I really need to get this off my chest after today's activities, but I want to give it a more private screening before I consider posting it on the BGS board where it will get trolled to Oblivion and back. Since I know everyone here is pretty mature, I'll start here:


This is a debate that has been going on since Oblivion’s release, and continues strong with the impending release of Skyrim. Here is what we know:

-When you first begin, no travel markers will be available.
-Skyrim will feature a carriage service that will allow you to quickly travel to all of the major cities.
-Once you have discovered a location, you can immediately Fast-Travel back whenever you wish.

Essentially, apart from the carriage service, it’s the same system as in Oblivion, with all of the flaws, and believe me, there are a lot (so many, in fact, that I have come to refer to Fast-Travel as Presto-Click Travel Services). Let’s go through them one at a time

To start from the very top, Presto-Click Travel Services defeats the purpose of the carriage system entirely. You just need to use the carriages once, and then you can just Presto-Click your way back. Why even bother providing them if you’re just going to kill off one of your own game mechanics within five minutes of actually starting?

Considering what we saw in Oblivion, Fast-Travel was so easy to exploit that many people (including myself) have come to see it as a cheat. Now, for anyone who may argue “but Bethesda put it in the game, so that means we should use it!” that argument is fatally flawed. By the same logic, I should be able to just go into the command console, type in “TGM,” and play the game permanently invincible because “Bethesda put the command console in the game, so we should use it!” Just because it has been implemented does NOT make it any less of a cheat. But why is it a cheat, to be precise?

Fast-Travel can be used to lug huge amounts of loot far further than you could hope while on foot. All you needed was a few high-strength, low-duration (5 seconds would be enough) Feather spells, a looted dungeon, and Presto-Click travel services. You bring all of the loot outside in waves, then pick up every last bit of it, cast your 5 second Feather spells, Fast-Travel to wherever you want to go, and Presto! You’ve just completely circumvented the encumbrance system! This system is in place to make you THINK about looting dungeons and DECIDE what you want to keep and what you should leave behind. But that is a very clear exploit, so let us instead go to the other, less clear one: Presto-Clicking back and forth multiple times between dungeon and city/home and offloading loot in waves. This is also a circumnavigation of the Encumbrance system. As stated before, the purpose of Encumbrance is to make you think a bit about the loot you recover from dungeons. Essentially, it is there to make you ask two questions: ‘what do I really want’ and ‘what is the most valuable for the least weight’. With Fast-Travel, those questions become irrelevant, because you can just beam back and forth between the dungeon and the cities, collecting anything and everything with a value attached to it, and selling it off. This exploits the Fast-Travel system, and it also exploits the game’s economy. The ONLY reason people do this is because of how incredibly easy and risk-free it is to Fast-Travel. It is a prime example of how people can substitute Fast-Travel for brains, and use Presto-Click Travel Services to remove challenge from the game.

Speaking of removing challenge, Fast travel was very good at that right from the start. Why? It is completely 100% cost-free and risk-free. You click your map, and bingo! There you are, safe and sound, despite the fact that if I made the same trip on foot, I would probably have had a nasty encounter with a troll or two, maybe an ogre. And let’s not forget that Oblivion Gate, either! How is this fair? Why is it that the people who take the longer approach get shafted? This is completely backwards and blatantly out of balance. Not only can you skip the trip, but you can skip EVERY hazard, as well. Now, there will come the argument “I already made the trip on foot once, so why should I have to go through all that again?” To these people, I really have to say go back to playing Call of Duty and Halo Reach. Such linear thinking is in direct conflict to the sandbox approach and dynamic world Bethesda is creating for you here. The world isn’t static, and Fast-Travel, unfortunately, makes the opposite assumption. Stuff happens out on the road that you cannot hope to predict. So why should Fast-Travel allow you to skip past all that? In this case, it is detracting from the overall experience of the game. Why even bother to make a dynamic world if you’re just going to let the player skip past everything after they’ve seen it just one time?

