Exploration sucks

[soggie]

I am about 10 hours into the game, and while I have heaps of praises for it I realized that out of that 10 hours, more than 6 hours are spent on just walking from one place to another.

Can't this game just add a slider to determine walking speed? I am currently in Port Kuuldad's sewers and had to retreat because I'm not strong enough to survive 4 man assassin ambushes, and the journey back to the city was not a pleasant one. After that, I decided to find somewhere in the game world to grind some levels, and arrived at Fellipe forest, but even that took up close to 15 minutes just to get there from Everdale.

And what's the point of having the player wander at snail speed when most of the world is barren of interesting locales? Every area I've been to is choke full of forests that obscures my sight (Had to rely on the minimap and reveal map to navigate) and the Kessian Plains is just a massive piece of nothing, for example.

Sigh, the slow walking speed really is getting to me.

[Randomizer]

Wait until you get to Nor'land and Lake Hellice. Featureless nothing. It's the worst part of the game walking for hours especially the first time that you play since you don't know where the interesting stuff is so you can avoid walking around where there isn't anything.

[Elveronion]

i guess everyone knows how much of a fan i am of the game, so i'll add my 3 cents in here: it's like real life. there are some places on this planet that you aren't ever going to find anything...antartica, the sahara desert, idaho...these are places devoid of pretty much everything civilized.

this is why i love book 2 even more than book 1: it's big and it feels like a living planet. some areas are filled with people and buildings and quests, and other parts just exist as empty, natural barriers.

until you've trudged across the open expance of nor'land at night with just a torch, hoping to find the faint glow of durnore and a warm bed waiting for you, you haven't lived my friend!!!

[soggie]

i guess everyone knows how much of a fan i am of the game, so i'll add my 3 cents in here: it's like real life. there are some places on this planet that you aren't ever going to find anything...antartica, the sahara desert, idaho...these are places devoid of pretty much everything civilized.

this is why i love book 2 even more than book 1: it's big and it feels like a living planet. some areas are filled with people and buildings and quests, and other parts just exist as empty, natural barriers.

until you've trudged across the open expance of nor'land at night with just a torch, hoping to find the faint glow of durnore and a warm bed waiting for you, you haven't lived my friend!!!

I understand your point, I'll have to say this first.

But understanding it doesn't make it less tormenting for the fact that I have to pretty much do nothing but walk for 70% of my time. Having a huge world is okay, but having a huge world without anything in it is not the correct design decision if you couple it with a walking speed that you can't change.

If you want to keep an open world but have slow walking speed, then at least provide alternate methods of transportations like mounts or ships.

Or, at least let you fast travel OUT of a dungeon if the path is clear.

The best way is still to provide a speed slider allowing to speed up or slow down the game at will.

I love this game, I really do. I get the Darksun vibe every second I play it, and I'm a happy camper when I stumble across random loot in the middle of nowhere. Even happier when I realized that certain quests could be approached in different ways (like the sword quest in the demo). But I just can't enjoy it completely when most of my time are spent walking from point A to B.

I stopped playing Oblivion because I felt that it was more of a hiking simulator than an actual game. Eschalon is so much more that Oblivion can't even dream of being, but this is one huge flaw that I hope will be fixed in Book 3 or in patches in the future.

As an indie RPG developer myself, games like this really inspire me to soldier on, and I am thankful for that.

[stone]

I also enjoy the eschalon games, but also wish for a way to walk faster...

I like the idea of a walking speed slider or speed setting

I get the issue of having the vast area, but would like to move along faster even if the time of day passing speeds up with the speed

my laptop where I am player b2 has an issue with the slow down to incredible slow walking problem.. very annoying

[soggie]

I also enjoy the eschalon games, but also wish for a way to walk faster...

I like the idea of a walking speed slider or speed setting

I get the issue of having the vast area, but would like to move along faster even if the time of day passing speeds up with the speed

my laptop where I am player b2 has an issue with the slow down to incredible slow walking problem.. very annoying

Fortunately I don't have the slowdown problem. I am currently in Hammerlorne Lv1 and now I'm dreading to pick up the game again just because I had to navigate a maze at that walking speed.

[darkhartx1]

wimps =P ( I don't remember being able to walk faster in older games that fit this genre?) Also to add, if you want realism in your fantasy, I could sweet talk the boss into introducing a fatigue system that makes you walk faster for 15 seconds and then drag arse for the next 5 minutes. LOL The game can't please everyone, and I'm pleased to say it pleases me. The game is turn based, therefore speeding up the "walk" would be animation and game speed in general. EVERYTHING would be faster and that would annoy me, because I love mapping the world, running around like I'm on fast forward would just take away from the game. so the answer is no. it won't happen.

