No fast-travel

[PnzrNorm]

Just gonna step in right here and say,

Get back on topic, or lockin' it.

[RighteousSinner]

Just gonna step in right here and say,

Get back on topic, or lockin' it.

Lock it.

[Zeal]

Lock it.

The topic is about why there should not be fast travel.

My reasoning was that it does not fit Kenshi's design.
It was argued that it did, based on a questionable concept art.

Evidence supports that this concept art is not Kenshi official, in which I stand my ground on my argument.

There's no reason to lock the thread, nor is there any reason to feel opposition.

It's for debate. Not arguing meaninglessly back and fourth trying to explain eachother's flaws. I'm guilty of that too though.

[PnzrNorm]

*what you said*

*and what you said*

I'd like others on the forum to have the chance to share their input on this topic.
No need to respond with "Lock it" or reiterate the past 6 posts to me.

[Gunnysack Man]

As I play through Kenshi I find myself yearning for some more of that run-down techy feel you get from looking at certain aspects in the game (the police body armor, the various craftings stations and research table, etc.) I think it'd be really interesting to merge fast travel with some of this tech. You could also utilize the planned animals as a mean of transport mounts. Some could even be used as mules! The possibilities for the implementation are numerous.

To the real topic at hand, I disagree that fast travel would ruin the game. I actually think that people who would use fast travel more than running from place to place would end up having a harder time in combat situations. Kenshi is a game about experiences. If your band doesn't live those hardcore sand and blood experiences on a run from town to town, they will stay weak and thin. Now of course, that wouldn't be a bad thing!

Fast travel, however it is implemented, is bound to be somewhat safer than running from town to town on foot. This means you may earn a quicker profit through trading and make money a bit faster. This could make it more inviting to get into the trading business of Kenshi and start an empire of commerce, rather than battle.

[Karrade]

The solution has always been points on the world map you can fast travel, dependent on the size of the landmass, either vehicles aka mad max or pack animals like trade caravans would make good options for kenshi I feel.

This creates important trade hubs for the player and adds more of a landscape and structure for the game. Aka Morrowind, a game that did many things better than the later games, not that they were bad, just lacking in structure and some immersion.

[Silivren]

I'm totally against fast travel. At least if you don't have an option to turn it off when you start the game or dependent of difficulty level... I can only talk about my experience, so this only concerns me or other people feeling the same.

Fast travel always ruined every game I played that had it in, in any form it takes. Even if I don't use it ! Why ? Because devs will make the game with the idea in mind that the player can just teleport if they want. Removing alot of other more realistic options that a player could use to make the long travels worth it. For exemple a caravan of camels. Takes long but if you'r a trader the amount of product is worth it.

Furthermore, teleportation machines incorporated in-game ? Okey might be cool. But only as an end game machine ! And you would need one in your base and at the destination. Plus it should cost alot of ressources to use it. Or at least a descent amount.

What I love in Kenshi is that feel of grandeur. You'r a tiny little spot in the middle of such a vast and huge world. Feeling that would reduced by vehicules, and completly disapear if fast travel comes in as a free loader.
If you really want to put fast travel in, please, oh dear please, make a way for us to disable it completly and definitly from a savegame. Like those permadeath options.

The idea of making several cities with several squads and the player "fast-traveling" between the cities as a camera is awesome tho.

[jrkog]

How about no fast-travel, but the ability to select a destination anywhere on the map so squads can be sent out without having to follow them every step of the way and not do anything else. Once they start traveling, if they encounter hostiles the faces start flashing and prompt you to check out the situation. I hate being restricted to only the map area right around the characters. I think the current movement speeds keeps things realistic and if they add vehicles, traveling will become more convenient.

[Voynich]

To the real topic at hand, I disagree that fast travel would ruin the game. I actually think that people who would use fast travel more than running from place to place would end up having a harder time in combat situations. Kenshi is a game about experiences. If your band doesn't live those hardcore sand and blood experiences on a run from town to town, they will stay weak and thin. Now of course, that wouldn't be a bad thing!

Fast travel, however it is implemented, is bound to be somewhat safer than running from town to town on foot. This means you may earn a quicker profit through trading and make money a bit faster. This could make it more inviting to get into the trading business of Kenshi and start an empire of commerce, rather than battle.

I don't see the need for offering players a safer alternative. Kenshi is all about the struggle to survive in a world that really doesn't care about you or hold you by the hand. Adding fast travel is basically giving the player the ability to skip all difficulty when it comes to trading, logistics of resources between bases, finding more troops, and just simply going from point A to point B. Also, considering that hunger and thirst are features that are going to be added, travelling will be no simple task, as you have to take into consideration how many rations you can bring vs. how many of your guys are going to be loaded down with backpacks. Fast travel would make this challenge in the game null and void. I guess a system could be put in place where fast travel maybe doubles the amount of hunger and thirst your squad has to deal with, and I agree with your point that the lack of battle experience from fast-travelling adds a cost, but it still removes the experience of travelling itself for those who use it, which is pretty lame. The lack of battle experience can also be circumvented by training your troops on prisoners in the safety of your base. So you'd end up with a situation of a trader who makes incredibly fast and easy money while also having well-trained soldiers, at no cost and little effort really.