In fact, why bother making such a huge world at all if you’re just going to let the player skip the whole thing? There comes a time in the late game where the player will have explored a large portion of the map and revealed a lot of POIs for him to Presto-Click between. And this is when the idea of the large world really starts to fall over. When you got to that point in Oblivion, it placed such a heavy reliance on the Fast-Travel for its quests that I failed to see the point of why the world was even made so large anymore. All you do is Presto-Click to this place, speak to this guy, Presto-Click to the other side of the friggin map to talk to this guy, then Presto-Click AGAIN to the other side of the map to kill some other dude, and finally you beam yourself back to the other side of the map to finish things off. That’s it; a quest that might have taken an hour (real-time) without Fast-Travel has been completed in five minutes. Why even bother with the huge map if you’re going to push the player so hard to avoid it?

What I am trying to communicate here is that Bethesda placed such a heavy reliance on limitless, instantaneous, risk-free instant-travel in Oblivion that it seriously hurt the experience. I kid you not, the game got SO much better when I stopped using fast-travel altogether.

*Record-scratching*

Wait, what is that I hear? “Don’t like it, don’t use it?” Sorry, but there’s a pretty major flaw in the logic behind this argument: ignoring an issue does not change the fact that it exists. Did Bethesda’s ignoring the Abomb bug change the fact that it was there, and that it destroys people’s profiles to this day? No, so ignoring the fast travel system does not change the fact that it is massively flawed.

What needs to happen is Fast Travel needs to be rebalanced, because in Oblivion, it was essentially a cheat re-classified as a feature. First, let’s look back at previous travel systems, starting with Daggerfall:

Daggerfall: You could fast-travel from anywhere to anywhere, but there was both risk AND cost involved, as well as the need to plan ahead due to time constraints. You had three factors that would determine travel speed, the risk factor (where you would get cut short by being injured), and the amount of gold you paid. The more gold you paid, the less risky the travel, but the more time it would take you to reach your destination.

Morrowind: Fast Travel was restricted to paid services with limited locations. There were many points in the game where you would need to enter the wilderness, where travel services were not offered, and thus you would be forced to walk.

Oblivion: Fast-travel from anywhere to anywhere you’ve previously discovered, with no cost and no risk. For those of you who would argue this same system (minus the need to discover new locations yourself) was in Daggerfall, Daggerfall’s world map was almost twice the size of Great Britain; Oblivion was 16 square miles (4 miles from end-to-end). You decide where such a travel system fits better.

Skyrim needs to change things up with the fast-travel, because as it is, it removes a huge amount of challenge from the game (and please don’t argue against this, if you don’t want to be challenged, just turn your system off and go read a book) and detracts from the overall experience by linear-ifying a game that was not meant to played in a linear style. As such, it is only natural that the travel system has an air of unpredictability about it this time ‘round. For this, we need not look far: there are random encounters that could occasionally interrupt a player’s fast travel, for instance. Then there are the dragons, why not give them the ability to interrupt fast-travel, considering how important they are to the game? Perhaps weather and environmental hazards that would not halt a fast-travel, but simply make it take more game-time (delays, they tend to happen). Or just take the carriage and pay for a nice, safe trip between two cities. And if all else fails, impose hard limits (you can only fast-travel three times per day, or something along those lines). You built the big world, Bethesda now encourage your audience to experience it. Don’t throw it all away like you did with Oblivion and just do the huge world for bragging rights, make your audience experience it to its fullest extent. Isn’t that why you want us to buy the game, after all?

I have never heard anyone say this.





You have just compared a game feature you don't like or agree with to a fatal flaw that destroys the game. If you want to argue your point, have realistic comparisons to bolster your point. (like your comparison to the Morrowind travel feature - that was a valid comparison).


I personally don't use fast travel when playing unless I have removed a mod that has left my character in a place that no longer exists. My character rarely owns a horse either, she walks or runs everywhere she goes. I don't care that fast travel is there in the game because I don't feel the need to control how OTHER PEOPLE play the game.

The one thing I enjoy so much about these open world games is that we make our own rules, our own choices and preferences. While I like to roleplay the world with little use of magic (because as we all know Maxical is terrible at it) and have my character do everything manually - another person may feel that Tamriel is a world where magic exists, including the magic of "Recall" scrolls in Morrowind, or the "Magic Map" of Oblivion.

