There might be a post on this already I tried to do some searchs but didn't find anything so started this post.
Here is my input on traveling, transportation and how I would like to see the world connected.
Druids:
Druids are able to travel between within a continent but not continent to continent. Druid circles allow druids to quickly travel across a continent but not everywhere. Like 2-3 locations per land mass that they can travel between but still placed where they require some traveling.
Wizard:
Wizards on the other hand are able to travel from continent to continent. There would be a spire or some sort of object that allows them to travel between the landmasses. I figured something within the center location on that landmass. Wizard has to be at this location to be able to teleport themselves or others between two locations. These locations also tend to be out of the way and require some traveling to get to.
Ships :
Maybe each landmass as a "neutral" port where all races can walk into. These ports connect to each other and there are ships traveling between them or you have to purchase a pass to access.
Also from these ports they connect to some not all, of the starting cities. Like maybe the human and halflings have a dock but the elves don't. Maybe the orges and skar have ports but the dark pyr don't.
Just some food for thought.
Saltie said: So in essence anyone like myself (who played a druid in eq). Would have to play a wizard for the ability to move myself or group to another continent. I think eq did it right. Basically same ports just different locations. It also allows for a more diverse group. By allowing only Wizards to port around the world Druids will be left out. Great for wizards bad for druids.
No you can find a wizard or use a port. Druids would have more ports but limited to only on the landmasses, where wizard would have limited ports but connect the ports. Players could use ships and docks to travel.
Also the idea that both have the power and freedom to do the same job just depends on location of where you want to go, doesn't seem to make them stand out any. Having each do something different with travel means that both brings something to the table.
Do you need to move around the landmass quicker? Find a druid
Do you need to quickly get to another landmass? Find a wizard or use the docks. Which one is quicker and which one is closer?
Can't find either? Use the dock or travel by foot/other means.
I like your idea, however I feel the Wizards will be seen as the most advantaged due to their ability to port further than others, even if technically (if rings are close to the spire), they would be quite complementary.
But long distance beeing the biggest time loss, they remain more favored and important than their counterpart.
My preference is to stick to the model Everquest laid out. Basically, druids and wizards are able to port to various zones within the world, depending on if there is a druid ring or wizard spire available. Some zones would have no portals, while others may contain either a druid ring or a wizard spire, but not necessarily both.
Nephele said:Good thoughts. Reserving judgement until we hear more from VR about their plans for teleportation and travel, but overall what you've put forward seems fairly balanced :)
Yup haven't heard much on this, don't even know if wizards and druids will have ports, at this point. And the mystery continues. lol
I like the Wizard vs. Druid idea so long as the landmasses are large enough to warrant a Druid port while you are on said continent. If it would work out that the time it would take to find, and hook up with, a Druid took equal to or longer than just running to the other side of the continent then I think that would be a deal breaker. I've never really played either class before and probably not planning to so I don't really have a dog in the show. I would, however, like to see parity between them and also that there is some "difference" between their porting capabilities other than just different locations for each.
I liked the way EQ had it, druids had druid rings, and wizards had spires, both were set up in specific locations and it took levels to unlock the spells. First came the self ports, then the group ports then finally single target ports. These made the community strong because everyone wanted to be friends with wizards druids and clerics lol.
I seem to remember in one of the vod's that they were toying with having certain locations attunable for certain porters, but they would only be able to attune to a limited number of locations. So you would need to find the wizard attuned to the Tower of the Reckless Magician to port to that area versus a wizard attuned to Wilds End. But i could be wrong.... my memory does falter sometimes.
Personally I do not think that there should be any class specific travel tools. All fast travel should come from either vehicles or NPCs. This takes the out of combat utility out of the game balance equation, do you really want your wizard/druid to be weaker in combat because they have teleport out of combat?
Trasak said:Personally I do not think that there should be any class specific travel tools. All fast travel should come from either vehicles or NPCs.
In another forum, someone made the comment that any time the system creates a non-player way to achieve some goal, it harms the social aspect of the game. I didn't really buy it at first, but over the years, I've come to agree with it.
