Why? What purpose do they serve other than to avoid content and shrink the world. What game function do they fill? How do they make game play better that couldn't be done with world systems over class powers? Why do certain classes have access to them and others do not, if they do not have access to them what will other classes have as a balance?
First part of your question for the purpose is to shrink the world, Yes. Lets be real when we fisrt get into the game we will explore every inch of every zone. just as we have in other games. But by max level after you have ran the Karanas 100+ times I do not want to run it again, and would gladly pay another class to shirnk the world so I can move on with my game play. Lets not act like we will be in awe of every giant zone forever and we will get tired of running them all the time. If you want a more realistic game play, turn run off and walk everywhere.
As far as why class specfic, that is the whole reason they make different classes, they should all have benifits over other classes and weakness over other class. Why does "pet clases" get pets and my class doesn't?
SoWplz said:Lets be real when we fisrt get into the game we will explore every inch of every zone. just as we have in other games. But by max level after you have ran the Karanas 100+ times I do not want to run it again, and would gladly pay another class to shirnk the world so I can move on with my game play. Lets not act like we will be in awe of every giant zone forever and we will get tired of running them all the time.
I think sometimes when I say this it gets lost in the debate, but personally, I'm not so worried about what people will do at launch. I'm also not disputing that group ports will be a great convenience feature for higher-level characters who need to travel greater distances.
My concern is the culture that will develop over time. We like to think about these games in terms of our personal experiences and we don't stop to think about the people that start playing many months or years after us. What I don't want to see is teleports becoming so common and accepted (possibly because 50% of a server has an alt that can port you) that low-level characters no longer *need* to travel on foot at some point in the future.
Say what you want, but when you give players a convenience feature like fast travel and you explicitly allow them to share that with everyone without limitations, eventually, that fast travel becomes a crutch for the vast majority of people playing. It's the same sort of problem as things like low-level group areas and quests going unused because everyone is getting power leveled, or as low and mid-level drops becoming worthless because everyone is getting twinked with higher-level stuff. And those are real problems that have happened, not just in EQ, but in many other level based games since EQ.
I'm not opposed to the idea of group ports. I just want them to have limitations that help keep them meaningful and special, and so that all of us who are sick of running through zones for the hundredth time don't accidentally or intentionally dumb down the game for people that come after us. I would say the same for most other convenience/utility features that we might talk about as well. Keep them meaningful and special, whether we're in year 1 or year 5.
Put another way - if I'm walking uphill through the snow both ways at launch, then I damn well want new players to be doing the same thing 3 years after launch. That way they can appreciate the snow just as much as I do. :)
Nephele said:Talk about some of the things that worry me for long-term balance in Pantheon.
Druid and Wizard Teleports
It was nice to get more information about how Druids and Wizards earn their teleports, but I am still very concerned that over time, druid and wizard teleports will contribute to the death of meaningful travel in Terminus. The reason for this is that I don't see a requirement that group members have to have visited the location first - only the caster of the teleport.
But as the first wave of those druids and wizards get their teleports unlocked, it will become more and more common... travel by "taxi" will become a normal and accepted thing.
The point of meaningful travel is to make the size of the world matter - in terms of where you base your character, where you buy and sell goods, where you choose to adventure in any given play session. When you can type something in a chat channel or a discord, meet up with another player, and get whisked halfway around the world to a place you have never been before in 10 minutes, it works against that. ... I don't think this is an unsolvable problem. But I think there needs to be something more to mitigate this and keep travel meaningful, even 3-4 years after launch.
Following this thread you can see that many have suggestions and other points of view. What is given that there will be portals and that Druid and Wizard will have abilities relating to that. (not to underestimate the consequences of the summoners': Escape Portal-ability)
I would agree that another class can only zone towards a portal that they already have discovered. This discovery event can already be a memorable experience for that player. So it might be a shame to design a mechanic that allows players to bypasses this experience.
