Making fast travel less automagical : V - Skyrim

» Thu Jun 23, 2011 11:19 am

I would atleast like a visual feedback of fasttraveling, instead of just magically apearing there. They have built a cool map system already, and my hopes is that you should see yourself and the road you take from a map perspective while fasttraveling.

» Thu Jun 23, 2011 11:27 am

Don't like fast traveling? Don't use it. I won't be, and I'm glad to see that Bethesda will be including a carriage system to make it easy to do so.

I do not see how anyone has any right to demand the removal of an optional feature that doesn't get in the way of anything and can easily be ignored, particularly if the bulk of the user base makes avid use of it.

This, I think people are ranting because they want something to rant about.

» Thu Jun 23, 2011 12:35 pm

It's not telliporting time passes, no cares that you can wait in the cold in one spot for 24 hours for a shop to open ect. Why care we can walk place to place with out walking there for the tenmillliomth time... it's optional. How do you move house in game with no fast travel it takes ages to move your stuff with it... If I had to walk to the carriage everytime in would take hours 'no' thx... Also I don't like saving and leaving my character in the middle of 'no' where and some time you just have to stop playing. I would t care if there where teleport spells which would be ridiculous by the way hmmm let's see an army teleports behind a city walls game over civil war ends in one battle, auldin teleports away from dragon born game over.... A their teleports between builds steels everything every where game over... Complaining about ft is like complaining about it not being real. It's a game get over it...

» Thu Jun 23, 2011 1:59 pm

I remember an RPG game franchise that did fast travel really well....

I'll get bashed for mentioning it though.

I don't mind fast travel on principal. I'd prefer to see particular places that you could travel to though, like you can only travel to settlements and then you have to walk into the wilderness in search of whatever you're looking for.

Settlements = cities, towns and villages.

» Thu Jun 23, 2011 2:27 am

Fast travel is designed for those who use it and thus is simple and quick and safe. Those things likely wont change.

» Thu Jun 23, 2011 3:25 am

Oblivion's Fast Travel easily eliminates the challenge of braving a trip back to safety after you've been especially battered, and removes the importance of coming prepared, considering how using it has no consequence.

get that nobody wants to constantly backtrack through familiar areas;

But that's no excuse to strip away the game's challenge like OB's FT has done.

Enemies and the world itself should always be a concern.

Ah, but here's the thing - with the way the respawn system worked in the previous Beth games (areas only respawn after 3 days have passed without a cell being loaded into memory), the guy who walks back and forth between town and a dungeon? Doesn't face any new hostility, or danger, or suffer any additional loss of items. Because "backtracking through familiar areas" has no danger, as there are no new enemies.

Which is exactly why I like FT in Oblivion and Fallout 3 - I like to explore, and not having to tramp back and forth on foot through huge swathes of NOTHING, allows me to use more of my limited time to tramp on foot to NEW places. Full of places I haven't seen and actual danger.

And the best way to keep the challenge while removing the tedium of normal travel is through a system akin to Fallout 1 and 2, with random encounters,

Yes, that would be a good addition.

Another one I thought of is plotting out your fast travel on the map between points you know. So, if you've been to a dungeon north of Anvil, and you've been to a dungeon north of Skingrad, but you haven't explored the places in between those two dungeons? Your FT path has to go through places you HAVE been... (south to Anvil, east along the road, north from Skingrad). This would make more time pass. Also, you could combine it with the "random encounter" concept, and have more chance of an encounter if your plotted path cuts straight across the wilderness. (Of course, the game could be programmed to pick this kind of path to start with - every location has a "closest town", and all FT routes are "return to closest town, travel between towns on roads, head out to other location". Unless both locations you're traveling between both have the same "closest town". Or something like that.)

» Thu Jun 23, 2011 3:10 am

snip

» Thu Jun 23, 2011 2:15 am

Or you can just use carriages and not touch fast travel if you don't like it, and let those who want to hop around the country do it their way. [/thread]

» Thu Jun 23, 2011 3:55 am

What does traveling the same road for the 100th time add to your game?

That said, fast travel is not teleporting, game time consumes, but you save actual real-life time.

» Thu Jun 23, 2011 3:06 pm

wont work

» Thu Jun 23, 2011 5:55 am

Why not do like the GTS ( Global Traveling System ) mod for Fallout 3, they had a motorcycle that your could press ''take a ride'' and you could end up at an random ambush with enemies, they could do something like that in Skyrim when fast traveling.

