Humble request: Make discovery & map unblacking permanent

[Tyndaleon]

As a relatively new player, one of the huge annoyances I'm finding with a game I'm otherwise mostly enjoying immensely is the fact that once you've logged out, your character basically loses all knowledge of any zone they've already been in. In the case of dungeons, I don't mind *too* much because I figure if I haven't run one in awhile and can't remember certain things, that'll keep a certain level of freshness to it.

But at least on a per-character basis in the case of the large wilderness adventure zones.....can you PLEASE make it so that when you've opened up a map and removed all the 'blackness' from it via exploration and discovery, it stays that way? It's incredibly annoying, especially in the more convoluted harder to navigate ones, to have everything completely black again when you go back and you're trying to find your way back to a certain point. The zone layouts make that tough enough sometimes, but having to re-clear the maps once again just makes it irritating beyond reason. Please consider changing this. Thanks!

[Dirkan]

/Signed

[SquelchHU]

/Signed

In before someone confuses tedium with difficulty by calling this 'easy mode'.

[Tyndaleon]

Just to clarify in case there might be confusion on the word 'discovery' in the subject line.....by that I don't mean the exploration discoveries for xp in the wilderness zones; I only meant a generalization on the 'process' of 'discovery' i.e. having traveled through and thereby revealing the map and removing the black or fog or whatever you want to call it.

[bobbryan2]

You guys just want an easy button.

You should commit all these maps to memory like all the vets before you. If you wouldn't get seperated from the party, it wouldn't even be an issue. Stay with the party and let someone else guide you everywhere you need to go.

[bobbryan2]

To be slightly more serious. I think it's more to do with memory. The server would have to store a map for each dungeon, for each character you have. Currently they have a small field that would allow you to remember the last 5, but it would be an amazing amount of memory if they did that for every character and quest.

It would be nice if the map was undarkened as the rest of your party uncovered it, however.

[Maximus1]

/signed

[Orak]

Could even make it as one of the house favor rewards, I'm pretty sure one of them is involved with travel and espionage or whatever. Maybe once you've unlocked all the discovery points, something, anything, because I agree and find it odd after a day or two my character gets his brain blasted by a mind flayer in his sleep.

[dirtpoorchris]

Good idea. I forget stuff easily.

[Xenus_Paradox]

Someone had the idea to tie it to explorer completion. I think that's a good idea.

[Jay203]

Could even make it as one of the house favor rewards, I'm pretty sure one of them is involved with travel and espionage or whatever. Maybe once you've unlocked all the discovery points, something, anything, because I agree and find it odd after a day or two my character gets his brain blasted by a mind flayer in his sleep.

but the house that's involved with espionage is house P
and we love our house P buffs and house P trinket more than silly explorer fog-of-war-removal service >_<

[Tyndaleon]

I don't think this should be tied to any sort of reward honestly.....I just think it should be fixed outright. I can't think of any other MMO that uses this sort of mechanic for mapping that forces your character to 'forget' the map days later. EQ2 comes readily to mind in terms of the map-blacking effect starting out, and in every single case there, once you've revealed everything on an outdoor map at least, it stays that way.

[DakFrost]

/Signed

[Girevik]

I mostly disagree, but I could be talked into a compromise.

I actually like the darkened maps when I am going in to scrub an area for experience or retracing my way back to a dungeon entrance from shrining up. It let's me see where I've cleared the monsters and where I haven't.

But, I can live with key points shining out in the darkness. They could have flags for each of the shrines and dungeon entrances that "light up" once you have discovered them the first time. This wouldn't be as storage intensive as saving the whole map per character, but could help the experienced character re-navigate a zone that the character has already explored.

[TheKeg]

I mostly disagree, but I could be talked into a compromise.

I actually like the darkened maps when I am going in to scrub an area for experience or retracing my way back to a dungeon entrance from shrining up. It let's me see where I've cleared the monsters and where I haven't.

But, I can live with key points shining out in the darkness. They could have flags for each of the shrines and dungeon entrances that "light up" once you have discovered them the first time. This wouldn't be as storage intensive as saving the whole map per character, but could help the experienced character re-navigate a zone that the character has already explored.

I think the OP was talking about the total black out of the map, not the "fog". I'm in favor of keep the black cleared, but the fog remaining.

[Tyndaleon]

I actually like the darkened maps when I am going in to scrub an area for experience or retracing my way back to a dungeon entrance from shrining up. It let's me see where I've cleared the monsters and where I haven't.

And that's fine, if you haven't yet found everything.....and I'd even be fine in compromising to the point by making it such that you had to have completed all exploration discoveries until making it permanent. But once you've done that, there's no reason why on a per-character basis you shouldn't have what you've cleared stay cleared, and completely logically so. In a roleplaying sense, I would have 'mapped' the zone out and record it for posterity's sake.

Mind you, I don't demand nor expect things to change here at all.....if something like this has been allowed to stay the way it is for 3 years, however astoundingly so, I have a hard time, being realistic, seeing it changed now.....and if that's the case, I'll live with it even if I'm not happy in doing so. But my request/suggestion stands nonetheless, and I still think keeping it the way it is currently is both needlessly annoying/irritating and bottom line, downright dumb.

[Tyndaleon]

I think the OP was talking about the total black out of the map, not the "fog". I'm in favor of keep the black cleared, but the fog remaining.

Thanks Keg, you're absolutely correct, and for clarity's sake I agree with exactly what you said. The 'fog' I like for exactly the reasoning he was stating, that you can still see where you've already been if you're going back in to progress slayer tiers and the like. I'm talking specifically about the total blackness you start out with.

[Igrovin]

To be slightly more serious. I think it's more to do with memory. The server would have to store a map for each dungeon, for each character you have. Currently they have a small field that would allow you to remember the last 5, but it would be an amazing amount of memory if they did that for every character and quest.

It would be nice if the map was undarkened as the rest of your party uncovered it, however.

Personally.. I seriously doubt it has anything to do with memory and more to do with "clever" programing.
http://www.secondhandlands.com/blog/?p=68

Its like most anything I've noticed with this game, the devs don't seem to want to be bothered making good tight programing. I had been playing during beta when they seemed to suddenly find that clerics can kill undead and rogues are sneaky. Thus they knee jerked reactioned (As all MMO developers tend to do.) and rather than spend time later making smarter dungeons, they just said "If the rogue does ANYTHING besides walking, he will lose stealth. Clerics are going to be half as effective in turn undead than they used to be as well."

[Tyndaleon]

Personally.. I seriously doubt it has anything to do with memory and more to do with "clever" programing.

I agree, it's pretty silly to suggest that there's some inherent memory storage issue for saving something as simple and fundamental as 'unblacking/discovery progress' on a reasonable number of maps---basically 20, the number of wilderness adventure zones per DDO Wiki---which is all I'm really talking about here. I'm not asking for or suggesting this take place in dungeons as I said in my original post, I can live with it staying as-is there just to keep things a little more fresh if I haven't run a dungeon quest in awhile. The open/more expansive and opened ended outdoor wilderness areas are completely different and far larger environments though and having a persistent map that you can clear and have it stay cleared is far more of an important issue in those.

[Cyr]

/signed