Hm, I like the idea of NO-RENT, LORE, NO-TRADE consumable port tokens.
So, the intent would be: Find a caster (could be of several casters) willing to cast the spell on you, or you pay them. They cast it on you, it appears either in your hand or in your inventory. It has/is for a specific destination.
If they logoff for more than 15 minutes, the item is removed from the players inventory. The player can't have more than one of the same destination in their inventory. The player can't trade the item with others.
Now the target player can go about their business, and cast the teleport when they're ready. Once the server confirms they have arrive at their destination, and would put them there if they were disconnected 0.001 seconds after they arrive, the teleport token is consumed. I guess you could call them one-way tokens or something?
" MGB'ing TP:Reignfall at the bank! "
Optionally, you could also do the same thing for ALL casters who could at the very least provide recall/gate/bind consumables in the same fashion. So even priests could cast it on you to give you a consumable token that would send you to your home city, or back to their temple or nearest temple..
Maybe my understanding of the lore is wrong. I figured since the connection to the Gods isn't there, then magic itself would be effected, not just a class thing.
The idea about having to be at those locations for group travel was to bring the druid rings/circles and wizard spires as components to it. Was just a thought.
also don't like the idea of teleport tokens.
Nothing wrong with having a group port where the taxi has to be in the group, but it does create the problem whereby if the group is full... the taxi can't take the whole group.
I mean, ideally, you get the full group, then you get the port. Sure, you could always look for a wizard or druid to be in your group, but having to seek one out for the port doesn't reduce the social interaction required for the teleport if they can cast it on the group or group leader so they each (or just the leader) gets the destination token.
And it doesn't (once again) use out-of-combat utility to balance the value of a class. If all casters can provide some means of travel, then you could have a caravan/group recall, the last milestone market you visited recall, current NPC guild recall, racial home city recall, whatever you wanted (all/some/many/pro-rated by level/quest/etc).
Then you just seek out the class that can produce those tokens, or even make them punitively craftable. Either way, as long as more than one class can produce each type of teleport token, getting to where you want to go has exactly one requirement: find another player.
Ainadak said: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.
This is a well articulated and thoughful post. I couldn't agree more.
I agree with what Ainadak said.
It is of great importance that all classes within a role are of comparable value to a group. Otherwise some classes will have enormous difficulty getting into groups. This mostly means comparable use in combat but quite possible a class would have such great out-of-combat utility that it would be in demand regardless. Transportation, corpse retrieval, repairs, ability to summon a merchant, or the like.
Comparabilty with classes in other roles is not so vital. No one is likely to go with a dps class with nice ancillary abilities in lieue of having a tank or healer - not for difficult content.
Different classes should be ....different .... with each having abilites that will appeal to some players.
If there is one pet class, people will play it unless it is hideously weak. If there is one sneak class people will play it. If there is one archery or gun class people will play it.
It will be nice if special abilities are spread widely among the classes to give each one a good reason to be played. Thus, focusing on transportation which is our topic, and with no pretense of originality:
Maybe one class with an EQ2 type druid group teleport. Maybe one class with an EQ2 type wizard group teleport. Maybe one class with a LOTRO captain ability (summon players to the group). Maybe one class with a LOTRO guardian ability (get summoned to the group). Maybe one class with a LOTRO hunter ability (quick travel for the group on foot). Maybe one class with an EQ2 rogue ability (quick travel for the group out to escape from combat).
Hopefully not all of these and not to make travel too trivial - just to mention how many different abilities there are to be spread around the classes. Reference to EQ2 amd LOTRO are based purely on relatively recent experience - EQ and other games do comparable things and better in some cases.
Combat balance should be done separately and without the bias of non-combat utility.
Performing class balance by applying weight to non-combat and directly applying it to combat balance is a mistake EQ1 made, repeatedly.
IMO, what a class does out of combat has no bearing on combat balance and should not be considered in their overall combat class balance.
Or put another way? Just because a class has teleportation doesn't mean you make adjustments for their combat efficacy. That will simply repeat the same mistakes of EQ1 class balancing.
And this doesn't just apply to travel and casters. It applies to all non-combat abilities & spells, for all classes.
