Goblin Squad Member
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I think there is one thing that people are missing that was stated in the live broadcast.
Fast mounts are more of a point A to point B type of mount. They are not used for exploring but used to get from city to city. Kind of like the old WoW fast travel. With the exception that if people know the travel routes they can sit there on the route and "knock you off".
To be able to have mounted combat and mounts that you controll and to do it how I think they would like done they would need the pet system in place first. The fast travel is just that city to city point A to point B.
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Goblin Squad Member
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3. It means it won't be released at the same time as mounted combat. Lee Hammock has stated as much. This means the same immersion breaking crap as every theme-park. Dismount to fight.
This.
Plus: Animal companions/familiars are essential to a number of builds.
Faster travel is essential to no one.
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Goblin Squad Member
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This concerns the Early Enrollment Beta, a period during which features will be added into the game. So at the beginning of the Early Enrollment Beta the game will not be feature complete and (presumably) at the end of it it will have all the features in it that are required to launch the game.
This is key, and probably needs to be made clear during every Crowforger vote. Or the actual phase we are talking about should be made clear.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Also, Andius, you make a compelling case. I don't agree with every point, but you've convinced me to change my vote from Mounts to Pets.
I've been thinking this over and I'm afraid I'm going to keep my vote on Fast Travel & Mounts.
I don't agree with your arguments that Mounts actually harm the game experience. If those arguments were true, then they should never be added, and they will clearly be added at some point.
Also, with the additional Race vote, I wasn't personally invested in the outcome, so it was appropriate for me to use my vote to try to help my friends get what they wanted. However, in this case, I am personally invested, and there is no doubt that I will eagerly make use of Fast Travel & Mounts, so I'm going to stick with that vote.
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Contributor
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Personally, my view is "both, please" but that said, a cavalier without a war horse is just sad while a wizard with a magic ring instead of a talking raven is still perfectly playable. A witch without a familiar is problematic, but it's easier to put her talking with the cat for her spells in as a cut scene rather than have to animate the cat.
Also, for verisimilitude, I'd rather see a town with horses and goat carts than a town strangely consisting only of pedestrians.
I agree with OP, however except on one thing: I think Rangers, Necros, ect should not NEED pets to be viable. I think pets should just be an option
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Goblin Squad Member
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I agree with OP, however except on one thing: I think Rangers, Necros, ect should not NEED pets to be viable. I think pets should just be an option
With the Skill system, they could easily make an Animal Companion one of the skill paths that you can choose. That is the fun of the skill system. You can "build" your ranger as you wish: off course you only have so much skill-training time to your disposal so choose wisely. Lots of training in Archery, maybe less (or none) in Animal Companion? That sort of thing.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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More reasons for pets:
• Any class in the P&P game can buy Guard Dogs, Hunting Dogs, Hawks, etc and train them. There is even a skill for it (for those who don't P&P), Handle Animal. No reason it can't be true in PFO. A Fighter with a pack of Hunting Dogs.
• It is definitely part of 4 out the 12 classes (Wizard, Druid, Ranger, Sorcerer), plus any class that Summons (which is just about every caster class)
• Depending on how the searching for Instance dungeons and other 'hidden' sites works, "Pets" can work as the equivalent to EVE probes to augment the search.
• It lays the ground for commanding humanoid NPC AI when it comes to War Time, and Monster Event time. The Monster Actors (players picked by GW) need some way of influencing their AI minions.
• It adds to the economy. The buying, selling, raising, and training for "pets", plus equipment and "pet" focused consumables almost double the number of craft-able things in the market.
The "pet" or in other words subordinate AI, is so critical it shouldn't have even been on the poll to begin with. This is the kind of sub-system that makes a game stand out from others. Especially little theme-park junk like WoW's mobile stuffed animals.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I tend to agree with the OP. I'm not in favor of anything that makes the world feel smaller, and introducing mounts (especially at low level) often has that effect. There are advantages too, but I don't see them outweighing the cons.
