Mister Wolf
Member
There are a lot better games than this that allow immediate fast travel without stipulations. Itsuno will be punished for his hubris.
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Dragon's Dogma 2 says No Fast Travel can be a good thing" Travel is only an issue when your game is boring"
RainblowDash
Gold Member
I agree, I played the majority of the Diablo 4 campaign without unlocking the mount or using the warp points. There was pretty always enemies to fight or dungeons to enter.
rofif
Can’t Git Gud
That’s not how it works. People are lazy and they won’t know what riches the open world might have.
People would fear travel in ds1 if it was available from the start. And lack of it in first half is what makes the game so great.
Or death stranding. It’s the whole point but they give you great travel later at a cost
Yeah,that one thing I like about GTA4 or 5,use the taxis to fast travel to certain missions,it made my gaming experience more enjoyable.
SlimeGooGoo
Party Gooper
It feels like people haven't even READ the damn OP.
Here, let me magnify it for you people
If you want your instant fast-travel gimmick, you can have it. It's there.
It's optional, like some people wanted it. Just save some money and buy enough ferrystones.
Problem solved.
But nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, HOW will I EVER survive without my free & instant "press X to warp to place"?
Here, let me magnify it for you people
If you want your instant fast-travel gimmick, you can have it. It's there.
It's optional, like some people wanted it. Just save some money and buy enough ferrystones.
Problem solved.
But nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, HOW will I EVER survive without my free & instant "press X to warp to place"?
Chuck Berry
Gold Member
Dr. Wilkinson
Member
Morrowind is quite a bit smaller than other games nowadays in the open-world RPG space, though. Tbf
Danny Dudekisser
I paid good money for this Dynex!
I do think that boring overworld design is a huge issue and the reason why fast travel has become so essential in a lot of RPGs. An overworld should be a tightly connected hub with some cool stuff to do, but that ultimately gets you from point A to point B quickly. Save the bulk of the exploration for more distinct areas of the game.
unlurkified
Member
What about Elden Ring though? I gotta say I disagree. Sometimes you want to take your time, and other times you just wanna get crap done.
right.
Hawking Radiation
Member
Yeah I get that but at least have fast travel unlocked then when you complete your first run through the game. Nothing wrong with giving gamers the option.
Sometimes people want to jump in for a quick session without the need to waste time walking to different landmarks/objectives.
Another option would be to limit the amount of fast travel spawn points around the map. You'll still give the end user the opportunity to explore the map at large.
blue velvet
Member
The game with best fast travel implementation that I've played is Kingdom Come: Deliverance. Fast traveling in the game has consequences and risk, you can get ambushed by bandits and cumans along the way, hunger and sleep deprivation are also counted, it's also not instant unlike other games which prevent the players from totally abusing the system. Daniel Vavra is absolutely my top 2 favorite videogame maker in the business, haven't played a game of his that I didn't like, he's also hellbent on hating commies, and maoist style ESG loving retards in the industry, which is a huge plus in my book.
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sendit
Member
Fallout says hi.
Northeastmonk
Gold Member
Barren lands are boring af. I don’t care how hardcore it is.
Which is why fast travel is amazing. They don’t have to teleport you to the gates, but semi close is a lot more enjoyable. I hated the throwing teleport stones in those old Divinity CRPGs.
I finished the first DD. Traveling put me in probably the worst situations because I had to run to everything at night.
Which is why fast travel is amazing. They don’t have to teleport you to the gates, but semi close is a lot more enjoyable. I hated the throwing teleport stones in those old Divinity CRPGs.
I finished the first DD. Traveling put me in probably the worst situations because I had to run to everything at night.