The point is, the games are made for millions of people and each of us has our own different idea of what we want in our game. The magic of fast travel is provided for those that roleplay wizards or heavy magic use. For those of us like you and I that prefer to eschew the magic aspects of the game and rough it - we can.

It is a big world out there full of diverse people of varied interests that buy and play these games. They aren't meant to target only one segment of user, but to offer a variety of options so we can make our own choices. If you have your way, everyone will be forced to play YOUR way instead of their own.

This is not a fatal flaw, it is an option that you can take or not at YOUR will - no one is forcing their will onto you, it is an open-world game that each of us can find what pleases us in it - and eschew what we don't like or mod it out.

As an avid modder yourself, you have the option of modding your own game so that fast travel is disabled on your game.

I'm not griping at you, just pointing out that these games are made for diverse appeal, not a singular viewpoint. They give you the modding option (which most games don't) so you can alter the game to suit your own idea of what you want out of that world - make it your own idea of what is more immersive to you.


The one thing I've heard about Skyrim that really conflicts with Bethesda's own idea of these open-world games is what Todd said in his last interview: that the player will not be able to avoid doing the main questline.

Todd said he was offended by the number of people that didn't want to save the world in Oblivion - but it is our world once we buy the game, and we should not have choices forced upon us IMHO. If you want to gripe about that I will join you.

TK, while you have a valid gripe, I have to agree with mALX. Beth is trying to sell as many games as possible. That means selling it to savvy role-players like yourself and Acadian and SubRosa, and selling it to action-oriented players that like to just "beat the game."

Let's face it, many computer game players are action-oriented. Just look at the ongoing popularity of games like GTA and CoD. I've played my share of action/shooters, and enjoy the slash-n-smash from time to time (like Infinity Blade for the iPad). My impression of the game market is that action is where the bulk of the market share is right now. I don't blame Beth for making a popular game more action-oriented. But I am somewhat dismayed by the statement by Todd that you can't avoid the main quest. I'm going to wait and see if that changes between now and release day; more importantly, I'm going to wait and see if someone can come up with a mod that allows you the option of ducking the MQ. So far, I haven't seen enough of Skyrim to make me salivate for it - it just doesn't appeal to me so much. Maybe it's the choice of location (too far north for me, no offense meant to those of you who live north of the Arctic Circle i.e. Norway, Sweden, Scotland, and Canada), or that they keep using the same stock he-man barbarian type character as the PC in the trailers (nothing turns me off faster than cliched stereotypes).

As a matter of fact, I've not bought a major computer game title for three years. Oblivion's been a good all-rounder for me. I respect those who say Morrowind are better, but I've never played MW, so I'm not going to agree or disagree those opinions. I am basing my opinion of TES IV on my comparison to other games that I've actually played, such as the Rainbow Six series (love, love, looove that game still!).

If Beth doesn't make money on Skyrim, they'll either stop making TES games, or they'll return to the elements that made the earlier TES games so popular - the RPG's and the super flexibility they provide players.

I like the fast travel system in Oblivion. The game would be unplayable without it, as it would mean constantly walking back and forth across nearly the entire map when you are doing quests like Tears of the Savior. I don't want to spend two hours of my time walking from one place to another for the hundredth time in a game. It gets boring fast, and I don't play computer games because I want to be bored.

I have played Morrowind, and prefer the Oblivion-style fast travel to its dozen different types of teleporting around the map. I thought it was just a pain in the british boat to keep track of it all in Morrowind. I also remember KOTOR I. No fast travel at all. Now that was a serious pain.

There is also a better way of getting around the encumbrance system in the game. Use a mod that changes your carryweight. Or the console. No need for feather potions or the fast travel system. To be honest, I never occurred to me to use the latter. I have always used a mod instead, as going back and forth a dozen times between a dungeon and a city to sell off my loot is again not my idea of having fun. I tried it when I first got the game, and very quickly fixed that problem with a mod. It is the encumbrance system itself that is screwed up. Daggers don't weigh 10lbs and swords 40lb. What needs to be fixed is that Bethesda needs to buy a scale.

