Nope, I find it useful as I don't have to waste 90% of my time walking place to place. Can you imagine doing a questline (example, DB quests, but prob apply to all storylines) and not fast travel? sure it'd give you a lot more time to "enjoy" the game I suppose, but to me that's tedious.

I generally check out the map and if the area between points A and B on the map looks kinda bare then I will hoof it and see what I can discover; if it's littered with map keys I usually fast travel.

No, I don't consider it cheating. It represents the PC's unattended walk from point A to point B. :shrug:
(I should not be forced to sit through it if I'd rather not).

However.... Map travel in TES is IMO broken, and could be considered an exploit. In TES, the travel is without risk; There is no chance of ambush (or even just a beneficial discovery along the way).

Not cheating but you will miss a ton of extra content out in the wilderness just by exploring. New areas to uncover that quests won't take you too, unique npcs, unique loot sitting inside a container next to a corpse in the middle of nowhere etc. One of my 3 toons that I am cycling through is not using the Fast travel option at all. Have come across some interesting locales and npcs, something of which I would have never seen with my other toons that have abused fast travel since level 1.

I only use it when my playtime is limited or is coming to an end. Then I use it to maximize what I get done in that time. But when I got plenty of hours to sit and play I run everywhere. Except returning to sell and unload stuff.

a standard game feature is never cheating.

I think the two occasions where i've used fast-travel is when my horse was feeling frisky and went off to play Hide-and-go-Troll-Your-Owner and I wasn't able to find him. Other than that though, my horse gets me everywhere I need to.

I'm guilty of having used the carriages more than once though...

I don't consider it cheating, but I do think that it completely defeats the point of the game. I find it ridiculous that Bethesda even feel the need to include a feature that's so detrimental to the game experience. The gameworld isn't even that big. Carriages and horses would suffice.

I mean think about it. TES games are generally praised for their open world environments... not for having an amazing storyline. If you're beaming yourself across the map constantly just to rush through the main questlines, all that's going to happen is you're going to be left with a ton of side quests and not much incentive to continue playing.

The best way to experience the game is to avoid using fast-travel completely, and to alternate between doing main quests, doing side-quests, and exploring the gameworld + dungeons.

I'm glad for it; And I don't see how it defeats anything (except tedium in some instance). There are times during play that you just want resume back at the town.

Because if I only have time to play for an hour or so in a day I'd like to feel I accomplished something.

Have fun walking from Riften to Markarth :thumbsup:

Using the fast travel system in no way means you just do the main quest lines. I use the fast travel system all the time and I play the game exactly as you suggest. As a long time Morrowind player I know what it is like to have to trudge everywhere you want to go, and I don't miss it. That said though I do miss the mark and recall spells, always handy.

It's not cheating at all.

I use it for return trips. I tend to wander on my way to places, and cover either side of the 'road' fairly well to a decent distance. I figure if I didn't find it on my way there, I'm not likely to find it on my way back. May as well jump over some boring travel time that I'm very unlikely to see something new to get to where I'm going.


What it really means is having more time to explore new areas!

Well put. It's still amazing to me out of all these years the only original idea developers can come up with in terms of difficulty sliders is just amping up NPC hitpoints and damage ratio, particularly in an open world sand box game like TES series. It looked like Bethesda was sort of on the right track with New Vegas hardcoe mode adding weight modifiers and such but they took a step back to the prehistoric way of resolving difficulty sliders with Skyrim. A true "Master difficulty" in Skyrim should have instituted No Fast Travel, item decay, etc.

On my first playthrough i used it, but now i don't and i find it way more fun and satisfying.

I agree but it's good that the fast travel option is in the game. Alot of people don't have the time to run everywhere and some people would find it boring.

Everyone can choose how they want to play the game, which is how it should be.

No, i don't think it's cheating. I hardly use it now tho. I used it constantly when i first started playing but now use it on rare ocassions. I am having more fun not using it as much, as to where i felt like i was just constantly loading screens when i did use it. Im not into the whole immersion thing either.

These choices seem limited and biased.

Personally, I think it's good to have the option, but I rarely use it. I don't care what other people do as their actions have zero impact on the way I play and experience the game. This is not a competitive MMORPG.

I'll use it until there is mod for companions to ride horseback.

This.


Also, pretty biased set of poll responses. There aren't any kind of "No, I don't think it's cheating, but I don't use it" options, and the two "Yes I think it's cheating" choices both are polluted with that "immersion" nonsense.

I use fast travel, but not to get anywhere. Instead, fast travel is my companion reclamation tool. Too often, I turn around and see that my companion has wandered off and got lost, so I go to the nearest landmark, "fast travel" there, and my companion is back by my side.

This is stupid. This poll actually has a right answer, no.

Look, I try not to fast travel, but the fact of the matter is, some times the real world gets in the way of what Id like to do. I dont allways have time to wrap myself in the game, and travel all the way from riften to solitude, and back for a thieves guild mission. Thats a long walk, and even on a horse, a long ride. I try to limit my fast travel, but if Im short on time, and I realy want to beat something, it doesnt bother me.

What do I think?

I swear, you'd think Fast Travel was some kind of addictive drug. So many players can't help themselves: "make a mod that disables it". Um, well, just don't use it. It's an option.

It's a good thing that ball peen hammers don't come with a label that reads "WARNING! You have the option to mash yourself in the teeth with hammers", or else there's be even more people flapping their gums about their inability to restrain themselves from doing things they don't like to do, because seriously, that's all this issue is: people that cannot restrain themselves from doing something that they don't like. In a video game. There's this thing they don't like to do but somehow the knowledge they can do it overrides their brains. It's too hard to control themselves, and it hurts their fun. They could opt for not doing it, but somehow, someway, the fact that the option is there, mocking them...makes it irresistible. It's weird, and it's sad. Good thing that this sort of person never had the nuke launch codes, eh?