[soggie]

wimps =P ( I don't remember being able to walk faster in older games that fit this genre?) Also to add, if you want realism in your fantasy, I could sweet talk the boss into introducing a fatigue system that makes you walk faster for 15 seconds and then drag arse for the next 5 minutes. LOL The game can't please everyone, and I'm pleased to say it pleases me. The game is turn based, therefore speeding up the "walk" would be animation and game speed in general. EVERYTHING would be faster and that would annoy me, because I love mapping the world, running around like I'm on fast forward would just take away from the game. so the answer is no. it won't happen.

In Darksun, you can turn off animations to "walk faster". Considering that games after that either used a "click-to-go-here" scheme or at least have twice the walking speed of Eschalon, I'd say Eschalon's walking speed (coupled with questionable dungeon design) makes it really tough to keep a nice gaming pace going on when you have to spend a majority of your time walking from one place to another. Bad pathfinding is another issue altogether.

You like things to be slow and I like things to be fast. Since the game moves one tile as you do, I don't see how adding a variable speed slider will break any of the current quests or create exploits in the existing quests. It'll solve the walking speed once and for all: if you like it slow, slide it down. Want to move faster? Slide it up.

So again, why not?

[ManusDei]

Just to be sure, you know about the Quick Travel signs ?

[soggie]

Just to be sure, you know about the Quick Travel signs ?

Yes, I use them all the time, even on the same map to avoid walking back to the town to sell loot.

Thing is you can use them in dungeons, and I groan every time I realize I need to walk all the way back to the entrance to get out of the dungeon. Hammerlorne has a magical portal, but the Kuudad sewers (and the thiefs guild underneath it) is a glaring example of how not to design a dungeon.

[IJBall]

Thing is you [can't] use [Quicktravel] in dungeons, and I groan every time I realize I need to walk all the way back to the entrance to get out of the dungeon. Hammerlorne has a magical portal, but the Kuudad sewers (and the thiefs guild underneath it) is a glaring example of how not to design a dungeon.

If we assume that 'monster respawning' is not going to come to Eschalon in any "big" way, even in Book III, then it seems like once a dungeon is 'cleared' of its usual mobs, a 'flag' could be set allowing Quicktravel from inside that particular dungeon.

I agree that that would be a welcome improvement (though it would only alleviate dungeon travel in one of the two directions...).

[soggie]

Thing is you [can't] use [Quicktravel] in dungeons, and I groan every time I realize I need to walk all the way back to the entrance to get out of the dungeon. Hammerlorne has a magical portal, but the Kuudad sewers (and the thiefs guild underneath it) is a glaring example of how not to design a dungeon.

If we assume that 'monster respawning' is not going to come to Eschalon in any "big" way, even in Book III, then it seems like once a dungeon is 'cleared' of its usual mobs, a 'flag' could be set allowing Quicktravel in from inside that particular dungeon.

I agree that that would be a welcome improvement (though it would only alleviate dungeon travel in one of the two directions...).

Yes, that's a pretty nice way to handle it. But that only solves half the problem.

Book 3 could really use some better designed dungeons, I believe. If they are meant to be linear, then at least put an exit right after the player finishes the dungeon. I'm willing to suspend my disbelief for that game mechanism.

[JHe]

Speed slider = no need. And thats only my opinion But, those trees should be fixed, or try to fix.. They eat your PC.

[soggie]

Speed slider = no need. And thats only my opinion But, those trees should be fixed, or try to fix.. They eat your PC.

My laptop doesn't have any problems with that though.

Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0Ghz
2 GB RAM
GeForce 8600M

[AstralWanderer]

wimps =P ( I don't remember being able to walk faster in older games that fit this genre?)...The game is turn based, therefore speeding up the "walk" would be animation and game speed in general.

...Since the game moves one tile as you do, I don't see how adding a variable speed slider will break any of the current quests or create exploits in the existing quests.

The Ultima series of RPGs (most released during the '80s) had no walking animations so could run as fast as you could hit the keyboard.

I can sympathise with those who find walking a slow process but I would favour a "fastwalk" (no animation) option using, say, Shift or Ctrl + mouse button. This would make it easier to switch back to normal movement (for when that sprint lands you in an ambush) though it could also be disabled automatically when hostiles are nearby.