Even if they are allowed at higher levels, I wouldn't be opposed to seeing limits to where you could take one. Riding along an open road or even a dirt path is very different than wandering through dense brush or a bog.
I'm less opposed to fast travel, provided that
A: It only connects a handful of locations, major cities and outposts for the most part.
And
B: GW follows through on making it vulnerable to attack. The thing I want to avoid is clicking on a vendor, paying my two gold, and wandering off to make a hotpocket while a caravan whisks my avatar safely to the next city.
Fast travel should be just as exciting and dynamic as any other aspect of the game. Not just a screensaver. The exception to this might be extremely high level wizards who could specialize in mass teleports (this would need to be rare, defeats the whole purpose if everyone can do it) They could either charge for their services via gold or favors.
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Goblin Squad Member
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While I am firmly against instant travel I have no problem with mundane forms of fast travel. Well matained routes should have some sort of transport system. The rivers should have boats and barges while roadways should have carts and faster but more expensive coaches.
Mounts if introduced should be hard to get and to maintain. You should have to provide for the upkeep of your mount. Concerns such as providing fodder shoeing and stabling should come into play.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Anything that is a part of your character development has to come before things that will make playing that character a bit more convienent. Pets are a core part of some classes and should be first and then things that make playing the game "easier" came be added.Why have mounts so we can get there faster? Instead lets have more that your character can do after you arrive. I vote pets.Give the companion classes some love.
@provos
thats the thing. When you say "Pet System" you dont automatically think animal companions and familiars. You think minor combat buff and collectable pets....possibly maybe additional options for the summon spells or animate spells.
Its kinda misleading since those are core parts of several classes, so you wouldnt think that GW wouldnt make those, you would suppose that those are already in the game.
honestly they need to delete the poll and use this:
Druid/ranger/wizard animal companion/familiar
Fast travel and mount
Dieties (domains, clothes..etc)
Pet "system". implies class mechanics, combat mechanics ( also known as systems) Most MMOs have a class that uses pets to fight. its always been referred to as a system. Vanity pets that just look cool and follow you around are not a system. The problem is not the name, its player misconceptions. I saw pets and immediately voted for it as i knew at a glance what it was. But then again I play a hunter in wow, A mastermind in city of villains, a tamer in UO, A Teras kasi Master/creature handler in SWG and a necromancer in eq 1 and 2 as well as a beast lord. often times the pet mechanics get fleshed out balanced and implemented after all the other class features do as they are a separate system.
But i agree with you they should remake the pole, all the additional info on gods, mounts, pets, should have been in the very first post ryan dancey made with the poll.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'd personally prefer pets to be removed completely, but that's because it seems to me that no character can be competative without one if you can get one. And EVERYONE can dabble in Druid and get a pet. You can't get a dedication bonus, but it doesn't matter since you'll lose out on having a free second character.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@drakan
It depends. For example lets say that keeping your animal companion up to par requires greater investment in skills. So yes as a fighter i might be able to slot an animal companion, but i would lose my fighter dedication bonus. Not only that but its possible that the companion will fall behind without investment.
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Goblin Squad Member
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There's already a fast travel option available in the Pathfinder world:
http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/spells/teleport.html#teleport
It's a 5th-level spell so given that we will operate somewhere between levels 5-12 in the tabletop scale it's certainly possible to see it exist in-game.
As far as having mounts before a mounted combat system I'm OK with that, as there is a big differences between riding horses and warhorses.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm going for pets as well.
Pets - Pets are primarily animal companions for rangers and druids. It will also allow familiars and random guard dogs or other such animals to follow the players along, but those are not primary features of a class so they'll be less useful. The tech involved is all the AI for pets pathing with you plus combat AI, plus all the mechanics work balancing them and all the animations. This also makes things like hiring mercenaries or hirelings to follow you around possible since its basically the same system. Also vanity pets so you can have a random pet animal that follows you around.
