Walls in the map make traversal a huge pain and disrupts gameplay tremendously

[twilit tartan]

As per the title, the walls coming back in P12 are very egregious in making map traversal unnecessarily annoying. It's also a bit questionable to get these walls added at the same time as a fast travel mechanic. I don't have any issues with walking across the entire map with how long that took, but these walls make it a huge pain to get to different areas, especially when I'm encouraged to find a cheese to scale a mountain to bypass finding a door in the wall.

[kindred compass]

+1

[light bane]

I think their design is too repetitive; it could avoid following such a specific pattern. Maybe random things, something more elaborate and less fixed. Perhaps an Ode Version of Chinese wall if i can dream high lol.

[topaz forge]

+1 too many walls

[ember marsh]

+1 it's not even its disruptive, but most paths are really weird and not making sense, this adding to not having mounts in the current prelude is really annoying mix

[twilit tartan]

im open for discussion, but care to elaborate? It's hard for me to enjoy the walls when they added time-gated fast traveling in the same update. Being encouraged to cheese as Bromius or scaling a vertical rock face with jump spamming, or just abusing session dupe taxiing from Recruit Chat is not a streamlined game experience.

[light bane]

Perhaps if they did something like I mentioned, it would fulfill the function of separating parts of the world and still allow gameplay on top of the wall... that could be interesting.

[alpine void]

I thought in the devstream they were going to be camps rather than complete walls. They're very immersion breaking and it's not obvious to tell where the door is so I often walk the wrong way. It's frankly more of a pain and in current state at VERY least adds nothing of value

[teal vault]

@somber turtle

[somber turtle]

+1 I can see some of the intent, but Ode'n infrastructures should be more additive than disruptive. These just... sit there, making world exploration and traversal more annoying without giving much of anything in return.

[peak narwhal]

+1

[buoyant scaffold]

They should have given us a mount to go with the walls to offset the travel time.

[fossil totem]

+1
If the walls have to stay they at least need to add more gates along them to get through. Maybe it won't feel as bad with a mount but on foot it feels awful

[sharp tundra]

+1
I'm all for walls that make sense (like a wall across a mountain pass or something), but these ones feel kinda arbitrary and plonked in.

[silent osprey]

+1000. I'd get the walls if fast travel was easy to do but it is not

[buoyant scaffold]

yeah if it was free or somehow refreshable using some common resource, it would be fine

one per day? really DE? what the heck?

Now I just want to hoard them and never use them and get on discord to complain about walls.

[obsidian quartz]

+1 these walls are the first thing in the game that make me want to quit. Just got founders and its a huge bummer dealing with these and theyre viserally frustrating, because, as others mentioned, I dont see what they are adding for players that have already unlocked the whole map. I just wanna run my boss rotation and now its such a hassle id rather just play something else.

[ember marsh]

It feels like they put them too fast imo. I'm curious how it would play out if the walls were added with the mounts system in same update - would it be still such a pain or mount would balance it out?

[kindred cosmos]

The walls are decreasing the fun factor for me.

[ember marsh]

To be fair I'm starting to be a little afraid about future of the game with how "it's meant to be a slower game" is being thrown as the execuse for every design choice. Limited fast travel? It's a slow game chill bro. Walls that make you walk longer and longer? It has to be like this, its a slow game! Atrocious faction grind that's even worse now? You can guess.
Like, ok, I get it, we want a chill game that's not Volt fast like Warframe, but at the same time where is the fun if everything has to be made slow with no real reward?

[sharp tundra]

are you getting that from players or DE though? If it's players, then you have to treat it like it's their personal head-canon 😛

[ember marsh]

Moatly players unfortunately parotting the same thing

[peak narwhal]

+1

[polar swallow]

I just ran in to one of these and it was incredibly annoying. I had to trace one of these walls until I found a guarded door. I absolutely hate having only one point of entry to an area in an open world map. A constant retort I get on this discord is "it goes against the spirit of exploration" when asking for things like fast travel or autorun, but how are these walls somehow WITH the spirit of exploration?

Agree with OP. Remove these. They feel distruptive, discouraging, and downright awful.

[viscid yacht]

These walls are unnecessarily tedious they are annoying they make it unenjoyable more so than it already was running across the map. They should be removed

[idle loom]

Walls (and terrain) need to be placed more appropriately to funnel players past important hubs/POIs like tuvalkane's helmet, and create "linear" and distinct regions in the open world for progression.

Gates on the wall could be marked on the map to make navigating across the map smoother. Some trails or geographic features leading to a gate would be helpful for navigating too.

The old map really didn't have anything interesting, it was a flat map with a few raised hills and where the only real advantage was that you could walk in a straight line from one boss to the next. Aesthetically, it was a very boring and unfinished, and felt like it was opened up early because everyone kept going out of bounds.

[untold perch]

They'll do anything but add mounts

[clever plaza]

+1

[onyx wing]

the walls being back is outright one of the worst game design decisions. your artists have spent time crafting this island. now you're making us run around them. you added tedious travel by foot, while adding 1 daily fast travel seed. it honestly feels like a slap in the face, a punishment. this is a huge step backwards. there are times when a faction tale will go across these "boundaries" and being forced to run around the walls basically can abandon the faction tale.

