Run between Guild City and Wenderwood is too long

[Leaf]

I don’t mind running around. I think that this is something that echoes from the way everything in our societies has to be instant or quick.

One thing I have not enjoyed about orbus is how some of the players want to do things very fast:

The game is still being developed so I’m trying not to discover everything as fast as possible, but also I’m a Runemage. Other classes typically traverse the world at a faster pace because they don’t have to draw runes for everything.

I think this is a complaint that is a little silly and petty. I understand not wanting to spend your only game time running back and forth but there’s so much that isn’t like that, so why remove the few quests that require you to do it?

[Decnav]

I have been playing since early alpha, and have NEVER hit level cap despite having a ton of ingame time. I dont want faster level progression, I want faster travel. I like to explore, I have been to every accessible, and a few normally inaccessible areas.

I want to follow the story, but I fell asleep walking again. I have fallen asleep walking a few times because its mindnumbingly boring. I am just gonna grind out the quests at this point and just skip the awesome story.

Runemage has it the easiest, you can portal to places then have a shorter run. I lack the ability to cast spells with any regular chance of success despite knowing all of the travel runes. The only portal I have been able to cast is to highsteppe, not very useful. Before you say practice, I have well over 30 hours of practice trying to get a fireball or ice lance to cast. Even Elk’s help went nowhere.

[Malachite]

I don’t mind the running but I can see it being a frustration. I always try to use my time traversing the field as an opportunity to help people out. I also think that the running is a bit important in the push to grind your characters. I think like only 1/3 of leveling is the quest line and I worry that if we just allow everyone to fast travel, there will be complaints about slow levels. However, I would argue that maybe implementing a fast travel (quicker speed when running in that area, so mages can still teleport folks) once your level has surpassed the mobs could be good. That still pushes new players to the area to grind and make friends while offering the higher levels the chance to speed up the run from guild city to wenderwood if they choose to.

[Leaf]

The game is in early development stages still and has literally only been open for a month and a day at this point. What you’re talking about is something mounts will solve, and if you’re complaining that you have to redo things that happened in early alpha - well that’s what happens when you play early alpha (you’re going to see the same things for a while).

I don’t use portals often, if I do it is because a person in a group is complaining and wants to get somewhere fast. Plus anyone can pick up a wand and cast a portal so it’s not really a thing special to Runemages.

So to put it simply, and to address what you said:

If you fall asleep while walking, you could maybe stand while playing (I have never fallen asleep and I stand while playing almost entirely). Most of the things you state are about your own opinions/experiences, while what I suggest is for future players and those of us who haven’t played a whole bunch already.

The game needs new/future players and that’s an audience who will not grow to appreciate the game if they end up making a bunch of shortcuts because people who played it throughout development wanted to move around faster.

With runemage portals being literally accessible to everyone, I don’t really think it’s a valid complaint, and if someone can’t cast one like yourself there are plenty of other players around who can do it for you.

[Decnav]

Portals are only accessible to those with the ability to cast them. In other fourm posts I asked for a method of “bottling” a portal to solve my physical disability that prevents me from being able to cast. Im not asking for runemage to be made easy and playable by me, I am asking for some sort of reasonable accommodation to allow transport in a similar manor as those without a disability.

The only “boring grind” in the game is the walk from place to place. If you can portal you can get close where the walk is less than 5 min of travel time, and travel is not an issue.

I am not the only who has expressed a want for faster travel. I am lamenting the fact that all the work that has gone into lore, that I waited to to till EA to do, is wasted on me due to travel times. I hear its a neat story, but with quests being broken by days, or weeks, I have no idea why this guy is in a cage in HS.

[Luvstosmooch]

Dec, you’ve already made these (entirely valid) complaints and Riley already responded. You should try to include that in your future posts where the same thing is rehashed over and over.

Please help those of us who are unable to cast portals

Probably the best way to balance that out is to allow Runemages to continue doing what they’re doing, which is to say they can create portals from anywhere to any stone, and then introduce a mechanic where non-mages can travel only from certain locations to any stone. So that way it’s still advantageous to be able to cast the portal spells, as you can be in the middle of nowhere and quickly get someplace else, but at the same time if you aren’t a mage or can’t cast the spell, you can still get from e.g. Highsteppe out to the Desert dungeon quickly. It would still cost a Runemage reagant so using the airship would still be the preferred option especially for lower-level players or if you’re just not in a big hurry, but for high-level experienced veterans who have farmed up a pile of reagents, spending one to get where you want to go quickly is worth it.

