Is the Fast travel mechanic decline?

[TheHeroOfTime]

I was reading some reviews about Dragon's dogma: Dark arisen and there's a lot of people criticizing how there's no fast travel in the game and the player must go walking to everywhere. This reminds me some things I thought time back since I played open world gaems like Skyrim and it's how the fast travel mechanic affects negatively in those adventure and RPGs games that offers exploration. Indeed, the possibility of opening a map and traveling instantly to a place that you already visited saves your time, but it destroy the journeys, the adventures and those experiences that you can have while traveling. You know, like finding other places and missions, on random events. I think the best solution to avoid this is allowing fast traveling from certain points. Like Morrowind transports and The Witcher 3 stakes.

What your thoughts about this subject?

 

[SCO]

This is common sense. Unfortunately, it seems uncommon.

 

[LESS T_T]

As much as I like walking around well-made (3D) world, fast travel may not be bad if it is not a literal teleportation without consequences. It would be better if it has in-world context and interacts with other systems.

 

[Blaine]

Well well well, what have we here? The guy who went around downvoting all of my anti-Dark Souls 3 posts (a game that has ubiquitous fast travel, by the way) is suddenly looking into Dragon's Dogma after I brought it up in that very thread.

Coincidence? YOU DECIDE!

Not only is ubiquitous fast travel decline, it's one of the principal types of decline—unless it's intelligently implemented in a few key locations that must be traveled to before use, preferably in a way that suits the game world. Underrail has a few boats and a number of subway stations, for instance. Morrowind had silt striders and magical portals between guilds and saints' shrines (or something, it's been years). Fallout had hiking overland and Fallout 2 had a car, and I suppose that's fast travel of a kind, yet you could only enter or leave at the edge of an actual level, it used up both game time and some real time, and you risked encountering baddies. Pretty traditional, really.

Pressing a button to fast travel to every PoI a la Ass Creed and all that other shit is pure decline, no ifs, ands, or buts.

 

[Tacgnol]

I think Fallout 1 and 2 handled it best.

Overland map and encounters en route. The rapidly incrementing date/time gave you a sense of scale of the world as well. No crossing the continent in 20 mins real-time.

 

[Daedalos]

Underrail could DEFINITELY have used some form of better implemented fast travel. When people start using speedhacks from get get-go, you know something aint right.

And yes, fallout did it quite well. But come on, you're not convincing me, that just traveling for the sake of traveling should be some sort of mystical, cool and awsome experience, if there's nothing in that experiene to really captivate you.

Especially backtracking is fucking tedious. OH HEY, they guy i've listening to for 5 hours, and the same dog on that street corner that says and does the exact same thing. Oh hey, here's the area I've cleared for items and killed every baddie... look at them all dead! so cool !

Stop wasting my time, and give me some form of meaningful fast travel mechanic, in the very least, AFTER I've visited places several times.
Unless the traveling in and of itself is very meaningful, I would rather just get on with the game than experience the wonders of my 2d/3d sprite walking or running around.

 

[Grauken]

It's decline, how is that even a question

 

[mondblut]

Convenience uber alles.

I don't remember any of you fags crying about fast travel when the fucking Arena was released. Or wait, you weren't even born yet.

 

[Falksi]

The whole point in Fast Travel is to eliviate the repetitiveness found from making the same journey over & over again. However, having that option granted from the outset so that you don't get to make that journey more than once is equally as damaging, and shows how fucktarded some devs are, implementing methods which they don't even understand the purpose of in the first place.

Morrowind handled it well, but not perfect. In general there should be fuck all Fast Travel until the initial areas have been explored a handful of times at the very least, and the players start to feel boredom through repetition set in.

Folk forget that it's all about the adventure & the journey, not the result.

 

[TheHeroOfTime]

Well well well, what have we here? The guy who went around downvoting all of my anti-Dark Souls 3 posts (a game that has ubiquitous fast travel, by the way) is suddenly looking into Dragon's Dogma after I brought it up in that very thread.