[rich iron]

It would be super slick if the walls were integrated into dynamic world events instead of being static obstacles. Seeing the additional Ode'n infrastructure pop up in formerly open areas helped give me a sense of invasion pressure and claustrophobia, but that only works if there's sometimes an unchanged natural space to contrast with. If they're always around they'll eventually transition from interesting to annoying.

If the walls dropped from the sky as a world event to cordon off an area for a limited time which then has to be liberated to clear them out(perhaps by defeating special bosses or temporary quests), that might be more fun.

[paper bolt]

I think walls as an annoyance is good theming for Ode as a faction. But without a mount, without some events tied into it (like heavy guarded gates during special events, hijack missions) its just another nuisance to the pile of recently added nuisances

[humble hedge]

Agreed, the large oppressive black walls do really make the land feel more under Ode occupation than previously. However the gates are small and virtually unguarded which feels weird (though I suppose 2 or 3 dudes is more than enough for the passive locals). But gameplay wise they just suck, especially when they cut a faction tale in half and there's no gate in sight.

[untold talon]

+1, keep the walls but add more holes

[vast fossil]

+1

Or give us a grapple hook to get over them

[stuck lichen]

+1 , those black iron walls make the world look ugly , please remove it

[gritty quest]

I like the walls, they add an oppressive atmosphere, but I would remove half of them.

[untold talon]

I agree, or at least make them look worn down and overgrown, right now they look like they were just dropped in, they make no sense and really stand out

The ode have been occupying for years at this point right? Why make it look so new...

[fallow adder]

+1

[elder needle]

Remember, the gameplay systems are designed by the same guy who was against Universal Vacuum in Warframe.

If we didn't complain as much, we'd still be pressing X on every sack the enemies dropped.

[kindred totem]

-1 i really like the change and the whole point is that you are not supposed to just be able to walk in straight lines anymore, i love the small gates that are guarded by enemies, its not perfect yet, but i really like it, also makes the Ode feel more oppressive

[kindred totem]

well they shouldn't be overgrown, the whole point of the ode is that everything around them dies, vegetation growing on it would make no sense, BUT I think having it so that the ground and grass around the walls looks like the white corrupted one would help make them look more integrated into the world

[kindred totem]

they are with the spirit of exploration buy making it so you don't just walk in straight lines 100% of the time and actually have to look for ways to get from a to be. Before these changes I could easily run from one end of the map to another in a straight line, which was very boring. I dont think the implementation of the walls is perfect, but i do think its in the right direction

[elder needle]

Yes now running around these walls is so much fun, I'm literally shaking in excitement think thinking about running around a wall

[untold talon]

Agreed, I still think they need more gaps too, it benefits no one to have us take a long route around a huge wall with no other option

At least add guarded shortcuts similar to the gates

[kindred totem]

it is more exciting than just running in a straight line lol

[kindred totem]

yes agreed, its far from perfect, but i like the direction, some walls need to be moved and we need more veriaty with how the paths are blocked and how we can move past them

[proven monolith]

the walls are a good direction to make the world feel more lived in by the ode but as they are they simply are just tedious to deal with. fast travel isn't common enough to come back and mounts keep being dangled in front of our faces during trailers and snatched away on patch day. mounts are becoming more of a necessity if they want to continue along this path of development

[jagged shadow]

+1 For me, the walls they added are terrible. They ruin the exploration instead of improving it. Yesterday, I even quit the game as soon as I was forced to take a specific path just to reach a certain point.

[twilit tartan]

except these walls encourage taxiing through session duplication or changing to Bromius in Nightfold to cheese certain terrain features and bypass the gates. The walls feel completely arbitrary and funnel players into annoying portions of the map when traversal was already long and natural. Before walls, there was still plenty of POIs, animals to play a song to, enemies to fight, bosses along the way, etc. to participate in as you gradually go from one end of the map to the other. These gates don't encourage exploration unless you're brand new and know nothing of the game, in which case the gates add nothing to your experience still.

[idle loom]

It's the indevelopment build for a pre-alpha and they are intending to add mounts. We're getting the world as they develop it instead of waiting for a finished product for them to update it. Taxiing was happening before anyways so not having walls wouldn't make a difference.

[strong rivet]

Yup

[buoyant scaffold]

If We could defeat some kind of camp and have large sections of a wall removed after that, then it'd be fine -- let us unlock more travel routes at least

[strong rivet]

Personally I think you should be able to force the walls to retract back into space temporarily by doing a siege on a portion of that wall

For a few hours or so, ya know? At least then you can interact with the walls in any other way than cheese them or walk around them

[autumn spruce]

+1 although, I'm fine with them, I think would have been better suited to add them back when mounts are added

[twilit tartan]

this is the same as the "beta" argument for a Warframe update 13 years into the game having a huge design flaw. DE has been around for a very long time, so it's really no excuse to discuss what many players feel is bad game design

its also not lost on me that all this arbitrary friction was added at the same time as fast travel. I can get around fine, but im abusing cheeses and session taxiing, which circumvents a bad design and makes the gameplay feel worse because of it. I actually enjoy traversing the whole map myself, but these walls make that a waste of your own time.

