Not quite. The concept of Fast Travel in FH5 is no different to flight paths and teleporting in many MMORPGs. With that said and noting this is not an MMORPG but to quote chatgpt which I feel expresses the topic at hand really well…
How do flight paths and teleporting ruin mmorpgs
Flight paths and teleporting can potentially ruin the immersive experience of MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games) by making the game world feel smaller and less connected. Here are some reasons why:
Lack of exploration: Flight paths and teleporting can make it easy for players to quickly travel from one place to another without actually exploring the world. This can lead to players missing out on interesting quests, hidden treasures, and other aspects of the game that make it more enjoyable.
Lack of social interaction: When players can instantly teleport to a location, they are less likely to encounter other players along the way. This can lead to a lack of social interaction and a feeling of isolation within the game.
Lack of challenge: The ability to quickly travel from one place to another can make the game feel less challenging. For example, players may be able to avoid difficult terrain, monsters, or other obstacles by simply teleporting to their destination.
Disrupts game balance: Flight paths and teleporting can also disrupt the balance of the game. For example, players who have access to faster modes of transportation may have an advantage over other players who do not.
Overall, flight paths and teleporting can make the game feel less immersive and engaging for players. While they can be useful for getting around quickly, they should be implemented carefully to ensure that they do not have a negative impact on the overall game experience.
Based on the responses so far I would say most players feel that Fast Travel has been implemented well and does not negatively impact the overall experience of the game. The point of this topic was to flesh this out. It’s not a case of what’s the point of this topic or this topic is silly, because it’s actually a great topic especially if you have experience with other game genres like mmorpgs and understand how such features can drastically change the nature of the game for the worse…
It’s funny, but I’ve been considering doing a Breath of the Wild replay where I don’t let myself use any fast travel. That would be my choice to play the game in a different way, and there’s no way I’d ever want the option removed from the game as a whole. Obviously BotW is a very different type of game than FH, but the point still stands.
Totally agree that easy and permissive teleportation for everyone (especially for casu).
This reminds me of when I played WoW in its early expansions: I spent an inordinate amount of time traversing the map on foot or weak mount, there were only a few teleportation points between very distant regions, the rest was done on foot. There was the zeppelin or the boat to get to the big destinations, but you had to know the world in which you were evolving, think about which route was the fastest to get to this or that place.
I probably wasted a lot of time, but that’s what immersion is all about. I mean, I could spend 30++ hours a week on WoW, whereas FH5 takes me almost 3 hours all together, the weekly festival selection chore.
The idea of limiting teleportation to specific points on the map would be a good balance for players.
It’s another time too, a decade ago it was acceptable to spend a lot (too much) of time on a game, in the age of streaming you need to be able to access it, on the platform you want, when you want, where you want, among hundreds (thousands) of proposals that are made. Xbox is the pioneer of this way of playing in the video game world. And will continue to do so!
The competition is tough, if you choose to spend a few hours on a game today, it’s already a bargain for the studio.
In short, you have to learn to play with the times
and it’s hard to fight, I’m like water: I take the shortest route if I can.
It’s detrimental to my experience as a player, I’d like to spend more time, think more, and get involved in the world that’s available to me. But I just scan the playlist and forget that the boxes are somewhere on the map.
the dilemma of long and tedious versus fast and accessible
In addition to the points I raised a few days ago, I also feel like no fast travel just wouldn’t work in a modern Horizon game. The maps are just getting to big to justify driving everywhere everytime, especially after the game’s “campaign” has been completed. It was different in the original Horizon became the map was only sightly bigger than the Nurburgring, and since you couldn’t drive off-road eveywhere like you can in current games, there was something more novel in driving from place to place since you couldn’t blaze across the map in a straight line.
With that novelty long gone and the maps getting bigger and bigger, I just don’t think removing fast travel is a very wise choice. I mean, imagine playing Test Drive Unlimited 1 or 2 without fast travel. Imagine driving 30 minutes from one side of the island to the other to a complete a 2 minute event when you could’ve just fast traveled to closest previously traveled road and cut the trip by 20 minutes.