Interaction with a portal opened by a player might require a consumable. This product could have a refresh timer. This allows travel by portal but it has consequences, namely: the player can not interact with another portal for X-time. This item can be player made or a singular purchase might be possible at the npc standing near the portal. Meaning, npc-bought items do not stack and will dissappear when used. The player can still not interact with another portal after X-time.
As many mentioned already, the location of the portal might be in such a manner that you might be able to go from one continent to another. But after teleportation occcurred you still have to travel for a reasonable distance before you can engage in the majority content around that portal. One can not walk from one portal to another without investing a large amount of time (requiring multiple gaming sessions).
I like the idea of the 'npc-portals' functioning similar to travel by boat. The portal opens and closes in a certain time sequence. This for me holds the most potential when looking at long term community interaction, or at least creating opportunities to see, meet and converse with other players throughout the years. (Imagine players stating in chat, portal X is open if you want to use it,...a stream of players coming over and stepping through. Or players waiting at the portal to open.) Directly linked to this, player created portals might be a faster way to team up with distant groupmembers or friends, as said before it might have consequences. The portal created by the player might not stay open as long as the NPC-portals.
Using the portal ability itself might have it's requirements for the druid or wizard. Meaning, they might not be able to use that ability every 5 minutes, but rather X time/day (real time, not game time). So although it is very handy, they might want to use it for their friends or such. (I am not saying this will be the case, but it just another path how portals can be designed). I can imagine that if I have a limited amount of times I can use that ability per gaming session, I will not be porting every passer-by that asks for it. It now became an ability to be used in a strategic way and not just a spam taxi service.
Not every portal might give you all options of portals. The overall expectation, that I'm reading here, is that 1 portal will grant access to every other (explored/known) portal in the world. This however might not be the case at all. I'll use real life to examplify, because not everyone might be familiar with the geography of Terminus' current locations. If I can open a portal in Europe to Canada, but that same portal from Europe, does not allow me to access the portal in California. So it will still require of me to travel from Canada to California. The portal from California might allow me to Europe and Canada. (or any other combination). Again, portals and especially the use of portals now becomes a strategic matter. You need to think which portal will get me where and which portal will take me back if I wanted to. This will be even more so if you have a downtime for using portals.
Lastly, player created portals might allow you access to certain portals but not all and vice versa. NPC-portals might allow you access to certain portals but not all. A good design would still allow you to experience distance and time investment without taking away the opportunity to team up and travel together. You just need to think, before you zone as a player or as a group.
Aqua said:Not sure why people are flaming druids/wizards teleport or monks fd ?? i mean they must have something nice in their sleeve (and yes other classes can ruin a party just look att edict of peace from cleric hmm wonder what will happen if i cast it on the other partys tank mwwhhaaa ) seriusly it is nice if i can get a teleport to my friends instead of walking like 2 hrs (real life time)
just my opinion /=
Why? They are supposedly going to be able to heal / pewpew just as well as other classes able to do those roles so why should they have a significant out of combat bonus ability that their competing classes don't?
I have no issue with all players having to have visited the portal before they can port or be ported to it.
Possibly having "Continent" portal that has no visit requirement, but zone portal would. Also having other safer forms of traveling available to those that may be too low to mke the full trek, but have them be time consuming (Think the boats in EQ, you could port between West Commons and Butcher Block, or you can spend the 20+ minutes on the boat, which was (aside from bugs) safe).
Having a caravan that can get you to the other side of the continent in relative safety can be beneficial to new players, even at a cost of play time. Let's say making the run would take an hour, so the caravan should take 20-30 mins minimum. One may still have another 10+ minutes of running to do after reaching that destination anyway, easily racking up 30+ minutes of travel time.