I do also agree with arainak, however in some cases it is hard to find "utility" to some classes (warrior beeing the easiest example, except if they get some sort of sprint/rush ?).
I don't want classes to be balanced around utilities and flavor tools, like illusions, faction gains, etc... But It would be good if anyone had at least a tool to benefit from.
I like the idea of different types of travel restricted in different way (though ships are sooooo slooooow generally it's really undesirable).
It may be unpopular, but I'm against only particular classes having access to things so fundamental as convenient travel.
Everyone needs to get around. Handing only druids and wizards the key to fast travel resulted in two things in EQ: -
1) They made a ton of money
2) Everyone else had to sit around or run a lot
It didn't really 'restrict' travel, it just made slow ships and running a relative tedious annoyance when you couldn't get someone to teleport you or couldn't afford it.
It didn't really add to community interaction it just meant Druids and Wizards all joined a guild called "Dial a Port" and people typed "/who all Dial" and made sure they had 10 platinum coins when they wanted to travel.
Personally, I would prefer either a system including more classes or preferably one that is class independant.
You could/should have to go and search for, or buy, some kind of limited life teleport 'key', like a half dozen sprigs of fresh mistletoe for a druid ring or half a dozen 'live' power crystals for wizard spires then you could take your group or /shout "gathered mistletoe! Anyone who wants to travel from the rings meet me in 1 minute!"
disposalist said:I like the idea of different types of travel restricted in different way (though ships are sooooo slooooow generally it's really undesirable).
It may be unpopular, but I'm against only particular classes having access to things so fundamental as convenient travel.
Everyone needs to get around. Handing only druids and wizards the key to fast travel resulted in two things in EQ: -
1) They made a ton of money
2) Everyone else had to sit around or run a lotIt didn't really 'restrict' travel, it just made slow ships and running a relative tedious annoyance when you couldn't get someone to teleport you or couldn't afford it.
It didn't really add to community interaction it just meant Druids and Wizards all joined a guild called "Dial a Port" and people typed "/who all Dial" and made sure they had 10 platinum coins when they wanted to travel.
Personally, I would prefer either a system including more classes or preferably one that is class independant.
You could/should have to go and search for, or buy, some kind of limited life teleport 'key', like a half dozen sprigs of fresh mistletoe for a druid ring or half a dozen 'live' power crystals for wizard spires then you could take your group or /shout "gathered mistletoe! Anyone who wants to travel from the rings meet me in 1 minute!"
You and I are of the same mind though I would intentionally break even further away from the EQ corollary than that and have fast travel have nothing to do with druids or wizards at all but something more lore based.
I should say though that I’m not against players having access to fast travel tools just that I don’t think they should be vastly superior to environmental fast travel options and should also include a risk and cost factor higher than the environmental tools. For instance most versions of D&D teleport had a random off target table you had to roll against when you cast teleport as well as a range limit and high material cost.
disposalist said:I like the idea of different types of travel restricted in different way (though ships are sooooo slooooow generally it's really undesirable).
It may be unpopular, but I'm against only particular classes having access to things so fundamental as convenient travel.
Everyone needs to get around. Handing only druids and wizards the key to fast travel resulted in two things in EQ: -
1) They made a ton of money
2) Everyone else had to sit around or run a lotIt didn't really 'restrict' travel, it just made slow ships and running a relative tedious annoyance when you couldn't get someone to teleport you or couldn't afford it.
It didn't really add to community interaction it just meant Druids and Wizards all joined a guild called "Dial a Port" and people typed "/who all Dial" and made sure they had 10 platinum coins when they wanted to travel.
Personally, I would prefer either a system including more classes or preferably one that is class independant.
You could/should have to go and search for, or buy, some kind of limited life teleport 'key', like a half dozen sprigs of fresh mistletoe for a druid ring or half a dozen 'live' power crystals for wizard spires then you could take your group or /shout "gathered mistletoe! Anyone who wants to travel from the rings meet me in 1 minute!"
This is one of the few deal breakers for me. Having easy access to convenient travel is one of the things that will break the game form the begining. It also would go against their desire to have meaningful travel. Traveling great distances should have a decision making proceess involved. Pay alot for convenience, or save money and take the long road. Can you even fnid someon to port you near by or do you have ro run a bit before you can even do that? I still remember when I first thought Vanguard was a let down and in my opinion would not last. It was when they put those teleporting stones in the world. Thik it was either beta 3 or soon after launch. Still played for a while after that but it was not what I was hoping for.