Depends how it’s implemented. One idea could be if you want to do any race on the map then you open the menu, select the race and start immediately. After the race you end up back at your original location. No having to teleport to location, drive up a little until menu pops up, then enter.
Then other content requires you to explore and drive to it, potentially like speed zones and jumps etc. To get to a location you can transfer your car from one festival site to another. That way festival sites become more like player hubs. Again it’s just a thought on immersing players more in the open world which could indeed be a terrible idea.
I mean, of all the suggestions I’ve read on changing how Fast Travel works, your’s does sound the most reasonable and realistic. I guess the ultimate question is, however, is changing how fast travel works really something worthy of development time when there’s so many changes due in other areas of the game?
Since this is a completely optional activity I see no reason to change it. I would not like the game as much if they removed fast travel since the maps are pretty large and my time is limited.
With the current setup one can choose to collect all the fast travel boards to get free fast travel or just pay to use fast travel without getting any or some of the boards. Even after getting all the boards one can still choose to not use fast travel. Plus fast travel isn’t used to just get to events. This implementation of a feature is close to being the perfect design (or is) as it gives an incentive for exploring (need to find the boards) a reward for finding them (cheaper fast travel) and makes the use optional for advancing in the game.
Well, there is, sort of, since you get xp while driving for speed, drift, air, etc. etc. …
…not that it’s much of an incentive (but then what in this game is much of an incentive ?) given that xp is sp is cr and is all pretty much useless at a very early point in the game for most of us.
EDIT : still trying to recall the FH2 specific but drawing a blank
Between the first two games, I think Horizon 1 had the best incentive to not fast travel regularly. Besides the fact that fast travel anywhere was hidden behind a paywall, barn find rumors were unlocked by the amount of miles driven by the player in both races and free roam alike (unlike today where it seems like they just randomly generate throughout the first three hours of gameplay). And it definitely works, because on one playthrough of Horizon 1, I fast traveled at every opportunity and didn’t unlocked the final barn find rumor until way after the main campaign ended. Meanwhile, on another playthrough, I didn’t use fast travel at all, and the barn find rumor was unlocked shortly after I unlocked the gold wristband events.
Barn finds… What if barn finds were randomly located on the map and we’re difficult to find. More importantly what if barn finds had a chance of containing really unique and hard to obtain cars. Things like this might encourage players to explore the world more and more frequently. And while you’re exploring you’re less inclined to use fast travel as the next barn find could be around the next corner.
I guess my point here is maybe you can have both fast travel and immersion by encouraging the player to interact with the open world. This bit seems to be lacking though as most players including myself just fast travel to a given destination to start an event. There’s no real incentive to explore the world after unlocking all boards etc, except for when you’re just chilling and want to cruize around.
I definitely feel like barn finds should be more difficult to obtain. At the very least, Playground needs to stop reusing the same barn asset so they’re not as easy to idenitify from a distance.
In FH4, I never used fast travel. I liked driving between events, and almost daily, would notice something I hadn’t seen before. In FH5, I never used it either, even though the events were way further apart, I still enjoyed driving around. But then, we had a baby. Now my play time is extremely limited, and I fast travel everywhere exclusively, just to save the time. Without fast travel, I wouldn’t come close to completing the weekly playlist with the small amount of time I have to play. Moral of the story: if you don’t like it, don’t use it, but it’s good to have if you need it.
Depends on my mood and the circumstances. If I want to get a feel for a car, I’ll drive, but I’ll use fast travel if I can’t be bothered.
I probably used fast travel less in FH4 than I do in FH5. It may be because the former is a bit less empty.
A few days ago, fast travel was causing the game to crash, leaving me to drive everywhere as if the service didn’t exist. It was a nuisance which made me appreciate fast travel a bit more.