Coincidence? YOU DECIDE!

Not only is ubiquitous fast travel decline, it's one of the principal types of decline—unless it's intelligently implemented in a few key locations that must be traveled to before use, preferably in a way that suits the game world. Underrail has a few boats and a number of subway stations, for instance. Morrowind had silt striders and magical portals between guilds and saints' shrines (or something, it's been years). Fallout had hiking overland and Fallout 2 had a car, and I suppose that's fast travel of a kind, yet you could only enter or leave at the edge of an actual level, it used up both game time and some real time, and you risked encountering baddies. Pretty traditional, really.

Pressing a button to fast travel to every PoI a la Ass Creed and all that other shit is pure decline, no ifs, ands, or buts.

You love to suck your own dick don't you?

I played Dragon's dogma on PS3 many years ago before it was released on Steam. And I was reading the Steam analysys from random users where I remembered this topic. But if you think that I gained interest on that game because I read you somewhere then go ahead. I'm not going to take the illusion from you.

By the way, I don't consider that Fallout has any type of fast traveling. It just the way of traveling in that game. One that simulates the journey and allows random events. Like giant scorpions gang squads and talking cows. It doesn´t about making travels faster. It's the only way of traveling in that game.

 

[Blaine]

When people start using speedhacks from get get-go, you know something aint right.

Yeah, something definitely ain't right with those people.

They've been bathing in quest markers and fast travel for so long that they don't realize they've got decline dribbling from every bodily orifice, especially their mouths.

You love to suck your own dick don't you?

Me? No! You've got the wrong guy!

 

[Zero Credibility]

It you have to have some kind of fast-travel mechanic (and in a sufficiently big gameworld you kinda do), it should be well grounded in the game. Yeah, Morowind got it pretty well, besides the ships and bug taxi service and mage guild, with the mark / intervention / recall spells. An immersive way to get around the map, and not too convenient as you still may need to do some walking.

Other nice example that I remember is actually Arcanum, specifically the teleport spell. It takes a while to get, but once you do, it makes you feel like a bloody archmage. An NPC wants escort to the other side of the world? No problem, snap fingers, we're there. Snap fingers again, back again. Fuck technology and trains, that's the way to travel.

 

[SCO]

IE games/ToEE model aren't bad either. Area travel allows for random encounters, and even 'random' quest encounters (somehow). Areas require exploration to clear the fog of war and can subsequently use the overhead map to click where to go (or would, if the pathfinder wasn't shit).

 

[Althorion]

I like Morrowind solution (having paid access to fast travel from certain, pre-determined points) and I like Arcanum solution (certain builds having access to high-level teleport spell). Ideally, I’d have them both. They remove relatively little from the overall experience, as they are easily affordable only at the mid-late game stage and they always come with the price (either cost money or skill points).

 

[DraQ]

Out of context this question is meaningless.

Even considering just TES series, you have Daggerfall where FT is indispensable for game's playability VS Morrowind which is built on the lack of it, VS Oblivion which would be dragged down by it, were it not already at the rock bottom, VS Skyrim somewhere in between (it works much better without and quite a few features are just pointless with FT on, but the implementation is somewhat more constrained than in Oblivion).

 

[kintake]

I liked the way it was handled in Gothic 3, with the rune stones you would find in cities and settlements that allowed you to teleport back to that specific city/settlement.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

I find the way fast-travel works in Bethesda games quite ridiculous, just press and you're there. No charge no penalty no nothing. It might as well be teleportation.
I'm surprised they never added something like a Fallout-style random mechanic where the game rolls a dice to check for random encounters. Hell, I think it would be far cooler if it rather than being some fade into a loading screen and then instant-teleportation, it showed a very fast animation of an arrow travelling on a map of the game or something.

Honestly, I can't believe nobody ever took the GTA Route and just say "screw fast travel, get a car" or something.