[twilit tartan]

this. i think the walls for new players is fine, but there would need to be a quest where you break it down so that it's not a limitation when you're more progressed. the map just feels worse as a not-new player traversing the map.

[buoyant scaffold]

Again: surprised they're not monetizing more seeds for arcs. At least then we'd see a motive for putting walls down and severely limiting the sole remedy released with them outside of abusing multiplayer to taxi around.

[buoyant scaffold]

I don't think we need to be able to remove the walls entirely, but if we could do something that broke a bunch of holes open in them along their lengths, it would be an interesting kind of progression IMO.

[twilit tartan]

yeah, something of the sort

i just dont want to be going around the map feeling like i have to Bromius or cheese movement to get around

cuz imma be honest, i ignore the walls and just abuse the ways around it. the progression around the map just suffers for it

[buoyant scaffold]

Maybe if there was a master control center on one or both ends of each wall, and clearing that opened up (more) doors along its length, rather than just the one we have now, that would be fine.

[buoyant scaffold]

Honestly this is a strong argument for just unlocking the fast travel system more in general. People are going to abuse taxi anyway if you don't. They're only punishing the people that don't feel like abusing the system by not doing that.

[idle loom]

There was no exploration with the previous map, it was travel from point A to point B as fast as possible. Taxiing was happening with a map this simple.
The world was a plane with some minor hills to keep it from being perfectly flat.

[strong rivet]

Just let us temporarily remove the walls for a few hours by doing a siege for each stretch of wall, leveled to that area

[strong rivet]

Or just fix the taxiing issue by making it so when you go back to your world youre back where you started

Jesus autocorrect what are you doing to me

There we go ffs

[buoyant scaffold]

I like the idea of removing the walls through progression, but if I have to clear multiple sieges every time I want a clear path through my map, I'll never engage with that system.

I don't have that kind of time.

[strong rivet]

If it lasts for an entire day?

[buoyant scaffold]

A week maybe.

[strong rivet]

Oof I wouldn't go that far

[buoyant scaffold]

I only get one or two hours most days. I'm talking to you from work right now.

[strong rivet]

Fair

[buoyant scaffold]

If I end up spending that time removing walls, then what's the point?

I might do it on a saturday morning if I intend on playing all day, but even that won't be something I do often.

It's one of the reasons these travel issues are a concern for me -- if I spend all my time walking around walls through the woods, then where's the gameplay?

Sure there's random stuff you find along the way, and I'll do that sometimes, but if I can fast-travel to get to the thing I want to work on that day then it cuts out the nonsense and lets me get to the point without feeling like I'm just spinning my wheels.

[strong rivet]

As opposed to spending all your time walking through the woods just not around walls?

[buoyant scaffold]

When it was a straight shot, it was still a drain, but I manged. Now I'm not sure it's worth logging in. I've got other games like warframe that let me get straight to what I want with a click.

Honestly, I've been playing hoping that the travel situation would improve, not get worse, because of my own time constraints.
They took what should have been an upgrade (fast travel) in this regard, tried to use walls and limits to make it a side-grade, and nerfed it so hard it became a downgrade.

[kindred cosmos]

They could add Wevet seeds to the cash shop to enable faster travel for those of us who have less time to play.

[strong rivet]

Oof they better not

That would NOT go over well

[buoyant scaffold]

I wouldn't spend arcs on that, but like I said, I'm surprised they're not already doing that.

No, they need a real F2P solution to this.

If they do put it up for Arcs, then you can bet your bottom dollar mounts will only be marginally faster than walking.

[kindred totem]

Right now my biggest complaint is simply that some walls stretch for a bit too far without an obviously intended way of getting across them, I also think that it would be good if openings in the walls where more clearly marked (for example with red balloons) so that it can be a bit smoother

[polar swallow]

This discord will do anything to justify making the gameplay less enjoyable. Putting up walls is not good for exploring, deeply disagree.

[kindred totem]

That’s literally what every game does, just not as obvious, that’s like level design 101 but now people first got to experience the brain dead flat world first which yes indeed was more efficient than the current one. But this is actually exploration because now you actually need to interact and explore the environment to get from place to place unlike before when you could ignore the world and just press W for 3-5 mins

[idle loom]

People asking for the starchart experience where travel is as fast as possible and the overworld might as well not exist. The map was more plain than pre-narmer plains of eidolon.

There is a huge jump in environment quality too going from poe to Fortuna. The world is significantly more detailed.

[somber turtle]

Lol plains of eidilon that only has either the mining/fishing that you likely came for or just random grineer? You're joking. This map has more going on then plains does if you not including bounties on either.

[idle loom]

Soulframe's overworld has less than poe. Design wise, the environments were very similar, you can pretty much walk from anywhere on the map in a straight line to another, that might as well be a dead world design wise as you can mindlessly traverse it without looking at your screen.

As minimalistic as fishing and mining are, it's still more than what soulframe has to offer in this current iteration of the overworld. Conservation and bounties are present in both, and there's really nothing that soulframe's overworld does that isn't already done in warframe.

