Your opinion on "fast travelling" in open-world RPGs

[Jarlaxl]

It should be left in. If you want to explore, go exploring by all means. If you don't, quick travel can be a savior.

WoW has arguably taken this to an extreme, with top-level players sitting around in cities waiting to be instantly teleported to their dungeons. The overworld only gets used for dailies and leveling. That said, truthfully, I don't know how bad of a thing this is. Players derive their fun from going to dungeons or battlegrounds or arenas or whatever, not running or flying through The Barrens for the umpteenth time. If that's the case, so be it.

 

[Trivun]

Well, when people have only one choice, then there's the problem, I feel. If the game forced you to fast travel between places and didn't allow you to explore, then I'd understand where you're coming from. Likewise if it forced you to explore and didn't allow fast travel, because then it would be artificially increasing the game time without adding any real substance. But honestly, OP, I can't agree with you here. The fact is, you have the choice. What you and Yahtzee both say, that fast travel allows you to skip past the exploration part, is undermined by the fact that YOU HAVE A CHOICE. Nobody is forcing you to fast travel. If you want to explore and take the long route every time then you're perfectly free to do so. But there are people who like one option, and people who like the other. Surely by having both as options that you can choose to follow or not, arguments and debates like this should be completely avoided. Apparently not, it seems...

 

[loc978]

I agree, really... and I would have loved a vehicle in the new Fallout games...
Oh wait...

I remember now, I had one!​

and for you fantasy junkies out there...

Never could stand the game, personally.​

 

[black_knight1337]

maybe make it so that you can only fast travel to major locations. so then you will still get the travelling aspect from walking to a cave or ruin or something just outside of town and you will also have the ease of fast travelling to a nearby location. they should still employ some sort of transit system like what was in red dead redemption. you could sit back and watch everything going on or you could skip to your destination.

 

[Kimarous]

So that's my opinion: abolish fast travelling and implement my system. Don't even give me the option for fast travelling or I might use it. Don't let people skip sections of your game like that.

What are you thoughts?

My thoughts are that you just went "ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME". It's not the developer's fault if you lack self control. If you are so adamant against using fast travel, then stick to your guns and use your bloody feet instead of whining about how bad it is for immersion.

I come from the standpoint of someone who uses fast travel on a regular basis. You know what else? I also wander around between known locations on foot as well. Sometimes it's exploring, sometimes it's for immersion, sometimes it's to search for unmarked items, and still other times it's because I can't fast travel for whatever reason. I get my share of immersion regardless of fast travel, and the immersion that I "lose" is the frustration of trudging along and having something ruin my day.

Let's just say that trudging back to your home/base on foot to store away the craptons of loot you're carrying is NOT an ideal form of immersion.

 

[Zorak the Mantis]

I think it takes a lot away from the games. Especially ones like Oblivion and Fallout because they have such a huge environment. I think Morrowind had a great system of fast travel because you had to pay to use it and it only took you to major towns.

 

[StBishop]

It's there for a reason. If you don't have the self control to not use it, that's your fault, not the designers. I like it, I use it. Sometimes I prefer to not, but I should have the option.

 

[Bat Vader]

I think fast travel systems in open world RPGs are nice. 95% of the time I will explore the world and either use a vehicle/horse or walk to my destination. the 5% of the time when I don't feel like exploring the world I will use fast travel. I think it can be abused at times.

What I would like to see is a fast travel system that is locked on the first play-through. Once someone beats the game it is unlocked and can be used on any play-through after that.

 

[ratman995]

It's there for a reason. If you don't have the self control to not use it, that's your fault, not the designers. I like it, I use it. Sometimes I prefer to not, but I should have the option.

It would be nice if you could decide at the start of the game if you want it turned on or not, so hardcore immersionists can get their trudging though the wildness and the rest who can't give a toss about it can use fast travel.

 

[thenamelessloser]

I rather just cut out the pointless walking to begin with and just have fast travel. Having a hard time going back to Fallout New Vegas because of it.... I miss how it was in the first two fallouts compared to the later ones. Walking around for long periods of time with literally nothing happening is very unimmersive to me. I rather just get real exercise in the real world. I wouldn't mind some kind of open world RPG where I could actually get exercise while doing the hiking, lol though.

 

[jmorourke80]

As stupid as it sounds, I even liked Morrowind's system better because it at least forced you to find Silt Striders and boats that would take you where you wanted to go (and would at least force you to move around a bit in between).

This +1.

I don't know about forcing people to watch the trip though. Perhaps making it an option but giving players the option to skip the trip kinda like Red Dead Redemption is the way to go? Developers need to appeal to as many people as possible after all.

 

[Bodyless]

Without fast travel, the so called "adventures" while walking around will quckly turn into repetive boringness. You need some way to cut down the traveling time on large open worlds because there is no way to fill it with that much content to not make walking around fun for the full time of the game.

 

[Vault Citizen]

If you hated the fast travel system so much why did you use it? To my knowledge it has always been voluntary.

 

[Treblaine]

One of the things I didn't like in Oblivion and Fallout 3 was the whole system of "fast travelling", i.e. click a point on the map that you've been to before and you will instantly be transported there, alive and well. It sort of destroys the whole epic scope the game is meant to convey with its large map, and it removes a lot of the potential for chance encounters.

