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

Our characters litteraly walk less than 10min to go from the beach to the arcane tower. Heroes are not exhausted after walking 10 minutes and clilmbing 2 ladders.

But ofc you like it better. Not surprising at all whatever the "arguments".

This is where you are wrong.

Whatever the "argument", just as I said 😂

One would say that just the fact, that your companions are complaining at exhaustion after "few minutes of walking", will be hint enough to understand that you are not really "walking few minutes" ...

I mean i do know that we are living in sad times where walking from PC to Toilet and back is equivalent of climbing Mount Everest for certain people ... but even so ... you really, REALLY, believe that our ingame map is "litteral"? REALLY?

Imagine what you want in your head but that's exactly how the map is designed. An entire other thread though, so I'm out

Probably someone else has already pointed out this scenario, but here I go.

I realized I hate this unlimited fast travel on the first version of the game, during my first playthrough.

I was at the Goblin Camp, doing my commando-like quest to quietly infiltrate and eliminate the three bosses of the horde. I killed Minthara, the Goblin priestess and only the big hobgoblin himself was remaining.
I triggered the encounter and managed to survive through it, but now all my abilities and resources were depleted, I was low on health and with a whole garrison of goblins now hostile to me. I had to think of a clever way to get out of that mess... and then it hit me: I could have just fast travelled away.

I didn't do it, because it was no fun to me, but the fact that the option was legally available bothered me soooooo much it killed my immersion. Why bother to learn magic or to carefully plan a heist or an assault when you can just pop away if you get stuck or mess things up?
I understand many people may not be bothered by this but I think is a serious game flaw, detrimental to immersion and the overall challenge of the game (at that time the infinite long-rest option was still a thing, so the game difficulty was below 0).

I would love for fast travel to be like in The Witcher 3: you can fast travel only if you are near a fast travel point. It also makes sense since you should be in front of a teleportation gate (rune) to travel to the other side.
I can accept the existence of teleportation scrolls for when someone is really stuck and the last save game is maybe hours before, but they should be really rare and/or expensive.

Anyway, these were my two cents on the matter

On one hand we have:
- two ingame maps provided by Larian themselves, providing different ranges between places ...
- companions complaining about exhaustion after few minues of walking ...
- whole plot of basicaly every single quest that require at least some walking ...
- and the common fact that in computer games measures are not litteral, for budget and experience reasons ...

On the other hand we have:
- Maximuuus stating "it is litteral" ...

Decisions ... decisions ...

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Lets ask someone whos opinion you should thrust:


He know what he is talking about.

I understand (or at least, I think to) your logic, but I don't think I agree with it.

It's the old argument of "If there is an optional feature that bothers you, don't use it" but I don't like it very much to be honest.

It's not up to the player to ignore bad features, it's up to the development team to change/erase them. Otherwise, we can justify 90% of bad decisions because, if we are not forced to experience them (like shoving everything, cheese super Mario jumping everywhere etc), we can just pretend they do not exist.

If a game can be exploited, then it has a flaw. Sure, some people may like to exploit games but the problem still exists.

As I mentioned, I didn't use the fast travel in that instance, but still, my immersion was broken and this is not a good thing in an RPG. One can still "suffer" from bad game exploitable mechanics even if he/she chooses not to directly use them.


I think my argument makes sense, even if someone may disagree with it



EDIT: I should've been more patient since lots of people have brought up the goblin camp scenario. At lest I'm not the only one who seems bother by it

Get ready to answer his upcoming wall of text whose only purpose will be to show you how wrong you are 😅

I fully agree, except that for me it was not a little anti-climactic but totally immersion breaking


Walking through beautifully crafted environments is part of the cRPG experience. If one finds the part between combat encounters to be boring then an Arcade, Hack&Slash or RogueLike game is a much more suitable experience than an RPG.


+1

You snipped out a very important part of his post

As it has been said countless times, it seems like the solution that makes everyone happiest is for the game to be designed with limited fast travel, but with the option to remove that restriction.

The default option in an RPG should be the one that makes sense lore-wise (RolePlayingGames are all about immersion). Then, if the developers have the time and resources to develop a setting to improve QoL features, all the better.
I think it would be perfect. Just fast travel from a teleportation point to another as a default mechanic (which makes sense lore-wise), whit the option in the setting to be able to teleport from anywhere to anywhere.

Sort of, yes?

