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Travel Speed on Overworld Map Is It Too slow? (Poll)

Discussion in 'Release 15 Feedback' started by Miganarchine, Feb 28, 2015.

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Travel Speed on Overworld Map Is It Too Slow?

  1. Yes Speed It Up Please!

    60.2%
  2. No It's Just Fine As It Is!

    39.8%
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  1. TantX

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    I don't mind roads being slow if it's still difficult terrain, but must be faster than trudging through the woods themselves.

    The speed isn't an issue, for me, but rather the multiple, meaningless encounters I end up having to endure as I stomp across the land. I think the experience would be more enjoyable if there was more going on in the overland map other than pointlessly distracting random encounters and passing by three dozen hamlets and villages that mean absolutely nothing to a passer by. I mean, I may be missing something, but when the only instances to enter for three minutes along a stretch of road are Grayville, Hamlark, Dragonshire, Genericholm, Boredheim and so on, it's like, "just give me a rune and Kal Ort Por and be done with this."
     
  2. Moiseyev Trueden

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    This could be a great addition. If you want to explore you can go off-road using mouse or WASD keys, but otherwise the click and auto-walk would path you on the fastest and most direct route (i.e. roads where possible).
     
  3. majoria70

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    Welcome muted to Shroud of the Avatar. Truly I beleive the map experience will get better and better, the
    developers are continuously improving on it. It was worse believe me so much was, you had no sword you could use, no combat, not much at the beginning and Ive been here since Nov 2013 so remember the game is getting developed and the random encounters have been mentioned as irritating to many, so the developers will here and advise us when they can of what will happen with them. So please don't rage quit or you will miss the opportunity to contribute good feedback and help the development of this game. Just remember where you are and if you must come back in a few releases or group with someone, it really makes the experience much more fun. When I'm grouping we joke around about the random encounters and zone to each other to help with the tedious of them. I wish you the best and thank you for being here. **cheers to you**
     
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  4. Oakwind

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    the views are important. watlking around and clever underwater caverns too.

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    nice views as you walk to your next town was very nice too

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  5. Oakwind

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    this game would great if it could run with a Razer xbox controler.

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  6. Sold and gone

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    OP, did you ever play the earlier Ultima series games? The overland map was a staple in them. This game is a spiritual successor to the Ultima series. They had random encounters and roving monsters visible on the map. This harkens back to those Ultimas. The reason for the speed ups and slow downs is based on the geography of the map. Mountains should take a while to climb. Swamps should take time to muck through. Roads if you stick to them are not bad at all. I have been having conversations on the overland map with people that are passing by also. Can I ask you what is the rush? Part of the game is the journey, not the end. :)
     
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  7. TantX

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    Assuming there is an end; in an MMO, there isn't. When the journey isn't enjoyable, people don't care to see a dull, non-interactive overland map. Part of the journey is cool stuff happening along the way; walking slowly to a place to to grind some monsters to slowly walk back to the town to sell it and lather, rinse, repeat doesn't encourage smelling the roses along the way.

    Throw in the ridiculousness of random encounters and how utterly boring they are and the journey is more annoyance than enjoyment.
     
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  8. Sold and gone

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    The overland map is interactive, and will be more so after they do more work to it. It will have more content on it, it is in its premature state right now. Are you per chance judging this as a finished product and not a pre alpha in which it is? I understand your problem about grinding and walking back and forth, many people who just want to skip over the hard parts of leveling usually are in a hurry to get to top level or to the "raid stage", neither of which apply here. So if you don't like leveling, and you don't like grinding, and you don't like walking, can I ask what do you like?
     
  9. TantX

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    TL;DR: There are some significant issues concerning direction with Shroud, but with any luck and a lot of feedback, we can get this game better defined and polished for the future. But clinging to "pre-alpha" as the reason for people's misgivings is defeating the purpose of us being in pre-alpha to begin with.

