Ground Speed and Roads

[Galdethriel]

Roads confuse me.

Usually in other MMOs, they serve to link settlements and guide players as well as show you, essentially, the path to take where you're least likely to be assaulted by monsters. HZ is the only game I've ever played (though more may be out there) where the roads also boost speed. This is both a good and a bad thing, in my opinion.

Without speed boosts you get later on (assuming an established player isn't feeding you speed boost methods from day one), when moving off a road you move at an absolute crawl. As a hatchling in particular, it often feels to me like on a road is a normal speed to move at and moving off the path is a debuffed speed. I'm not sure if it also feels this way for bipeds, due to their smaller size.

I think the speed boost should be removed from roads and granted as a passive ground speed boost across the board. As it is now, all it feels like it achieves is to discourage exploration. Besides letting travellers take more direct routes, this won't have an adverse effect on overall speed either (for bipeds who stack speed buffs and sprint, for example), but it will let you go off the beaten path.

[Cegaiel]

Its been like this as long as I can remember. Unless I'm just stuck in the old days, I like it the way it is.

The only other MMO that I've ever tried that has road bonus (ATITD) does it in a different way. Theres no techs for +Speed per-say but can earn speed, dex, str, etc other ways. On that game you get road bonus regardless. The higher the speed you have, the faster the road bonus. To run a tad quicker offroad (grass,etc) Dex gives a bonus to offroad speed. That's not likely to get implemented, but hey, tossing that idea out there.

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And speaking of road bonuses, can we get that added to the road from the bridge on Isle of Ice to the Expedition Camp? The road on the southern edge of Isle of Ice (that runs west and east). Lots of nasty wolves on there, that road bonus could help a less than level 100 player, get to expedition camp to attune.

[Pharaxes]

Walking along solid ground is of course faster than for example on a sandy beach. So I would say the speed bonus is correct there

[Galdethriel]

Its been like this as long as I can remember. Unless I'm just stuck in the old days, I like it the way it is.

The only other MMO that I've ever tried that has road bonus (ATITD) does it in a different way. Theres no techs for +Speed per-say but can earn speed, dex, str, etc other ways. On that game you get road bonus regardless. The higher the speed you have, the faster the road bonus. To run a tad quicker offroad (grass,etc) Dex gives a bonus to offroad speed. That's not likely to get implemented, but hey, tossing that idea out there.

I think just making the road bonus permanent would be a simpler solution. I can't imagine it would take much tweaking on the dev's part.

Walking along solid ground is of course faster than for example on a sandy beach. So I would say the speed bonus is correct there

Logic isn't as important as fun. I don't know about you, but being punished with an incredibly slow run speed for leaving the path is not fun for me. It's actually very frustrating. And what does it achieve, really?

[Tzael]

Logic isn't as important as fun. I don't know about you, but being punished with an incredibly slow run speed for leaving the path is not fun for me. It's actually very frustrating. And what does it achieve, really?

You could look at this from a completely different perspective - imagine that you'd played this game and never encountered a road up until now. You'd be completely accustomed to the default speed, you might have a few buffs and techs/crystals to increase your speed but overall the default speed would be what you generally expect for movement. Then you encounter a road for the first time, and all of a sudden it feels like a tinkerer strapped a couple of astounding fireworks to your sides and you're rocketing along at an insane speed compared to normal!

I put it to you that you only think the speed for off-road travel is slow because you are accustomed to the higher speeds available when travelling by road. Were roads less common in Istaria than they actually are, players in general would not be used to receiving the road bonus so frequently.

Food for thought

[Galdethriel]

You could look at this from a completely different perspective - imagine that you'd played this game and never encountered a road up until now. You'd be completely accustomed to the default speed, you might have a few buffs and techs/crystals to increase your speed but overall the default speed would be what you generally expect for movement. Then you encounter a road for the first time, and all of a sudden it feels like a tinkerer strapped a couple of astounding fireworks to your sides and you're rocketing along at an insane speed compared to normal!

I put it to you that you only think the speed for off-road travel is slow because you are accustomed to the higher speeds available when travelling by road. Were roads less common in Istaria than they actually are, players in general would not be used to receiving the road bonus so frequently.

Food for thought

I can understand what you're saying here. However I'd still argue the point because of exactly how slow HZ off road speed actually is - it feels like a rock could outrun you. In World of Warcraft I can go from 410% my normal speed to average running speed without buffs and though I'm aware I'm going slower, it's never so slow as to feel frustrating. In HZ, average sized character models visibly run in slow motion when off the road. Dragon animations are slower again.

To compound the problem, HZ is terrible for forcing the player to tackle one quest at a time running back and forth countless times over long, empty tracts of land. This is a turn off for new players. The fact that you move at a snail's pace just makes this design flaw worse again.

TL : DR - Slow is not fun. Fast is fun. Path speed looks like normal speed. Off path is slow motion. Slow/not fun puts off new players.

[Tzael]

And speaking of road bonuses, can we get that added to the road from the bridge on Isle of Ice to the Expedition Camp? The road on the southern edge of Isle of Ice (that runs west and east). Lots of nasty wolves on there, that road bonus could help a less than level 100 player, get to expedition camp to attune.

The road bonus is still there on the Island of Ice, except it follows the old road layout

[Azath]

Is speed a problem? hmmm

To begin with, at the very start...no. when i first joined istaria, the only thing that helped me figure out where to go was the path and the familiar cadence of speech. That speed bonus enocourages players to go on the path, which for new players is a good thing, because you don't really know where to go and there's little to do off the paths anyways and they lead new players.