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Kumomeme
Member
he got point
one of great things about DD is, player end up roaming around and the path taken is not boring at all. it is full of adventure to traverse.
it is about the journey, lot of game particularly open world centered with fast travel or centered around follow the marker often skip that 'fun' part.
fast travel is great, if the world is boring.
one of great things about DD is, player end up roaming around and the path taken is not boring at all. it is full of adventure to traverse.
it is about the journey, lot of game particularly open world centered with fast travel or centered around follow the marker often skip that 'fun' part.
fast travel is great, if the world is boring.
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SlimeGooGoo
Party Gooper
Unknown Soldier
Member
The issue was always the desire to make the game map bigger for bigness sake. If you don't have the content to fill a gigantic world map then make the world smaller. Ubisoft I'm looking at you
bender
What time is it?
33% correct.
SlimeGooGoo
Party Gooper
Couldn't agree more.
It is why I loved classic WoW's design for fast travel. You want to go somewhere fast? You need to get there first on foot or via mount, grab the flight point, and make sure it is connected to another to the area you want to travel. You get an hour long CD on your Hearthstone (IIRC, could have been longer? been nearly two decades) that lets you save one spot in the world to return to. You also had zepplins to travel across continents and boats that partially acted in real time and not an instant teleport.
That is how it should be. As much as I love FFXIV, it makes the game world feel so much smaller when you can just TP everywhere.
Killjoy-NL
Member
Just imagine how much easier life would be if you could fast-travel to work and back home.
Now apply that to gaming.
People want random dynamic events to keep things entertaining, but that's impossible. No matter how much effort you put into it.
It doesn't get more random and dynamic than rl and even then traveling to the same place multiple times becomes a chore.
The last thing I'd want is similar chores in a game that I want to play for a lil bit of escapism.
Now apply that to gaming.
People want random dynamic events to keep things entertaining, but that's impossible. No matter how much effort you put into it.
It doesn't get more random and dynamic than rl and even then traveling to the same place multiple times becomes a chore.
The last thing I'd want is similar chores in a game that I want to play for a lil bit of escapism.
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Pejo
Member
Did you play FFXI in its heyday? There was a whole player economy built around travel.
You could either:
- Take airships/boats
- They ran constantly on a real time schedule so you had to catch it on time and the ship traveled in real time. There were even RNG events that would happen on the boats with hidden 'notorious monsters' and encounters (like ghost pirates).
- Teleport to Outposts
- You had to have visited and completed a mini quest to be able to do this, while your nation controlled the area. Areas could only be controlled if there was a concentrated effort by players to "own" the area by various methods or just by people from your nation gaining a lot of XP in that particular area. This made it very rare to have the outpost teleport for the areas bordering other nations, for instance.
- Teleport spells
- These had a whole economy built around them, where people would level the jobs and then sit in towns waiting for people to request a spell (kinda like portals in WoW) for in-game currency.
- Black Mages could cast "Warp" and "Warp II". Warp was a mid level spell that would let you instantly return to your home point (you select it by touching crystals located around the world, and can only have 1 home point at any given time). Warp II would let you cast the spell on others. Many players would level black mage just for the first spell to go back to their homepoint for free
- It's worth noting that in other games, players would just suicide to go to their home point, but when you died in FFXI you lose a hefty amount of xp and can actually level down, eating hours of progress in just a handful of deaths. Some players did keep level 1 jobs just for dying and home pointing with them.
- White Mages could cast Teleport to any of the teleport spires they had already visited AND leveled up enough for AND bought the (somewhat rare at the time) scrolls to learn the spells. There were 5 or 6, I think. From there, at each spire (and at every nation and various other locations) you had an NPC that provided...
- Chocobo riding
- Bought from NPCs for certain amount of gil (gold). You could ride for a long time limit (50 mins I think?) but once you got off, the Chocobo was gone. While you were mounted, you couldn't be targeted or attacked, but if you stood near AoE attacks, you could get hit and knocked off your chocobo, making you lose it. They also could not enter caves or areas that weren't considered "overworld".
- Job skills
- Some players would level jobs like Bard or Thief just for the skills/spells that would allow them to run faster. In addition to travel, it also helped them 'claim' superbosses and other monsters that had valuable drops.