» Thu Jun 23, 2011 4:11 pm

I liked fast travel when it came to carrying 8 trips worth of plundered loot from a Marauder Base I had just cleared to make a bit of cash...

The rest of the time I just walked everywhere...I tried horses, but they made too much noise and kept getting eaten.

I imagine that dragons would eat my horse in Skyrim, much in the same way that Bloody Daedra ate them in Oblivion.

Either way....if I had known that the game was Based on fast travel I would have done it more, that's the problem with being a newby console gamer I suppose...I was dumb enough to choose how to use a tool I was given.

» Thu Jun 23, 2011 1:08 pm

It's a bit of a throwback but I think a dotted line moving across a map with a rotating sun/moon symbol is a pretty effective way of showing travel.

» Thu Jun 23, 2011 8:58 am

I know I've said this before, but fast-travel needs to exist for the soul purpose of making the game more widely accessible. You can complain all you want about how new, less "hardcoe" force the franchise to change, but the fact is that those same new players helped pay for the continued existence of the ES franchise.

This immersion argument doesnt make any sense! Why force players to "immerse" themselves in the universe any deeper than they want to? That choice should be left up to the player and the player alone. And walking for three hours isnt immersion, its a pain.

Immersion isn't only for hardcoe players... its a good thing for the world to feel more believable for any kind of player. No one is asking anyone to walk for three hours to get anywhere. Its COOL not boring and "old school" to have a CIVILIZATION where the stage is set for your game have actual travel options for people. the entire province of Cyrodiil, seat of the Empire and major commerce hub... has no transportation network? Are you kidding me? People act like its not legitimate to complain about removals of things like that because some people don't want to play a role, just play a game. OK, well then how about we go to some of the shooter games and say "Well, no one ever gets to actually fly planes, so... let's just have no planes be in WWII... eff it, we don't want to spend dev resources on that" or why don't they just take inns and taverns completely out of the TES series because if we no longer care about hardcoe RPers then there really isn't any use for places to rent beds and buy food. Right?

What a ridiculous argument to say that everything is only about mechanics and needs to be watered down for people. 3 hours walking? Yes, in Oblivion without fast travel it would take you 3 hours to walk somewhere... BECAUSE THERE WAS NO TRANSPIRATION NETWORK. I never walked anywhere for 3 hours in Morrowind. Yes there were places in the wilderness without travel options to get directly to them, but you could use the transportation network that did exist to easily be within 20 minutes of anywhere, and the great majority of quests were either much closer than that to the travel links or directly in the settlements you could travel to. Give me a break.

» Thu Jun 23, 2011 6:26 am

Or you can just use carriages and not touch fast travel if you don't like it, and let those who want to hop around the country do it their way. [/thread]

Agreed, there's nothing wrong with fast travel. I never understood where this idea of "teleportation" came from. I assume it is just hyperbole to try and make a point. It's no more or less "teleporting" than clicking on a silt strider and automagically appearing somewhere else. /shrug.

» Thu Jun 23, 2011 3:55 pm

your cost country romps.

Stopped reading after this...
:facepalm:

*Cross* country.
They put in both so those who don't like FT, can use strider-like carriages. Why change it, it's the best for everyone.

» Thu Jun 23, 2011 2:36 am

Agreed, there's nothing wrong with fast travel. I never understood where this idea of "teleportation" came from. I assume it is just hyperbole to try and make a point. It's no more or less "teleporting" than clicking on a silt strider and automagically appearing somewhere else. /shrug.

The difference is the strider goes between specific points and costs you resources to use. Fast travel lets you start your journey from any outdoor location and go to any point you've been to before as long as you aren't in combat, and costs you nothing and requires nothing for you to achieve to be granted the power to do so. It also eliminates the need for a better thought out transportation system, so in OB we got none, and in Skyrim its looking like we get a very handicapped one comparatively. That's the difference, and yes, it is telelporting because you can use it from anywhere to get to virtually anywhere without consequence after you've visited a few cities.

