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Arulan · Apr 12, 2016

I just came across another article by Felipe Pepe, who has written several fantastic articles including those on RPG history, the preservation of gaming history, and classifying the RPG. He's also the one working on the CRPG book project.

This recent article is on a subject I'm deeply invested in, and I've written several lengthy posts on the matter here on GAF: The quest compass, or sometimes referred to as the quest marker. Without writing another article of my own, I'll just state that I believe it to be a plague on game design. It has such a detrimental effect to quest design, and for open-world games in particular, the effects are even greater. The irony of modern open-world game design is that they're just as linear in quest structure than the linear games they were trying to move away from.

I have to applaud Felipe for the second part of his article title: "& its dreadful convenience". How did game critics respond when The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion sacrificed the freedom in quest design of Morrowind for following quest markers around? They rejoiced that these once archaic games were finally playable, it was finally convenient for them to play. What a sad truth, and one that unfortunately continues to this day.

The history of the Quest Compass & its dreadful convenience

Today, let's talk about the Quest Compass.

First, I'm an RPG fan, so this analysis will be mostly RPG-oriented.
Second, when I say "Quest Compass" I'm referring to a very specific UI item:

Its defining trait is that while the first three merely orient you or display your surroundings, the Quest Compass points you towards something. It directs you, tells you where to go.

It's omniscient, guiding you to places, object and people no one knows about. It replaces exploration.
But I'm getting ahead of myself...

Continue reading the article for yourself to discover the SHOCKING truth of where the hell is Caius Cosades?!!

Tarps · Apr 12, 2016

Broken link?

Arkeband · Apr 12, 2016

Morrowind giving directions to ruins and whatnot was some of the most immersive moments in gaming from my teenage years. I was scouring the landscape looking for landmarks, now I basically just zone out while following an arrow.

Tunahead · Apr 12, 2016

While I enjoyed this incredibly meta use of a broken link to make people actually immerse themselves in the journey to find the article on their own, here it is anyway:

The history of the Quest Compass & its dreadful convenience

I apologize for the convenience, but at least I found Caius Cosades by myself.

Arulan · Apr 12, 2016

Tarps said:
Broken link?

Fixed.

Tunahead · Apr 12, 2016

Thankfully, indie games still exist that let people more or less figure things out for themselves. Stardew Valley, for instance. And it's quite popular, even! I'm glad there's still a market for lovely old games where you take an interest in the world around you and then when you get a quest to deliver some stuff to Marnie, you just have to remember on your own who Marnie is and that she's in that ladies' exercise group meeting at Pierre's since it's Tuesday. It's nice.

Arulan · Apr 12, 2016

Tunahead said:
Thankfully, indie games still exist that let people more or less figure things out for themselves. Stardew Valley, for instance. And it's quite popular, even! I'm glad there's still a market for lovely old games where you take an interest in the world around you and then when you get a quest to deliver some stuff to Marnie, you just have to remember on your own who Marnie is and that she's in that ladies' exercise group meeting at Pierre's since it's Tuesday. It's nice.

Yes, indie games are often exceptions, but even then, not always so. I feel that quest markers is often so heavily ingrained in what a modern video game is to a lot of people, that not doing so becomes a design statement, almost a feature, and many aren't willing to make it a priority.

Then, of course, there is the fact that in almost every case, it does require more work on the part of the developer. How information is presented and conveyed to the player becomes much more important, because you want to be able to let the player come up with it on their own, but without being too cryptic, although that can sometimes be enjoyable as well. Suddenly, when there isn't an arrow guiding your path, you have to consider that the player may choose to do things differently, and ideally as many of these choices should be accounted for, and in doing so it increases the fidelity of the simulation.

StrategyFan · Apr 13, 2016

it's interesting to think about

the GPS makes it feel like quest design is dumbed down, but at the same there isn't much middle ground: you either reveal the location (or general area) of the objective or you don't.
does it really matter if it's revealed through text/dialogue instead of on a map? games have been marking things on maps forever, and it's better user interface than following directional notes from journals.

if I have no clue where something is in a large game, I'm looking it up online. I'm not going to wander completely aimlessly with no hints until I find it. i did that in the 90s before the internet, and it was always a waste of time. it can work if the exploration is confined to a limited space (eg. somewhere on this level, somewhere in this dungeon), but not "somewhere in this entire game"

whether it's revealed on the map screen in the menu or in the hud is not a big deal. you can get there just as easily either way unless you have 0 navigation skills.