It is not an over-world map - assets seem to be to scaled with our characters, and individual locations seem to be believably designed. There seems to be little abstraction going on, unlike, in a traditional jRPG, a rogue-like or Heroes of Might&Magics/Kings Bounty/Thronebreaker.

Now, I don’t think Larian is terribly concerned if the map “feels right” it terms of the scale or how close things are together, but that doesn’t make the final product any less problematic.

That is totally fine.
(If you listen to Lore by Night podcast, imagine me saying it in that voice. )

Well, the important part is that you are *able* (and willing as it seems) to follow it ...
Wich i presume based on the that you said "i didnt since i didnt want to" ...

Therefore you dont stand in your own way ... and that is good (and important) starting point.

Depends ...
First of all (i dunno how much you were active lately, but i didnt seen you often around here) we are unable to even agree what is "bad feature" ...

And second ...
I believe that its up to the development team change/erase those systems THEY are not satisfied with ... sure we can say wich and why we dislike ... and then its up to them if they double check it if that is working as it should, or if there is any way to make it better, but in the end its still their (basicaly Swens) decision.
You know ... to explain this, i believe that i dislike this modern "im a customer and i dont like this, so they have to change it" kind of mindset, exactly as you dislike that "if you dont like it, dont use it" argument ... there is no way to explain it fully, at least not for me with my poor english skills.
The feeling is simply just right there, once somebody brings that up.

I believe so, yes ...

Even tho shoving is bad example, since even if you avoid is as much as you want to ... NPCs are still using it against you. :-/ So *that* is ineed unavoidable.
And jumping as Mario has ben removed when they split Jump and Disengage few patches back.

Curent and still valid examples would be ...
- Wizards being able to learn Cleric scrolls ...
- Everyone being able to Hide as Bonus Action (this one is one of harder to self-moderate, since even if you waste your action since your Fighter "would have need it to hide" you still lost your Bonus Action :-/ but in cases you dont need it, its possible)
- Party being able to Fast Travel from everywhere ...
- Party being able to Long Rest everywhere (except Hag's Lair) ...

And im sure there is more, but i bet those will be enough for now.

After all, some people start to speak around here about that there should rather be strict rules, with option to turn them off ... is that so different? O_o

Every game can be exploited ...
Maybe except old school things like Pacman, Sonic or Tetris.

But i dont believe this even "is" a problem ... exploits are things people do purposefully, and willingly (never accidentaly) ... so as long as you avoid them, there are none for you.

I cant help the feeling that we have different deffinition of "immersion". O_o

I mean ...
How can you "break" out of immersion by something that is system-mechanic ... and therefore it dont even exists, from story (in wich you are immersing) perspective? O_o

Indeed ...
But if i feel experienced enough by walking there, i see no reason to walk back just to someone else feels happy about the way i enjoy the scenery.

In this case i would quote Auntie:
Im affraid thats my business petal.

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Yup ... intentionaly and for purpose.
What am i suppose to tell somebody who express his own feeling? Should i start persuating him that he was actualy still immersed?

So ...
You believe that Blighted Village actualy sustained from Barn, Windmill, Blacksmith, School, Doctor ... and nothing else? O_o

Do i understand you corectly?

So ...
You believe that Goblins were "unable to find" Grove, even tho whole area (and i mean whole surface of Act 1) can be scouted within 30 minutes? O_o

Do i understand you corectly?

I dont think that either ...
But then, im used to games where 2 minutes walking "would equal" 2 days travel ... "if i would be in that world in the flesh". :-/

You mean you're used to DoS and BG3 ? 😅


Because role playing games usually have a coherent visual and narrative layer upon the "system-mechanic".

Immersion is the core purpose of role playing and such flaws in the systems break the immersion in "the experience" as a whole.
You really didn't understand anything I wrote as expected...

And now you're repeating the same things once again.
It's fine if your definition of immersion is more shallowed, you know.

Don't mind me: just quoting this for the record.

Fast Travel via BG3 portals are specifically an in-universe feature, not simply a system mechanic. BG3 portals exist in the story - Gale is specifically shown to come out of one and comments on doing so, and we are told to use them for travel. And yet we can also fast travel without portals, using the same UI, but this method lacks an in-game explanation. This apparent uncertainty of how we fast travel without portals, when we're originally shown that fast travel relies on it, can lead to a loss of immersion.

😅
Never played DoS actualy ...