The system allow classes with companions to keep more of their flavor and adds a mechanical benefit to those classes.
I do plan on rolling druid and I understand that I would have other abilities that would keep my class viable but a companion would be preferable.The "pet" system would set it up for the merchents to be able to hire gaurds and the like to help get goods back to town.
I know player could do this and would be better at gaurding, but filling out your gaurd ranks with some more lesser troops will decide more than one fight.
A pet system could be used for pack animals and the like, helping anyone who needs to move goods.
1. Pack mules and donkeys aren't mounts. So they are pets. These are what traders are going to need early in the game. Not fast mounts that can't carry much, and not expensive carts and wagons that carry far more than needed. Even it we want carts we can have mules pull them though.
I agree with this, if they allow pack animals into the pet system it would make it 100x better chioce for the economy.
How Mounts Early On Hurt Us
1. It makes a small map smaller. In many ways it doesn't matter how large a map is. The size of a map is how long it takes you to cross it. People get more out of travel and exploration if the world is revealed to them gradually, rather than handed to them quickly/easily as they gallop through it. Mounts become nessecary as the world grows. Before that they are un-needed and allow people to access content FAR too easily.
I agree though if mounts only increased speed by a minor amount like say +30% with a "gallop speed" that would increase that to 50% once every 10min for 15sec for quick escapes, it wouldn't be too bad. Just as long as mounts are moving at a reasonable speed and not 480%+ like WoW it shouldn't be horrible.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'd personally prefer pets to be removed completely, but that's because it seems to me that no character can be competative without one if you can get one. And EVERYONE can dabble in Druid and get a pet. You can't get a dedication bonus, but it doesn't matter since you'll lose out on having a free second character.
Druid skills require neutral alignment, so not exactly everyone, no.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'd personally prefer pets to be removed completely, but that's because it seems to me that no character can be competative without one if you can get one. And EVERYONE can dabble in Druid and get a pet. You can't get a dedication bonus, but it doesn't matter since you'll lose out on having a free second character.Druid skills require neutral alignment, so not exactly everyone, no.
Fine. Ranger. =P
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Goblin Squad Member
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Assuming the game has some equivalent of a 'Paladin' it seems like their warhorse would be both a 'mount' AND a 'pet'.
So, if 'mounts' go in first they'd presumably get the warhorse for quicker travel and then somewhere down the line it would suddenly develop combat / animal companion type abilities. Or the reverse if 'pets' were to be developed first (you'd have a horse following you around attacking your enemies, but you wouldn't be able to ride it until later).
Either way it is a bit odd.
Developing mounts/pets together, and separately from 'fast travel' (on roads, boats, and such) might have made more sense.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Late to the thread, but I agree with Andius. I was disappointed to see that crowdforging poll.
I think we need more information from GW. If the poll is for content at the EE release, pets are the logical choice, there's no point in a mount or fast travel until there are places to go. Pets add more to do, and increase diversity, which I think is the most important thing early on.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I was surprised when the pets were on the list. I had assumed they would be developed right alongside the archetypes that can use them, I had no idea they would be integrated at a different time.
Mounts and fast travel will be much more useful once there's a lot of player settlements with the fast travel upgrades (or at least in a position to purchase and build the upgrade). I don't particularly see a terrible amount of use until that happens, based on what GW has described it as, so I think getting pets ready first just makes more logical sense.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Fine. Ranger. =PI'd personally prefer pets to be removed completely, but that's because it seems to me that no character can be competative without one if you can get one. And EVERYONE can dabble in Druid and get a pet. You can't get a dedication bonus, but it doesn't matter since you'll lose out on having a free second character.Druid skills require neutral alignment, so not exactly everyone, no.
