Am I the only one who thinks the game is too slow paced?

Assuming you mean in the Overworld, not a whole lot. It does make the world "feel" smaller when you can cross it in leaps and bounds, though. That's a shortcoming of the world design, though; slow travel speed, tedious traveling and grinding to make a game feel longer or bigger is amateur grade smoke-and-mirrors.

In an instance, though, faster speed would mean issues in combat, particularly PvP. Even for PvE, though, the monsters would have to be adjusted accordingly, and some casuals might not be able to handle it.

 

@Sonnington,

If you're talking about on the overland map, there are a lot of reasons why travel speed could be important to gameplay. If you're running away from someone who's hunting you, it matters what routes you take; whether you go through a forest or over a road. The slower you're traveling, the more encounters you'll run into. The travel also has to be sync'ed up a bit with how fast time passes in cities, so traveling across the map from city to city takes many days/nights, while traveling across a city doesn't. It also needs to be that way so things like hunger matter more when you're travelling on the map than when you're travelling in a scene. When I go from city to city, I should get hungry faster. Time factors could also easily play a role in quests: someone asks you to do an errand, and you get to the place late, which triggers an event. It could also impact strategy in PvP conflicts that take place over the map. All in all, going from place to place on the map could be an important and meaningful part of gameplay.

None of that would mean travel would need to be slower than it has to be, but there's a certain speed you have to make travel work, to make all of the rest of that stuff work well, too.

If you're talking about travel time within cities, its the same thing. There's a certain speed I think you have to make travel work, to make everything else in the game work.

The fact that there are a lot of empty houses is a problem; but I'm hoping we're going to see more activity in cities; vendors, events, travelling peddlers, more NPCs, etc. by the time the game is ready for launch.

I think all of the other content is whats important, and its basically what justifies the travel speed.

 

this would be the PERFECT time for a developer to straighten this out : vision VS speed VS content, but mainly where *is* this going? 8/
these are all valid questions and ideas. there's a lotta factors, too. that 200 million to be complete vs. 7 million episode one complete. The reported skeleton crew. I read that no one wants to put out a junk product, but how long can you wait until industry passes you by a little? i mean in ref. to the tree walls/gimmick idea, that kinda thing. (lol air battles vietnam uses air walls, made me giggle cuz they look horribly rubix cube-ish. like when St:tng meets Q for the first time and gets spaced in. oh shnizzle, that was the 90's too. *sigh* i give up)

the last time i grumbled for a page, and got a response quite quickly. I am unwilling to do it again yet... someone else's turn?

The Hendoman

 

That could be an issue. I think it's something most people can get over though. I'm not arguing for breakneck speeds. What prompted me to make this topic was how I recently played Torchlight 2 from the current humble bundle. The character move speed is absolutely perfect and it made me realize just how slow Shroud feels. Then again, it's also a top down Diablo-like hack-n-slash.

@redfish
I think the things you mentioned are more pacing issues than issues with higher base movement speed. Also, just to clarify, when I say empty houses I'm including player owned houses. Sure I can walk through it and see your book shelves and that sort of thing. But if there's no NPC, it feels empty to me. That's just my take on it.

 

@Sonnington,

Yea, but I expect that there'll be player vendors by the houses, selling things.. I also think travelling peddlers and street vendors with NPCs would be good. That space definitely needs to be used & active. I don't disagree about that.

Its all pacing issues, but they have to sync up with what you're trying to accomplish with the game. Map travel speed has to sync up the right way with travel speed within scenes, and it all has to sync up with the length of a day in the game. Also, if there are going to be a lot of encounters, my guess is that people would actually find them less annoying where the travel speed is slow, so one doesn't happen right after another. Fast travel speed would mean quick encounter speed, too. If someone is chasing you over the map, you also have to be given enough time to have the luxury of last-minute decisions. So if a player was chasing me, I would be grateful for the fact that travel was relatively slow, because fast-paced travel would be a more hectic chase.

