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.