Why the hate on fast travel?

[SandsOfTime404]

People need to stop worrying about something as trivial as fast travel. You're never forced to use it, and if you don't want to you shouldn't. Saying, "I don't want to, but if it's there I feel that I have to," is some of the biggest crap I've ever heard. Is it truly that incredibly difficult to just not use it? I can't even imagine it being difficult.

 

Aside from that, though, I would not mind seeing more "realistic" forms of fast travel. Teleportation spells to major cities/landmarks, horse-drawn carriages, boats, hell having a big strong guy toss you down a mountain works. They'd be great for immersion, but they can also be done without. Fast travel isn't perfect, but it's not terrible either. Be glad it's not going the course of the Fable games. Those let you travel from anywhere, regardless of enemy presence, to almost anywhere important in the game, right down to individual buildings. That's something that needs complained about. For a world that small, fast travel isn't needed. In a world as expansive as the Elder Scrolls series, it is.

[CrunchyMoogle]

The fast travel system is purely optional, so there's no reason to complain.

 

However, it seems that a few quests from the factions aren't designed to be a walkable or mounted distance. Some locations don't seem to make geographical sense. (My least favourite faction, the Fighters Guild does this a lot)

[h3Xh3X]

You also have the option at all times to open the console and type movetoqt, but that doesn't mean you do. So, if you don't want to fast travel, then just don't.

Still, I would appreciate a logical way for all citizens to travel long distances, and stilt striders are quite charming.

[LadyMilla]

Even if things like fantasy novels and games, it has to be believeable. otherwise, game designers and fantasy novelists could write any old random crap and it would succeed just because it's fantasy.

 

I'd rather say there has to be a 'logical' chain of reasoning and the successive events must be backed up by a plausible cause-effect relationship. For example, the combat system in most of the games is highly unrealistic - blows that would cripple you in real life will only reduce your health bar, shots that would kill you instantly will only tear out a huge chunk of your health pool, and so on. It is unrealistic but once you accept the basic premise that injuries work differently in the game world, the game will operate according to a consistent set of rules. Calling a game 'unrealistic' because you cannot accept one of its basic premises (fast travel) is not too logical - myself, I prefer using the word 'personal preference': out of the full set of game rules, I don't like this one or that one because it doesn't fit in to my personal preferences: it sets off my personal 'implausibility alarm'. There is nothing wrong with that - one of the best features of moddable games is that you can adapt them to whatever tick. :thumbsup: For other people, fast travel is implausible, for me, inability to see the outside world through the windows is more annoying (even though I recognize the reasons for not implementing it).

 

On a side note: fast travel in MMO's is rather lacking when it comes to plausibility. In the MMO's I played, you cannot fast travel to a location you haven't discovered. In real life that would mean I would not be able to fly to e.g. Paris before I went there on foot. Should I call it 'highly unrealistic' or 'highly implausible'? However, in the context of a game, it is understandable that the developers want to prevent you from getting to certain locations easily before you are prepared to go there -- in the end it is a personal choice (or preference) if you disregard their intent and focus on the implausibility of this game feature taken out of context or if you accept the logic behind the design.

[Arkayjiya]

You're never forced to use it

I like this one. Fast travel is not an option, it's a feature. You can not use it as you can decide to only walk, or use a non-fighter character... It's not an argument. When you judge the balance of the game you don't judge it for people who decide to only use a one hand weapon without anything in the left hand or character who decide to fight fairly with a knife and no armor... That would be stupid. Fast travel is part of the balance. Not the combat balance of course, but the immersion/frustration one. And it's a too big step far from the immersion.

Like I said on another topic, even if you have the strength to not use it, it's still here, bothering you by tempting you.

 

Why morrowind was better. In Morrowind, fast travel 1) had a context so was more immersive 2) concerned mainly major axis (one town to another) so it replaced the less interesting, the less dangerous and the more repetitive travels. It provided you a way to return in one place (mark & recall) but even that was too much in my opinion. The third way of fast travel was hidden so it was not too annoying (and the ring from tribunal was a reward for killing a god). It was maybe not ideal but well assigned.

