Time flow - fast travel, waiting, sleeping

Gameplay
#1

As I did not found any topic dealing with time flow I have created it.
Here I would like us to discuss the aspect of time.

For example in Skyrim you have an option to wait for some amount of time. Together with fast travel these two features affect the time flow. Meaning that if you have meeting at noon with someone,you can just stand there and press some buttons to wait for, lets say, 6hours. This kind of behaviour can not be seen in real world so question is: should it be in KC?
And then there is sleeping. Would there be some kind of “tiredness bar”? for you to know that you want to sleep?
There are questions to think about.

#2

I hope they don’t have fast travel or waiting, i guess there could be some issues with that but it would make a better experience for managing all your stats etc

1 Like
#3

Ideally I would have thought no to fast travel and waiting since it does hurt that all important immersion but I would argue concessions need to be made to real life and since I only have a limited time to play games I would rather not have to spend half an hour reading a book at my desk while I wait for time to pass in the game.

5 Likes
#4

100% agree. There have to be some concessions even in the most realistic of simulators. Be as realistic as possible, but give me the option of waiting/sleeping/fast travel. Options, options, options. You don;t have to play your game the same way I play mine, but give me the option


10 Likes
#5

I agree with @J0nShannow : just give the option of activating some kind of “Hardcore” mode with no fast-travelling, etc. (In Mount and Blade, for example, you could toggle autosaving, so if you were defeated in battle and lost all of your belongings, you could not just load the game, but instead had to gather a new army and find your companions: just for the brave!).

#6

As in real life when you wait you do somthing else. Meaning when you have quest in which you have to be somewhere or do something at given time then you go do something else till that time comes. That would require world where you have always somthing to do. (Or quests that does not require such conditions.)

But there is always one option: sleep. Lets say when you want to wait but dont want to do anyting else then you can always go to bed. You would not probably sleep as long as when tired but a few hours of sleep might help. Thing is that as player you wolud not be able to control how long your sleep would be.

There goes your option.

2 Likes
#7

I don’t like the idea of fast travel because you got horses and the map isn’t huge(at least in act one). There was that guy with the cart in Skyrim that could take you places without fast travel but I don’t think that will be needed in this game. I also don’t think there will be a need for a “wait” option but if so I won’t mind it.

1 Like
#8

Even if the game was released with both fast travel and waiting enabled by default and no option to turn them off, I see no reason that the immersion purists would be required to use these features. Seeing as Skyrim has already been brought up in this thread, there is nothing stopping people in the vanilla un-modded version of that game from NOT using fast travel or waiting (other than their own will power haha). :wink:

And if you lack said willpower and feel you must be forced into not using these features then I’m sure this will be something that is very easy to disable via mods after the games release.

2 Likes
#9

@ProkyBrambora

Regarding the points in your first post, I would very much like to see an in-game timescale featured. How they go about implementing it is something that is best left up to Warhorse I guess, but I did want to make mention of something that you may have missed; that being the ratio of the time scale.

Obviously from some purists perspective a 1:1 ratio of one hour in game = one hour in the real world would be preferable, but I am not sure if that would be the best option for this game in particular. Most games have a ration closer to 1:20 (one hour in-game = three minutes in the real world), and due to the smaller size of the map I think having too long a time ratio would mean you could get far too much done in one in-game day, and thus getting through the story in the space of a couple of in-game days (an in-game week at most) as Warhorse have said they want the first act to have approx 30 hours gameplay.

I don’t know perhaps some people would like that (as it is certainly realistic), but I would personally like to play for closer to an in-game month before this chapter comes to a close.

1 Like
#10

isn’t sleeping the same? you don’t wait in real time until you wake up, right?

#11

I think this is simply wanting immersion and realism which I get, @J0nShannow and @Potter. Exact realism isn’t always the best though, like when GTA V came out, there were certain areas in the game that I wanted to be more realistic. Of course I gave it a little more thought and realized that games that are too realistic aren’t fun. I don’t want to be waiting forever or have to run everywhere all the time. Don’t get me wrong I love looking at the scenery at first but just like in Skyrim I walked every for the first play-through but if fast travel wasn’t a thing then it would have zero replay ability.

@InvisibleShadow I really hope that they use something along the lines of 1:20 ratio. If you guys are talking about keeping the local time 1:1 ration I think that would be an issue because for example I work and school so I tend to play games at night. I would be playing these games either at night or have to change my time-zone just to play the game. Now if you’re talking something a little more the lines like the game will save the everything in the world when you quit; like where you are, what’s happening, and the time of day so that when you jump back on it’s the same day. One issue I do have though is not being able to see everything in the game. Different cycles are started throughout the game’s universe and I don’t want to miss a bit of it. So if some cycles are at night or like a mission is supposed to be played at night, do I wait for 12 hours? I know this was little long but I would love to hear what you think on that matter and what you think the developers are going to end up doing. :smile:

#12

I actually wanted to metion this timescale you are talking about but I did feel that the things I pointed out would be enough for disscusion.

