Feelings on travel

Karelian · 2020-02-18 22:30:05

Traveling without zoom feels like waste of time.

Vision & landmarks

I don't know how I can make my chances of finding something I'm looking for any better. For example: I can only walk to one direction till I come across desert for sand I'm looking for. Or I can travel to one direction till I find dry well and village. There are no hints which direction I should be heading, especially on longer distances.
When traveling I don't see any natural landmarks. I cannot distinguish two badlands from each other, as you see such a small part of the biome at a time. Very rarely I feel like "Oh I've been here before" unless the place is straight next to my village.
It's really hard to know if you have been somewhere before, there aren't any natural landmarks that would aid on travel.
Even with map it feels like I'm walking around town using GPS, and only looking down at the phone. I know the direction, but after the trip I can't remember what I did come across my journey and how to use it to find my way there again.
Very rarely I've successfully backtracked my journey; I've come to move diagonally to one direction till I find a marking left by me and then move vertically to correct direction.

Finding villages

Trying to find players on other villages feels irritating, as I have no idea if I'm traveling towards other players or to empty wilderness. There are only few hints if other players exists on where I'm going.
- Bunny holes with bunny babies tell me there has been someone there.
- Dried wells are the best bet at the moment for finding villages.
- No milkweed can sometimes hint that there is village nearby, but again it can be on any direction or very far away.
- The update with zig-zag eve-spawn pattern helped with this, but only for while. Now I cannot be sure in which direction I should go to have best chance to meet other players, as there can be fresh villages to west/north/south or bit older villages to east/north/south.

Travelling together

Without the other player having zoom mod I've noticed that anyone trying to follow me gets lost or if I'm trying to follow someone I get lost.
Whistling (!-marker) aids on traveling together, but it cannot be spammed so players outside screen bounds don't know where their travel buddy is.
During travel the delay on other player movement and iffy netcode can be especially felt: the players who aren't walking straight to one directions sometimes warp, and players have to constantly stop for the other player to catch up.
I know you hate suggestions, but here I go: handholding adult / big kids would let me guide other players when travelling (plus super cute)

Boars, wolves and skeeters are instant death when traveling

I think these animals when close to villages are great source of drama and good stories when local villagers get hurt by them, and players have actual chance to do something about their uncle's hunting accident.
However during travels these are the most annoying thing there are; You cannot do almost anything but religiously avoid the biomes they live in. Having a boar run off screen to the tile you are walking to most certainly is not fun or source of good story. It just feels like the game just boots me off from the game instantly, without being able to do anything about it.

Pathfinding misclicks

While playing the game I click my LMB a lot. I know It's possible to hold LMB for automatic pathfinding, but I find it more reliable to click on the tile I want to go. Now there are few things that screw the pathfinding up when they are clicked.
- Trees. For some reason the trees have HUGE sprites, and clicking them causes player to move on wrong direction, which is real pain when traveling swamp / jungle where moving to wrong tile might mean instant death (see my point about animals above)
- Restricted biomes. Oh boy when you come across jungle/desert/badlands mix, and you happen to press beyond restricted biome. Suddenly your character starts to run to wrong direction, and BOOM wolf bit, game over

Positive stuff:

Finding abandoned villages and thinking how they met their end is always cool.
Ruins where everything else is deleted but walls and roads. Having "nature" take back the ancient areas occupied by man is fun concept!
Traveling together for long distances creates great relationships between the traveling players, as hardships often do.
Maps and especially waystones make traveling to known villages bearable, sending your kids with maps out to the world to make waystones on other villages and seeing outsiders arrive to your village on later lives was super satisfying.

Why this wall of text about travel? is traveling so important? It's requirement for trading between villages, and while nobody wants to do it, players will find other ways to play around it.

TL;DR

The challenges I face when traveling feel boring (40 minutes to maybe find someone), tedious (clicking, avoiding bad biomes) and unfair (instant deaths).

PS: I enjoy the game greatly, if this post seems negative it's because I wanted to condense my annoyances on traveling. Thanks for developing a game with such unique concept :-)

OneOfMany · 2020-02-19 00:02:56

I wish you could be my child in the game. I could teach you all of these things and more. I only play vanilla. I never use zoom out mod. I have in the past. It can be useful, but I just don't think that's how the game should be played. Now mind you I'm all for an in-game option like a spyglass, binoculars and glasses (cause I feel near-sighted in the game), but I would prefer if they were in game. As far as getting lost and knowing your way there are some tips I can give you.

I like to get god mode of the world and look around to see where roads go and what villages are active, before I log on. So, I generally spawn in and know right where I am, based on the surroundings and the family name. Then I can follow the roads to wherever I want to go. Road travel is still restrictive. Roads don't go everywhere and sometimes there can be real dangers that end up killing you before you can click off the road. For maximum safety you can travel beside the road.