    Not at all, but I'm not seeing any direction that suggests the finished project will be much different than what we have now. Sure they can adjust the frequency of encounters or what's in the encounters themselves, make the encounters visible like in the old Ultimas, but then it's just a game of tag. I wouldn't exactly define that as meaningfully interactive.

    And what about adding to those random encounters? If you make it overly rewarding with rare loot tables in the encounters, then we've simply turned the table. But the game of tag is still there, and we're now just chasing around skeleton icons roaming an overland map. I'm not impressed by the map nor am I particularly enthusiastic by any semblance of 1980s-style random encounters dictating my adventures, or my "journey".

    Immersion, simulation, interaction - principles, from what I gathered, that were primary elements of the touted "Ultimate RPG" we've been promised. Ultimas have been sandbox RPGs by nature, and UO showed how that formula can include real people to make for surprisingly interesting and deeply enriching interactions that are both meaningful and challenging. Even to this day UO has done what few others games have been able to do outside of narrowly defined niche markets, like Rust or DayZ.

    "Hard" is not the word I would use to describe the experience. Routine, mundane, overdone, repetitive, sub-par - those are more apt to give an accurate description of such a basic system. Even two decades ago we had more involved and inherently engaging systems of character development with UO than we do with Shroud. And I don't mind walking around if I can get into intriguing circumstances; randomly generated instances does not qualify as such. What does? Bumping into three people standing over some dead adventurers they just murdered, arguing over who keeps the loot, like something out of The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, and trying to figure out how to survive the situation and outsmart them, maybe long enough to take the ill-gotten goods for yourself. Finding someone who needs help, only to find out their ambitions and then assisting them on their personal mission to establish an empire. Getting into proxy wars in the streets while guild leaders play politician and flash smiles to the public, privately hiring wetworkers from universally condemned organizations to wage silent wars of grief and attrition on their adversaries. You know, role-playing stuff that isn't scripted or laid out in bullet form before the first act begins.

    Things that happened at least once a week on UO and, hell, even on ArcheAge.

    "Pre-Alpha" is a nice war chant and all when systems come under scrutiny, but the reality remains: this game has no clearly defined direction. When I say this game feels outdated and archaic, does the rebuttal of "pre-alpha" imply that 80% of this game will completely or drastically change by official launch? It looks nice and each update makes it look nicer, but its core feels like a basic flash game or something in line with the plethora of MOBAs out there (in terms of its character development, at least). This isn't something that polish and content is going to change; it's the core mechanics that are bland and have been done countless times before.

    If the mechanics aren't key, that's fine, but then something else needs to stand out as a selling point. "Old school, grindy JRPG adventures" is not the selling point that's going to get us through five episodes. I've said it before, there are countless other games that will do online PvM better, and just as many that will do fantasy online PvP better. If crafting and storytelling are the keys here, then maybe taking a look at A Tale In The Desert as a direction is more productive. But right now, the game looks and feels exactly as it should: an online, social media-inspired mobile game that has been repackaged to be a desktop best seller.

    I don't regret my pledge. I don't mind submitting bugs I've found or testing issues in the game at all. I look forward to the next release to see what gets added and I can try out. I just don't want to spend time working on a game that simply is going in the opposite direction as described, if any direction at all.

    Hence, like others have already illustrated, feedback.
     
  10. TantX

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    Then you clearly skimmed over what I typed. Nothing about "immersion, simulation, interaction" screams "instant gratification". If you mean I want to do that (socializing, adventuring, interacting with other players, playing the game) without grinding, then yes. I never want to grind in a game, the entire concept is the brittle backbone of poor game design. It's called a grind for a reason. I don't mind training skills and advancing my character, I look forward to it (Chris Roberts recent reveal on 10ftC about melee skills being trained in tevarian dojos is fantastic, and that's in a game with perma-death). What I don't look forward to is running back and forth between Owl's Head and Generic Vale killing and skinning rabbits for twopence and some XP to get another card for my deck so I can be moderately less useless in a PvM situation. I've done such things for almost two decades, and I only play games that break from that mold.

