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I guess the problem is not about the teleport itself. By the teleport itself, I agree with Brutus.
The problem imho is the possibility to nulify a important aspect of the game: logistical.
If mages can teleport resources, itens, artefacts, legendaries, without the risk of being attacked and lost their hold. The caravans will not even worth to try. Even if you put astronomical costs in teleport spell, in some moment there will be a trivial cost near the wanted rare resources.
We have to consider that tabletop teleport hold a chance to fail completly and send the mage to anywhere, but in TT there was not diferents groups of PCs trying to steal products from each other.
So the solution to limit the itens that can be teleported with character is the best solution (better than forbiden entire spell), maybe 1 iten or a little bit of resources at higher levels. Plus a costly reagent and a times per day to use...
Goblin Squad Member
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I don't understand this prejudice about mage's teleport. I think it's balanced by itself.
In general, casters will be able to use their abilities much more often in the MMO than they could in tabletop gaming. Just imagine a starting Wizard trying to survive and get anything done with the ability to cast 'Magic Missile' only once per day. If that same 'increased availability' of power were applied to teleport then it could indeed become a big problem. A handful of mages could teleport back and forth to move armies across the map in a short amount of time.
That said, there is no reason that teleport can't have a long 'cool down' before it can be used again. Add in limits to how many characters can be transported, don't allow 'scrolls of teleport' and similar items that would let many more people transport themselves, maybe throw in the 'off target' mechanics from TT, et cetera... I agree that teleport CAN be implemented in such a way that it doesn't disrupt the game.
Brutus, the difference between your scenarios is that there is potential for Meaningful Human Interaction while you are traveling overland, with or without guards and mercenaries, but no such potential in a wormhole.
Making teleports available means that valuable cargo will never travel overland. Making teleports expensive just raises the minimum threshold for "valuable cargo".
This depends on many other factors to be just this. For instance, will you be able to 'scan' what a caravan is transporting? If you add this mechanic, then you can add an Astral trap or blockade to protect or avoid teleportations from one point to another.
That said, there is no reason that teleport can't have a long 'cool down' before it can be used again. Add in limits to how many characters can be transported, don't allow 'scrolls of teleport' and similar items that would let many more people transport themselves, maybe throw in the 'off target' mechanics from TT, et cetera... I agree that teleport CAN be implemented in such a way that it doesn't disrupt the game.
This is what I'm saying. The PFO mechanics can't mirror the TT one, so you adapt stuff, not ban it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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This is what I'm saying. The PFO mechanics can't mirror the TT one, so you adapt stuff, not ban it.
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).
Stephen Cheney (a developer) said the exact same thing earlier in the thread. Teleporting is not off the table, but if it's in it will be very restrictive.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I imagine lvl 20 virtually invisible stealthy (can't use see invisibility against it) rogues one-shot lvl 20 mages with said swords.
Hide does not grant invisibility in PFO and there are no one shots. Sneak attack (last we heard) was simply extra damage IF your foe was fighting someone else when you hit them. Rogues cannot use slight of hand to steal anything either.
All classes need adjusting to fit into online play.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Hide does not grant invisibility in PFO...
Being stealthy will require both training and--oh frabjous day!--player thought, planning, skill, and luck as well. You'll be looking for terrain, lighting, vegetation, distractions, all the things you usually role-play at the table, because it's not just "you're not there".
Within a certain range, if they're facing you they see you (and they can train perception as well). React now to that, plan better next time.
Brutus, the difference between your scenarios is that there is potential for Meaningful Human Interaction while you are traveling overland, with or without guards and mercenaries, but no such potential in a wormhole.
Making teleports available means that valuable cargo will never travel overland. Making teleports expensive just raises the minimum threshold for "valuable cargo".
Yeah, I don't agree. It just means you can pay a premium for fast and garunteed shipping.
As a merchant? I would still take my wares over land and undercut the people paying for the fast travel, but that's just me.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think teleportation is one of those mechanics that needs to be very carefully thought out if it's being considered for implementation. It's not necessarily the instantaneous nature that's the problem but what it allows you to bypass by being so. If you can reduce what it circumvents or allow other interesting ways to 'counter' it that generates interesting game play it should certainly at least be considered.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Brutus, the difference between your scenarios is that there is potential for Meaningful Human Interaction while you are traveling overland, with or without guards and mercenaries, but no such potential in a wormhole.
Making teleports available means that valuable cargo will never travel overland. Making teleports expensive just raises the minimum threshold for "valuable cargo".
Yeah, I don't agree. It just means you can pay a premium for fast and garunteed shipping.
As a merchant? I would still take my wares over land and undercut the people paying for the fast travel, but that's just me.
If the cost+risk of overland travel (mostly time and bandit attacks) exceeds the cost of teleportation, you can't undercut them at all.
