Transportation in Ember

[Beemann]

Umm... in case you did not know (well last that I knew) Grummz wants player built bases which is what helps expand the bubble. Which means there will be large portions of land "wasted" on premade settlements that players invest into. Which that will necessitate a large map in the first place. Also, to me at least, exploration covers the entire map. A small map is easier to explore then a large one. It requires less to get around.

Is this more recent than the Q&A in which he said it wasn't set in stone and that several people in discord had suggested unlocking separate zones rather than constantly expanding from one (like Firefall tried and failed to do)

The Frontier, or the frontline as some might call it, is the edge of the map. Something that players should be capable of reaching easily because it is from there that it is going to get harder. Especially when/if it gets to the point that the Tsihu launch coordinated attacks on our bases to push our wall back.

The frontier is whatever we don't own yet, that's all. You shouldn't "control" the entire map by virtue of it existing. That's what leads to things feeling boring. What's the use in generating all that terrain if it's only going to be skipped via dropship to reach the "good" stuff barring a dynamic event someone wants to participate in?

People already want the ability to do excursions beyond the habitation wall, even if they would be timed and full of risk. They should have the ability to quickly get to a base near the wall to go do those kind of excursions... without having to slog through the entire map to do it.

That's when you build up bases on platforms (the thing that is currently, afaik, part of the plan) so that you can head out to a spot near the edge and (assuming it's not being attacked) start your excursion there. Having that shit available easily right from day one, again, trivializes the rest of the gameplay. If I can just fly right to the unknown, why bother having all that stuff known right from the start?

Course hey, it can always be treated as a double edged sword if it really bugs you. Ignoring the dynamic events could speed up the process of a invasion on the nearby base. If the base fails to get defended its habitation field generator gets destroyed and the bubble collapses and shrinks. We have to push the wall back to reclaim the base.

Base defense should happen either way. Dynamic events can contribute to assaults without having a big skip button for a map that shouldn't need it

We just need to enable the player to do what they want. Which Transit dropships help with without completely invalidating the combat between base a and base b like a teleport fast travel system would. With a large map with plenty of nooks and crannies to explore it will take longer for the explorers to get through everything, and not every explorer wants to slog through fights all the time when they would rather be actually exploring. With a large map you can have the dynamic events more spread out to prevent situations like Oilspill's barrage of broken thumpers every 20 feet.

A large map with plenty of nooks and crannies is a lot of work for a small team. Remember that procedural generation will deal with the terrain, and not necessarily the sorts of encounters you'll have
Regarding the events in Firefall, I don't think the solution to a small number of events is to increase the walking distance between pings. That hardly seems like a compelling scenario

U
As an aside, quests were not thrown in to combat tedium. Quests were thrown in because The9 wanted Firefall to be a World of Warcraft. While the quests did tell story chains, and had some interesting characters, they were also just as tedious as everything else.

Expansion of content was necessary to combat the fact that Firefall had extremely straightforward and not particularly varied encounters. Worse still, the good encounters could be across the map from the player when they did show up
The quests were an awful way to combat this though, because once you cleared the 3-4 quests in your area, you basically had to wait for more unless the server was empty. In the time it took to cross the map to the clearly indicated other quests, someone would finish them. The thing they had the potential to do well though, was make good use of the terrain to create more challenging and well designed content. They didn't necessarily accomplish this mind you, but it could have happened with a better plan in mind

I feel a bit sad you were not around to see Coral Forest back before it got more bases added to it. Back when all we had was Copacabana and a lot of space to grow.

I was in the beta prior to Copacabana even existing. You don't get to play the "if only you knew how great it was" card with me

 

[TankHunter678]

Is this more recent than the Q&A in which he said it wasn't set in stone and that several people in discord had suggested unlocking separate zones rather than constantly expanding from one (like Firefall tried and failed to do)

The frontier is whatever we don't own yet, that's all. You shouldn't "control" the entire map by virtue of it existing. That's what leads to things feeling boring. What's the use in generating all that terrain if it's only going to be skipped via dropship to reach the "good" stuff barring a dynamic event someone wants to participate in?

That's when you build up bases on platforms (the thing that is currently, afaik, part of the plan) so that you can head out to a spot near the edge and (assuming it's not being attacked) start your excursion there. Having that shit available easily right from day one, again, trivializes the rest of the gameplay. If I can just fly right to the unknown, why bother having all that stuff known right from the start?

