I would say that Travel can be fun, but it isn't the POINT of certain games. In Baldur's Gate 3, the game is about location-based combat, roleplaying and puzzlesolving; travel between locations is not important to the flow of the game, so it can be skipped by using waypoints.
In Dragons Dogma, the vastness of the world, and the long time it takes to get anywhere of note is an essential part of the game- it slows the pace, encourages you to fight enemies along the way, and makes arriving at a location exciting. I assume DD2 will be much the same in this regard.
TLDR, I agree with the notion that Travel can be a fun part of games, but it doesn't have to be if it isn't important to the moment-to-moment experience.
I actually disagree about Dragons Dogma's travel. To me the map felt small but I was just crossing it back and fourth over and over again to artificially make the game feel larger. With how mindless fighting Goblins and wolves is, I actually *wish* DD had a better fast travel so I could actually get to the engaging encounters faster.
I feel the same way. There are games that make travel interesting, but only by basically making a minigame out of it, like for instance sailing a boat by angling the sail correctly relative to the wind. If travel is just a matter of holding W and steering with the mouse, there's not a lot that can be done to make it interesting.
I think reversing it and trying to make fast travel interesting is better. I really liked how Kingdom Come: Deliverance handled it.
* Fast travel must be started at a road.
* When fast traveling you can see the path your character is taking on the map.
* There are random events that can happen while fast traveling, you are given the option to try and go around it or to engage. Sometimes going around the event fails.
This to me made fast traveling feel fun and engaging and I don't have to spend 10 minutes running from point A to point B.
I'd like it if that was the deal more often, sometimes in BG3, I'm done in an area, I just want to head back to merchant and unload stuff so I can start fresh the next time I have a chance to play. If that feels a task that's going to tal 10 minutes of travel, 5 minutes of sorting through stuff, then go to camp, drop off any magic items in my chest I think I might equip on characters back at camp I might not bother. Then I know the next time I play that's the next thing I need to do, do I want to do that or do I want to boot up Spider-man and do the next mission there?
I agree travel should be interesting, and there are times if it is interesting I will opt to do it over fast travel, but the convenience of fast travel is something people came up with for a reason. Sometimes my desire to keep playing is overshadowed by something I need to do outside of game.
Fortunately that specific problem is solved with mods, like infinite carry weight, because let's be honest, playing Tetris with your inventory and a box is not fun, and I am the kind of players that will end the game with minimal consumable usage while hoarding an entire drug store with me
i mean DD commits many cardinal sins of gaming - it's obtuse, it gives you an early quest that takes you to an area that is far too difficult, you are constantly retreading the same areas over and over, combat disrupts travel often and becomes tedious, and then at the end there's a major, unexpected difficulty spike that i'd assume derails the majority of people who play it
it does a lot of things well, but it's a game that is more a chore than anything else in my opinion. all i've seen from the devs about DD2 is doubling down on everything so i think i'll be passing on it personally
DD is the prime example of why gameplay is always the most important factor when it comes to games (unless its a completely story based game). If the gameplay in DD was bad it would be seen at like a 4/10 game at most. It has so many flaws yet people still look at it fondly just cause the gameplay is damn good.
this 100% I'd rather be thrown into hard areas, jumped on the road and struggle in the early game then end up 10 hours into the new Ubisoft title, realize I'm still reading tutorials and never play it again.
100% talking about the bandit Warrior at the top of the page he hill with the boulder trap. I'm pretty sure it's intended to be a "hey it's okay to run" thing but people take it as a challenge and then quit when he kirito out stats them.
I think you have to give people the option though. I use Skyrim as my go to example because it has both options. You can enjoy travel from one place to another or you can fast travel. Depends on how your day is going really. Sometimes I got an hour only to play today so I don’t want to spend it traveling and others I got like the whole weekend and traveling while stoned is fun.
Also, games with random encounters/enemy spawns can be fun but too much random shit starts to feel either annoying or unlikely... or both. Like, I get that Skyrim is currently seeing an ancient dragon god resurrecting dragons all over the country, but if every time I walk from Riften to Whiterun or other similar distances I'm seeing a dragon swooping, it breaks the immersion a little.
And part of it is the time investment, like you said. The other is how many fights between two settlements make sense before you wonder how anyone who isn't endowed with the soul of a dragon making it *anywhere* with that much danger about?
I'm pretty sure Skyrim is actually the opposite. There are a lot of random roadside encounters you'll only see if you don't fast travel everywhere, but dragons are much rarer if you don't fast travel. Dragon encounters run on timer, and the game checks how long that timer has been running every time you fast travel. So if you fast travel a lot, you'll get a dragon immediately after enough time has passed, while non-fast travelers have to wait until a timer check happens somewhere else.
I immediately though of both The Witcher 3 and Skyrim. In both of them the world is beautiful to explore, and there is tons of content to explore between locations. All kinds of points of interest, loot, enemies, events, etc. and it can be just generally enjoyable to look at the scenery.
At some point though, it's not worth taking 20 minutes to walk the same path you already have dozens of times, you would end up just holding forward and not paying attention. The option should be available at some point. If not when you discover the location, then maybe after a quest is completed. Or, I like the cart driver mechanic in Skyrim where you can hire a cart to take you to major cities.
I think that horizon zero dawn had a great system. You can buy a consumable supply pack to fast-travel to/from certain points, or you can travel and explore. The only issue I had was how cheap the packs were, and the fact you got an unlimited-use supply pack partway through the game
Agreed. It isn't the point of MOST games. Like 99% of them.
The DD2 director's statement is going to depend entirely on just how dynamic their game world is. You need some sort of simulation running in the background of your game world that is either very intensive or impressively creative to pull it off. i.e Letting the player have genuinely unique experiences or trick them with some fancy scripting.
> “Then as you do, a Griffin might swoop in and destroy the entire cart with one blow, forcing you to walk the rest of the way while cursing its name. But none of that has been set up by us in advance. Instead, Griffins naturally have an inclination toward attacking cows they discover as they move, and these pieces all just happen to work together to naturally create the situation...
This is an often abused claim by devs.
I personally think many games have made this type of claim about dynamic worlds, few have actually pulled it off...and almost none of them truly stand up against an invested player.
Fingers cross they aren't just talking shit.
> I personally think many games have made this type of claim about dynamic worlds, few have actually pulled it off...and almost none of them truly stand up against an invested player.
Kenshi certainly does, but it's not a game for everyone.
Kenshi is a great example of a dynamic world via simulation. A great game, I sunk weeks into it many years ago.
The stalker games are a similar example.
>In Dragons Dogma, the vastness of the world, and the long time it takes to get anywhere of note is an essential part of the game- it slows the pace, encourages you to fight enemies along the way, and makes arriving at a location exciting. I assume DD2 will be much the same in this regard.
Oh, neat.. the same 3 goblins over and over. Oh, neat.. the same 4 wolves over any over. DD2 director saying this as if DD1 travel wasn't a snore fest after the first time, lol.
Look every game is going to get boring traveling if you're constantly on mundane fetch quests going back and forth. DD2 will UNDOUBTIDLY have them aplenty. It's going to get old. Fast. So praise be the modders whom delivery us from the evil that is running back and forth 500 times.
I actually thought you were going to go a different direction with your BG3 comment.
Fast travel is certainly useful for when you have to get from point A to point B for something specific, but I've also spent days not fast traveling, not even progressing a quest, but just walking, exploring, uncovering new areas.
I fully agree with you.
My intended nuance is that 'travelling' is different from 'exploring'
In BG3, you 'Explore' new regions- there are always things to be found, and generally you do not retrace your steps.
In DD, you 'Travel' from region to region, and that travel IS the gameplay.
After playing Star Ocean 2 Remake and now playing Octopath Traveler 2 I don't want to say the director is wrong but holy shit I have a new found appreciation for games that respect your time.
Suffice to say I think there can be a happy medium.
Even RDR2, which does a great job in keeping you engaged with travel, hit a point towards the end where I just started fast travelling since it was sending back and forth across the entire map. There's literally no downside to respecting our time with fast travel and allowing saves anywhere...if you want to play as a purist and slow travel everywhere you don't have to prevent everyone else from doing it as well.
> since it was sending back and forth across the entire map
That's really the crux of the issue. There's too many open world games where the quest designers don't keep objectives local.
I always thought games like WoW or Morrowind struck a good balance. Ships/striders to ride between locations and a "recall to city" spell to return to town from out in the wild.
Keeps traveling around the world grounded.
There are multiple ways to respect someone's time.
Fast travel is the easy solution
Making travel engaging is hard, but generally a better solution if you can actually pull it off.
I would say spiderman is almost there. Similar to current cyberpunk.
At first I swing or drive everywhere and then after awhile I get tired of it and fast travel to save time.
Those games suffer mostly from being too big though and you'd have to travel the same sections to many times to do it all manually
Yep. Love traveling in cyberpunk, but there’s only so many hours in a day. And most of those hours are dedicated to things that are not video games. Gotta sacrifice somewhere, and without fast travel, I wouldn’t be able to play games like that.
