Travelling

[Narf]

Every so often people bring up the idea that travelling is either too quick or too easy. This got me thinking about something I picked up in an environmental physiology course last year (blah, science, yeah yeah).

As it is now the reason travel is so quick and so easy (for most) is because of mounts. Depending on the quality of the mount you can quite easily make it from Allanak to Tuluk without pause. No human character could walk even half that without really specialized gear.

In the real world it is in fact exactly the opposite. Humans are the most competent overland migratory species in the world, pretty much bar none if you take them far enough. We can outrun horses, antelope, cheetahs (easily, they're not distance runners), and even dogs. Note that all of those competing species are mammals. Lizards can't hold a candle to a human.

From an article I found diverging from the main topic of human versus horse marathons:

"Our "sustainable distance" is also hard to beat. African hunting dogs typically travel an average of 10 kilometers a day. Wolves and hyenas tend to go about 14 and 19 kilometers, respectively. In repeated distance runs, horses can cover about 20 kilometers a day. Vast throngs of human runners, by comparison, routinely run 42.2-kilometer marathons in just a few hours, and each year tens of thousands of people complete ultra-marathons of 100 kilometers and longer. (A few animals can match that under special circumstances. Huskies can trot up to 100 kilometers in Arctic conditions when forced to by people. But in warmer climes—no way.)"

With this in mind, one solution that would make travel far more arduous is to simply drop mount stamina to equal or lower than human stamina. They can carry more (four legs and all), and move faster still but put humanoids in their rightful place as the kings and queens of overland movement.

Maybe even bump human stamina up a bit to compensate? I don't care. I do care about the fact that we're losing overland races with practically every large lizard species in existence. In the real world we can beat not just every lizard, but every land bound creature period. Well, I mean an in shape human could at least. No guarantees for couch potatoes.

C'mon, where's your human pride?

[Valincio]

I find this interesting.

[hatchets]

Most are not 'running' their mounts when they ride.

I think the current system accommodates those players whom have RL issues that can interfere with playing for long stretches of time, while still being generally burdening.

Although you do bring up interesting facts.

[hyzhenhok]

I think now that we have Quit OOC the excuse of OOC convenience no longer has the relevance it once had.

I agree that travel should be easier on foot, and mounts should have other advantages. Walking around in outdoor rooms should be much less devastating to your stamina, and the range of most mounts in terms of pure stamina should not really outrange humans.

You could balance this by making every movement through a large outdoor room tax not only your stamina, but your thirst and hunger. It should be provisions that limit and constrain PC travel.

In my mind the perfect scenario would be so that a high endurance PC can walk straight from one of the main cities to Luir's before having to rest. Mounts would still be mostly required, especially if you're travelling with anything in addition to the water you need to take with you for such a journey. You could still choose to ride the mount, but the difference should be comfort, not speed (either way, one of you is going to have to rest at Luir's before continuing the trip).

[hatchets]

I am still on the other side of the fence in relation to OOC accommodations. Only because of how incredibly dangerous some places can be to have to quit out in.

However I very much support the idea of increasing the negatives to hunger and thirst, and perhaps even up it with requiring such provisions for mounts even be mandatory. 'water -mount- -container' 'feed -mount- -food-'

[Iiyola]

Sharps do the running (as they codedly have the stamina for it). Humans do the riding (as they codedly don't really have the stamina for it). I prefer to keep my mount. Why else would horses have been so very useful throughout the centuries?

[Harmless]

Wear more sandcloth. Plan your moves. Prioritize endurance. Purposefully neglect your riding skill. New extended subguild? Maybe not needed, though. Interesting post!

[Ouroboros]

All characters are not created equal, much like all humans IRL aren't. Using a RL marathon runner, with all the training and conditioning they go through, as basis for all humans, isn't exactly accurate. If mounts in the game were to be adjusted, they would have to be matched to the absolute cap of coded human stamina (ideal age, AI endurance, etc). However, much like IRL, that would still leave the majority of human characters unable to match that performance. Ginka sees to genetic diversity, and our stat priorities (like IRL) further mirror not just genetic pre-disposition but our lifestyle choices.

So, even if this were implemented, all it would be essentially is a mount nerf, wrapped in the package of false realism. The majority of human characters would still be unable to perform the kind of traveling discussed, on foot. Add in the dangers faced in travel, and it would almost make traveling impractical. In turn, that would not only lower playability, but further divide an already divided playerbase.