[polar swallow]

I swear, man.
"We don't need fast travel because you can just hold W and walk across the map in 5 minutes"
"Because you can walk across the map in 5 minutes we need giant walls"
Anything to make traversal harder. Other games either barrier with level differences or guided questing. Can't remember giant walls in BOTW or TOTK blocking me from going places aside from quest-related stops, could go everywhere there. Same with Borderlands 4. Same with Mad Max, back in the day. Putting giant walls everywhere just hurts people wanting to go places. Hell, I had a 3* faction tale spawn 25 feet from me behind another wall and I had to spend 5 minutes finding my way around when before P12 I could have just... walked over to it.

[hard gull]

+1 First we have only one fast travel/day (as i know) then we get walls that make travelling harder with no real reward or advantage that is quite frustrating.

[strong rivet]

Except all the traversal options they use to pen the player in a less obvious way

[trail pendant]

+1 i dont see how the walls make traversal interesting, in its current state they exist to annoy you. im not against making traversal challenging but having a huge wall that you hug for a minute or 2 just to find an opening is not fun gameplay

[stuck lichen]

It's not hurting poeple that like explore ,but those walls are just ugly like hell , ruined look of awesome forest

[kindred compass]

The walls as they are currently are bad, should be removed until they can come up with a decent design + actual layout that doesn’t look like someone just set a trail of dominos on the world.

[frail jay]

+1
The walls hamper exploration, primarily by making it take way longer for no reason
I’d be fine with a door I could find, I’d be fine if I have to work towards opening the door by fighting a hoard of enemies
Literally anything is better than having to run alongside a wall to find an opening or rock climbing up any mountains along the way just to get to my destination

I love seeing the Ode’s presence but there has to be a balance here

[stuck lichen]

+1 totally agree

[rugged sapphire]

+1 the walls are mega dumb. They feel like a map change that should occur during a major story quest, not just freeballing in thr landscape

[wise turret]

+1

I’d be fine with the walls if they didn’t span the whole diameter

[lost vapor]

Am I the only one that likes the walls, it barely hampers travel imo and adds some interest in finding the gates or the way through makes the world feel a little more immersive imo rather than just scaling steep mountains in a straight like full on mountain goats

[wise turret]

Occasional walls are fun to break up traveling

[wise turret]

Big agree

[frail jay]

Literally all we need is checkpoints in the walls so we can get through, let us fight for access or do a minor puzzle, anything is better than what we have now

[lost vapor]

Am I missing something, most of the walls have a guardpost with a door that can be opened isn't this what you are asking for

[frail jay]

I’ve never seen that what 😭
I keep going along the walls looking for doors and I just haven’t found any

They should be more prominent on the map
Idek if they’re at every wall though

[lost vapor]

The only wall I didn't find one in had a gap instead

[pine belfry]

Yeah they're really small doors

[lost vapor]

here is an example, small guard with a switch

[pine belfry]

I've never seen that one

[frail jay]

So here’s the thing
Are these on all of the walls or just some?

[lost vapor]

this one is fancier than most but like i said every wall ive gone by had a door except 1

and that 1 had break in it

[pine belfry]

Right, most of the other doors are harder to spot

[frail jay]

I’ll have to see if i can find any
They should be more noticeable on the map if they’re on every wall

[pine belfry]

Unless you're running right along them and actively looking for them like I was, imo

[red burrow]

+1 . Maybe if there was a way to determine where dungeons exited so we could use those to get around walls as opposed to detouring for the doors

[torpid sail]

The idea of making map traversal more of a pain seems really counter-intuitive to me.

Doubly so as we don't have mounts yet.

The only thing I can think of is to try to make people fast travel more, now that's a thing. But if that was the idea I'd say it was an odd one.

It's make more sense if it was an event or soemthing, smash a gate keeper adn the big doory bit in the middle open sto allow passage. But then it'd probably get a bit tiresome when you're just trying to get to B from A.

[frail jay]

They are not on every wall
First one I got to and there’s no door, there’s a maybe door but its not interactable

Down with the walls or ensure they all have doors, please

[lost vapor]

Screenshot? There's usually a lever on the ground next to it

Which wall

[frail jay]

Going back to check
It’s the one directly under the glades of andurin, didnt see anything, there wasn’t even a guy there
I’ll check both sides but it should be on both sides and obvious

I thought this was a door, it is not, on either side
And I don't believe every wall has this but I did find an opening, but it's not entirely obvious nor is it on the map, so must will come across the wall and either hug it, maybe find the hole, or find another way
either way the wall is hampering travel

[lost vapor]

Yea the one wall I didn't find a door had that opening

[frail jay]

you would think "is that not obvious enough?" but it really isn't, from every angle but the front it doesnt look like a way through lol

I have yet to see a door but I have another wall I can visit before I gotta go

either way, the walls are slowing down travel time arbitrarily
I'd rather get stopped by a hoard of Ode that I can optionally run past

fyi this is the "indication" of the hole in the wall, just a tiny thicker portion :/

[lost vapor]

yea im not sure the map is supposed to indicate where the doors/holes are but i guess that could be nice

