Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Fast Travel Limitation Poll

Fast Travel Unlimited

1. I like unlimited Fast Travel just like it is right now. If I unlock a waypoint I can travel to it at any time. I can also send to camp and travel to camp without hindrance at any time.

2. Fast Travel should be limited in some way.

Fast Travel Limitations

1. Random Encounters chance whenever you fast travel. The more dangerous the area you fast travel from or through, the higher the chance.

2. Fast Travel cost. Maybe it costs camping supplies to fast travel, spell slots, some kind of magic tokens, gold or something... Whatever. The idea is that some sort of resource is used to limit fast travel.

3. Get rid of fast travel. You hate it and think players should manually walk everywhere.

4. Limit fast travel in certain locations. Basically, you can fast travel at any time anywhere except certain places like the hag's lair, the goblin camp if they're hostile, the Underdark if you haven't found a waypoint, etc. Wherever it makes sense to limit it.

5. Limited number of Fast Travels per day. Kinda like how you have 2 Short Rests a Day. Maybe they could have only a certain number of Fast Travels and then you either have to End Day or manually travel about.

6. Something else. You want it limited but none of these options are good.

Fast Travel Unlimited single choice
	No limits at all
	Limit Fast Travel in some way.
Votes accepted starting: 24/04/22 02:09 AM
View Results

Fast Travel Limitations multiple choice
	Random Encounters
	Fast Travel Cost
	Get Rid of Fast Travel
	Limit by certain locations
	Limited Number per day
	Something else
Votes accepted starting: 24/04/22 02:16 AM
View Results

Voted for no limits on fast travel. I like going where I want quickly!

i voted for no limits on fast travel. i'm with Icelyn i like going where i want quickly. On the other hand, i voted for random encounter. i like to see larian implement random encounter in baldur's gate 3. or even a random dungeon or area of some sort.

random encounter will solve the problems of "merchant farming" where are no other means of getting loots/gears/items as encounters are limited. monsters that we fight in random encounters, i believe larian can make it so that they gain little to no experience at all. the rewards of random encounter is the battle itself! and of course the loot. i like to see an area or maybe some sort of dungeons or random areas with different level of enemies the deeper you go.

that will be really great IMHO.

Just to be clear, random encounters doesn't mean just getting into combat. It could mean encountering a friendly creature, a mischievous one, wolves attacking a peasant and you have to save them either by scaring them off or if you can talk to animals, persuading them, a dryad asking for help or trying to charm you, a goblin patrol, a couple of spider carrying paralyzed victims on their backs and you need to try to save the victims before the spiders escape with them into the Whispering depths...

There are LOTS of scenarios they could develop with lots of outcomes. Doesn't always have to be fighting encounters.

I'd just like a rework of the system to feel that our characters are walking rather than TP through non-sense runes.

I vote for no limits because we should be able to fast travel as much as we want.
But according to me we shouldn't be able to long rest and get out of dungeons so easily.

Not sure about 4 though, I have to think about it a bit more. Random encounters/events would be cool but it's seems impossible to me with such a map design.
I voted for "something else".

No limits beacause its a nesserilian teleport system. How to interrupt (this with encounters)? Random encounters would be great if you only travel via map. That should be distinguished if any possible.

I voted for no limits ...
In my eyes, that is pure Quality of Life upgrade ... so you dont need to travel through dead land back to Waypoint, to port back to Emeral Grove, to sell your loot, after you kill everything that was in that zone ... wich is main reason i ever fast travel.

But i also voted for Limit by zones, bcs i believe that is exactly what it is right now ...
Maybe, just maybe i would add few more "danger zones" as Hag's Lair is right now ... but only where and WHEN it makes sense ...
you are stuck in cave, surrounded by Gnolls? > Danger zone ...
you are inside spider-monsters ifested vell?> Danger zone ...
you are inside Goblin Camp, where you can eat, drink, trade and talk with everyone you see, no matter they are discusting canibalistic monsters? > NOT Danger zone, until you kill Ragzlin and they all turn hostile > then Danger Zone.

Also, yesterday i just started to replay Dragon Age: Origins ... and that game perfectly reminded me everything i hate about random encounters.
I had to travel from point A to point B 7 times to trigger sidequest, that is hidden in random encounter. (What kind of idiot even come with such idea?)
I rushed from point A to point B, bcs i had important quest ... nah, too bad, here is huge army od Dark Spawn, you just "randomly met on the road". Great! -_-
I rushed back, poof yet another encounter ... this time just vendor, but having nothing interesting, so in fact just delay from what i really wanted to do.
Yeah i know they arent exactly "random" since every time you travel in that game you tigger some (or it seems like it at least) ... but still, it was NOT good experience in any way.