Of course, the entire premise of this post falls somewhat flat the moment you consider this is Zalanthas. Our humans are very different from theirs, and besides horses, their mounts don't exist in our world nor can their physiology be perfectly compared to RL species. If Zalanthan humans are stronger, it makes sense to assume their lizards and insect mounts are far superior to ours (as well as bigger, heh).

Edit: Forgot to add, fascinating facts and post though!

[lordcooper]

Are humans capable of running that marathon in Zalanthan conditions though?  It's a bit hotter than London, and it's harder to walk/run on rocks and sand than concrete, tarmac or grass.

Is it economical to put yourself in a position where you'll be needing so much water?  Who's carrying the water you'll need to travel this distance on foot if you don't have a mount?

Have these mounts been interfered with magically in the past, or simply evolved down a different path?

Not that I particularly dislike the suggestion, just playing Drov's Advocate a bit.

[hyzhenhok]

All characters are not created equal, much like all humans IRL aren't. Using a RL marathon runner, with all the training and conditioning they go through, as basis for all humans, isn't exactly accurate. If mounts in the game were to be adjusted, they would have to be matched to the absolute cap of coded human stamina (ideal age, AI endurance, etc). However, much like IRL, that would still leave the majority of human characters unable to match that performance. Ginka sees to genetic diversity, and our stat priorities (like IRL) further mirror not just genetic pre-disposition but our lifestyle choices.

So, even if this were implemented, all it would be essentially is a mount nerf, wrapped in the package of false realism. The majority of human characters would still be unable to perform the kind of traveling discussed, on foot. Add in the dangers faced in travel, and it would almost make traveling impractical. In turn, that would not only lower playability, but further divide an already divided playerbase.

Of course, the entire premise of this post falls somewhat flat the moment you consider this is Zalanthas. Our humans are very different from theirs, and besides horses, their mounts don't exist in our world nor can their physiology be perfectly compared to RL species. If Zalanthan humans are stronger, it makes sense to assume their lizards and insect mounts are far superior to ours (as well as bigger, heh).

Edit: Forgot to add, fascinating facts and post though!

You don't need to look at marathon runners. Just look at normal hiking. Do you think if you went out to the slat flats in Arizona or Bolivia and walked for an hour, you'd be so exhausted you couldn't move anymore? Sure, you can argue that by some stroke of crazy evolution Zalanthan humans are stronger and tougher than Earth equivalents, but are much, much, much worse endurance walkers. But come on, it's much more convincing just to stick to arguments about OOC convenience than to pretend realism is on your side.

I'm not sure how enabling PCs to walk around outdoors would be a mount nerf. No one is trying to say the game should be changed such that everyone would have to rest in between Tuluk/Allanak and Luirs. And right now travel between major population cities is so easy it's kind of a joke. Wrong game to complain about making that a little tougher (but it wouldn't be tougher).

[Ouroboros]

*snip* ...I'm not sure how enabling PCs to walk around outdoors would be a mount nerf.

What the OP proposed was a reduction of mount stamina, to make it lower than human stamina. An increase to human stamina was a secondary request and an unimportant one to him. His main concern is that mounts have more stamina than humans, but his suggestion is a mount nerf, not a human boost. My response was to the OP, while your suggestion is a bit different from his. No harm done, though. Just pointing out my response was valid, just not addressed to your take on the issue.

As far as your suggestion goes, increasing human stamina but balancing it out... I like aspects of it. Thirst and hunger should have a higher cost when traveling outside cities on foot, while I agree inside cities the cost should be lower. However I would argue that could be implemented just so, without touching human stamina base and caps. As Harmless said, travel on foot can already be achieved to a large extent, if you make it your character's goal in life. However, it remains impractical and will continue to be so as long as mounts exist. Even if one -could- walk across the Known on foot, why would they choose to do so instead of riding a mount? Humans aren't elves, nor do we have some illogical sense of pride about walking. Humans are known for innovation, using the best tools available to them to make their lives easier.

[Ouroboros]

Sure, you can argue that by some stroke of crazy evolution Zalanthan humans are stronger and tougher than Earth equivalents, but are much, much, much worse endurance walkers. But come on, it's much more convincing just to stick to arguments about OOC convenience than to pretend realism is on your side.

