My thoughts on Fast-Travel, Why the system is flawed and where the ignorance comes from. Options

[Thomas Kaira]

The reason I say it hurts the exploration is because it removes incentive to actually go out and explore the map and see just how large the world is. Being able to beam from Anvil to Cheydinhal right at the beginning of the game makes having that large game world rather pointless. Sure you can choose not to, but that is not how a roleplaying game is supposed to work.

As for roleplaying... roleplaying is all about making choices within the game world as a character. Unfortunately, the TES games have started to violate that principle and brought forth a bastardized version of roleplaying where you choose which game mechanics you want to use and which you would prefer to ignore, but offering no consequences for either choice.

That is not roleplaying. Choices need consequences, and must have a lasting effect. your choice to save a man or kill him, that is roleplaying. Choosing a travel medium, that is contrived and completely unnecessary.

The reason I want to see developer-imposed limits on traveling is that this should not be an area where player choice is even needed, and for the devs to say otherwise is simply pretentious. When you put all the effort into giving the player choices over mundane things like travel, and not into actually enriching their character into the story for a roleplaying game, there is something wrong with your development goals.

At this point, we really need to come off it. Skyrim is an action-adventure game at its heart. Bethesda has completely ditched roleplaying except for basics so far as we can tell at this point. All of my gripes center on Skyrim being treated as a roleplaying game, when clearly I was dead wrong to do so.

My point: roleplaying is a game style that relies heavily on choices with consequences, but now with Skyrim (and Oblivion, too) Bethesda has mutated this into choices without consequences (like travel methods), meaning Skyrim (and Oblivion, too) is no longer a true RPG. Ergo, to treat Skyrim as an RPG is wrong, and I'm going to have lower my standards fairly significantly as a result.

This post has been edited by Thomas Kaira: Jul 16 2011, 07:38 PM

[Kiln]

Thomas Kaira, I completely agree with you on most points. I won't go into detail because I don't feel like arguing but Bethsoft is going the wrong way to attract more rpg fans.

[Captain Hammer]

I actually liked the travel system in Morrowind. I just found the game itself to be unbalanced and favored melee far more than stealth or magic gameplay.

But Morrowind took place on an island system with multiple methods of travel. Boats and Silt Striders accounted for the travel time reasonably well. Mages' Guild teleportation was instantaneous, but that's the point of teleportation. Of course, it was comparatively cheap, which I found to be a little off-putting considering its power, but it was the most limited travel system in the game.

I do agree that the system in Oblivion was broken. But the removal of Levitation, Mark/Recall spells, and Intervention spells represented a big problem. Part of what I liked in Morrowind was that if you started dungeon diving and got yourself into a difficult spot of trouble, there were ways to get out, improve, and go back later for bloody vengeance. Of course, that ties into the leveling problems of both Oblivion and Morrowind. Which is a separate issue entirely.

I do agree that the vast modding community is probably the single best source of solutions for problems with the fast travel system.

For what it's worth, here's what I'd like to see, either in the game or available in mods:
A return of Levitation and Mark/Recall. Levitation in particular, since we're fighting Freakin' DRAGONS. Even if it's a Thu'um spell, I want to be able to fly, land on the back of a dragon, and stab the fetcher in the neck. If necessary, put a ceiling on the available ability to keep mountains as an actual physical difficulty. After all, you can't just discount breathing in the thinner atmosphere of the mountain-tops of Skyrim.

City-to-City transports, both carriage, and Mage's Guild teleportation. Particularly as a means of hauling large amounts of gear.

On the other hand, eliminate the five-second feather cheat for hauling an entire Oblivion Gate's worth of loot back to Skingrad for profit. If you can get toadies or a posse together to assemble a wagon-train (like, say, being both Arch-Mage and Fighters' Master, and leading strike teams of battlemages, crusaders, spellswords, warriors, and some scouts to close the gates and clear the towers of useful items), fine and good. But if it's just you? Yeah, you're going to have to leave stuff where it is if you don't have the room.