I would hardly say that using Fast Travel to get from one place to another the first time is screwing over the player who goes on foot instead. Avoiding a fight is kind of pointless in this game. The whole purpose is to go out, kill things, take their treasure, and level up. A player who is avoiding that is missing out on most of the game. I would say that not having a Fast Travel system to let you quickly get back and forth across the same ground you have walked back and forth over is screwing the player, as all it does is waste their time without offering any new challenges, as all the monsters were killed the first time through.

I am also glad that FT is in the game. Sure, more travel options would be nice (carriage, ship, mage teleport pads come to mind), but having FT alone at least allows the player to RP that these other options exist. I have no problem augmenting FT with supporting imagination to incorporate it into RP. Some players simply treat FT as an administrative function like saving or exiting the game to simulate an uneventful trip so they can pick and chose where and how to spend their playtime. I quite like the ability to rather quickly zip from one place to another if testing something or conducting a photoshoot to support our story.

It seems to me that having both FT and a carriage system is a fine idea. Carriages make a nice RP addition, but there is no need to eliminate FT for those who prefer it.

Some players have an attitude of 'beat the game and move on' and gamemakers are unwise to ignore that audience. I spend loads of time on the Bethesda game forums and hear plenty of complaining about how tedious it is that there is so much travel required in the game. These statements make it clear there is a segment of players who believe in instant gratification or perhaps simply have differing priorities. I expect these players prefer FT to making their way to the nearest stable to catch a carriage. I also hear plenty of judgmental assertions that using FT 'ruins the game'. These latter statements seem to assume that other players are not smart enough to figure out how they 'should' play. Not everyone loves to pick the flowers, play in the waterfalls, dance with unicorns and generally take loads of time savoring a trip from A to B like some of us do.

So, while I certainly endorse more options, I must disagree with the concept of eliminating options.

Agreed. I would even like the idea of bringing back the "recall" scrolls where you had to either purchase the scroll or find them in loot - as long as they weren't limited in number to control the gameplay.

I just have real issues with a game that tries to control your experience - one of the major reasons I liked TES to begin with was that they didn't. I want to be the one who decides if I want to experience one thing or another in the game. (example: Fast travel). If Skyrim forces the main questline down my throat as Todd said in that interview - that may limit my enthusiasm for playing Skyrim.

I guess I'll just have to play it and see how linear it gets before making a judgement.

Why does everyone seem to think I want to remove the Fast-Travel option, when I clearly explain in the final paragraph that is not the case? I just want to see it tweaked so that it is less of a cheat and more of an actual feature. If we have random encounters and dragons all over the place, why should fast-travel allow us to skip past all that? It's like building an amazing salad to show off in the menu of your restaurant but giving players the option to only order the lettuce. Why not just make them a different salad?

@mALX: This is a bad business practice to fall into. Trying to cater to everyone at once is going to leave all parties feeling like they got left out. Why? Because when you try to appeal to everyone at once, you end up with a game that has no style, no charm, and nothing to help it stand out. I sincerely want Bethesda to learn from Oblivion that lesson: trying to cater to the entire world is shooting yourself in the foot. Why is Oblivion a prime example here? Because although it contained so much, it did almost nothing well. This is what happens when you try to make your audience too broad. EVERYONE suffers as a result, and I don't want to see this happen again.

By the way, I was rather unsure about that argument you pointed out, so thanks for confirming it doesn't really hold up.

@haute ecole rider: See above. Bethesda is trying to compete with GTA and CoD when they have no reason to do that. The Elder Scrolls started as a role-playing saga, and I feel Bethesda has lost touch with their history now because they are trying so hard to make their games action-adventure that cater to everyone instead of actual RPGs that cater to their specific segment of the market and attract new people in because it is honest about what it is and impressed the people who already enjoy such games. That was exactly what happened when I went to Best Buy to purchase Morrowind, because the game was honest about itself and well loved by the people who enjoyed it before me. As explained previously, trying to please everyone 90% of the time ends with no one being pleased because the game just does 50 things badly instead of 10 things well. I get the feeling that Bethesda is afraid to let the game speak for itself.

