Random Encounter Survey

If they do as they said in the hangout yesterday, we will all want to have these random encounters.

It will be a blessing to find a random encounter because there might be more resources or some loot that we might not otherwise find elsewhere.

They also said they will make the scenes different. Right now they are using basic scenes. So don't worry they addressed this issue in the dev chat.

So random encounters were a pain in this release but in the future they may even be sought after. People might wander the over land map just to find some.

 

@enderandrew World map has nothing to do with instancing or benefits you are suggesting. I understand that is what you are told, but it is not true. The entire world could function with Lunar Gates just as well. Think about it. That is how you get around to half places now. So there is no reason for overhead map other than I believe the creators believe it adds value, which it does not. If you disagree please tell me what value it adds to the game?

You can argue that encounters system (when it is done) will be exciting and amazing. Is this really important? Is that what we players originally asked for? To build random encounter maps and systems? Or perhaps time, money and resources would be better spent building more interesting cities, zones, dungeons and expanding actual game content faster?

I am a harsh critic but I also have a viable solution. Make world map just a map and allow people to teleport to any cities they have already discovered. Cities should allow you to walk out of them and immediately load new adventure zones instead of taking player back to map. For example walking out of Owl's Head Village on south side should load Owl Bandit Cave area which itself has a discoverable entrance into the actual Bandit Dungeon zone. Far away and exotic locations should be linked from certain zones by Lunar Gates.

Everything I propose is doable now and makes 100% sense once you wrap your head around it. It saves time for development to focus on better things, makes better use of world map and also improves game experience by providing a more "real" sense of moving around the world by actually walking from zone into zone (the same way you can enter dungeon zones now from other zones). All of this can all be done now. No extra work needed, but someone on product team has a major tunnel vision on the whole world map movement concept. The proposals and solutions are not actual solutions. They are lipstick applied to a pig. And this concerns me a lot...

 

A world map is more immersive than a series of lunar gates, and it also allows random encounters. If everything was just connected by Lunar Rifts, you'd never have a feel for how far two places are apart, or how close they are.

Some have argued for an open, seamless world, which is practically impossible given the way this game is designed with instances. A two-scale map with instances is inherently tied to the design, which in turn does give us the overland map.

I would not suggest the devs are telling us things that are not true.

 

@enderandrew To me world map is not immersive, it breaks the sense of immersion. If it was so immersive, people would love it and it would certainly not be one of very first telethon discussion points.

And yes, some information being told is not true. There is no real need for walkable map. By simple logic you can certainly understand that walking out of one zone can then just load the next zone. It works like this already for many areas (all dungeon entrances for example).

I do agree on concept of distance perceived you argue for, but when I weigh the pluses and minuses of having the concept of distance VS having to deal with walking around a map, I would take the not walking the map any day. I also think this could be mitigated by linking a series of zones to get places. For example: Owl Village Zone -> Exit South -> Dirt Road Zone with few Bandits Zone -> Bandit Camp Zone -> Bandit Dungeon Zone

Surely that will feel like some distance travelled. And to get to far cities, use the map to teleport to cities and other major central points.

Finally, Lunar Gates can be used to reach islands and exotic places (other world planes).

I welcome all constructive feedback and arguments for and against my proposal.

 

Currently I have to say I dislike it. As you said the events seem pointless. Kill a bunch of wolves and nothing? Get dropped into a bunch of spiders, get overwhelmed and die, game resurrects you at that same point and if you're lucky you can get away to re-group, otherwise you get swarmed and die again.
Second, you spawn into a "random" encounter and someone else is in the process of clearing it out or it's already been cleared out. HUH?!?!?

 

About random encounter i do agree with many of you : given for granted they will change a lot from what we have now, i would love to wander on a "alive" map. Weird stuff can happen, exotic npcs, quests which you can only get in encounters, rare/epic encounters with unique items ( maybe rares vendors with cool stuff), scary bandits bands etc...

About the map itself it not necessary a bad thing.
Any of you did play neverwinter nights 2 storm or zehir dlc? In that game (not only in that game but well...) while wandering on the map - beside encounters - the skills of your party influenced what you could find. Example : the rogue with lockpicking finds chests, characters with high spot skill hiddens sacks or holes in the ground, druids exotic animals to tame and so on. That was actually pretty fun, imagine wandering around and spotting a huge hunting ground with animals having expensive skins because you have a high field dressing skill; or finding a huge cave with ores you can mine; a wood with exotic wood and so on...

That would be a kickass map )