Here Come "Roving Encounters"

That would be cool. I was hoping there would be some menu options .. if you have high levels of stealth you can avoid the encounter, if you have high levels of sprint it puts you in a better position in the encounter, etc .. different skills would be more useful depending on encounter/situation

 

Looking forward to testing this... but really hoping stealth or sprint will work on over world map to avoid encounters that aren't desired. Also, is there any way to tell difficulty level of the roving encounter, does it scale to player level, or is it pre-set (wolves always at this level, skele always here, etc.)

 

Great development !

This makes sense for certain critters & terrain combinations (wolves +forest) and other critters should be generally faster than a player on foot. However this is also a good chance to add value to skills like Hiding/Sneaking, running or add something like perception/ scouting which increases your chance to discover and evade such encounters.

Perhaps the encounter could also spawn different group sizes of monsters - i.e. Small pack of wolves vs big pack. The overland map symbol the represents this : 1 monster = small encounter, 2 monsters = medium sized encounter etc

 

Say two Avatars who are not in a party spot an encounter and they would both like to engage. How will you handle this?

Currently I imagine only one gets the encounter and the other gets turned off and goes to spo?

 

Will we be seeing the flag on top of the roving encounter similarly to what we have when other party members are in certain zones nearby us?

 

Ok, thanks for the reply.

 

OMG, finally something to do other than clicking on nodes!!! Now I picture the overland map in multiplayer being a sprint to engage the encounters! Yay!!!!!!

 

My major concern with these random encounters is that they send you to the same basic scenes we've been going into forever. It will be nice that the difficulty will be raised for deep woods and such, however, when trying to travel from A to B, getting pulled into a scene with VERY LITTLE reward for an advanced character is an annoying level of zoning times. The resources should be like 10x the amount of a normal scene to reward players for actually entering it (and dealing with the loading in and out).

If you are going to make the Random Encounter difficult to outrun on the overland map, then make the SCENE difficult to exit as well! Pulling me into a loaded scene only to have me walk 10 ten steps and zone out is super silly. Even if the resources are low tier, make them be a good pay off and make me want to stop what i'm doing (running out) to get them. Make the Bandits guard a GOOD chest, not one with a fabric scrap and an apple in it!

I know you have staged development and this is the first pass, but you seem to forget that it is us the players who you are frustrating with half created content that does not balance out against the sink you are putting us into. You don't need to spend 50 hours coding new encounters or detailed quests yet, just make sure if you are putting us into a scene, that it is interesting or worth taking our time out to be there. Otherwise it will just be another level of frustration we need experience EVERY time we play until you get to schedule pass 3 and 4 on the system.

I don't mean to sound harsh, but as someone who has lived through SO many releases were I was stopped 3 times between East Gap and Ardoris to see a scene of sheep or green-conned thieves, I cringe at what we will have to endure in the coming months. Please take the time to kick the scenes up a notch.

 

Just to add to my post, for example, if the scene is bandits, perhaps in the back corner you can put a camp with higher level mobs and a couple nodes and a good chest. This way, low level characters won't be smashed upon entrance, but higher level characters can seek out the pay-off spawn in the encounter that made it worth the stop. These additions should not be that difficult to address and it would create a sense of excitement that the random encounters on the Overworld map are sought out, rather then avoided.. With so many negative comments on review sites about SOTA's Overworld Map (zoning in and out, non-seemless world, etc), it would be great to introduce a feature on that map that would be embraced and searched out. It could go a long way in helping people see the benefits to this kind of design.

I fear that if this just another layer on top of an already groaned upon delay to travel that it just won't be embraced as a good new change/feature. Just a thought.

 

Can't wait!

Also, in the next instructions, be very very very VERY clear about "first iteration". Most likely balance will be off at start, and people will complain for... Well... We complain for everything!

 

Damn, I was hoping those encouners would be sth I feel lucky to get, not sth that makes travelling even more tedious. Sigh...

 

This is an awesome idea that if done right could be really awesome so a few comments:

1) If you haven't altered these encounters yet, this is going to kind of suck. I like the random encounters now but the scenes are kind of lame like others have said, low lvl green mobs and a few resources to harvest. These need to be done a lot better to make it any fun and not be just a time waist when I am trying to get somewhere.
2) I know Richard was a fan of Pokemon go and this should be designed like that. You guys should spawn some really rare encounters that create some big benefits to a player for going out and actually spending time looking for them. Think crafting, a gold ore icon pops up on the map which takes you to an amazing scene where you can farm a ton of gold. Its very rare to spawn but its there. These could be in less traveled spots of the map... or more dangerous.
3) Harder areas should have harder spawns and higher rewards.
4) Kind of like 2, TREASURE MAPS using this idea. the map tells you to search an area on the map, you go there and if you have the map, the treasure map encounter pops up and you can enter a fabulously designed treasure map instance.
5) Ill think of more.

 

Run? We can now run on the overworld map? :3

 

By default, your avatar runs. Try pressing the "/" key on your number pad to see how fast you walk.

 

That's not a runspeed. That's a walk

 

I don't know if someone has asked this already but : could you please let us use our stealth skills in the overland map (shadow form or silent movement for exemple), to try to avoid those encounters ?

 

I did escape a few on the QA using coconuts. When you zone out they are also back on the map. Have not tried slaughtering them yet to see if they don't return.