I would vote for "certain locations". In general I find little reason to fast travel in BG3 - I go to the location, do the content, and mostly not return there. I think in the overworld I don't mind there being fast traveling (though I wish there was at least some attempt to explain it) but being able to just teleport out of the middle of goblin fortress or underdark completely kills any atmosphere those locations have. If you are telling a story of a brazen attack on an enemy stronghold, and delving deep into dangerous caves, then no, you shouldn't be able to just disappear.

Honestly, I think requiring players to reach teleporting spots would already solve this problem at least in EA content. See Elden Ring - blocking fasttravel at times can be a very compelling and memorable experience. I am pretty sure Larian did it themselves in D:OS2 in acr2 during Voidwoken ambush.

Honestly, Fast Travel is mostly a Quality-Of-Life functionality in my view.

My primary problem with the way Larian implemented Fast Travel in BG3 is immersion. They have once again gone for a Schrödinger, LOL-who-cares-about-immersion approach : the functionality is simultaneously

• a pure video-game functionality, with Waypoint Portals being a feature that the players can use, that (non-party) characters can't use, and generally that has zero impact in the world-building,
• an in-world element, that has an associated lore (Netherese origins) and is explained to us by a character (Gale) instead of being explained to us using the same UI as for other tutorial elements.

These two are not compatible.

The mechanical implications are coming in as a secondary, but nevertheless a problem, in my view. Currently, we can Fast Travel :

• (a) from anywhere to any discovered portal,
• (b) from anywhere to the pocket-dimension Camp,
• (c) from the pocket-dimension camp to where-we-were-before-teleporting-to-Camp (or any discovered portal, as the pocket dimension is included in "from anywhere" in (a)).

My main issue is with (c), as this allows to essentially Long Rest anywhere, for free. But at this point ... the issue is clearly with the Long Rest system.

The issue I have (a) and (b) is mostly the facts that ... (1) time does not exist and (2) the world is utterly static (non-reactive).

Imagine that you have assaulted the Goblins' Stronghold and already killed Gut and Minthara. You're low on resources, and feel you can't take on Dror Ragzlin right now, so you backtrack. You get out of this dungeon and head back to a safe location, like the Sylvanus Grove or the wherever-it-is-supposed-to-be-located Camp, to regroup and rest, before coming back on the next day for the final assault. You find the Goblin Stronghold in exactly the same state as you left it.

I'm not bothered by the fact that you can use Fast Travel as a way to get out of tough spots. After all, the world is utterly static, and it is absolutely inconceivable that a patrol inside the Stronghold (desecrated temple) or some Goblins from outside would have walked in and re-manned (or re-Goblined) the entrance. I'm more bothered by the fact that, even if the game prevented us to Fast Travel from the Camp (say) to where-you-were-before-teleporting-to-Camp, and forced to come back to the dungeon's entrance, nothing inside has been updated ... So much for the famous reactivity Larian talks a lot about.


In the end, I voted for 4 and 6.
- 4 because, for example, if the Goblins are now hostile and you haven't "secured" the Goblin Camp (i.e. killed everyone, and especially the three Leaders), then you should resume from beginning of the dungeon/area.
- 6 because, well ... the world should be reacting to your choice. Currently, it isn't.

I realise I should perhaps have added random encounters. Because, again, I feel it sad that the world is so static, that all encounters are theme-park attractions waiting for you to visit, and that once you've cleaned an area of whatever monsters, enemies and dangers you found there, it is forever devoid of life. Although, I would be more than happy to imagine that the main travel path is now much safer, and the party is reasonably able to avoid encounters, if they have decided to travel fast as they are only passing through a region, and no longer exploring it ... if only I could encounter the occasional respawned danger when not using Fast Travel. Again, it comes back to immersion.

Voted for 4.

In my first playthrough, it seemed really odd to me that the party was able to talk its way to the heart of the goblin camp, murder three leaders, then simply dimension hop out of there. Sounds like a pretty deep security flaw in the goblin defenses. My intuition was that the party would need to sprint to the waypoint to teleport out of the camp, dodging goblin spells and arrows in a daring and thrilling escape. Fast travelling back to the grove felt a little anti-climactic.

i love dnd5e for its combat. yeah sure you can have other non combat encounter but it can only be limited (and possibly recycled). like in pathfinder wrath of the righteous, the army management events are recycled. yes they did provide a handful or dozens of encounters. but since it's going to be random, it has to be recycled. i'm more interested in the combat and the loot though.

Voted something else, mentioned this a couple times a while back on how gates/portals actually work in FR. Someone actually makes them and links them to another portal, portals can be traps and there are several different types. Right now they are unrealistic, you can port to them from anywhere magically.

Besides how they work, you should have to talk/physically move to the portals location to actually use it. With removal of send to camp feature and having to actually move to a portal would make the player less likely pack mule everything and have to use there brain.

