Ok so I'm sure most of you have seen me somewhere in the forums and know that I'm not brand new to skyrim or anything, but the whole time I have been playing I have been using fast travel, for example if a quest tells me to deliver something from one city to another I just fast travel to that city and its over in 5 minutes,

but I want to know since I never tried it, is it a game changer when you do not fast travel, and to what extend do you take this? By this I mean do you allow yourself to take carriages since they cost money and are only in cities/towns and do you let yourself to at least fast travel to your hearthfire home? Is it a much better experience without FT or just a time waster? Please tell me your experience/rules/preference.

I fast travel more than I should. You miss a lot when you fast travel, but I just don't want to take the time traveling by foot. Using a horse is a happy medium between fast travel/carriages and going everywhere on foot.

You'll get both the answers "it's a time waster" and "it's a much better experience without fast travel". I personnally never use neither a carriage or fast travel (except if fast travel is forced on us, of course) and I walk. The feeling cannot be transmitted through words; it gives a lot more weigh and presence to the country and it's more logical. Difficult to explain. I dont even use horses...

Hmm yeah I am thinking of trying it, with a game like skyrim the goal is not to complete the story as soon as possible, but rather enjoy your time throughtout the story and side quests and the amount of time it'd take to complete a character without FT would be far greater than using FT, it would also encourage doing everything available in a city while you're there, which can be seen as positive or negative.

I use carriages on occasion, but never map-based fast travel. Carriage travel is activated in-game by the character; map-based travel is activated outside of the game by the player. For this reason I think carriages are a roleplaying means of travel but map-based travel is not.

But mostly I use neither. I happen to love traveling by foot. I like the slower pace of foot travel. Traveling by foot makes me feel as though I and my character are actually there, inside that world. It is that illusion of actually living in the worlds of Skyrim, Cyrodiil or Vvardenfell that keeps me playing Bethesda's games long after I get tired of the games made by other developers.

I walk during Quests and Free Roam, but if there's something specific I need from a relatively far location and I know I'll only be there for a second(going to a home in a hold to drop off/pick up gear, or sell items off for example, then I'll use Fast Travel.

I use to Fast Travel absolutely everywhere when I first started. You wouldn't believe the amount of leveling and experiences you can have without it. I use to almost 100% the game by level 45-46. Now with my current method, and only 3 questlines in, my current character is level 65.

Of course, there was a little Enchantment & Alteration exploitation, but usually by the time(if I ever do) get my Enchantment to 100, I'm at the End Game.

Good topic - and a nice way to discuss immersion. I used FT when I first played but quickly learned how much better the game becomes when you travel by carriage/ferry/horse. I don't mind jumping from point to point with the carriages or ferry service, but then I use regular travel (be it on foot or by horse) to reach the final destination. I will, however, FT directly home or to the location of a quest giver (having finished the quest) if it's late and I know I won't remember what was going on by the time I play again. Sometimes I won't have a chance to play for days so I'll forget all the actions tied to a particular location.

Walking or riding in real time kind of overloads my Xbox which is a drag. For example, walking from Whiterun to Windhelm by way of Valtheim Towers often crashes the game. That's so disruptive that I'd rather take a carriage and just imagine the overland experience.

I often take the carriage, I will fast travel when my gaming time is very limited though, I just look it as a trip where nothing eventful happened.

Ima mixed bag on this it depends on how much of a hurry I am in and what I am doing.

That's how I see it too.

I usually fast travel if I've already gone that route not long ago and killed all enemies on the way. Because going back the same way and without action, is boring.

I take carriages when it's likely that my character would use a carriage.

Never really use it in these types of games, occasionally took a carriage but was never really in a rush. I like to take in the scenery on foot and get in adventures on the road too much.