Barin999 said:I like the idea of the 'npc-portals' functioning similar to travel by boat. The portal opens and closes in a certain time sequence. This for me holds the most potential when looking at long term community interaction, or at least creating opportunities to see, meet and converse with other players throughout the years. (Imagine players stating in chat, portal X is open if you want to use it,...a stream of players coming over and stepping through. Or players waiting at the portal to open.) Directly linked to this, player created portals might be a faster way to team up with distant groupmembers or friends, as said before it might have consequences. The portal created by the player might not stay open as long as the NPC-portals.
That is likely the worst way to do things. It would be unengaging gameplay and doesn't really encourage or produce sociability among players, what is more likely to happen is players arrive and afk/browse their phones/watch Netflix until the portal opens and they go through. The same holds true for player ports if subject to arbitrary time requirements. People had to wait for the boats in EQ and it was rare to see much of any conversation happening, often the extent of it was people shouting "Boat!" when it zoned in.
At least player ports (without arbitrary time limits) require player to player communication of some kind, active engagement with the game when running to meet, and continuation of engagement after being ported.
In the book series 'Wheel of Time', travel across the land was hastened by using Waygates. A Waygate opened a portal to a dimension called The Ways, a dark and mysterious dimension consisting of just a walkway surrounded by an infinite void. A short travel through The Ways would take you a long distance across the real world. Within The Ways was an entity called Machin Shin which was attracted to the living beings in the otherwise empty void. Stay too long in The Ways and Machin Shin would inevitably find you and attack.
Instead of using a port to instantly move from one location to another, the Druid and Wizard portals merely open a door to another dimension where you traverse from A to B in a shorter time than had you gone from A to B in the real world. But to make it interesting, the pathway in this alternate dimension is itself a maze, nothing more than a dim pathway in a void. You need to learn the routes, where to turn left, where to turn right to get from A to B. But in addition, this dimension has inhabitants, dangerous ones who will, eventually find you and attack.
To keep a balance between the slower travel across the real world the faster travel would need to be more dangerous. The danger would need to scale with your level and the level of the people with you, thus this dimension would be instanced, spawned just for you/your group. Yet we don't want this dimension to be somewhere players want to go, or want to go for any length of time, so using the dangers in this dimension for XP would not be possible. Yes, you may need to fight your way through if you stay too long, but you gain no benefit from doing so.
Vandraad said:In the book series 'Wheel of Time', travel across the land was hastened by using Waygates. A Waygate opened a portal to a dimension called The Ways, a dark and mysterious dimension consisting of just a walkway surrounded by an infinite void. A short travel through The Ways would take you a long distance across the real world. Within The Ways was an entity called Machin Shin which was attracted to the living beings in the otherwise empty void. Stay too long in The Ways and Machin Shin would inevitably find you and attack.
Instead of using a port to instantly move from one location to another, the Druid and Wizard portals merely open a door to another dimension where you traverse from A to B in a shorter time than had you gone from A to B in the real world. But to make it interesting, the pathway in this alternate dimension is itself a maze, nothing more than a dim pathway in a void. You need to learn the routes, where to turn left, where to turn right to get from A to B. But in addition, this dimension has inhabitants, dangerous ones who will, eventually find you and attack.
To keep a balance between the slower travel across the real world the faster travel would need to be more dangerous. The danger would need to scale with your level and the level of the people with you, thus this dimension would be instanced, spawned just for you/your group. Yet we don't want this dimension to be somewhere players want to go, or want to go for any length of time, so using the dangers in this dimension for XP would not be possible. Yes, you may need to fight your way through if you stay too long, but you gain no benefit from doing so.
what about a transdimensional drift environment in which you need to be acclimated to travel certain distances?
i always had alot of fun with the old wow teleporter devices(during a time without flying mounts and insta teleportation in every major city) dropping you from the sky leading to a a death XD
Albe said:Well, we all have a choice of how we want to play the game. I played a druid in EQ and never thought I lost something from the ability to teleport or gate. It allows the group to get to areas to explore and or dungeons. As an adult player with a job and family if, I have 1-2 hours to play I do not want to spend 30 just getting someplace. Also earning your gate spells is an important part of leveling your class for me as a druid it was a big deal every time I got another gate spell, and the utility I brought to my group or guild was meaningful.
