Map Size Fixes

[Pildream]

A lazy way to do it would be to just put walls all around Providence, though I guess walls on the sea would look ugly.

how about Willy the whale who will tail-hit you away if you come close ?

[Potjeh]

Yeah, but that other town would need to make the same run to challenge their authority, too. There's just no way around this without *drastically* reducing the map size, which would involve nuking a lot of bases and alienating their owners. IMO you should just live with it for now, and do a full world reset when you finish the roadmap. And TBH I think this whole authority challenging thing is kinda silly and doesn't bring all that much to the game.

[Lusewing]

It also removes In-Game Events, location for leaderboards, location for expedition launches, centralized trading area, NPC sold goods, Safe-ish area for new players to socialize.

Players can rebuild some of that, but not all of it. I don't find removing Providence to be the answer.

Make Providence it's own "plane of existence", so you can't actually walk out of it into the "real" world. This removes the asymmetry in time it takes two players to get to each other's claims. It can be on that newbie island that's on the roadmap, as long as that island is actually a separate map.

This seems the best option to me.

[Judaism]

What about quick teleportation to smaller minor towns spread across the map in return for some silver ?

[Potjeh]

Let's not go with what we have in H&H where people use crossroads to avoid walking 10 tiles.

[JohnCarver]

Yeah, but that other town would need to make the same run to challenge their authority, too. There's just no way around this without *drastically* reducing the map size, which would involve nuking a lot of bases and alienating their owners. IMO you should just live with it for now, and do a full world reset when you finish the roadmap. And TBH I think this whole authority challenging thing is kinda silly and doesn't bring all that much to the game.

I strongly disagree. Players being able to compete for thousands of silver in Tax Refunds is one of the most interesting things that has happened since we took over. The explosion of towns and their authorities show a very high interest and participation in this mechanic. The problem remains that only the elite are putting in the effort to challenge authorities due to map size. As you mentioned, drastically reducing the map size is exactly the option we are looking into. Leaving alone broken mechanics, or planning to 'launch' without fully testing mechanics during the beta is not an option.

[Procne]

After the map shrik it would still be only elites challenging authority. In the end - whoever can stay online for longer wins.
This is a mechanic designed for elites, so I don't see anything strange in the fact only elites are putting the effort

[Potjeh]

I don't think that map size is the main reason only the elites are challenging authorities. The "normal" player doesn't have the time it takes to build and maintain a high authority town, so they're just not going to bother. The difference that map reduction will make to them is making them more susceptible to destruction by the elites, which is virtually guaranteed to happen and will lead to mass rage-quitting by the non-elites. I mean, it has happened before, how many times does the history need to repeat itself for you to learn from it?

[summertime]

I must be silly, but why you need to change it?

There are too many mechanics that we cannot implement when it is possible for players to be more than 12 hours 'wander' distance from one another. We consider it much more reasonable that it is possible to reach a players base in 2-3 hours travel time.

i think u really need to consider going the eve approach: having certain zones be far more safe but with lower reward, and having certain zones be far dangerous but with higher reward.

the closer people live to each other, the far more dangerous it is to go outside with a main which leads to that people of inferior power only go outside their walls with their alts...

[lachlaan]

I will confess that I would challenge authority if I even knew where the major towns were, and if they weren't god knows how far away. And indeed the big map size does affect the difficulty of both finding the towns and challenging them, but the solution for it (shrinkage) seems too big a price. How about instead you modify the upcoming horses, domestic ones, to be a bit quicker? Say, an unfed, unwatered horse would run as fast as they do now. But if you take the time to stop every now and then and give it some water and some hay, or whatever other food you deem appropriate, they run like all hell broke loose behind them and Sarah Jessica Parker was your destination.