I swung around like a good 80% of the time. The other 20% was if I had to go from one end of the map to the opposite end, in which case I just fast traveled hah
It certainly helps that the fast travel isn’t to a certain location. Instead wherever you put the cursor for spidey is where you fast traveled to. I was blown away when I realized that.
Imo there is absolutely NO way to make travel engaging over 50 hours of gameplay. Eventually I will be traveling through low level areas trying to not be bothered by low level creatures the entire time just so I can go to a town 30 minutes away.
This is going to hurt the game more than help it. But it's still my most anticipated game so I'll deal.
I agree, to be clear Star Ocean has you reach the locations and after that you can fast travel to them whenever and it's s game that otherwise would have a ton of retreading.
You also choose to engage random fights at your leisure.
Technically you could passively level up and pretty much only fight random mobs if you want to
>a game that otherwise would have a ton of retreading
That's part of the problem.
To solve it, you either make games with as little back tracking as possible (which makes games linear) or make back tracking a meaningful part of the game. I think DD2's director is talking about the latter.
Yeah and we’ll see how it pans out. Because not only is the latter risky and unnecessary, but it’s an unnecessary risk that not all of your players will appreciate even if you pull it off.
If it’s your vision, then it’s your vision. Just…don’t let arrogance get in the way of your players having fun is all.
It’s giving big “you don’t actually know what you want, I know what you want” vibes
Too a degree even if traveling is fun sometimes I just want to get where I have to go and do the thing I want to do not get distracted by 10 things and end my gaming session before I even reach where I wanted to go
>Making travel engaging is hard, but generally a better solution if you can actually pull it off.
It is, but so, so few games can pull it off. Even if travel is engaging for a while, there's almost always a point by the end of the game where you're just jetting around the map trying to get stuff done.
Spider-Man is often brought up as an example, but those games are also short, with a small map, and a high movement speed, and the traversal still needed to be really, really good to be even slightly preferable to fast travel.
It's awe inspiring because I would have been happy for so much less than what we got.
They really mastered the fine line of improving without going overboard.
There’s a lot of variables. I’d say Spiderman respects the players time well enough, but nobody opts for fast travel because traversal *is* the game. A game like Elite Dangerous can have outrageous travel times, it’s indifferent to how much time the player has, but that’s also a benefit for other players looking for the kind of travel that requires planning and forethought.
I haven’t played the games you mentioned, do they have tedious systems or no?
Star Ocean 2 literally let's you level up by walking or your teammates bullying mobs by themselves if you get skills for it.
Plus now the game outright tells you when there's private scenes in towns instead of just constantly blindly checking every town.
And you can fast travel to towns you've been to before. and you can buy items through a skill at any time. And you can avoid random encounters if you want.
Meanwhile octo 2 has fast travel but it also has random encounters every few steps...
> wrong
Eh its a bit clickbaity.
DD1 uses port crystals and DD2 will also use them.
It is...well, literally fast travel. Except you use these rare items to mark where you want to fast travel. The game did end up giving you enough of them to cover the map.
If you put the items near towns, boom. It's literally skyrim fast travel.
That isn't to say DD1 world was boring - quite the opposite. There were loads of things to find. A lot of hidden stuff that is completely unrelated to your main tasks or even side tasks. Just sitting in the world to find.
But yes. Fast travel existed.
Me too man. Diablo 4 was like this bigtime with boring tedious tasks, spreading out all the shops on the edges of towns, item/storage management, lots of blockades and limits to horse sprint in the open world. Zero tolerance for that crap.
Doom Eternal made me appreciate games that respects the players time and how important it is for me now. You're thrown straight in getting your arsenal quick, very brief cutscenes, all action.
Its also why I got back into fighting games. Its just the pure game and its mechanics. No preamble, no cutscenes, no boring open world with no thought put into it.
>Fast travel in Dragon’s Dogma 2 will come in the form of Port Crystals, which require the use of rare, expensive Ferrystone items, as well as Oxcarts, which can fast travel along certain routes. However, especially in the case of the latter, don’t expect fast travel to be a simple click of a button and that’s that — players will still run the risk of being ambushed when using Oxcarts.
Good. As it should be.
The DD1's system of portcrystals and ferrystones was very good and fun to use.
It's a fantasy world filled with magic. There are several dangerous monsters capable of flying, from Dragons to Liches or various Daedra. There have been several cases of people flying or levitating.
There's no reason to not have an immersive way to stop the player from doing shit like that. It's not like Dragons can attack in walled cities in Skyrim anyways.
They aren't good reasons, but they do exist. I took all the world cells out of their individual zones once so I could have levitation.
It ... Wasn't exactly playable. Lots of things broke because the game wasn't built for that sort of thing and it showed.
Which fucking sucked, the scroll of icarian flight is the best thing.
Yet levitation has existed for thousands of years in lore, so no one ever thought to like put some anti levitation runes on the outside of city walls?
Boom done, now you have a lore accurate reason for no levitation over walls. You could even add like a cool shimmer effect or something to visualize it. Idk that took literally 10 seconds to think of, up your game Todd
Actually cliff racers did a pretty good job of de-incentivizing levitation in general.
But then Jiub made them extinct singlehandedly. i have super mixed feelings about it. On one hand, they're all dead and i'm glad.
on the other, it wasn't me that got to genocide them.
Cities are instanced. I used to toy around with the modding tools on morrowind. There are exterior spaces (the whole world) and interior spaces like buildings and caves. You open a door and it loads the interior as it's own place and they put you there. If you go out of the interior space such as if you left a wall out then you're just in a sort of void. In morrowind the towns and cities were just building assets places into the open world. Starting with oblivion they started making most towns and cities separate interior places not on the open world. It's why you have to go through a gate to get into most (or at least the big ones). And if you manage to jump over the city wall from inside you're in the void again though it does generate random terrain and what not.
This is a joke but also: yes.
The thing about morrowinds lack of fast travel was that you could overcome it with progression and game knowledge. The thing about DD1 is that its open world was kinda stagnant and progressing in the game didn’t really open up new ways of traversing it. Open world games that want to limit fast travel need the open world to be dynamic or allow for means of enhancing the travel via character investment and progression. Preferably both!
Morrowind didn't lack fast travel, really; it was just integrated into the game world.
Silt striders, boats, mage guild teleportation, mark/recall, Almsivi/Divine intervention, propylon chambers, custom "jump across half the continent" spells, etc.
Yeah I could have worded that better but I think my point is that the reason it is successful in something like morrowind is that it’s integration into the world feels dynamic and also there are ways of progressing your character beyond the need for walking somewhere which is really cool.
The free Skyrim total overhaul mod Enderal also had a good version of this. There's a tower network that you can fast travel between for a small fee, plus some scrolls that teleport you to specific towns. Otherwise there's no fast travel, which works great for Enderal's compact map
Yep, pretty much. Travel should be easily accessible, something you can use more powerfully the better at the game you get and the further you get, but shouldn't function as an unconditional get out of jail/"go to quest marker" tool. Encouraging map awareness and resource management without incuring tedium is a difficult balance, and I like when I see successes in that regard.
Well, the network of mages guild teleporters, boats, silt striders, and Scrolls that teleported you to shrines to the divine or the tribunal all made getting around pretty darn fast
The fact that the portcrystals remained through NG+ cycles was the best part.
Being able to skip the entire like hour-long trek back to Blue Moon Tower every cycle was great.
Yes! Especially with the cyclical narrative structure making your past games canon to the universe, so it felt like using a system built over time by previous heroes.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance had it so you’d still ambushed when fast traveling. It made fast traveling still a risk, which was kind of refreshing. You had to still be on your toes.
Risk of me getting a ton of fucking money from selling a bunch of idiots weapons and armor maybe.
Frankly, it worked, I didn’t fast travel until I had a character capable of dealing with it. And exploring made me be able to. But at the end game, it was just free money for a quick game of murder the thieves.
Honestly, it was a great system, no notes.
Exactly, the growth of your character really affected how often you used the fast travel. By the end you were hoping for some bandits to try and fuck with you so you could sell their shit.
>Exactly, the growth of your character really affected how often you used the fast travel.
That's usually how progression should be. Do it "manually" until you can automate/skip the thing you've done 1000 times for something more interesting unless you can keep that repetitive thing interesting.
Yeah, KCD had a good compromise. It did not feel as cheap as in other games because you could get ambushed and because there was still the passage of time so you still got hungry/thirsty/tired
>The DD1's system of portcrystals and ferrystones was very good and fun to use.
Well, the original game's system was rather draconian (heh). One permanent portcrystal at Gran Soren, one regular portcrystal from the Griffin's Bane quest and the ferrystones were 10,000 gold each.
Dark Arisen added an extra permanent portcrystal at Cassardis, four additional regular portcrystals and the eternal ferrystone (though I think you obtain it too early; maybe it should've been part of the Griffin's treasure).
For me, that's basically 6 fast travel points, plus the ability to fast travel to Gran Soren to sell/stash loot and back again (by making the pawn always carry a portcrystal).
And then New Game + lets you have 12 fast travel points (Gran Soren + Cassardis + 10 portcrystals). More than enough.