Base defense should happen either way. Dynamic events can contribute to assaults without having a big skip button for a map that shouldn't need it

A large map with plenty of nooks and crannies is a lot of work for a small team. Remember that procedural generation will deal with the terrain, and not necessarily the sorts of encounters you'll have
Regarding the events in Firefall, I don't think the solution to a small number of events is to increase the walking distance between pings. That hardly seems like a compelling scenario

Expansion of content was necessary to combat the fact that Firefall had extremely straightforward and not particularly varied encounters. Worse still, the good encounters could be across the map from the player when they did show up
The quests were an awful way to combat this though, because once you cleared the 3-4 quests in your area, you basically had to wait for more unless the server was empty. In the time it took to cross the map to the clearly indicated other quests, someone would finish them. The thing they had the potential to do well though, was make good use of the terrain to create more challenging and well designed content. They didn't necessarily accomplish this mind you, but it could have happened with a better plan in mind

If the bases are on platforms then that necessitates having dropships to go between them. Since we wont have a ground option. Also, it would not be available right from day 1, unless your day 1 is really far behind everyone else. Since the bases would not be built yet otherwise. It would be just like when we expanded from Copa at the very start.

I think ultimately the point of disagreement between us is something really simple:

I want the convenience of a immersive transit dropship ride to get to known bases more quickly, and not have a fast travel teleport to skip the map. This is because ultimately I want the choice to link up with my friends and not have a slow, difficult, or annoying journey to get to them while being also be able to appreciate the map during the ride, or maybe just ride it to see if there are any dynamic events I can drop out to go to.

You do not want the convenience of a immersive transit dropship ride, nor a fast travel teleport, because you feel it lets people skip the map and makes the map feel controlled, when you want it to feel constantly hostile and require a difficult journey to cross.

I also think a bit of the friction also comes from my earlier comment that not everything should be a mission, as people were taking the idea of a transit dropship and slapping an escort mission where they can get shot down onto it. Which if that kind of stuff happened I do not think you would have an issue with it. Since it would be a dynamic event all of its own.

I was in the beta prior to Copacabana even existing. You don't get to play the "if only you knew how great it was" card with me

I miss attack/defend CP OCT, and Blackwater Harvester, and the hilarity that ensued of Checkerboard land. The game was so much fun back then. Even if it did play like TF2 with jumpjets.

 

[Pandagnome]

I like an elevator that appears and cloaks sending me into the skies

wooooooooooooooooooooooooossssH

 

[Beemann]

If the bases are on platforms then that necessitates having dropships to go between them. Since we wont have a ground option. Also, it would not be available right from day 1, unless your day 1 is really far behind everyone else. Since the bases would not be built yet otherwise. It would be just like when we expanded from Copa at the very start.

I think ultimately the point of disagreement between us is something really simple:

I want the convenience of a immersive transit dropship ride to get to known bases more quickly, and not have a fast travel teleport to skip the map. This is because ultimately I want the choice to link up with my friends and not have a slow, difficult, or annoying journey to get to them while being also be able to appreciate the map during the ride, or maybe just ride it to see if there are any dynamic events I can drop out to go to.

You do not want the convenience of a immersive transit dropship ride, nor a fast travel teleport, because you feel it lets people skip the map and makes the map feel controlled, when you want it to feel constantly hostile and require a difficult journey to cross.

I also think a bit of the friction also comes from my earlier comment that not everything should be a mission, as people were taking the idea of a transit dropship and slapping an escort mission where they can get shot down onto it. Which if that kind of stuff happened I do not think you would have an issue with it. Since it would be a dynamic event all of its own.


I miss attack/defend CP OCT, and Blackwater Harvester, and the hilarity that ensued of Checkerboard land. The game was so much fun back then. Even if it did play like TF2 with jumpjets.

You don't need a drop ship to carry you to platforms unless they're ludicrously high up for no reason and have nothing resembling stairs or an elevator.

You're pretty much spot on in outlining the disagreement but you miss one more factor when it comes to no transports: base defense is trivialized by forms of fast travel. Remember how the chosen were supposed to be a dangerous enemy, and yet they couldn't hold a single watch tower long enough to do more than slightly inconvenience someone? When you can easily scoot across the map at high speed, your AI opponents can't really do all that much in terms of taking your shit.

