Passes are a bad game mechanic

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Oyjord Hansen, Mar 29, 2018.

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  1. Oyjord Hansen

    Oyjord Hansen Avatar

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    I'm no expert on the moongates, but it seems you have to wait about 12 mins for the next destination to rotate in, and it may not even be the one you want.
     
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  2. Lord Tachys al`Fahn

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    Yes there is some time involved, but if you're worried about gear damage due to dying, or gold loss because of the toll, then go do something until the gate you wish to catch is ready, until you are a high enough level to be able to handle the pas scenes. (Hint: It's not even that high a level to be able to take on most of the passes.) (Second hint: There is one pass that only takes time to get through, if you are observant).
     
  3. Numa

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    There should be celestial events which make teleportation scrolls unreliable and also affect the pass mages by making them hike their fee up (because it makes their job harder).

    I have so many "friends" in my friends list now that bypassing the passes is more often than not trivial. It shouldn't be trivial.
     
  4. Rowell

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    Personally, I'm not a fan of the current form of Control Point. It's merely a wave battle that increases in difficulty, ad nausium.
    It's like a grind where the mobs come to you (instead of you running around the area looking for them).

    From a design perspective, I would like to see a control point area split into 3 different lanes, like so:

    Entrance
    . . . . | . . .
    . / . .|. . \
    .1 . . 2 . . 3
    . \ . .| . ./
    . . . . | . . .
    . . .Exit .

    Your group enters the area and picks a lane to clear. Combat ensues. Wave after wave come. After every X number of waves, you get a reward and the difficulty increases for the next group of waves. Continue to the last wave where the "Boss" (could be a solo mob, or an "elite" group of mobs) comes out. Defeat the final wave and that Pathway is clear for the next X number of hours (or until another path is cleared. Then the path becomes active).

    Each path could have a different layout, different mobs, different "puzzles"/challenges to deal with during the encounter. You could even scale each path so that different levels could tackle them (like Path 1 is Adv Level 20-40, Path 2 is 41-80, and Path 3 is 81+, for example).

    So, for example, if Group A clears Path 1 (which will remain clear for, say 2 hours) and Group B comes along and starts clearing Path 2....the moment Group B clears Path 2, Path 1 becomes active again, and Path 2 is clear for the next 2 hours.
     
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  5. 2112Starman

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    The dev's called it "regional economies" several years ago and while they moved to it little bit, my general though is that they gave up on it a while ago. You were supposed to be able to only find certain stuff in each region and the pass's were a restriction mechanism to try and make trade between them worth it with "trade routes". Those also really never materialized. A lot of that is probably game population, if they end up having a ton of people play this game then it makes more sense.

    The key to them is to raise your dash skill and get a fleet flute and just run through them in less then a minute.

    For me, they never bother me now. While I recall a lot, I've probably only used 1 teleport scroll in the past year, its easy to run everywhere with the fleet flute.
     
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  6. DAKelam1

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    This 100% plus add in the fact that other than getting in/out of drachvauld and the area where resolute is you never have to actually go through a pass to get places.....passes just give a more direct route and as has been said with the exception of Vauban pass are quite easy to run through as are all sieges btw
     
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  7. Barugon

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    I have my bind point in spite. ;)
     
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  8. Cordelayne

    Cordelayne Bug Hunter

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    I use them all the time, but yes, they can be a bit time consuming. It's for this exact reason that I use @Elwyn Lunar Rift Tracker. It helps immeasurably! See below:

    http://xi6.com/i/sotaclock.html
     
  9. Thulmor Kingslayer

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    It’s my first week and adventure lvl 51 and I can demolish tier 5 passing zones. Now if I can attached by 3 or more mobs would become a problem but as I am just passing and clip a few mobs assuming I 1v1 or 1v2 tier 5 mobs isn’t a problem so yeah it’s easily doable.
     
  10. Last Trinsic Defender

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    All passes are lvl5 and you can run through without even a fight. On the other hand a bunch of mages can bring you down quickly. The skulls at the entrance are merely a possible direction the fight-intensity is expectable.
     
  11. Pounce

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    I thought a little longer about it and i have to say, passes should be there and they make it all the sweater if you can cross them.

    I would even go so faar and reduce teleportion and moongates pretty much.

    In Everquest before everyone was able to just poof to anywhere we bitched a lot about "long traveltimes" but it gave an sense of vasteness and you had to plan your route sometime even depending on day or night.

    Going places meant something

    I wonder if many people in Sota know where places are really on the map with all this using scrolls and what not, it is kinda sad, we could do away with the map and you just pop open an menu and selct what map you want to poof to.

    Folks, ease of travel is not the point here, you are playing an adventure game, not an "select location and press button |" game.
     
