Pumps shotgun.

Ok!



...Nah, I too hope they have a sense of balance.

yes at least some of those problems were corrected in FNV

Indeed. Obsidian did a great job in that aspect. And basically every other aspect with that game.

It's like this really, they've added dual wield (that's not my problem) and
imagine if they release a perk that allows you to dual-wield Two-Handers with enough strength.
I know that this for a lot of people, would break immersion and thus part of their experience

Then they'll probably hear "Don't like it , then don't use it" but I can very well imagine that this becomes almost a requirement
to do the difficuilt stuff. Then they'll be faced with: Break immersion and do someting I'd rather not to be better, or not.

The same thing with fast travel really, the problem is that Oblivion is build around it, so you'll receive crazy quests to fetch something on the other side of the world.
Or better yet, the quest compass, 'Don't like it, don't use it", sure I'll find the cave without directions <_<

I know what you were going for there but you fell a little short. Comparing OB fast travel to duel wielding two handed swords was a bad choice. An entire game world can be built around a travel system but not around a perk. As I said I don't care one way or the other and if some of you want travel systems i'm cool with that but a perk that lets you dual wield 2-handed swords is not an all encompassing game mechanic such as traveling or alchemy. In other words such a perk could not possibly ruin the whole game for me but i guess i can understand how the OB FT could ruin someone's game.

while part of me hopes that skyrim has this or doesnt have that, i think essentially we are all here for the same reason: we love the elder scrolls, and the way that gamesas handle them.

all of us here have contradicting ideas of what should/should not be implemented, and i think on general terms the team do a great job at making a game that works. it is impossible for them to incorperate everything we all want because we all want something slightly different...so my attitude towards it is i'll let them make the decisions based on what they think is best, and hope that i love it as much as the other entrys!

As I said, the Dual-Wielding was but one example.
I'll admit it wasn't a really good one but still just one example

I think that fast travel is one thing where 'options' will actually make the game better. I don't think that Oblivion-style fast travel would actually feel all that tempting if there was a Morrowind-style travel network in the world.

The problem in Oblivion was that there was NO OTHER OPTION, especially if you felt stupid riding a badly-animated horse that played more or less like driving a car in Grand Theft Auto.

This is a two-pronged spear of fail: firstly, those not wanting to fast travel had to walk backwards and forwards a ridiculous amount (made worse by the thoughtless quest planning with respect to location), and secondly there was no in-game explanation for how the average trader gets from one town to the next. That last point is IMHO the worst aspect of having no travel network.

I really don't think that an included Oblivion style fast travel option would be that hard to ignore, as long as Morrowind-style alternatives were in place. If some people enjoy Oblivion-style fast travel, why not include it? Then everybody is happy. Just don't make the game revolve around it as Oblivion did.

Concerning stuff like combat and character development, balance is important. Here, the 'don't want it don't use it' argument fails because it svcks all the challenge out of the game. Seriously, making up excuses in your head for not using the overpowered options is not fun, and it's not good game design to have to do that. The game should be an interesting puzzle: how do I make this character succeed at what I intend to do with him? Having some 'uber option' that is ALWAYS the best choice, and you have to make up excuses in your head for why you avoid this option, destroys the puzzle aspect.

The game should be balanced! Balanced in a way that highlights the differences between character builds. Think Starcraft. You have to play completely differently for each race, but (in theory at least) no option is overpowered.

I like options that can be disabled in the menu, not just ignored.

If you have to ignore a feature that can be abused, then sometimes I end up using it due to tiredness or frustration...then I feel bad about it and have to decide if I want to go back to an earlier save or not.

Imagine if in Oblivion the devs put a full set of daedric armor and 10000 gold in the starting prison and people complained because it completely unbalanced things and some people wanted it gone in a patch, would anyone say "Don't want it, don't pick it up"? Thats sort of what fast travel is like.

I hate balance, either something is useful or it isn't. If something is useful to balance it means nerf it to useless. That's one of the reasons I don't play MMO's.
I don't think if you don't want it don't use it is an argument at all, it's friendly advice don't put yourself through something you don't enjoy. Don't like being around smokers? Sit in the non-smoking section.