This also promotes more rapid expansion. Why make small steps when we can roll up our army into a big ball of death, go straight to a spot further out and set up a base there? We don't have to worry much about our investment because travel time is fixed by having a transport ship, and so long as there are enough ships transporting people, the batch that gets the potential "shot down" dynamic event can be compensated for.

I think the best solution if we must have a form of fast travel is a relatively quick "return to base" option. Whether that's ships carrying resources to the central base or a "hearthstone" style teleport tied only to a spot in the copa-equivalent or whatever.
That way, rapid expansion isn't promoted, and travelling *out* is still dangerous, but returning to a safe spot is relatively easy given the correct parameters (not in a cave, not being shot at, etc)

I don't particularly miss having tiny rooms, giant hitboxes and giant AOE splash (even if I played assault a lot and benefitted from it) but the project was certainly a lot more focused. The constant revamps of one major system or another were possibly needed but perhaps a bit much overall.

As far as exploration in FF went, I never found more than a few spots I particularly liked, and those places were great when the duel anywhere option came up. That's a mechanic that should get ported to Ember for sure

 

[Daynen]

The point that's often skipped over when discussing "fast travel" is whether it's necessary at all. The current discussion has touched on this, but I feel it's still a very "under the radar" point.

Let's use what we know as reference: firefall had NPC dropship routes to carry us all around Coral Forest in a planned circuit. Why was this necessary? Partly to give players a reliable way to identify all the POI's, partly to give players a way to get across the map without interruption. Sure, players liked it; it let them take the easy road. This isn't without it's issues. As mentioned above, fast travel invariably trivializes parts of a game; no matter how subtly or overtly, this is a fact. The biggest world can seem small when you can cover it without effort--just ask Superman how small Earth must seem.

Note that when we left Coral Forest and hit Sertao and Devil's Tusk, dropships weren't a factor. We had to cross the terrain ourselves. There was no trivialization; if you didn't have an LGV or a rechargeable glider pad, you were hoofing it. While this meant a long time between destinations, it also meant plenty of opportunities for action along the way.

Now, to be fair, Sertao basically ended up feeling like just a line between start and finish (albeit with some curves along the way) so there weren't really a lot of side destinations worth stopping for, especially once you had done all the board missions the first time. This meant that dropships would've felt rather superfluous at the end of the day, especially in the face of so many player-owned glider pads and LGV's.

What's the major difference? CF was wide, had lots of places to stop off and lots of reasons to do so; Sertao was not and did not. Some would argue that dropships were extraneous even in CF; few would argue that they were needed in Sertao.

Automatic fast travel is something that contributes to a banal, bland experience if allowed with no cost or consequence. Anyone who played Morrowind can tell you how lazy Skyrim's fast travel makes players; it takes this epic, vast, sweeping vista and turns it into a shopping mall. I think fast or automated travel, designed carelessly, is a disservice to the game and it's players, especially in a game where it may not be needed at all.

 

[TankHunter678]

You don't need a drop ship to carry you to platforms unless they're ludicrously high up for no reason and have nothing resembling stairs or an elevator.

You're pretty much spot on in outlining the disagreement but you miss one more factor when it comes to no transports: base defense is trivialized by forms of fast travel. Remember how the chosen were supposed to be a dangerous enemy, and yet they couldn't hold a single watch tower long enough to do more than slightly inconvenience someone? When you can easily scoot across the map at high speed, your AI opponents can't really do all that much in terms of taking your shit.

This also promotes more rapid expansion. Why make small steps when we can roll up our army into a big ball of death, go straight to a spot further out and set up a base there? We don't have to worry much about our investment because travel time is fixed by having a transport ship, and so long as there are enough ships transporting people, the batch that gets the potential "shot down" dynamic event can be compensated for.

I think the best solution if we must have a form of fast travel is a relatively quick "return to base" option. Whether that's ships carrying resources to the central base or a "hearthstone" style teleport tied only to a spot in the copa-equivalent or whatever.
That way, rapid expansion isn't promoted, and travelling *out* is still dangerous, but returning to a safe spot is relatively easy given the correct parameters (not in a cave, not being shot at, etc)

I don't particularly miss having tiny rooms, giant hitboxes and giant AOE splash (even if I played assault a lot and benefitted from it) but the project was certainly a lot more focused. The constant revamps of one major system or another were possibly needed but perhaps a bit much overall.