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  12. Cora Cuz'avich

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    Nightshade Pass is only tier 3. And if you jump in the lake and swim, you'll avoid almost half of it.

    You can get around pretty easily, except for Drachvald. You can walk between Longfall, Verdantis, North Paladis, Regalis, and Midmaer, Grunvald, and Quel. Alternately, You can take a ferry between Longfall (Aerie) and Elysium, and between Elysium (Xenos) and Quel (Etceter). There is a ferry outside Central Brittany that will take you to Hidden Vale. You can run through Nightshade Pass very easily even at really low levels(tier 3, plus you can swim much of it) to get from Midmaer to South Paladis. Perennial Coast is a little trickier- get to Quel by any route, then take the (overworld) mountain pass that's guarded by a troll. If you're lucky, somebody else just ran through and the troll is not there. If you're not lucky (or playing solo/friends) the troll will pull you into an adventure scene. You start the scene on a bridge. There's a troll at either end, but they are far enough away that they won't see you. Wait until one of the trolls is looking the other way, then run. Even when I was really low level, I could usually get out before the troll managed to spot me and start chucking rocks. I think he caught me with one once, which at really low levels probably means death, but there are ankhs at either end. The scene is really small, so focus-running plus Sprint or Dash should be enough to get through.

    Drachvald is the only tricksy one to get to without using a lunar rift. I think you can get there via a route through Blood Bay, if you're okay with PvP. Otherwise, there's just Vauban Pass. There is a route that's fairly easy- you can climb the mountains in the SW of the map to skip the fortress in the center, just be careful of the corpions and earth elementals. There's some high level undead and bandits on the other side. Once you know the path, you should be able to run past all of them without dying, but it might take you an attempt or two to learn the route so you don't run into a dead end.
     
  13. Last Trinsic Defender

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    And how does this say something against my statement? I wrote the skulls say nothing and you can go through easy or not. Depends on luck and personal avoide-skill.
    Btw: You can get 3-4 thugs at Nightshade Pass entry and get killed easily under a certain level.
     
  14. 2112Starman

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    Those passes have been largely unchanged since I started playing the game before persistence. So, I probably lvled my char up from 1 to 80 every release for 15ish releases. I found that it only took a few hours (maybe 4) of game play before I was high enough level to run through them. I've just never had this issue getting through pass's how they are designed now.

    Now, every once in a while some jokers leave the pressure point spawn mobs sitting there and those things can take me out even now if Im not watching.
     
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  15. Elwyn

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    I've heard they want to put a monster in the lake. That should be entertaining.
    I've been playing since R20. Vauban was un-cloned after persistence, and I don't think it was the previous version before that, maybe it was an open passage on the map? Another was just a wall. I'm surprised that the one at the west end of Perennial is still open with only a troll encounter to guard it. If someone else just popped the troll, it's wide open.
     
  16. golruul

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    I agree that passes are a bad game mechanic, but not because of the difficulty from a starting player point-of-view (although this is a valid concern) -- my problem with the passes is that after you learn the fast way through, the whole thing just becomes a waste of the player's time. Why is my time being wasted with two loading screens and 1-2 minutes of running through? There's nothing interesting in those zones (to me) and there is nothing to accomplish there. Why am I forced to waste 2-3 minutes of time?

    Lunar rifts aren't an answer to this because I waste even more time waiting for the proper alignment. I do use teleport scrolls to random people, but I suspect this isn't what it was meant for.

    This is the same problem why those wandering encounters are just a complete waste of player time. What's the point of one-shot bandits or skeletons that don't give anything worthwhile, ever? Why are the players forced to waste 2-3 minutes of their time on this? "Oh, but Golruul, you can avoid the encounters by going off the road!" So now I have to waste more time (by leaving the faster movement road) so I can avoid the waste-of-time encounters? Why?

    Maybe passes and random encounters had lofty design goals, but the only real practical effect is to waste people's time. My time is valuable, so please stop trying to waste it.

    And for the record, I'm actually okay with having to do overworld travel. I'm just against these artificial barriers that just exist to waste player's time.
     
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  17. Cora Cuz'avich

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    It's nitpicky, I know.
     
  18. Nietzsche

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    Personally I don't think the passes are broken, rather the ease of being able to use a simple teleport or recall scroll to get where you want. Scrolls are the broken mechanic. There would be too much outcry if they removed them though so I don't know what the solution would be
     
  19. eli

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    It's just a really simple speedrun. i've never had a problem running straight through these, even when i was a total noob (which was before we had a map to show us the way).

    in-fact, having a player-skill challenge is pretty refreshing compared to the character-skill limits on literally everything else when you're new.

    i've seen clips of people running a level 1 through. level 1 dash and hugging cover is smart enough for any mob in this game, except maybe the 3 sisters.
     
  20. Orlac

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    They force you to think of another way.....think.
     
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