I'm concerned about the closeness of towns to each other for issues other than pacing, too. Its good if the world feels large, and there are a lot of nooks and crannies to explore, and going from town to town means something. Vast areas of wilderness to play in and long arduous roads I think would be nice; a good playspace for travel. If everything in the world feels compacted, then it really isn't about travel and exploration, but going from scene to scene, and being interrupted by encounters. Honestly, I personally think the game world would play a lot better if it were twice the size it currently is, and the spacing between towns were twice the size. That would, of course, necessitate interesting gameplay during travelling. Horses and mounts would also be more important to put in. But I think the game would play a lot better if all that were accomplished.

Ultimately, there's nothing bad with a slow-paced game, though, IMO. Slow-paced doesn't mean an unfun or tedious game. Some games are fast-paced and others slow-paced.

 

Beta blockers and benzodiazepines are good for reducing the sensation that this game is too slow. It is all a mater of perspective. Whst one persson sses as one thing anothar sees as another thxng.

If the game is too slow paced for you maybe you just think to fast! Like I said there are percriptions to treat that.

HAHAHAHAhahahahaahah

 

I'm waiting for somebody to ask me why beta blockers will help with this.

Another thing---- If you slow down your thinking then you will see more stuff too. The brain filters out a lot of stuff. The faster paced a game, a video, or whatever is the more you filter out in order to focus on what is important.

I saw a show about the brain and they had you try to find an open seat on a crowded bus. Everything was fine, until they showed us the scene again and said "DID YOU NOTICE THE GUY IN THE GORILLA SUIT IN THE FRONT SEAT?" nope I missed that the first time.

HAHahah

 

Or they can leave it as is for those that do think this *is* (nearly) the right pace... Problem is that people will NEVER agree on what would be the right speed, and because there is a big online part to this game, they'll need to balance it for the entire community...

BTW: I seriously *do* think they should decrease the scale of the Avatar on the overland map a bit... It's too big in relationship to the rest... Not by much, but still!

And there will be more meaningful content when we reach release too...

 

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/walk-dont-run.24065/unread

and there's this, too..

The Hendoman

 

You can purposefully ignore the comments all you like, but I have serious worries about this game becoming popular main-stream.

 

Shroud does move rather slow. I'm hoping as the game progresses faster methods of travel such as horses (mounts), gates, Tesla Model S P85D, teleportation, and such will remedy the slow pace.

Walking around is a time sink. Time sinks, generally are not fun. Kind of like American football, you have a three hour game but only 30 minutes of action.

That said, exploration is important, but how many times should we have to commute the same routes in game to reach our place of enjoyment? I commute an hour to work, the last thing I need is another commute.

 

interesting. You obviously never paid attention to american football. It is probably the most stratigic of all of the popular sports. While Futbol, Basket Ball, MMA etc all have stratigy, american football is like playing a game of chess with human pieces, and random events. It is also each team is made up of a vast diversity of altheticism and skills. Not many sports have so many different kinds of altheletes working together for a common goal. In Futbol players are the same build for the most part, and basket ball has some players who are taller than others but even then most players are roughly the same. Combat sports like boxing, wrestling, Judo, and MMA have weight classes and if there is a team they compete one at a time. Not even Rugby has as much diversity on the field, nor is it as complex as American Football. (I didn't say inferior... it is just different).

American Football is different, but it is anything but 30 minutes of action. Unless the game is a one sided blowout there is plenty of suspense, and the game requires each player to go 100% each play, regroup, make the next stratigy, line up and make any last minute calls to adjust for the opponent's configuration. Each player's role is different and they all must execute properly. If one player makes a huge blunder it can mean a score for the other team, reguardless of where they are on the field. So there is also a very high level of percision in American Football. Play books are massive as well. Coaches use computers to generate statistical analysis on each team they play, even at the college level.

Do yourself a favor and start watching it. Learn what is going on and you might find that it is one of the most entertaining sports of them all.

 

Thank you but, no thank you.

If I want a sport with strategy I'd rather have one with 20 pounds of steel on all contestants.

 

Timelord I am a lifetime Steelers fan, having been born in PA.

I agree American football is the most strategic sport focused on gaining inches with advanced team tactics for each play.

Still a three hour game is about 30 minutes of action. That said watching basketball (no tactics really), baseball and soccer bore me to death, no other spectator sport counts well I do enjoy some female tennis matches.