To me, fast travel completely breaks the illusion of an open world. I have no problem with it being an option, so long as the game doesn't practically force me to use it. NV for instance was almost impossible to play without fast travel, because there is little to do in that game other than quests (which send you back and forth all over the map), and because the world is so sparse. In Skyrim, I could simply ignore the quests other than the MQ and just have fun exploring everything along my chosen path. I also ignored picking up vendor trash and just lived off the land. No backtracking, no need to fast travel. The game is 1000x more fun to play that way, for me. Once I start doing quests and hoarding loot to vendor, fast-travel quickly becomes a habit, and I start to feel that it's the game playing me, rather than the other way around.

I honestly dont see how anyone could possibly enjoy not fast traveling. (Though apparently some do)

People keep saying you miss things... How is that possibly true.

Lets say my home base is at (A) I currently standing in ( B.) now I want to go to ( C).


Other than some abstract concept that you are really in the game and wasting several real life hours what on earth is gained by walking from (B .) -> ( A) gearing up then walking back (A) -> ( .B.) then continuing on to C.

You have already been between A&B several times. There is nothing to see or do that you haven't already seen or done. Instead you are wasting your valuable time repeating mindless walking that could be spent exploring "New" areas.


I am not just ranting I am honestly asking. If anyone has an answer other than immersion im interested.



Grrr stupid forced emotes.

To me, it depends more on how much the game rewards players for eschewing fast travel. I always like to have the option, but it's up to the developers to keep the travelling portions fresh and interesting. To my mind, one thing a videogame should never be is tedious - fast travel exists to cut out tedium. If you can remove or minimize the tedium of back-tracking through areas you've already seen tons of times, then you've already gone a fair ways towards making fast travel superfluous.

To me, fast travel is like the narrator of a story or the GM of a tabletop game saying "you went to your destination and nothing interesting happened." So it's great for areas where you know nothing interesting is going to happen anymore. Obviously, I'll physically walk to places I haven't explored yet or if there's still a lot of fog of war on the map in an area - and even after I've already made a trek out somewhere once or twice it's often still worth checking back to see if there's anything I missed the first two times. After that, it's time for me to start fast-traveling if I'm going that way again.

There are games where I don't feel the need to fast travel, though - where the gameplay provides enough entertainment and there's enough emergent and procedural gameplay along the traveling portions to keep me entertained at least through most of the game. I still think Red Dead Redemption did the best with this of any game I've played:

You had your standard fast-travel where you could "make camp" and then go to any location on the map, so long as it was a discovered location. You could also take a carriage to anywhere on the map you wanted so long as you could make it one of their set locations. And you could also take a train which would fast-travel you along the rail route and stop at it's stations.

The other nice thing about the transport options was that you could "fast forward" the traveling so that you instantly fast-traveled, or you could also just sit back and enjoy the scenery as the transport took you to the destination. I don't think graphics always matter, but in this case it kind of does - you're less likely to "fast forward" at a time like that if the scenery is pretty enough to keep you entertained. When I played that game I often enjoyed just taking a train ride for the fun of it.

But even more importantly you could simply take your horse and physically travel the regular way. A mount gives you a means to travel more quickly and cut down on travel time, obviously, and again if the scenery is interesting enough then that itself can be a good way to encourage players to avoid fast-travel. Even more importantly than that, you had gameplay reasons to go out and physically trek from place to place, even if they were routes you'd already grown used to. For one, there were the random encounters to keep things interesting - eventually you get to a point where you've seen all those events but you can always have more and varied ones. For another you did have lots of collection side-quests to complete if you really wanted to get everything in the game.

I found the easiest way to collect all those flowers and animals and other miscellaneous stuff out in the game was just to ride everywhere I was going - just by not fast-traveling I was able to keep an eye out for the flowers I would need or find the animals I needed to hunt. And I got a pretty good idea of the lay of the land from all that riding around, which made it easier for me to spot the landmarks I'd need to keep an eye out for when it came time to track down the treasure locations.

I also very rarely fast-travel in the Assassin's Creed games for similar reasons. For one, I find it very immersive to just spend time being in the world and enjoying the sights as I simply walk around the city trying to blend in and not raise undue attention. For another there's always collection stuff and secrets to find, and an easy way to run into those is to just take your time and pay attention - I've found more flags and nodes and whatever in those games simply by walking around between destinations and keeping my eyes open than anything else.

So in short I don't think fast-travel actually undermines important parts of the game - it's something that players will use when an area has nothing further to offer them. I've used fast-travel extensively in Fallout 3 and New Vegas, but also managed to explore and find 100% of the locations on the map, including the hidden locations (admittedly, some of those required use of the guide...)

But I also fully endorse game mechanics that make fast-travel less tempting. That requires "immersive" environments that themselves are enjoyable to visit, random encounters to keep things fresh and interesting, and in-game reasons to continue to explore areas and search for things you may have missed (collection quests being the obvious solution there, but there's always more than one way to skin a cat.)

My first play I try not to as much as possible and honestly due to loading screen hangs & crashes I also used it very little but after even one play through fast travel is almost needed to speed things up. the choice is better than no choice you can play as you want which is the best part of Bethesda games!

It depends entirely on how good the spawn system is. Before Endless Warfare and Random Encounters New Vegas was a downright boring trek to go from point A to point B. In that case you aren't missing anything at all. If the vanilla spawn system is good or you have mods that add spawns and every trip becomes different and new. Once I installed Endless Warfare and set it up so that I could encounter a cazadore or deathclaw anywhere, then travelling on foot became 1000X more appealing and I haven't used fast travel in New Vegas for probably a good 100 hours of gameplay.