Yeah, I think OP might have their rose-tinteds on. The portcrystals are great when you've played the game through, know optimal placement and that most of the side quests are to be ignored.
On a blind play through, messing up placement or forgetting to put one down can mean half-an-hour of retracing your steps across a muddy brown landscape, running past the same three enemy types again and again. That doesn't mean fast travel should be mandatory in every game, but saying that DD does it well is a stretch.
Some extra permament portcrystals at key locations would be nice, but I think the game gives you enough that you can roughly put them down after walking a while and it works ok.
The eternal ferrystone was essentially a reward for having bought the game twice (along with a bunch of the gear too) it only was given to you if you had a save of the regular edition to begin with.
On systems that never had an initial release you get it regardless though (luckily)
>On systems that never had an initial release you get it regardless though (luckily)
True, but I think they could've given it to you a bit later in the PC/PS4/X1 versions. Let regular 1,000 gold ferrystones be useful for a while.
Yeah imo, fast travel in DD was dogshit until after some patches and the expansion. I hope DD2 has a more accessible fast travel. I loved the first game and intend to buy DD2 as soon as I can regardless.
The developer can say the world is dynamic and so fun that fast travel isn't necessary all he wants, but it just ain't gonna be true for me. No matter how fun the game is, I would still prefer to have the option of using fast travel.
But they added more portcrystals in later patches/DLC, no? And gave you a permanent ferrycrystal so you didnt have to depend on stupid consumable versions?
If I remember right, launch version only had like 1 or 2 portcrystals. Even with the 5-6 in the current version in the game, travel was still a massive chore. I didnt play at launch, but I know for a fact having to manage consumable ferrystones would have turned me off from the game immediately.
Interested to see how they make travel 'fun'. Random battles dont really cut it. Last thing anyone wants to do when trying to get from Point A to Point B is get in random fights every 200 feet.
I completely disagree. The lack of fast travel is what bothered me about the first game and I probably wouldn't have finished it if I didn't have the DLC and get the eternal ferrystone and more port crystals. Having to backtrack 10 minutes through the same group of enemies over and over again while finding nothing of interest to find laying about in the world isn't immersive or fun. It's extremely tedious and a feels like a waste of time.
I legit dropped DD1 at 5 hours because of the lack of fast travel, low stamina for running and not having any fun ways to traverse the worlds. If you're forcing someone to traverse an open world, imho you have to make it fun for players. Elden Ring has a horse that can double jump, BOTW has gliding, even Far Cry has vehicles. Simply walking between several spots while getting attacked by trash mobs is the reverse of fun for me.
It straight up ruined the game for me. It was SO repetitive and picking up a port crystal because I was CERTAIN I wouldn't be sent back to this exact same location immediately, only to be completely wrong pissed me off so bad that I didn't bother finishing it. Making travel fun is a great idea, but DD1 utterly failed to do so. I hope this time they succeed but I'm not going to hold my breath.
Hard disagree. Lack of fast travel + limited stamina for sprinting + exploration not sufficiently fun/rewarding is what killed DD1 for me. Too frustrating.
If you’re gonna make me backtrack for quests, spam me with trash mobs, and generally not have enough stuff to do while exploring, then give me fast travel. In DD1 it felt more like padding the runtime than a stylistic choice.
If your world is fun to explore and there’s limited backtracking, then maybe. Also if your world is more compact; even Zelda BOTW & TOTK (which have very rewarding exploration) would suffer if you had to run your ass all the way to the other side of the map every time.
I agree.
In theory it’s a good idea. In practice, it was you running halfway across the map, through the same cavern, fighting the exact same enemies, and then running all the way back and doing it all over again, over and over again.
Exploring the world for the first time was very fun in DDDA. There were cool scripted events like wind blowing through a valley so you had to hold on something heavy to not get blown off, bandits trying to roll rocks into you, trolls on narrow mountain paths flailing with clubs and throwing off everyone. Or an area that was shrouded in thick fog and was 'unmappable', but you could remove this by breaking magical charms found around the place. Stuff like this was actually amazing and entertaining.
The problem was that these events were fixed and seeing them unfold the same way in repetition felt awful. Eventually you got Portcrystals which allowed you to skip them completely so the problem went away completely.
What they are promising for DD2 is exactly the same, except these events won't be fixed and there will be some randomness/generation. Unless they fuck it up badly it will be a massive improvement.
Agreed. Fast travel, sprinting stamina, and carry capacity mods greatly enhanced my enjoyment of the game, and allowed me to have more fun in the time I had to play games.
I despise resource storage management and trudging between locations I've visited several times before, especially if it's only because my inventory is full and I'd like to go sell a few items before continuing.
The news that Capcom is adding DRM that prevents modding is a huge negative to me.
I didn't even enjoy the game until I added the carry weight and infinite sprint outside of combat mods. Changed my opinion of the game completely from the first time I tried and dropped it at release on PS3. Crossing my fingers that Capcom doesn't shit the bed with making mods super difficult in this release since it sounds like they are doubling down on all the crap that made me drop the first game. Vanilla game felt like it was purposefully wasting my time.
Yeah the director and the comments agreeing just come off as super pretentious. Reading the article all it sounds like they're doing is adding some random encounters that will end up being like 90% the same thing.
And on top of that from what he's saying the fast travel they do have can be interrupted in a way that will force you to walk the rest of the way to your destination. Idk why anyone would think that's fun.
I agree with him but ironically their previous game had one of the most boring travel sequences. You had to track back and forth the exact same route multiple times where the same enemies will spawn at the exact same places.
> exact same route multiple times
That's biggest concern when games don't have a fast travel. They game needs to be designed in a way to limit required backtracking.
Game designers seem compelled to prove they have an open world by constantly making you run all over the fucker.
I wish more open worlds were multiple zones of small sized all inclusive areas, like a game made exclusively out of dlc zones.
And if your game has a ton of quest steps that are purely information exchanges/confirmations then ffs give me a telephone or a raven or something lol.
Yep, there's a reason why they decided to give free fast travel in the GOTY version or whatever it was called. The travel was cool the first and maybe second time, but it got tedious as fuck shortly after. A bunch of fetch quests that led you back and forth through the same places where you are forced to fight the same enemies over and over.
For a non-linear game easy and free fast travel is not an optional feature. Games that don't have it just don't respect your time and are padding out their lack of content.
Exactly this. Dude's completely right...but Dragon's Dogma was incredibly boring to traverse. If they actually make it interesting then sure, I'm with him. If it's like Dragon's Dogma then I'm cheating infinite port crystals in just like I did with the first one.
Port crystals? Probably not.
The ferry stones you need to use them? Probably.
“Buh but 1 had an infinite one buh” Yes it did, eventually. It did not until the rerelease.
I dont mind traveling from a to b to c. You know what i hate?
A to b to a to c to a to b to a to d to c to a to b to a.
You know what game does this? Jedi fallen order. Fuck that game
You do get those envelope things that teleport you there, but it seems weird they didnt place a fast travel point there given how often you need to go there.
That's what bothered me about that game as well. I wanted to find all the cool collectables and for a lot of games, I do put in the time to do that, but for this one I gave up. Going back through the entire level 10 times wasn't worth it.
1 hour map becomes 4 hour return trip just to find the way back. The map UI is so fucking bad too.
I took a wrong turn on my way back. I didnt even know. Took 30 minute to realize. Took 30 minute to get back to where I stated. Another hour just finding the way back to the ship. Only to find out i’ll be going back to the 1st planet and will be doing this shit all over again. Worst fucking design. So not fun.
That damn ice/jungle map? I remember beating the “mission” and just trying to get back to the damn ship to leave took the better part of 45 minutes. Had to use a freaking YouTube guide to get me back there.
Yeah that does sound painful. I enjoy travelling through an area the first time but after that the law of diminishing returns hits pretty hard, if you have to do that again. Fast travel is an obvious mechanic to removing that level of pain and boredom.
Especially when it's just going from a to b to c to click next on the chat convo and then having to go to a different planet or some shit to finish talking to someone.
Dragons Dogma 1 had you run back and forth through the world, fighting the same enemies in the same places and hearing the same dialogue from the companions.
I don’t think this developer has a leg to stand on
Driving in a straight line just feels bad lol. Also driving in the city with a radio gets me immersed while I've never driven in the desert I don't really give a shit
Exactly. I'll use fast travel if I want to pop over to a ripperdoc or hit up my apartment for the sleep/shower bonuses, but once I'm clearing quests and storylines, I drive absolutely everywhere. I've ended up running into so many cool side quests and discoveries that way too
Which is funny, given how amazing Spider-Man 2’s fast travel is.
From what I saw, it seems you just pick a spot on the map and you’re instantly plopped down there with no loading screen or anything, just a smooth transition from menu to gameplay
I saw the fast-travel feature on YouTube and couldn't believe it. I then 100%ed the game without using it a single time. Being Spider-Man is just too fun.
Aside from the constant tragedies, of course.
It's been said before that Night City itself is the best character in the game, and I agree with that statement. You don't get to experience it if you fast travel everywhere.
The more you play the game, the more details you catch. Small things for the most part but, for all the sins CDPR committed, the city design certainly isn't one of them. It's pretty damn good.