And while we're at it, an overhaul of the weight of items would be nice. Full suit of heavy plate armor with the best protection available? 40-50lbs, depending on the construction. Longswords? Average out to a little over 3 pounds (3.3lbs., or 1.5 kg to be precise). If you're hiring a coach to take you and your fifty swords from Winterhold to Rifton? Fine, but you pay extra for your luggage (unless you're traveling in merchant class, where your first ten swords are free).

Lastly, the toning down of enemy encounters whilst traveling. Making the Main Quest unavoidable? That's problematic. Now, if I am actively killing every aggressive dragon I come across, I could understand why a few of their brethren would feel in some kind of way about the need to express their displeasure, in a such a way that their shouting literally roasts my rear.

But if, on the other hand, I'm not absorbing the soul of every dragon that flapping around in Skyrim, I would like to think that the risk of being randomly assaulted would be less. Also, it would be nice to actually effect a change in the risk of banditry and marauding in Skyrim. If one were to kill a few bandits here and there, then sure, I accept that in a short while others might take over the vacated business. But if I were to leave a message by, I don't know, let's say by crucifying a few bandits here and there and posting a sign informing passerby of their crimes, I'd like to think the next time I stroll down the road I could expect a lot less harassment from your assorted highwaymen.

[mALX]

The reason I say it hurts the exploration is because it removes incentive to actually go out and explore the map and see just how large the world is. Being able to beam from Anvil to Cheydinhal right at the beginning of the game makes having that large game world rather pointless. Sure you can choose not to, but that is not how a roleplaying game is supposed to work.

As for roleplaying... roleplaying is all about making choices within the game world as a character.

You have contradicted yourself here, however you are exactly right in paragraph two: roleplay is all about making choices within the gameworld as a character.

Did it remove the incentive for you to go out and explore the map? It didn't for me either, or anyone that wanted to. Having the option available obviously didn't affect anyone negatively that wanted to explore - they did it. I didn't feel any untoward pull to fast travel just because it was there. It did not affect my game or the way I played. This was a choice I made for my character.

As for the people whose characters were not the "explorer" types - they had the option to FT. That is exactly what roleplay is - you decide who and what you want your character to be, to do - you don't have someone else forcing their ideas of what roleplay is onto your character.

That is not roleplaying. Choices need consequences, and must have a lasting effect. your choice to save a man or kill him, that is roleplaying. Choosing a travel medium, that is contrived and completely unnecessary.

The reason I want to see developer-imposed limits on traveling is that this should not be an area where player choice is even needed, and for the devs to say otherwise is simply pretentious. When you put all the effort into giving the player choices over mundane things like travel, and not into actually enriching their character into the story for a roleplaying game, there is something wrong with your development goals.

My point made exactly. This is what you consider roleplay, but may not be what another considers it. You are defining what roleplay should be to your standards only. There is nothing in the legitimate definition of roleplay that demands life-changing choices and consequences, it is simply to represent in action the thoughts and feelings of a character; to play a role.

Many of us just play the game just to have fun with and enjoy our characters, imagine a life for them in this realm of Tamriel. Everything doesn't have to be about life changing decisions all the time in order for it to be considered roleplay - just like in RL you are not called on to make life changing decisions 24 hours per day.

The NPC's have AI schedules because they are not guards or shopkeepers 24 hours a day, even Eyja has to eat and sleep - they all have a life that is not dependant on them making a dire decision every moment.

Even though you and I both eschew the fast travel, we roleplay completely differently. I cannot imagine any immersion in your description of how the game should be. I roleplay all the moments in the game, not just the deciding of who to kill or not and the facing of consequences. My character may face dire decisions, but she also bathes/eats/sleeps/walks/rides/makes friends or enemies - she lives a full life in Cyrodiil, and part of life is choosing how to get from one place to the other.

I don't agree with, nor do I see how anyone could find immersion in this Stalinesque linear viewpoint of removal of all small choices and leaving only life changing ones + consequences. That may be your idea of a fun game, but it would not be mine.

The whole point of the game is to get in it and play it how "you" want to - and each one of us billions of people who purchased the game has an individual viewpoint on how that should be. No one should dictate how another should roleplay, nor try to censor and control another's roleplay to suit how they personally would do it.