Personally, I like the idea of players having the best "fast" travel options, and think it's a good thing to differentiate the classes along those lines.
Druids would be the railroads, Wizards the Airports. Ships moving from port to port.
also, with how the lore seems to be going with "magic" to the best of my understanding. Maybe druids and wizards have to actually be near the cricles/spires to be able to port. So if you wanted to go from Spot A to B, you have to be at Spot A to do it.
dayhjawk said:Having the means to teleport isn't going to effect them combat wise. it's additional spells they have access to. Having each one do something different with teleportation means they both have their strengths and weakness when it comes to mobility/teleportation.
I believe Trasak's suggestion was that classes need to be balanced overall. If you compare a wizard to a mage (assuming for the time being that they're both just dps classes) and they both do the same dps, but the wizard gets to teleport all over the world, then why would anyone pick a mage? One way to balance that disparity is to reduce the wizard's dps, so the mage is balanced in some fashion. This is a pitfall of WoW era overbalancing though. If everyone can do everything in and out of combat, then every class needs to be balanced against every other class. It leads to the question - if Wizards get the awesome ability to teleport, what do they lose in return to maintain balance?
Although I don't have evidence for it, I would expect that in Pantheon there will be a great deal of asymmetry. Wizards can have port because Rogues can sneak, Clerics can rez, Shaman can runspeed buff, etc. While they aren't directly balanced against each other, there's a rough feeling that every class has their place. You will always be able to argue that class X is better than class Y all the way up to the point where they are made 100% identical.
Ainadak said:dayhjawk said:Having the means to teleport isn't going to effect them combat wise. it's additional spells they have access to. Having each one do something different with teleportation means they both have their strengths and weakness when it comes to mobility/teleportation.
I believe Trasak's suggestion was that classes need to be balanced overall. If you compare a wizard to a mage (assuming for the time being that they're both just dps classes) and they both do the same dps, but the wizard gets to teleport all over the world, then why would anyone pick a mage? One way to balance that disparity is to reduce the wizard's dps, so the mage is balanced in some fashion. This is a pitfall of WoW era overbalancing though. If everyone can do everything in and out of combat, then every class needs to be balanced against every other class. It leads to the question - if Wizards get the awesome ability to teleport, what do they lose in return to maintain balance?
Although I don't have evidence for it, I would expect that in Pantheon there will be a great deal of asymmetry. Wizards can have port because Rogues can sneak, Clerics can rez, Shaman can runspeed buff, etc. While they aren't directly balanced against each other, there's a rough feeling that every class has their place. You will always be able to argue that class X is better than class Y all the way up to the point where they are made 100% identical.
That's more or less what I was getting at. On a macro scale classes are usually designed to be balanced both in their in combat role (tank vs other tank, healer vs other healer). Out of combat utility abilities are usually much harder to balance. You are then left with each class either needing an out of combat utility that is highly desired or the utility abilities need to cut into the "class build points". I would consider rez, feign death and sneak as primary combat class abilities and not utility abilities. Rather than charge the druid and wizard "class build points" for fast travel I would have fast travel be an environmental effect rather than a player one.
We use the term teleport but it could instead be a flying carpet, a wardrobe you climb into and out the back of, a fountain you jump in, a ship or even a carriage everyone needs to climb in and sit while it drags you a long distance. There could be board games and the like in the carriage. Being trapped together for a lengthy period of time is more likely to generate actual interaction rather than "Looking for port DL" "I can do it for 50pp" "Rip off but fine I need to go now" *join group* *Cast* "K thks BY" *disband group*
Neat ideas.
Fitting more into traditional/PnP roleplaying, I think that Druids should be able to travel to all earthly locations and nature based planes, which would include any continent. Wizards would have the ability to transport to all of the planar shards, in addition to a more limited selection of locations throughout the game.
Trasak said:That's more or less what I was getting at. On a macro scale classes are usually designed to be balanced both in their in combat role (tank vs other tank, healer vs other healer). Out of combat utility abilities are usually much harder to balance. You are then left with each class either needing an out of combat utility that is highly desired or the utility abilities need to cut into the "class build points". I would consider rez, feign death and sneak as primary combat class abilities and not utility abilities. Rather than charge the druid and wizard "class build points" for fast travel I would have fast travel be an environmental effect rather than a player one.
