I love this game its alot of fun. But I wish there was some type of transportation. I like exploring in the game but after backtracking through places multiple times. It started to get abit annoying. Even the most simplistic quest felt like I was going on a journey. Going through miles and miles to reach my destination. While getting attack by all types of monsters. In the beginning it was alot of fun. Until when I had to do some quests. Where I had to keep going back and forth through the same places.

Yeah, I gave up on it personally, I really think it has potential and I do enjoy some aspects of it, but man has it frustrated me.

I wish the game would at least let you rest in the wilderness.

It's not a great deal of consolation but eventually you'll get access to port crystals you can place anywhere in the world and teleport to them, I've got a big network of crystals now after finishing the game twice and they stay in place for an NG+ playthrough.

@FancySoapsMan said:

I wish the game would at least let you rest in the wilderness.

Again not an ideal fix but there are a number of healing springs out in the world that if you walk into will heal you back to maximum, beyond any damage health limit.

There is a better way to travel but it is super expensive. Later in the game you get a portcrystal from Blue Moon Tower right. Take it to the Black Cat and have it copied @ 300,000 gold and if you make copies of the copy it only cost 75,000 gold. Then, make your final travel around the map planting portcrystals where ever your heart desires. So long as you keep an abundance of Ferrystones you can speed travel the entire map.

@ModerateViolence said:

It's not a great deal of consolation but eventually you'll get access to port crystals you can place anywhere in the world and teleport to them, I've got a big network of crystals now after finishing the game twice and they stay in place for an NG+ playthrough.

I'm still pretty much in the beginning of the game (just reached Gran Soren), could you please tell me where to get those crystals and how they work? Because all the backtracking and bumping into deadly enemies really frustrates me...

@Morrow said:

@ModerateViolence said:

It's not a great deal of consolation but eventually you'll get access to port crystals you can place anywhere in the world and teleport to them, I've got a big network of crystals now after finishing the game twice and they stay in place for an NG+ playthrough.

I'm still pretty much in the beginning of the game (just reached Gran Soren), could you please tell me where to get those crystals and how they work? Because all the backtracking and bumping into deadly enemies really frustrates me...

You'll pick one up at the end of a mission involving a Griffon, after that they're for sale at the Black Cat forgery place in Gran Soren for about 200,000 I think, I just looked and thats the price I have but I might have discounts from something or other. They're items you can place anywhere in the main map, they'll stay there until you pick them up again, while they're down you can use a Ferrystone to pick your destination (Gran Soren has a permanent position)

I've already talked a-plenty about how the lack of any sort of suitable fast-travel/transportation system almost completely ruins the game for me, so in short: Yes, absolutely.

Problem with portcrystals is that:

1. you only get 1 in the middle of the (pre everfall) game at best, if you are completionist it's even more towards the back end, majority of the quests in the game world and majority of exploration can be and frequently is done before you ever get your first crystal, i spent about 80% of my pre everfall game time before ever getting it, and if you do story missions to get it faster a lot of sidequests will get closed
2. copying that one crystal at that point in the game can quickly zero out your money leaving nothing for shopping and upgrades
3. the 200,000 portcrystals that are simply sold are only in newgame+ , thus completely moot for people who are going to play it once (this isn't helped that nothing of significance changes in newgame+)

In newgame+ yea, you can have them all over the map and travel everywhere as you please, but for fresh people doing their first playthrough are pretty much screwed for most of their game

After you beat the game the first time money becomes a non-issue and you can use ferry stones like they were candy. I'm hauling around 8 million gold right now.

@Tennmuerti said:

Problem with portcrystals is that:

1. you only get 1 in the middle of the (pre everfall) game at best, if you are completionist it's even more towards the back end, majority of the quests in the game world and majority of exploration can be and frequently is done before you ever get your first crystal, i spent about 80% of my pre everfall game time before ever getting it, and if you do story missions to get it faster a lot of sidequests will get closed
2. copying that one crystal at that point in the game can quickly zero out your money leaving nothing for shopping and upgrades
3. the 200,000 portcrystals that are simply sold are only in newgame+ , thus completely moot for people who are going to play it once (this isn't helped that nothing of significance changes in newgame+)

In newgame+ yea, you can have them all over the map and travel everywhere as you please, but for fresh people doing their first playthrough are pretty much screwed for most of their game

In that case I'll happily become a port crystal fund for people, anyone that wants a bunch just let me know I'm sitting on silly money.

@Yummylee said:

I've already talked a-plenty about how the lack of any sort of suitable fast-travel/transportation system almost completely ruins the game for me, so in short: Yes, absolutely.

I agree, the backtracking is starting to ruin the game for me too.

