Supporting the Player Base: A Case for Fast Travels

[Ark 2830]

Hi, i'm Ark. I really like making RP settlements on lotc. The creative freedom to build a community and part of the world has always interested me and with my ample experience in doing so I would like to share my thoughts on a somewhat controversial (that really shouldn't be), topic.

 

Where does most of the activity on LotC come from?

 

By far, it is from player run settlements. Fast travels are a powerful tool to equalize the distance travelled over the map. One of the greatest struggles any community, but especially new ones, is to generate traffic to their settlement.

 

When fast travels are not available on the map, there are certain factions whose proximity to spawn, or in this map the different hubs, are granted an insane advantage in generating roleplay into their faction. If fast travels are removed, or made less accessible, you have competent player bases and leadership who are suffocated due to the location of their settlement.

 

I think the current system could use some improvements (I would generally halve the speed on all the fast travels, because sitting on Balian's camel for 3 minutes isn't really doing anything for creating roleplay on the server.)

 

I think that the fast travels with a slight wait time is still a good system and I do think that some land should be more valuable than others, because of the interesting dynamic that makes on the server but I do think that more accessibility to fast travels(outside of the fast travel hubs at spawn) is generally a good thing for the server.

 

As someone whose lead many settlements, the amount of player hours required is not insignificant to generate interest in your settlement. We should make it easier for people to create roleplay on the server, not more difficult.

 

What are your thoughts?

[Laeonathan 3929]

I think its quite irrelevant now that horses exist. I often purposfully ride to places I could SS to.

[Ark 2830]

Just now, Laeonathan said:

I think its quite irrelevant now that horses exist. I often purposfully ride to places I could SS to.

Lots of new players do not have access to horses, makes it a pain for new players to get to your settlement in the first place. 

[Laeonathan 3929]

2 minutes ago, Ark said:

Lots of new players do not have access to horses, makes it a pain for new players to get to your settlement in the first place. 

...then a free horse for new players would be a much easier solution, wouldn't it be?

[Harald 2465]

I personally fully agree with you on your points Ark. Especially with the distance to some settlements. (in refference to one of the earlier comments) Yes using a horse would aid in the cut down of time. Yet for new players it can be a pain, and it still can take awhile to get to places. It can also be diffucult for new players to navigate Almaris as it is a massive world.  But hey maybe i'm just lazy.

[AnimeWolf0080 1493]

I still wish for more soul stone slots

[Ark 2830]

1 minute ago, Laeonathan said:

...then a free horse for new players would be far easier solution, wouldn't it be?

I do not see how this is an easier solution at all lol. Plus it still doesn't address the issue of places that are in the middle of nowhere, where even a horse ride may take upwards of 20-25 minutes. 

 

I think it's a valuable option, but that, if a faction doesn't believe that it needs a fast travel, not like they're forced to have one. 

[Medvekoma 1966]

Never understood the "Road RP" argument vs fast travel.

 

If you would use fast travel, but are forced to walk instead, it means you want to get from A to B quick and any "road RP" will be perceived more an interruption trying to get to your destination.

 

If you wouldn't use fast travel seeking road RP, well, then adding fast travel doesn't change a thing.

 

I don't think I can count a single instance of enjoyable road RP moment I've engaged in, ever. Most of it was either ooga-booga raiders stopping me and me darting away after a pvp countdown, or me attempting to provide high quality raiding content through PvP immersion and the target refusing to engage and rushing away immediately.

[Laeonathan 3929]

2 minutes ago, Ark said:

I do not see how this is an easier solution at all lol. Plus it still doesn't address the issue of places that are in the middle of nowhere, where even a horse ride may take upwards of 20-25 minutes. 

 

I think it's a valuable option, but that, if a faction doesn't believe that it needs a fast travel, not like they're forced to have one. 

 

I mean - honestly? If places decide to be in the middle of nowhere, they should also take the downsides. I don't think it would really be fair otherwise, especially for established settlements.

