so, is there a way to make a RPG that can provide shortcuts for those that want to use them, without ruining immersion for those who don't? that seems to be the real question.

perhaps some sort of confirmation?

"warning! use of this feature is considered cheating. do you wish to continue?"

i was thinking about doing that in caveman, but then i decided they'd probably know they were cheating.

so, is there a way to make a RPG that can provide shortcuts for those that want to use them, without ruining immersion for those who don't? that seems to be the real question.

Designing the levels better, so there are natural shortcuts (one-way or two-way that gets unlocked) as part of the terrain.

Pros: It's natural, and explorers enjoy it. It's quick, so every gamer likes it. It doesn't force it on the player, so he can use that new exit to continue exploring the dungeon even deeper.

Cons: It's still not instant. Players may not have reached the shortcut yet, so they still have to double-back - but this distance can be reduced depending on clever placement of the shortcuts.

Dungeon shortcuts can even permit you to make larger dungeons (while still having them really content-dense). Imagine a cavern system that's really really huge (with unique visuals and enemies depending on where you are in the dungeon) - players can journey into it, open up a shortcut at the end of one section of the cavern, return later and continue journeying deeper, open up additional shortcuts deeper and deeper into the cavern; and if the cavern has multiple branching routes, then they can be progressing down one route and then try the other routes by jumping to different locations in the cave using the shortcuts.

Some examples of dungeon shortcuts can be jumping over a tiny ledge that you can't jump back up (or jumping down a hole to an earlier floor), lowering down a rope or ladder that you can now use up and down whenever, accidentally triggering a small landslide that forms a new ramp, knocking over a pillar-ramp, unlocking a door from one end, blowing up a wall from one side, a large defeated boss falling over sideways breaking a wall or falling off a small ledge and forming a corpse-ramp, ceiling collapsing and the debris forming crude steps, etc... Or shortcuts can be always accessible (where it doesn't mess up your event triggers) but just hidden.

And by making more content-dense areas in-general, you're already reducing walking distances even without shortcuts.

One way of making content-dense and many-shortcutted areas is to go in the more Deus Ex direction and make every area have multiple ways to get through it. The areas then naturally feel more dense, have more choice, and you don't have to walk as far. Though I have more of a feeling of missing stuff, if I'm constantly choosing between multiple paths.

I wonder what a good rule-of-thumb for walking distances is: Maximum of 2 minutes of non-combat walking and max of 5 encounters, to get back to the nearest hub/safe-place? It'd have to be tweaked per game, ofcourse, and walk speed would obviously affect that, but if you can figure that "acceptable limit" for your game, then you can weave that into your area designs.

For me as an explorer player, portal-type gateways are also fine in-world methods of quick-travel, but I know some people who dislike portals as "attempts to shoehorn sci-fi teleportation into fantasy worlds", so theming is important there so it seamlessly fits in the world's theme.

A wild and crazy idea: Get rid of loot hoarding as a mechanic.

You are a grand adventurer, not some serf carting around a lord's luggage. When you go through a dungeon and bash open coffins to look for loot, you're not the one who has to take everything yourself. Check that it is safe, pick up anything super nifty that you're going to want to use here and now, and leave the rest for the servants after you finish.

The real treasure that you're going to be after is probably in the big room at the very end anyway. If you can't use it here and now, then you should have no reason or desire to carry it with you yourself. You'll still get all the profit from it just the same after your servants come in after you. And if one or two get eaten by giant rats you overlooked, well, they're only serfs and there are far more where that came from.

Or maybe you just have a bag of holding, or what's his name's hardy haversack, or a portable door, or scrolls of town portal.

Design your levels in a way that they're made of smaller subsections, and getting into the next subsection will also present you with a quick way back to the surface. Unlock gates, magic portals, hidden passages, etc. Let your player spend their time and effort advancing deeper into your game, don't expect them to spend just as much time back tracking the way they came because You were too lazy to think of a better way.

Design your levels in a way that they're made of smaller subsections, and getting into the next subsection will also present you with a quick way back to the surface.

If you make the sections too small, it removes challenge and risk/reward choices. Being deep in a dungeon without a safety eject switch is enjoyable to some gamers, so we have to balance challenge with convenience, depending on the nature of the game.

Most of what else you said, I agree with.

Some games auto-convert useless items into gold, or, make game loot virtually non-existent, with money coming from "monster skins" or something similar. Loot, inventory, and currency is definitely something that I need to put more thought into, in-general.

Yes, but if I can turn around and reliably safely run out of your dungeon anyway, then I still have the exact same "Safety eject switch". The only difference is that in one model you just waste more of my time in doing so.

And for what? What exactly does anyone gain from deliberately designing game play elements which are intended to specifically gobble up the user's time?

Nothing stops you from designing small game play areas that are still challenging or have high risk. Maybe the next one you step into will lock a door behind you till you reach at least the half way point.

Doing a fighting withdrawal till you can get back to somewhere you can find safety again or regroup in is fun and exciting. Having gotten away from the combat and then holding down the "Run" key for ten minutes while you back track over things you've already seen? Ehh... Not so much fun there.

How about different view of the dungeon on a way back? When in figting mode one probably focuses on different things (lets call them values) though which he or she projects the reality to it self. Example lets ask chef, chemist and drunken on a cup of tap water. I guess the answers will vary a lot.

Same with a band of cavemans conquering the cave, first in fighting mode- focusing on spoting persons, beasts, traps, terain difficulties, covering, noise, own members etc.

On a way back thinking on how to utilize chambers by tribe, recognizing minerals, water quality, fungus-plants. I think even mechanic can be made of that so that the player could select of what is he looking for to support succesfull roll (and see consciously it).