Town Portal - QoL Suggestion (-> see new thread)

  • Seems like this would mostly hurt the people who make 10-man groups camping passages to bully solo players.
    And it would really help all the solo players, both PvE and PvP since 1) more convenience = more players doing the activity, 2) players going deeper = more spread of players = more chance encounters and less likely to be interrupted by groups.

  • His answer is plausible but reinforces that groups would disappear from the outland to the cities.

    It has been said earlier that the rework of the outlands, the more the player explores the greater their rewards, because the long journey is riskier and should bring more reward.

    better separate the portals in the black, allow islands in the rest areas,

  • Before we make comments and share our thoughts on how this change would cause bad results in the game.
    I think it is worth the time to take a moment and try to see the bigger picture for this change.

    Korn's statement here is something to think about.

    "In addition to that, we prefer organic PvP that happens in the open world when people are out for PvE, PvP, gathering, or fighting over objectives, it's more varied and more fun and on average leads to much fairer encounters. We never liked or wanted to encourage static zone camps, it's just an unintended consequence of the cluster system. Mechanics that we introduced to curtail it - such as the shrine system and the attempt to provide lots of entrances to the cities - are unfortunately not that effective."

  • First of all, i am 100% time solo open world player, around 60% content im getting in outlands, 30% faction war in red/yellow and 20% roads. Most of time i farm some NPCs, chests, resources and look for other solo/small scale groups to fight them. When i get around 1kk worth of items in my inventory i go back to home, sell all stuff and go for another run.


    Returning to portal/city back with a lot of stuff is main risks in that type of gameplay, usually you are not getting in troubles during farm, coz most of solo and small scale groups are not pro gankers and dont has special setup to catch you. If you die, you die in fight, not from "0%-chances-to-survive" squad gang.


    Deathes at road to home is most frustrating thing in that gameplay, sometimes you cant do anything and just die from gankers who camp entire zone and all exits.


    So, teleporting back will provide a lot less risks for solo roams profit so it will be a lot more enjoyable so there will be more players with that type of gameplay. I like the idea even while it changing risk vs reward, but bringing more players to roams worth it.


    But there are a lot bigger problem, which negates solo roams a lot more, than road to home: Hideouts. In many zones there are 4+ hideouts and you cant play there at all. Pls, fix that thing and im sure that will bring a lot more solo players in open world. They just can scout you on mount while gang is forming on one of HO and then clap on you. And you cant do anything with that, only run as fast as you can instantly when you got scouted and hope for best.

  • I'd rather like to have some role play element, no magic teleportation. Hence... add villages to the outlands, a bit like those crafting stations next to the starter towns. Have them directly on the map, each has an inn and no chest. The inn allows you to teleport without your items, which will be stored in a room there. In the village you can't be attacked and it offers some crafting, refining services (different for each village) and a market.

    The innkeeper has a tough life, so she steals from your stuff or alternatively he needs room after some days and just trashes everything. Next customer is already waiting, right?

    The owner of the castle next to the village could receive the tax income from the market. Maybe also season points for the best running village in terms of amount of unique visitors?

  • Reading other's thoughts here, added to my initial thoughts: the solution isn't teleports, but rather discouraging large, low skill gank groups targetting individual players and giving individual players more agency.

    - Increased trash rate if outnumbered by more than 3:1.
    - Buff defensive stats on gathering gear, particularly for .1/.2/.3 and higher quality pieces
    - Add items (cape?) or even weapon passives that reduce damage you deal to players, but increase your defense against players. This could help both gatherers and players doing dungeons/hunting upgraded mobs/etc.

    You'll never completely eliminate it as there will always be players looking for the ego boost from easy kills and/or just like griefing. But you can try to mitigate it as much as possible without making the world feel smaller or removing interaction with gankers. They're an important part of Albion's economy. Risk/Reward matters, but so does agency as an individual player. Balancing these factors shouldn't be overlooked in the name of accessibility.

    The post was edited 1 time, last by Druhran ().

  • I don't like the idea, but my 2 cents if this is implemented:

    Make it have a cost. Require a crafted item to recall with a scaling cost based on zones.

