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Dragon's Dogma 2 says No Fast Travel can be a good thing" Travel is only an issue when your game is boring"

Draugoth

Gold Member
dd2-talos-1701209242896.png

"Travel is boring? … It's only an issue because your game is boring." - Hideaki Itsuno

  • You have your standard on-foot travel. This is how you explore the world, and is the bread-and-butter of traversal in general.
  • Oxcarts are a mid-tier of travel introduced in DD2. It's faster travel along linear routes, and is cheap to use. However, you're vulnerable to dynamic encounters, such as Griffins predisposition to preying on Ox's; in a worst case scenario, the cart could be destroyed leaving you to stroll to your destination.
  • Ferrystones & Portcrystals return in DD2, as expected, and are the most expensive mode of travel but carry no fluff. A to B, instantly, no risks; just costs.]
“We've put a lot of work into designing a game where you can stumble across someone and something will happen, so while it's fine if it does have fast travel, we decided to design the kind of map where players will make the decision for themselves to travel by bike or on foot in order to enjoy the journey.”


Article
 

StueyDuck

Member
I mean... the statement is absolutely correct.

Whether DD2 lives up to it however remains to be seen.

If it controls like butt like the first game then I don't think Travel will be fun.

I really hope they make the game feel great because everything else about the franchise is really up my alley and speaks to me.

I've tried so so so many times to really get into it, but those controls... eish.
 
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Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
When you travelling to new area for the first time its super fun to travel on foot or mount but if you already fully explored the area and you want to go back for quest or item you forgot to get then there is nothing wrong with fast travel.
 
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DanielG165

Member
I agree. I hardly ever use fast travel in the likes of the modern Spider-Man games, Forza Horizon, Sonic Frontiers, and even the behemoth, RDR2. When a game’s world is engaging and full of life, and the traversal mechanics are fun to work with, fast travel isn’t a necessity. There are a handful of other open world games though that are either monotonous, or simply uninteresting to go through, making fast travel a godsend.
 

Killjoy-NL

Banned
Wait, aren't those Portcrystals fast-travel?

Also, those dynamic encounters will become boring and annoying after a few times. 100%.
 
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havoc00

Member
I hope he makes it fun on DD2 because it's a slog on the first one. The first time you go to some plances in DD it's fun but having to go back to these places later on with the garbage stamina system is really boring.
 

Varteras

Member
Developers are free to make their games however they wish. Just don't act shocked if there is blowback. Disrespecting the players' time has consequences. I don't imagine there are that many people who want to feel like they live in a Capcom RPG. Sure. Getting to punch kids on the way to getting laid would be a fucking blast. But eventually my hand gets sore and I'd rather just have the ass Ubered to me.
 

mortal

Banned
I agree with him. With open-world games, in particular, exploration and discovery should be core tenets of that design.
It's kind of the entire point of an open world/ sandbox.
If players become reliant on fast travel to get around that's usually indicative of a game world that lacks anything worth seeing or doing, or the game doesn't reward your curiosity.

Imo, a lot of modern games had no business being open-world and were appealing to market trends, and it often shows.
 
Did they “fix” their fast travel with the Directors Cut of the first game?
There's no director's cut of the first game, if you mean the expansion then no, they just gave you unlimited ferry stones, but if you bought the expansion you practically already had unlimited ferry stones at that point.
 

DeepSpace5D

Member
I sort of agree. Spider-Man 2 has maybe the coolest fast travel system I’ve ever seen, but the combination of web slinging and wing suit was so enjoyable that I barely used fast travel in the game.

Even in Elden Ring which undoubtedly has one of the largest open world maps I’ve explored, I probably spent 90% of the time on foot, not even using my horse, because the world was so interesting to explore.
 

Pelao

Member
The best method is still how it worked in games like Morrowind and earlier.
Contextualize fast travel as an in-game method of transportation, located in specific locations and usually costing you some money or materials.
 

Freeman76

Member
He is right. Witcher 3 and RDR2 i didnt use fast travel once in god knows how many hours. Felt like a part of the game was just taking it all in. Hogwarts Legacy too never once used a floo

I intended to do the same with Elden Ring but the game was too damn huge and I caved after getting past the lift and started using it for the second half of the game.

Games like assassins creed, ghosts of tsushima, far cry, the more generic open world Ubi style games though..fuck that noise I fast travel everywhere
 
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Mozzarella

Member
But give the option to do it at least, sometimes i forget to do something and i hate to waste time backtracking just to do one thing i forgot, this kills the time and not everyone is a NEET.
 

MagiusNecros

Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
Portcrystals in Dogma IS fast travel so all this crying is pointless. And you could set them pretty much ANYWHERE in the Overworld of Gransys.

Edit: Plus you can set 10 of them up on the map and they persist in every playthrough and don't disappear. I imagine the same will take place in DD2. Consecutive playthroughs use them for speedruns. You have to acquire and place them first. Which is perfectly fine in a immersive lore setting.

 
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RoboFu

One of the green rats
I’m trying to imagine people saying something similar about other hobbies.

I don’t have time to sit in a boat, I just want the fish on my hook.
Can this painting just be finished already?
This quilt is taking forever, I’ll just skip to the end.

Those are dumb analogies. No one goes fishing every day and if they go on weekends they don't take hours just riding back on forth the same river during the time.

It's more like if you go fishing in a boat and took your rod down the river to your spot for 30 mins both ways.. .. then came back to get your tackle.. then came back to get your cooler.

You just wasted hours doing the same exact path over and over.
 
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Sakura

Member
I like when games respect my time and I don’t have to walk/drive everywhere but that’s just me.
Yeah exactly. The game should just automatically fastforward through encounters with enemies too, so I don't have to sit there and spend time fighting them. You should also be able to just click a button and have the best gear/build for your character, who has time to waste thinking about that shit? It'd be nice too if in story heavy games, they just summarised the story down to a few paragraphs at the start so I don't have to watch all the cutscenes.
 

R3TRO

Member
Yeah exactly. The game should just automatically fastforward through encounters with enemies too, so I don't have to sit there and spend time fighting them. You should also be able to just click a button and have the best gear/build for your character, who has time to waste thinking about that shit? It'd be nice too if in story heavy games, they just summarised the story down to a few paragraphs at the start so I don't have to watch all the cutscenes.
Now we’re talking.
 
Fast travel completely undermines the exploration aspect and immersion of open world games. The way you fast travel should at least be done in a way where you can see the character being transported from one place to another(like being taken in a horse carriage or boarding a plane or whatever) rather than just a teleport loading screen.
 
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