All in all, it combined for just a super satisfying system that the danger made each of the options something to consider to even GET TO the place that you wanted to play that night. I think Dragon's Dogma's world, while not nearly as dangerous as FFXI, does enough right that it will make the travel worthwhile, for similar reasons.
Damn that ended up being much longer than I was planning. I fucking miss peak FFXI so much...
Neff
Member
Being lost out in the middle of nowhere and making it back to the safety of a town by the skin of my teeth are some of my favourite memories of playing the original Dragon's Dogma. I still feel it was a better game at launch when Ferrystones were hard to come by. It felt unique among open world games for that reason. I appreciate why they patched in a shitload more Ferrystones later on (including an unlimited supply in the DLC), but it robbed the game of its sense of journey, tension, and risk/reward imo.
I understand, and I appreciate that the game offers solutions to play both ways, but I still feel like it lost something special about the game's character. The comfort of essentially being able to bail out of trouble and not having to worry about your health or supply situation at any given time is always there.
I understand, and I appreciate that the game offers solutions to play both ways, but I still feel like it lost something special about the game's character. The comfort of essentially being able to bail out of trouble and not having to worry about your health or supply situation at any given time is always there.
MagiusNecros
Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
Taking a boat was some of the most atmospheric and relaxing moments in FFXI. I don't think I could ever justify fast traveling anywhere in Vanadiel. It's such a great world to travel in.
I guess that's the devs point. You'll fast travel more often if you don't enjoy exploring the game world because it is for all extents and purposes boring to be in.
Pejo
Member
Yea the music being fantastic helped a lot, but I loved how the whole world felt properly thought out. Like everything was in motion whether you were there or not.
Yep. And I think 'danger' of the world is also a core component. There is no enjoyment if you can just slap down every thing you might come across in a few hits. That's why in games like Skyrim, fast travel is fine because you aren't gonna really run into anything that's going to push your shit in. Even Dragons, the main focus, become trivial after enough hours in the game. DD1 did a pretty good job of always having a "bigger fish" out there waiting for you, but there was room to improve. I know a lot of people like BBI, but for me it took out one of the main components of the game, traveling around in the dangerous overworld.
Fart Knight
Al Pachinko, Konami President
No fast travel no buy
Crayon
Member
You can make a map and systems where fast travel is not needed at all. That's awesome work. How big can you make it is a factor though. Zelda is the pinnacle of this with a huge map that someone could reasonably play without fast travel. And in before someone starts crying because they can steer a horse right.
MagiusNecros
Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
Bitterblack was hub based and was one big mega dungeon so it lacked the exploration of Gransys which is much bigger. Plus given all the challenges of Gransys the game goes into overdrive in Dogma's 2nd act after the Dragon and the game has it's "Eclipse" moment. So all the challenge regular Gransys has gets far worse once you progress to that point. Which keeps the world interesting since the grand illusion of Dogma's world being so beautiful and peaceful is ripped away and you see it for what it is. A gloomy dark hellscape of a world.
If Dogma had multiple places like Bitterblack Isle across Gransys with the 2nd act you then have a very immersive postgame experience.
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Quick note on early game FFXI. Starting in Windurst you go into your first dungeon which is connected to the game world and initially you fight enemies around your level but venturing much deeper you have lvl 80 mobs that unless level capped you have no hope of defeating these ancient terrifying enemies creating this horror element of running past or in some cases walking past them to avoid combat. In this sense the game has created a sense of danger where stealth is a necessity and you need to plan ahead to progress a quest objective. It's stuff like that I love about FFXI. And not many games do that anymore. It's all about instant gratification instead of any kind of nuance or critical thinking and the more games do this the more it turns you into a bad player.
If Dogma had multiple places like Bitterblack Isle across Gransys with the 2nd act you then have a very immersive postgame experience.