This post has been edited by mALX: Jul 16 2011, 09:22 PM

[Thomas Kaira]

You have your ways of roleplaying and I have mine. To tell you the truth, both of our methods are very similar to one another, I just get a bit miffed that I'm not given any real opportunities to intertwine with my character and put myself in her shoes to work out a dilemma, simply because Oblivion offered next to no dilemmas to solve. What you did in the game never really mattered that much, because all the paths were pre-determined. To compare to Morrowind, yes, those paths were also pre-determined, but only in the ends, not the means. That is to say, the quest blocks could be completed in nearly any order the player saw fit, and could change quest-givers whenever he wanted (rank permitting, you still had to earn that right). Oblivion's questlines are 100% linear, and do not allow the player any flexibility as to the final course of events, and made rank completely arbitrary and meaningless. You simply choose which questlines you want to do, and have your hand held every step of the way to the end.

Bethesda seems to be obsessed with this mindset of stopping the player from making bad decisions by just letting the game decide for them, particularly with the given reasons for the removal of the class system (a serious blow to the roleplaying crowd). Reality check, Todd: we all have to deal with making bad decisions from time to time. By not allowing the player to make "bad" decisions (or in this case, any decisions), you are removing his capabilities to grow and live with the hand he drew. You essentially already named every aspect of the game we are permitted to decide on in your above post, mALX. That just isn't enough. Sure it's great to be able to live in the world, but you never have any impact outside of what the developers want you to do. You are never given the chance of how you want to make a difference, or even if you want to make a difference. Oblivion sorta let you choose this, but you had to exploit the main questline to do so. Morrowind did a better job here, because very early on, it simply tells you "come back and start when you feel you are ready" and let the player decide when he was ready (obviously, never was an option here).

That is what I want in terms of choice. I want to be able to follow my own path, not just in choosing who I support, but how I support them. I am not going to defend Morrowind here, because it didn't deliver, nor did Oblivion. However, in a pinch, simply being able to choose who I support is enough. But Skyrim is different, as you have said. This time, we are not going to be given the choice of opting out of being the big, bad hero, nor are they going to allow us to exploit gaps in the action to do so.

Look at me, I'm changing my tune already!

This post has been edited by Thomas Kaira: Jul 17 2011, 12:31 AM

[mALX]

Try being a parent for a while - where every decision you make can effect forever that child's self image or stable outlook - after that the last thing you'll want in a video game will be a dire life changing decision at every turn, ROFL !!!

I am nervous at what Skyrim will bring just like you are - the only thing I will bet on is that it will be epic, because that is what Bethesda does best.

[Thomas Kaira]

Exactly, Skyrim is shaping up to be epic, but shallow.

And I don't like it when games are deliberately shallow.

Anyways, on the topic of fast-travel, although I feel that in its fullest extent it can cause the game to break down, at least the player is allowed to make the decision of how much he wishes to use it.

Unfortunately, that doesn't fix the fact that the feature is still broken. Not broken as in the idea, but broken as in easy to exploit. That is one decision the player should NEVER need to make, is whether or not he or she will exploit the games flaws for personal benefit. I'm going to be quite unhappy if any of the old exploits from Oblivion make their way into Skyrim, because Bethesda needs to learn from past mistakes.

This post has been edited by Thomas Kaira: Jul 17 2011, 01:09 AM

[mALX]

Exactly, Skyrim is shaping up to be epic, but shallow.

And I don't like it when games are deliberately shallow.

Anyways, on the topic of fast-travel, although I feel that in its fullest extent it can cause the game to break down, at least the player is allowed to make the decision of how much he wishes to use it.

Unfortunately, that doesn't fix the fact that the feature is still broken. Not broken as in the idea, but broken as in easy to exploit. That is one decision the player should NEVER need to make, is whether or not he or she will exploit the games flaws for personal benefit. I'm going to be quite unhappy if any of the old exploits from Oblivion make their way into Skyrim, because Bethesda needs to learn from past mistakes.