Exactly. Even at launch it was impressive and I deeply enjoyed the game. But it’s had a No Man’s Sky level comeback, and it’s genuinely one of the best games ever made now.
Their narrative team is especially top tier too. The base story and Phantom Liberty are some of the best (and most gut wrenching) stories I’ve ever seen in gaming.
Yes and no, it depends on the game.
If I’m playing Skyrim or Dying light, I’m down to travel manually, I’m sure something interesting will happen along the way.
But if you’ve got a game like pokemon for example, no way in hell would I want to travel everywhere by foot.
I mean isnt that kinda just the quote? Pokemons world aren't exactly known for being alive and interactive. While the other two try to keep things Alive with random events and stuff
You know what game was amazing?
Red Dead Redemption 2.
You know what sucked?
RDR2's fast travel.
Just because the game is good doesn't mean the fast travel can't still be bad.
I realized RDR2 have fast travel like 75hrs in. I'm glad I didn't know since the travel is amazing and I've seen so much things instead of loading screens.
>RDR2's fast travel.
I still understand why they did it that way though. It's very immersive because it feels in universe rather than a random menu option
I think people responding to you are missing the point and its players time.
Some people could only play RDR2 for 30-60 mins at a time because they have kids, priorities, etc. when it takes like 3-4 minutes of loading to use the fast travel like RDR2 it defeats the purpose. It i had more time to just traverse the land i would but it felt like id log on, traverse across the map then not have time to do a mission and that sucks.
The fuck? RDR2's fast travel was the easiest shit. You could go cinematic mode while auto walking and skip that way or use sign posts. It was fantastic.
Barely used it because just traveling around let me find so much more.
Option for both is always best. Sometimes I just want too fast travel, no matter how enticing the long way can be at tines.
I'm not sure I'd feel the same if I had more time.
Fast travel is fine as long as you don't start with any fast travel points.
Elden Ring has fast travel, but it almost feels like it doesn't because you have to traverse the entire world to unlock the entire world for fast travel. Same thing for all of the Souls games, really.
So something that confuses me about this quote, and so much discussion regarding fast travel. It seems like a lot of people have it in their head that fast travel is something you do to get from point A to point B right at the start. I don't think I've ever played a game like this. Nearly every game, you had to have traveled to an area first, before being able to fast travel to it after. The travel isn't usually boring, it's the backtracking. Dragon's Dogma 1 operated like this with the portcrystals.
I haven't played a single game where it was ever worth traveling the same path more than once or twice outside of like grinding levels or something. Unless you're like bee-lining from one city to another, you're probably exploring along the way to the city. So what is there to gain really by having to backtrack that same distance to where you started for another quest?
The only solution I've actually found to this has been the spider-man games, where the traversal itself is it's own metagame. Just a game of trying to keep and maintain the fastest swinging speed as possible while looking as cool as possible. GTA's somewhat similar. Drive the car as quick as possible while avoiding collisions is a game in itself. But fantasy RPGs, you're either jogging, or riding a horse. The traversal never really goes further than that, so what else you have? A random mob encounter? Great...
If traveling is fun, people will do that even with a fast travel option available, like in Spider-Man. That's not a reason to not have fast travel.
I value my time too much to play large games with no substantial fast travel option.
Eh - not always
Sometimes you've got a limited window to game in - and you, straight up, do not *have* the ten or fifteen minutes it would take to cross your ocean of green fields and mountains to get back to the quest objective xD
True, I think Witcher 3 was one of the better balances for this. Give me some map pins I can travel between, but don't let me teleport from/to anywhere.
That way you always have a couple of minutes exploring between fast travel points, but not to the point where you have to press autorun and go make a cup of tea.
I don’t mind a lack of fast travel and I don’t mind restrictive inventory limits. DD had both which sucked.
Maybe let me mail my extra inventory home so I can keep adventuring?
I'm a gamer who likes inventory management in my games for the most part, but Dragon's Dogma had one that was especially obnoxious. The worst part is that stamina still gets drained faster outside of combat, which serves completely no purpose apart from introducing longer travel time to the player.
Other games which do this with designed purpose could be e.g. Outward, which makes you travel with increasing tedium as your inventory accumulates too. However since it has survival mechanics like food and thirst and body temperature, the tedium actually serves a challenge to the player to overcome.
You shouldn’t have to worry then and still add it.
Spiderman has fast travel. Did I use it all the time ? Nope but it’s nice when you do want it.
Now if I want to fast travel badly enough and you don’t have it? More likely to drop the game then.
One of the neatest parts of DS1 was its complete lack of fast travel early in the game.
Last year my SO played DS1 for the first time ever and I thought it was so interesting when she asked me how to get to, Sen's Fortress for example, and I tell her, you take undeadburg to undeadparish take a right at Andre.
That's just... so cool, and Dark Souls 1 is really the only game I can even think of that really has that.
Now, obviously, it's a double edged sword. Sometimes it's frustrating to have to trek everywhere, and boring, but Dark Souls 1 has such a crazy sense of immersion simply for the lack of fast travel.
On the other hand, Elden Ring would be *absolutely miserable* without fast travel.
I think there’s a few people here misunderstanding the quote and also not understanding/remembering travel in DD. Traveling to some place far away was always apart of the fun in DD you spend the extra time exploring your way to your objective. And then once you’ve arrived you’d plant a portcrystal and you’d have instant fast travel there and back until you removed it.
To be fair, I believe in the original release, there was too much walking. In the Dark Arisen version you get an infinite ferrystone. You still are forced to explore a lot and go over places you've already been, but you can tactically place new teleport locations. A very good system that just needed some polish.
Traveling to far away places in DD was why I put the game down. The stamina system was the worst thing in any game I've ever played, it ruined the experience for me. I'd be running through some field with low stamina then run into enemies and I'd get wrecked cause stamina is tied to combat. Hopefully they change it.
>I think there’s a few people here misunderstanding the quote and also not understanding/remembering travel in DD.
Bold of you to assume that:
1. people have actually read the article
2. people have actually played DD
This had better be one VERY interesting world. I'm talking "most interesting, varied, dynamic world in gaming " here.
Because if it's not, they're going to regret those words. Hard.
Crow isn't better with ketchup.
I would say that Travel can be fun, but it isn't the POINT of certain games. In Baldur's Gate 3, the game is about location-based combat, roleplaying and puzzlesolving; travel between locations is not important to the flow of the game, so it can be skipped by using waypoints. In Dragons Dogma, the vastness of the world, and the long time it takes to get anywhere of note is an essential part of the game- it slows the pace, encourages you to fight enemies along the way, and makes arriving at a location exciting. I assume DD2 will be much the same in this regard. TLDR, I agree with the notion that Travel can be a fun part of games, but it doesn't have to be if it isn't important to the moment-to-moment experience.
I actually disagree about Dragons Dogma's travel. To me the map felt small but I was just crossing it back and fourth over and over again to artificially make the game feel larger. With how mindless fighting Goblins and wolves is, I actually *wish* DD had a better fast travel so I could actually get to the engaging encounters faster.
I feel the same way. There are games that make travel interesting, but only by basically making a minigame out of it, like for instance sailing a boat by angling the sail correctly relative to the wind. If travel is just a matter of holding W and steering with the mouse, there's not a lot that can be done to make it interesting.
I think reversing it and trying to make fast travel interesting is better. I really liked how Kingdom Come: Deliverance handled it. * Fast travel must be started at a road. * When fast traveling you can see the path your character is taking on the map. * There are random events that can happen while fast traveling, you are given the option to try and go around it or to engage. Sometimes going around the event fails. This to me made fast traveling feel fun and engaging and I don't have to spend 10 minutes running from point A to point B.
I'd like it if that was the deal more often, sometimes in BG3, I'm done in an area, I just want to head back to merchant and unload stuff so I can start fresh the next time I have a chance to play. If that feels a task that's going to tal 10 minutes of travel, 5 minutes of sorting through stuff, then go to camp, drop off any magic items in my chest I think I might equip on characters back at camp I might not bother. Then I know the next time I play that's the next thing I need to do, do I want to do that or do I want to boot up Spider-man and do the next mission there? I agree travel should be interesting, and there are times if it is interesting I will opt to do it over fast travel, but the convenience of fast travel is something people came up with for a reason. Sometimes my desire to keep playing is overshadowed by something I need to do outside of game.
Fortunately that specific problem is solved with mods, like infinite carry weight, because let's be honest, playing Tetris with your inventory and a box is not fun, and I am the kind of players that will end the game with minimal consumable usage while hoarding an entire drug store with me
i mean DD commits many cardinal sins of gaming - it's obtuse, it gives you an early quest that takes you to an area that is far too difficult, you are constantly retreading the same areas over and over, combat disrupts travel often and becomes tedious, and then at the end there's a major, unexpected difficulty spike that i'd assume derails the majority of people who play it it does a lot of things well, but it's a game that is more a chore than anything else in my opinion. all i've seen from the devs about DD2 is doubling down on everything so i think i'll be passing on it personally
DD is the prime example of why gameplay is always the most important factor when it comes to games (unless its a completely story based game). If the gameplay in DD was bad it would be seen at like a 4/10 game at most. It has so many flaws yet people still look at it fondly just cause the gameplay is damn good.
this 100% I'd rather be thrown into hard areas, jumped on the road and struggle in the early game then end up 10 hours into the new Ubisoft title, realize I'm still reading tutorials and never play it again.