They've been very open about the type of game they are making. Its not meant to cater to everyone.
stellarmind said:what about a transdimensional drift environment in which you need to be acclimated to travel certain distances?
i always had alot of fun with the old wow teleporter devices(during a time without flying mounts and insta teleportation in every major city) dropping you from the sky leading to a a death XD
However it would be done it comes down to a tradeoff. You either go overland which is slower and, probably, safer. Or you use some other magical means which is faster but needs to be more dangerous. Fast travel by teleport isn't just faster it is also far safer, even if VR were to put some hostile NPCs at the end. Those NPCs would be continually killed off as players come/go from that point and, eventually, players would both outgear and outlevel those NPCs.
Vandraad said:stellarmind said:what about a transdimensional drift environment in which you need to be acclimated to travel certain distances?
i always had alot of fun with the old wow teleporter devices(during a time without flying mounts and insta teleportation in every major city) dropping you from the sky leading to a a death XD
However it would be done it comes down to a tradeoff. You either go overland which is slower and, probably, safer. Or you use some other magical means which is faster but needs to be more dangerous. Fast travel by teleport isn't just faster it is also far safer, even if VR were to put some hostile NPCs at the end. Those NPCs would be continually killed off as players come/go from that point and, eventually, players would both outgear and outlevel those NPCs.
it'd be more funny to have someone drown at the bottom of the ocean or drop high in the sky falling to their death or end up in a volcano XD than fighting npcs to make it to the other side XD shoulda upped your dimensional acclimation if you didn't want to die in the silence of space or have it teleport me farther away from my intended destination.
ya know cut dry straight to the result is better than a whining player complaining about interdimensional mobs (oh this is a personal preference the vandraad way is fine too sorry if i'm repeating somethings takes me a bit to get to what i'm trying to communicate)
Vandraad said:The server could just calculate how far it needs to drop you to get you to 1HP. That way it scales to your level/HP total. :)
results can vary depending on how well acclimated you are to dimensional travel*TM -in fine print- the dimensional teleporation services(dts) is not held liable for any injuries, deaths or equipment loss that may or may not occur. -insert a very long 200 page tos- thank you for your understanding. we hope that you travel with us again. =D
Some great thoughts!
I had similar thoughts and concerns regarding teleports but hopefully it’s implmented well enough not to “shrink” the world. VR are experienced and MMORPGs have been dealing with this for a while so I’m sure they will get it right.
Regarding Warriors and Shields, I plan to main a Warrior Tank so this section of the newsletter was of particular interest to me.
I agree with all of what you said regarding build diversity and character design, however if VR decide that a shield is going to be so integral to a Warrior’s Class identity that it’s “required” I’m on board with this so long as they can create a lot of depth in how the warrior uses their shield so as to have room for build diversity and player customization to playstyle while using a shield.
As the purpose of my warrior will be to main tank for my guild I’m fine being stuck with a shield. When I’m not tanking I’ll roll a gnome wizard alt.
@Vandraad
I am on board with "The Ways" idea as well as Stellarmind's suggestion of having parts of the Ways requiring aclimation to access or access for long enough to get to your desired exit. Wizards and druid could even access differnent travel planes astral and Faewild.
Some excellent ideas re. travel that are, surely, not complex too code.
Risk of instant death weighed up against convenience of instant travel might be a bit too far, but is interesting! Lol. Would *certainly* make people think about just how much they need to instant travel if you might explode in trans-dimensional space (no corpse retrieval? Hah!)
Maybe not that extreme, but, I really hope VR don't just take the "like EQ/VG just because" route (no pun intended) with fast travel, especially re. Wiz/Dru only.