[frail jay]

It's either there's some form of indicator or its more obvious when you get to the wall
neither are true atm

no door

I found 1 so far
I am curious to see how many doors they are and where they're placed, they're fairly recognizbale in the world but not so much on the map

even with some doors it doesn't really solve the issue though, they're either not frequent or not noticeable enough

[jagged crescent]

I like the idea of being able to have the walls entirely removed once we've cleared something related to it

[frail jay]

same

also these walls are
so hastily dropped in lmao

[jagged crescent]

yeah it's easy to climb the mountain and avoid em, I understand their purpose, not a super fan of the execution

[frail jay]

this would be infuriating for anyone

[jagged crescent]

But I mean it when I say I understand their purpose, it's good to guide new players so they dont unwillingly step into territory that's way too hard for them, but again, the execution does leave a lil something to be desired

[frail jay]

you can maybe get up there with the bromius super jump but
you shouldnt need that to go through a wall lol

[frail jay]

agreed! though we somewhat already have that with the health bars greying out resulting in them dealing 1 damage

a new player would get across the map, find a hard enemy and either turn around, die and realize they aren't meant to be there or die and beat their head against the problem til they win

[jagged crescent]

true

another idea, maybe people might not like it, but a lil popup on middle top of the screen saying "entering level 11-20 area"

could also help

just an idea

[frail jay]

this is ridiculous lmao

keep in mind somewhere along that wall is the hole that's clogged up by rocks cause they hastily threw these walls in

[jagged crescent]

Yeah I didn't realize it was that inconvenient until now

[frail jay]

I think there's some spots where you can maybe climb up but we shouldn't have to "skyrim horse" just to get to where we want to go

[jagged crescent]

having the walls removed when we complete something would be nice to that feeling that the devs wanted of our actions affecting the world around us

[jagged crescent]

yep

[frail jay]

maybe the next quest could be about that?

[jagged crescent]

Hope so, honestly DE so far has listened and evolved the game in the right direction, I have faith the walls will get better

[frail jay]

idk there's def a balance here, the answer might literally just be add more checkpoint doors and not tiny missable holes
they def need to go look at every wall placed too and see if it works (I noticed a lot of clipping)

[frail jay]

oh same, DE is very good at listening to their community so our feedback helps a lot I'm sure

in 5 years we may not even have walls
or we may have a solution that works so good they dont update it for another 5 years

[lost vapor]

I think this topic wouldnt even be a topic if mounts were available already but meh i kind of like the walls

[frail jay]

The walls are nice, the problem is the execution so far

At the very least the doors need to be more visible on the map and placed in more spots

[frail jay]

Cause this is stupid lol

[jagged crescent]

Yeah as I said earlier from my point of view the walls serve a good purpose in the beginning but once you're a high level player they'll just get in the way, I think having the walls removed once we conquer an area serves as both making traversal easier and showing how our actions evolve the world

[lost vapor]

same spot on the map, thers an opening here to on my arrow cursor

[jagged crescent]

ah good, I did find strange it that entire wall didn't have any

[lost vapor]

there is a second one on the wall here as well

Literally there are plenty of openings and doors maybe they need to make them more obvious to people?

but they are pretty clear to me from even a tiny bit of exploring

[frail jay]

I mean yeah that’s the big issue I’ve kept saying

[frail jay]

It did have one that I found but it was clogged with rocks

[frail jay]

This one is along that wall

[wise turret]

i had this idea that could be interesting

[jagged crescent]

if we went the blow up route I'd prefer it remain permanently blown and the "boss" alongside the troops protecting it gone from that area, just because I do want to see some kind of permanent changes in the world, not make every single thing replayable

[wise turret]

you know what i like that idea as well

one time gate raid

fun unique interaction in your instance, that gets replaced by a strong boss

[jagged crescent]

Yeah like, Warframe's Junctions, you enter, beat the boss, now you have a new planet unlocked

[wise turret]

i do like the idea of the map changing to have different walls as if we are staving off the ode and then they invade even stronger building new walls and taking new forts

it adds a lot of fun variety

[jagged crescent]

Yeah, makes us feel like we're part of the lore if we see stuff evolve

[wise turret]

i think adding the gate raid could be a fun way of feeling like you have weight as the envoy

mentally shaking hands with you so hard right now

you see the vision

[jagged crescent]

XP

[strong rivet]

Yeah, I posted this thought earlier too. First, the walls need to be moved to more reasonable locations, but chunks of wall should be able to be removed for a long chunk of time by doing a Siege at a strategic point along the wall

Like, 8 hours ish

Do a siege at the start of your play session, free reign of that part of the map for the session

[lusty terrace]

+1 having walls back are indeed annoying on the traversal side but it did made the world seems like the ode has abit more control over but there just not enough gaps and or they release this in a bad time, if the walls was added back AFTER mounts was added then at least it wouldnt be so much of a pain of "where the damn gate at" ( and plz add a icon of where the gate is )

[strong rivet]

Omg imagine the vitriol if they added the mounts and the walls at the same time.

"You gave us the ability to travel faster and then made travelling so inconvenient because of the walls that the mount being faster doesn't matter??"

