Why does the development team refuse to overhaul the fast-travel system to allow teleportation between whispers?

[0llO]

Since the game's release last year, people have complained about this every single day on forums. Out of my 80-hour playtime, at least 40 hours were wasted on map traversal. The endless back-and-forth travel is utterly draining my interest in the game.

I can tolerate that upgrading buildings takes real-world time, but I cannot accept running from one end of the map to the other just to dig a piece of clay or fetch some trivial item simply because teleportation is blocked. If you skip saving at nearby whispers to save time during travel, dying and respawning at distant checkpoints will instantly plunge you into frustration or rage. This issue will only worsen as the game map expands, creating new compounding problems.

The developers act like they're puncturing holes in a life preserver with scissors, then desperately patching it to keep people afloat - a complete contradiction. I understand their desire to extend playtime, but why choose the most infuriating approach when better solutions exist? The development team is utterly arrogant. Perhaps only continuously declining game sales will make them reconsider.

[jammer312]

How did you manage to waste half your playtime on travel? Do you include actual exploration in this number?
In my experience the abundance of shortcuts makes it easy to reach pretty much any point of the map by running from sacrament whisper for 1-2 minutes, especially once you learn the forbidden technique "running past enemies"

[jeyk]

https://www.youtube.com/live/UxpV8gAx1_M?si=dddUWWp3Ahv2ono1&t=8537

watch this interview with thomas, 2:22:17

Somewhere during this interview Raxx asked about fast travel, but not sure exactly the timestamp but they talked about it.

[Rappel]

I think he wants a fast travel to the different checkpoints.

I wouldn't mind that, but in return if you use it in a certain convenient way a group of mobs spawns.

Maybe include a spawn point at the beginning of each zone. Map is not big enough for unlimited fast travel.

[RedStar]

This is by design, and not to bully players. If you are able to fast travel everywhere you skip everything. You are supposed to walk through the zones to be able to gather wood and stone and herbs etc. You will also find new enemies, new loot and so on.

Originally posted by jammer312:

In my experience the abundance of shortcuts makes it easy to reach pretty much any point of the map by running from sacrament whisper for 1-2 minutes, especially once you learn the forbidden technique "running past enemies"

I completely agree on that.

Imo it would be totally boring to be able to instantly just fast travel everywhere. Zero immersion. And it feels so good to unlock the shortcuts and find new ways to travel through zones.

The suggestion to put a fast travel point at the start of each zone would be fine i think, so you don't have to walk through Sacrament to reach the entrances to the zones all the time.

[Samseng Yik]

The waypoint design intention is for you " stick to current quest until the end"

You can actually change direction from town if you unlocked a shortcut.
Though keep in mind changing direction and interact different direction waypoint will spawn the monster in different zone.

I see no wrong in this design, developer already kind enough make monster no respawn of current zone if we kia

[Retrosonic]

Especially with the pestilence system in play there is reason to travel through areas again and again. The issue becomes when you need say 8 copper ore or something similar and and you don't want a fight.
So the first couple in Nameless + the few immediately available within a short walk from Sacrament without confrontation. But still not 8 and the higher the number you need the higher the chance to be delayed through combat.

Personally I think we should have 'General Whispers' and 'Major Whispers' of perhaps a different colour or effect. And at Major whispers we can 'Full Heal' perhaps do other things as well and port to any other Major Whisper. General Whispers work as they currently do being linked directly and only to the central town Major Whisper.

So bearing that in mind I would like to see Major Whispers in all Major Towns and perhaps one other in a central safe location within each zone like for example the foundation of Shallows Bridge.

So you could effectively travel from any general whisper to the linked town, then from the town to either another central town in in another zone or back to your original location or on to a safe location within each zone.

[Summer_0_Breeze]

One of the developer interviews from yesterday is very insightful:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUu7Z2tWPq8


Thomas is arguing in favor of the existing waypoint system, because he likes how it is handled in Dark Souls 1:

https://youtu.be/kUu7Z2tWPq8?t=493

But he doesn't seem to realize that Dark Souls 1 has automatically rechargeable healing flasks and no durability loss on dead, so you can try bosses as often as you want, without penalty and without the need to constantly travel back and forth to restock food and repair your gear.