    Everything I read about this game, everything I watched, everything cited suggested Shroud was going to be different. It was going to be the Ultimate RPG - that's a pretty damn hefty claim to make. That means it's the end-all-be-all to online role-playing gaming. Yet the core game mechanics, as of right now (yes, in pre-alpha, Ravicus), suggest this game is going to be about grinding out levels, roving for random encounters to find rare resources (RNG), entering PvP-enabled areas for higher end resources and items, and instanced dungeons and quests. If you can't find literally three hundred or more games on the list at MMORPG.com that has every single one of those things in it, then you aren't looking hard enough.

    My concerns are that these issues, if they remain on a fundamental level, will not make this game stand out. Nostalgia wears off; if it didn't, we wouldn't need Shroud because of the hundreds if not thousands of freeshards over the years would have kept our attention. They don't, though, and here we are, looking for the next great thing. Adding content and polish doesn't change the mechanic, it just spices it up. There are plenty of people in multiple threads right now complaining about many of the things brought up. If we don't use this opportunity to flesh out and explore the mechanics and what makes them enjoyable or frustrating, then why have a pre-alpha at all?
     
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  11. Isaiah

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    I'm sorry but I don't get why people are saying the travel speed is too slow? Anybody remember how long it took to walk from Britain to Vesper in UO? it was like 20 minutes at least if not more. Right now I can travel all across that little corner of novia in about a minute and a half. When all of novia is released I seriously doubt it will take as long to walk across that then to walk to Yew from Britain in UO.

    Be careful what you are asking for. Do we really want to zoom through this map? If we do zoom through the map do we risk making the world feel like it is far too small?

    Meeting other players on the Overland Map:
    The fact they added other players to the overland map is great. This is a great opportunity to meet people. I've met more new people this release than I have ever met in any other release. Now if they speed things up we might lose the opportunity to meet and greet other players because they move away faster than you can type hello.
     
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  12. Sold and gone

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    Clearly you see that I removed my post :p. I did not want it to come across as a rant. You must have been in a reply mode for about 1/2 hour or so lol, I removed it right away.

    Anyway, yes a grind is a grind, IF you make it a grind, if you are in a hurry to get some where anything you do is going to hinder you. I like the aspect of harkening back to the earlier 80's ultimas, its a tribute to that in fact. I play the game to "play the game" not bypass its original intentions. If you look at the kickstart video it is prominent there that there will be an overland map. It was not a mystery then, and is not a mystery now. I have been in this forum for almost 2 years talking about this subject and all the other subjects that go along with it. Yes you are entitled to your opinion and you do not have to like or dislike anything. The fact is the overland map is here, it has many many many man hours into it, it is hardly likely they will change this. What you dont see on the map now is the traveling caravans, the merchants, the roaming mobs. Scenes might be spawned with higher level monsters in locations later on. I think that the mobs in the locations now are basically place holders and will be upgraded to what ever they need to be later on. What is enjoyable and frustrating to you might be loved and adored to some one like me who might have pledged my tier do to seeing the overland map in the kickstarter video. The place for discussion on this in my opinion has sailed about 1.5 yrs ago. This game will have a rich storyline also, and if I am not mistaken Chris mentioned you will probably be about level 30 by the time you get out of it. The rest of the game will be community based, weather its pvp interaction, or role play action, or economic action. It will be a highly social game. Just like UO. No endgame, no raid boss's. UO basically had the same random encounters but not instanced like Shroud. You had ettins wandering around, you had ogres wandering around, and yes you could run away from them just like you can in shroud. I have the feeling the load times will get better as time goes on.
    "Yet the core game mechanics, as of right now (yes, in pre-alpha, Ravicus), suggest this game is going to be about grinding out levels, roving for random encounters to find rare resources (RNG), entering PvP-enabled areas for higher end resources and items, and instanced dungeons and quests. If you can't find literally three hundred or more games on the list at MMORPG.com that has every single one of those things in it, then you aren't looking hard enough."
    Can I ask you what brought you hear if everything you have seen or heard leads you to believe its just like any other game? What do you like about Shroud?
     