[buoyant scaffold]

If they make the mounts move about as fast as the orengal transformation, then yeah, people would say that.

That's effectively what they did with the fast travel: kneecapped it to the point that it's barely useful.

[strong rivet]

Even if they didn't and it was 1.5 or 2x normal run speed people would complain

They'd be like "with the walls, it evens out to exactly the same travel time"

[buoyant scaffold]

Other people might, but I wouldn't be here talking about it.

maybe that's a selfish take, but still

[idle loom]

It's one fast travel per day to not make the world map irrelevant. They don't add a significant amount of travel time either as far as I can tell, only change the default routing everyone has been using to get between locations.

[buoyant scaffold]

I don't complain as much or at all about even trades on these kinds of things -- but I will raise some cane over getting effectively a worse overall experience

which is what has happened here

I manage to get around. I do.
I have very limited time to play, and I was counting on the travel times getting better with mounts, not getting worse with walls. Getting a basically useless fast-travel system feels like an insult.

If your experience is different because you have more time to actually devote to this in a given day, then good for you.

[idle loom]

They do need to collect player data for how traversal of the map is affected on foot before adding mounts.

[buoyant scaffold]

They should have added mounts two preludes ago.

They've been showing them off left and right, but no, we can't have them yet.

[river ocean]

Agree

[idle loom]

Mounts are most likely going to be progression locked so they need to see how adding obstacles affects travel on foot first and then how it changes once mounts are introduced

[buoyant scaffold]

They even put it in the founder promotional youtube video.

[river ocean]

Mounts are likely gonna be tied to a quest and that is why it is taking a while

[buoyant scaffold]

Well then their walls can wait a while too.

[strong rivet]

They talked about this on stream, it was one of the things that got delayed because it wasn't ready.

My money is on it lets you jump over the walls super easily and they decided to fix it

[river ocean]

but I've been of the opinion that mounts should have came before fast travel and when the map was populated enough

[buoyant scaffold]

If they're collecting pathing data, then they're getting some weird routes out of me.

[idle loom]

Fast travel is in a very limited state currently though.

[buoyant scaffold]

Yeah, and if they intend on keeping it that way, then mounts should have come first, then walls, and then fast travel.

[idle loom]

Not really, walls are going to exist for new players before they get mounts so get all the data with people traveling by foot first and then introduce mounts.

[buoyant scaffold]

Why do they need that data? What's the point? their walls are just haphazardly strewn around the map.

Why does pathing data affect mounts?

[idle loom]

It's also a rough first iteration of walls being introduced. The environment can change to make gates/gaps more visible for people trying to travel. Right now a lot of the gates are in unnatural locations and obscured by trees.

[buoyant scaffold]

See, you don't know. You're just saying stuff.

[idle loom]

Well ignoring everything prior the walls coming down*

Rough testing to see if gaps/gates effectively funnel players through areas, how players exit areas like follow a pathway they made or if players immediately get off the trail to travel somewhere else.
If some route appears to have an established route, place other POIs along there, create a trail for the players to travel on

[buoyant scaffold]

Plotting our paths without knowing our goals is just going to look like a toddler scribbled on the map anyway.

[idle loom]

Some paths may only be accessible while using a mount too, if mounts are capable of jumping higher/further than players.

[river ocean]

I think the idea of the gates is cool, reminds me of SotE and I missed the gates, feels like home; but I think noone would complain if mounts were added now lol

Trying to get from Fort Kearnhold to the Thrice-Bound and Wevetforest is a tad annoying now

[idle loom]

They do have that gate nearby but no real route/trail to reach it. The cliffs there do look better than the stretched hill. This is kind of expected though for a roughed in first iteration.

[sharp tundra]

some of the walls do fit in more naturally than others. Some have gates/doors, others don't. It'd be nice to know if there's a plan for them? e.g. if they'll be used to divide the map into strategic areas with some kind of gameplay involved? e.g. if there is some kind of gameplay that takes place across a broad region and the walls along with more natural features delineate the regions that they take place in.

but some of them are just "there's my faction npc on the other side of this wall and I have to travel 10 klicks east and then back just to get to them". Did that add to my game experience? Nope. If we have these walls, I hope there are plans for increased access as we progress (just like collecting map trees, maybe we'd collect ... gate keys or something)

[alpine void]

I think we need to talk more about how ugly they are too. They're mono color with no indication of where the door is and super thin. It looks like it was just plopped down in a game engine hurriedly rather feeling like part of the world

I really hate them and hope they're removed, both for navigation and aesthetics

[frigid marten]

Personally I like the walls concept wise, they give an good impression of an oppressive enemy, which fits the Ode enemies. Maybe there are a few to many. When I try to traverse the map, they are an annoying obstacle. I like the idea to have a quest where one collects gate key which automatically open the gates. That would make traversal smoother. And I think the gates could be wider. Or more gates would not hurt. And the gate position need to be recognisable from afar, right now they blend to well into the Walls. So a gatehouse of some sorts to visually indicate where I need to go would be nice.

[worldly wren]

+1 Great for immersion, terrible for travelling.