    Example:

    Blue/Yellow - Royal City: T5 Runestone
    Red - Royal City: T6 Runestone
    Outlands/Roads - HO/Rest: T7 Runestone
    Outlands/Roads - Royal or vice versa: T8 Runestone


    Maybe even make it require stone to craft so stone has a use :)

  • Norvex wrote:

    I don't like the idea, but my 2 cents if this is implemented:

    Make it have a cost. Require a crafted item to recall with a scaling cost based on zones.

    Example:

    Blue/Yellow - Royal City: T5 Runestone
    Red - Royal City: T6 Runestone
    Outlands/Roads - HO/Rest: T7 Runestone
    Outlands/Roads - Royal or vice versa: T8 Runestone


    Maybe even make it require stone to craft so stone has a use :)
    I was against the idea originally, but I do see the benefit to teleporting now if the main upheaval are those who just do camping.

    I like the idea of Runestones. They could either:
    1. Be a crafted reagent for the recall that is consumed. It could even have an equipment slot?
    2. Be a crafted item that is 100% trashed on death but not consumed on use. Not consuming on-use could bring down the price, but the 100% trash on death has them remain in-demand.


    Aside from that, people are right in that the main thing should be encouraging exploration in outlands. A few suggestions:
    1. Daily personal and city bonuses for areas. These bonuses are based on your home city and your individual character/account. If you are in a party, you get the bonus of the party leader. These bonuses could be Outland monster loot, gathering % bonus, fame from certain static dungeons etc.
    2. Treasure maps. Outland monsters can drop treasure maps. They must be used in Outlands and can spawn in any Outland area at a minimum of 5 zones away. The further away it is, the better the loot when dug up. A map remains active and only visible to the party for 2 hours.
    3. Make gathering gear less valuable. The idea of killing a gatherer is the value of the resources. But more often, the value of the gear outstrips any single run for resources making gathers a good target even if they haven't gathered anything. Make tiered gathering gear less valuable and make the tiers more specialised to their resource tier so each is still worth using. This means the gathering gear is not a deciding factor in the gank, and a gatherer doesn't need to do multiple trips just to pay off the gear before they can sustain a death.

  • the problem of the walk simulator is u made the outland to big ..theres map that is side other but theres not conection between them. if u can travel one side to another of the black zone in 5minut who will care to back home. put more tunel conection that conect more the map. if there 5 road to back to the city there will be no one camp.. but u guys disign the map to making them with only 1 way that worth for 10minut and other 2 for 20minut normal that every one go to the 10minut road and be camped. this problem was increased when u decide to increase royal map zone. adding uselles yellow save zone to travel. was a good idea to have more resources but not for runing time.. should be a tunel that directly go for red zone and u guys with this feature u reduce the traver time to go and the travel time to back.. 100% worth better than this pepega sugestion.

    fix the problem and don't patch it to make it look pretty. if u want fix them conect map with tunel that jump 2-3 map .and everything is done.

    Sedi107 wrote:



    The last point that I want to make is that after the pandemic alot of people don't have the same time that they used to. I think that the more casual player will benefit alot of being able to make a 20 min roaming sesion without having to worry alot about the trip back home.
    in 20 minut u can run the entire outland from one save zone to another.. i dont know why u dont just bank in one of them. if u only has 20 minut better go play a arena, hellgate cds. than go outland..if there some thing important that suddley happens .. u can trade ur set to ur friend and let him bring back for u.
    or just put ur item in blackzone chest and suicide.

  • I'll be honest the thought of teleporting out of BZ does make it sound more accessible; the return journey always feels discouraging considering the time investment - less about risk more about literal backtracking. I can accept that returning player gankers would lose a lot of targets, but I imagine the amount of outgoing targets would increase, maybe even leveling out the difference in drop values? Besides if it's true that gathering gear makes up the bulk of gather drop value, this wouldn't be effected right?

    I do wonder what would happen to the higher tier resource economies though. It may be worth adding a weight limit to mitigate the possibility of over-suply.

    Perhaps making the town teleport ability into an item instead, at least that way a choice is introduced rather than a hard redirection of gameplay. Valuations of cost over benefit, even specialist crafting resources and who can control the production of the item (thus the frequency of use).

