Are travel times reasonable?

I just timed a walk from Owl's Nest to Verdantis Foothills, which took me 13 minutes. That includes running through two passes without engaging anything, and one 3 minute crash while entering and leaving areas.

Is this reasonable? Basically spending a 1/4 hour just to get to an area I want to engage in?

 

You did choose a far away place.. why not choose a closer place? What's in Verdantis Foothills? There are plenty of tier 5 zones, many closer to you and if you'd like some suggestions?

 

Silver and Rubies...

... and remember, that is one-way, so if I want to end up back at my house, I'll spend close to a 1/2 hour just in worthless travel.

 

I haven't timed it, but I think the route I would have chosen is shorter:
Ferry on Overworld map from Kingsport to Britanny
South and then west to Etceter
Ferry to Elysium
Ferry to Aerie
North across Blood River

 

Yes it is. That is not very long at all to travel. I used to spend an hour on travel at some points in my EQ life, including waiting on boats. Time yourself running from 1 side of the world to the other in Ultima Online. If anything make the world larger, let the regions be diverse and spread out some. If it were up to me i'd make the travel times even longer in some instances.

 

Yea, but that's intentional. Resources are set up intentionally so if you're in one area of the map, its easier to farm resources in that area, and you have to go out of your way to farm other resources in other areas. That way people in one area can farm rubies, and in another, sapphires, and they can trade. That sets up the regional economy.

But I think travel times are very generous. It doesn't take 13 minutes to walk from one place to another; the Novia map last I timed it is around 4 minutes across, though going in odd routes, which going to Verdantis can be, can adds some minutes to that. If you're complaining about crashes, and load screen times, and meaningless activities at control points, then I'm with you.

 

I play EVE Online, I'd call a 13 minute travel time to cross the world incredibly reasonable... having manually jumped from deep within the Stain region back to Jita more than once, I can tell you that it takes about 45 minutes to do and that's in an interceptor fit for blockade running (layman's terms, a really god damn fast and hard to catch ship). That's not even half-way across their explorable universe, and for about 35 of those 45 minutes you're travelling through no-security space which means you can be shot on sight without any sort of NPC intervention.

13 minutes is a pretty short amount of time as far as MMO's go. The longest flight path in World of Warcraft takes something like 11 minutes to complete. Since a lot of features in WoW are built specifically for convenience and Shroud of the Avatar has a different philosophy on travel, I'd say that 13 minutes seems pretty fair. It makes you think about where you want to put your home, but also makes it feasible to travel across the world from where you live for the purpose of adventuring/whatnot and not take up most of your play time in travel (I AM LOOKING AT YOU, EVE ONLINE!).

 

Seems very reasonable to me. Cross the continent in 13 minutes with a crash? That's fine.

 

I used to do that in a covert-ops outfitted Anathema. Loved that ship.

 

Travel times should take a little longer.

 

I actually agree with this, but can you imagine the furor?

 

Was that adding in all the load times too? If it wasn't for all the loading screens we have to go through it wouldn't take nearly as much time. I don't have a problem with travel being long if I'm doing something more than just staring at load screens half the time. In this game I would prefer a rune system, where I can recall back to places I have visited. I'm all for a rune system like we had in UO. Even with a nice system and Sota on an ssd the loading screens are still too long and kill too much playtime.

 

I actually enjoy the current system. It's more realistic and forces you to really plan out they best place for you bind and also the best route to take to get to your destination. For example, the fastest might not be the safest right? One might choose to avoid control points and take the longer "safer" route. Or the opposite, forego ones safety for expediency. It's also great because I like exploring new scenes i haven't checked out yet due to previously zoning everywhere. In an ideal world I would hope for a maximum of two bind points, this would give us a little more flexibility while not completely destroying the idea of player economies!

 

Sounds quite fast to me

 

Basically 1/4 hour? You stated that 3 of the 13 minutes was from a crash, making your travel time 10 minutes(1/6 of an hour). Load times on zoning has not been optimized much from what I've read.

Why not see if the Devs can just mash all the Novia scenes onto The Hidden Vale continent. That way we take 1 step in any direction and BAM your at a new place. That would be great!

The only way to simulate distance in a game is in the time it takes to travel.

 

And I would oppose this with every fiber of my being.

 

See, I would, like, protect my children with every fibre of my being. Whereas for SOTA travel time issues, I might devote all the fiber in my breakfast cereal.

 

Are the control points actually working as intended though? I always expected that you could have to take control of one before you could pass through......otherwise what is the point?

 

Oh I forgot there will be some who want to travel without engaging any mob because they don't like PvM.....equally there will be those who want to avoid combat completely (because it now sucks and will suck even more with the plans for healing)

So yeah, i'm guessing its working as intended........completely screwed up (apparently like everything else).

 

There is a quicker way. Ferry to Brittany, then head north (yes, north). Past the coastal settlements, including Brekken Bay, you pick up a road. Take this road LEFT and cross three bridges. You will be approaching Sanctus Spine - do NOT enter here, but turn RIGHT and go overland parallel to the river. You will come across another road near The Highlands, take this road south (ie, LEFT). Turn RIGHT at Silverthorn. Keeping Vertas and Mariah Overlook on your left, you are now heading towards the coast and Verdantis Shardfall. And all without traversing a control point. Should take you about 5 minutes.
[Edit - and the Verdantis Foothills are even closer, on your right as you approach the coast]