If you are going to give everyone the ability to teleport around at will it makes the world small and less importnant (Plane of Knowledge). How long before we give everyone the ability to be good dps, or decent at healing, or able to tank group content? Classes should have meaningful roles in and out of combat that make them desirable to either play or to know someone that playes one. Everytime you take away a chance to interact with a player the game loses a little bit more of what it is trying to be, a social mmo. Today its interacting with a wizard for a port, tomorrow its an automatic auction house that mails your goods to you, next week maybe a LFG tool that auto forms your group then ports you to the zone you want to play in. It creeps in. Convenience can be good for some mundane repetitive tasks but not for something as integral to the game as traveling.
Personally I lovbe the idea presented that has wizards doing intercontinental travel and druids being the domestic service if you will. And of course having the free boat so you are never forced to use either of them. That is one of the best ideas I have seen in a while. Love it.
As I recall - and I may be wrong - Vanguard put the teleport stones in after release. They also added personal flying mounts which was a lot worse.
>This is one of the few deal breakers for me. Having easy access to convenient travel is one of the things that will break the game form the begining.<
I think there are different *types* of convenient travel.
Instant travel from anywhere to a dungeon or landscape adventure area by means of a group-finder mechanism is bad. Really bad.
Instant travel from anywhere to a dungeon or landscape adventure area by means of a dungeon teleport stone or adventure teleport stone or stables or the like is just as bad.
Instant travel from specified locations (e.g. one stone to another or one stables to another but not from anywhere) is better. But still bad.
Instant travel from specified locations but only to places you have already been and "tagged" the target stone or stables is also better. But still bad especially if another player can summon you to that place to tag the stone or stables so you *never* need to do it the hard way.
On the other hand - quick travel from one "civilized" spot to another leaving you just as far from adventure seems clearly to be a different matter in many ways. Going from one starter city to another lets you adventure with friends at lower levels. Going from one continent to another without swimming for 5 hours real time is a necessity.
Rather than saying either that any convenient travel is bad or convenience is always good perhaps we should remember the old saying that the Devil is in the details. Some convenience should not be a deal breaker for anyone. Unlimited convenience should be a deal breaker for all of us.
Sabot said:This is one of the few deal breakers for me. Having easy access to convenient travel is one of the things that will break the game form the begining. It also would go against their desire to have meaningful travel. Traveling great distances should have a decision making proceess involved. Pay alot for convenience, or save money and take the long road. Can you even fnid someon to port you near by or do you have ro run a bit before you can even do that? I still remember when I first thought Vanguard was a let down and in my opinion would not last. It was when they put those teleporting stones in the world. Thik it was either beta 3 or soon after launch. Still played for a while after that but it was not what I was hoping for.
If you are going to give everyone the ability to teleport around at will it makes the world small and less importnant (Plane of Knowledge). How long before we give everyone the ability to be good dps, or decent at healing, or able to tank group content? Classes should have meaningful roles in and out of combat that make them desirable to either play or to know someone that playes one. Everytime you take away a chance to interact with a player the game loses a little bit more of what it is trying to be, a social mmo. Today its interacting with a wizard for a port, tomorrow its an automatic auction house that mails your goods to you, next week maybe a LFG tool that auto forms your group then ports you to the zone you want to play in. It creeps in. Convenience can be good for some mundane repetitive tasks but not for something as integral to the game as traveling.
Personally I lovbe the idea presented that has wizards doing intercontinental travel and druids being the domestic service if you will. And of course having the free boat so you are never forced to use either of them. That is one of the best ideas I have seen in a while. Love it.
Spot on, bravo!
I remember one of the first times I "tried to quit" EQ in like 2003. I played a new game called Horizons (exist now as Istaria). The game had teleporters so you could move between all the starting cities very easily. I did that once and I realized after that I had no idea how big the world was, or where I even was in the world. It was a big turn off. I only played it the first month.
bigdogchris said:Sabot said:This is one of the few deal breakers for me. Having easy access to convenient travel is one of the things that will break the game form the begining. It also would go against their desire to have meaningful travel. Traveling great distances should have a decision making proceess involved. Pay alot for convenience, or save money and take the long road. Can you even fnid someon to port you near by or do you have ro run a bit before you can even do that? I still remember when I first thought Vanguard was a let down and in my opinion would not last. It was when they put those teleporting stones in the world. Thik it was either beta 3 or soon after launch. Still played for a while after that but it was not what I was hoping for.
