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IDProjectCategoryLast Update
0007603Valley 1Suggestion - Room Ideas/ComplaintsMay 7, 2012 3:39 pm
ReporterAphantas Assigned ToChris_McElligottPark  
Status closedResolutionwon't fix 
Summary0007603: linking surface exploration and map movement
DescriptionIt seems that I am full of suggestions, but this is the last.
As it is right now it is possible to travel to any square regardless of whether or not you have ever entered a neighbouring square. after reaching your destination, you can enter a square between you and your previous location and none of that surface area is known to you.
This seems to be strange as the character must have passed over it to travel.
This could be solved by making it so that to travel to a neighbouring square you must have travelled to the opposite side of the surface level on the land square you are on at some stage in the game.
this would mean that the vastness of the world would be apparent to the player, while still offering the quick jump feature currently used in the world map. This would also create interesting scenarios where some currently impassible regions (most likely to be lava flats) lock off parts of the continent until you are ready to cross them.

TagsNo tags attached.
Internal WeightFeature Suggestion

Activities

Toll

May 6, 2012 12:53 pm

reporter   ~0023631

This would be horrible, to be honest. It would create a situation where you'd have to travel just to travel, especially since it takes a very long time to get from one end of a region to the next (I've never timed it, but an estimation would be 10-15 minutes). That's upwards of an hour of travel time just to get from the settlement to the edge of the wind storm, and many hours of pure travelling just to be able to assault the Overlord (not to mention the Lieutenants).

Aphantas

May 6, 2012 11:27 pm

reporter   ~0023659

good point, but with storm dash such a journey can be reduced drastically. I have timed a run across a tile at about 3 mins with storm dash, without double or triple jumps and fighting a mini-boss at T3 with T1 spells and 300 mana. I lost about 100-150 health doing this. Unfortunately my current continent doesn't have many spells known on it yet :(
Travel for the sake of travel could occur if you had not carefully chosen your heading, that is really the only negative I can see. but a adventure always involves travel, it is what make an adventure, an adventure.

I suggest this idea because it just seems that some features are begging for this feature to be added.
-wind-storms always blow you back, perfect for this idea as it would make wind storm exploration more time consuming then normal exploration.
-world hazards move across the world. Not really a problem if you are able to go anywhere you want, unless of course they cover everything you need.
-Areas are mish-mashed together. This doesn't have too much of an effect on a game right now. this idea would give that feature new meaning.
-Lieutenants towers are a distance away from the settlement, makes the decision between fighting an overlord with Lieutenants or not a little bit more complex. right now it is a very easy decision.
-Surface Bosses, never really need to fight them since they are normally deep in a tile, and you get most of what you need underground. This would make them more of a threat.
-Mission locations would become important.
I am sure that I have not factored in some aspects but that is how I see it right now

GauHelldragon

May 7, 2012 12:07 am

reporter   ~0023665

The thing is, this would kind of force players to explore practically every inch of the map. Which is exactly the sort of thing the game tells you that you don't have to and shouldn't do ( IE. it's tedious )

khadgar

May 7, 2012 12:28 am

reporter   ~0023666

Last edited: May 7, 2012 12:31 am

I agree that there should be some bonus to exploring surface tiles. I agree that walking over the world map feels really strange. I disagree that they two should be coupled intimately, at this stage in the game, in this manner.

I would like to see world map travel being explained some other way that supposing your character is just somehow avoiding all the monsters in the entire zone, or flying on a magic carpet. If it were limited to one exploration per region (ie, the entire group of lava flats tiles) this might not be so bad, as there are not THAT many tile groupings per continent.

I think that your solution would end up making exploration of surface chunks a very boring chore to be avoided at all costs.

However, there is something to be said about having to return to an area you've already visited. I think I mentioned this somewhere else, but the exploration in this game is only exploration in name. You're going somewhere "new", but it doesn't feel like you are discovering anything, because you never go anywhere "old". There are only a few tiles that I want to visit more than once, and it is those tiles which I learn, build nice platform bridges over gaps in, and place light orbs along the unlit sections. I don't bother in 99% of the game because I'll never be back.

Aphantas

May 7, 2012 5:29 am

reporter   ~0023677

I tried exploring the whole of a tile including the caverns at the beginning, decided to stop that on the second level of the first cave system.

With such a system in place you would not need to explore every tile, only enough to cover each zone you need. If you do need to have every tile accessible then it is possible to unlock a square of 11 blocks (121 tiles) using 44 tiles. only about a third of the tiles are needed to be travelled then for full coverage.
Khadgar's idea of making it at least 1 tile of a region would be a good compromise. It still retains the core principle of this idea, that the relative placement of zones should be as important in the map as where the wind-storms are.
I also don't visit tiles more then once, unless I want to get deeper into a cave for an unlock.
Unfortunately (or not depending) as Khadgar said, introduction of this system at this stage of development is unlikely. It should still be suggested though.

Chris_McElligottPark

May 7, 2012 3:39 pm

administrator   ~0023708

Yep, this really gets in the way of what we want to do longer-term with the continent maps, as well as causing lots of extra grind. Having more barriers to overcome on the world map are something we want to look at at some point, but this isn't the general way we look to handle it.

Issue History

Date Modified Username Field Change
May 6, 2012 12:06 pm Aphantas New Issue
May 6, 2012 12:53 pm Toll Note Added: 0023631
May 6, 2012 11:27 pm Aphantas Note Added: 0023659
May 7, 2012 12:07 am GauHelldragon Note Added: 0023665
May 7, 2012 12:28 am khadgar Note Added: 0023666
May 7, 2012 12:31 am khadgar Note Edited: 0023666
May 7, 2012 5:29 am Aphantas Note Added: 0023677
May 7, 2012 11:11 am tigersfan Internal Weight => Feature Suggestion
May 7, 2012 11:11 am tigersfan Status new => considering
May 7, 2012 3:39 pm Chris_McElligottPark Note Added: 0023708
May 7, 2012 3:39 pm Chris_McElligottPark Status considering => closed
May 7, 2012 3:39 pm Chris_McElligottPark Assigned To => Chris_McElligottPark
May 7, 2012 3:39 pm Chris_McElligottPark Resolution open => won't fix