[wicked citrus]

If they made it a walls where you can get on them and fight stuff on there, even mobs to protect the gates, that would make sense.
My first thought when I first saw the wall was ,,, what does this serve? from a mechanical and design point I mean.
Either they make traversing the world a nuisance and sell me the fast travel solution in the shop, or just bad game design. IDK,

It felt so freeing to explore the world, the most time I spent in the world is to go in one direction and see what's there, 99% of my time in the game is just going from place to place, now with these walls arround, it's frustrating just to find the end of them to go arround them, and I get there are cliffs also but they don't go on for quarter the map ... I hope they do something about the walls.
I've seen some nice solutions sugested by people here.

[torpid sail]

It felt so freeing to explore the world

Yeah that's Soulframe's big draw to me. Yeah there's an incursion by the forces of pollution/industrialisation and whatnot. But it's about roaming the land freeing critters, etc. The maps were already kinda designed with a flow, and the walls just completely kill it.

[lost vapor]

I really don't know how you can say the walls kill it. For me the walls add more immersion as well as more reason to explore and give more weight to the actions of freeing animals etc. before it was beeline from objective to objective the walls add just enough friction to make you explore a bit, find the gates and ways through. There's still plenty of wide open space. I still think 90% of the people here are just angry there are no mounts yet so it takes a bit longer to get around some areas. But this is a good iteration that makes the world feel more lived in, and gives more weight to the Ode occupation.

[haughty kernel]

I would love if walls were at least more interactive. Like you could siege the wall to get through instead of walking all the way around.
Also the "encouraging exploring" line just doesn't make sense. It encourages me to explore the same choke point 50 times instead of going anywhere near the areas that are close to non-doored walls.

[safe patrol]

I think there are a few options to improve the walls:

• Add a door everywhere in a close range (meh)

• Another option would be to give us an option to use a bomb and get a hole trough (craftable preferably)

• what I would like: Use the new lift system from Fort Curlai (or a new rope mechanic like if we could craft grapple hooks/ropes to go up there. If we could craft it -> Brinefloss please, would be a nice use & as far as I know you can make ropes out of it in rl ). Give it a spot everywhere (in case it's the lift mechanic) or at least some guards around on both sides (rope variant)
  So that people get "punished" for using that, while people who go outside at least get no oppents (maybe also some reward to make the "punishment"/extra trouble worth it

Overall I like the walls, cuz it feels like something an invader would do with rebels around, but they just need a way to go trough. Cheesing it is only soo much fun til it becomes an annoying side step

[lilac topaz]

I used to be able to free-roam for fun without having to bring up map.

Walls interrupt that and feel so out of place. They are frustrating and not fun.

It'd be better if every wall had a door, even if you had to fight to get through it, but generally they're an eyesore and lessen the flowstate of gameplay.

[agile void]

+1
I get they're meant to be awkward and oppressive, but I really don't like the new walls.
Being able to wander the map is (was) one of my favourite things about the game. The walls are annoying, and make finding my way around even harder than it was (getting lost in the woods seems reasonable, getting lost after a 5 minute weirdly placed wall following detour doesn't).

[kindred cosmos]

💯

[mint urchin]

+1 overall. I think I'd be fine with it if you could have the walls be removed after successfully sieging a location. As some form of progression such as the map opening up as you liberate sectors of the island by sieging the Fort that blocks further access. But as it stands, they only serve to confuse pathfinding and slow down the current gameplay loops (Tales/Boss rush).

[bold storm]

+1 Though I do feel like some sort of wall would be nice, I do think there needs to be more passage ways through, above, or below it. Heck, even just making the portion towards the ground breakable somehow would be nice if they’re dead set on keeping walls. Just my 2c

[full notch]

-1 the walls are good, they just need more iteration/signposting

[zinc pebble]

-1

[lament perch]

+1

[fallow ermine]

+1
I dont understand why a system to "balance" another system that isnt even in the game is being implemented right now and this aggressively

This feels like backwards design. First we'd need to have mounts > test mounts > figuring out common routes > and only then put walls in a non disruptive way.
I dont mind if theres walls in common routes unless if theres no gates where people commonly go through.
Having to divert from a path for 5minutes because of a wall isn't fun nor promotes exploration.
Having gates on common choke points that are guarded as a natural barrier and many holes or ways to scale the walls would be far better (like an organic platforming challenge to go over it that you can find around the walls or caves that you can find in more niche paths to bypass it)

[lost vapor]

-1 A lot of folks are saying "wondering around was good before and now its now" and I just can't fathom how the walls makes wandering around worse. If anything the walls sort of force you to explore about and finding the gates and openings which are fairly abundant isn't all that hard. Maybe for some highlighting these a bit more is a solution but they should not get rid of them. they add a lot more to the world building in my point of view

[strong rivet]

I still feel like this is a solid iteration they could head towards

[wide palm]

While I don't mind the idea of the walls themselves, I think they currently look pretty bad.

The walls don't blend into the ground where they're placed which makes them look like an afterthought and a little bit out of place. Especially seen in the screenshot provided, you can see a very hard edge between the ground mesh and the wall and the ground in the walkway looks pretty unnatural.

