Fast Travel is optional though...

True fast travel is optional, but I think the point was that without using it you are relegated to running or riding everywhere and there is no other means of transportation.

Call of Pripyat maybe, Shadow of Chernobyl didn't seem all that bad to me. Sure, you have to walk around, what of it? I ran into mutants, Monolith, Stalkers, Bandits, Military, Artifacts, and quest options.

A couple things:

1) FT in Oblivion is in no different context than it was in Morrowind. In Morrowind, silt striders, boats, etc. simulated you using those forms of transportation to get from one place to another. In Oblivion, FT simulates you walking/running/riding your horse to that place. Test it out if you want... Increase your speed with a spell, use a horse, or get into sneak mode and see how much longer it takes to get from A to B. Time goes by, temporary abilities/spells wear off, etc. So why do people keep saying it is instant teleportation and makes no sense!? You still had to discover that place in order to FT to it in the first place (except the main cities), so at one point you had to get to it on your own... So how does it break immersion? You never got interrupted while using FT in Morrowind iirc.

2) It's optional. That should be enough: If it breaks immersion, then you wouldn't use it. If you don't have the time or think it is tedious to run to the same place after 100 times, then use it. FT in Oblivion was not a problem. The real problem with it is that there weren't more options like there were in Morrowind.

3) There should be more forms of transportation, so I'm not proposing to keep the Oblivion method of FT or walking, but I don't understand how even after all this time people still don't know what FT was in Oblivion.

Try it out:

1. Start in Leyawiin
2. Overload your char to the point of being immobile.
3. Use a Feather spell, scroll or potion to be able to move at all.
4. Run to Anvil. See if you reach the city.
5. Repeat the same, but use Fast Travel instead.

Conclusion: If at Point 5 you come to about the same point as with Point 4, and have to stop to re-apply the Feather, it's not teleportation. If, on the other hand, using Point 5 you reach Anvil, it is.

Draw your own conclusions.

People keep on saying that you can just not use the option if you want to but what if there was a 20 foot tall parrot in the middle of Tamriel that screamed obscenities at you and talked down to the game industry?

Uh, bad metaphor... But what I'm trying to say is that sometimes fast travel is too tempting to use, and simply having that option there is immersion breaking and you feel like your cheating yourself.

Yeah, that's a flaw in the way it was coded and an exploit, and not proof that it doesn't simulate you walking/running to Anvil... It doesn't readjust itself during the trip, but that would be kind of a pita. The reason they probably didn't put the time to get around something like that is because they could assume the player could recast that spell during the trip. However, in the case of a scroll/potion, a player may have only one use of that. FT is still a simulation of your character running/walking. It wasn't perfect, but it wasn't instant teleportation either.

Sure it's a proof. FT in Oblivion doesn't simulate the walking, running or riding a horse (if it would, the example above wouldn't allow you to skip to Anvil), it just adds some game time based on the distance - and not even the real, travelling-on-the-roads distance, but straight-line distance.

It's one example of where it is flawed... They obviously didn't code it to account for things like that, nor did they account for weird paths that you could take. But what's your point? Just because it doesn't calculate it "perfectly" that means it isn't a simulation of walking? Even if it only takes your current speed and uses the straight-line distance from where you are to your destination, that is still simulating how long it would take for you to get there under "ideal" conditions... That is obviously not instant teleportation. It is just a simple way to estimate the time it would take for you to get somewhere you've already been.

If it doesn't simulate walking, etc. then what is it doing?

I feel this topic has been talked to death with in many other forums.

But....

Yes auto travel should be optional

Easy auto travel.
1. How it was in Oblivion, FO3, and FONV. No changes easy to maneuver to any major location.

Auto travel with rules.
2. Only travel to main cities with the use of a taxi/slit strider type system that has limited locations to take.
Make sure these systems have a good number in the game and develope many series of sytems so its not just major cities but maybe a mine cart, ferry, and such to other series of locations.
Mark and Recall could be a nice quest line reward or is that to much?