If you are going to give everyone the ability to teleport around at will it makes the world small and less importnant (Plane of Knowledge). How long before we give everyone the ability to be good dps, or decent at healing, or able to tank group content? Classes should have meaningful roles in and out of combat that make them desirable to either play or to know someone that playes one. Everytime you take away a chance to interact with a player the game loses a little bit more of what it is trying to be, a social mmo. Today its interacting with a wizard for a port, tomorrow its an automatic auction house that mails your goods to you, next week maybe a LFG tool that auto forms your group then ports you to the zone you want to play in. It creeps in. Convenience can be good for some mundane repetitive tasks but not for something as integral to the game as traveling.
Personally I lovbe the idea presented that has wizards doing intercontinental travel and druids being the domestic service if you will. And of course having the free boat so you are never forced to use either of them. That is one of the best ideas I have seen in a while. Love it.
Spot on, bravo!
I remember one of the first times I "tried to quit" EQ in like 2003. I played a new game called Horizons (exist now as Istaria). The game had teleporters so you could move between all the starting cities very easily. I did that once and I realized after that I had no idea how big the world was, or where I even was in the world. It was a big turn off. I only played it the first month.
I did the exact same thing, at about the exact same time.
dorotea said:As I recall - and I may be wrong - Vanguard put the teleport stones in after release. They also added personal flying mounts which was a lot worse.
>This is one of the few deal breakers for me. Having easy access to convenient travel is one of the things that will break the game form the begining.<
I think there are different *types* of convenient travel.
Instant travel from anywhere to a dungeon or landscape adventure area by means of a group-finder mechanism is bad. Really bad.
Instant travel from anywhere to a dungeon or landscape adventure area by means of a dungeon teleport stone or adventure teleport stone or stables or the like is just as bad.
Instant travel from specified locations (e.g. one stone to another or one stables to another but not from anywhere) is better. But still bad.
Instant travel from specified locations but only to places you have already been and "tagged" the target stone or stables is also better. But still bad especially if another player can summon you to that place to tag the stone or stables so you *never* need to do it the hard way.
On the other hand - quick travel from one "civilized" spot to another leaving you just as far from adventure seems clearly to be a different matter in many ways. Going from one starter city to another lets you adventure with friends at lower levels. Going from one continent to another without swimming for 5 hours real time is a necessity.
Rather than saying either that any convenient travel is bad or convenience is always good perhaps we should remember the old saying that the Devil is in the details. Some convenience should not be a deal breaker for anyone. Unlimited convenience should be a deal breaker for all of us.
I agree about flying mounts. They are worse because not only can you bypass the content you would have to travel through, you can bypass content at the location you want to go to and just drop right in on your preferred spot. Far worse.
I understand what you are saying, I just disagree when it comes to automated insta travel. Such as a stone or portal that is always available for use. The closest that I would be in favor of having something like that would be something like how they did the spire when Luclin came out. You could port for free between them, but they only became active at certain times. Let’s say once an hour or so. That would be similar to the boat mechanic and I could get onboard with that. And put them in the middle of nowhere. But being able to go to a city and port to another city at will? That would destroy the whole reason for the regional auction houses they have planned. In addition to making the whole world seem small and insignificant.
I am just personally against any form of long distance travel that doesn’t involve a time commitment (walking, or riding a boat) or interaction with a player to rent or purchase their service. If I can click something and end up somewhere else on the other side of the world and go back again anytime for nothing it just makes the world not a world. Just my opinion, I know it’s not everyone’s.
I just saw the idea of having druids and wizards with different porting styles as a natural evolution over the original EQ system. To me that is better than anything I have ever seen in a game so far.