#13

Ratio 1:1 is little bit extreme imho. But why cloudn’t we be allowed to change this ratio to our needs?

#14

Didn’t think about adding a ratio to the players needs. That may be a little overkill though, how would that affect the engine and how much can be stored on it? I mean if things are moving slower and more realistic wouldn’t different routes and spawn rates have to be made opposed to something quicker like the 1:20 ratio?

#15

[quote=“ProkyBrambora, post:12, topic:6397, full:true”]
I actually wanted to metion this timescale you are talking about but I did feel that the things I pointed out would be enough for disscusion.
[/quote] Sorry about that, I suppose it could require an entirely new topic just for discussion.

Looking forward to seeing what Warhorse decide to implement in regards to in-game timescale, perhaps they will even cover it in a Kickstarter video update.

[quote=“Jorge, post:14, topic:6397, full:true”]
Didn’t think about adding a ratio to the players needs. That may be a little overkill though, how would that affect the engine and how much can be stored on it? I mean if things are moving slower and more realistic wouldn’t different routes and spawn rates have to be made opposed to something quicker like the 1:20 ratio?
[/quote] Having the ability to change the ratio at any time would obviously be a very nice feature but would require a very robust game engine to handle it. Skyrim’s engine has a default of 1:20 and anything lower than 1:6 ratio starts to break quests and have NPC characters do odd things at odd times, and even at 1:6 some scripts break as well.

If Warhorse can make it happen I would be very happy, but I get the feeling if that they will have a locked timescale like most other games and it will be up to modders to change this to suit their personal needs.

1 Like
#16

It is still a game so of course you will be able to skip time (wait). But as we simulate certain things you may also end up hungry or sleepy at the end. Etc.

4 Likes
#17

It is really easy to forget that it is a game we are disscusing here on this forum. :smiley:

#18

a hardcore mode I find a brilliant idea. But if you then please dies correct with Game Over. I miss those kind of play for a long time

#19

I’m pretty sure that they’ve stated their intended timescale somewhere and it was too fast for me.

I’ve put roughly 500 hours into Fallout NV and same again into Skyrim - Only one character in each. I don’t play ‘dead is dead,’ but my play-style is as if I am doing so (made it through NV on one life, fingers crossed for Skyrim, still in progress :))’.

I always set the timescale to 6 (I’ve never had any issues with it and logged many hours). I never use ‘wait’ or ‘fast travel’ - Doesn’t bother me if it’s there or not in KCD as I won’t use it, but I’d rather hear it’s not there as it gives me some insight as to how Warhorse intend their game to be played.

A timescale of 6 is perfect for me. The default timescales of the titles mentioned above are awful for a slow paced player such as myself. If you take your time and actually walk anywhere the day just disappears insanely fast - it’s as though you can see the sun whizzing across the sky! On the low end, say 2 times real-time (or even 1:1), you have the other problem of being able to do insane amounts in a single day - That too feels completely unrealistic and wrong. Depending on your play-style you could even complete the entire game whilst only seeing one day-night-cycle for e.g. It’s important to feel the passage of time and too low a setting can destroy it as much as one that’s too fast. For a slower paced player, a timescale of 6 hits the sweet spot IMO.

A realistic game is after all a compromise of reality; understanding that and then matching the timescale according will make for a more realistic experience than just setting the scale to real-time. I’m not saying that real-time can’t work in a game (for flight sims and hardcore sims it’s essential), but in the setting of KCD I find it highly unlikely.

I’d really like to hear more from Warhorse regarding the timescale and whether it’ll be easily adjustable without breaking anything as in the RPGs I mentioned.

As to other elements of realism - Fallout NV has ‘hardcore mode’ and Skyrim has the mods ‘Frostfall’ and ‘Real Needs and Diseases,’ which make the game feel much better IMO. I’m sure Warhorse are very well aware of these modes/mods (along with many others) as it seems to my delight that they’re implementing aspects of each into the game. The more hardcore the better IMO, though I concede that such things are not for everyone.

5 Likes
#20

Good post. :thumbsup: While I contend that 1:6 may be a bit too long for some users who have limited time available to play, I would be personally happy to see anything between 1:6 - 1:10 as a default.

© 2015 Warhorse Studios www.warhorsestudios.cz