Actually, my point wasn't that Zalanthans stronger and tougher but have less stamina. It was that given we know Zalanthans are stronger, tougher (and have more stamina), we can't really compare their beast mounts to ours any more than we can their humans. RL lizards might have less endurance than humans, but that doesn't mean Zalanthan ones do as well.

[hyzhenhok]

Nerfing a certain kind of mount so they can no longer walk from Allanak to Tuluk doesn't seem like a big deal. In fact I think it's rather annoying that most mount types are mostly ignored in favor of the two types who do have it. It comes down to basic game design: if you're going to offer choices, ideally there is never an ideal solution. All options should have benefits and drawbacks that allow them to be used on occasion.

The recommendation in this thread goes a step further and says not only should we see more mount variety than those two mount types, but they should also be directly competing with people travelling on foot. Travelling on foot shouldn't be something that's only kinda possible if you design your entire character around it (and buy an carry around a specific item that's even more expensive than a mount); it should just be a normal travel option that might be right for some people. It would only enrich the game.

[Fujikoma]

I would think if humans get an endurance buff city elves should get a bigger one.

Would be nice though, if everyone had to take a break at roughly the same point in the journey. As it is, too easy to complain about those who will not ride tagging along, for reasons other than their filthy, thieving, murderous ways. Still, I can see the point of ooc issues, it already takes a lot of RL time to get from Nak to Luk, and back (can make it one way in as little as a day, so roughly an hour or so, but both ways is a bit trickier and ends up with an overnight stay tacking on 20-30 minutes, that's two and a half hours of riding, not to mention time spent preparing, gathering people together, etc.), as part of a large group. You increase the time, going to see a massive drop in escort numbers because who has time for that (besides me, anyway)?

And that cuts into time that could be spent doing other things, like training your skills, or sitting in a tavern hemoting "leans to the right and lifts his leg a bit, then subtly fans the air away".

Maybe some wouldn't see a problem with that, but I would. Isn't near as much fun without shared experiences, and with fewer people along they would become much rarer.

[Ouroboros]

Travelling on foot shouldn't be something that's only kinda possible if you design your entire character around it (and buy an carry around a specific item that's even more expensive than a mount); it should just be a normal travel option that might be right for some people. It would only enrich the game.

It already is, for desert elves. In fact it's one of their benefits, from a game design standpoint. If you take that away by leveling the playing field for all races (or worse, just boosting humans), you'd then need to overhaul desert elves as well to bring them into balance. And if you do that by increasing their stamina as well, we'd go back to some very unrealistic and over-powered scenarios that existed before their stamina was lowered. Even if that's not your proposed solution though, staff would still need to overhaul two races at minimum, all mounts, and possibly the walk code, just to make this happen.

That said, there is one option that might require less work and address more than just travel. Harmless touched on this, already; an extended subclass.

Right now there's a glaring omission in the available ESG's, which leaves non-clan tribal characters left looking from the outside in. If a Nomad ESG was implemented, a small stamina boost as part of it would make sense. And it would provide an aide to on-foot travel specifically to the kind of character that should have it, desert nomads. Instead of making it a game-wide boost to an entire race or races, which would provide an endurance boost to characters that would normally have no justification for it.

[roughneck]

This has always irked me as well. Humans are excellent walkers.

I really think stamina cost for outdoor movement should be cut in half, and the time it takes to regen stamina should be reduced as well. Even in a Storm, if you have food and water, hunkering down with your cloak should get you enough stamina to walk five or six leagues fairly quickly.

Desert Elves: I'm not a fan of how their running ability is reflected code-wise, I think it's too unbalanced, but I will refrain from discussing code specifics.

Bottom line for me is that human tribals and human military types should be able to rely on their own two legs a lot more than they are currently able to. As it is now, you have to rest too frequently, and it takes too long to regen stamina, even in a tent. This is actually a big deal because even if you have the time to kill waiting for stamina to regen, resting leaves you extremely vulnerable. How can I play a commando or wise tribal wanderer and have my character laying prone in the wastes all the time?