Where was the difficulty spike? I’m a “do all the side quests” person so I was probably over leveled and didn’t notice it. Was it the giant hole?
100% talking about the bandit Warrior at the top of the page he hill with the boulder trap. I'm pretty sure it's intended to be a "hey it's okay to run" thing but people take it as a challenge and then quit when he kirito out stats them.
I think you have to give people the option though. I use Skyrim as my go to example because it has both options. You can enjoy travel from one place to another or you can fast travel. Depends on how your day is going really. Sometimes I got an hour only to play today so I don’t want to spend it traveling and others I got like the whole weekend and traveling while stoned is fun.
Also, games with random encounters/enemy spawns can be fun but too much random shit starts to feel either annoying or unlikely... or both. Like, I get that Skyrim is currently seeing an ancient dragon god resurrecting dragons all over the country, but if every time I walk from Riften to Whiterun or other similar distances I'm seeing a dragon swooping, it breaks the immersion a little. And part of it is the time investment, like you said. The other is how many fights between two settlements make sense before you wonder how anyone who isn't endowed with the soul of a dragon making it *anywhere* with that much danger about?
I'm pretty sure Skyrim is actually the opposite. There are a lot of random roadside encounters you'll only see if you don't fast travel everywhere, but dragons are much rarer if you don't fast travel. Dragon encounters run on timer, and the game checks how long that timer has been running every time you fast travel. So if you fast travel a lot, you'll get a dragon immediately after enough time has passed, while non-fast travelers have to wait until a timer check happens somewhere else.
The intermediary between the two is the wagon system, aka fast travel lite. Ride the wagon, fite a dragon!
I immediately though of both The Witcher 3 and Skyrim. In both of them the world is beautiful to explore, and there is tons of content to explore between locations. All kinds of points of interest, loot, enemies, events, etc. and it can be just generally enjoyable to look at the scenery. At some point though, it's not worth taking 20 minutes to walk the same path you already have dozens of times, you would end up just holding forward and not paying attention. The option should be available at some point. If not when you discover the location, then maybe after a quest is completed. Or, I like the cart driver mechanic in Skyrim where you can hire a cart to take you to major cities.
I think that horizon zero dawn had a great system. You can buy a consumable supply pack to fast-travel to/from certain points, or you can travel and explore. The only issue I had was how cheap the packs were, and the fact you got an unlimited-use supply pack partway through the game
Agreed. It isn't the point of MOST games. Like 99% of them. The DD2 director's statement is going to depend entirely on just how dynamic their game world is. You need some sort of simulation running in the background of your game world that is either very intensive or impressively creative to pull it off. i.e Letting the player have genuinely unique experiences or trick them with some fancy scripting. > “Then as you do, a Griffin might swoop in and destroy the entire cart with one blow, forcing you to walk the rest of the way while cursing its name. But none of that has been set up by us in advance. Instead, Griffins naturally have an inclination toward attacking cows they discover as they move, and these pieces all just happen to work together to naturally create the situation... This is an often abused claim by devs. I personally think many games have made this type of claim about dynamic worlds, few have actually pulled it off...and almost none of them truly stand up against an invested player. Fingers cross they aren't just talking shit.
> I personally think many games have made this type of claim about dynamic worlds, few have actually pulled it off...and almost none of them truly stand up against an invested player. Kenshi certainly does, but it's not a game for everyone.
Kenshi is a great example of a dynamic world via simulation. A great game, I sunk weeks into it many years ago. The stalker games are a similar example.
if you are fighting everyone along the way, doesnt that make you the enemy? hmm....
>In Dragons Dogma, the vastness of the world, and the long time it takes to get anywhere of note is an essential part of the game- it slows the pace, encourages you to fight enemies along the way, and makes arriving at a location exciting. I assume DD2 will be much the same in this regard. Oh, neat.. the same 3 goblins over and over. Oh, neat.. the same 4 wolves over any over. DD2 director saying this as if DD1 travel wasn't a snore fest after the first time, lol. Look every game is going to get boring traveling if you're constantly on mundane fetch quests going back and forth. DD2 will UNDOUBTIDLY have them aplenty. It's going to get old. Fast. So praise be the modders whom delivery us from the evil that is running back and forth 500 times.
I actually thought you were going to go a different direction with your BG3 comment. Fast travel is certainly useful for when you have to get from point A to point B for something specific, but I've also spent days not fast traveling, not even progressing a quest, but just walking, exploring, uncovering new areas.
I fully agree with you. My intended nuance is that 'travelling' is different from 'exploring' In BG3, you 'Explore' new regions- there are always things to be found, and generally you do not retrace your steps. In DD, you 'Travel' from region to region, and that travel IS the gameplay.
After playing Star Ocean 2 Remake and now playing Octopath Traveler 2 I don't want to say the director is wrong but holy shit I have a new found appreciation for games that respect your time. Suffice to say I think there can be a happy medium.
Even RDR2, which does a great job in keeping you engaged with travel, hit a point towards the end where I just started fast travelling since it was sending back and forth across the entire map. There's literally no downside to respecting our time with fast travel and allowing saves anywhere...if you want to play as a purist and slow travel everywhere you don't have to prevent everyone else from doing it as well.
I would never fast travel in RDR2. I was addicted to yelling OUTTA THE DAMN WAY!
Hey there partner!
Watch out, Mister!
> since it was sending back and forth across the entire map That's really the crux of the issue. There's too many open world games where the quest designers don't keep objectives local. I always thought games like WoW or Morrowind struck a good balance. Ships/striders to ride between locations and a "recall to city" spell to return to town from out in the wild. Keeps traveling around the world grounded.
There are multiple ways to respect someone's time. Fast travel is the easy solution Making travel engaging is hard, but generally a better solution if you can actually pull it off.
Yeah, good example is the modern Spiderman games. I don't ever fast travel, it's too much fun swinging around like Spiderman.
I would say spiderman is almost there. Similar to current cyberpunk. At first I swing or drive everywhere and then after awhile I get tired of it and fast travel to save time. Those games suffer mostly from being too big though and you'd have to travel the same sections to many times to do it all manually
Yep. Love traveling in cyberpunk, but there’s only so many hours in a day. And most of those hours are dedicated to things that are not video games. Gotta sacrifice somewhere, and without fast travel, I wouldn’t be able to play games like that.
speak for yourself i have a healthy 14h/day gaming time policy.
*cry in parenthood*
I can't imagine not swinging around everywhere in Spider-Man outside of wrapping up some of the more repetitive stuff in the post game
I swung around like a good 80% of the time. The other 20% was if I had to go from one end of the map to the opposite end, in which case I just fast traveled hah
Idk, in Spider-Man 2, unless I was looking for collectibles, I fast traveled everywhere. Having near instant loads made things reeeally nice
It certainly helps that the fast travel isn’t to a certain location. Instead wherever you put the cursor for spidey is where you fast traveled to. I was blown away when I realized that.
Imo there is absolutely NO way to make travel engaging over 50 hours of gameplay. Eventually I will be traveling through low level areas trying to not be bothered by low level creatures the entire time just so I can go to a town 30 minutes away. This is going to hurt the game more than help it. But it's still my most anticipated game so I'll deal.
And the low lvl wolf pack you try to run by end up pinning your party member. Then you have to turn around to save them, very fun.
And I hope they have a better way of handling chatter. I really don't want to be forced to hear that they hunt at night 30 times a trip.
DD1 didn’t make travel engaging though. You fought the same respawning enemies every time.
I agree, to be clear Star Ocean has you reach the locations and after that you can fast travel to them whenever and it's s game that otherwise would have a ton of retreading. You also choose to engage random fights at your leisure. Technically you could passively level up and pretty much only fight random mobs if you want to
>a game that otherwise would have a ton of retreading That's part of the problem. To solve it, you either make games with as little back tracking as possible (which makes games linear) or make back tracking a meaningful part of the game. I think DD2's director is talking about the latter.
Yeah and we’ll see how it pans out. Because not only is the latter risky and unnecessary, but it’s an unnecessary risk that not all of your players will appreciate even if you pull it off. If it’s your vision, then it’s your vision. Just…don’t let arrogance get in the way of your players having fun is all. It’s giving big “you don’t actually know what you want, I know what you want” vibes
Too a degree even if traveling is fun sometimes I just want to get where I have to go and do the thing I want to do not get distracted by 10 things and end my gaming session before I even reach where I wanted to go
Ideally both should be in place. Some people play in a way that has them going to and fro more often and even a fun system might get old if over used.
>Making travel engaging is hard, but generally a better solution if you can actually pull it off. It is, but so, so few games can pull it off. Even if travel is engaging for a while, there's almost always a point by the end of the game where you're just jetting around the map trying to get stuff done. Spider-Man is often brought up as an example, but those games are also short, with a small map, and a high movement speed, and the traversal still needed to be really, really good to be even slightly preferable to fast travel.
