All things considered, fast travel in The Witcher 3 is not as immersion-breaking as it is in other games. Geralt must go to a signpost to fast travel to another, and can't fast travel from anywhere whenever he wants. You still get to see much of the world by using fast travel, but ultimately The Witcher 3 hides a lot of its best side quests and content off the beaten path.
Skyrim No Fast Travell
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The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is one of the most well-known RPGs of all time, and for good reason. It was perhaps the most ubiquitous RPG of its time upon release, partly for its incredibly deep lore and breadth of choices in-game. Skyrim's fast travel system is more of a "click here to go here" type of system, which works almost anywhere in the game.
The problem with Skyrim's fast travel system is that the player will sometimes skip over random events that happen while journeying, even to already-visited locations. Having a horse makes any journey trivial. Plus, the horse can get to areas the player normally can't. Aside from all the intentional side-content in the wilds of Skyrim, unintentional side-content like having to climb the Thousand Steps on horseback makes the journey that much more fun.
Fast travel in Dark Souls was a late-game feat that was only useful for a short while, but in Dark Souls 3 it was a main part of the game. The player could teleport from any bonfire to any other they had discovered. This made for a much easier late-game, but ultimately something was lost in giving players such an easy way to get around. There are lots of hidden items and secrets in Dark Souls 3 that aren't discoverable if you fast-travel constantly and aren't patient in your exploration.
World of Warcraft and World of Warcraft Classic boast perhaps the largest, most complex, deepest worlds in any modern game. It's a wonder, then, that players tend to go from one point the next as fast as they possibly can when there is so much world to explore. Players who min-max and speedrun the leveling process will miss out on what makes World of Warcraft truly special. It's necessary for cross-world travel, though, as there's no way to get from Booty Bay to Darnassus in any reasonable amount of time without the flight path.
Fast Travel is very useful if you're in a hurry or need to get somewhere without riding the whole way. But otherwise, if I'm just in the world or heading to a mission, I don't fast travel- it keeps me immersed.
Horses can be earned in Riften by challenging Hofgrir, the stable owner, to a brawl. Once you win the battle of fists, he will offer to sell a horse to you. If you say that you would rather walk then he calls you cheap and you can ride the Riften horses for free. The free horse will walk away after dismounting. Although the horse is not technically not owned by the player, it will travel with you when you fast travel. A benefit to earning and using this free horse is that you can simply go to Riften and take a new horse if yours dies in battle which saves 1,000 of your hard earned gold.
What I am massively befuddled by is why you can't fast travel as soon as you get off your ship/shuttle? You have to run for huge distances just to get to a place you can fast travel, and this distance almost triples once you have your own ship.
Despite their differences, these games all share the same nameless quality. Their game worlds feel more connected, more solid, somehow, than those of other open-world games. Why is this? Why would removing fast travel lend this kind of importance to slow travel?
This is an important conclusion. We do not enjoy backtracking not only because it is repetitious, but also because it gives us no sense of mastery. The games which are most suited to fast travel are the ones in which you tend to retread your steps.
Dark Souls 1 does not attempt to solve either problem. It is extremely punishing in both aspects. The levels are extremely well laid-out to maximize the satisfaction of mastering travel between them, but once you master traversing an area, the game will often force you to do it over and over again to boredom. Even the game acknowledges this weakness! Near the end of the game, it gives you a way to fast-travel.
Walking is the slowest speed at which you will normally move. To walk, use the movement control appropriate for your platform. You cannot move faster than at a walking pace while you are overencumbered.
Sprint by holding the sprint control key (or toggle on/off for the Special Edition). Sprinting is significantly faster than running. As it consumes stamina, you can only sprint for a limited distance. You will generally exhaust your stamina more quickly when sprinting in heavy armor or when wielding a heavy weapon.
Carriages will carry you between the nine capital cities of each hold in Skyrim for 20-50 gold. They are the fastest means to get to cities which you have not yet discovered - although in the plain game, they are only available in the five major hold capitals: the four smaller hold capitals can be the destination but not the origin of a carriage journey.