[far1ca 122]

i think this would make bandit rp on the roads, etc... basically obsolete. i think our current system of using horses to travel is efficient enough, and ive never had a problem with it. personally, ive never had a horse ride take longer than 5-10 minutes at most.

as for new players and horses - i believe one should perhaps be given for a temporary time? like while you have the pink name tag, you also have a horse available at all times so you can easily get from point A to B just by following road signs on your horse

[Ark 2830]

2 minutes ago, Laeonathan said:

 

I mean - honestly? If places decide to be in the middle of nowhere, they should also take the downsides. I don't think it would really be fair otherwise, especially for established settlements.

I appreciate your honesty.

 

If a place decides to be in the middle of nowhere, they will still get less natural foot traffic than a place that's right next to one of the hubs. However, you don't always have the decision of where you are going to settle. Sometimes you're given land under someone for a village or town, fast travels create a slight equalizer, where I still have to put in more work to get people to want to come into my fast travel but a "hey it will take you 5 minutes to get here" instead of "20-30 minutes."

 

Plus it reduces the super painful feeling of traveling for 20 minutes to find out a place doesn't have anyone to RP with. (Lots of people log off after this).

Just now, far1ca said:

i think this would make bandit rp on the roads, etc... basically obsolete. i think our current system of using horses to travel is efficient enough, and ive never had a problem with it. personally, ive never had a horse ride take longer than 5-10 minutes at most.

as for new players and horses - i believe one should perhaps be given for a temporary time? like while you have the pink name tag, you also have a horse available at all times so you can easily get from point A to B just by following road signs on your horse

We have fast travels right now and i've dealt with bandit RP twice in the last two days. Bandits don't create much RP on the server, settlements by and far are the great majority of the server's activity. We should be promoting what works. 

[MisterBlitzkrieg 1357]

12 minutes ago, Laeonathan said:

...then a free horse for new players would be a much easier solution, wouldn't it be?

A horse for every new player may fix the problem but will also crash the economy surrounding horses. Those who buy and sell horses will be useless in every sense because everyone starts (new players) with a horse. The only way they would go onto make income via selling horses is if a person is killed in PVP and forgot to soul bind their horse whistle

[Rattussmackus 597]

Personally I think FT is incredibly useful for things such as activity. Some people have told me the only reason they didn't go to a nation was because it was too far for them to ride/walk to and they just didn't see the point which is really detrimental for activity. Some people said they enjoy the walk to nations or they like riding to them and thinks FT will interrupt that when FT is literally optional. 

 

You have every right to walk/ride to nations if that's what you enjoy doing and not every settlement/nation/whatever will implement FT into their tile, like I said it's optional. So yeah, my point is I think FT should be encouraged and not blocked out entirely. It's useful for people (such as myself who can't always use the SS as I have a lot of characters that sometimes take up one slot so I can't always bind things straight away and I find the walk annoying) and settlements alike.

 

Once again it's optional, no one is forcing you to implement them or use them so why get annoyed by that.

 

Anyway that's the end of my hot take.

 

41 minutes ago, Laeonathan said:

...then a free horse for new players would be a much easier solution, wouldn't it be?

I would agree with you until you realise that that would eliminate a lot of money making for players on the server. A lot of people make money solely from breeding horses and selling them.

[saint swag 2438]

fast travel good 👍

[HadvarAvMitteland 557]

Make cool-downs on soul stones 20 minutes or maybe even more. There should be a half and half approach to this, as we should encourage both settlement roleplay and road roleplay. Having low cool-down, fast travel to everywhere, it discourages villainy roleplay and also exploration roleplay hugely.

 

If you aren't going to increase soul stone cool-down times, then you could try making beacons to teleport to. These would not be located in specific Nations, but more like smaller versions of the hub system (N, S, E, W hubs). When players teleport to the smaller region hubs, it will encourage them to use roads but not have to travel for a long period of time taking away from their experiences.

 

My last suggestion is bring back speed roads. On Arcas, every road outside of a Nation/Settlement gave you speed. As well as fixing the issue, the time it takes to travel, speed roads are insanely fun in PvP battles too and would bring a new skill dynamic to the PvP side of things. This seems to be the strongest of my three suggestions personally, as it benefits both the villainy roleplayer, the common roleplayer, and the Nations.