Travel time vs. travel speed

I did a poll on this in R18, but didn't get many participants, and, in the new R19 thread, I think a lot of people are confusing the two issues again.

Travel time is different than travel speed. There's a difference between wanting travel time to be shorter and wanting travel speed to be faster. In theory, you could have travel time remain the same while making travel speed faster, simply by increasing the size of the world.

I don't know how all the numbers actually work behind the scenes, but if you go into Character Stats (V), there's one stat called "Move Speed." When you're in a scene, its set at 5.813. When you're on a road on the overland map, most of the time, its set at 3.836. On a few roads, like the one directly west of PaxLair, its even lower -- its 1.918 -- and you can notice the slowdown.

Regardless, it feels as if movement is a bit slower on the map than inside scenes.

 

How about a 4th option:
Faster travel speed, same map.

 

Its not the point of the poll. Vote for the third option if you really feel it doesn't make a difference. But if you think its a better alternative than what we currently have, vote for the first option.

 

Despite the fact that we had to get to PaxLair in Release 17 riding through the desert on no horse with a name, uphill, both ways...

Staying on the path has seemed to be a constant speed except in those places where the road is less defined. The swamps and East Perrenial trail did not ever feel constant, but that maybe is a design decision.

Is the speed of pathing in a random state or more defined on the current region being worked on?

 

The current travel speeds do make a difference to quite a few of us, so choosing the third option would certainly not be our option.
But, it's your poll... I just think you're leaving out an option for the rest of us.

 

Nah, I considered putting two options "It doesn't make a difference, because current speeds are fine" and "It doesn't make a difference, because the only problem is travel time"; in the end, I decided they were the same option.

The goal of the poll is just one issue, whether travel speeds are okay as they are now; travel time is a different issue.

 

Maybe the Avatar should be replaced by a jet. When we leave scenes we enter a jet and speed with sonic speed across the world...

 

That's not the spirit of what I'm saying. For example, lets say there was only a 10% speed increase, and it made walking feel smoother. Would you find that a problem?

 

Um you do realize that covering a longer distance in the same time is the SAME as going faster - please do NOT try and explain - it is PHYSICS, and the laws of distance coverd vs time IS SPEED.

Your are asking a question which results in the SAME answer

 

I prefered the travel speed before today's patch. I'm not cutting off a dramatic amount of travel time with travel speed increased.

 

I am really liking the map speed increase since I tend to wander off road quite a bit. Thanks.

 

Agreed, I personally think the speed in the recent publish is a shade too fast. Trails/roads seem to be directional markers now, with no other benefit (or will they deliver less encounters)? Hrm, I wonder. Anyway, my choice would be 'Its best as it is now' until today's change.

 

No, but I don't want the Avatar to run around on the map.

 

i like a run speed and a faster walk speed , everbody is running all the time...

 

Now it feels weird when you can simply go off the road, climb mountains, etc. with exact same speed as you have when you're using roads. It makes the map terrain unrelevant - wasted work of the devs right now.

I can see it work in one scenario though - if you have a mount and the road makes him go faster but off-road it moves the same speed as you do without it.

 

I already posted my answer many times.

I think it's a matter of perception only, and scale. It's always a matter of scale.

a) If you increase the speed too much, the map and the world seem tiny. It takes more time to go from one exit of Paxlair to the other, than to go from Paxlair to Ardoris. Or go from Ardoris entrance to Kingsport boat, compared to the trip between Owl's Head and Ravensmoor.

b) If you decrease the speed too much, your avatar seems crawling like a snail, and everything is just too far to bother. Remove and/or nerf /zone, and frustration goes over 9000.

c) Changing the size of the map is out of question, since it's a HUGE time sink for devs, designers and artists. I prefer to never touch the map again (unless for iterative improvements), and work on other parameters.

The only other parameter we can work with is scale, as I said.

If we:

> reduce the max zoom-out, so that the overland map cannot show you 1/3 of the world at max zoom as if you were a geostationary satellite. Have a *FAR* narrower fov - say 1/5th of what it is.

> reduce the avatar size in the world accordingly, so his/her movement animation and ground speed stays constant. reduce the size to 1/10th of what it is, reduce speed to 1/8th of what it is. With the above reduction of zoom, the relative perception of a doll strolling on rolling hills is maintained. But at the same time, the local speed seems even better, while distances keep being significant - and economies remain "closely regional".

> fix the roads/noroads match between visuals and map internals (in the work)

> fill hexes with things to do/see (in the work)

I'm pretty sure the issue of speed will solve itself. It's all matter of scale.

 

Yes, distance = speed * time. He isn't arguing that.

The problem is here is that of scaling and perception. There is an additional scale factor to consider.

If you cover a larger distance at a higher speed then yes it can take the same amount of time; however, you would see far more trees in the scenario where you travel the longer distance. The point being that the map will be perceived as larger when the distances are larger despite the time taking the same. So yes it does matter.

His attitude is precisely why I recently lambasted him in the General Forum. I fully agree with what you are saying.

 

I honestly thought that we only had access to like 10% of the world and the rest would be unveiled... the kickstarter did mention an insanely huge world... crossing it in 10 minutes isn't my idea of huge.

Also I honestly thought that the goal of the overland map was to make travel "abstracted" since we have to instance.

Argh, I would love to give constructive feedback but even in dev+ we are given no real info about what is going on and why...