Well if you go ranger you are no longer just dabbling...they need to be level 4 before they gain access to an animal companion.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Well if you go ranger you are no longer just dabbling...they need to be level 4 before they gain access to an animal companion.Fine. Ranger. =PI'd personally prefer pets to be removed completely, but that's because it seems to me that no character can be competative without one if you can get one. And EVERYONE can dabble in Druid and get a pet. You can't get a dedication bonus, but it doesn't matter since you'll lose out on having a free second character.Druid skills require neutral alignment, so not exactly everyone, no.
Or are you? Keep in mind the game doesn't have strict classes and levels like the tabletop.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Fine. Ranger. =PI'd personally prefer pets to be removed completely, but that's because it seems to me that no character can be competative without one if you can get one. And EVERYONE can dabble in Druid and get a pet. You can't get a dedication bonus, but it doesn't matter since you'll lose out on having a free second character.Druid skills require neutral alignment, so not exactly everyone, no.
An evil ranger? No such critter.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Rangers can be any alignment. Ranger from the PRD.
How about that? You got me there. Senility has stricken me for sure.
Next I'll start drooling into my gruel of a morning.
I had it in my head somehow that Rangers could be any good alignment.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Also, Andius, you make a compelling case. I don't agree with every point, but you've convinced me to change my vote from Mounts to Pets.I've been thinking this over and I'm afraid I'm going to keep my vote on Fast Travel & Mounts.
I don't agree with your arguments that Mounts actually harm the game experience. If those arguments were true, then they should never be added, and they will clearly be added at some point.
Personally I think fast travel should never be added, but wether or not mounts are needed for this game is dependent on the size of the map. It should never take less then half an hour to cross the map by any form of travel.
In Darkfall Online mounts really add to the game because the map is huge. It takes a minimum of half an hour to cross the continent end to end, which leaves the ocean and all it's islands still out there. And that is on a regular speed mount.
In Mortal Online it takes about half an hour to cross the map on foot. My first character was a tamer. The first thing I did when I trained a dessert horse (fastest mounts in the game tamed on the west side of the map) was ride it over to the east side of the map. It took 5-10 minutes. That was the first time it struck me how truly tiny Mortal Online's map was. I had been to all those places on foot before but it was charging across it in the span of a few minutes that made it really sink in.
So mounts are healthy on a large map. Mounts and mounted combat should come with, or soon before the first map expansion.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Rangers can be any alignment. Ranger from the PRD.How about that? You got me there. Senility has stricken me for sure.
Next I'll start drooling into my gruel of a morning.
I had it in my head somehow that Rangers could be any good alignment.
That was second edition AD&D, gramps. Now here's your towel, and have a good day watching your shows on the tele.
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Goblin Squad Member
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There are Pros and Cons to both Mounts and Pets.. but as a fan of both in MMO's generally Im going to have to sit firmly on the fence and say "I want BOTH"! :)
So do I. I want pets, especially pack mules and donkeys, early on in the game. As the map gets larger, resource extraction grows in scale, and mounted combat is ready, I want horses, riding dogs, and carts to be introduced into the game using the breeding system already in-place.
I think pets are more important to the early health of the game, and mounts are important to the health of the larger and more developed game.
As far as I understand it we are voting on which shows up in the initial crowd-forger release or "beta" first.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It should never take less then half an hour to cross the map by any form of travel.
If we can cross the entire map in 30 minutes, even on release day with mounts, I will be highly disappointed... that's way too fast. IMO, it should not be viable to go from one side of the map to the other in a day for most people (4 hours game time or so). This gives you a real sense of local community in a game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@andius
Well fast travel is not like fast travel in wow. Basically they said that fast travel would be you on a mount traveling from A to B on a predetermined path. HOWEVER you would not be safe, so some bandits can knock you off your horse and mug you. They mentioned it in the coutdown Q and A.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The world doesn't seem too big. Didn't they say an hour end to end? It'll take longer because that's a straight line, as the map gets bigger we'll need some sort of fast travel- alternatively an offline travel method such as vanguard's aborted caravan method.