I don't know the backtracking isn't "that" bad and in the end is helpful in alot of ways. For example you are getting experience and drops from the mobs you kill, you can loot chests multiple times because they respawn, and alot of the best consumables in the game require you combine them with mats you have to find out in that world you are constantly backtracking.

So in a way that backtracking is actually what prepares you for the end game in the first place. Yeah it gets a little boring and sucks, but in the end it pays off.

Like others have said newgame+ it becomes a non issue, also lots of fast travel is practically an exploit when it comes to escorts.

PS: As for places to rest, they are all over once you know your way around. Not only are there the healing springs but there is a rest station complete with rift crystal at the Blighted Manse, near the Shadow Fort, Cassardis, Gran Soren, and the Greatwall. The only place in the game without a dedicated full recoup place close by is really the center of Gransys around the abbey. Even there they have a somewhat close healing spring and a riftstone though. I guess the extreme south coast falls under that as well, but again there is a healing spring there too.

@ModerateViolence: Sounds great but hell are they expensive :[

@FancySoapsMan said:

I wish the game would at least let you rest in the wilderness.

Again not an ideal fix but there are a number of healing springs out in the world that if you walk into will heal you back to maximum, beyond any damage health limit.

I love this game its alot of fun. But I wish there was some type of transportation. I like exploring in the game but after backtracking through places multiple times. It started to get abit annoying. Even the most simplistic quest felt like I was going on a journey. Going through miles and miles to reach my destination. While getting attack by all types of monsters. In the beginning it was alot of fun. Until when I had to do some quests. Where I had to keep going back and forth through the same places.

@Tennmuerti said:

Problem with portcrystals is that:

1. you only get 1 in the middle of the (pre everfall) game at best, if you are completionist it's even more towards the back end, majority of the quests in the game world and majority of exploration can be and frequently is done before you ever get your first crystal, i spent about 80% of my pre everfall game time before ever getting it, and if you do story missions to get it faster a lot of sidequests will get closed
2. copying that one crystal at that point in the game can quickly zero out your money leaving nothing for shopping and upgrades
3. the 200,000 portcrystals that are simply sold are only in newgame+ , thus completely moot for people who are going to play it once (this isn't helped that nothing of significance changes in newgame+)

In newgame+ yea, you can have them all over the map and travel everywhere as you please, but for fresh people doing their first playthrough are pretty much screwed for most of their game

During my first attempt at the game I figured I'd be clever and invest some Gold duplicating Portcrystals and give myself an advantage in reducing time spent traveling places.

I came out slightly disappointed, but richer in knowledge about fake Portcrystals:

• Duplicated Portcrystals do not work. The 'Use' option is greyed out: "You cannot use this item."
• Duplicated Portcrystals do not get named as "Forgeries" like for example the various Idol Forgeries do, but the item description will show "A forgery." (View item description in the Storage interface or by 'Switching Explanation)
• Duplicated Portcrystals have a weight of 3.32 while the proper ones weigh 3.33, they also appear in a separate inventory slot/stack.
• Duplicated Portcrystals themselves can be forged for 75,000. Copies obtained this way are not different in any way from copies made from an original/real Portcrystal.
• It costs 300,000 Gold to duplicate a Portcrystal.

In conclusion, duplicating Portcrystals is very much a waste of time and Gold, and should not be necessary for anyone.

I just repeated this for the sake of verification, fake Portcrystals available for those who require additional proof or have a love for cheap forgeries. (PS3)

The lack of sufficient travel options is made even worse by the odd difficulty balancing of average enemies vs big monsters, you get tired twenty times between any location, the fact that the same enemies will be in the same spot every time, and your pawns won't shut up saying the same things multiple times about the same enemies you have fought five times already. Travel options could lessen the effect of almost all of these issues.

I'm really hoping for a patch. With even a few tweaks, the game could become three times as fun.

It is funny the WHOLE gamer community has been screwed over completely by this "innovative" fast travel bullshit, AND you don't even know it.

Back in the day, an adventure game meant exactly that. Adventuring, plain old enjoyment: getting accustomed with an area and traveling all over it, fighting monsters and re-fighting them getting better at it and just plain old immersion.

THEN a few dicks suddenly decided: "Hey! no one wants to enjoy the games content more than once over, what they really need is an option to teleport to their next little quest marker that has been clearly highlighted for them on their maps so they don't really have to read or think or anything horrifically tedious like that and they can just mindlessly go from a to b and mash that x button, before doing it again."