The Zalanthan heat argument doesn't have traction. Humans are better suited to hot environments than most mammals, our entire physiology is designed around a huge brain that requires intense thermal control because of the heat it generates. Humans are uniquely designed to deal with heat. Additionally, as far as I know, Zalanthan temperatures are not hotter than Earth desert temperatures, which a person can easily work all day in, with adequate water.

[Is Friday]

As a man who frequently walks with gear and extra weight either in a pack or carrying it, I can testify to the fact that carrying any manner of additional stuff makes your journey a lot harder. You get hotter quicker, you practically dump water if you're moving quickly with extra layers, and you fatigue faster.

All of that should be obvious but someone has to post it.

My 2 sids: If you're going to be able to run with anything above light encumbrance you need to take severe, knee-crushing, back-shattering penalties. If you're walking with weight, the same.

edit:
For context, my gear weighs about 30lbs, not including my weapon (10lb), or pack (50-80lbs). I can usually jog 5mph for about an hour before I need to start walking/running in intervals. If I'm just hiking with weight (no running,) usually I can go 10-15 miles before it's a good idea to stop for the rest of the day if I want to be able to do it again tomorrow.

[X-D]

I do not think desert elves would need any change, even if you were to up human stam and walking ability. Desert elves have other desert percs aside from just running, and that alone is enough...long as you don't change running on other races.

[gfair]

Some thoughts on this:

- It seems ridiculously easy to travel the world, but I think part of this is simply that on some days you can travel between the two major cities and not encounter a single mob, and on occasion you encounter three or seven and things don't go so well.  One raider though, and the world freaks out. Perhaps we could bring back a raiding clan, albeit with steep limitations, something like:

• Maximum of two designated PCs able to raid at any one time (Or variable based on assessed need)
• Designation only received after one game year and a track record with no twinking and good RP
• Other PCs fulfill other existing tribe roles.
• If the fear of abuse / excessive impact is a restraint, make the raiding positions a spec app and require more karma.

- Humans can indeed outrun a horse, but that's only at jogging speed, we can't out-run / out-distance them at walking or full-out sprint. Our ancestors, the anthropologists say, would jog down a Horse; at that speed a Horse would canter, a specific type of run that was very inefficient for the beast, and we would make it canter until it overheated and had a heart attack.  What's more - running in sand is something Humans are explicitly not good at.

- I was thinking of the "D-Elf / C-Elf: one species" thing and what came to mind was a skill that possibly ties into this thread: Distance running / endurance running. Species noted / required to run long distances (e.g. D-Elves, certain Tribal Humans, Gith, Halflings, Mantis) get the top-tier version of this skill. Everybody else gets a third-tier version. It reduces the endurance required to run a given distance, which is fundamentally how it works for humans when we learn to run. Those that are city-bound rarely get a chance to run, or rarely would if they can rely on big, powerful mounts. It at least unifies the Elf species code-wise, and confers advantage where the need for it is apparent, in the big open stretches of the world where survival and endurance go hand in hand.

[Narf]

Are humans capable of running that marathon in Zalanthan conditions though?  It's a bit hotter than London, and it's harder to walk/run on rocks and sand than concrete, tarmac or grass.

Humans are specifically adapted to extended endurance feats in hot and dry conditions. The way our muscles work, the hairlessness, the sweating, all of this is for long distance in hot conditions. The article mentioned that the only animals that could come close to competing with humans for overland travel could only do so in arctic conditions (huskies).

I want to be clear for people that seem to assume that this applies only to marathon runners. Any in shape human can out-walk any animal in the real world over long distances. We used horses to carry stuff, and for short and medium distances (and because we're lazy). If a horse tried to keep up with a human over long distances, even a pretty average one, it would kill itself after the first day.

[Is Friday]

I want to be clear for people that seem to assume that this applies only to marathon runners. Any in shape human can out-walk any animal in the real world over long distances. We used horses to carry stuff, and for short and medium distances (and because we're lazy). If a horse tried to keep up with a human over long distances, even a pretty average one, it would kill itself after the first day.

Carrying gear/equipment over a period of time is a completely different animal, though. (Pun intended.)

SOCOM did a study about training with weight.

Hiking with 45lbs in a pack:
Walking=3x stress on your joints and tendons.
Running=5x stress on your joints and tendons.

Humans can and will break down if ideal conditions are not met for proper hydration and nutrition if they are carrying weight. Even so, shit happens, and often without something unplanned happening injuries occur.