When traveling in the wild. Follow the biomes rather than the direction you want to go. Travel in the direction-sh you want to go, but stick to the greens and yellows. I tend to wander in the greens and yellows, because they are safe and full of free food and goodies. When you are in the greens become a berry muncher. Even if you have lost just a few pips, stay gorged on berries. Wild berry bushes grow back a berry every 10 minutes. If you rip off all the berries and thrown them on the ground they will rot in 5 minutes and a berry will grow back every 10. Wild berry bushes are clocks. You can tell the last time you were in that green by how many berries it has regrown. If your direction brings you to a dangerous biome, try and go around rather than through. It may be small and easily avoidable, so why risk it. When traveling in a dangerous biome always stand on something. Animals can not hurt you if are standing on an item. They have a predictable pattern of move, stop, move, stop. When it stops, you dash to the next standing spot and wait for it to move and stop. Then you move and stop. A basket can really help out here, drop your basket and stand on it, if there's nothing else to use. That's why I avoid them if possible, more of a hassle. Now for pathing, I like to cut down everything as I walk by with a sharp stone. Most things in the greens and yellows don't rot. If you cut them, they will stay there forever or until someone finds a use for it. Cut or pull branches, as you move to make a path and you'll never get lost again. As for your direction if you don't know where you are. Towns are east, Wilds are west, you can follow bells if you want and stick to the greens and yellow. If you want to find people or dead towns, look for touched things and follow them, the more the area is touched the closer you are to something. Towns, living and dead are found in the greens and yellows. Nobody settles anywhere else without good reason.

I hope this helps you in your travels and keeps you safe.

Last edited by OneOfMany (2020-02-19 07:52:33)

Dodge · 2020-02-19 06:35:22

Yes everything looks the same and you get bored at one point.

Procedurally generated colors would make every tree, every rock and everything else feel unique and you could actually find your way depending on the landscape.

Finding villages is still an issue currently and basicallly depends on gingers making bell towers, would be nice to be able to do some sort of signal fire for nearby villages/travelers.

Also horses in prairies and not desert ty. Or maybe donkeys in prairies but at least something that makes travelling better

JasonY · 2020-02-19 08:17:08

Pretty lackluster, everywhere is the same.

OneOfMany · 2020-02-19 08:26:10

JasonY wrote:

Pretty lackluster, everywhere is the same.

Yes it is, the only interesting part is the people. Towns are boring. People SID. People murder. People stand next to the fire, keeping half an eye on the screen while watching netflix, knowing townys will feed them. I bet if they heard their hunger bell, they would play. Why play, when you can increase you gene score with just one eye and a town to feed you. Do not feed the afk. If you want to play at least stick a berry in your mouth. They are not afk, they are not disconnected, they are griefers, that townys feed.

pein · 2020-02-20 03:56:55

could be dropped entirely by making sectors on map

each sector would be separated on the map, like a mini rift, only that you would be able to travel in between them via tech, the rides would cost money which would be work-based, like doing quests

Grim_Arbiter · 2020-02-20 07:10:51

pein wrote:

could be dropped entirely by making sectors on map
each sector would be separated on the map, like a mini rift, only that you would be able to travel in between them via tech, the rides would cost money which would be work-based, like doing quests

The sky lift south costs 2 fruitboots and a bottle of horse blood.

DestinyCall · 2020-02-20 07:48:34

Grim_Arbiter wrote:

pein wrote:
could be dropped entirely by making sectors on map
each sector would be separated on the map, like a mini rift, only that you would be able to travel in between them via tech, the rides would cost money which would be work-based, like doing quests
The sky lift south costs 2 fruitboots and a bottle of horse blood.

And a bowl of berries with carrot.

Melea · 2020-02-20 16:19:02

DestinyCall wrote:

Grim_Arbiter wrote:
pein wrote:
could be dropped entirely by making sectors on map
each sector would be separated on the map, like a mini rift, only that you would be able to travel in between them via tech, the rides would cost money which would be work-based, like doing quests
The sky lift south costs 2 fruitboots and a bottle of horse blood.

And a bowl of berries with carrot.

Lol! The never-ending uses of a berry-carrot bowl. I'm honestly surprised Jason didn't decide to use those for horse-taming and feeding cattle/geese/pigs as well. They're so tedious to pick, and overused. Sheep are grazers and grain-eaters - why are they dependent on berries??

Morti · 2020-02-21 00:32:22

Melea wrote:

Sheep are grazers and grain-eaters - why are they dependent on berries??

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9HV5O8Un6k

Saves on lipstick?

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#1 2020-02-18 22:30:05