Just the running and jumping in this game felt right. Not even mentioning the combat here, but simply leaping around on rooftops and fluffing around was once again pleasurable like it has not been for me since the last Elder scrolls game before they took out acrobatics. (Excluding assassins creed games, but they are somewhat about that and they are not traditional RPG adventure games)

Having said that on a large map a very basic carriage system connecting just the major cities is always welcome, or in this situation 3 port crystals early on so u cam smash one up near the all girl bandit fort, one in southern Gransys and one near the blue moon tower would have been plenty enough but I was glad there wasn't coz all 3 times I ran up to blue moon tower were heaps of fun, I loved traveling there fighting bandits and golems and looting all the chests. A good RPG should make u want to do that stuff... Thank god for this game reinstalling some of my lost faith, if only they did the level progression/scaling a bit better, but that's another story.

A case could be made for no fast travel, but this game isn't it. The problem is that you *don't* need to think when you're fighting enemies you've beaten before and are way too strong for - that's just busy work. The 'adventure' back is effectively just a long, slow and extremely tedious jog.

@Bassario: Fast travel isn't inherently evil, as it has its uses in some games; it just isn't for every game.

Unfortunately, this is a game that really begs for something like fast travel. Or, well, transportation of -any- sort. There are late-game options, but those should be standard, not just for the 1% who get that far. Games can do those expansive worlds without fast travel or travel of any kind, but they have to have interesting worlds with dynamic enemies and payoff for traveling long distances. Dragon's Dogma, though, has a very bland world with the same enemies in the same place every time and delivers quests that are often less than satisfying. You might fight thirty guys on your way to a boss, only to find that the actual boss creature is pretty darn easy to beat, and then they don't even give you a reward that's much worth mentioning. -Then- you have to go back down the dungeon and walk across the world fighting the same guys again while your pawns chatter on about the same things twenty times until you can get your next quest. These are issues of difficulty balancing, having a world -worth- exploring, and just general reasons for pushing through the tediousness. There is a great game in there, but it is obscured by some really basic design decisions that hinder it and lessen its overall appeal.

There are many games which can thrive without fast modes of travel across their worlds, but Dragon's Dogma is the perfect example of a game that needs something like that to help people push through the tedium to get to the good stuff.

@The_Laughing_Man said:

@ModerateViolence said:

@FancySoapsMan said:

I wish the game would at least let you rest in the wilderness.

Again not an ideal fix but there are a number of healing springs out in the world that if you walk into will heal you back to maximum, beyond any damage health limit.

There is only one.

There are 3. One south of the shadow fort, one west of windbluff tower, and one a little north west of the blighted manse. Here's a link that shows their exact location and the location of the three rest camps.

Edit: The spring water is also pretty handy when put into an empty flask. It will some HP for the entire party.

@Jimbo said:

A case could be made for no fast travel, but this game isn't it. The problem is that you *don't* need to think when you're fighting enemies you've beaten before and are way too strong for - that's just busy work. The 'adventure' back is effectively just a long, slow and extremely tedious jog.

Yeah, this is exactly how I feel. I get not having fast travel a la Skyrim but I wish they would have AT LEAST let you zip between the various rift crystals in the world. I really like doing the initial trek to get to an undiscovered location but once I have completed the quest and have to go back to Gran Soren, I feel like shutting the game off and that is pretty much what I did after 20-30 hours of running around.

@The_Laughing_Man said:

@ModerateViolence said:

@FancySoapsMan said:

I wish the game would at least let you rest in the wilderness.

Again not an ideal fix but there are a number of healing springs out in the world that if you walk into will heal you back to maximum, beyond any damage health limit.

There is only one.

@falserelic said:

I love this game its alot of fun. But I wish there was some type of transportation. I like exploring in the game but after backtracking through places multiple times. It started to get abit annoying. Even the most simplistic quest felt like I was going on a journey. Going through miles and miles to reach my destination. While getting attack by all types of monsters. In the beginning it was alot of fun. Until when I had to do some quests. Where I had to keep going back and forth through the same places.

I never had issues. After a wile I found short cuts and ran past monsters. Your pawns warp to you after a bit. If you are really hurting see if someone will gift you a port crystals. In my new game plus thats all I gift people any more.

No there's three healing springs, one in each corner and one fairly centre to the map.

@MetalBaofu said:

@The_Laughing_Man said:

@ModerateViolence said:

@FancySoapsMan said:

I wish the game would at least let you rest in the wilderness.

Again not an ideal fix but there are a number of healing springs out in the world that if you walk into will heal you back to maximum, beyond any damage health limit.

There is only one.

There are 3. One south of the shadow fort, one west of windbluff tower, and one a little north west of the blighted manse. Here's a link that shows their exact location and the location of the three rest camps.

Edit: The spring water is also pretty handy when put into an empty flask. It will some HP for the entire party.

Oops, what this guy said.

If you don't have portcrystals the best way to travel is to be an assassin, very-light and use gale harness.