And as Zizaran told him that he was sitting for 2 hours on the twin bossfight, because the enemies and bosses are way too overleveled in this game, if you do not grind already explored areas for hours, Thomas literally made it sound as if it was Zizarans fault to be at this bossfight in the first place:

https://youtu.be/kUu7Z2tWPq8?t=408

He just doesn't seem to understand that not everybody wants to grind already explored areas.Some people just want to play through the game at a regular pace. Not necessarily rush through the game, but just find all secrets in an area and then move on to the next area, just like in other souls games.

Not everybody wants to play NRFTW like an MMO.
And it was also not advertised as an MMO in the trailers.

[Samseng Yik]

I did't know the game require grind.
I mostly sit through all current patch contents within 2 days

[Rallianto]

We really need at least a few wispers we can always fast travel to

[RedStar]

Originally posted by Summer_0_Breeze:

but doesn't seem to realize that Dark Souls 1 has automatically rechargeable healing flasks and no durability loss on dead, so you can try bosses as often as you want, without penalty and without the need to constantly travel back and forth to restock food and repair your gear.

You don't need to go back to repair your gear, just slot a repair and a heal rune into an utility weapon and put that into your second or third weapon slot. If you are fancy, put also the "homeward bone" rune into it.

[0llO]

Originally posted by jammer312:

How did you manage to waste half your playtime on travel? Do you include actual exploration in this number?
In my experience the abundance of shortcuts makes it easy to reach pretty much any point of the map by running from sacrament whisper for 1-2 minutes, especially once you learn the forbidden technique "running past enemies"

Even if you unlock all shortcuts and have mastered advanced movement techniques to reach any location from Sacrament within 3 minutes, the traversal grind remains a chore. You’re forced to constantly memorize the positions of save points and backtrack to them—otherwise, death will respawn you at distant checkpoints instead of the nearest whisper. This becomes especially agonizing when shuttling between two zones to complete tasks: if you realize you forgot an item in the previous area, you must prioritize finishing your current objectives before running back to retrieve it, or risk repeating the same tedious backtracking all over again.

[DeadInsideGaming]

Have zero problems travelling without teleports to any whisper. Game has shortcuts you need to open. If you rush maps and do not explore its your fault you cant travel fast enough later on.

[Summer_0_Breeze]

Originally posted by RedStar:

Originally posted by Summer_0_Breeze:

but doesn't seem to realize that Dark Souls 1 has automatically rechargeable healing flasks and no durability loss on dead, so you can try bosses as often as you want, without penalty and without the need to constantly travel back and forth to restock food and repair your gear.

You don't need to go back to repair your gear, just slot a repair and a heal rune into an utility weapon and put that into your second or third weapon slot. If you are fancy, put also the "homeward bone" rune into it.

You have to go back to farm food resources, if you are stuck at a boss, so why waste one focus slot for repair, if you have to go back anyway.

And relying on the healing rune alone is risky, given how often you have to trade damage with enemies, because they constantly hyper armor spam you and even if you time your hit perfectly, there is still a high chance that they just instantly counterattack after you hit them, while your character is still locked into recovery frames.

[jammer312]

You can have a separate weapon (don't even need a dedicated weapon slot for it, just equip it when you need it) with return, illuminate, heal, return and repair, and have whooping 8 focus slots (4 if 2h) for damage dealing runes if you're so concerned about "wasting one focus slot". Also you don't need food (outside of boss fights where opportunities to sit and heal are scarce) if you use heal aura rune.

[Cinno]

I like fast travel. However, I also understand the concern about dev. with map design. Considering the end-game experience, I need to go around and fight bosses everywhere. So I'm not really keen on going there one by one. So this is my suggestion: don't unlock the teleportation until players have experienced all the stories. After that, I still hope there will be a fast travel to do the farm.