I like the OPs idea for the start. Exploration needs to be something we get to dive into and enjoy but... fact is the longer you play a game its no longer exploring. Now its just travel time between land marks you know so well its tedium. So IMO later down the line quick travel should become a little faster. Like letting Druids and Wiards have travel point that they can take people continent to continent. That being said they should still be travel time but IMO it should be no longer then 10-15 min to get anywhere if you are getting a TP. Longher then that is just not needed.
Fast travel being equally available to all doesn't mean it has to be easy to all. It could be very difficult and restrictive, but for everyone.
There's just no reason to make something as fundamental as the ability to travel fast easy and lucrative for two classes and irritating and expensive for all the others.
I have no problem with how EQ did it, having wizard and druid ports. If you wanted to change anything for Pantheon then just limit the number of port locations compared to EQ, something like 2 per continent. But don't get rid of it altogether or take it out of the hands of players.
So what if wizards/druids could turn a buck doing it should they desire? They generally weren't making more money than could be made farming mobs somewhere anyway. Lots of classes could do things others couldn't or couldn't do near as well, and I never complained about it or wanted those things taken away. Clerics made far more money giving players resurrections or necromancers doing corpse summons. I was always just happy I could employ those services for myself, and the cost of a port was pretty insignificant to most players anyway. Who cares if someone profits on it? Some people made money giving out SoW or HP buffs or Damage Shields too. No skin off my back.
The game without any long range teleports/travel will be a total slog. Sure the run from Qeynos to Freeport/Faydwer was interesting or fun the first couple times or so but after that it only became more and more tedious & unappealing. As such I don't see a problem in simply requiring a player to have traveled to the end location of a port at least once before allowing them to teleport there in the future.
The better solution would be to make the open world smaller and stuff it with more interesting things. If everything one wants is close-by and the world isn't so big as to take hours to travel...then why port? There are people here that want to travel a big world, but then there is the general dislike of fast travel. What is it then!?! How many people want to keep climbing towards High Keep and risking death from falling? It's pointless. EQ2 started with a smaller world with many more things to do in each zone...I do not recall many complaints at all until the mobs were made easier due to the success of WoW.
EQ2 had only two starting cities though...but even then, why have a needlessly large world? What was there to do in Butcherblock after the thousandth time passing the same low-level trash? Did the developers want us to waste our time just to keep paying their bills? EQ was not intended to last very long, but when it did fast-travel was then needed due to the bland emptiness of so many large zones. Realism was also a strong component of many games back then, but we know that realism is not fun anymore and open-world games with large worlds are done to death.
I know that people want to travel in a large and expansive world, but it needs to be full of things to do. Porting should not be needed, but it should also not be automated or widespread. It's a better idea that Wizards and Druids are able to port to exotic places that cannot be reached by foot. Porting locations on the default world itself should be severely limited, but binding should be much easier to do. People should be able to bind in many safe places without the need of casters, but can only bind in unsafe places using spells.
Most people tend to stay around a single dungeon until the mobs stop giving good exp, and maybe they just want a way to stay there rather than having to return after being ported to sell items and buy food/drink/bandages/reagents/spells. I feel that Summoner should play that role...they can have an easy-to-cast spell which gives access to individual banking slots only available through the spell that players can deposit items into so that their inventory will not bear the brunt of 7000 loaves of magic bread and situational throwing boulders with bane damage to fairies. Players will then deposit their heavy loot and have more of their needed items without the need of porting anywhere.
It is actually more valuable to stay in one place than it is to go everywhere. Travelling to dangerous locations should be a group activity, not an automatic port unless it's in another dimension. If porting is too powerful, Wizards and Druids will feel the balance-hammer on their other skills.
kreed99 said: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.
I like the OP's idea, but I like what Kreed said even better. If there was a way to do this I think it could make teleporting a lot more interesting. Maybe instead of gaining the abilities to port to specific locations as they level, teleporters gain attunement slots for teleport locations. Higher level characters would naturally have more slots. Then some porters can choose to offer different routes than others.
I'd also still prefer to have consumable reagents involved, both for the porter and the ported.
I don't think there are overall balance points that mean a teleporter has to be weaker at combat. Things don't always have to be equal. It's usually better in these games when they're not. As long as they give people reasons to play each class/race combination, there's not much to worry about.