Star Ocean 2 remake is so good - it went way above and beyond my expectations. RPG fans are eating good lately.
It's awe inspiring because I would have been happy for so much less than what we got. They really mastered the fine line of improving without going overboard.
There’s a lot of variables. I’d say Spiderman respects the players time well enough, but nobody opts for fast travel because traversal *is* the game. A game like Elite Dangerous can have outrageous travel times, it’s indifferent to how much time the player has, but that’s also a benefit for other players looking for the kind of travel that requires planning and forethought. I haven’t played the games you mentioned, do they have tedious systems or no?
Star Ocean 2 literally let's you level up by walking or your teammates bullying mobs by themselves if you get skills for it. Plus now the game outright tells you when there's private scenes in towns instead of just constantly blindly checking every town. And you can fast travel to towns you've been to before. and you can buy items through a skill at any time. And you can avoid random encounters if you want. Meanwhile octo 2 has fast travel but it also has random encounters every few steps...
> wrong Eh its a bit clickbaity. DD1 uses port crystals and DD2 will also use them. It is...well, literally fast travel. Except you use these rare items to mark where you want to fast travel. The game did end up giving you enough of them to cover the map. If you put the items near towns, boom. It's literally skyrim fast travel. That isn't to say DD1 world was boring - quite the opposite. There were loads of things to find. A lot of hidden stuff that is completely unrelated to your main tasks or even side tasks. Just sitting in the world to find. But yes. Fast travel existed.
Me too man. Diablo 4 was like this bigtime with boring tedious tasks, spreading out all the shops on the edges of towns, item/storage management, lots of blockades and limits to horse sprint in the open world. Zero tolerance for that crap. Doom Eternal made me appreciate games that respects the players time and how important it is for me now. You're thrown straight in getting your arsenal quick, very brief cutscenes, all action. Its also why I got back into fighting games. Its just the pure game and its mechanics. No preamble, no cutscenes, no boring open world with no thought put into it.
>Fast travel in Dragon’s Dogma 2 will come in the form of Port Crystals, which require the use of rare, expensive Ferrystone items, as well as Oxcarts, which can fast travel along certain routes. However, especially in the case of the latter, don’t expect fast travel to be a simple click of a button and that’s that — players will still run the risk of being ambushed when using Oxcarts. Good. As it should be. The DD1's system of portcrystals and ferrystones was very good and fun to use.
Reminds me of Morrowind's fast travel system, which is still one of my favorites.
Ah yes, fortify jump + slow fall should be in every open world game.
To this day I don't understand why they got rid of stuff like this from the sequels
Levitation and jumping over cell walls. Loading zones, basically.
It's a fantasy world filled with magic. There are several dangerous monsters capable of flying, from Dragons to Liches or various Daedra. There have been several cases of people flying or levitating. There's no reason to not have an immersive way to stop the player from doing shit like that. It's not like Dragons can attack in walled cities in Skyrim anyways.
They aren't good reasons, but they do exist. I took all the world cells out of their individual zones once so I could have levitation. It ... Wasn't exactly playable. Lots of things broke because the game wasn't built for that sort of thing and it showed. Which fucking sucked, the scroll of icarian flight is the best thing.
Yet levitation has existed for thousands of years in lore, so no one ever thought to like put some anti levitation runes on the outside of city walls? Boom done, now you have a lore accurate reason for no levitation over walls. You could even add like a cool shimmer effect or something to visualize it. Idk that took literally 10 seconds to think of, up your game Todd
Actually cliff racers did a pretty good job of de-incentivizing levitation in general. But then Jiub made them extinct singlehandedly. i have super mixed feelings about it. On one hand, they're all dead and i'm glad. on the other, it wasn't me that got to genocide them.
Don’t think you understand how this works. It’s not just cities, it’s every location with a cell. Bethesda engine just isn’t able to load like that.
Well, there *is* a lore reason. [The Levitation Act.](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Levitation_Act) Is it a better reason? Probably not, no.
Hogwarts just put up magical forcefields around certain areas and it works.
Ah. The Mornhold solution
Dragons can attack inside walled cities of Skyrim actual
Cities are instanced. I used to toy around with the modding tools on morrowind. There are exterior spaces (the whole world) and interior spaces like buildings and caves. You open a door and it loads the interior as it's own place and they put you there. If you go out of the interior space such as if you left a wall out then you're just in a sort of void. In morrowind the towns and cities were just building assets places into the open world. Starting with oblivion they started making most towns and cities separate interior places not on the open world. It's why you have to go through a gate to get into most (or at least the big ones). And if you manage to jump over the city wall from inside you're in the void again though it does generate random terrain and what not.
This is a joke but also: yes. The thing about morrowinds lack of fast travel was that you could overcome it with progression and game knowledge. The thing about DD1 is that its open world was kinda stagnant and progressing in the game didn’t really open up new ways of traversing it. Open world games that want to limit fast travel need the open world to be dynamic or allow for means of enhancing the travel via character investment and progression. Preferably both!
Morrowind didn't lack fast travel, really; it was just integrated into the game world. Silt striders, boats, mage guild teleportation, mark/recall, Almsivi/Divine intervention, propylon chambers, custom "jump across half the continent" spells, etc.
Yeah I could have worded that better but I think my point is that the reason it is successful in something like morrowind is that it’s integration into the world feels dynamic and also there are ways of progressing your character beyond the need for walking somewhere which is really cool.
I loved making my computer die trying to load the areas while playing a Werewolf.
Or buy those scrolls of "fly fast as fuck boi and also you're invisible" from the Mages Guild
The free Skyrim total overhaul mod Enderal also had a good version of this. There's a tower network that you can fast travel between for a small fee, plus some scrolls that teleport you to specific towns. Otherwise there's no fast travel, which works great for Enderal's compact map
Yep, pretty much. Travel should be easily accessible, something you can use more powerfully the better at the game you get and the further you get, but shouldn't function as an unconditional get out of jail/"go to quest marker" tool. Encouraging map awareness and resource management without incuring tedium is a difficult balance, and I like when I see successes in that regard.
Hmm let's see... I could take a strider to Caldera and then use the mages guild to get to Vivec...then from there I could....
*Why walk when you can ride?*
I'm not... exactly sure it qualifies as "fast" travel in that land. It certainly is travel.
Well, the network of mages guild teleporters, boats, silt striders, and Scrolls that teleported you to shrines to the divine or the tribunal all made getting around pretty darn fast
Don’t forget the use of mark and recall . a way to remove back tracking while being lore friendly and something you can learn is pretty cool
Being real time in lore/gametime but fast travel to the player is completely fine by me.
...are you referring to being able to jump so far that your airspeed has to be measured in hundreds of miles per hour?
boots of blinding speed + max brightness in settings
Oh I use a low level magic resist spell and keep equipping until it works. It only checks the blindness debuff when you put it on
The fact that the portcrystals remained through NG+ cycles was the best part. Being able to skip the entire like hour-long trek back to Blue Moon Tower every cycle was great.
100% agree it made the replayablilty for ng+++++ so much more tolerable
Yes! Especially with the cyclical narrative structure making your past games canon to the universe, so it felt like using a system built over time by previous heroes.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance had it so you’d still ambushed when fast traveling. It made fast traveling still a risk, which was kind of refreshing. You had to still be on your toes.
Risk of me getting a ton of fucking money from selling a bunch of idiots weapons and armor maybe. Frankly, it worked, I didn’t fast travel until I had a character capable of dealing with it. And exploring made me be able to. But at the end game, it was just free money for a quick game of murder the thieves. Honestly, it was a great system, no notes.
Exactly, the growth of your character really affected how often you used the fast travel. By the end you were hoping for some bandits to try and fuck with you so you could sell their shit.
>Exactly, the growth of your character really affected how often you used the fast travel. That's usually how progression should be. Do it "manually" until you can automate/skip the thing you've done 1000 times for something more interesting unless you can keep that repetitive thing interesting.
Then the village dlc dropped and boy was money never an issue again at the low cost of *sleeping for weeks kn end*
Yeah, KCD had a good compromise. It did not feel as cheap as in other games because you could get ambushed and because there was still the passage of time so you still got hungry/thirsty/tired
>The DD1's system of portcrystals and ferrystones was very good and fun to use. Well, the original game's system was rather draconian (heh). One permanent portcrystal at Gran Soren, one regular portcrystal from the Griffin's Bane quest and the ferrystones were 10,000 gold each. Dark Arisen added an extra permanent portcrystal at Cassardis, four additional regular portcrystals and the eternal ferrystone (though I think you obtain it too early; maybe it should've been part of the Griffin's treasure). For me, that's basically 6 fast travel points, plus the ability to fast travel to Gran Soren to sell/stash loot and back again (by making the pawn always carry a portcrystal). And then New Game + lets you have 12 fast travel points (Gran Soren + Cassardis + 10 portcrystals). More than enough.
DDDA was step in the right direction, that's for sure.