You should be able to gain something that is a bit over powered for your current situation, by risking your life and going into a place that is a bit high level for your current situation, or if you can survive and go into a place way beyond your current level and can return with a really over powered item, then you have earned it and should enjoy it, and it gives a lot of satisfaction to earn and use such an item or power.

But if some item, or some system mechanism, or some other situation that is quite over powered is easily available for anybody that likes to use it, then it can be quite game breaking, and would not reward much satisfaction when used more than a bunch of time and can really ruin the game for a lot of us.

Those situation should be solved.

And one such over powered power was Chameleon and Invisibility that let you dance into any dangerous place and take an item and again disappear and return, and I have a written for such a situation, but I do not have time to search for it.

But what if the place your at is your favorite restaurant and they decided to change the non-smoking section to smoking as well? You want to eat there because you love the food so much, but you have to sit in the smoking section in order to eat there in the first place, even though you despise it.

Now compare this to Oblivion being designed around the half-assed fast travel mechanic. Unless you really want to walk or ride a horse around the boring and generic landscape, you basically have no choice.

I'll say this much. If they take Oblivion's fast travel mechanic and make it have chances to where you can be stopped in mid travel by an enemy (thus giving it a negative as well as a positive), then I'll accept it.

EDIT: Sorry to bring up fast travel again, but I can't really think of anything else at the moment that backs up my claim.

i sort of do that too. ill do the first few playthroughs of skyrim normally as different classes but after awhile i just premake my characters with consoles and slow levelling down to almost nonexistent so that im essentially a static character with occasional level ups. it makes the game feel more natural to me since i dont go from tadpole to megashark on literally only a few ingame weeks or months. its easier to believe that i can become the head of some guild or save the world if im already an established assassin or warrior with high skill levels which SHOULD take years to hone and perfect, not 50 hours.

Then the problem is with the "boring and generic landscape" instead of the fast travel mechanic.

in a way, preserving balance is simply about preserving fun. if a game is too easy at hardest difficulty setting for a particular player, it becomes boring. If it is challenging enough to keep him engaged, then it is more fun.

It's really with both. Because even if you were to have an exciting and unique landscape filled with friend and foe alike, what's to stop you from using fast travel to not traverse it since there are no negatives associated with it?

people that are opposed to oblivions fast travel are NOT opposed to fast travel altogether. we just want some sort of negative to it such as having to spend gold otherwise its just the same as using the coc console command. the whole issue of fast travel would go away if they just did what they had in daggerfall. if you want to fast travel its gonna cost you some gold and you should have random encounters. its not as immersive as morrowinds system but its a happy medium for people that cant be bothered to run to the nearest form of transportation which takes all of 30 seconds.

im not sure how they are doing it in skyrim but i would even like some sort amulet or scrolls that you could either buy or get from a quest as a reward. sort of like those intervention scrolls in morrowind. the scrolls would be one time use and the amulet could be used more than once but have to be recharged or wait for it to recharge on its one say 12 hours and would recall you to any previously visited location. this way you have cost to it and its believable and it works anywhere outside.

This would please me, and I'm sure EVERYONE, greatly. :thumbsup:

I think Bethesda is going with Fallout 3 style fast travel, which is "you cannot fast travel ANYWHERE at the start of the game".

That said, it also sounds like they're adopting FO3 style Random Encounters, which should liven up the roads and wilderness a bit.

Let me make sure I understand correctly.

1. Fast travel breaks immersion, which is a bad thing from the perspective of those who are craving a more immersive experience, but it's a bit too boring in a game like Oblivion, for example, to walk everywhere because of the boring and generic landscape.

2. Since we can expect Oblivion/Fallout style fast travel to be incorporated in Skyrim, it would be nice to also have a way to fast travel that is organic to the roleplaying experience (morrowind teleport spells, travel network, etc.).

3. Imagine there is no Morrowind style travel network but the devs have miraculously discovered a way to rid the landscape of boredom and traversing the land on foot (or mammoth) turns out to be the most entertaining and non-boring experience ever.