@Iksar Obviously, It's not one or the other. It could be a combination of the two or a compromise of things. With 50/50 options on all portals.
If portals are very common and quick passages used and created by players only, then one might not encounter a lot of random players. With the excistance of npc portals, there is still the odd chance to notice that the server is still alive (active players moving across the world via those npc portals). The communication/interaction aspect of portals or other npc-travel is another topic..;which already has been talked about extensively. So I won't go into it here. The point here is that, a npc portal is still a location in the world wherer players can travel to and might encounter other players using that same portal. Aka you notice other players and life on the server. Which is a big thing, a couple of years after launch and demographics have shifted.
@Vandraad and @Stellarmind. Very nice path of thinking. It would be interesting indeed. How about loading time or time to load entities when players continously zone into this seperate pathway inbetween portal destinations? How can lag be mitigated or otherwise be kept low? I'm assuming players would want to run through very fast and are not that interested in seeing who else is running across this temporary zone.
Interaction between players would not be possible in that zone? How about spell or other abilities cast, should it be possible?
Just thinking out loud here, but would there be some sort of benefit(for lack of a better term), to portals not being instant point-A to point-B?
by this I mean, maybe if your trying to get to point_E, you can't get there directly from point-A, you have to pass through point-C or something. Basically, that not all portals are direct line access to all other portals.
Must like an airline. It can get you most anywhere, but sometimes you have to change planes in a layover airport to get to your destination.
Just thinking out loud here, but would there be some sort of benefit(for lack of a better term), to portals not being instant point-A to point-B?
by this I mean, maybe if your trying to get to point_E, you can't get there directly from point-A, you have to pass through point-C or something. Basically, that not all portals are direct line access to all other portals.
Much like an airline. It can get you most anywhere, but sometimes you have to change planes in a layover airport to get to your destination. And sometimes on really distant travels, you have several layovers.
Barin999 said:@Vandraad and @Stellarmind. Very nice path of thinking. It would be interesting indeed. How about loading time or time to load entities when players continously zone into this seperate pathway inbetween portal destinations? How can lag be mitigated or otherwise be kept low? I'm assuming players would want to run through very fast and are not that interested in seeing who else is running across this temporary zone.
Interaction between players would not be possible in that zone? How about spell or other abilities cast, should it be possible?
The issue of load times/entities as well as player interaction was why my approach of 'The Ways' would be that for each entity, be that a group or an individual, taking that route goes into an isntanced version only for them. The purpose of this dimension isn't for player interaction but as a quicker, but more dangerous, means by which to get from A to B.
EDIT: It was mentioned above that where you want to go from A to C, but need to go through B first, with my system you can go directly from A to C but the distance you need to travel in this dimension is longer...and thus more dangerous. You'll be there longer with a greater opportunity for the hostile denizens to find and attack you. So you may decide that going from A to B through this dimension then proceeding overworld to get to C would be a safer, but longer option.
Could also add Atmospheres/Evironments that scaled within the travel dimension, or were even added, dynamically, the longer you were there.
So, you could, for example, travel from one zone to another without too much trouble, but the farther you went, the stronger the Environment effect, and/or multiple environments.
Then druids and wizards could specialize in protecting their groups when traveling in the travel dimension, thus facilitating ease of use, but not being required (if you could open portals to it with consumables, at fixed locations, or whatever other thing). Perhaps scorching and frigid were the most common, and they had scorching and frigid acclimation spells that were extremely effective in the travel dimension.
1. Need to have visited the region before beign able to teleport to it.
2. Expensive "no trade" (and soul bound, so it doesn't have to be in your inventory in case of a corpse run) reagents for group teleports that are consumed upon successful travel - potentially even have the reagents purchased from a wiz/druid NPC in the destination (to circle back to point #1).
This would prevent trivialization as well as lower levels being able to skip content via a buddy. The drawback of this is that Druid/Wiz will suffer from not being able to profit monetarily (as much) from teleporting.