Like I said, Druid can teleport to certain locations but limited to only on the land they are on. Wizard have access to teleport between landmasses. But for EVERYONE, ships are available. Might take you a bit to run to that smaller city with ships going to other landmasses, or take a little while to wait for a ship to come to the starting city you are at. But ships would be for everyone.
Personally I don't see where a druid or wizard's ability to teleport around has anything to do with their ability to do combat related stuff, I just don't see where it effects that part of their class, just because they have access to utility spells.
I want teleports to be risky.
I don't want wizard spires and druid circles as "landing sites" for teleports.
Instead I want teleports to be somewhat random and skill based.
Example... instead of teleporting to "this particular and explicit location within a zone" you instead teleport to the zone in general, and only specific zones (maybe 1 per continent) can be teleported to.
This means... those being teleported will land in random locations, scattered throughout the zone. The higher the skill of the druid or wizard or whatever class is teleporting the higher the probability that the group all lands in the same location. Keyword: Probability. There's always the chance of a failure or mishap which then causes players to be spread out regardless of skill or level.
This would make teleports less desirable than doing a safe boat ride or going to a place on foot.
Teleports should also be expensive and not just some Uber/Lyft ride between areas as seen in Everquest. By expensive this could be both in pure cost (buy a high cost item which is consumed), expensive in terms of time to cast it (e.g. a lot of preparation stuff to do to cast it like creating a circle and casting other spells to prepare it) or the whole teleportation could follow a type of "crafting" where you require numerous components where some are expensive and others are just plain rare, e.g. rare drop from mining or creatures).
To sum it up teleports should be:
These things would make teleporting something you only use sparingly and only when you really, really need it rather than willy-nilly Lyft-rides back and forth between places.
dayhjawk said:Like I said, Druid can teleport to certain locations but limited to only on the land they are on. Wizard have access to teleport between landmasses. But for EVERYONE, ships are available. Might take you a bit to run to that smaller city with ships going to other landmasses, or take a little while to wait for a ship to come to the starting city you are at. But ships would be for everyone.
I guess it depends how ships work. In EQ they were beyond painful compared to teleports. You just didn't do it unless you really *had* to.
dayhjawk said:Personally I don't see where a druid or wizard's ability to teleport around has anything to do with their ability to do combat related stuff, I just don't see where it effects that part of their class, just because they have access to utility spells.
The ability to travel anywhere anytime is a massive advantage.
When you cannot teleport, you face: -
1) Staying in the same place a long time which means throwing away 'excess' loot and coin when bags are full or encumberance excessive. Running out of food and drink and not being able to recover. Very limited access to resurrection and other 'services'.
or
2) Playing only when it's busy enough that there are lots of porters around and pay through the nose to get ported.
or
3) Playing when it's not busy and getting to spend a *lot* of time running and waiting.
No, being able to teleport doesn't directly effect your combat ability, it just means you get to spend a lot more of your time *in* combat than anyone else (because you spend a lot less time travelling), have a lot more choice over what you do (because you can always nip back to town or change dungeons), have a lot more awesome services available (because you can offer to fetch a cleric for resurrection or necromancer for corpse summon or rogue for door unlocking or go to the bank for a special item, etc) and you can make money teleporting people around in your down time (because you can advertise your teleporting services when crafting/trading).
I just logged into P99. My monk was in Karmor's Castle. There was one other character there. My options: -
1) Wait for potentially hours in case people turn up to group with
or
2) Wait for potentially hours typing "/who all Dial" until a Dial-A-Port druid/wizard is online and then run across the zone to the druid ring or wizard spire and pay to go somewhere else (if I had cash on me - being a monk you often don't even have 10pp) that might be just as quiet as Karnors Castle by the time I get there then start the process again
or
3) Run across several zones to another dungeon which may also be empty by the time I get there
or
4) Run across several zones to a ship port and then wait 20 minutes for a boat and then spend 10 minutes on the boat and then run across several other zones to get to east commons and sit there for a few hours trading and checking zone populations in dungeon zones even though people often LFG outside the dungeon zones, so I might be missing a group or put up my LFG flag, but no one uses that system...
I could keep going but I'm pretty sure you get my point by now.
disposalist said:I guess it depends how ships work. In EQ they were beyond painful compared to teleports. You just didn't do it unless you really *had* to.