» Thu Jun 23, 2011 9:05 am

I believe everything is down to player discretion, if you want to do then do it, if you want to use then use it etc. There is nothing saying you have to do anything right away hence why TES games are amazing. If you are doing a 'fetch' side quest and it involves jumping around the world using fast travel but you don't want to use FT then postpone this side quest until you get to these settlements in your own time. I think the use of carriages will be a great tool, and very realistic.

» Thu Jun 23, 2011 7:48 am

I think you got yourself a pretty well thought out system OP. And I'm glad to hear carriages are in cause the fast traveling was pretty just..meh, in my personal opinion. I just hope there's a way to turn off FT cause I know myself too well to think that I'm gonna ignore fast travel unless it's off my map all together.

» Thu Jun 23, 2011 1:30 am

Are people here really arguing Bethesda should remove a feature not for their own personal preference but solely to force their personal game preference on others?

» Thu Jun 23, 2011 7:52 am

We could just give everyone daedric equipment at the start of the game: serious RPers will just ignore it anyways, amirite?

http://uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Auriel%27s_Bow_(quest)
http://uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Pilgrimages_of_the_Seven_Graces#Koal_Cave
http://uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Vassir-Didanat_Ebony_Mine

Yes, actually.

» Thu Jun 23, 2011 6:24 am

Or you can just use carriages and not touch fast travel if you don't like it, and let those who want to hop around the country do it their way. [/thread]

^ This, seriously -.- if you dont like it, then dont use it... <_<

» Thu Jun 23, 2011 3:01 pm

^ This, seriously -.- if you dont like it, then dont use it... <_<

Should still be optional. Cause let's face it no matter how dedicated to the RP you are, if you're about to die, and you know you got enemies on either side of you blocking either path out of, let's say, the canyon you're stuck in, but they're far enough away to use it, fast travel is that tempting, shiny-red-button you just have to press.

» Thu Jun 23, 2011 2:01 am

Teleporting all over the world in Oblivion was a little more than over the top. I'm pretty sure most forum-goers are against its implementation. But, Good News! Carriages (Silt striders in disguise) are in! However, if the Oblivion style fast travel is in as well, that means carriages become useless after I visit all the cities.

I think it should go to the daggerfall style of fast travel, where you incur costs for your cost country romps. This also helps remove the illusion of teleportation, acts as a (small) moneysink to help balance the economy, and improves other forms of fast travel by making them more viable. When you choose to go somewhere, you can take the carriage, pay some gold, and nothing bad happens. But if you want to go somewhere in the wilderness, you have different options.

You could A) Use inns, were you would stop at inns and only take roads. This takes longer, and incurs a gold cost from your bed and food tabs.
Or you could B) camp out, were you beeline to your objective. Also, you automatically eat any food in your inventory to survive (even if in a non-hardcoe game, should hardcoe be implemented), eating more the longer the trip. Should you run out of food, the trip will take longer and you will incurr a gold cost for buying provisions. Also, (in hardcoe) a small chance to catch regional diseases from the places your passing through.

This makes you give more thought to traveling, as well as increasing the importance of disease (because you used to almost never catch it). And a final idea: the 30:1 timescale is far too quick, and a longer timescale is wanted by a majority in all the polls that show up. The biggest argument for the 30:1 is that it breaks immersion to travel across a country in a few hours. Possible solution: a 12:1 timescale. However, the game automatically makes fast travel many times slower than normal travel would be.

EDIT: Apparently B followed by a parantheses makes a cool smiley.

The problem with you arguement is that the map in daggerfall was over 62,000 sq miles while Oblivion was 16 sq miles (Skyrim to be about the same size). So in daggerfall it made sense you needed to pay for inns, food etc because you were traveling long distances that extended beyond a day. In OB/SK implementing this kind of inn/travel system wouldnt make sense. Regardless of how you are traveling it wouldnt take long to cover 16 sq miles. If they changed the time scale to make it happen it just wouldnt be logical, it takes me 3 days to travel 10 miles on horse back?

» Thu Jun 23, 2011 10:35 am

Should still be optional.

It is?... You have the option to use it, or to not use it...

Cause let's face it no matter how dedicated to the RP you are, if you're about to die, and you know you got enemies on either side of you blocking either path out of, let's say, the canyon you're stuck in, but they're far enough away to use it, fast travel is that tempting, shiny-red-button you just have to press.

Then your not a dedicated RPer, take your death like a man! Or woman =p