Since the risk increases with more valuable cargo (a 1% chance of being defeated costs more with more valuable cargo, plus you are more likely to get attacked with bigger forces if you are a valuable target), there is some amount of value that makes it more profitable to pay for the teleport, regardless of how expensive the teleport is.
How does EvE make it unprofitable to use their instant fleet-travel to transport equipment except into battle? I think that it's by having the arbitrage across very long distances be similar to the arbitrage over relatively short distances; there's no two points such that you could turn a profit buying at one, jumping to the other, and selling there.
I think the easy solution to the transport problem is just to prevent you from teleporting with non-threaded items, like I think Stephen Cheney said. This means you can transport groups, but they'll be poorly armed (no consumables) and probably limited in number.
I also still like my "short-term debuff" on recent teleporters as a way to prevent "scry and die"-style tactics.
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Goblin Squad Member
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How does EvE make it unprofitable to use their instant fleet-travel to transport equipment except into battle? I think that it's by having the arbitrage across very long distances be similar to the arbitrage over relatively short distances; there's no two points such that you could turn a profit buying at one, jumping to the other, and selling there.
It's not unprofitable, quite the contrary, it's a lot more profitable than it used to be. But there are some limits on it.
The first and original way was cargo space limits, you needed the really big freighters to move any significant amount of the larger cargo items. They originally couldn't use the jump mechanics. This resulted in heavily armed caravans going from high to low sec. It also caused most of the wars to be small, short, or very limited in scope.
They eventually added jump freighters that could use it, this changed the caravans to much smaller and were about setting up a short jump path that could be traversed quickly. This made it possible for the big alliances to safely move a lot of goods between high and low sec. High sec often ended up being the most dangerous part of the trip as it was the only place opponents could reliably find you, this would result in more suicide attacks in high sec.
The other big detail is that the Jump mechanic itself could not be used in High Security space where most of the 'big' market hubs were.
*Edit: I should add that the jump mechanic isn't prohibitively expensive per say, it has a relatively deep training time but once you have it and can buy ships with it, it's relatively cheap to use. However the organization required to actually use the mechanic is prohibitive, it takes two ships to make a jump, someone to go to where you want to jump and then the other guy to initiate a jump. So to make several jumps quickly you need to have a chain of people making the 'destination' point before you even start your trip.
If transportation with only threaded items is cheap, then there is a ceiling on the efficient arbitrage on threadable items.
*Pause*
*Google*Hmm...
the simultaneous buying and selling of securities, currency, or commodities in different markets or in derivative forms in order to take advantage of differing prices for the same asset.
Uh-huh...
*Wiktionary*
*Simple Engl—not an option?! F*~@*
Anyways, I think I managed to work out what you were saying. There were a lot of long words in there, Decius—we're naught but humble bandits.
Depending on how many threaded items you can thread (and I rather doubt you'll conveniently be able to thread large quantities of goods), it doesn't seem likely that teleporting would have a massive bearing on things even if it was free.
We're talking about a cooldown, remember?
"Oh, cool, it's been an hour. I can take them another piece of lumber."
with the news of how the towers are going to work and only top tier settlements are going to have wizards available to transportation spells? I am thinking it is more of a non issue for the masses and only the top tier merchants would be using teleportation as a means to transport goods.
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Goblin Squad Member
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...only top tier settlements are going to have wizards available to transportation spells?
The Tower-War's going to exist only for a few months. That time may not be long enough for anyone to have teleportation spells; GW's said they need to be very careful with those, so they may be significantly outside the Minimum Viable Product definition, and may not be with us at all for a while.
...only top tier settlements are going to have wizards available to transportation spells?The Tower-War's going to exist only for a few months. That time may not be long enough for anyone to have teleportation spells; GW's said they need to be very careful with those, so they may be significantly outside the Minimum Viable Product definition, and may not be with us at all for a while.
True, but then settlements will be tied to POI (mines/farms/dugneons) to affect their levels as well.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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If transportation with only threaded items is cheap, then there is a ceiling on the efficient arbitrage on threadable items.*Pause*
*Google*
Hmm...
the simultaneous buying and selling of securities, currency, or commodities in different markets or in derivative forms in order to take advantage of differing prices for the same asset.
I didn't mean to be incomprehensible, even though I was summarizing a point that required a fair bit of background information to understand.
Essentially, without teleportation of any kind, if +5 truesilver longswords require a lot of '+300 truesilver sword blanks', which require a large amount of '+300 truesilver ore', which is only found in one area (and no other rare materials), then the market price of those swords will be low where it is easy to get the materials to make them, and high everywhere else.
The price of truesilver ore and sword blanks will follow a similar trend, especially if they can be used to produce other items.