As far as exploration in FF went, I never found more than a few spots I particularly liked, and those places were great when the duel anywhere option came up. That's a mechanic that should get ported to Ember for sure

In Firefall you could arcfold to a POI making tower defense really easy, but the transit dropships were not always in a position to make travel faster for you in those time sensitive events. In most cases trying to use the transit dropship would of result in the tower being lost, it would be faster to just drive to it, or afterburner into the sky and use a celestial glider and rely on soaring afterburner to take you directly to the tower. Sure it helps out with events on a schedule like BK where you can get in ahead of time and then glide out to get into a good spot for its imminent spawning.

In many cases players could get around with mobility frames faster then the NPC transit options. That is also how I felt about Sertao. Get to any high spot, slap down a disposable glider or reusable glider and just soaring afterburner directly to your destination. Its like by the time you got to Sertao you were expected to have transportation options of your own that outperforms NPC transit options besides spending credits to arcfold to a particular POI.

I honestly expect something similar to happen in Ember, but I still want the transit dropships because well... it fits in the world, I enjoy riding in them even if they may not be the fastest options, and it presents the ability to not have to get bothered on my way to a base, see the world, and not just completely skip the possible events on the route.

Though I kinda do not understand why you have issues with a NPC transit option to get to a base (that follows a schedule), but are completely fine with instantly teleporting back to a base. If anything the ability to instantly return to a base removes a lot of danger. If we can go past the bubble into the toxic zone then before I am seriously gonna die because of my own stupidity I can just teleport home, heal up, and run out.

 

[Beemann]

Sure, FireFall had better options, but that doesn't make the not-as-good options ineffective for the things I'm talking about.

As far as the "fits in the world" thing, empty troop transports don't really make a huge amount of sense. Convoys and supply drops would be a more functional thing from a lore perspective, and still allow for the whole rescue mission aspect

My point is that getting out to point X should be difficult, but barring an annoying spawn penalty nothing stops someone from the old /kill method of returning to the main spawn. The other bases wouldn't necessily have this function, it would be locked to a single location. If you get out to the midway point between the copa-equivalent and the map boundary and have to return, thats fine, because your progress has been reset. You can also have restrictions on it and random events tied to it to make it less of a get out of jail free card. The only way to totally prevent the /kill solution in a non-cheesy way would be to force the user to escort their resources back, or something similar

 

[TankHunter678]

We do have to escort the THMPR back to the nearest refinery on every thumping run. I am of the opinion that /kill should be restricted to that if the system detects that you are stuck, unable to move/falling in place, then it allows you to use the /kill command to get unstuck.

I guess its a case of you want challenge going out to the place (which I do not mind, I just want to cut down time that would be slogging through simple and not challenging content to get to the challenging content), I would rather see most of that on the way back?

I feel that if one gets into a bad situation they should have to get themselves out of it. If we can go past the wall they should not be able to just make up for bad planning with a teleport to base.

 

[Beemann]

We do have to escort the THMPR back to the nearest refinery on every thumping run. I am of the opinion that /kill should be restricted to that if the system detects that you are stuck, unable to move/falling in place, then it allows you to use the /kill command to get unstuck.

What's the difference between /kill and hitting myself with splash until I die outside of wasting my time? And while that solution is a good one (escorting, not restricting /kill of course), it only applies to one "mission" type. I'd also rather not rely on the pathfinding of a walking robot with procedurally generated terrain and randomized mining points, but maybe that's just me.

I guess its a case of you want challenge going out to the place (which I do not mind, I just want to cut down time that would be slogging through simple and not challenging content to get to the challenging content), I would rather see most of that on the way back?

I think the simple content should be stuff like base defense or defending small convoys. Excursions out into uncontrolled territory should be a test of skill and resource management

I feel that if one gets into a bad situation they should have to get themselves out of it. If we can go past the wall they should not be able to just make up for bad planning with a teleport to base.

I would say that the time and resources needed to get to that point being wasted is already a punishment, especially if you have to build a suit to survive beyond the dome for X number of minutes

 

[Pandagnome]

bikes, hoverboards .....what if smaller mechs could transform to a light bike
and bigger mechs into mgv i guess its more transformerish but it be cool for
faster alternative as the mechs provide better armor than in vehicle mode hmm

 

[Dark]

Fast travel is generally a necessity for games with not much to do between A and B and slow travel speed. I would hope that Ember has neither of these problems, especially considering its expected reliance on dynamic encounters. Why should you be able to just skip everything good/"bad" between one platform and another?

This

Give us something to see or do while we travel to get us there in a hurry.