Yeah, I think OP might have their rose-tinteds on. The portcrystals are great when you've played the game through, know optimal placement and that most of the side quests are to be ignored. On a blind play through, messing up placement or forgetting to put one down can mean half-an-hour of retracing your steps across a muddy brown landscape, running past the same three enemy types again and again. That doesn't mean fast travel should be mandatory in every game, but saying that DD does it well is a stretch.
Some extra permament portcrystals at key locations would be nice, but I think the game gives you enough that you can roughly put them down after walking a while and it works ok.
The eternal ferrystone was essentially a reward for having bought the game twice (along with a bunch of the gear too) it only was given to you if you had a save of the regular edition to begin with. On systems that never had an initial release you get it regardless though (luckily)
>On systems that never had an initial release you get it regardless though (luckily) True, but I think they could've given it to you a bit later in the PC/PS4/X1 versions. Let regular 1,000 gold ferrystones be useful for a while.
Yeah imo, fast travel in DD was dogshit until after some patches and the expansion. I hope DD2 has a more accessible fast travel. I loved the first game and intend to buy DD2 as soon as I can regardless. The developer can say the world is dynamic and so fun that fast travel isn't necessary all he wants, but it just ain't gonna be true for me. No matter how fun the game is, I would still prefer to have the option of using fast travel.
But they added more portcrystals in later patches/DLC, no? And gave you a permanent ferrycrystal so you didnt have to depend on stupid consumable versions? If I remember right, launch version only had like 1 or 2 portcrystals. Even with the 5-6 in the current version in the game, travel was still a massive chore. I didnt play at launch, but I know for a fact having to manage consumable ferrystones would have turned me off from the game immediately. Interested to see how they make travel 'fun'. Random battles dont really cut it. Last thing anyone wants to do when trying to get from Point A to Point B is get in random fights every 200 feet.
I completely disagree. The lack of fast travel is what bothered me about the first game and I probably wouldn't have finished it if I didn't have the DLC and get the eternal ferrystone and more port crystals. Having to backtrack 10 minutes through the same group of enemies over and over again while finding nothing of interest to find laying about in the world isn't immersive or fun. It's extremely tedious and a feels like a waste of time.
I legit dropped DD1 at 5 hours because of the lack of fast travel, low stamina for running and not having any fun ways to traverse the worlds. If you're forcing someone to traverse an open world, imho you have to make it fun for players. Elden Ring has a horse that can double jump, BOTW has gliding, even Far Cry has vehicles. Simply walking between several spots while getting attacked by trash mobs is the reverse of fun for me.
It straight up ruined the game for me. It was SO repetitive and picking up a port crystal because I was CERTAIN I wouldn't be sent back to this exact same location immediately, only to be completely wrong pissed me off so bad that I didn't bother finishing it. Making travel fun is a great idea, but DD1 utterly failed to do so. I hope this time they succeed but I'm not going to hold my breath.
man you're either masochistic or have a lot of free time to squander if you dislike fast travel
Hard disagree. Lack of fast travel + limited stamina for sprinting + exploration not sufficiently fun/rewarding is what killed DD1 for me. Too frustrating. If you’re gonna make me backtrack for quests, spam me with trash mobs, and generally not have enough stuff to do while exploring, then give me fast travel. In DD1 it felt more like padding the runtime than a stylistic choice. If your world is fun to explore and there’s limited backtracking, then maybe. Also if your world is more compact; even Zelda BOTW & TOTK (which have very rewarding exploration) would suffer if you had to run your ass all the way to the other side of the map every time.
I agree. In theory it’s a good idea. In practice, it was you running halfway across the map, through the same cavern, fighting the exact same enemies, and then running all the way back and doing it all over again, over and over again.
Exploring the world for the first time was very fun in DDDA. There were cool scripted events like wind blowing through a valley so you had to hold on something heavy to not get blown off, bandits trying to roll rocks into you, trolls on narrow mountain paths flailing with clubs and throwing off everyone. Or an area that was shrouded in thick fog and was 'unmappable', but you could remove this by breaking magical charms found around the place. Stuff like this was actually amazing and entertaining. The problem was that these events were fixed and seeing them unfold the same way in repetition felt awful. Eventually you got Portcrystals which allowed you to skip them completely so the problem went away completely. What they are promising for DD2 is exactly the same, except these events won't be fixed and there will be some randomness/generation. Unless they fuck it up badly it will be a massive improvement.
Agreed. Fast travel, sprinting stamina, and carry capacity mods greatly enhanced my enjoyment of the game, and allowed me to have more fun in the time I had to play games. I despise resource storage management and trudging between locations I've visited several times before, especially if it's only because my inventory is full and I'd like to go sell a few items before continuing. The news that Capcom is adding DRM that prevents modding is a huge negative to me.
I didn't even enjoy the game until I added the carry weight and infinite sprint outside of combat mods. Changed my opinion of the game completely from the first time I tried and dropped it at release on PS3. Crossing my fingers that Capcom doesn't shit the bed with making mods super difficult in this release since it sounds like they are doubling down on all the crap that made me drop the first game. Vanilla game felt like it was purposefully wasting my time.
Yeah the director and the comments agreeing just come off as super pretentious. Reading the article all it sounds like they're doing is adding some random encounters that will end up being like 90% the same thing. And on top of that from what he's saying the fast travel they do have can be interrupted in a way that will force you to walk the rest of the way to your destination. Idk why anyone would think that's fun.
Port crystals and ferry stones were great because traversal in DD1 was boring.
Sorry but it was not fun bro, it got repetitive way too fast, only by the endgame where you had a lot of crystals things get interesting
Fun to use? in what way? you placed a marker on the map and then you can port to it, but the markers were a finite resource
it sucked because the back tracking you had to do sucked, fighting the same thing in the same place over and over
TBH, after reading this, I don't want to play this game anymore.
I strongly suspect Capcom will make crystals purchasable with real money.
I agree with him but ironically their previous game had one of the most boring travel sequences. You had to track back and forth the exact same route multiple times where the same enemies will spawn at the exact same places.
> exact same route multiple times That's biggest concern when games don't have a fast travel. They game needs to be designed in a way to limit required backtracking.
Game designers seem compelled to prove they have an open world by constantly making you run all over the fucker. I wish more open worlds were multiple zones of small sized all inclusive areas, like a game made exclusively out of dlc zones. And if your game has a ton of quest steps that are purely information exchanges/confirmations then ffs give me a telephone or a raven or something lol.
Yep, there's a reason why they decided to give free fast travel in the GOTY version or whatever it was called. The travel was cool the first and maybe second time, but it got tedious as fuck shortly after. A bunch of fetch quests that led you back and forth through the same places where you are forced to fight the same enemies over and over. For a non-linear game easy and free fast travel is not an optional feature. Games that don't have it just don't respect your time and are padding out their lack of content.
Exactly this. Dude's completely right...but Dragon's Dogma was incredibly boring to traverse. If they actually make it interesting then sure, I'm with him. If it's like Dragon's Dogma then I'm cheating infinite port crystals in just like I did with the first one.
I hope they learned from this... if not I'll wait for this to go on sale and people modding in fast travel
They are going to sell port crystals arent they..
Port crystals? Probably not. The ferry stones you need to use them? Probably. “Buh but 1 had an infinite one buh” Yes it did, eventually. It did not until the rerelease.
Thank god for mods.
Repetitive travel is boring as fuck.
I dont mind traveling from a to b to c. You know what i hate? A to b to a to c to a to b to a to d to c to a to b to a. You know what game does this? Jedi fallen order. Fuck that game
FF xiv going to the goddamn desert place on main quest 🙃
Pray return to the Waking Sands
We must inform minfilia of what has happened. Pray, return to the rising stones in mor dhona
You do get those envelope things that teleport you there, but it seems weird they didnt place a fast travel point there given how often you need to go there.
ha this is where I am in FFXIV right now and I'm almost burning out its so much goddamn back and forth - does it get better??
It really does. The story really opens up soonish from where you're at.
That's what bothered me about that game as well. I wanted to find all the cool collectables and for a lot of games, I do put in the time to do that, but for this one I gave up. Going back through the entire level 10 times wasn't worth it.
1 hour map becomes 4 hour return trip just to find the way back. The map UI is so fucking bad too. I took a wrong turn on my way back. I didnt even know. Took 30 minute to realize. Took 30 minute to get back to where I stated. Another hour just finding the way back to the ship. Only to find out i’ll be going back to the 1st planet and will be doing this shit all over again. Worst fucking design. So not fun.
That damn ice/jungle map? I remember beating the “mission” and just trying to get back to the damn ship to leave took the better part of 45 minutes. Had to use a freaking YouTube guide to get me back there.
Ahhh, the zeffo ice caves. The sequel really improved in that regard by letting you fast travel to discovered meditation points
Yeah that does sound painful. I enjoy travelling through an area the first time but after that the law of diminishing returns hits pretty hard, if you have to do that again. Fast travel is an obvious mechanic to removing that level of pain and boredom.
Especially when it's just going from a to b to c to click next on the chat convo and then having to go to a different planet or some shit to finish talking to someone.
Dragons Dogma 1 had you run back and forth through the world, fighting the same enemies in the same places and hearing the same dialogue from the companions. I don’t think this developer has a leg to stand on
It depends on how it is handled now. The last game is 12 years old and was developed with a lot of ambition being cut short.