Did you play Fallout 3? I don't remember there being any exploitables in it except for in XP, and who would want to raise that too quickly with a ceiling on levels?

[Grits]

Here’s my view of fast travel in Oblivion. It’s a tool that I may use as I see fit. I’m playing on the PS3, so when I want something to be different, I mostly imagine it. For example, a character’s pretend beach hut in Anvil is actually the IC Waterfront Shack in the game. The character walks or rides to Anvil, then FTs to the house, does whatever, FTs back to Anvil, where I pretend he just stepped out the door. I don’t think that the developers guessed I would use fast travel that way, and I’m glad that no one decided to remove it so that I would explore the world more. I’m already exploring the world, because I want to. The FT tool lets me make it more my own.

I might feel the same way about other exploits, if I was using them to enrich my own experience. I’m not concerned about how someone else uses them in their game. Like The Hammer’s wagon train example. Sure, rent some imaginary mules. Dump some of your loot in a respawning container to offset the cost. Or spend the time walking each item back and forth to town. I would like each person to be able to choose for themself.

[Thomas Kaira]

Which is why I am hopeful that Bethesda will keep the exploits to a minimum.

I just hope that the tradeoff is not the slew of engine problems that plagued Fallout 3. Sure, it was better optimized, but it was nowhere near as stable as Oblivion on my PC.

[mALX]

Which is why I am hopeful that Bethesda will keep the exploits to a minimum.

I just hope that the tradeoff is not the slew of engine problems that plagued Fallout 3. Sure, it was better optimized, but it was nowhere near as stable as Oblivion on my PC.

I couldn't get it for my PC (because I have a POS HP junk PC that couldn't handle it, lol) - but it played actually better on the 360 than Oblivion does - less choppy when running, etc.

Fallout: New Vegas I had to get for the 360 as well, but it crashed constantly.

[grif11]

This is going a bit off topic here, but I hope they bring back the Hardcore mode from Fallout: NV and put it in Skyrim.

To me, it was brilliant for roleplaying since it had you eat, drink and sleep regularly. It also limits fast travel to locations you could reach without dehydrating, etc. This meant I hardly ever fast travelled.

[mALX]

This is going a bit off topic here, but I hope they bring back the Hardcore mode from Fallout: NV and put it in Skyrim.

To me, it was brilliant for roleplaying since it had you eat, drink and sleep regularly. It also limits fast travel to locations you could reach without dehydrating, etc. This meant I hardly ever fast travelled.

I loved it too, it made for a very challenging game for those who wanted to try it - now there is a good solution so everyone is happy, great thinking Grif11 !!!

[Thomas Kaira]

Okay, allow me to finally correct my stance on the "don't like it, don't use it" argument. The reason this argument fails is because it is based on a logical fallacy, in this case, it is a textbook example of an Argument by Dismissal. Why? As said before, ignoring something problematic doesn't fix whatever problems might exist. For a game developer to take up this approach is REALLY bad, because such an approach encourages sloppy design. If I owned a game where one of the features was clearly broken, but the only response I got from the developer was "you don't have to use it if you don't want to," that would make me rather mad.

I also had a new, fairly good point brought up of another way to exploit Oblivion's fast-travel feature as a sort of safety net. If you've gone through a grueling dungeon, your weapons broken, your healing potions exhausted, and your armor ready to fall apart, it should be a rather tense journey back to the nearest city with you trying to avoid any dangerous encounters you might discover along the way. But what about if you fast-travel? Beam me up, Scotty, and you're there, none the worse for wear, and all tension dissolved. Well, of course, there are other dodges, namely the free healing spell you get at the start of the game and that waiting for any timeframe heals you fully, but my point still stands. That is the best example I have of where fast-travel becomes an instance of "pushing the easy button."

So to address that, how about simply disallowing the point-and-click fast-travel when your health is low? You could still use the carriages, but to fast-travel on your own, you would need to heal up first. Of course, that wouldn't help much if you get a free healing spell at the start, but at least it's a step in the right direction.

