Feedback on travel by foot and monster spawn.

[Party in the forest at midnight]

A lot of people want to have more travel by foot. One thing that I think would help was if it was less annoying with monsters attacking you the entire way. I think it would be better if there weren't random spawns in the zones containing the main road going from Cordor, to Mayfields, to Bendir, and from there the road west past Stonehold to Brogendenstein, the road north to Myon, and the road east to Guldorand. Instead, have set spawns that occur in various nooks in the zone so if you leave the main road you'll run into trouble. And once you enter the wilds, all bets are off, anything can happen.

[Exordius]

Nobody is going to bother as long as they can just use a portal instead though i agree less monsters on the road would be nice. Would certainly allow low levels to explore and visit all the towns much earlier then they would be able to normally.

[Party in the forest at midnight]

Any time I can't teleport, or I'm playing a character that can't teleport, travel is an extreme chore because I feel like I need to either have a method to be invisible or stealth, or stop and kill everything which is really annoying. The way the AI works where it will endlessly chase means I can't just run past everything. I don't want to fight a bunch of goblins, hobgoblins, and orcs. I just want to go to the Arcane Tower. It's only a few transitions away from Cordor, but it's really annoying to run to because there's a bunch of monsters in the way. Low level stuff that I don't want to deal with, that I can't just run past. Same with going to Bendir, it's not a long run. But the road is absolutely littered with monsters.

[Revelations]

I very much agree with this. While keeping the roads clean would be a step in a good direction, for me it’s not just the roads. 99% of the areas are filled with spawns. Cool old places and the new areas (Shyr/Minmir) would be amazing to RP with/in, but you have to stop and slaughter something every few steps. For me at least, it doesn’t help immersion at all.
It makes the world feel more gamey when moving around the isle feels like playing Diablo. Which in my book, isn’t a good thing.

Dungeons, castles, isles, fortresses, all of those should be filled with enemies. That’s where you expect them.

Think Baldur’s Gate in terms of game design. Lots of areas are peaceful. You fast-travel the map and there aren’t any enemies except for random encounters. You go to a specific place and you’re either surprised to find enemies, or fully expected it, that’s why you went there. It makes the world feel realistic.

Now think Arelith. You take a step out of the gate. Giants try to slaughter you. How does anything, ie trade, commoners travelling, etc. work?

I would enjoy it more if there were problematic regions and frequently attacked roads (perhaps even make it dynamic, so it’s different areas over time), or dungeons and castles where enemies may come from, than spawns almost everywhere.

[Irongron]

All the new areas have a low spawn rate; with plenty of rare spawns if one leaves the road, the registry agent in one case advises as much.

Removing all spawns from roads would be a huge effort though, and would likely entail a full remake of our spawn system. I can at least gradually limit a little.

[White_935]

What about making more npc patrols along the road?

I honestly wish that the monsters would invade other areas, and even lay siege to towns.. and the towns could hire more guards, or encourage people to patrol the roads.. making for a more vibrant, living world.

But in this case, just additional guards to fight/deal with spawns on the roads would be a quicker counter no?

[Dragonovith]

I honestly wish that the monsters would invade other areas

That is already the case, but sadly, afaik, it effectively only really happens when whatever calculates the server in-game time breaks. Usually what happens is that many months are skipped and the module thinks the wilderness/dangerous areas are left untended by adventurers and then the NPCs start spreading to other areas. Last time this happened, I remember seeing Bloodmoon Orcs all over the Lowland Swamps, Talassans in the Howling Pass, and lots of Frostblade Barbarians just outside Brogendenstein, in the the staircase area. Would be fun if this could happen more regularly.

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

Timeskips really wreck crow's nest lol.

[Party in the forest at midnight]

Thanks Gron!

[MissEvelyn]

I, too, would love to see monsters grow into other areas more frequently. It does happen, albeit at a slow rate.

It would be nice if there were sometimes random boosts to this rate. Perhaps nothing as extreme as with the time skip examples, but with some kind of boon depending on which creatures. For example, when the calendar reaches a date where Talos is celebrated all over Faerûn as a day of praise, the Talossians could get a boost to their growth rate.
With Gruumsh, the orcs. And so on.