I was reading an old Extra Punctuation [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/extra-punctuation/8329-Extra-Punctuation-Fallout-New-Vegas] a minute ago and I noticed that Yahtzee happens to agree with me. I figure you'd rather listen to him than me, so:

When you instant fast travel in games like Fallout 3 you miss out on the adventure. If you had to ride a horse or a motorbike to your destination you might have an exciting encounter with NPCs, or catch a glimpse of something so intriguing on the horizon that you decide to take a detour to investigate it on a whim. Surely the whole point of the sandbox or open-world model is to give the player the chance to fill the gaps between major events with adventures of their own.

This was a big reason I failed to get the most out of Fallout 3. I completed the game in about 15 hours and I barely saw any of the map at all because I was waiting for quests to actually send me around the place and all that happened was I fast travelled between a few locations and then the damn story ended. Admittedly, partly my fault.

As stupid as it sounds, I even liked Morrowind's system better because it at least forced you to find Silt Striders and boats that would take you where you wanted to go (and would at least force you to move around a bit in between). But what I really want is Morrowind's system but where they show you doing the travelling (significantly faster than running of course). Possibly in a custscene, but why take control away? Why not put me aboard one of these things in my normal view... still able to shoot Cliff Racers as I fly by? Oh, and let me say to the pilot or equivalent "on second thought, set me down here next to that interesting looking ruin".


So that's my opinion: abolish fast travelling and implement my system. Don't even give me the option for fast travelling or I might use it. Don't let people skip sections of your game like that.

What are you thoughts? Do you like it? Hate it? What would be your ideal "faster than walking" travelling system?

Aside: has it been confirmed what the system in Skyrim will be?

How can a game when challenged to travel large distances fail on such a fundamental point as "getting between two points at high speed".

It's an excuse to race around at fantastical speed!

It could be a gyro-copter, it could be a magic carpet, it could be those eagles from Lord of the Rings.

As you progress though the game have faster and faster modes of travel but never make it instantaneous, or if it is magic you really need a tracking shot over the landscape - like astral projection - like as you project your mind from place to place you can SEE how far you are travelling.

More and more games are cottoning on to this, Bioshock infinite has the Skyrail system.

 

[CupboardNinja]

I think fast traveling in any game kind of takes away from the size of the world, but I don't mind it that much. What'd be really awesome is if games had achievements or unlockables that encourage you not to fast travel.

 

[Treblaine]

If you hated the fast travel system so much why did you use it? To my knowledge it has always been voluntary.

But if the game depends on you using the system...

Look, I think he wants some way of swiftly getting from place to place but not something that spoils the impression of scale. So basically a plane, jet-pack, hover-speeder or whatever.

It is easy to code in a mechanism to teleport from place to place, it's lazy for the developers and undermines the experience.

I think a game like Fallout is in dire need of some sort of vehicle, or something to travel fast at around 20-30 miles and hour, like a horse or rocket-scooter.

 

[LookingGlass]

I understand the opinion of those saying that it's my problem and if I don't like it I just shouldn't use it. But I guess I should make it clear that what I'd prefer is more of a middle ground between walking and instantly being teleported, for free no less. Even a system like Morrowind's, although where travel is expensive and you can't go nuts on it unless you're rich, would be nice in my opinion.

If in Fallout 3 they offered me: walking, motorcycle (I'd never seen those mods shown above), and fast travel... no problem, I'd never need fast travel. I'm certainly not saying our only option should be walking for 15 real-world minutes.

That Dragon Mount mod looks pretty perfect to me.

 

[Polaris19]

The part Yahtzee did not mention is that after awhile, running to every location, especially when it's across the whole game world, gets tedious, not enjoyable.

It's great to have the world there for you to explore, and sometimes that's an awesome adventure I'm more than willing to have. But sometimes, I just want to get to where I'm going. IT's like real life. It's nice to around and visit places, but sometimes, we just want to get from point a to point b as quickly as possible.

Try playing Penn & Teller's mini game "Desert Bus" sometime. It is about the dullest thing someone can play and it essentially details a one way bus trip. The novelty of it wears off after awhile and you just think to yourself "Why didn't they make a mode called Desert Airplane?"

It;s great to have a world that's always there for you. But sometimes, I just want to get from Bravil to Bruma without getting attacked by a band of raiders or a damn mudcrab.

 

[LookingGlass]

If you hated the fast travel system so much why did you use it? To my knowledge it has always been voluntary.

But if the game depends on you using the system...

Look, I think he wants some way of swiftly getting from place to place but not something that spoils the impression of scale. So basically a plane, jet-pack, hover-speeder or whatever.

It is easy to code in a mechanism to teleport from place to place, it's lazy for the developers and undermines the experience.

I think a game like Fallout is in dire need of some sort of vehicle, or something to travel fast at around 20-30 miles and hour, like a horse or rocket-scooter.

Yes, this exactly. On that note, the lack of jetpacks in games is somewhat disturbing to me.

Immersion is such a hard thing to come by that I hate when it's broken. E.g. manual saving in survival horror games is an absolute killer (the one thing I hate about Silent Hill 2).

 

[teebeeohh]

it only really bugs me if there is not explanation as to why you can fast travel. for example in fallout i would have been fine if you got a very robust vehicle at some point that enabled you to drive on specific routes between major cities and will stay parked at where ever you wanted to go. like how the taxis work GTA4, i liked that.
or (for fallout) just go back to the way 1 and 2 worked, make a huge 2d map and whenever you run into a random encounter or city or something you go back to a full rendered 3d map that has boarders. But no, Bethesda will just make another TES in the future.