  13. TantX

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    At work, I gotta' type when I get a sec'. lol

    I want to play that game, too, but that is not this game, not mechanically speaking. Maybe in the single player, maybe, but that's not why I picked the game up, to play an online game by myself. When Shroud was going to be a Facebook-esque mobile game I said it would fail and never thought twice about this game after. Then I saw a discussion about it on two other game forums, looked up some stuff, and saw that it was going to be the Ultimate RPG, an online desktop game that was going to bring back truly immersive role-playing experiences. I am simply not seeing the game mechanics that suggest this is to be the case at all; it has less interaction and simulation than previous Ultimas, including UO. I understand going backwards for inspiration, but it shouldn't be a matter of copy/pasting the mechanics and slapping on some nifty graphics.

    And while I'm sure they'll add more content to the overland map, it's still just wandering around chasing after roaming icons so you can get lucky with maybe a rare drop or something. Otherwise, it'll be playing tag with random encounters, avoiding them while you go from point A to point B. While fun is speculative individually, it is not so much commercially speaking. Rehashing random encounters doesn't change the fact that it's still a random encounter. It has to do something fundamentally and drastically different, otherwise, what's the point?

    My concern comes down to the idea that a lot of people are enjoying this game on nostalgia. Nostalgia does not support a business. You enjoyed these games in the 80s and 90s - a lot of us did. Hell, I'd argue most of us did, that's why we backed Shroud. But there have been other games since 1989, a lot of them, many that we've enjoyed and have pushed role-playing and sandbox games to a whole new level of interaction and immersion. I'd cite any of the modern Fallout games, Elder Scrolls and similar western RPGs.

    I can appreciate a great storyline, but if it's just holding my hand from one quest to another, I'm not interested. I make my own story in MMOs, that's the beauty of playing with other real people with real investments in their game, real passions, real clashes of ideology and real goals they will not compromise on. I love being at the point where an unstoppable force meets an immovable object, particularly when I can orchestrate it, and it's organic and natural to do so. As I mentioned, I've got hundreds if not thousands of other free games that can do everything else already.

    The issue is that you say this will be a highly social game like UO, and yet we can play the game by ourselves. There's supposed to be a highly interactive PvP community, potentially with a loot system, but it's all consensual. I can talk smack to you, blacklist you from my community, and you can go play over there (Felucca) and we'll go play over here (Trammel). That is decidedly anti-social in my book.

    As I said before, what they said in all of their interviews, promises and aspirations: immersion, simulation, interaction. I cannot stress it enough. I simply don't see the mechanics that will facilitate any of those aspects organically. In other words, unless I go out of my way to create those three things on my own accord, the game will not lend itself to those things. It is trying to do too many things without a distinct, clear definition of what it will ultimately be and without a roadmap of how it's going to achieve those things without stepping on and compromising the other things promised.

    Meaningful social interaction comes out of conflict. I'm not talking about PvP, I'm talking about difficulties, obstacles. "We have to solve this problem". If this problem is more easily solved by logging into Shroud SPO or FPO, then the challenge is not met naturally. It's circumvented. It's artificially traversed. Entire potential storylines and interactions are killed because your party solved it by itself, involving no one (and more importantly, no one's opinions) that operated against your goals or acted to provide different challenges or options themselves. It did not involve them.

    I just don't feel what they say and what they do are matching up cohesively, and I am not alone in this concern. That makes it an issue worthy of being fleshed out.
     