@SubRosa: I think you missed the part where I explained that the console was not intended to be used as a gameplay feature just because it is there. You are also not taking into account the fact that a huge amount of Skyrim's audience as we have seen it is going to be on the Xbox 360. They don't have the console or mods, ergo they have no choice but to live with the encumbrance system as Bethesda designed it. And mods are not legitimate fixes, as much as we all love them, as they are unofficial, I can only ever view them as workarounds realistically (until Microsoft and Sony stop being so damn paranoid and let the console players use them, then I will reconsider my stance on them).

@Acadian: I'm not trying to eliminate fast-travel, I'm trying to say that the game can be easily hurt by a lack of travel options. Oblivion is a prime example here, due to how many quests require multiple instances of globetrotting to complete, which all but forced the player to fast-travel all over the place. Hopefully the carriage system will address this, though. At least Bethesda is providing an alternative, even if it seems a bit half-baked.

Anyways, thanks for the food for thought with those responses, and thanks even more for being civil. I'm probably not going to repost this in the Skyrim boards due to the all-around shameful level of maturity there. It would be like trying to start a sensible debate in GameFAQs, you'll just end up with a huge firestorm.

I think the idea of carriages don't help with "big, unseen world" problem. However, I think it should be done how Red Dead Redemption did it. AKA, you climb into the carriage and tell the driver where to go. Then once your off, you have the option to "sleep" through the journey or enjoy a scenic ride through valleys and whatnot. This way, you can still have random encounters with dragons attacking your carriage whether awake or sleeping, but you can spot the dragon and prepare if your awake.

How cool would that be !! I always wished they did that with the boat rides too, lol.

Well, I have thought about everything you have responded with, and I have decided to allow for a form of limited Fast-Travel in my game now. No need to be masochistic about this, but at the same time, I do wish to keep it frugal so I don't come to rely on it. These are the rules:

1. I can only Fast-Travel if I am on horseback. No horse, no fast-travel. (This gives me a very good reason to buy one now, too)
2. My destination must be a stable, an inn, or a player-owned home. Nowhere else.
3. I can only fast-travel once per day.
4. I cannot fast-travel if I would arrive at my destination after nightfall. (Travel times as calculated by the game are actually very small, so I always wait from one to three hours after a fast-travel depending on my travel distance)

If you make a mod of scrolls with the city names on them that when you activate one it will transport you to that city - and place them for sale in the inventory of the shopkeepers and in random loot - I will DL that mod !!

Oh, I would go far beyond that!

If I do make it into a mod, I am going to make it completely replace the default Fast-travel system.

Trouble is, it would likely need OBSE to do that, and I'm going to have to wait a bit there, because before I venture into OBSE, I would like to learn a bit of C++ so I'm not completely out of my depth.

If you download OBSE (version 20 is the current one) - go to their read-me and it teaches you the language used for OBSE & Oblivion (which is more or less based on C++, but has been altered slightly). You can also find it on a page in the Construction Set WIKI that has a breakdown for OBSE, Oblivion, and Pluggy.


Here is a link to the CS one:


http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index...st_of_Functions


*

I'm torn on this one. On the one hand, I agree that the fast travel in Oblivion discouraged exploration and made the game too easy; on the other hand, there were times when I found the constant trudging back-and-forth in Morrowind immensely frustrating (especially with the game's slow default walking speed). What I'd personally like to see is a compromise:

- As proposed for Skyrim, FT should be disabled until you've already travelled to a location. This makes sense.

- FT should have obvious gameplay disadvantages compared to the alternatives, such as carriages. It should be slower (MUCH slower) and riskier, with a high chance of being interrupted by random attacks - bandits, wild animals, dragons, whatever.

- Like resting, FT should be disabled in combat or when enemies are nearby.

- There should be teleportation spells as in Morrowind, providing a safe, quick alternative to FT (presuming you have the skill to cast them).

- To solve the encumbrance problem, perhaps FT could be disabled above a certain encumbrance level (unless you're using a horse, in which case you could offload some of your gear). In fact, encumbrance should probably have a much bigger effect on gameplay in general - e.g. high encumbrance should slow down your walking/running speed and drain your fatigue more quickly.

None of this is going to happen, of course. But it's what I'd like to see in future ES games.