But DA:O, DA:I, (not 2 since i dont remember it, i played it looooong time ago), Skyrim, Oblivion, Fallout 1, 3, N-V, 4 and ofc WoW ... those are games where certain (even tho different) amount of abstraction is in play.

On the contrary quite acurate maps are (in my opinion ofc) in Witcher 3 (again dont remember older, too long ago), Vampyr, VtM:Bloodlines, VtM:Bloodhunt, new Tomb Raiders ...

Does that paint the picture?

It seems that im unable to understand how ... since it simply dont to me.
Well ... /shrug ... i gues.

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Agreed ... dont see any flaw so far.

This part tho i cant agree with ...
True, we didnt get any explanation ... but part of that very fact is that we dont know if this kind of fast travel is happening "without portals" ...

Personaly i believe the contrary is true, since we still came out of portal every time we Fast Travel ...
Therefore my personal (and i can be wrong ofc.) explanation (and yes it is headcanon) is that Larian simply didnt see any reason to force us to manualy walk to nearest portal through usualy dead space, where everything is allready done ... and so they implemented QoL change, and snip that part out.
I welcome such approach ...

And even tho it can make odd situation *inside* the Goblin camp, under certain circumstances ... i have hard time thinking about at least one more such scenario. O_o
So even IF (and that is big personal if) ... i would also see this as a problem, it would still be minor one in my eyes, since you confront it once only. :-/

Interesting ...

No.

Duh, every game map is an abstraction of what it is supposed to represent. A real life location would be uninteresting to play in.

The question isn't: Could it work in real life? but: Does it work in the game - from gameplay perspective and/or supporting the story the game is attempting to convey.

And you have kindly provided the answer for it:

I was pretty active at the start (until patch 4) but, since the number of new things was inevitably decreasing, nowadays I limit myself to watching the threads without commenting on them, except for rare occasions like this one.
But to reply to your point: I hadn't a gun pointing at me when buying the EA of the game, I know I'm not entitled to anything, let alone to tell the developers what to do with their game.
Still, Larian asked people to buy the EA to give them feedback (and money, but I think they were genuinely asking for feedback), so, feedback I'm giving them, like any of us here. If I think a feature is bad for the game, I'm going to say it without ill intent, but because I really wish for the game to succeed. Larian can do whatever they like with my opinions

Because, even ignoring the "exploitable scapegoat" part of the problem, I know I have the power to do something that my character shouldn't be able to (teleport from anywhere) and that doesn't make sense with the IG lore.
If I'm paying 59+€ to play an RPG based in the forgotten realm I don't want to force myself not to use (bad) game features in order to have a coherent experience.

And I'm not saying it like "it's my personal taste and I want it that way". I'm saying it because it's the foundation of what constitutes an RPG experience.


I must be honest, seems to me that you are really trying to be provocative in your posts and I don't find it very nice, since it is dismissive of the other person's argument.
But maybe I'm reading it the wrong way and you have no ill intentions, in that case, I apologize.

I'm not saying that you should go play an arcade game instead of an RPG, but genres exist for a reason. They are categories personifying a well-defined set of rules and features, and people have all the right to complain if what was advertised as a particular type of game has features and mechanics detrimental to that same category.
Since the main reason RPGs are RPGs and not Action Adventures or RTS games is the immersion factor, a mechanic which breaks immersion is a bad mechanic and should be changed, or, at least, the developers should contemplate the possibility of changing it.

to quote Maximuus

And there is no arguing about the fact that fast travelling anywhere, in BG3, is an immersion-breaking feature for many people (this thread has plenty of them), even if one chooses not to use it.
I played dozens of RPGs, Action RPGs and cRPGs and the episode I mentioned in my first post was one of the most annoying and immersion-breaking I have ever experienced. It's indicative of a problem, it's a fracture in the silent pact that ask the player to suspend its disbelief, and it's not good in this type of game.

If, while playing LA: Noir, a button on the top right of the screen says "shove a banana up your butt", I suspect no one is going to particularly enjoy the cathartic revelation of the case, even if they choose not to press it.


Not to mention that I think no one is asking to remove fast travel completely, just to make it coherent with the in-game lore and balanced in terms of mechanics, which basically translates in "make fast travel unavailable in enemy territory" or in "make fast travel only available if you touch a portal" if we want to be coherent with the worldbuilding.

I really don't think this is too much to ask for.

Disabling this option is just a string of code, and I'm more than happy if Larian chooses to put a "no fast travel limitation" option on the settings menu, maybe when choosing the game difficulty.