Are we counting the teleporting through parts of a city from Age of Decadence?

 

[Comte]

Pure Decline

 

[fantadomat]

Fast travel is ok,don't have the time to waste hours just running around like some kind of retard. Most games that have FT do have huge maps that only idiots will go around without FT. The best type of fast travel is when it is made logical like in Gothic games,still my favourite travelling system is the one from Arcanum.

 

[DragoFireheart]

If you have fast travel in a game to alleviate the repetitive nature, then the problem isn't fast travel but the lack of interesting things to do between locations.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

As has been said in this thread, Fast Travel is decline if it's used badly.

Unfortunately it's very easy to use it badly. If used correctly however it's a valuable tool that saves time from about the mid- to end-game. At no point should Fast Travel mechanics be available until at least the half-way mark of a game.

Ultima 7 (at least) is a good example. You can walk everywhere, but you can also buy a horse carriage or a ship to speed things up, and they even come with their own storage inventories. You can even find a flying carpet for maximum bragging rights. The ultimate mode of travel however, are the Moongates, which can send you to one of the other Moongates instantaneously. There is the little bother about the random factor of which Moongate you get dropped at, but even playing the Moongate Merry-Go-Round is faster than any other mode of travel... but you still have to make the rest of the way by foot.

Diablo-clones are horrible in this regard, as far too often the game revolves around trudging through hordes of monsters just to reach the next Fast Travel checkpoint. Not cool.

 

[Murk]

Usually yes. Skyrim style is garbage, but there are ways to use it to help enhance the experience without ruining.

Typically this comes in the form of set points that you most unlock, abilities you must develop, or otherwise achieve through gameplay.

For example, I like gothic 2's (with NotR) approach. Early on you have specific teleporter stones that are static and link to each other in a cycle (3 points, a -> b -> c -> a -> b -> c, repeat) with an initial threat that you can bypass or fight; and then later, teleportation runes that take you from anywhere to a specific areas, these are done in game and as part of a semi-quest, basically (with some being rewards you find in chests/dungeons/etc.). The expansion area featured even a 3rd option with a central hub that has a two-way port to 6 specific points that you get when you unlock them as part of a quest. All of this revolves around you either 1) progressing in exploration or 2) progressing in game. I appreciate that, and enjoy the balance of gameplay + convenience.

Games that incorporate their systems into the gameplay are doing the right thing (conceptually, execution is a different thing ofc).

Gothic 3 somewhat diminished this by giving you the options at the very beginning (often literally at the entrance of the city), but then that game world was yuge and so far more tedious to re-tread. I think there could have been a good way to do this still, perhaps by having the rune for each town be linked to gaining reputation in that area or tie it to a key quest (or give thieves something useful to steal).

 

[Visbhume]

Fast travel is incline, just throw in some encounters to spice it a little.

Preferably, it should be done at the interface level, not as something provided in the gameworld itself. And it should not cost resources beyond the ones you would spend by going the slow way. It should take in-game time, if the game cares about that.

Also it should exist within single cities and maps as well. Pillars of Eternity can be extremely annoying at times because it lacks intra-city fast travel.

 

[Xeon]

I like fast travel, I don't want to go thru the hassle of long travel from place to place for a few quests and go thru the same respawnable enemies over and over, that's just a drag and time waster.

I kinda liked the system shown in the Kingdom Come, where you travel in a map and might encounter random events, don't know exactly how it will work but from what was shown, it looked pretty good.

 

[Commissar Draco]

Fast travel is good when done in immersive way like in fallouts and Arcanum where getting car the mage teleportation spell is game changer. When its done like Oblivion which means free, instantaneous and available from very beginning thats only indicates your game sucks same as with quest marker also added by this horrible game. CKD is doing this good adding fatigue, random encounters and realistic travel time but they could add the Morrowind option of just taking ride of wagon or river boat.