The Sweet Spot for a Compass

[JohnCarver]

Greetings Salemites,
I have recently encountered a situation where a few long-time Salem veterans were looking to start up and dabble with Salem a bit. They did so, using their free teleport with the Luigi and Clarkson to 'group up' and then wandered a bit. Fast forward a few days and I later found that those same Veterans, looking to dabble and play around a bit decided that 'running back' to their main base to the cost of a 2-3 hour run was simply too steep an investment in the 5-6 hour window that they had to play games that day, and instead decided to play something else.

Now Salem is of course the type of game that requires you make a commitment, and part of me feels like players who are not prepared to spend the few hours running/grouping, or generally 'meeting' each other to build something, raid something, or do something, quite frankly don't deserve to do so. On the other hand, it was a bit of a personal eye opener to see that something as simple as the free-port which allowed the players to more quickly 'group up' provided them so much entertainment, so quickly. It became a fairly obvious fact in play testing, and general inquisitions amongst the player base that the survey-port mechanic 'could' be so much more. But how much more, how far is too far? How 'free' do we allow teleporting.

Part of me enjoys the waypoint system of many games that have no other fast-travel options. The idea that "hey if you got here once, you deserve to get here again" The idea here being that surely fi you have been to a place once, you deserve to go there again for a far smaller investment than the original 3, 5, 7 hour run etc. etc. On the other hand, Salem is remote, large, and difficult to transverse making it unique in that way.

In conclusion, I'm strongly considering adding a "Compass" to the Salem Store. The compass would simply re-unlock your Luigi and Clarkson port and allow you to use another survey. Something that makes you 'think' about the investment to quickly teleport to a friend, or previous destination. But gives you the 'option' to do just that for a small investment. The question being, how small? This is a poll, as always your desire to take my polls and twist them into some debate about how XYZ is broken will probably not get very far. Instead, simply choose the vote that most closely resembles your desire.

Keep in mind a SINGLE compass from the store would simply "reopen" your free port to a friend mechanic.

[Brona]

This isn't a terrible idea. I think 15$ is fair. It would be a nice emergency item.

[Dallane]

I think it would be too abusable by raiders even at 10-15

[JohnCarver]

I think it would be too abusable by raiders even at 10-15

Indeed a valid concern. On the one hand the raiders might put in the time to run out there anyway. The casual with casual friends MIGHT get them to come out and help defend his base if he could offer them all a free port. But perhaps that is wishful thinking...

[alloin]

I like the idea, but I foresee too much abuse for those with a bottomless wallet.
Seems to OP in pvp/raiding situations.

[HolyLight]

I feel the game already has effective means of movement, you should however be encouraging real player made roads.(Maybe via a cash shop item(horse + cart, intense speed on a paved / brick road, encourage players to connect villages across large map sections, and make them only useable by those who own them, or tresspassing may occure)

This system is kind of meh. If you cannot sell /gift teleports, i guess i would have less concerns.

I just forsee bigger villages buying up teleports from newer players for larger sums of money and having teleport galor, as well as the abuse for raiding.

Maybe give it a global free cooldown timer of 1-3 months or something.

In 3 words : Player owned roads

[Lallaith]

Yup I agree with most other people. Though it is cool, even if it costs $15, its going to get abused in pvp / raiding situations. And if it costs that much or more, it will probably be more expensive than people in a situation like the veterans described by jc will be likely to pay.

[JohnCarver]

Fair enough.
I'm pretty indifferent. I think i'm going to let this poll run for 48 hours and then weigh the thoughts of the community against the different opinions on the dev team and we will see what we come up with. Part of me hates the people who don't want to run. And part of me loves the idea that you can send out a "Scout" to go to point B. And then he can bring all his friends for a meager investment to that location.

[M13tz]

I think it would be too abusable by raiders even at 10-15

Indeed a valid concern. On the one hand the raiders might put in the time to run out there anyway. The casual with casual friends MIGHT get them to come out and help defend his base if he could offer them all a free port. But perhaps that is wishful thinking...

Option to reset that teleport is nice, cant we get some debuff that will render its use in combat/raid a little troubling (lowering your biles by % or something like that) - not too ruining normal play but something you need to prepare and offset if you are planing to tp for battle/raid.

[Necrobane]

add cooldown to it maybe?