If teleportation to and from the settlement that produces truesilver swords takes 2 hours and some amount of coin or commodity, then the maximum price of a truesilver sword -anywhere- drops to roughly the price at the location of manufacture plus two hours of labor and the cost of the teleportation component. (Less, if there's anything one can do during the cooldown (including log off or eat lunch) or if there's anything else than can be moved in the same transportation.
Now, it's possible that that ceiling on the price of truesilver longswords is higher than the price set by overland transportation- in which case few people use the teleport and they aren't economically significant. But the price of overland transportation varies with bandit behavior, and one of the very, very meaningful human interactions is when bandits cause widespread economic disruption simply by banditing.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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How does EvE make it unprofitable to use their instant fleet-travel to transport equipment except into battle?
It doesn't, it is a common strategy, at least were I used to play. I used my carrier to transport cargo from a 0.4, directly to our secured pocket. And it wasn't even a cargo ship...
Okay, I think I get you, and I don't totally disagree. Thanks for stopping to explain—my reading comprehension is kind of crappy.
You make a good point—teleportation removes banditry from the equation and turns into a "maximum price"—if banditry's cost goes above it, to the teleportation wizard! In other words, goodbye to price variety.
On the other hand, though, the cooldown I mentioned was just a random number. A 4-hour or 8-hour window might be enough to make teleportation flat-out unreasonable for goods transportation. I think teleportation with such aims needs to be completely ruled out in favor of teleportation for military purposes—also approached with caution, obviously.
I would like to see teleport be a feature of the game just as important as fireball or the like. No more, no less.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If this game is TOO stingy on the conveniences, it'll just feel like a 1999 release. There are ways to add conveniences without breaking the economy. Like everything else, it just needs some thought.
I think the key is defining which conveniences actually enhance the game, and which don't.
Teleportation is a nearly essential convenience if you are building a theme-park. The core of your game up until end game raiding and PvP arenas is running around the map accomplishing different tasks. Remove teleportation and your game becomes too much running and too little doing tasks you actually enjoy.
One of the core elements of most sand boxes is that you can have a very complete experience spending 90%+ of the time in your little corner of the map. For those who hate the long travel times the answer is simple: don't travel. For the traders and explorers among you there is a massive map to be had not cheapened by the ease of quick travel times.
There are other things like having to re-roll your character to change your active abilities or having to do all trading through a trade window that have proven to be inconvenient and overly tedious in every format.
TL:DR- PFO needs to be defining which conveniences are and aren't needed for the product it intends to deliver. Not blindly accepting all conveniences popular in other MMOs.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I find myself agreeing with Andius a lot today.
My personal opinions lean toward eliminating instant travel altogether, though I've no issue with mounts. The problem with teleportation or other forms of "instant arrival" is that you'll just end up with a few big alliances and every battle will have the same people involved, just at a different location.
Making instant travel expensive doesn't dissuade the dominating forces from using it, only the lesser forces that need to more strongly consider how to spend their money.
There are probably solutions, but I also like things that encourage local play and make exploration a real choice.
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Goblin Squad Member
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TL:DR- PFO needs to be defining which conveniences are and aren't needed for the product it intends to deliver. Not blindly accepting all conveniences popular in other MMOs.
I agree with this - but I'd just add that people also shouldn't immediately dismiss certain conveniences because they have concerns X, Y, and Z without first thinking about whether those concerns can be mitigated. For example if someone says "No Teleport" because it ruins caravans and tradelines, then making you appear with only your threaded items addresses that.
If there are other reasons that simply cannot be mitigated, then that's another story.|
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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The thing is, just like Andius says, long distance travel is a convenience in themepark, because you actually need to come and go to the specific attraction of the moment.
But in a Sandbox, you don't need to. There is no need for a "convenience", because you have what you need around you, for "immediate" entertainment. You need to travel on long distance only for specific purposes like commerce, war, or to tap in some rare resources in foreign territories. But these cases are supposed, to be complicated and formidable adventures, to make it more "convenient", is just defeating the purpose of this enterprise.
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I don't know if this has been discussed but what if fast travel can only follow paths of paved roadways or guarded roadways? That way it represents the ease of travel on these highways and allows secluded fiefs and barracks and whatnot who don't have these nice options an advantage to being so off the beaten path.
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Goblin Squad Member
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This isn't just a Sandbox though. There are still very much theme park elements. If you question this look at the middle of the map and check out the Emerald Spire.
I also doubt that every theme park major event will be localized either. You'll need to get down to Toad Hollow if you want to see a or take part in Bullywug escalation for example. A dragon rampaging across the crusader road region will not be everywhere, and people all over the map will want to get to the dragon and take part in the event.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm pretty sure this is a sandbox, actually. They aren't planning big Themepark like dungeons for a looooong time, and if they add them, then it adds to the importance of those settlements. Teleport (or other forms of really rapid fast travel) would throw off the main engine of PFO: conflict between settlements and meaningful local politics and markets.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As has been discussed before the death mechanics of the game disrupt all of that just fine.