    Korn wrote:

    People who supply a lot of gear from the Outlands to the royals do not ganked anywhere near 30% of the time, as they have very good strategies in place.

    Sedi107 wrote:

    public banks in the black zone are key to making a big amount of silver in a relatively short amount of time if you still need to transport through the open world
    It sounds like the only targets left will be especially valuable. All or nothing - those camping gankers are gonna have to up thier game if they want to bite the big biscuit :)

  • I see a lot of guild/alliance people with care bear BZ lifes living out of outposts - which pretty much gives them more or less the same benefits - complaining about this.
    I find that HIGHLY ironic.

    If the channel time to activate this ability is long enough (60-90 secs), it just gives small scale guilds and solo player more fair access to BZ content.

    I like it.

  • I like this change but i would like the teleport to be tied to a consumable that is crafted using stone, wood and maybe ore to make them more equal to fiber and hide.

    Also not only would this encourage more people to go deep into black zones and roads which would somewhat negate the reduced amount of players coming back from deep in blackzone, most of the time spent in blackzone is actually doing stuff and very little time, compared to everything else, is spent going back so to the people talking about less people in black zone or whatever are just talking out of their ass. Economy aside which i'm not too sure how badly this will impact it, the only type of people this would negatively affect are gankers or more specifically camping gankers that wait for people coming back with loot after they've done stuff in black zone to which i say, fuck em. Thats the most boring and pussy type of "pvp". If anything gankers who roam aroung looking for people doing stuff and aren't just jerking off near portal zones will have more people to kill as this will encourage more people to go to the black zone. Transporting and coming back from black zone are 2 different things which sbi seems to understand and are trying to only affect ppl coming back form black zone stuff.

    The post was edited 3 times, last by Promethius999 ().

  • Akhenaden wrote:

    His answer is plausible but reinforces that groups would disappear from the outland to the cities.

    It has been said earlier that the rework of the outlands, the more the player explores the greater their rewards, because the long journey is riskier and should bring more reward.

    better separate the portals in the black, allow islands in the rest areas,

    There is no loot in the BZs far from the portals. The inhabitants of HO clean up everything.
    Mr. Clown

  • Gank wrote:

    I can see all the rats who follow zvzs around for loot enjoying this change so much.


    ThreeToMidnight wrote:

    just a terrible idea, so we can have 1 person outside the zerg combat looting millions and they can BAM teleport back to town??
    If there are too many people around you (i.e. a zerg) the town portal would not work. In addition to that, it has a long channel time.

    In theory, we could even say that you can't use it at all (or for a certain time) after looting a corpse (if we had concerns that it's being exploited).

    The main purpose of this feature, as outlined in the OP, would to to make open world PvE and gathering more convenient, in particular for newer players, and move the ganking meta way from static zone camps to more dynamic gameplay.

  • Korn wrote:

    Gank wrote:

    I can see all the rats who follow zvzs around for loot enjoying this change so much.

    ThreeToMidnight wrote:

    just a terrible idea, so we can have 1 person outside the zerg combat looting millions and they can BAM teleport back to town??
    If there are too many people around you (i.e. a zerg) the town portal would not work. In addition to that, it has a long channel time.
    In theory, we could even say that you can't use it at all (or for a certain time) after looting a corpse (if we had concerns that it's being exploited).

    The main purpose of this feature, as outlined in the OP, would to to make open world PvE and gathering more convenient, in particular for newer players, and move the ganking meta way from static zone camps to more dynamic gameplay.
    genuinely the feature only makes sense as a bandaid fix until a potential "fix" of the core mechanic is made. not a valid permanent solution imo since it detracts from the concept of the risk of the way back and the thrill/consequences that can occur due to mistakes/bad choices at that moment.

    However, if the issue is the gate camping that much, literally offer a randomize bz spawns which would make it harder and looking into the shrines being applied 1 map earlier than the portal map could almost be a better option.

    A lot of the time people die because the tutorial does not explain shit regarding important mechanics (like the invisibility shrine). This might be more important to address and educate the player than just not tell em in-game clearly why it's there and where is it located.