Pathfinder is a rather bad example, random encounters were so boring there and apart from the scripted ones, most of them involved approaching the enemy and waiting for him to die.
Another thing was that they were just as pointless.
At most, I would prefer the path DA: O. There was some limited pool of encounters (not too big, at least) but when you were done with them they didn't show up anymore (except for the trader who was annoying after a while)

Agreed. Pathfinder random encounters are not good. I've been Evading them every time. And they are just trash mobs. You easily kill them. Oh so exciting.

Solasta's we're better. Some of the random encounter fights I've had in Solasta we're the most exciting encounters in the game.

One encounter, I ran into a young black dragon. Now that was cool. Even though they are just fights, they mixed up the monsters so you don't fight the same random encounters all the time. Flying drake's, elementals, orcs, undead, dragons, and monsters I've never even used while DMing before.

If BG3 did something similar, and added some varies story-style encounters to boot, that would be really awesome.

My stomach turns at the thought of random encounters. Hate them on tabletop, and any video games, even in pokemon (I think the newer games are a huge improvement on that front. Give me the old games, but visible pokemon in the grass that I can walk around to skip, and I'd be a very happy nerd!).

I do think fast travel (and long rest) needs a major redesign in BG3 just because it makes a lot of other things redundant - If you can long rest all the time, why have spell slots at all. It also nerfs sorcerers and buffs Ki for monks.

Same with travel, but I don't currently have thoughts on alternatives. But random encounters is not a solution in any shape or form IMO. It's just annoying filler that doesn't drive the story. And if it's chance-based, I'd hit F5 before travel, travel, and reload if random encounter, and try travel again to avoid random combat :P

Or!
Maybe ... just maybe ... Larian didnt seen any reason for us to watch our party walking back to nearest Waypoint ... and just as with Long Rests whenever and wherever ... they simply decided to cut this awfull and boring walking out as QoL upgrade.

I have talked about this in private message with GM4 and I think he has "scripted events that may occur randomly" in mind more than traditionnal (and often boring) random encounters.

In exemple when you arrive at your camp there's a cinematic in which you see a pack of wolves looking for something to eat.
You have 3 choices : wait for them to leave, you loose 20 food units.
Try to distract them : skill check, if you suceed you loose 10 food units but if you fail you have to fight.
Fight them : you loose 0 food but have to fight.

I also think it could be very cool but I really don't think such events / encounters could apply to fast travelling.
We're fast traveling too often and from too many locations to too many locations.

Larian should create paths to recognise where players are passing through and create a very large pool of possible events so that they don't become redundant.
A massive job for a result that may not be fully satisfying.

It should be a part of the camping system redesign imo.

You say "even in Pokemon" as if was a display for low intolerance about the feature, when in fact Poken (and in general most JRPGs) have by far the WORST possible implementation of random encounters, as the more frequent, annoying and substantially irrelevant for any purpose than isn't sheer grinding.

There's a substantial difference between "You can occasionally get a 'random' encounter (which is in fact actually pre-designed) every once in a while while moving on the world map between major quest hubs" (which is what BG2 did) and "You'll get a million random fights, one every three steps/few seconds, just walking around in tall grass or any other random area".

In fact, they almost deserve different names because they are entirely different features in practical terms.

I overall agree with everything you said.

In defence of randome encounters - I don't think I have ever seen random encounters serve mechanical purpose (maybe outside grinding which is yuck). I think they could be very effective for worldbuilding, but unfortunately most cRPG are too low of a budget to flesh them out properly. I am playing Red Dead Redemption2 at the moment, and honestly it's random encounters is what impressed me the most so far - there is a lot of variation there (not just fight encounter) and ususally serves a flavour - either by reinforcing wild west setting, or continuing past story beats - like gangs you had run ins before trying to take revenge etc.

If BG3 fast travel was a bit more "in universe", there could be goblin ambushes, druid revenges, etc. We have a little bit of it in form of camp encounters already - abandoned companions showing up, Rafael's visit, Halsin revenge... Personally, I don't think it works - mostly due to camp being such an abstract location, seperated from the rest of the world. Having those encounters when fast traveling and more I think would be more natural but of course, directing cinematics would be trickier.

A bit off topic - but in general, I think BG3 could benefit from random or not so random encounters, but limiting fast travel is entirely different thing.

Which I don't see as a big issue.

I think the most valuable thing we can do, as players giving feedback on an early version of the game, is tell Larian what doesn't work, and why it doesn't work. Whereas how a given subsystem should be designed really comes as a distant third.

If we managed to convince Larian that a currently-poor subsystem really needs to be substantially revised, that would already be amazing. (Yeah, this last idea could be nuanced and discussed a lot. But I'll keep this post short.)