You can fast travel from any exterior location to any location marked on your in-game map and which you have discovered (visited). Discovered locations are indicated on your map or compass with light-colored markers. Dark-colored markers, on the other hand, are places you have had marked on your map but have not yet discovered yourself, and therefore are not available for fast travel. Although fast travel transports you "instantly", a more "realistic" amount of game time will have passed upon arrival; however, such elapsed travel times are the same whether on foot or horseback.
You cannot fast travel when near any hostile enemies, when overencumbered (unless you are on a horse), nor when falling, jumping, or during the animation of mounting a horse. Fast travel is totally disabled when playing in Survival Mode, except while riding a dragon.
Most of the time I don't use waypoints, unless I want to get to my destination quickly or I don't feel like doing the journey (for example when doing the level 30 story you have to go back and forth between your home city and the same area of the map several times and it gets boring). Sometimes I don't even use mounts because it's harder to look around when you're going that fast. Although sometimes they can be fun too, especially the griffon - literally gives a different perspective on a lot of the core game maps.
When I'm actually playing the game I usually just wp to the place I want to go, but when I'm keyrunning I used to run everywhere so I could enjoy the early maps again. Then once mount vigor made beetle movement so convenient I started doing that, then once I was doing that I figured may as just use the waypoints again, I was flying by everything so fast anyway. I can't say I don't miss running around the maps with a low-level toon, but my keyruns are a lot faster now :/
It's part of the reason why I think Mounts were such a beneficial addition to GW2. The faster overall travel speed meant that WPs are less of a necessity for players who need to get from A to B quickly, and as a result the amount of WPs in PoF and LS4 maps is significantly reduced, which in turn encourages the player to engage in the explorative gameplay.
Unless I'm doing map exploration on alts, or feeling cheap and trying to get to a nearby location, I will typically always use waypoints. However in games such as Skyrim I will almost never use any fast travel options. I think I see games like Skyrim as a more roleplay heavy experience for me, so I value immersion more, but in GW2 I value the gameplay and mechanics a bit more. When initially exploring maps I'll still appreciate the scenery, and even stop to listen to NPC chatter.
That's also a good point. The choice to use them or not is always there. So in the time of urgency - like being in a group for example - you can fly anyplace you want, as fast as you want. Then taking your time to enjoy the world and take it all in when it's just you.
@Cyanchiv.2583 said:Unless I'm doing map exploration on alts, or feeling cheap and trying to get to a nearby location, I will typically always use waypoints. However in games such as Skyrim I will almost never use any fast travel options. I think I see games like Skyrim as a more roleplay heavy experience for me, so I value immersion more, but in GW2 I value the gameplay and mechanics a bit more. When initially exploring maps I'll still appreciate the scenery, and even stop to listen to NPC chatter.
I think games like Skyrim are part of why I don't like using waypoints. I remember various games 'warning' you that if you use fast travel you'll miss out on the XP you gain fighting things along the way and may miss finding some quests etc. and that mentality stuck with me. That and exploration is a big part of any RPG for me, and even when you've already gone through an area once there can be stuff to find which you missed the first time.
Ah no, lets leave the waypoints there. That's the beauty of having both, people can pick an choose as they want to. Plus there are people that didn't buy into PoF who still need the waypoints for fast travel.
@Danikat.8537 said:I think games like Skyrim are part of why I don't like using waypoints. I remember various games 'warning' you that if you use fast travel you'll miss out on the XP you gain fighting things along the way and may miss finding some quests etc. and that mentality stuck with me. That and exploration is a big part of any RPG for me, and even when you've already gone through an area once there can be stuff to find which you missed the first time.
They generally do i.e. they are meant to. But as you may have realised Skyrim is rather glitchy/buggy and they just seem to disappear into nothingness sometimes. So quick save before you fast travel and it really helps. 2ff7e9595c
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