Wait, in the vanilla game Oblivion you cannot fast travel when an enemy is near (already) - and can't fast travel when over-encumbered either. And when my character is over-encumbered she can't move period, her feet are planted and rooted - all this in the vanilla game. I don't think you can mount your horse till your encumbrance is handled either, but am not sure about that - anyone know?

Also in the vanilla game Oblivion, fast travel is disabled until you have found a place - except for the eight major cities. That made a bit of sense that the large cities may have some form of transport for people (which the player can decide how in their creative imagination).

All these things are already in the vanilla game Oblivion, perhaps an overhaul mod (like Francesco's) has changed these things in your game? I know KC has Francesco's overhaul, and his character can walk encumbered - but is slowed way down and her fatigue drops from it.

I agree with Helena here, Morrowind did have times when it was simply horrible to try and get anywhere, for me this was largely getting to the Ashlander camps, even once i'd visited them and knew exactly where they were the journey was a trial in itself.

However in Oblivion it still doesn't make complete sense to me to have a way to immediately arrive at any destination from any other destination. I know it's possible to justify it with your own imagination in the form of mark and recall spells, but then you'd still be limited to fast travelling to and from one place.

What I'd like to see is a carriage system between the major cities, such as in Morrowind and is proposed for Skyrim, as well as to any of the towns,villages or inns on the map. From there you can strike out on your own while still being closer to your destination.

From there, if your target is already still far away I would like to be able to hire a guide. There would be one in most villages or inns, ranging from simple local hunters to fully fledged adventurers, who would be willing to take you into the wilderness, for a price. They would be limited to certain sites at first, well known ruins or caves, but as you discovered more places they'd agree to take you to these as well.

A downside to this though is that it suggests being able to get to a site without having explored it already, but personally I think it still makes sense. If you want to explore then feel free too, if you don't want to explore though a simple donation to get you where you're going would be a nice trade off for the ease of travel.

Or atleast that's how I would like it to change. I agree that the carriages should have the option to both watch the world go by, or just sleep through the journey. Back when I played World of Warcraft the flight travel system was both a wonder and a gripe. It allowed me to quickly travel, as well as enjoying the sights. This maintained the idea of scale and the size of the world while still giving people the option to travel quikcly. However when you're doing the same journey over and over again you just want it to go a bit quicker.

1. This was sorta how Oblivion handled things at the beginning save all of the cities being available for Fast-Travel right from the start. Unfortunately, this kinda ruined the point of Fast-Travel needing to be an unlockable feature, since you could beam yourself across the map at leisure the second you exit the sewers. Skyrim will change that up a bit by not allowing Fast-Travel to the major cities right from the start, which will help balance things out a bit here (thoguh not by much).

2. Exactly what I am trying to propose (why does everyone assume that when someone complains about fast-travel, they want to see it thrown away?). Random encounters, dragons, and perhaps just a randomly generated bandit attack or something, should be capable of interrupting fast-travel, forcing the player to deal with it before he could move on. Though to keep this from getting too annoying, if a fast-travel attempt got interrupted, the next attempt (so long as it occurs within five to ten minutes real-time) will always succeed. Personally, I would go even further and only allow Fast-Travel for unlimited distances on horseback, and even then, only to stables, inns, and player homes (gives the player a reason to buy one). Whereas fast-travel on foot would be limited to a certain distance, and only allowed once per day (so the player can't multi-beam and completely ignore the distance check).

3. Fast-Travel already does this.

4. Should be easy enough, just compare the character's current encumbrance with their current base encumbrance (constant effect feather spells would be treated as a base encumbrance modification for their purposes here, but limited duration spells would not), and if the former is higher, you can't fast-travel. This was one of those areas where Oblivion's FT system was very easy to exploit, so it really does need to be fixed.

mALX: I use Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul in my game, which removes the ability to fast-travel to all the major cities from the start, with the notable exception of the Imperial City (you were in jail there, so you've obviously already visited).

