I started out with a no FT rule when I had a whole few days set aside to just play Skyrim, but then after that weekend I was back at uni and had deadlines approaching so I only get a little while to play at a time.

No FT is all well and good for immersion, but unless you have massive chunks of uninterrupted time or don't mind playing for half an hour only to realise you've not done much other than sit on the back of a horse it can be awkward

Plus there are some areas you end up retreading so often that it becomes a chore, I found that the journey between Whiterun and Riverwood became quite a drag when I had to do the same journey a few times in a short space of time and had nothing of interest happen in the journey because I'd already killed everything and explored everywhere along the route.

I think the problem is that in Morrowind for example, there was no fast travel so the game was made around this idea with plenty of Silt-Striders, Teleports, boats etc. to get you around, because Oblivion and (to a slightly lesser extent Skyrim, thanks to carriages) have no or little transport infrastructure to support player travel without just fast travelling.

At Dawnstar for example I ended up talking to everyone around the dock hoping that they would provide travel to another dock and had no luck, it wouldn't take much to implement a few more options for travel, but it'd make playing without FT'ing all over the place much better.

It'd be great if Bethesda released a travel DLC for either free or a ￡0.99 price tag with the option to disable FT and add in more regular travel options, the Travel network on Morrowind was great.

i just dimmed my UI to the point where i dont notice the landmark markers on the compass, but can still tell if im low on health/stamina/mana. It works great for me.

Sometimes I use it, sometimes I don't, but I have never really noticed either style to effect my enjoyment of the game.Like others have mentioned for me it's a question of time constraints.

I'm just grateful we have the option to do either/or.

I know I would. RDR really nailed this mechanic.

On my current character, I'll try not to fast travel at all. So far it's going pretty well And the scenery is gorgeous.

Use it constantly, and enjoy it. It's great, because it lets me do so much more exploring and enjoying the world & scenery!

Good point regarding the horses, faster horses with a quicker dismount animation would make it much better, the Assassin's Creed games for example I would always travel normally because the horse actually travels at speed and rather than Skyrim/Oblivion where mounting and dismounting is such a slow disjointed process you leap on and off quickly and smoothly, which would be especially useful in Skyrim with it's lack of mounted combat.

I think either faster galloping or no stamina drain on horses and a quicker mount/dismount would make the process of non-fast travelling much more enjoyable, even for frequently trod ground.

Wow, not sure how that would work out for me but it's worth a try.....maybe.

Well, I'd use a horse but I can move faster than a horse on foot in this game, plus every bear and cat and wolf is attracted to the horses like they are bait. Gets tiring. I walk when in a new region but I spend too much time selling loot. I wish they had some vendors with more cash. Im not wasting 5 perks on the speech tree. I don't need money as much now so maybe I will walk more again. Walking around Skyrim does make it a better game to play. There is a balance between the scenery and getting something finished. I guess I havn't figured that out yet.

As much as I resisted it, fast travel kind of killed the joy from Oblivion for me. That's why, being a few years wiser, I decided to not use it at all in Skyrim. Not once. So far (54 hours in), I've only done one carriage ride and that was because I was anxious to see the outcome of a quest. Apart from that, I've taken my sweet time in roaming the countryside, stumbling upon ancient ruins or just cleverly placed chests here and there (which usually contain nothing useful, but that's another subject)

Elder Scrolls games are like a good dish, I'd say; you can gulp them down fast and get your kicks - its a good meal after all; but you can also take time to savour every bite and that's where they really shine, despite the bugs.

I use it much more sparingly than I used to, and it greatly improved my enjoyment of the game. It's not so much the "instant teleport" that gets to you, it's the constant load screens. Those really push you out of the game world more than anything else.

I don't FT. Its perfectly acceptable for someone else to want to use it though, each to their own I say.

I don't FT, I generally walk except when chasing or running from something or fighting, I have disabled all quest markers and the compass (but not the crosshair) and I don't allow myself to use any map other than the one that came in the game box. After I left Bleak Falls Barrow I was completely lost, came out the otherside of the mountain with no clue where I was, no FT, no compass, no map and my health low enough I was getting the beating sound (I disabled auto health regen too), man that was exciting. I managed to fight off a couple of wolves leaving me a single hit from away from death, then luckily I found some barn with a load of raw meat in it, stole the stuff and ate it, didn't taste great but at least it kep me alive. Eventually found a sign pointing to Whiterun and was able to deciper my location on the boxed map from that

I'm guessing most others would have found this sequence of events incredibly annoying rather than fun, but I loved it.