Let's see...

* Limited Fast Travel in TES3:Morrowind:
Silt Striders
Ships
Boats/Gondola's
Mages Guild teleportation
Propylons
Almsivi Intervention
Divine Intervention
Mark/Recall

* Full Fast Travel in TES4:Oblivion:
Here comes the famous Argonian Adventurer; Clicks-On-Map: *click*

My preference goes out to the 'limited' approach from TES3 in this case, as it was way more diverse, immersive and interesting in my opinion than the 'click-you're-there'. And I see lots of exaggerating here with people claiming it took them 20 minutes something to figure out where to go; when all you needed was a little http://images.uesp.net//9/99/FullMap_TravelRoutes.png on your desk

I would enjoy morrowind fast travel, but with a greater density
essentially so you only have to walk to and from things that are SUPPOSED to be secluded.

It's guessing. Badly. Well, ok, not really; the correct term is that it tries to model the travel, but the algorithm for that is very, very flawed.

Simulation means that you're cutting the thing you're trying to simulate into multiple chunks (as many as possible given your hardware, algorithm and time constraints) and work chunk after chunk, altering the state of your world model at each step, until you arrive at some end-of-simulation point (reaching your end destination, reaching a point where you have to stop walking, and so on). It also means that your simulation tries to match the thing you're simulating as closely as possible. Oblivion's fast travel doesn't simulate anything at all; it's just a one-step algorithm, not a step-by-step simulation.

Completely agree with this. It was also really well done in Red Dead Redemption. Horse and Cart/Train and there was always something going on in the background if you chose to sit and wait for the journey.

Having optional features that make the game ridiculously easy just sort of ruins the whole idea of an adventure game.

The idea of Adventure RPGs is that you have a world laid out before you, and that world has its own rules, laws and quirks. If you can toggle whatever gameplay aspects you want at the flip of a switch, it just ruins the point of the entire thing and totally breaks immersion. The fun of these things is that it feels like you are walking into a world that is not your own, if the difficulty is totally customizable then it just feels like one big fraud.

Theres been a lot of discussion on the topic before, and I've thought about it a lot too.

Most people want some kind of fast travel system, every game in the TES series has had it in some form or another its just that Oblivions was more agregious than the others. Morrowind had you find silt striders, boats or use spells. Daggerfall had a system like Oblivions but it drew greater attention on how long each journey would take.

I would prefer a system which fits in with the lore of the game, and which provides enough freedom that people dont feel as though they have to walk huge distances if they dont want to. So I would like to see rides on whatever Skyrims version of the silt strider, spells, and teleporter services. But to make it open to new players and those that find themselfs stuck in the middle of nowhere at low levels there needs to be a low level spell that is easily castable by almost every character which teleports your chatacter to the nearest mages guild (or whatever fits within the lore of the game)

Thats my thoughts. Fast travel is good, so long as it can be justified within game lore.

I guess they could do autotravel but make it optional and so that you could set it to on and off before the game.
People keep saying that if you don't want to use autotravel or a compass, then don't use them. That was not an option in Ob and FO3. You see, in Mw there were teleportation spells, teleportation services, stilt striders and boats if you had to get around fast. When you didn't know how to get somewhere or if it was for a quest then people gave you directions verbally or gave you a hand drawn map with the directions. In Ob it was just, let me mark it on your map, follow the green arrow.

Looking back now it made sense to have fast travel in Ob, seeing how bland and generic the landscape was. I seriously hope we get fast travel services back and that people give you directions in Skyrim. If that were to happen then then fast travel and green arrow should be toggleable(sp?) but I doubt that is going to happen and the system will be like it was in Ob and FO3, which is a shame. It is not a simple matter of not using it if the game was built around it. Much like the OOO level scaling fixer mod didn't actually fix the game because the game wasn't built around a non scaling system. Level scaling and fast travel, I don't know if they thought that they were good ideas or shortcuts that they used so they'd have to work less or both, but they pretty much ruined Ob for me.

