Encounters - turns out it's not just the loading times

I am with you on encounters. I can see some positives to the siege. That makes the game seem more realistic without being annoying. I think they should do away with the world map all together then there are less loads and they can still throw in a siege here and there. I am concerned though because it's a little late in the game (no pun intended) to be asking for feedback. I dont think they could make any major changes before November. I hope I am wrong.

 

I don't think the overworld map is going away at any time, sieges wouldn't be possible then... If you want to avoid encounters, put on your "coconuts", while you're mounted, there's no terrain speed penalty, you can skate around any encounter and out run them...

 

I'm fine with the encounters if I'm in the mood for mind-numbing resource farming in the same boring scenes over and over killing green mobs with useless loot. If I'm trying to get somewhere they are irritating as hell, forcing two sloooooow screen loads per encounter... sometimes four because that respawn protection isn't long enough. And the coconuts arn't always fast enough to get around them (and are also irritating.)

At least make them so you can avoid them whenever you want to avoid them... or like wintermute says, make them more interesting. The chests were a small improvement.

 

I think that the instances should remain in the game but the difficulty to scale up as the player improves with special loot chance.
remember they are there for the newer player as all the harvesting nodes encourage crafting.

 

So maybe in the case of avoiding loading screens, perhaps the Distraction skill should be enabled on the overworld. That way, when sufficiently leveled, you will be able to distract them and sneak by them. Maybe that might be a good alternate solution.

 

You can use the Silent Movement skill to help avoid them.

 

I agree with this wholeheartedly. Although if you look at one of the original "concept pitches" that @Lord British gave on youtube I think it's this one (LOVE Iolo )):



Encounters were supposed to be part of the original concept of SotA. Now it can be a pain, but at least the chest in the bandit scenes have actual "loot" lol

 

Agree. I made the suggestion originally to add that and was happy to see it implemented. Although they only enabled the stealth variety in the overworld and not the moon magic sneaking spells.

 

I wish they would add chests to the undead encounters.

The reagents are ok, but only at night when you can get lots of nightshade and depending on your skill at harvesting them.

 

It is true, encounters have spawn/roam areas just like mobs in adventure scenes. And right now they aren't very evenly distributed. There are a lot of areas in the middle of nowhere without them, and I found one out in a dead-end corner where nobody would go unless lost. But most of them are along roads and narrow passes between regions. I expect them to give encounters a polish pass in a few months.