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  14. Sold and gone

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    I understand your point of view, I just disagree with it. I know that you are passionate about your view, as I am also. One thing I have noticed is in any discussion or debate, people tend to invoke the words "us", "we", "many of us", and so on. I can only speak for myself unless i can quote sources that "others" are on board, then they can join the debate. So what I understand is that you are not immersed in the overland map, and you do not like the encounters. You speculate that others agree with you. That is all fine. I do see your scenario and I do think its based on your speculation and build your argument on this pretense. Have at it. :)
     
  15. FrostII

    FrostII Bug Hunter

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    This is a conversation worth having. I see our purpose in playing "pre-alpha" as providing constructive criticism as well as "atta-boys", so I'll say it again:
     
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  16. TantX

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    Do you mean literally walking or running? I don't know when the last time you played UO was, but riding a horse you could go from Trinsic to Minoc to Yew and back to Trinsic in about 10 minutes. Running on foot mighta' been 5-6 minutes, tops, from Britain to Vesper, and only because of trees and houses and animals (Felucca rules) getting in the way. Walking would have only been about 15-17 minutes, if that, but who's walking? Even our characters don't walk unless they're overburdened.

    I think the problem is that the speed is slow and there's nothing to really see or do on the overland map. I get that content will be added, but everything I'm hearing and has been mentioned sounds like things that will either be purposely avoided or simply hunted down like a game of tag (assuming the encounters are simply too precious to pass up). Either way it's poor motivation to spend time on the overland map any longer than necessary.

    Here are some similar feelings. And here. And also here.
     
  17. Sold and gone

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    1. Rant with no solution.
    2. Rant with no solution.
    3. 3 Rants with no solution and one of them is a previous rant.

    Its not poor game design, its just they do not like it. I could go back and quote sources to back my side up but I want to just agree to disagree and let you continue your crusade. :) Have fun.
     
  18. rune_74

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    It may be just me, but I find dealing with the games quest and monsters as part of the game. I'm not here for UO2 or even a recreation of UO. To me that was a very poor ultima. It didn't have what made the ultima's great, worlds that you cared about etc. NPC's were cookie cutter vending machines to feed the masses. None of that has anything to do with travel speed. At the end of the day they have to take a sweep along every road and make sure the speed is set. Thats the solution to walking speeds. Off road speeds should be slower, that's what makes immersion that so many cry for but don't like when it doesn't give them a bonus. This is a side of game making many don't see. Not everything is there to give bonus's to the player, there has to be obstacles.

    Just because you have done something 10 times and you find it not so enjoyable to walk there again doesn't mean it shouldn't be in game. Should there be ways to get around it that cost in game? sure. But it shouldn't be so easy as to make it trivial.

    And the poll is too black and white...yes/no. I don't think this question is that simple. They need to do a pass over on roads and all terrain to make sure it makes sense.
     
  19. Gamician

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    I would not want the speed to be increased so it looks like a version of Grand Theft Auto, but the speed when you leave a path is just way too slow.

    First, the paths (roads) on the overland maps are as wide as I am. I would think that carts would be traveling on these paths (roads) going between towns. So either I am as wide as a cart or the path (road) is too small. I like to think my character stays in fairly good shape. Making the paths (roads wider would allow me to travel at the greater speed without slowing down if I take one step off the path

    Second, increasing the speed when off the paths (roads) to what it is on the roads now and increasing the on road speed by 25% would not be all that great of an increase. I either leave the path (road) to go to that particular area or to cut through the area. At the present speed going into grassy or forested areas it looks like I'm looking for a good tree to hide behind to take a Dump.
     
  20. Lord Andernut

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    Wanting a world to feel huge is admirable - but doing it by making you walk slowly or by say, making your avatar tiny, don't make it more epic for me, they make it more tedius.

    When I played Morrowind I would cross the earth in giant bounds - but the world was still massive to me based on how big it was and how many places there were to visit - not because of my walk or run speed. I'm not suggesting we cross the world in bounds, but for me the world (map) feels larger when it has more places to visit, not when it takes me longer to get there. Going from my house to spectral mines and then back to Ardoris is just painful - it feels like I'm watching my avatar wade through kicksand. Even in towns I'm investing in anything that makes me walk (run) [sprint] {Sprint} faster.
     
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