I had just joined the forums to add my two cents to this thread. So please bare with me as I have not read all of the pages, just about five so far.

Personally I believe there is a common ground that can be found. Albeit I believe there is another feature that COULD greatly add to this. Anyone else remember the hardcoe mode from Fallout: NV? Fast traveling gave you more hunger, thirst, and sleep deprivation. Certainly that could add to the immersion and add greatly to that fast travel feature. Of course a hardcoe mode could have the option of not being used at all like in New Vegas. Also I believe that the Morrowind way of fast travel could also add to this. IE: Boats, mages, spells, and silt striders. I'm not saying all of those have to be implemented into the game, but say if you use those you don't lose as much hunger, or thirst, or sleep deprivation, however the catch is that you lose money. Checks and balances is all it is. Adds immersion. Of course I'd still love to see something like horses still be in the game, because it gives another option of travel. Obviously the more the options the more it appeals to everyone, right? As for those who like the Oblivion style (and don't like it) there can be an option to turn it on/off. And for those people who like to explore. How about still give decent details in the journal like the Morrowind way and be able to turn off the target location entirely?


Just my two cents. And joined the forum to put them.

EDIT: Of course the hardcoe mode would be tweaked for TES.

it would make the fast travel system used pretty insignificant if the 'journey' to your destination through unforgivable wilderness was more of a journey and less of a stroll with pests that must be brushed off every once in a while
if they had to PREPARE and PLAN rather than just rushing off in the right direction
then the journey would be worth it.
maybe that's a viable option

Agreed, that's a flaw. But not a fundamental one, either. (ie, if anything, it only points to a potential for more refinement within the current system - I don't see as how this in particular would point toward any reason to throw "Oblivion-style" fast travel out, altogether.) If we try hard enough, we can contrive these sorts of logical "breaks" within the game for just about any game mechanic within the game.

If I get on a Silt Strider, I hit a loading screen, the game calculates how much time has passed, and then I find myself at my destination. If I fast travel in Oblivion, I hit a loading screen, the game calculates how much time has passed, and then I find myself at my destination. I can dig that matters of immersion are subjective - as it's an opinion, it doesn't "have" to be justified. But to me, the two methods are pretty much the same thing. In both instances I'm presuming that my character has traveled a set distance (either on foot, or via transport shouldn't make any difference.)

Anyway, my point is that time passes in either case. There's probably room for improving the algorithm involved in determining that via fast travel. Personally, I don't think about it enough to care one or another, but if that helps other people - I'd be all for it.

Yeah, I agree with this, in principle. But I don't really feel that how you fast travel around is much of a factor in matters of difficulty. If I'm Oblivion-travelling somewhere - I still have to have been there, once before. So any "difficulty" to be found in actually exploring that area is the same regardless. If it's too hard for my character at a certain level to actually find a place - I can't "make things easier" and fast travel there, anyway.

Besides, I've always found that what's actually difficult in a game isn't physically getting to a place - but more what you find when you get there. Personally, I've very rarely died on my way to a new cave or dungeon that I was going to be able to actually fully explore, in the first place.

I just don't think difficulty is much of a factor - no matter what the method of travel used. I certainly didn't use Oblivion-travel because I wanted to make the game easier. I'm already spending tons of hours with the game - I just wanted to get where I was going, occasionally. Without having to muck around with walking from Point A to Point C when all I really wanted to do was get to Point B in the limited time I actually have to play these games.

My point was that it's not simply a "flaw", but a proof that the fast travel in Oblivion isn't a simulation of travelling. Neither is the one in Morrowind, but most of the fast travel there was instantaneous anyway - Intervention spells, Mark/Recall, mage guild teleports, propylon indexes all were.