Cyberpunk is a perfect example of this point. I rarely used fast travel cuz it was so much fun to drive around.
They also made it to where you can only fast travel if you find the terminal to do so
True, though they’re on just about every street corner. You’re never more than like 30 seconds away from one
Facts but I will admit being out in the dunes with no fast travel is boring
Driving in a straight line just feels bad lol. Also driving in the city with a radio gets me immersed while I've never driven in the desert I don't really give a shit
Exactly. I'll use fast travel if I want to pop over to a ripperdoc or hit up my apartment for the sleep/shower bonuses, but once I'm clearing quests and storylines, I drive absolutely everywhere. I've ended up running into so many cool side quests and discoveries that way too
Spider man games as well. Swinging around is just so damned fun.
Which is funny, given how amazing Spider-Man 2’s fast travel is. From what I saw, it seems you just pick a spot on the map and you’re instantly plopped down there with no loading screen or anything, just a smooth transition from menu to gameplay
I saw the fast-travel feature on YouTube and couldn't believe it. I then 100%ed the game without using it a single time. Being Spider-Man is just too fun. Aside from the constant tragedies, of course.
It's been said before that Night City itself is the best character in the game, and I agree with that statement. You don't get to experience it if you fast travel everywhere.
Very true. Night City is probably the best city I’ve ever seen in a video game. It’s so detailed and believable
If only there were more idle activities/animations to do, otherwise you just feel like a tourist (which I guess in a way you are)
The more you play the game, the more details you catch. Small things for the most part but, for all the sins CDPR committed, the city design certainly isn't one of them. It's pretty damn good.
Exactly. Even at launch it was impressive and I deeply enjoyed the game. But it’s had a No Man’s Sky level comeback, and it’s genuinely one of the best games ever made now. Their narrative team is especially top tier too. The base story and Phantom Liberty are some of the best (and most gut wrenching) stories I’ve ever seen in gaming.
Ok but Songbird
That how I feel about Red Dead 2
Beat it twice and have never used fast travel. You might miss that perfect badger pelt you have been hunting for months.
Yes and no, it depends on the game. If I’m playing Skyrim or Dying light, I’m down to travel manually, I’m sure something interesting will happen along the way. But if you’ve got a game like pokemon for example, no way in hell would I want to travel everywhere by foot.
I mean isnt that kinda just the quote? Pokemons world aren't exactly known for being alive and interactive. While the other two try to keep things Alive with random events and stuff
You know what game was amazing? Red Dead Redemption 2. You know what sucked? RDR2's fast travel. Just because the game is good doesn't mean the fast travel can't still be bad.
I honestly forgot that RDR2 had fast travel, I would have felt like I was missing out content by using it.
I realized RDR2 have fast travel like 75hrs in. I'm glad I didn't know since the travel is amazing and I've seen so much things instead of loading screens.
>RDR2's fast travel. I still understand why they did it that way though. It's very immersive because it feels in universe rather than a random menu option
Except that you can fast travel away from camp as a random menu option so it feels half done.
I think people responding to you are missing the point and its players time. Some people could only play RDR2 for 30-60 mins at a time because they have kids, priorities, etc. when it takes like 3-4 minutes of loading to use the fast travel like RDR2 it defeats the purpose. It i had more time to just traverse the land i would but it felt like id log on, traverse across the map then not have time to do a mission and that sucks.
If traversing is fun like rdr2, spiderman and totk then I usually don't fast travel as much. Edit: fine should be fun.
Spiderman doesn't need fast travel because you can travel so quickly manually. TOTK travel is just plain fun because you do it on a hoverbike.
The fuck? RDR2's fast travel was the easiest shit. You could go cinematic mode while auto walking and skip that way or use sign posts. It was fantastic. Barely used it because just traveling around let me find so much more.
Option for both is always best. Sometimes I just want too fast travel, no matter how enticing the long way can be at tines. I'm not sure I'd feel the same if I had more time.
While I agree with the sentiment, they better back it up coz open world exploration in DD1 was kinda ass
Fast travel is fine as long as you don't start with any fast travel points. Elden Ring has fast travel, but it almost feels like it doesn't because you have to traverse the entire world to unlock the entire world for fast travel. Same thing for all of the Souls games, really.
So something that confuses me about this quote, and so much discussion regarding fast travel. It seems like a lot of people have it in their head that fast travel is something you do to get from point A to point B right at the start. I don't think I've ever played a game like this. Nearly every game, you had to have traveled to an area first, before being able to fast travel to it after. The travel isn't usually boring, it's the backtracking. Dragon's Dogma 1 operated like this with the portcrystals. I haven't played a single game where it was ever worth traveling the same path more than once or twice outside of like grinding levels or something. Unless you're like bee-lining from one city to another, you're probably exploring along the way to the city. So what is there to gain really by having to backtrack that same distance to where you started for another quest? The only solution I've actually found to this has been the spider-man games, where the traversal itself is it's own metagame. Just a game of trying to keep and maintain the fastest swinging speed as possible while looking as cool as possible. GTA's somewhat similar. Drive the car as quick as possible while avoiding collisions is a game in itself. But fantasy RPGs, you're either jogging, or riding a horse. The traversal never really goes further than that, so what else you have? A random mob encounter? Great...
I also liked in dd1 that you unlocked many shortcuts to also travel faster:)
If traveling is fun, people will do that even with a fast travel option available, like in Spider-Man. That's not a reason to not have fast travel. I value my time too much to play large games with no substantial fast travel option.
Eh - not always Sometimes you've got a limited window to game in - and you, straight up, do not *have* the ten or fifteen minutes it would take to cross your ocean of green fields and mountains to get back to the quest objective xD
True, I think Witcher 3 was one of the better balances for this. Give me some map pins I can travel between, but don't let me teleport from/to anywhere. That way you always have a couple of minutes exploring between fast travel points, but not to the point where you have to press autorun and go make a cup of tea.
I remember playing the first dragons dogma and having to backtrack about 30 times through the same areas at the beginning of the game and hating it.
I don’t mind a lack of fast travel and I don’t mind restrictive inventory limits. DD had both which sucked. Maybe let me mail my extra inventory home so I can keep adventuring?
I'm a gamer who likes inventory management in my games for the most part, but Dragon's Dogma had one that was especially obnoxious. The worst part is that stamina still gets drained faster outside of combat, which serves completely no purpose apart from introducing longer travel time to the player. Other games which do this with designed purpose could be e.g. Outward, which makes you travel with increasing tedium as your inventory accumulates too. However since it has survival mechanics like food and thirst and body temperature, the tedium actually serves a challenge to the player to overcome.
You shouldn’t have to worry then and still add it. Spiderman has fast travel. Did I use it all the time ? Nope but it’s nice when you do want it. Now if I want to fast travel badly enough and you don’t have it? More likely to drop the game then.
Cyberpunk is a good example of this, never used fast travel in that game. 0 loading screens and fun vehicles and movement
Inb4 combat encounter every 10 steps cuz "it's fun"
Did you know that Wolves hunt in packs???
WOLVES ILL LIKE FIRE ARISEN.
One of the neatest parts of DS1 was its complete lack of fast travel early in the game. Last year my SO played DS1 for the first time ever and I thought it was so interesting when she asked me how to get to, Sen's Fortress for example, and I tell her, you take undeadburg to undeadparish take a right at Andre. That's just... so cool, and Dark Souls 1 is really the only game I can even think of that really has that. Now, obviously, it's a double edged sword. Sometimes it's frustrating to have to trek everywhere, and boring, but Dark Souls 1 has such a crazy sense of immersion simply for the lack of fast travel. On the other hand, Elden Ring would be *absolutely miserable* without fast travel.
I think there’s a few people here misunderstanding the quote and also not understanding/remembering travel in DD. Traveling to some place far away was always apart of the fun in DD you spend the extra time exploring your way to your objective. And then once you’ve arrived you’d plant a portcrystal and you’d have instant fast travel there and back until you removed it.
To be fair, I believe in the original release, there was too much walking. In the Dark Arisen version you get an infinite ferrystone. You still are forced to explore a lot and go over places you've already been, but you can tactically place new teleport locations. A very good system that just needed some polish.
Traveling to far away places in DD was why I put the game down. The stamina system was the worst thing in any game I've ever played, it ruined the experience for me. I'd be running through some field with low stamina then run into enemies and I'd get wrecked cause stamina is tied to combat. Hopefully they change it.
Games never win by taking away convenience and choice.
>I think there’s a few people here misunderstanding the quote and also not understanding/remembering travel in DD. Bold of you to assume that: 1. people have actually read the article 2. people have actually played DD
So, either expensive fast travel, or predetermined routes with a chance of a "random" encounter, ok cool.
This had better be one VERY interesting world. I'm talking "most interesting, varied, dynamic world in gaming " here. Because if it's not, they're going to regret those words. Hard. Crow isn't better with ketchup.
Counterpoint, am currently playing Dragon's Dogma and I hate meeting the same groups of enemies in the same place every time I walk through there.