[Narf]

I want to be clear for people that seem to assume that this applies only to marathon runners. Any in shape human can out-walk any animal in the real world over long distances. We used horses to carry stuff, and for short and medium distances (and because we're lazy). If a horse tried to keep up with a human over long distances, even a pretty average one, it would kill itself after the first day.

Carrying gear/equipment over a period of time is a completely different animal, though. (Pun intended.)

SOCOM did a study about training with weight.

Hiking with 45lbs in a pack:
Walking=3x stress on your joints and tendons.
Running=5x stress on your joints and tendons.

Humans can and will break down if ideal conditions are not met for proper hydration and nutrition if they are carrying weight. Even so, shit happens, and often without something unplanned happening injuries occur.

And I think this is where the real purpose of mounts comes in. They shouldn't be letting us go farther, they should be carrying our stuff.

As a side note with regards to food and water:
  Humans eat an order of magnitude more than lizards to maintain standard metabolism. During activity this discrepancy decreases substantially, but humans will still eat more.
  Humans use less calories than other migratory animals because our locomotion style is based around efficiency
  Humans use more water than most animals of any sort because we sweat far more than most animals. This same penchance for sweating though is what allows us to outdistance so many other  animals in hot and arid conditions.

[gfair]

Was doing some additional reading on the running issue and some things became apparent:

- What really allows Humans to persistently chase an animal to exhaustion is the ability to track it. Intelligent, fearful animals sprint till out of sight; if you can't track them, you can't maintain that persistent hunt that will work them to exhaustion.

- Without the ability to track you lose track of the prey, and therefore the mandate to jog such long distances disappears with the dinner.

- Humans eventually evolved to understand the natural lifecycle of game, such that we didn't need to out-run them, we hunted by trap and ambush, or we used Horses to sprint fast enough that we could sustain a trap over distance and hit multiple targets (i.e. Buffalo hunting). Trapping and ambush allowed us to expend far fewer calories and take less risks, thus making survival easier.

- The level of technology in Zalanthas is sufficiently advanced to conclude that hunters hunt by ambush and knowing the prey, so there shouldn't be a great need to exhaust prey; as such, I believe that most playable races would not be able to out-run game, only the great endurance runners would.

[Is Friday]

Was doing some additional reading on the running issue and some things became apparent:

- What really allows Humans to persistently chase an animal to exhaustion is the ability to track it. Intelligent, fearful animals sprint till out of sight; if you can't track them, you can't maintain that persistent hunt that will work them to exhaustion.

- Without the ability to track you lose track of the prey, and therefore the mandate to jog such long distances disappears with the dinner.

- Humans eventually evolved to understand the natural lifecycle of game, such that we didn't need to out-run them, we hunted by trap and ambush, or we used Horses to sprint fast enough that we could sustain a trap over distance and hit multiple targets (i.e. Buffalo hunting). Trapping and ambush allowed us to expend far fewer calories and take less risks, thus making survival easier.

- The level of technology in Zalanthas is sufficiently advanced to conclude that hunters hunt by ambush and knowing the prey, so there shouldn't be a great need to exhaust prey; as such, I believe that most playable races would not be able to out-run game, only the great endurance runners would.

[Narf]

Was doing some additional reading on the running issue and some things became apparent:

- What really allows Humans to persistently chase an animal to exhaustion is the ability to track it. Intelligent, fearful animals sprint till out of sight; if you can't track them, you can't maintain that persistent hunt that will work them to exhaustion.

- Without the ability to track you lose track of the prey, and therefore the mandate to jog such long distances disappears with the dinner.

- Humans eventually evolved to understand the natural lifecycle of game, such that we didn't need to out-run them, we hunted by trap and ambush, or we used Horses to sprint fast enough that we could sustain a trap over distance and hit multiple targets (i.e. Buffalo hunting). Trapping and ambush allowed us to expend far fewer calories and take less risks, thus making survival easier.

- The level of technology in Zalanthas is sufficiently advanced to conclude that hunters hunt by ambush and knowing the prey, so there shouldn't be a great need to exhaust prey; as such, I believe that most playable races would not be able to out-run game, only the great endurance runners would.

Hunting is a different beast entirely than migration. We are biomechanically incredibly well suited for migration. Some humans adapted this for hunting.