Call me crazy, but waiting for the boats in Everquest actually made me quite a few friends. Friends which I later joined or called upon to form groups. So in the long-term those boats helped build networks and community. Also, while boats were slower than ports they weren't that bad. They gave you a chance to chill, to go get a drink or stretch your legs and so on. It's only after there were so many druids and wizards in the game (at levels where they could teleport) and the plat-inflation was high enough that everyone had plat available to spend, that boats started being regarded as less desirable. Even worse when Nexus was introduced and you could just mass-transport to every area across the whole game with zero cost. That completely removed the need for the boats and honestly removed one of the social and community building aspects of the game.
disposalist said:The ability to travel anywhere anytime is a massive advantage.
When you cannot teleport, you face: -
1) Staying in the same place a long time which means throwing away 'excess' loot and coin when bags are full or encumberance excessive. Running out of food and drink and not being able to recover. Very limited access to resurrection and other 'services'.
or
2) Playing only when it's busy enough that there are lots of porters around and pay through the nose to get ported.
or
3) Playing when it's not busy and getting to spend a *lot* of time running and waiting.
No, being able to teleport doesn't directly effect your combat ability, it just means you get to spend a lot more of your time *in* combat than anyone else (because you spend a lot less time travelling), have a lot more choice over what you do (because you can always nip back to town or change dungeons), have a lot more awesome services available (because you can offer to fetch a cleric for resurrection or necromancer for corpse summon or rogue for door unlocking or go to the bank for a special item, etc) and you can make money teleporting people around in your down time (because you can advertise your teleporting services when crafting/trading).
I just logged into P99. My monk was in Karmor's Castle. There was one other character there. My options: -
1) Wait for potentially hours in case people turn up to group with
or
2) Wait for potentially hours typing "/who all Dial" until a Dial-A-Port druid/wizard is online and then run across the zone to the druid ring or wizard spire and pay to go somewhere else (if I had cash on me - being a monk you often don't even have 10pp) that might be just as quiet as Karnors Castle by the time I get there then start the process again
or
3) Run across several zones to another dungeon which may also be empty by the time I get there
or
4) Run across several zones to a ship port and then wait 20 minutes for a boat and then spend 10 minutes on the boat and then run across several other zones to get to east commons and sit there for a few hours trading and checking zone populations in dungeon zones even though people often LFG outside the dungeon zones, so I might be missing a group or put up my LFG flag, but no one uses that system...
I could keep going but I'm pretty sure you get my point by now.
While I understand the concerns for not being able to play a particular character because they are in an area which may not be active at that time I will have to add that such circumstances is also a thing that made people play alternate characters, which is good for the low-level aspect of the game since that kept the lower level zones more active.
The need for on-demand teleports to get anywhere is an expectation that has come around in the later years of MMO games, and primarily because players are constantly min-maxing in an effort to rush to the endgame as soon as humanly possible.
The real question here will be... is Pantheon going to be a fast-paced game where the goal is to railroad to the end level at maxium pace, or is it going to be a game that facilitates things that lead into community building and player interactions?
The boats in Butcherblock absolutely led to player interactions. Whether that was just chit-chatting, or discussing things about the game such as where to go for levels, or what items someone would recommend to get, or complaining about the boat, promoting your guild in hopes of recruiting some new people, roleplaying with others for fun or anything really. The point being... by having what I will call 'paced gameplay' in the games, such as waiting for boats, you are encouraging players to interact with eachother.
From what I have read in the devblogs one of the things they want for the game is for players to interact with eachother. Thus the whole point of getting into a dungeon and finding a spot to 'camp', and then pull to that camp while also having periods of downtime (by design) where players find the time to actually connect and talk to eachother.
On-demand teleports and "Nexus Metro Grand Central Station" systems in the games really just puts the entire game into a "rush mode" where noone has time for anything cause everyone is just busy-busy-busy getting from one place to another and have no time for other players whatsoever.
