I know this isn't strictly related to patient gaming, but I think it fits the ethos of this community and I can't think of a better choir to preach to.
The director of Dragon's Dogma II made the following statement regarding limiting or removing fast travel
Just give it a try. Travel is boring? That's not true. It's only an issue because your game is boring. All you have to do is make travel fun
I think this is fairly compelling. Though I will say, I don't think the answer is to limit fast travel. The real limitations developers should be placing should be on filler quests that have you traveling from point a to point b and then back with some slight pretext as to why you're doing so. It's not fast travel that's the issue so much as mission design and the manners in which the player is compelled to cross the game world.
Metroidvanias are a great example of how to allow for fast travel while still making traveling around the game world compelling. The latest Metroid, Metroid Dread, was really fantastic in this aspect. You have this sense of progression and exploration even as you're backtracking.
Would removing fast travel from Metroid Dread have made it any better? I don't think so. The inclusion of fast travel feels thematic. You have to work for it so it feels like an achievement to unlock. It augments the game.
So in short, I agree with some of the sentiment expressed, with regards to lazy gameplay design being boring. I disagree with the opinion that fast travel necessarily is boring, or causes lazy desing.
I think the fix to fast travel for me is just to have actual regular travel methods. I’ll talk about a few methods that I enjoyed and how I think they fit into the game.
Fallout 4: This game has a hellicopter and one of my favorite mods unlocks it early as an excuse to use it to travel. It’s an in-world way to get around quickly but not instantly. And there’s zero reason why any game with flying objects or animals can’t implement this. Games like Breath of the Wild could use this and just have you ride a giant bird as the world passes beneath you. Skyrim did this with dragons. It’s an amazing alternative.
The second type is another mod for skyrim: Immersive Carts in Cities (or something like that) which would actually have you ride the cart from city to city along the road. It was glitchy. But similar to the Witcher 3 and its auto-steering horses, it lets you put down the controller and enjoy the scenery for a bit and immerses you.
Lastly, a similar example to the last, but God if War did it great with the boats. Instead of fast traveling with a cart or horse or whatever, make it a ride where the focus is conversation. Rather than me sitting at the local tavern asking about rumors, let me do it on a train or a boat or a horse. RDR2 did it great with many missions transporting you via horse and talking.
So you don’t have to design the entirety of the systems of a game around fast travel, you can keep all the same design elements. Just add an immersive in-world method of doing it that adds to the game. Super simple and it sucks because Bethesda got 75% of the way there and then made them all end-game options with limited utility. The dragons in Skyrim just teleport but a mod unlocks a hidden dev option to just have them fly everywhere. Most of the way there, yet they didn’t do it fully and that sucks.
These are excellent examples and I definitely agree with them. I didn’t know that you could dragons in Skyrim. I never got that far