 

I won't talk about daggerfall, this game is nothing like the two others.

 

To provide an option to desactivate it would greatly reduce the psychological effect since the option menu is "outside" the game, and the map menu is not (and it's even more true for skyrim with their new way to design menu)

Edited January 18, 2011 by Any_ILL

[stuges]

You're never forced to use it

I like this one. Fast travel is not an option, it's a feature. You can not use it as you can decide to only walk, or use a non-fighter character... It's not an argument. When you judge the balance of the game you don't judge it for people who decide to only use a one hand weapon without anything in the left hand or character who decide to fight fairly with a knife and no armor... That would be stupid. Fast travel is part of the balance. Not the combat balance of course, but the immersion/frustration one. And it's a too big step far from the immersion.

Like I said on another topic, even if you have the strength to not use it, it's still here, bothering you by tempting you.

 

Why morrowind was better. In Morrowind, fast travel 1) had a context so was more immersive 2) concerned mainly major axis (one town to another) so it replaced the less interesting, the less dangerous and the more repetitive travels. It provided you a way to return in one place (mark & recall) but even that was too much in my opinion. The third way of fast travel was hidden so it was not too annoying (and the ring from tribunal was a reward for killing a god). It was maybe not ideal but well assigned.

 

I won't talk about daggerfall, this game is nothing like the two others.

 

To provide an option to desactivate it would greatly reduce the psychological effect since the option menu is "outside" the game, and the map menu is not (and it's even more true for skyrim with their new way to design menu)

 

I see some very good points there. Hard for some people to understand, and I believe it is damn easy to fall into thinking "oh comon its optional" when we try to put up some arguments why, even if it is optional, it breaks out of immersion. yet again, modders will most likely fix it for other side anyhow, or perhaps beth makes it fully configurable option before you start the game or so.

 

EDIT: That ring as very hard quest reward would be ideal for TES V too.

Edited January 18, 2011 by stuges

[Fatalmasterpiece]

Fast travel detracts from the adventure because by design it leaves the developers with the inability to add anything interesting plot wise which comes with traveling by ship or caravan.

 

Its a lazy design short cut and the player loses out on opportunities because there are no working boats, wagons, etc.

 

Wouldn't it be cool if on your way sailing to the next town your boat is ship wrecked or your caravan beset by a dragon? We'll never know because all you have is walking or fast travel and if a journey is ever actually scripted it will seem out of place and a dead give away something will happen, ruining the surprise.

[Wolfdoggie]

I love fast travel. Though there isn't much to do or see when running to a location in Oblivion. Maybe if the entire world was more active with random new things to come across? idk.

 

If they were to remove it they'd have to add something like horses and travel services with carriages and etc that allow you to get in and skip the travel duration to reach location immediately... like the taxi system in GTA4. I still hate traveling in that game sometimes and rather fast travel, except it's impossible to in it. I'd rather have my TES fast travel option instead. :)

 

You can always pretend your character knows advanced teleportation magic :) That's what I do~ especially when I can open portals with midas magic.

Edited January 18, 2011 by Wolfdoggie

[Eglaerinion]

The problem with fast travel is that story writers take it into account when writing quests, they will send you all over the map to fetch things because hey people can fast travel anyway. There are much more elegant solutions than a simple instant teleport to every location of interest that is on the map

[stuges]

The problem with fast travel is that story writers take it into account when writing quests, they will send you all over the map to fetch things because hey people can fast travel anyway. There are much more elegant solutions than a simple instant teleport to every location of interest that is on the map

Now to think about it that must be the thing making it suck for them to make fast travel. They spread quest stuff so far and think we use fast travel, which basically makes fast travel not optional unless you got a lot of time for fetching quests : / well I hope they dont do this in skyrim like in fighters guild which is worst guild imo because of the quest types.