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Quick note on early game FFXI. Starting in Windurst you go into your first dungeon which is connected to the game world and initially you fight enemies around your level but venturing much deeper you have lvl 80 mobs that unless level capped you have no hope of defeating these ancient terrifying enemies creating this horror element of running past or in some cases walking past them to avoid combat. In this sense the game has created a sense of danger where stealth is a necessity and you need to plan ahead to progress a quest objective. It's stuff like that I love about FFXI. And not many games do that anymore. It's all about instant gratification instead of any kind of nuance or critical thinking and the more games do this the more it turns you into a bad player.
SJRB
Gold Member
Buddy, fast travel is just a way to not disrespect the player's time. Not everyone has the luxury of time to walk from point A to B all the time in a 50 hour open world game. It's a convenience, not a declaration of boring map design.
I have maybe two hours a day to play a game, if I'm lucky. I don't want to spend half of that just walking to locations I've already been.
I have maybe two hours a day to play a game, if I'm lucky. I don't want to spend half of that just walking to locations I've already been.
Hudo
Member
Based Itsuno. Just casually crapping on all of Ubisoft.
Moonjt9
Member
Ultima Online had the best world traversal of any game.
Portals in set locations you had to get to so you can port around to other portals around the world.
Spells to make a runestone that allowed you to teleport to a location that you set.
All in game, full immersion.
Menu fast traveling is a lame modern workaround to solving world travel, and it takes you out of the game immersion.
Portals in set locations you had to get to so you can port around to other portals around the world.
Spells to make a runestone that allowed you to teleport to a location that you set.
All in game, full immersion.
Menu fast traveling is a lame modern workaround to solving world travel, and it takes you out of the game immersion.
xrnzaaas
Member
Imo fast travel should always be as an option. letting the player decide if he wants to use it to revisit known locations and if he wants to pay money. If the game has a cool world and plenty of things of discover or random encounters I'll still want to travel on foot when I'm in the mood.
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Lucifers Beard
Member
Bottom line is that the game has to respect my time. I'm happy to explore but DD was hardly a riveting world ripe for exploring. It was an OK open world but it wasn't amazing. The game itself was pretty fucking good though.
Fredrik
Member
It’s the truth.
As said in the fast travel FF7 Rebirth thread there are so many ways to make traversal fun and fast travel is the most boring alternative there is.
It’s a mechanic that has been normalized to hide how static most game worlds are. A quest shouldn’t tell you the go back far away to a previous place if there is nothing fun happening or if the world is so static that you instantly get a feeling of ”been there, done that, not again please”.
Once it feels like you’re a delivery boy running errands it’s time to spice things up and interrupt a well-known path with a new sudden threat or interesting encounter.
Or you know, just place the next quest location closer to where you are. If that’s boring then make the quest more fun. Maybe going from point A to B and back to A isn’t fun you know? Or give me a fun vehicle to drive.
I don’t understand why some are just accepting this nonsense mechanic. It’s literally ruining 99% of all open world games and making us skip potential great gameplay to end up just quickly plow through games staring at quest markers and hitting a button.
As said in the fast travel FF7 Rebirth thread there are so many ways to make traversal fun and fast travel is the most boring alternative there is.
It’s a mechanic that has been normalized to hide how static most game worlds are. A quest shouldn’t tell you the go back far away to a previous place if there is nothing fun happening or if the world is so static that you instantly get a feeling of ”been there, done that, not again please”.
Once it feels like you’re a delivery boy running errands it’s time to spice things up and interrupt a well-known path with a new sudden threat or interesting encounter.
Or you know, just place the next quest location closer to where you are. If that’s boring then make the quest more fun. Maybe going from point A to B and back to A isn’t fun you know? Or give me a fun vehicle to drive.
I don’t understand why some are just accepting this nonsense mechanic. It’s literally ruining 99% of all open world games and making us skip potential great gameplay to end up just quickly plow through games staring at quest markers and hitting a button.