Ghroznak said:Call me crazy, but waiting for the boats in Everquest actually made me quite a few friends. Friends which I later joined or called upon to form groups. So in the long-term those boats helped build networks and community. Also, while boats were slower than ports they weren't that bad. They gave you a chance to chill, to go get a drink or stretch your legs and so on. It's only after there were so many druids and wizards in the game (at levels where they could teleport) and the plat-inflation was high enough that everyone had plat available to spend, that boats started being regarded as less desirable. Even worse when Nexus was introduced and you could just mass-transport to every area across the whole game with zero cost. That completely removed the need for the boats and honestly removed one of the social and community building aspects of the game.
You're crazy! Lol. No seriously... people make friends in prison - it doesn't mean going there is a good idea. People make way more friends grouping in dungeons than waiting for boats. Also, transport better than boats doesn't = nexus teleports. There's a lot in between.
Ghroznak said:While I understand the concerns for not being able to play a particular character because they are in an area which may not be active at that time I will have to add that such circumstances is also a thing that made people play alternate characters, which is good for the low-level aspect of the game since that kept the lower level zones more active.
The need for on-demand teleports to get anywhere is an expectation that has come around in the later years of MMO games, and primarily because players are constantly min-maxing in an effort to rush to the endgame as soon as humanly possible.
The real question here will be... is Pantheon going to be a fast-paced game where the goal is to railroad to the end level at maxium pace, or is it going to be a game that facilitates things that lead into community building and player interactions?
The boats in Butcherblock absolutely led to player interactions. Whether that was just chit-chatting, or discussing things about the game such as where to go for levels, or what items someone would recommend to get, or complaining about the boat, promoting your guild in hopes of recruiting some new people, roleplaying with others for fun or anything really. The point being... by having what I will call 'paced gameplay' in the games, such as waiting for boats, you are encouraging players to interact with eachother.
From what I have read in the devblogs one of the things they want for the game is for players to interact with eachother. Thus the whole point of getting into a dungeon and finding a spot to 'camp', and then pull to that camp while also having periods of downtime (by design) where players find the time to actually connect and talk to eachother.
On-demand teleports and "Nexus Metro Grand Central Station" systems in the games really just puts the entire game into a "rush mode" where noone has time for anything cause everyone is just busy-busy-busy getting from one place to another and have no time for other players whatsoever.
Again, not leaving some classes stuck and others whizzing around free doesn't equal nexus porting free-for-all. There are many in-between options.
Yes, downtime is great, but there will be plenty of opportunity for interaction without forcing it because you're stuck somewhere twiddling your thumbs.
I absolutely don't want a high-paced game. Wrath of the Lich King in WoW with the dungeon finder teleporting in and out killed WoW for me (though there were many other things, that was the straw that broke the camel's back).
If VR decide there will be no teleporting and no boats and you have to swim between continents I'd prefer that to a high-paced game, BUT if they *are* going to have teleporting, why give it to some and not others? Instant movement is a massively impactful mechanic, not just an interesting utility spell.
disposalist said: Also, transport better than boats doesn't = nexus teleports. There's a lot in between.
I can agree with that; hence my post further above regarding making teleports expensive, skill based (with chance of being unlucky) and restricted in where you can go.
What I do not want is the whole on-demand teleport Lyft-rides we saw in Everquest, and absolutely not the whole Nexus-free-port-to-every-zone system that came later on.
Also, being able to get around, e.g. from Karnors Castle to any other level-appropriate area may not be as much of an issue in Pantheon since the whole issue regarding 'getting around' in Everquest was largely a result of the geography being so spread out and players consequently spreading out to all those places making the available playerbase who is LFG sitting around all over the place. Pretty sure while you were sitting in Karnors Castle there were others LFG too but sitting in City of Mist, Skyfire Mountains and so on.
With Pantheon things may not be as spread out as it was in Everquest. Especially the 'barrier' between old world and kunark was very obvious in Everquest. People sitting in Lguk were "worlds apart" from someone in Karnors or City of Mist, and getting from Lguk to KC or CoM, or vice versa was not something anyone did lightly. However that may not be as prevalent in Pantheon.
It all comes down to how the different locations are spread out geographically, and how they design it so it stays active with several players in the area.
Consequently, the whole need for on-demand teleports may not be needed at all in Pantheon (even though they certainly were desirable in Everquest, again due to geography and thinned out playerbase spread over multiple locations) and the only thing really needed for Pantheon is a) boats b) horses and c) expensive/rare teleports (as I outlined above).