Other than the fast travel, in terms of traveling overworld more quickly, we will be introducing a device that allows you to move much faster than you can currently while out of combat, but it’s something that you would not acquire until you are higher level.

Anyway, I will spend some more time working on that concept and see what we can do.

[Decnav]

I forget not everyone trolls the fourms. Noted.

[Daniel_B]

I think this is a complaint that is a little silly and petty. I understand not wanting to spend your only game time running back and forth but there’s so much that isn’t like that, so why remove the few quests that require you to do it?

Running a long distance wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t the same exact path 5-10 times. I can’t remember how many times I’ve run to Wenderwood <-> Guild City and it’s not an exciting run. It’s one thing if a quest is sending you into unknown territory, or spicing it up if there’s a quest involved on that path (protecting the pilgrim, following the signs, etc.), but simply asking the player to travel along a path they’ve already been on 5+ times just to turn in a quest isn’t good.

By all means keep the quests that require us to travel great distances into danger, but don’t ask me to travel that same path when I’ve already conquered its challenges 7 more times.

[Leaf]

I still feel like this is completely petty in the bigger picture of all the things the very small dev team has to work on.

Edit: I didn’t see that Riley had already responded to these complaints and that they’re being addressed. I reiterated things he said he was going to do so sorry for repeating anything.

[David1]

I spent almost an hour this weekend trying to cast a portal spell to highsteppe. Glad my kids were at granny’s house so they didn’t have to hear me cursing and yelling at how stupid it is trying to cast spells in this game. Yes I was angry. It’s not as if the symbol is even that difficult. I can understand some precision but this game takes it to a new level. This and all the walking are starting to kill the game for me personally.

[Damon_F]

I have a hard time casting the portal spell as well. Feel free to trade another player a reagent and have them cast it if you can’t handle it. Try placing emphasis on how straight the lines are , that’s the most important part.

[Daniel_B]

I wouldn’t use the word petty, since it brings such a negative connotation to it. Is it something that can be put off for the bigger features they wan’t to put in? Absolutely, get the most valuable features in first. It has to be said that the 4-8 experience is bogged down by this problem however, so that when the Orbus team can get to it this discussion can be taken into account. I hope the midlands quest design is reviewed for release, it could use a touch up.

[Relkin]

Putting this in again because I think this is the easier solution.

One of my biggest pet peeve in MMO questing is when the quest NPC sends you right back where you just were doing another quest for them. Why didn’t they just ask you to do all that WHILE you were there?

I don’t think it should be a matter of simplifying the travel. I think it should be streamlining the quests

[Sean_R]

I found out there are different ways to cast the portal spells. Once I figured that out and found one that worked for me I got it on the second try. My gripe is those red torch reagents are hard to come by. However I am still low level, perhaps they drop more later?

[Sean_R]

Maybe we could get an auto-slide or auto-tele-jump feature. I think that would solve some of the problem. I have no problem with taking time to do things. It’s just, the dynamic of the tele-jumping/sliding makes me want some kind of speed boost or auto feature like in most MMO’s.

[Riley_D]

Press the Grip button while you are sliding and you will auto-run.

Also the new patch that just went out added in a new bridge that adds a new path between Guild City and the Wenderwood area to hopefully speed this up.

We’re looking into other fast-travel options as well long-term, but this was the quickest and easiest fix, as we agree it wasn’t super great having to go way out of your way like that.

[Sean_R]

Does that require having “sliding” on? I can’t do that because it makes me insta-puke in other games at least.

[Riley_D]

Yeah I don’t really know how we would do auto-teleport, that seems like it wouldn’t work very well?

[Sean_R]

Auto-jumping through the forest? Ha. I will give the sliding a try. Thanks for the tip

[David1]

It’s funny you mentioned that Sean. I did the same thing last night. I did a little more research and found other ways to cast a few of the spells and it’s a bit easier for me as well. Still not fun but easier at least.