    Another thing regarding this potential change. what are the numbers of people getting caught on the portal map while returning of FF/gathering vs on the map right before vs the map before that previous one? (so portal map vs 1 map away of portal vs 2 maps away of portal). (having the data of what mounts were used too would be of great use since using an ox in a pvp zone is asking to get ganked imo so that can make a huge difference too in what type of players need to have this justified for).

    If you have the data present on those, maybe you can make a way better educated guess about what will occur/ the "consequence" (positive or negative) of this type of change.
    I just easily see too many ways that it removes risk from players to have to go back.


    So basically if a cooldown is added after leaving dungeon, after looting corpse, after leaving town, after leaving ho and it is shorter than like 10 minutes, there is no point to trhe feature since instead of running around in the more active zones (which are the ones closer to portal area) it won't save time, just remove the transport risk.
    If it's shorter than 10min, i only see an easy way to have more risk-free "pve" oriented content.

    I legit do not remember last time a big gatherer in my friend group died without trying to pull a really dumb move in bz.

    The static zone meta thing is already mostly moved away due to the cc changes. can't stack claws anymore so targets are almost always being chased on 1 to 2 screens at least if they don't make too many mistakes. So if the weapon designs of those ganking weapons is causing the static gameplay, then reworking them seems like a better solution. However, this does mean that some niche weapons or more versatile ones for other content might be affected/should be affected by those reworks too.
    So many variables in palce and we have no data to help see what could be the cause of just potentially just people on oxes thinking they can go through 5-10 people because the ox might (isn't obviously) be tanky enough to allow them to go through those groups.

    What are the dev costs for putting portal maps with like 6-8 entrance/exits each and those 2-4 new entrances would lead to other maps a tiny bit further (like the inbetween maps between portal maps or even 1 map further away)? Could that be a cheaper alternative than a new tp mechanic that has less chances of breaking the immersion and adding such a big easy to abuse safety net?

  • Korn wrote:

    Gank wrote:

    I can see all the rats who follow zvzs around for loot enjoying this change so much.

    ThreeToMidnight wrote:

    just a terrible idea, so we can have 1 person outside the zerg combat looting millions and they can BAM teleport back to town??
    If there are too many people around you (i.e. a zerg) the town portal would not work. In addition to that, it has a long channel time.
    In theory, we could even say that you can't use it at all (or for a certain time) after looting a corpse (if we had concerns that it's being exploited).

    The main purpose of this feature, as outlined in the OP, would to to make open world PvE and gathering more convenient, in particular for newer players, and move the ganking meta way from static zone camps to more dynamic gameplay.
    The idea is great and that will fix a big issue in the game, since the perma CC still exist even after the last tantatives of balance, the gankers still abusing of spescific positions and zones to exploit it and deny players for playing or trying to return to the town after a rewarded and decent roaming on Outlands.
    Today we have a lot more ways to avoid it like the ava portals and bubble protection zones but at some point you cant really avoid diying multiples times, atleast a lot more than I should.
    When you get caught and you cant move a single metter feels like its not worth to come back there and try again, because i have literally no chance against a decent group of gankers and we are not talking about taking away their oportunity to get an kill but the hunted person wich spended the time roaming and looking for good oportunities in multiples contents and situations will have no chance to get back to town and make it worth.

    With the town portal I feel like me or my group definatelly should spend more time in the outlands before try to back to town and the way you guys are making it looks balanced.

  • Korn wrote:

    Gank wrote:

    I can see all the rats who follow zvzs around for loot enjoying this change so much.

    ThreeToMidnight wrote:

    just a terrible idea, so we can have 1 person outside the zerg combat looting millions and they can BAM teleport back to town??
    If there are too many people around you (i.e. a zerg) the town portal would not work. In addition to that, it has a long channel time.
    In theory, we could even say that you can't use it at all (or for a certain time) after looting a corpse (if we had concerns that it's being exploited).

    The main purpose of this feature, as outlined in the OP, would to to make open world PvE and gathering more convenient, in particular for newer players, and move the ganking meta way from static zone camps to more dynamic gameplay.
    Yes, looting a player should disable it because the "designated looter" can just move to another zone and then use the town portal.