Nothing in Kenshi should be done without a certain amount of effort on the player's part. As things are right now, it's not quite difficult enough, but as more features are added I'm sure the difficulty will increase exponentially (like the need for fuel for generators, equipment breaking down, maybe even the risk of sickness and disease). Fast travel is something that would remove difficulty...that's not what the game needs.

[arthoz]

Woah...voynich and Gunnysack Man said just about all that I was about to say...

As for me, instead of looking at OTHERS, look at Kenshi itself...it is a game of survival, a world of factions and hopefully soon would filled with unique and dangerous flora, fauna and fungi...along with a few deadly geologic features...

Some people would travel the world but some people playstyle meant they would camp around a certain region for a long time perhaps to build a settlement, playing politics and quest with the locals...and if the game is carefully designed, your weapons and equipments needed to be tailored to the location and might not be reliable to other regions...e.g. one area need light quick movement while others only those with the heaviest armour could survive....

So in my opinion without fast travel you will better absorb the environment and experience all its features closely and in detail. You will struggle and look for new ways or tech so that you could survive and travel to other regions...not like now where I could easily go from one end of the map to the other, even with enemy faction city in between.

Hardship and detail exploration just to go the extra mile would be a rewarding gaming experience...imagine the situation where you got a quest to hunt for someone who is hiding in swamp or deep desert...or just to reach and secure a location where there is a unique spot of plant or ores that is very rare...needed for trade, tech or making uber stuff.....

[Zeal]

As voynich said... The game is MEANT to be a STRUGGLE...

With fast travel, you are voiding all kinds of necessary danger. Sand storm outside?
Bandits invading your base, and all your fighters half way across the map?
Got 600kg of goods to transport?
Need to get home quickly, but it's become nighttime and the outside could be dangerous?
Running out of food/supplies and need to travel back to town through the "dangerous desert" to get more?

The list goes on..


Aside from all that though.. In a logical sense, even if teleportation devices, or w/e fast travel method you had to void time/danger could be, trade would make no sense whatsoever. It's distance, travel, and time that make good vary in price. "You are no one special". Meaning that if you had fast travel. Everyone else should too, and that would render tradeing useless.

Fast travel is voiding the whole purpose of the game.

[RighteousSinner]

Aside from all that though.. In a logical sense, even if teleportation devices, or w/e fast travel method you had to void time/danger could be, trade would make no sense whatsoever. It's distance, travel, and time that make good vary in price. "You are no one special". Meaning that if you had fast travel. Everyone else should too, and that would render tradeing useless.

My original idea for a teleportation device was to have one port per biome. Theses ports would then randomly teleport you to a connected port in another biome and then lock that randomly selected location in place, immediately effecting the surround shops and towns within range of the teleportation device.

This would not make trading obsolete what-so-ever however, as it would simply just be adding in a dynamic trading variable while at the same time providing transportation over great distances. Cooldowns for the device and research based limitations would also be in place to prevent abuse to avoid confrontation.

As a matter of fact, these devices could be their own tech tree. Especially if when they were first unlocked they could only transport a set amount of people with a certain amount of weight (for each person), and/or a predetermined amount of weight total regardless of people. These limitations could then subsequently be increased through various rare blueprints found only on a specific faction or constantly resource increasing research. Then at the very top of the research tree you would be able to build your own miniature versions of these teleportation devices that would only be able to transport one or two people.

[Broadside]

I think there should be fast travel. Simply put not everyone has time to sit down and play a game for a long period of time. You could still put a random encounters in the game that can happen while fast traveling and the benefit of not fast traveling could be avoiding these dangers. Sand storm? Set up camp. Bandits? Walk around. ect... If one of the reasons that you don't want it in game is because you know you will abuse it then that is a personal problem of self control. I'm sorry, but if a reason for something to not be in a game is because you can't control yourself it's selfish. There can be rewards that the Developer can add to the game to reward people for not fast traveling. Random encounters like... Dead trader backpack full of loot, treasure caravan over come by sand storm filled with the possibility of a cat payout, and tons of possibilities. There are other solutions. This is pretty much what I have to say about that.

[philthymcnasty]

Everyone is jumping the gun here.

Tracking is not yet implemented. Nor are sand storms. Furthermost, you guys have not been playing around with prospecting yet.

When you fast travel, you miss out on the traveling part. So when things like tracking are implemented, fast traveling will miss out on tracking down the random bounty, or prospecting and discovering the spot with 100 for every resource. or finding that wounded merchant who just happens to have passed out, and also only sells blueprints.