Stop lumping all possible teleportation and fast travel mechanics together like they are the same, they're not.
Markets, only teleport with equipped gear.
Conflict, long term debuff after teleportation.
Both, difficult to access through extensive training, and limit teleportation to one person at a time.
The world opens up, which is a very good thing. You want people to see your accomplishments. And you don't destroy the delicate balance of the game.
I see teleport hate in the tabletop community. People claims it ruins stories. My response is always that it serves to facilitate stories and it takes a terrible GM to not be able to tell a story with teleporters. The only restriction that you need is for it to be a very advanced technique that few people will ever learn.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I feel like exploration is a weak argument, that's gone from seriously game play in like a week. We already have the starting map for crying out loud. We're not exactly charting the new frontier or mapping the amazon.
If you consider exploring just finding random stuff out in the wilderness why isn't that it's own reward/activity? Why is that a pillar of daily activities that must be experienced? I would thnk if most people used generic quick travel options it would make exploration activities more interesting and rewarding for the people specifically engaging in that behavior.
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Wishful thinking.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The only restriction that you need is for it to be a very advanced technique that few people will ever learn.And that simply can't be done in an MMO. If it provides an advantage, people will learn it. If it can be done, it will be done, and it will become common place.
Yes, because everyone will take a two year break from their normal play style to get it. People seem to forget the timescale that advancement happens in PFO.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Yes, because everyone will take a two year break from their normal play style to get it. People seem to forget the timescale that advancement happens in PFO.The only restriction that you need is for it to be a very advanced technique that few people will ever learn.And that simply can't be done in an MMO. If it provides an advantage, people will learn it. If it can be done, it will be done, and it will become common place.
10,000 players in early enrollment, day one. Lets say that after two years, half of the accounts are still active. And lets further say that that exactly 1/7th of the players went with wizard. We've now got around 714 wizards who can cast teleport. Or about 21 per settlement. That is only counting week one Early Enrollment. Those numbers go up every month after that.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Yes, because everyone will take a two year break from their normal play style to get it. People seem to forget the timescale that advancement happens in PFO.The only restriction that you need is for it to be a very advanced technique that few people will ever learn.And that simply can't be done in an MMO. If it provides an advantage, people will learn it. If it can be done, it will be done, and it will become common place.
If nobody does X, why program X?
Who is going to spend the XP/time to train a useless teleport that has a prohibitively costly material component?
In closing off most of the loopholes, the intended use cases have also been closed.
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10,000 players in early enrollment, day one. Lets say that after two years, half of the accounts are still active. And lets further say that that exactly 1/7th of the players went with wizard. We've now got around 714 wizards who can cast teleport. Or about 21 per settlement. That is only counting week one Early Enrollment. Those numbers go up every month after that.
All of that is also assuming that every one of the day 1 Wizards go pure 100% Wizard build, I'm sure that not NEARLY half of them wont have picked up a second Role to "round things off."
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Yes, because everyone will take a two year break from their normal play style to get it. People seem to forget the timescale that advancement happens in PFO.
I had an EvE account just for that. I had another one, just for my carrier, an other one just to play with my Vindicator, an other one just for the fleet mining bonus to be afk in a POS to help the miners of my pocket. And an other one, more versatile. Do you believe that I was an exception ? If yes, you are gravely mistaken.
Maybe that you won't do it, and then I don't really know why you want it, but if there is teleport, I can tell you for sure that I will have a character just for that from day one. And I'm not that much of an hardcore player.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Some thoughts from being a player in various games with fast travel:
- Players will pay a lot for fast travel.
- Even a small increase is worth it to a player, since it gives them more play time.
- Big speed increases significantly alter the play experience, often in a bad way. (It removes content.)
So I would suggest keeping the speed buffs really low - like the bonuses you get from better gear are much lower than in other games. They don't need to be big to be worth it.
E.g. A pack mule gives +20% move speed, a riding horse +40%, a (hideously rare) thorough-breed horse +60%.
Honestly, you could probably halve those bonuses for a game, bit it becomes a bit too unrealistic…
(After all, equines are sprinters, good at short bursts, but trained humans can run down horses by jogging long distances after them. Their 'strategic' speed is not that good.)
The big advantage of horses is that you don't need to carry food for them, their encumbrance capacity can be all cargo, since they can eat ambient flora.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Mentioned above is traders using the large world to transport goods. A serious premium should be charged for goods that are trekked across the game world if they cannot be found locally. There is a cost to transporting merchandise, and teleportation removes the difficulty, and the associated costs. I am still voting very limited to zero fast travel. Mounts are a different story altogether and have many uses, but they should not imbalance the game when implemented.