I think they could use a little more environmental storytelling around them (much like some parts of the post-new war plains of eidolon in warframe). As of now, when inspecting the walls you can't really see how they got there - if they were built from the ground up then they should be leftover scaffolding, piles of dirt, machinery etc. If they were airdropped akin to the collector ship then they're missing impact marks around their edges where they meet the ground.

If DE were to go with the airdrop idea of the walls they could set them up to rotate around the day, some walls being lifted up and some put down by incoming ships (granted, this would probably be way too much resource intensive/complicated process for a map part).

[strong rivet]

I like the idea at the bottom, but sadly I don't think it would fit into their intended purpose for the walls.

They're to pen in exploration zones so the level ranges feel like they make more sense than they did in the original open world map. As a new player you can sort of feel out what's the right level for you and stick in that range.

But I also feel like it's there to prevent the ease of travel of current content players doing boss runs and cogah, so any solution in regards to that may just be a lost cause.

Which is disheartening, especially since the mounts are coming.

At least we can get up to 4(maybe more? I got 4 for my daily seed drop) seeds a day and not 1 now

My hope is that maybe by doing the castle in the sky we can weaken the grip the Ode'n have in this region which will simultaneously remove the walls AND give unlimited fast travel as a reward for clearing the main story of the area and unlocking access to the next open world.

[junior pine]

I thought the seed drop was supposed to be 1 to 3 but I may have misread

[strong rivet]

It gave me 4, idk

Would not surprise me if it's still a little jank

They pushed it out somewhat quickly

[swift roost]

+1 to walls introducing too much friction atm

suggestions without removing them entirely

• make doors/gates more obvious on both the map and in-world
• increase number of doors
• faction tale route pass to reduce crossing walls

[leaden lava]

Some dude say it, a common rule of engineering, FIRST you watch how people use the routes than you pave it. Any other way in IRL world will lead to shortcuts and people walking on the grass. And in a game it means frustration and less FUN. Dammit!

I'm 3 days in the game and now had my face glued to an map! On a interactive map on another tab. People don't like to alt tab games. They do not!

[versed kindle]

+1, hunting for doors and openings is tedious

makes an tiring trek slightly more tiring

[keen tapir]

I was following the coast line trying to find a duck for my bow. At one point I ran into the wall. Took pretty long to find an opening. I think it's fun to have them and to make capturing a gate a cool challenge but it was also annoying to have my activity be interrupted like that

[cursive shuttle]

In theory I dont mind the walls, it's interesting to see the Ode try to control the map (and failing). I personally would like to see it more small gaps and tears in the wall to reward exploring along them, or have a few weak points you can attack.

I was also expecting more infantry at the gates, but as they are now its just two soldiers.

[leaden lava]

But the ideia of having rewards to broke the gate, like mini boss or a grappling hook after, the first fights... maybe cool. So it do not become repetitive.

[leaden lava]

+1 more battle rewards

[haughty citrus]

+1 walls are just weird looking

[versed kindle]

they don't blend with the environment much, and not in a good way

[sinful juniper]

+1

[austere vessel]

+1

[sharp glade]

+1

[untold talon]

They feel placeholder in the worst way, no dressing at all

When I see them all I think is, yeah, a game dev used a line draw tool to drop these in

Not oh cool this is an occupied world

[digital mantle]

There are a few things about the walls that I think still need work.

• Enemies appear at gates again after immediately after relog.

• It's not super clear looking at the map where the gates are unless you zoom in and look closely (green circle zoomed in vs zoomed out). It becomes more obvious when you consider details like roads, but the players don't need to use roads for anything, and will probably head for the big gaps on the map with no enemies.

• Some of the walls have thin unguarded gaps between towers which is helpful. There is at least one gap that a player cannot jump through from one side but the spirit guide will use it, which might lead a person the wrong way (pictured).

• Spirit Guide will take the long way around a wall because it can't open gates itself until AFTER the player has opened a gate with the switch https://youtu.be/4lD-vJgSThM

• I have died in fights on one side of a wall and then the respawn point was on the other side, allowing me to skip the trouble.

[sharp glade]

oh is that the wall clipping into the rocks?? 😭 yeah that does look quite immersion breaking

now idk how this would balance in game, I’m not a balance/mechanics person
but what if there were more gates, maybe some structured like one of those bisulcam forts/camps of varying strengths?
like maybe this wall node has lv 40+ enemies guarding it and you feel like you’re not strong enough so you go looking for another way around that maybe has less tough enemies (like idk lv 10-20)
then it would still be able to shepherd newer players to intended exploration areas, while more experienced players can fight through it for a shortcut, plus there’s also the limited fast travel to get to another side quickly if they can’t be bothered with it

(or if you’re a bit of a daredevil, you can try to kite n run past the high level enemies and be rewarded by having access to the area even if the rest of the enemies there are still too tough for you)

it could also be a challenge for you to sneak past the enemies in the fort if you wanted to

oh adding to it, I think it could also help with the walls feeling more like occupation rather than inconvenience
thinking of it like how you have the forts crawling with sinecure esp because forts are defensible positions for them to hole up in, so using the walls in a similar manner could help

[bitter timber]

+1