Once again, do not remove, just tweak to get rid of exploits. Since you will need to find every location on your own first before you can fast-travel back, that more or less allows the player a manner to earn his ability to use the system (Oblivion simply gave it to you by allowing fast-travel to all cities right from the get-go), so no harm there anymore.

[haute ecole rider]

One thing I have noticed about fast-travel:

The time it takes you to travel from Point A to Point B is the same whether you ravel conventionally in-game or you choose to fast-travel. I know this because the anal-retentive side of me decided to keep track of how much time it took me to walk from Cheydinhal to the Imperial City and so on. I found that it didn't matter if I fast-traveled or went straight, as long as all the enemies on the road (or along the way) were dead. Fast-travel times when you're on horseback are more consistent with galloping the horse nonstop from point to point.

That said, I would say that if your health is low, you could still fast-travel, but your health won't regenerate as quickly as it would if you had rested, likewise it would take you longer to get there, depending on how much health you have remaining. I think that would be a little more immersive, without the time-consuming aspect of acting out every minute of your agonizing crawl back to safety.

[Destri Melarg]

If I owned a game where one of the features was clearly broken, but the only response I got from the developer was "you don't have to use it if you don't want to," that would make me rather mad.

Allow me to add my two cents:

If we are talking about psychic guards, level scaling, or the bandits/marauders in glass/daedric armor etc. then I am right there with you. Clearly those were mistakes that we all hope Bethesda doesn’t repeat. But the FT system doesn’t belong in that category because it isn’t broken. It may be flawed, but it works exactly as the developers intended.

There are those who simply don’t want to walk (or ride) back and forth across the landscape. They don’t want to engage in a meaningless fight with the aforementioned glass-encased bandit or the stupid wolf that doesn’t know better than to leave the rider with the scary daedric warhammer alone. They want to get a quest, zap somewhere, kill some fools, zap back, get rewarded, and move on. Bethesda gave those players the fast travel system so that they could play the game (and their role within the game) the way that they wanted to. They also made sure to leave the use of this feature to player choice to appease all those whose immersion comes from living in their world rather than just playing their game. If you don’t like that players can also use the system to exploit encumbrance issues or to skip battles has more to do with you not liking how some choose to play than any systemic problem.

A person creating a five second maximum Feather spell in order to carry all of his/her loot back to Anvil in one trip is exactly the same as a person creating a 1-2 second Fortify Personality/Mercantile/Speechcraft spell to get better deals with a merchant . . . which is exactly the same as creating a 1-2 second Fortify Security spell to open any lock that you want without breaking any lockpicks . . . which is exactly the same as creating a 1-2 second Fortify Endurance/Armorer spell so that you never break a hammer (all of which I have done BTW ). All of these things ‘exploit’ the system. By your own logic we now need to change the system of magic because it is too easy for someone to exploit the system without having to train the necessary skills. We need to change the enchantment system because it’s too easy for a person with a blade skill of 5 to kill an ogre with a sword enchanted with damage health. You can’t reasonably call for restrictions in one system while turning a blind eye to exploits rampant in the other systems. If we are going to restrict fast travel, then why not restrict magic/enchantment as well?

Which is why the 'don't like it, don't use it' argument is valid. If you don't want to exploit the spellcrafting system then don't create the above spells. If you don't want to exploit the fast travel system then don't use it. None of these things are forced upon the player. If they were then your argument would have merit, but they aren't. They are there for players who want to use them but not forced upon those who don't.

That is a compromise that I can live with.

This post has been edited by Destri Melarg: Jul 26 2011, 10:39 AM

[Thomas Kaira]

Destri: from a player's perspective, yes, "don't like it, don't use it" is perfectly fine. You have no one to hurt but yourself if you choose not to use a certain feature.

Well, looks like this horse is effectively beaten to death.

Thanks for the mature responses, guys. I'm not sure if we can take this any further, so let me just sum up what I feel needs to happen with the Fast-Travel system:

-Provide an alternative travel system for roleplayers (done)
-Disallow fast-travel across the map at immediate game start (done)
-Perform a desperately needed exploit-removal

If we get at least that much in Skyrim (and I am fairly certain of two of those three), I'll be perfectly happy.