4. However, it is a bittersweet victory because you are now worried that there's nothing to stop you from clicking on the map marker to use fast travel anyways?

i'm a bit confused about the last one.

EDIT: I think I understand from reading the other post. Even if the landscape is no longer boring and generic, you actually prefer to have the convenience of fast travel available. But you would like to see some kind of % to be interrupted by a random encounter on the roads, or similar drawback to using fast travel.

Balance is an especially tricky issue in an open-world series with a do-what-you-want ethos. If you make the game overly challenging for min-maxed, combat-focused characters, it will be too difficult to play other types of characters. TES is about exploring interesting places/situations/skillsets, not about tightly balanced tactical combat. Combat needs to be difficult enough that the player feels skilled/powerful, but not so challenging that it limits player freedom. Player responsibility for directing/balancing their in-game experience is the inevitable price of that freedom. Some folks prefer more external constraints. I see Bethesda as needing to chart a course that takes into account the enjoyment of both types of players--while remaining true to the essence of the series. Open-world, do-what-you-want CRPGs aren't for everyone, but it's good to keep the door as wide open as possible without sacrificing what makes these games special.

^Edit: Well said. Wisdom for the ages.^


You say: I hate balance.
I hear: I like cheats.


Sure if your 30 secs away from one. I spent more than a thousand hours in MW believe me I know when I tell you that there are many places (especially on the north coast) that are 15-20 min from the nearest transportation and if you want to go all the way to the other side of Vardenfel you'll have to transfer 2-4 times.

Ask yourself, if it was so perfect why did they change it? Realistic as it may be Morrowind's travel system left a lot to be desired. They attempted to change it and didn't hit the mark but they will try again. I'm sure Bethesda has thought of every contingency and selected a system that best fits with the overall game.

I'm all for game balance, just as long as this 'balance' isn't the world balancing itself around me every single level.

As to the whole Fast Travel issue (and yes I'm talking to you too Sleign); nobody ever said it to be an 'either-or' issue. So I hope Bethesda will just put in both Oblivion style Fast Travel for those who like it, and Morrowind style Travel Options for others who like that. Then we can finally end this constant bickering and go on with our lives.

It seems that I have to write my suggestion for such situations yet another time:

We - can - have - game - worlds - that - can - satisfy - any - type - of - players - and - be - suitable - for - any - character - and - player - skill - level - if - we - follow - this - simple - rule :

Make a game world with absolutely no level scaling, or very minimal form of it, but some randomization.

Make it big enough that we can have a lot of different areas suitable for any kind of characters, newbie characters, mid level characters, high level characters, and areas that are too hard even for high level characters.

Newbie areas should be suitable for newbie characters, filled with mostly low challenge and low reward situations with rare higher challenge and/or higher rewards situations.

There should be a lot of newbie places from the beginning of the game, and those areas can be connected, or have some small gaps between them that are areas a bit higher level than those newbie areas.

Mid level areas should be suitable mostly for mid level characters filled with low level to mid level challenge with occasional higher level challenges, and similar rewards, but mostly lower level rewards, with some mid level ones and a small chance of higher level rewards.

Mid level areas should also be plenty, but they could be connected or separate areas, which players could chance upon them.

There should also be higher level areas with mid to higher level challenges and low to higher level rewards, with a minimal chance of finding some real treasures there.

There should also be places that are always too dangerous for the normal players of a normal game, suitable for the persistent type that like to have challenge. Those places can be at hard to find, outlandish areas or in the depths of the most challenging dungeons, and so on...

Differentiate quests in their nominal challenge level and place them in the places most suitable for them, and this includes random quests as well.

Generally arrange quest lines especially the main quest line in a way that start in areas with lower challenge level and gradually advance toward areas that should provide more challenge and reward.


Let each player find the areas that are more suitable for his kind of game-play and would provide more satisfaction for him, so some could stick to areas that do not challenge them a lot and some could always be ahead of themselves and try to gain better gear sooner than others and frequent areas that would provide more challenge for them.

I'm sure each player find where he gains more satisfaction, and I hope there a lot of areas that are suitable for each character's game play style, so that no one would feel crammed in.

And eventually all characters grow in power and can experiment with new areas.