Movement within HoS - thoughts, poll, suggestions?

[slayernz]

Okay, the recent HoS update has definitely made a different to the dungeon traverse. It reduces the slog of going through the huge labyrinth that is some of the dungeons, but still doesn't detract from the sense of "hugeness". Is the 30% increase in base speed fast enough though? Do you still find that when doing some of the larger maps, you still have to spend too long getting from A to B ... to C?

Would you prefer if the base speed was boosted even more? Or would you prefer "return" short cuts, allowing you to discover some secret (or not so secret) ways to get back to other levels (It is done well in the Ratkin warrens and the like by the way).

Or ... is there something else that may make you super-happy? Some thoughts to hand:

• Increasing the distance from the party that you can get them to move towards. There is nothing worse than trying to tap the screen and finding the party not move. You have to move closer and closer to your party in order to get the telltale "screen centering" in order to know your party is on its way. Often though, you only have about 3 or so screen distances worth of movement covered - and the maps are dozens of screen distances ...
• A marker of where you are moving too - that blue circle (pulsing or not) would be awesome to show the destination square that you are going to
• Waypoints? Maybe if you had the blue circle destination square, AND you selected another square, a 2nd blue circle square will appear as well. Your party will move to circle 1 then circle 2. To cancel a particular waypoint, you have to tap on that waypoint and it will go away?
• Sprint options - either in the UI or yet to be built "options" screen. If you sprint, you don't get any ability to detect near-by chests, and you always lose the initiative in an encounter ... in fact, your characters move an additional x squares more after an encounter trigger so you find yourself in the middle of enemies rather than on the edge?
• Magical Gummibears ... eating them returns you to the nearest town... OR from the town that you bought them from? Make em $500 gold each, then increase the price depending on the town, so you don't just go buying them willy nilly
• Increase traversing (non combat) speed, but keep combat speed at the current +30% increase?

[Cory Trese]

I will say this -- I don't think the majority of devices will support a 50% speed up and maintain the FPS.

The maximum length of the path is based on the CPU and the path thread's timeout. I am always working to make it longer.

I voted for "Other" --> follow the TB plan as written =)

[slayernz]

Cory Trese I'm hoping that player thoughts might come out of left-field true out of gourd thinking so to speak. Out of a dozen or more ideas, maybe 1 will be that "Cool, I never thought of that" idea for you

If increasing speeds does cause frame rates to drop, then at least doing way points or magical gummibears might be an option?

[hollowpoints]

Being able to teleport to the cities from camp sites would help. I honestly didn't notice the 30% increase.... Oh wait I'm using iOS. I just checked android and it is faster..... Still  I would like more options for faster movement. There is a time to explore and there is a time to haul booty back to camp to turn in a quest and get that reward.  

[fallen]

hollowpoints - yep, the iOS update is still in the Apple queue for review. We've got some good plans for faster movement in the types of cases you are discussing, so stay tuned.

[John Robinson]

Jan 15, 2014 16:21:33 GMT -5 Cory Trese said:

I voted for "Other" --> follow the TB plan as written =)

I agree.  I felt like the new speed was just on the verge of making all the characters look like they are running everywhere they go.

It is great in glom mode to move quickly over large spaces of  ground you have been through. However if the game adds  random
monster encounters one would need a bit of caution covering the same ground.

It reminds me of "motorized infantry", the group rides a truck then deploys near suspected enemy locations for careful movement.

If it gets any faster the characters may end up looking like they are NFL wide receivers trying to score a touchdown.
 
That would detract from the atmosphere and game immersion.