Alternate ways of playing games.

[Specter Von Baren]

One of my open world benchmarks is generally one of the first different ways of playing I'll try. No fast travel. That's my benchmark for a good open world. It isn't always a dealbreaker for me, but it is a metric I judge games by. If I can complete a playthrough without fast travel and not want to kill myself... it is a good open world map. An example, Fallout 3 and NV. I can easily complete a no fast travel run of FO 3. It is a great game and the map is packed with things around every corner. NV, it too is a great game. But I couldn't ever complete a no fast travel attempt. There are huge areas in the wasteland with NOTHING in it. You could easily walk 5 minutes of real time and see nothing but desert and encounter nothing.

Surely it isn't as hardline a requirement as all that. Even if a world has stuff around every corner, if you end up missing something on the other side of the map then I can't imagine you'd enjoy having to run back over environment that you've already combed through.

 

[Worgen]

Starcraft 2 with unit size in accordance to its dumb dumb lore.

Check this out for an example of how nuts it can get.

Although those still don't really cover it since some units like the mother ship are larger then the map.

 

[Kyrian007]

Surely it isn't as hardline a requirement as all that. Even if a world has stuff around every corner, if you end up missing something on the other side of the map then I can't imagine you'd enjoy having to run back over environment that you've already combed through.

Some games make it work. Skyrim has encounters that happen based on metrics other than location. So in a game going back across already covered ground you can have an event catch up to you. Depending on where you are when it happens it can be pretty interesting. Still, I can really only do no fast travel in Skyrim if I still allow paying for it with a carriage to one of the major towns. Fallout 4 goes a different direction, just having enemies respawn. That's a way to try to solve the problem... just an only occasionally interesting one. In some games the method of traversal makes backtracking better. I'm thinking something like Just Cause 3, with its hookshot/wingsuit traversal. But no, that's not the only metric I judge a game by. Fallout 3 has a better map than NV... I'm not sure its a better game though. Just Cause 3 has a better map than JC 2, but I'm not sure its a better game. Far Cry 6 really ups the traversal game with the addition of the ultralight aircraft, but I don't find it superior to any of the other Far Cry titles.

 

[wings012]

Talk about games lacking fast travel - there's an indie title called Outward. Which to me was a heap of interesting ideas and utterly garbage execution.

The developers said that they didn't have things like "gps" maps, quest markers and fast travel cause they wanted people to play the game and not be chasing UI markers. I think its' a fine goal to have. Except their worlds are pretty empty, quests constantly send you to and from opposite ends of the world just to talk to someone rather than do anything. The game also has a bunch of survival mechanics, like food/water/temperature so the trip ends up being incredibly aggravating with a lot of resource management. And of course the map doesn't tell you where you are on it, so you have to look for landmarks and navigate yourself.

I think it would've been fine if it were a more linear experience with less backtracking that mostly sent you forward to new experiences. But as an 'open world' game, it just made me appreciate the modern conveniences of the genre.

I'm also a lot older and generally don't like to waste time faffing about. I tried Fallout 4 Survival Mode, which removed fast travel and made it so that you could only save on beds. That was an incredibly aggravating experience.

I do agree that a lot of open world games tend to feel like chasing map markers than doing any proper content, but I don't think it's an issue with things like fast travel and map markers themselves. It's the content design that's lacking if a huge chunk of the game is just checking collectables off a list for upgrades.

In the BEFORE TIMES with more limited/lacking fast travel - like in Morrowind, I find that people just found ways to create 'fast travel'. My way was to slap on some magic resistance(saviour's cuirass typically), boots of blinding speed and cast a levitation spell. Then I just flew to where I needed to go. The less informative journal and lack of quest markers also meant that I ended up looking up stuff online.

But I digress.

Personally I always found it hard to impose such challenges upon myself. Typically its something you'd do to increase the replayability of your game. And I find that with my more limited energy and time, I don't really want to replay games anymore.

I will let my moral compass decide certain things in certain games though. Like in Deus Ex Mankind Divided - whether I went non-lethal or lethal depended on whether I felt people deserved it or not. Like sure the police are in the way and are probably corrupt aug-cist(?) assholes, but ultimately they aren't like proper villains so I go non-lethal. But when the actual gold mask terrorist dudes showed up I was kinda like - the gloves are off you guys are going down. So I guess it's a bit different from me going - sneak everywhere cause I like to sneak or kill everyone cause I like to shooty bang bang.

 

[BrawlMan]

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