RPG devs just need to realize that merely getting from place to place isn't good quest design in general. it works for games like mario where the movement is the main attraction, but other types of games should be more about combat or puzzles or exploration along the way

More Fun To Compute · Apr 13, 2016

When making games that sell tens of millions it's not so much insulting the intelligence of users as being defeated by users and just giving them something totally idiot proof.

Lord_Balkan · Apr 13, 2016

StrategyFan said:
it's interesting to think about

the GPS makes it feel like quest design is dumbed down, but at the same there isn't much middle ground: you either reveal the location (or general area) of the objective or you don't.
does it really matter if it's revealed through text/dialogue instead of on a map? games have been marking things on maps forever, and it's better user interface than following directional notes from journals.

if I have no clue where something is in a large game, I'm looking it up online. I'm not going to wander completely aimlessly with no hints until I find it. i did that in the 90s before the internet, and it was always a waste of time. it can work if the exploration is confined to a limited space (eg. somewhere on this level, somewhere in this dungeon), but not "somewhere in this entire game"

whether it's revealed on the map screen in the menu or in the hud is not a big deal. you can get there just as easily either way unless you have 0 navigation skills.

RPG devs just need to realize that merely getting from place to place isn't good quest design in general. it works for games like mario where the movement is the main attraction, but other types of games should be more about combat or puzzles or exploration along the way

The two interesting approaches are Morrowind and Thief. Morrowind described to you how to get there, and it was an exploration task for you to do so. You do have an idea of where to go or how to get there, even if you don't find it. This approach, if you let the player turn off quest markers then it is still possible for them to feel satisfied about exploration and let the players that don't care for that skip it.

Thief (my personal favorite) gives you a roughly sketched map of where to go. This is personally my favorite approach since it is much easier to visually see this kind of map, orient yourself and execute a path than reading directions in Morrowind. Since it requires some work from the player, actually executing it is very satisfying. Thief also doesn't have the issue of being open world so all the traversal you do is actually interesting.

Seeing that map again makes me want to replay Thief The Dark Project again..

Wiped89 · Apr 13, 2016

I don't mind being told where to go in games. It's not some hideous concession to casuals. Think about it, when in real life do you ever try to go anywhere without a sat nav, or a map, unless you know your way round the area really, really well.

One thing I used to love about PS2 GTA games was learning the road layout and being able to navigate the city by memory, like real life. But the PS3 games onwards are just too big. We need directions.

User 479360 · Apr 13, 2016

I've always liked them. But I understand why others don't.

I don't like being lost for hours.

Andrew J. · Apr 13, 2016

Doing stuff in video games is hard enough without having to wander around looking for it first.

FyreWulff · Apr 13, 2016

I remember Peter Molyneux getting annoyed by this. Said in a lot of their testing and observation of people playing Fable 1, there was quite a few people that would basically play the game by just looking at the minimap so (paraphrasing) "we were spending millions of pounds on graphics just for them to look at the corner of the screen", so that's why Fable 2 has no minimap while you're playing, just on the pause menu, and the reason the breadcrumb trail tech was implemented so that people could explore without fear of getting lost and could immediately return to the main questline by following the trail whenever they wanted to.

Mael · Apr 13, 2016

FyreWulff said:
I remember Peter Molyneux getting annoyed by this. Said in a lot of their testing and observation of people playing Fable 1, there was quite a few people that would basically play the game by just looking at the minimap so (paraphrasing) "we were spending millions of pounds on graphics just for them to look at the corner of the screen", so that's why Fable 2 has no minimap while you're playing, just on the pause menu, and the reason the breadcrumb trail tech was implemented so that people could explore without fear of getting lost and could immediately return to the main questline by following the trail whenever they wanted to.

I guess a system like XenoX where you can summon a guiding light at will would be the preferred solution (although XenoX provides the minimap too).
I feel like if I can't play without a map I tend to lose interest quickly, always much better to have the level design guide you than an arrow.

2blackcats · Apr 13, 2016

In the newer elder scrolls I would have much prefered a spell or some other in-lore way of using a quest marker.

RedSwirl · Apr 13, 2016

Thank fucking God someone put up a Gamasutra article about this. It's really just one more element of how modern games hold people's hands to an extent that some players feel like their intelligence is being insulted. It's the same as the "follow" icon people joke about in military shooters these days.