Not ideal, given the nature of PFO, but perhaps some system could be devised.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@andius
Well fast travel is not like fast travel in wow. Basically they said that fast travel would be you on a mount traveling from A to B on a predetermined path. HOWEVER you would not be safe, so some bandits can knock you off your horse and mug you. They mentioned it in the coutdown Q and A.
While that is true, it doesn't solve some major problems with it:
1. TEO is moving our military to the opposite corner of the map to take part in a battle. So this is say 50 well trained soldiers outfitted for PVP. Short of an another army, who is going to stop us? If the enemies have to spare an army that size to block our coming haven't we already had a major effect on the battle?
2. If there are so many bandits that fast travel won't be commonly used why bother with it's inclusion at all???
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Goblin Squad Member
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1) Well i dont see the issue with 50 soldiers. I mean the big issue is taking on 50 soldiers, it doesnt matter if they are riding mounts, riding fast travel mounts, or walking. At the end of the day the issue is taking out 50 players, not their method of travel
This could also be solved like this. YOu cannot stop fast travel. So lets say that 50 soldiers fast travel to City B to help. Make it so that unless you are attacked you cannot dismount. SO if some bandits attacked only 10 soldiers then only those 10 would be able to fight back. This would be a disadvantage to using fast travel
Also perhaps make fast travel not take the optimal path but the "safe" roads. So to fast travel you stop at several different settlements and such. This would also mean that the 50 folks would be seen by many many people, thus ruining their chance at suprise and the enemy can adjust to the reinforcements
2) Because its good to have, just because there would be some bandits might camp certian areas. Well this can encourage PCs to patrol the roads looking for those bandits.
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Goblin Squad Member
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1. Pets may very well be a higher priority than mounts, but "mounts will hurt us" is silly. This idea of "missing chunks of content" reflects a misunderstanding of the game concept--our interactions are the content. So if our company decides to work out a mounted light reconnaissance force, or a mounted Quick Reaction Force, or if couriers want to set up some kind of pony express or whatever, that's not missing content, it's making content.
2. Please, please, spare us this "This ain't mah first rodeo" crap. You telling us how brilliant and knowledgeable you are is a particularly clumsy rhetorical error.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If I knew where they were heading, and had a force of my own, I'd be sending raiding parties and ambushes all along the route to use up TEO's carried resources and abilities and equipment on the way :p
The raiders would probably die often, but wouldn't be carrying anything irreplaceable.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think class features for all the core classes should get done before anything else. People just have a negative reaction to the word "pets".
No animal companions is like having no rage powers, no stealth, no domains, no instruments, etc...are we all just going to play fighters the first 6 months?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Well, mounts may too hurt the game at the beginning. Figure it out: All these folks have just begun building settlements and setting up shop just far enough away that you might want to rest there, take a meal, maybe buy something at the market. They are waiting hopefully for your trade.
But everyone goes whizzing by to far places. No trade comes in. The settlement gradually withers and dies.
And all because you got your precious fast travel in a game where experience comes with the passing of time.
So what is your hurry anyway?
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Goblin Squad Member
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@being
If a settlement is so bad that people use mounts to leave guess what, they will just walk away regardless.
People will want to explore, there is nothing wrong with that. But saying that mounts will cause people to never go back to some place is just wrong, because nothing prevents them from just leaving anyway. If many people are leaving a settlement to never come back, there is an issue that is seperate than mounts, since mounts would help people want to stay at the settlement since they can use mounts to explore larger areas and then come back to the settlement.
Mounts can help trade. Ohh look im going to load my saddle bags with stone from settlement C and use my mount to transport that stone to settlement D where i know they want to make stone buildings, but all they have is timber around them.
Anyway. I totally disagree that mounts/fast travel will hurt the game.
I DO agree that animal companions and familiars and such are vastly more important than mounts and fast travel, as animal companions and familiars are iconic core parts of several classes.