When I first started playing, I thought nothing of Fast Travel- it was a game mechanic that was there for a reason, after all. I had to abandon it by necessity however, as I developed a bug where enemies that I had raised previously would respawn at my arrival point. Took me forever to figure out why I would get to Whiterun and have to fight 3 bandits, 2 Falmer and a frostbite spider! (I believe this was fixed with a patch)

By the time Dawnguard came out for the PC, I was already getting into deeper immersion and RP. My compass was off and I had decided I would only access the map at settlements and landmarks visible at a distance (Shrine of Azura, the Lighthouses, Gutjar's Monument etc.) The addition of the Point the Way mod certainly aided in that regard and I have thoroughly enjoyed exploring the corners of Skyrim, not always knowing where I am and finding the occasional surprise.

As far as carriages, I tend to use them as my characters would. My less-intrepid, bookish mages often run their early coffers dry, as overland travel is too dangerous and one can take several carriage rides for the price of one mercenary. My characters sleep, so I will sometimes take one if it is already night and I need to be somewhere other than where I am, assuming i will "sleep on the way."

Overall though, I prefer to travel on foot and have slowly (pun intended) moved toward walking rather than running (much to the frustration of my son, who sometimes watches me play). Sure it kills a ton of time, but I didn't install all those 2 and 4 K textures just so I could watch a loading screen.

I use it fairly often, but with that said, I more often don't, and you might find my reasons for fast traveling a bit different than what you might think. Early in the game, I often find I need to go to far places to acquire this or that... Maybe I want to buy spells, and I don't want to go to whiterun yet and start the Main Quest, so I take a carriage to Windhelm, or solitude, or even Winterhold.

I have a mod that allows the carriage trip to be exactly that... Not fast travel, but sitting in the wagon and actually riding the entire distance.... or having the driver wake me when we get there, which is essentially fast travel. the reason that I might go with fast travel is simply that I don't want to see what's on the road between here and there, because I want to walk it later on and actually encounter whatever is there. I hate traveling early with a companion, because they insist on fighting everything that is encountered, especially that trip with Delphine.

Later, I walk every road at least once, but then sometimes I will fast travel if I have to retrace my steps over a road I've just gone down. Like traveling Riften to solitude for the thieves guild, then having to go back the same day or the next day. that gets dull.

At the same time, if you're always fast traveling, you aren't having as many encounters with random dragons and various creatures as those who walk the roads. Your game is going to be much more tame by comparison. Not many cave bears and giants in Whiterun, either...

To sum up, fast travel is fine occasionally, or to preserve an area for later investigation, but if you want a more interesting game, walk or even ride a horse or travel in a carriage that doesn't fast travel.

I won't take a carriage unless I want to discover a city I've never been to. My characters prefer to keep their purse tight.

I enjoy traveling on foot, but I also fast travel a lot. It's not less immersive for me since I see it as a nothing-out-of-the-ordinary trip.

What I dislike are horses. In our world it would be perfect, but in the game I can't pick flowers, tear wings and generally enjoy the same degree of mobility that foot-walking provides. They're good for climbing though.

Not fast travelling is beyond awful with all the travelling back and forth, and to remote locations that some quests require, and then there's carry weight issues. I looped max alchemy+enchanting for fortify carry weight apparel(as good as it can get), got the steed stone, got plenty of stamina upgrades(still missing extra pockets though) for almost 800 carry weight(100% vanilla).

My 'clean' weight(with essential stuff) is around 200, so that's about 600 for items I pick up, and it's still a struggle.

I used to feel that way about horses, then I got the "Convenient Horses" mod. I can pick flowers, talk to travelers and companions, carry a bunch of stuff when I get overburdoned, and best of all engage enemies in mounted combat. I can even catch the occasional dartwing when crossing rivers...

That's a good thing to know (especially after the Imperial Horn story I've seen in a recent thread). I'll add it to my when-I-get-bored-of-vanilla mod list.

I haven't tried it as of yet, but it seems like it would really extend your play through albeit making some things a little more annoying than it would be with FT. Such as devoting a days play time to do 2-3 quests as opposed to the 10 or so you could get done in the same amount of time with FT,

then again, when you complete the game with a character a lot of people choose to start over, well without it you get plenty of time playing for one character and it seems like a player would become more attached to their character if they invested so much time into them. Especially no FT with DiD rules, that seems like it would really immerse a player and I will have to try that soon.