[Rane]

A person creating a five second maximum Feather spell in order to carry all of his/her loot back to Anvil in one trip is exactly the same as a person creating a 1-2 second Fortify Personality/Mercantile/Speechcraft spell to get better deals with a merchant . . . which is exactly the same as creating a 1-2 second Fortify Security spell to open any lock that you want without breaking any lockpicks . . . which is exactly the same as creating a 1-2 second Fortify Endurance/Armorer spell so that you never break a hammer (all of which I have done BTW ). All of these things ‘exploit’ the system. By your own logic we now need to change the system of magic because it is too easy for someone to exploit the system without having to train the necessary skills. We need to change the enchantment system because it’s too easy for a person with a blade skill of 5 to kill an ogre with a sword enchanted with damage health.

Actually, these are all exploits that should be fixed and by the sound of it will at least partly be addressed. See for example the dialogue in Skyrim, which will now take place in real-time. Your Fortify Speechcraft 60 points for 2 seconds won't last throughout that conversation unless they have decided to freeze the clock for active effects on the player. If they give bartering and lockpicking the same treatment, which is very possible, then we can kiss goodbye to exploiting short Mercantile and Lockpicking buffs as well.

As for the character with a Blade level of 5, he should be making quite a scene out of himself fighting that Ogre. One charge from the Ogre and his little sword, no matter how awesome it is, should be lying a few feet away from him on the ground. Against a creature of its prowess an unskilled character should really stand no chance in close-quarters, no matter what the equipment (crazy-high-Apocalypse-world-eater-level excluded maybe). More dynamic combat they say, maybe we'll actually see some penalties for not being skilled enough with weapons this time.

But then again, I'm expecting none of these improvements and especially the AI looks to be just as dumb as before. Looking at you here, NPC #5122, whose friend got shot with an arrow right infront of him and he didn't react at all.


As for fast travel, I'd be content with a few small changes. One, the clock for active effects on the player is not frozen and the trip can be interruped because of a buff running out or a damage effect/disease that affects your traveling speed.
Two, there's a chance of running into an encounter on the road. Check the player's stealth level (skill plus possible spell effects) for deciding if you can avoid it. If the trip takes you along the main roads you're likely to meet a bandit or two, and if you have a companion (or a few) with you then lone bandits will almost always ignore you leading to an avoided encounter. If it's a really long trip you might have to face several encounters.
Three, there's in-game travel systems that are safer than fast traveling alone. If Mark/Recall or some other teleportation service is implemented then it should also be damn expensive or hard to get access to. It should be a privilege to the player, bestowed upon him or some great deed or something similar.


Or then I'll just have to mod all this in myself. Again.

[Thomas Kaira]

By the way, if Bethesda is serious about placing a cost in gold on the fast-travel feature, I am going to shoot someone.

Now that's a feature that really would detriment roleplaying. "I'm going to simulate an uneventful two-hour walking trip... *upon arriving* wait, why does my wallet suddenly feel lighter?" We are only simulating a couple hours travel time here, we don't have Daggerfall's luxury of travel taking days of game time, so this cost system doesn't work anymore. Travel services, yes, but Oblivion style simu-walk fast travel? Big no-no

Okay, rant over.

This post has been edited by Thomas Kaira: Aug 18 2011, 11:18 PM

[McBadgere]

If it wasn't for Fast Travel my wife nor my two kids would have played over 150+ hours each on it. While I appreciate all the arguments against FT and indeed I had no problem with the system in Assassins Creed (Find a station, pay your gold, travel by cart...*Shrug* was fine...), I am guilty of using the cheat Thomas said in his opening section...Cast 10 ease burden spells and Fast Travel to Wherever...I don't have a problem with that...Espescially as I really don't have time to run from Leyawiin to Anvil and fighting everything on the road...

My brother, however, does...His choice, he has far more time than I do...

We all play it as we want and can...I may not use FT on Skyrim...It's unlikely, but maybe...We'll see...

This post has been edited by McBadgere: Oct 22 2011, 07:28 PM