree that the fast travel can harm the game if over done and too accessible. I wonder how much time has been invested in it and whether it might just be ported into a bonus for faction affiliation? Something that makes factions attractive and so encourages interesting conflict/content.
Caravans, for instance, sound like a great deal of fun but not if they always require several hours of coordinated work for all involved. True that could add to their seriousness and be attractive to really hardcore players but it might backfire if it is too onerous/time consuming to run one.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Mounts, roads, move buffs: yes!!
Teleport: only is costs/limitations match the benefits (for settlements, not just privates).
The point against is that meeting RL friends in-game becomes cumbersome. But since this isn't a theme park there is no driving force for players to change regions as they level up, so once you get those friends down to Brighth your settlement, there's little reason why they shouldn't use that as home base too. (And if best friends just have to play pala and necro, well, I'm sure you can find a nice workaround if you look.
Pirates of the Burning Sea (disclaimer: last played 5 years ago) had no teleport and crossing the map was maybe a 15 minute affair. Add in (player and npc) pirates, 3-way faction warfare and sieges (ports changing allegiance) and the economy became interesting - and not unlike what i expect PFO to be. I could make money hauling cheap bulk goods across the map (at least when the pvp fleets were elsewhere), or I could make piles of money from outfitting warships just before (or after) a critical port battle. Fast (or even safe) travels would have completely ruined that game, and I think PFO might be similar.
Hearing the Devs input here gives cause for continued optimism.
The teleportation spells:
Teleportation: A teleportation spell transports one
or more creatures or objects a great distance. The most
powerful of these spells can cross planar boundaries.
Unlike summoning spells, the transportation is (unless
otherwise noted) one-way and not dispellable.
Teleportation is instantaneous travel through the
Astral Plane. Anything that blocks astral travel also
blocks teleportation.
Bard:
4th Level: Dimension Door: Teleports you a short distance.
Cleric:
8th: Word of Recall: Teleports you back to have to pay for them. designated place.
Druid:
8th: Word of Recall: Teleports you back to designated place.
Wizard
4th: Dimension Door: Teleports you a short distance.
5th: Teleport: Instantly transports you as far as 100 miles per
level.
7th: Teleport, Greater: As teleport, but no range limit and no
off-target arrival.
7t: Teleport Object: As teleport, but affects a touched object.
9th: Teleportation CircleM: Teleports creatures inside circle.
So, looks like Clerics and Druids get a recall spell, Bards get a Blink type spell and only wizards/sorcs get true teleports.
I don't see this as a problem personally. Every MMO has quick travel, and now instead of everyone having a hearth stone you either have to train up to get the spells, or pay someone who has them. There will be a sub market for wizards to sell their craft. The teleportation circle costs 1000gp worth of components to cast each time. It's not like spells are free, if there are material components you
Also: you can attempt to teleport anywhere you want, but the only way to garuntee success is if you are 'very familiar' with the location, which is a game mechanic Paizo could definately screw with. Unless you unlocked PoI in a settlement or location, you could teleport to a wrong destination, or even take damage.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
|
I don't see this as a problem personally. Every MMO has quick travel, and now instead of everyone having a hearth stone you either have to train up to get the spells, or pay someone who has them. There will be a sub market for wizards to sell their craft. The teleportation circle costs 1000gp worth of components to cast each time. It's not like spells are free, if there are material components you
A sandbox is not a themepark. It is very different, you can't compare with a hearth stone.
Did you play EvE ?
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
The tabletop long distance teleport spells come with their own weight restrictions and limited use per day. Add on a long debuff after use to prevent abuse for combat purposes and you're pretty much golden.
Putting it really far up the class training trees also helps a lot. As you would need to be focused on it to get it.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
4th: Dimension Door: Teleports you a short distance.
5th: Teleport: Instantly transports you as far as 100 miles per
level.
7th: Teleport, Greater: As teleport, but no range limit and no
off-target arrival.
7t: Teleport Object: As teleport, but affects a touched object.
8th: Word of Recall: Teleports you back to have to pay for them. designated place.
9th: Teleportation CircleM: Teleports creatures inside circle.
Dimension Door is short range (i.e. less than a hex) and thus harmless.
Word of Recall is only ever back to a single specific location and thus also fairly harmless... would allow high level Clerics and Druids to 'get home' fast, but they'd still have to take time to go anywhere else.
Teleport and the higher level versions of it are the real issue. The random off target bit could be a lot of fun if it were made an automatic feature (it is usually fairly low probability in TT). Say you want to teleport in for a battle... if you target your actual desired arrival point the random displacement around that could put you behind enemy lines. So then you might be cautious and target a point well inside your own lines... which could then be randomly displaced to where you actually wanted to go OR even further away.
In TT you can bring along one person per three caster levels... so the Wizard and up to six others. Might want to set that allowance lower for an MMO to avoid mass group transport. Teleportation circle would likely need to be excluded as it potentially allows perfect near instantaneous movement of whole armies. Teleport object might have a nice role in sending crafting materials back home safely, but that could become a problem if it were available enough to greatly reduce over-land transport of goods.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I'm wondering how GW is going to prevent Death-Travel?
In Age of Conan the easiest form of fast travel was to throw yourself off a cliff, and then choose your respaawn location.
Yes, I know, PFO has 25% loss of unthreaded inventory / gear, but that does nit prevent this mode of fast travel if you are naked or you have 100% threaded gear.
Perhaps respawn location can be randomized?
Perhaps there will be no falling damage?
Perhaps suicide for fast travel could be labeled by GW as an exploit, and obvious uses of it could be reported. (Ie. all of a sudden 25 defenders show up at respawn point in a settlement you are sacking, but they were not killed in that battle.).
I'm sure there are other ideas for solutions.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
...all of a sudden 25 defenders show up at respawn point in a settlement you are sacking...
Is there any way one could detect "throwing oneself off a cliff" as a travel method, separately from "walked up to the first monster you can see, and let him do his thing?" I've been trying to think of anything other than eyewitness reporting, which'll have its own trustworthiness difficulties accompanied by childish cries of "tattle-tale".
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Don't forget that threaded gear will sustain damage at death too. I also understood that repairing damaged gear can be a costly and time-consuming affair that needs a crafter who can actually make/repair that type of gear, up to the point that it may be more cost-effective to buy something new.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Don't forget that threaded gear will sustain damage at death too.
I'd be interested to hear about the Settlement that didn't offer to reimburse its defenders for their repair costs if they dropped everything--literally--to come to its defence at a moment's notice :-).
|
Goblinworks Executive Founder
|
I'm wondering how GW is going to prevent Death-Travel?
In Age of Conan the easiest form of fast travel was to throw yourself off a cliff, and then choose your respaawn location.
Yes, I know, PFO has 25% loss of unthreaded inventory / gear, but that does nit prevent this mode of fast travel if you are naked or you have 100% threaded gear.
Perhaps respawn location can be randomized?
Perhaps there will be no falling damage?
Perhaps suicide for fast travel could be labeled by GW as an exploit, and obvious uses of it could be reported. (Ie. all of a sudden 25 defenders show up at respawn point in a settlement you are sacking, but they were not killed in that battle.).
I'm sure there are other ideas for solutions.
-70% all characteristics against other players after death, for half an hour ?
...all of a sudden 25 defenders show up at respawn point in a settlement you are sacking...Is there any way one could detect "throwing oneself off a cliff" as a travel method, separately from "walked up to the first monster you can see, and let him do his thing?" I've been trying to think of anything other than eyewitness reporting, which'll have its own trustworthiness difficulties accompanied by childish cries of "tattle-tale".
"There wasn't a cliff on my screen." ;)