Overland Map and Encounter Observations

Overland Map:

Love it! A few thoughts. In the future it would be great if there were more impassable areas that forced players to go through "control points" like mountain passes, spooky forests, swamps, dangerous bridges that might not work, etc...

I know there's been talk of this for control points but the current map isn't taking advantage of all of the great opportunities it has to force players to make interesting choices. Do I go through the mountains to get to Ravensmore? The NPC's tell me there are bandits there. Or do I go through the swamp that has skeletons? Or do I take the LONG way around and open myself up to countless encounters....

Which brings up a new problem, how do you visually tell players what they can walk on and what they can't? Right now it's just trial and error and gamers don't like a lot of trial or error, they just want to "know it" by sight.

Random Encounters:

Currently the random encounters are just a quick decision for players. The decision works like this, "Is it worth it for me to stick around and fight this stuff? If Yes, collect EXP and GOLD. If No, run around this stuff and keep doing what I was doing.

That's a very annoying choice, even if you limit it to one random encounter per game session. I think it currently only detracts from the gaming experience. But I love the idea of random encounters!

So what I'd like to see is more random encounters where you have to make choices. Do I go to the left or the right? Do I press the button or not press the button? Depending on what the players does, "something happens". I'd also like to see some dynamic puzzles.

It would also be great if we could not just out run everything. I LOVE the idea of being able to "escape", but I don't like the idea if it means we just run around everything in a pointless jog out of the scene.

Lastly, I like the idea of Monsters getting "smarter" for those players trying to camp areas and force multiple random encounters. Maybe if someone kills off 4 groups of random encounter skeletons, the "Boss" shows up to figure out where all his minions went?

Or maybe when a player dies, instead of respawning at a temple or wherever you guys plan to have them respawn at launch, the "Boss" has you respawn in his domain where you're spawn camped for like three lives!

There should always be a price to pay for exploiting the game.

 

The only issue I have with random encounters is the fact I was regularly getting dumped into situations where I was almost dead before I went into combat mode. I got dropped into a nest of spiders and before I could even look for an exit I was dead.

Other times I get dropped into a random encounter and everything's already dead. But there's nothing else there, no resources and none of the encounters I was dropped in had gold either. Just critters with hides and some had spider legs and such.