I know this isn’t strictly related to patient gaming, but I think it fits the ethos of this community and I can’t think of a better choir to preach to.
The director of Dragon’s Dogma II made the following statement regarding limiting or removing fast travel
Just give it a try. Travel is boring? That’s not true. It’s only an issue because your game is boring. All you have to do is make travel fun
I think this is fairly compelling. Though I will say, I don’t think the answer is to limit fast travel. The real limitations developers should be placing should be on filler quests that have you traveling from point a to point b and then back with some slight pretext as to why you’re doing so. It’s not fast travel that’s the issue so much as mission design and the manners in which the player is compelled to cross the game world.
Metroidvanias are a great example of how to allow for fast travel while still making traveling around the game world compelling. The latest Metroid, Metroid Dread, was really fantastic in this aspect. You have this sense of progression and exploration even as you’re backtracking.
Would removing fast travel from Metroid Dread have made it any better? I don’t think so. The inclusion of fast travel feels thematic. You have to work for it so it feels like an achievement to unlock. It augments the game.
So in short, I agree with some of the sentiment expressed, with regards to lazy gameplay design being boring. I disagree with the opinion that fast travel necessarily is boring, or causes lazy desing.
oh yeah, that’s a great point as well. Spiderman for example. I only ended up fast traveling right near the end when they start piling on the side quests. Up until then I spent the whole time swinging across the city.
Also agree with the Zelda games. They’re so huge in scope that fast traveling becomes pretty much a necessity. That’s something I was trying to elucidate but didn’t really do a good job of. You can have this great huge game world, but if it’s a chore to cross it, what’s it worth? Ideally the story and missions would be what move you to travel across the game world, creating an engaging reason to not just open up the menu and fast travel as close as you can to the next objective.
Re: Zelda, I think that was my problem with BotW. I finished it, but the game felt tedious more often than not. Finding anything new was a chore, and the reward was a simple puzzle I’d usually solve in 5 min or so. In older Zelda games, a dungeon would take 30 min minimum, usually an hour or more, and there was a good lore/story reason to do it.
As Bilbo said:
That’s how I feel about BotW puzzles and dungeons. The payoff just wasn’t there most of the time, esp for the repetitive battle challenges.
There’s a lot of content there, partway the world felt empty because everything is so spread out.
BotW is my least favorite Zelda game, and that’s unfortunate because there’s a lot of great stuff there.
Wow… yeah I can definitely see that. I skipped any enemy camps because your reward was usually a bunch of bananas and it felt repetitive as hell. That’s a really valid critique. I regardless think it’s one of the best games I’ve ever played, but now that you mention it, there’s definitely room for improvement
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the game, otherwise I wouldn’t have finished it. It’s just my least favorite Zelda game.
Instead of buying Tears of the Kingdom, I played Skyward Sword and Link’s Awakening and enjoyed both more than BotW; the first reminds me of Ocarina of Time, and the second reminds me of a mix of The Legend of Zelda and A Link to the Past, which are my three all-time favorites.
I’ll probably get TotK eventually, I’m just not champing at the bit. Then again, I’m not a fan of open world, “make your own fun” type games in general, I prefer structured challenges and games with strong narratives.