I fast travel often because my game time is limited. Primarily I use it when I get to a new destination and I want to dump loot I acquired on the way to that destination. Then I fast travel back to the new place and pick up where I left off. Now once I have done a series of quests or completed the game, I will go to a distant place on the map via fast travel and then look around to see if any places I have not yet discovered pop up on my Pipboy. If anything does, I walk toward it and discover a new place, loot it and fast travel back to base, and repeat.

Since you have to find a place before you can fast travel to and from it, I head canon it by imagining that the PC now knows the route, and therefore knows the safest and quickest way to and from that location. I wouldn't mind if in Fallout 4 they incorporated some type of random encounter or ambush into the fast travel system, might make it more acceptable to old school players, and fun for all players.

I use Fast Travel to avoid repetition. Abusing a Game Mechanic has always cheapened a Game.

Or like Tenpenny Tower. So much quicker to FT from the balcony to the front of the building, opposed to 3 loading screens.

Fast travel, to me, is a tool.

I use it when I have an "oh crap, I need X-Item for Y-Situation", so I pop back to go get it rather than making it a long journey for a single item...after all I'm going for a weapon in my storage, not the damn water chip.

If I don't need it, I don't use it.

It's also handy for when it's about time to get to work/school/whatever and you wanna turn a quest in or do something real quick without budgeting time for the journey. A measure of convenience in the modern age, used both nobly by some, sparingly or not at all by others and horribly abused based on the individual.

Fast travel ruined Beth games. It put the focus on 'levels' and 'completion' more than living another life. Morrowind has no fast travel and is no worse for it. The only means of travel in their games should be actual transportation within the world ie boats and carriages, not opening up a map and teleporting there.

Morrowind has the most extensive travel options of any Beth game that I've played. Makes the Fast Travel of OB/FO3/SK look pitiful by comparison.

The only caveat to that is that it takes an hour or two of setup before you can use it. But then, once you've gotten past the absolute start of the game, you can bounce around that world at will. Even to and from deep within dungeons (Mark/Recall), which none of the other games have let you do.

edit: and, most of Morrowind's travel actually is teleporting, unlike the accusations that anti-FT people tend to keep throwing at FT in the other games.

Read my post again and consider editing your post.

I feel this is a dire exaggeration, like how every patch for DOTA or League of Legends "ruins the game" according to someone each and every time.

Just because it's there, doesn't mean you have to use it. It's called self control. It's that little passive instinct in your brain that goes "I COULD eat my brothers Kit Kat he's been saving in the freezer for three weeks...I mean, it's right there, in front of me, I could do it...But I'm not going to." There, self control saves the Kit Kat for it's rightful owner.

Fast travel is a choice.

I don't use it routinely, but if you get stuck, it is extremely useful.

Yeah, objectively false. Fast travel is a convenience and you are not forced to use it. They provide alternative travel for players that do wish to avoid fast travel. It existing in your game does not hinder the gameplay.

How?

Keep in mind that Morrowind was the only of Bethesda's RPGs to not include map fast travel - for Arena and Daggerfall it was absolutely necessary to use fast travel (although you technically could forgo fast travel in Daggerfall and complete the game, that would involve real-time days of trekking across a massive, procedurally generated, and boring worldmap). The Fallout 3 system is ideal - fast travel to locations you've already discovered, which means you still need to actually walk the world to get anywhere; but you don't need to backtrack anywhere.

Thats your opinion.

Without fast travel their games would not be half as popular as they are now. They also would have much much smaller worlds.

yeah is a option on a game, i normally dont use it i just walk/ride to any place i want.

Considering you actually have to travel somewhere first in order to fast travel to it, I don't see how it hinders exploration. While working your way to a location, you'll still be seeing things and finding new locations.

Unless you download a mod that opens all map markers and enables them for fast travel off the bat. But then that's on your head. Kinda like those that use the console to boost their stats or enable god mode and then complain the game is too easy.

And it's not as if it's instant teleport as time does pass in game. Sometimes more time passes that might have has you actually walked straight there.

It's an option, you only use it when you want to. If you can't stop yourself, don't go complaining that it ruined your game.

As long as the basic game still needs you to discover/travel to the location once before you can fast travel to it I'm good.

There are mechanics in Bethesda's Elder Scrolls and previous Fallout title that can be easily abused?. Fast travel is no different, if you feel it spoils the game for you don't use it.

I found I needed to use fast travel extensively in Skyrim if I didn't want to end up over encumbered with dragon scales and bones. The only draw back seemed to be the occasional spawn of vampires at the location as well that killed NPCs (a solution was to spawn to the stables and then wait till morning before entering a settlement).

With FO3 I don't recall random encounters being an issue and the environment didn't respawn quickly (it's been a long time since I played, there may have been mods to speed up/put in respawns).

Walking through an area that has been respawnedmight serve some purpose. Moving through an area that has already been cleared and doesn't have any encounter to offer is pretty dull. ??

exactly

But... but... if you fast travel from the balcony of Tenpenny Tower to the front door, you miss out on ALLLLLL that exploration and random encounters.

Hey look there's gum on the 39th step!

a) Game worlds are larger

Some of us don't have a lot of free time to waste precious gaming hours simply walking....