At the same time, you may want a rookie to run straight to the town, and not do anything else. so fast travel has benefits there.

Ultimately, if people hate it, then we can mod it out, like people do for skyrim and oblivion.

[bk3000]

Count me in the no fast travel group. Think about this... because there is no fast travel we must always travel normally. That means we can and probably will get attacked on route. That actively affects the decisions we make while playing the game. A no-risk instant travel doesn't just add convenience, but rather changes the calculation as well.

To put it another way - as an example right now you might consider loading one guy up full of stuff to sell while leaving everyone else at your base to keep working/researching etc. But that carries plenty of risk to send a single slow guy with lowered combat ability all alone. If he gets attacked he can't really run and will likely loose.

Add fast travel and there is no risk at all in this.

Or maybe you where considering sending a few guys off to see what is at a town you haven't visited. Only you are worried that sending them off leaves you with less people to defend the base.

Add quick travel and they can instantly teleport back if you get a large attack. No risk at all. Quick travel in this game is tantamount to cheating. It really is.

Right now there are choices and consequences to those choices. Stuff like quick travel just alters the game too much for my taste.

Or how about you just don't use fast travel?

Certainly. How about they add a button that instantly adds money to your wallet. Or a button that instantly completes your current research. Etc etc. Just choose to not click on these buttons.

Only you know all to well that you WILL click these buttons (at least a few times). It is too tempting not to do so. Now that will hurt the challenge and thus your ultimate enjoyment yet you will press the buttons anyhow because they are there and because you can.

I think it is better that they force us to travel normally each time.

[Broadside]

Who says fast travel has to be safe? Like I said before there are solutions to this "problem". Fast travel can be disabled if you come under attack forcing you in the good old taking your time to get to the engagement zone. All of this is so simple right down to the risk vs reward system. Traveling normally would net you more reward because of greater risk. Fast traveling will net you low reward because of low risk. It's simple on paper not sure how simple it would be for the developer. I offer solutions not ultimatums. Everyone gets what they want everyone wins.

[philthymcnasty]

I say we wait. The game is far from finished yet. Hell, they have just started trying to name the wild life.

When things start coming together, then we can determine if fast travel should be removed.

I do not like fast travel at all. It ruined TES. BUT, non-hardcore people love it. Lets face it, you are only here because you are a hardcore gamer, and the other games just don't do it anymore.

[Fauce]

For me (like RighteousSinner said) you fast travel with portal...but with conditions:

1: The "portal" is only in big cityes or can be "special places"
2: You can build a portal in your base but the cost is high (ex: 500k cats and 500 building materials).
3: the portal can be connected ONLY to another portal (Ex: Portal my outpost--->Portal Brink)
4: if you want to use the portal you need a item, the item ONLY CAN BE USED BY THE CHAR THAT HAVE IT IN INVENTORY, so the squad can't travel togheter if they don't have all the same item. The item is obtainable in 2 or 3 methods(ex: Gem):
- The item will not spawn casually but Growth on some special plats or something like that, the plant disappear when used, the plant spawn casually in the biome, only a specific number can coexist togheter, The plants need 25-50 days to fully grow. This will make people travel because they need the item if the other condition can't be met. If u travel and u encouter the "plant" u are lucky and happy but however u need to wait.
- You can buy the item but the cost is 5% of the portal (ex: 25k), the cost is high and the item only function on the char that have it in inventory. The Merchant who sell it (or occasionally travelling merchants) have only 2 piece of the item, and not all the merchant in all cityes posses it. The item will span to a random merchants and the cooldown is half the cooldown for the growth of the item.
-You need to slay some special beast that require much effort.
5: To connect the portal to a certain city u need to be friendly to the faction of that city. The faction can be enemyes between them and u can't estabilish connection with enemies portals. If u connect the portal to a certain faction, all the enemies of that faction do not allow the connection to their portals.

For the portal to special places:
1: The portal need to be discovered first and need to be touched.
2: The portal have a guard, a beast, or some requirement to be met for touching it
3: The destination is random for Special Portals so u can't be sure to travel there but u can somewhere else
4: the "gatekeeper" if conditions are met ( kill, slay, talk, quest) give u the item for fast travel.

Why u use fast travel? Because u need it. If ur outpost is in danger, or u acquired a high priced item and don't want to risk ur life in normal travel (or be victim of theft), for a certain quest, to follow some special beast, to kill ur enemies, to save ur son or other things like that.

With this conditions the fast travel can be used only in end game, or if are filthy rich, or u are lucky in ur travels, or because if u don't use it u lose something much more precious.

[lucidmadness]

I like how dragon age:origins did traveling. Games like fallout 3 and skyrim you can just travel anywhere with no enemies in between whatsoever. In DA:O you will be interrupted by enemies (or even a trader) almost every time you travel from one area to the next for the first time. We have automated ore systems, I don't see how hard it would be to make a vehicle.