However, I must disagree that giving the player immediate FT access to every city was a good idea. This gives the player ten locations on a not-actually-all-that-big map that he can beam to right from the start, and that hurts the exploration aspect of the game quite badly. Why even bother building such a large world if you're going to let the player skip the whole thing at no cost at the very beginning of the game? Thankfully, Bethesda did see reason with this one, and starting with Fallout 3, you had to discover fast-travel locations on your own.

Todd stated the reason he removed teleportation spells was because they were "too easy to exploit," but you know what, I think he needs a reality check here. Just don't let the player teleport while in combat, how hard is that?! Lazy lazy lazy.

I still strongly resist placing limits on the player as if the player is unable to set their own limits. I maintain more options is better. Fast travel (FT), carriages, ships, mage teleport pads - all of it. Then leave it to the player what to use and how to travel. It is not possible to foresee all the styles of play that every player might choose and enjoy.

For example, before I had any interest in mods, I basically did my own 'alternate start' mod for a character as follows: Do the tutorial, FT to Chorrol and drop the amulet, FT to Anvil then 'wake up' and start the game. That particular character from that point only used FT from stable to stable when on the back of a stolen horse. The character may have just as easily limited FT to city to city simulating a mage teleport system. Because FT was in the game with restriction choices up to the player, this worked beautifully.

More options is better as it allows the player to make their own limitation choices instead of being fed limitations by the developers who cannot possibly envision all the possibilities.

It actually only gives seven, as you pointed out the player begins in the IC (so has obviously already found it), and there are only seven other cities. As far as it "hurting the exploration aspect of the game quite badly" - it can't hurt that if you don't use it. That is in place for those people who are goal oriented and have no desire to explore.

I personally prefer to explore - so I do. How am I hurt by the ability being there if I don't avail myself of it? It is no skin off my nose if another person wants to play the game differently than me, I am not being forced to use the fast travel as soon as I leave the sewers just because it is there - it is a choice that is there if I wish to use it, I just don't wish to so I don't.

You can't custom design a game so it suits just your way of gameplay except via mods. If Bethesda geared their games toward just one segment of player they would be out of business. You can mod out what you don't like, mod in what you want - so why the extended dialogue because they OFFER alternatives to a different segment than yourself - who also buys this game.

There is an attitude of trying to control how others should play the game, and overall intolerence of anything that doesn't exactly meet one's personal viewpoint that is rampant in these debates over "whether it should be in the game or not" because it assumes "your way" is the only correct way. (*not saying you personally, but the griper whoever they may be)

It may be the only way you or I want to do it, but we are not the only consumers buying the product. I have no problem with it being in the game, I just don't choose to use it. I can see no reason to insist it be removed because there are just as many players who find the back and forth trekking to be a detriment to their enjoyment.

As it stands, you can already fast travel on horseback. I don't do it, because I personally think that would eliminate the whole reason for riding the horse. The option is there for players who don't get enjoyment seeing their character riding across the countryside on horseback. I don't insist Bethesda remove the function just because I don't like it, I just don't use the function.

Just because something is there does not mean one has to use it, that is what is so great about these games is that we are given a world of options and can pick and choose which suit us best and avail ourselves of these - and just not use the ones that don't suit our own vision of what we want in a game.

AGREED 100% !!! I do not want the developers - or anyone - determining how I should play my game. These games are single-player roleplay, the gameplay should be based on each player's own choices, decisions, and preferences - not someone else's version or vision of how everyone else's roleplay should be.

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.

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.

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.

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.




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.

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!

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.

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?

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.

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.

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 !!!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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...

I agree with you 90%

I wouldn't go so far as to say it's a cheat. Console commands are hidden... kind of, they can be accessed at the push of a button I suppose. Although, correct me if I'm wrong, the game never explicitly tells you how to access the console. Nor does the game tell you what to type. True, these things can be discovered easily.

The fast travel system is different. The game tells you what it is and how to use it. So, I don't think it's really a cheat.
It's an easily abusable game feature.

Other than that though, I agree. I would welcome a return to either the Daggerfall or the Morrowind (personal preference) systems. Or a combination of both.

I actually found that hilarious! I love dumb AIs (except in Fallout 3 when my companions got stuck everywhere). Like GTA IV for example, where the cops keep running into walls etc. And in Bethesda's defense, I don't know any game with a flawless AI.