You don't need tight balancing for out of combat utility... I don't think anyone sits there as a warrior/monk/rogue feeling sad and getting upset that they can't cast Teleport/SoW/Levitate/Invis/Water Breathing/Gate/Illusions/etc. There will never be close parity between melee/non-magic classes and casters in terms of non-combat utility/abilities, and there doesn't need to be.
Why would anyone play a rogue then when they could do similar damage and have lots of out of combat utility by playing Wizard? Because they like rogues and their playstyle (and in EQ the best stealth/invis in the game), or monk and their style/feign death, or warrior etc. Other classes might not have personal access to ports and the like but they do have access to them via other players.
Well the train of thought for my suggest was from what I am understanding, magic in general is slightly weaken. By this I mean the gods/goddess aren't there like they were in, lets say, everquest. Because of this the druid circles and wizard spires are weaker than what they use to be. Have still have power, just not as strong. Druid circles being many, not sure the size of each continent but for this discussion lets just say 3 per land mass, their strength is weaker. They still allow druids to travel on the same landmass but they aren't strong enough to reach across the ocean. Wizard spires on the other hand, again for this discussion, would be one per landmass, probably centered. Since there are fewer ones, their magic is stronger and would allow teleporting from landmass to landmass. I believe this, as I am understanding it, would fit along with the lore.
The next thing, I am going to suggest, is that druids/wizards would require being at these locations to teleport. So if a druid/wizard wanted to teleport to another location they would have to find the nearest druid circle/wizard spire to do so. Perhaps they can self teleport to these locations but require them to group teleport.
dayhjawk said:Well the train of thought for my suggest was from what I am understanding, magic in general is slightly weaken. By this I mean the gods/goddess aren't there like they were in, lets say, everquest. Because of this the druid circles and wizard spires are weaker than what they use to be. Have still have power, just not as strong. Druid circles being many, not sure the size of each continent but for this discussion lets just say 3 per land mass, their strength is weaker. They still allow druids to travel on the same landmass but they aren't strong enough to reach across the ocean. Wizard spires on the other hand, again for this discussion, would be one per landmass, probably centered. Since there are fewer ones, their magic is stronger and would allow teleporting from landmass to landmass. I believe this, as I am understanding it, would fit along with the lore.
The next thing, I am going to suggest, is that druids/wizards would require being at these locations to teleport. So if a druid/wizard wanted to teleport to another location they would have to find the nearest druid circle/wizard spire to do so. Perhaps they can self teleport to these locations but require them to group teleport.
AFAIK magic isn't any weaker now than it ever was. The only thing that has changed for the races is that their gods are quiet/communication with them has been lost, direct influence and communication being blocked by the Dragon Accord/Celestial Boundary.
I don't know if I'm getting this right or not.
But portal travel would work as this, using the above map picture as reference:
Wizards can port between continents and druids can port to multiple inland locations but only the to the current continent they're in.
But for a caster to port player arround, the players need to physically move to the "portal" place, where they'll be ported to another location.
For example if someone wants to portal between continents, they need to first physically run to the portal zone, find a Wizard to "open" the portal so they can travel through it. and for the Druids it would be the same, player runs to the druid "portal" zone, find a Druid to "open" the portal and travel trough it.
So whenever a plauyer wants to port around the world, they first need to go to a specifig location where the "portal" exists, and those portal need to be "opened" by the respective classes so the other player can go trough them.
And Maybe to make things a bit easier on the teleporting casters, they're the only ones that can directly self-teleport to those locations, mages can do it from everywhere. Druids only to the "portal zones" of their current continent. Or instead of self porting to locations, they can create temporary "keys" to open the portals for groups, so wizards and druids could sell the keys while in town, and the group that bought them runs to the "portal zone" and uses the key to open the portal and teleport.
It is an interesting concept that in order to travel to a zone in the far corner of another content a player might first need to find a wizard...and then find a druid. They both have their place and, in certain situations, both would be required to save the player being ported a long "run".