Discussion on Teleportation in general

[cloakblade]

So teleportation is a subject that comes up quite often. Its something that makes the game more playable but is one that is often abused and can easily defeat ideas in the game. I started this thread after reading the you should be able to teleport away if you have no black skills, most people agreed that his either: Defeated a purpose in the game (that the outside is scary); or that the idea was abusable (you can escape from bears). It was also brought up that the game maybe better off without teleportation at all and I'd like discuss ways to at least reduce it. Oh and don't drag bullshit from other threads (like the black skills one) into this thread.

Reason why teleportation exists:
Security is probably the number one thing that I think teleportation is good for. The current gate system, or key system depending on how you look at the problem, is horrible and requires the use of an alt and isn't that secure, it one of the main reason I like having a village up. You also need to be able to selectively teleport in, best used with hearthfires and village idols.
The other reason is that its the only form of fast travel and wasting time coming back to your house sucks. The game is already grindy and the last thing we need is for when you have a full inventory to walk all the way back, probably to find things that you want on the ground. This is mainly a good thing in the beginning.

I personally don't really see to much wrong with teleportation as it is beyond maybe the travel fatigue being neigh unlimited later on.

I'm also open to suggestions about system to help remove teleportation from the game even if J&L never implement them.

Comments?

[painhertz]

Remove it. Add horses. Implament the Wyrd system. Discussion over.


Thanks for dropping by though.

[cloakblade]

Remove it. Add horses. Implament the Wyrd system. Discussion over.


Thanks for dropping by though.

Explain the Wyrd system.

[painhertz]

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4658&hilit=Wyrd

[cloakblade]

http://www.havenandhearth.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4658&hilit=Wyrd

This is interesting. Its basically the reverse of travel fatigue but with other uses and a daily max amount. Why is this not implemented.

[joojoo1975]

warping is one of the best things for trade and for village recruitment. But it can be Abused rather easily(and i'm not just talkin about exploits and what not. Being too lasy to walk back to your house is an abuse, exploit?, no but an abuse nevertheless.)


wagons: I suggest wagons be increased in speed dramatically(speed can be buffed by Q of wagon itself as well as Q of the cows/horses pulling it.), can go through rivers(but not lakes), and it's hitbox rather tiny, so every dang tree along the way doesn't stop you.

Horses/mules: rather fast speed, can carry 1/4 what a wagon can carry IE: leather saddlebags in slots and only useable on a horse. and a saddlebag carries a bit more than LC's and a char can ride a horse and have 1 other horse or mule lashed to that horse. A mule can not be ridden, but it can carry 1/3(basically 3-5 more inv slots than a horse and only can use saddlebags) of what a wagon can carry and can only be led or lashed to a horse or a wagon.

[AnnaC]

I'll start with the positive aspects of teleportation. It is a good way to coordinate peaceful, cooperative places to meet up too (like market towns, etc.), and these projects are always a lot of fun and beneficial to the community at large, for as long as they are maintained. Teleportation is also invaluable for running a smooth village, as walls and gates are horrible and impossible to have any decent security to them without making them more of a hassle to the people the walls are built to protect than to their potential enemies. They also make great ferry crossings in a pinch (although I still think you should be able to make actual ferry structures).

However, I don't like the idea of teleportation so much because it can be used to greatly expand the range of militaristic and griefing factions. I mean while it's possible you can be in a region that's practically a world away from a prominent aggressive faction, it becomes less likely you're a world away from one of their satellite outposts they can teleport to in a pinch if they feel like imposing their dominance. Teleportation also enables much easier monopolization of resources, as this ability to exert influence over a much larger area means less logistical considerations for that group to maintain dominance. Instead of having to spend a lot of time to manually travel to ensure their distant outposts and resources are unmolested by the locals, they arrive instantenously.

Teleportation basically allows groups to consolidate resources, territory, and influence, far wider than they otherwise would be able to for the amount of hearthlingpower they possess. This, with the static nature of some gameplay elements (resources and personal claims, although those are being addressed somewhat), really limit how the endgame demographics of Hearthland worlds wind up (generally two completely blocs, with a few independent griefers and then a bunch of random hermits sprinkled in). Not that teleportation is the cause of this, but it does help enable it.

The connection between hearthlings and their hearthfires is a fundamental part of the Hearthlands mysticism, and I think forms of teleportation related to that are alright (although ofc they can be "exploited" as well too, but that's more limiting).

Overall, I think the game will be better if teleportation was removed. Quite a few things would have to be addressed before crossroads are taken out, though:
1. change how gates in walls work (maybe permission-based or something similar)
2. improve the milestones system (I like the idea of removing the pillars and making specialized paving stones instead)
3. some form of ferry or buildable river crossing (not a fan of bridges, but a dock structure that you can bind a raft to might work)

But I think limiting teleportation would be beneficial in the long run, as it would give more consideration to where you settle, and not just be a case of dominating local resources; being in a spot that is accessible or near friends or allies would be important as well, and hopefully might coordinate more hearthlings into working together as well as they can't just have their hermit village and port over to their neighbors whenever they feel like, or have a group consolidate a wide area with through a crossroad nexus.

[Jackard]

1. Teleportation may be convenient but it diminishes the consequences of your actions and prevents some forms of emergent gameplay. It does not belong in a permadeath game.
2. Teleportation is essentially a placeholder for better gates, walls, vehicles and mounts. Seatribe would be better off removing it, but only after these are in place.

So here's a list of various methods for encouraging mundane travel before you decide to do whatever with teleportation:

• Queueing movement with waypoints
• Making animals fear fire, so they do not approach or spawn in your camp viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1038
• Abstracting gate keys into Kin/Village permissions viewtopic.php?f=5&t=5309
• Directional and/or map-based automovement
• Players marking routes on maps, acts like milestones
• Easier to build milestones with no bounding box
• Marching bonus - no stamina drain for following milestones?
• Bridges
• Larger gates
• LP for exploration
• Faster stump removal
• Designations for roadbuilding viewtopic.php?f=5&t=5707
• Rowing boats through swamps viewtopic.php?f=5&t=4926
• Change Follow to work with boats viewtopic.php?f=5&t=3616
• Pack animals (i usually use alts on follow for this but the lag gets annoying)
• Hidden caches viewtopic.php?p=51480#p51480
• Mounts

i listed mounts last because they are probably more work than all of the rest

Adding some indirectly related points:

• Player pathfinding
• Keyboard movement (in cardinal directions)

In Swedish I would call [this] a "gömma" or a "hie" or even better "kula"... kula. That's a great word. That's a kula. You need perc + explore to see the kula. It will otherwise appear as a boulder of similar size. You'll know it's there, but you might not be able to interact with it. If we do locks, it can also be locked. The kula is marked as a quick travel point, and can hold four carryables.

[miraclew]

I'm for teleportation removal if we get that wyrd stuff, horses, etc along with it.

The only issue I think would be with situations where you can get stuck, ex exiting a cave and getting stuck on a hearthfire blocking it, logging in on land that is now claimed w/o trespassing, or any other issues that might cause a player to become stuck. While hearth teleporting does take something away from the gameplay, it does a great job at preventing players from getting stuck with no way out.

[g1real]

I'm for teleportation removal if we get that wyrd stuff, horses, etc along with it.

The only issue I think would be with situations where you can get stuck, ex exiting a cave and getting stuck on a hearthfire blocking it, logging in on land that is now claimed w/o trespassing, or any other issues that might cause a player to become stuck. While hearth teleporting does take something away from the gameplay, it does a great job at preventing players from getting stuck with no way out.

Jumping mechanism!