I use fast travel like I used it in Oblivion. A way to quickly get me somewhere I have already walked to a few times before.

One thing that a no or limited fast travel rule does, it makes you plan your questing. It helps to have several quest lines open a once. Following a single quest line, you go from A to B to C, then back to B, which encourages FT. But if you have multiple quest lines going at once, plus several misc quests, then you have something to do all over the map. So you look at the map and group together activities in the same area. Right now I'm heading from Whiterun to Solitude for the MQ, but on the way I can loop through The Reach and take care four other quests, then take care of another one in Hjalmarch before hitting Solitude. The traveling is part of the adventure.

to me fast travel turns it into a regular game. You lose alot of what this game is about if youre just warping everywhere. It turns a great expansive game to feel more like a linear game....and being a linear game is NOT a TES strength.

You lose half of the experience doing a dungeon run if you warp right to it. These games are more about the journey than the actual questing. Could you imagine playing Morrowind if all it was was dungeon-hub city- Dungeon?? it would be terrible. Have the fun in Morrowind was soaking up the atmosphere and pretending like you were there

The way they do it now is perfect. Both play styles can be accommodated. Myself, sometimes I'll walk and sometimes I'll FT. Sadly, the dungeons are my least favorite part of the game. They feel too similar. Not sure how they could be improved. But it's even more confusing when the quest item is out a second exit and across clear sky areas before hitting another dungeon.

If I'm hitting a place I've been to before, I'll ft to something nearby an approach from a new angle.

Can't live without fast travel, I'm too busy to just wander around.

Your welcome, I want to thank everyone also!

Cheers

I also dont fast travel because i plan my trips and i would in real life. I never just accept quest, complete, accept quest complete. I make journeys and plan to hit certain stops on the way.

I thought that at first...but not fast travelling over-leveled me alot. As consequence the level scaling wasn't so forgiving with me... Not mentioning all the tons of loot i'm missing because i can't carry them all.

No, it doesn't. As another poster already pointed out, the current system accommodates everyone. I don't use fast-travel anymore either for reasons many others have stated in this thread, but I see that as no reason to deny or limit the feature for other players who enjoy the convenience.

+1 for the OP. I never used Fast Travel in Oblivion either, it never occured for me to do so. One day I was on the forums talking about how it took me several hours (Earth Time) to walk from Cheydinhal to Anvil and somebody asked "why not fast travel"?

I had no idea what it was. Once I found out, it was like: why would I want to do that? Fast-travellers miss out on roughly half the game, all of its randomness, encounters, etc.

That being said, I "get" why people who use fast-travel all the time do so. Sometimes, it's just a matter of convenicence, sometimes they're playing other games and don't have time for a fuller TES experience.

But for anybody who really wants to put the "role" into their roleplay, cutting Fast Travel is the first step.

I limit myself to only using fast travel if my game crashes when I've traveled a great distance. Then it's usually a toss up between using FT to get back to where I was quickly or doing it all again but also coming across all the random encounters and such I found on the way that led to treasure/quests/ect. I haven't really had problems with crashes in awhile, though, so I don't have a reason to use it.

You there!!! Monkeybiscuit!! Are you telling me you can turn off the compass on the 360 version??? In order to do so I have to disable the whole UI??? That seems bad, how do you know how much health you have in a fight? Anyway, if this is true you just made my day, because I've been wishing I could turn that damned compass off. Well done monkeyboy, well done.

As for fast travel, I have been cutting it out lately. I still occasionally use it, but I find myself wanting to walk places just to take my time and absorb the world of Skyrim. It just feels good to set a destination and start walking.

I don't use fast travel when going somewhere for the first time or when it's not going to waste me too much time, but I'm not going to travel the same path 10x just because. That's just throwing away my real life time. If others like to do it, so be it, but you don't need to do that to role play.

I FT all the time, mainly because I do not want to take 20 minutes to walk to where I want to go. I get plenty of enjoyment out of the game. I have 500+ hours clocked on Vanilla Oblivion using fast travel, although in skyrim I only fast travel to the major cities. i walk otherwise.

If you don't use FT and you want to bring the Thieves Guild to full power, lol good luck with that then.