When you leave Lesser Aradoth, that's when paths start becoming a little more annoying, and when interesting stuff actually exists off the paths. But i'll get back to that later.

Nearer the end of the game, they aren't an issue either. You know where to go and have speed bonuses and the speed difference isn't that drastic when you go off the paths.

So where's the issue...off lesser aradoth, when you're still adjusting to the game (because let's face it - lesser aradoth is no comparison at all to dali peninsula. Lesser aradoth you can usuallly use a path, dali peninsula you sometimes run through a path, die, then need to use the map to figure out an off road detour) and have no major speed bonuses (because +4 speed seems like nothing at all unless you're running alongside someone).

Would giving a general bonus for everyone do it? (or to contrast, removing the bonus completely?)

Hmm...it would give less encouragement to go on paths, but that can be worked around because a path is just a texture, the road bonus is applied seperately (hense why some paths don't give road bonus - they were forgotten, and some paths have the road bonus beside them instead of on them - misplaced) so that can be worked around, but unless it was applied to all paths it would feel odd suddenly that all paths except on NT/training isle/skalkaar have no bonus. It's either an all paths or nothing situation.

Giving a bonus to all people...i personnally don't like it (but that's i think just to an individual sitaution; high character speeds combiend with low average fps means the game lags a lot when i go really fast so i try to keep below 120 speed) but i think it would benefit everyone overall. Or..would it? Would it not just become just as slow as 50 speed is (due to people getting used to it?) i mean yes you're moving faster but at some point someones gonna complain that it's slow to move to settlements because that's the speed they're used to. And you can't just keep on ramping up the speed.

Contrarily, would taking away speed bonuses completely resolve it? No. As stated above also, but there's a grander issue with this. It's really hard to obtain useful speed bonuses until about lv40. You're gonna go EVEN SLOWER through the start of the game. So taking them away isn't going to resolve any issues either. It's going to make it worse.

At least with paths as they are, you run at a decent pace through the start of the game because you should be on the path anyway, and it makes up for the lack of decent speed bonuses.

The real issue is, that at low speeds (50), the speed difference feels really drastic offroad an onroad. Until you get speed bonuses, the change in pace is notable. But...i don't think it's as much of a major issue as you're making out.
You either run on the path as you should do, or take a detour. Detours off the road are often pretty long, so you usually adjust to the speed pretty quickly and it doesn't feel all that slow after a couple of minutes.

I often use the road bonus to help, because my dragons can run at 74 speed, hatchies on a path can run at 75 speed, which helps when taking people to places (rop especially). The change in speed actually becomes quite useful, because you don't make the other player feel that slow without speed bonuses, you can keep up with them without having to constantly equip/unequip ietms which boost your speed.

Road bonus helps a lot to lead players to places. It encourages them to stay on paths, and honestly, i think it adds a sense of adventure. If you take a detour off path because mobs are too strong on the path, it becomes more of a major thing. Slower, but detours often are also windier, more scenic, and more sneaky-incognito-avoid-the-mob (e.g. my route to get lv40 and below players to chiconis means running on the edge of a feild of wolves, tracing the edge of crackenspanks tomb, and sprinting past elm treants before angry treants aggro. i think that adventure is more than enough to distract a player from slow speeds)

Personnally, i don't want to lose the good things about speed bonuses because i don't see sufficient evidence that a constant bonus is more beneficial than a road bonus.

[LOVWYRM]

Az-*bows and signs her post*

[Korchak Strongbone]

Velocity is a vector quantity that refers to "the rate at which an object changes its position." Imagine a person moving rapidly - one step forward and one step back - always returning to the original starting position. While this might result in a frenzy of activity, it would result in a zero velocity. Because the person always returns to the original position, the motion would never result in a change in position. Since velocity is defined as the rate at which the position changes, this motion results in zero velocity. If a person in motion wishes to maximize their velocity, then that person must make every effort to maximize the amount that they are displaced from their original position. Every step must go into moving that person further from where he or she started. For certain, the person should never change directions and begin to return to the starting position.

Velocity is a vector quantity. As such, velocity is direction aware. Now pay attention here. When evaluating the velocity of an object, one must keep track of direction. It would not be enough to say that an object has a velocity of 55 mi/hr. One must include direction information in order to fully describe the velocity of the object. For instance, you must describe an object's velocity as being 55 mi/hr, east. This is one of the essential differences between speed and velocity. Speed is a scalar quantity and does not keep track of direction; velocity is a vector quantity and is direction aware.

So perhaps instead of needing more speed all you really need is better direction. Post closed! HAHAHA

[Guaran]

Is speed a problem? hmmm...Road bonus helps a lot to lead players to places. It encourages them to stay on paths, and honestly, i think it adds a sense of adventure. If you take a detour off path because mobs are too strong on the path, it becomes more of a major thing. Slower, but detours often are also windier, more scenic, and more sneaky-incognito-avoid-the-mob (e.g. my route to get lv40 and below players to chiconis means running on the edge of a feild of wolves, tracing the edge of crackenspanks tomb, and sprinting past elm treants before angry treants aggro. i think that adventure is more than enough to distract a player from slow speeds)

Personnally, i don't want to lose the good things about speed bonuses because i don't see sufficient evidence that a constant bonus is more beneficial than a road bonus.

Agree.

I would not be in favor of making the road bonus everywhere.

Ped's can already reach speeds that are too fast for the game to load terrain... No need to exacerbate it.