The commonality between quest markers and a lot of other hand-holding devices is that designers are throwing the baby out with the bathwater in order take degrees of autonomy away from players. Quest markers have the same problem as NPCs who yell the precise strategies for beating bosses or getting past particular challenges -- things some players would rather figure out. A lot of old-style players want to have that sense of accomplishment from having figured the game out for themselves rather than being told what buttons to press every single step of the way. The difference between directing players with a quest marker versus maps, compasses, or radar is that the latter three simply give players tools to figure out solutions for themselves. Quest markers simply tell players solutions. As the story in the OP says, quest markers remove exploration.

Another reason some people like reading maps or detailed quest descriptions is because it simply makes for more immersive worlds. Seeing that a game world has functional road signs or that you can find directions based on NPC dialogue can make that virtual world feel like it actually functions. The locations have more purpose instead of being a bunch of levels attached to each other.

Game designers haven't been balancing the needs of different groups of players at all -- making hand-holding optional, but instead making hand-holding mandatory for everybody, not just the people who want or need it.

What pisses me off aren't the quest markers in and of themselves. What pisses me off is how open world games these days are designed around needing to use them. I think the way the compass and quest marker in Skyrim rob the game of a lot of its potential sense of immersion, because there are so many places you'd never find unless the game directly points them out to you. To me that feels like lazy world design. The Witcher 3 has the same problem with not only its quest system (its quest descriptions are slightly better) but also how it handles Witcher sense. Witcher sense pretty much just automatically guides you to the next thing you need to press A to investigate. It doesn't make the player feel like they're investigating things at all. They should have made that optional and simply made the clues just visible enough to where players could find them if they're perceptive enough. Many are, but the whole thing is clearly balanced around using Witcher sense.

What these games should do is design their worlds so that players can find their way around the way an actual character in that world would: quest descriptions, detailed directions, road signs, etc. A funny example is Bioshock. In the first Bioshock game at least, if you look around the environment you'll see signs and directions everywhere telling you where things are in an immersive way, and you can turn off a lot of hand-holding features. You have a detailed map of each area. You can even play and replay tapes that contain vital information, but no matter what you do that big-ass "GOAL" sign is going to be on the map telling you exactly where you need to go next to continue shooting things. Look at how this is handled in each of the Dead Space games: Dead Space 1 has a line thing that shows you where to go to advance the plot, but it also has a cool-looking Metroid Prime-style map for players who want to find the next waypoint for themselves. Dead Space 2 and 3 remove the map and simply give you the line, or waypoint markers.

The real question I think each developer and player needs to ask is: what do people consider to be the legitimate challenges of the game? What skills are the game asking you to apply? Do you want to explore or do you want to just follow the directions and fight things?

The ability to set your own map markers I don't mind because that just let's players keep track of things they want to do, not what the game wants them to do. One of the best recent ideas is Metal Gear Solid V letting you place multiple map markers simultaneously so you can plot your own path if you're trying to execute a complex plan. It's reminiscent of setting waypoints in Rainbow Six or Ghost Recon. I also don't mind mini maps in themselves because like I said above, they just give you information you use to explore or find your way. I just don't like being forced to look at a quest marker on that mini map.

Lork · Apr 13, 2016

StrategyFan said:
it's interesting to think about

the GPS makes it feel like quest design is dumbed down, but at the same there isn't much middle ground: you either reveal the location (or general area) of the objective or you don't.
does it really matter if it's revealed through text/dialogue instead of on a map? games have been marking things on maps forever, and it's better user interface than following directional notes from journals.

if I have no clue where something is in a large game, I'm looking it up online. I'm not going to wander completely aimlessly with no hints until I find it. i did that in the 90s before the internet, and it was always a waste of time. it can work if the exploration is confined to a limited space (eg. somewhere on this level, somewhere in this dungeon), but not "somewhere in this entire game"

whether it's revealed on the map screen in the menu or in the hud is not a big deal. you can get there just as easily either way unless you have 0 navigation skills.

RPG devs just need to realize that merely getting from place to place isn't good quest design in general. it works for games like mario where the movement is the main attraction, but other types of games should be more about combat or puzzles or exploration along the way

Do you not understand that there's a vast gulf of difference between interpreting written/spoken directions and simply looking at a dot on an automap? One of them exercises your navigational skills and one of them does not. On the contrary, simply getting from place to place in Morrowind made for vastly superior quest design to anything found in subsequent entries in the series.

One of the biggest reasons for the universal proliferation of these quest compasses is the curious notion that the middle ground I'm talking about doesn't exist. For some reason people only seem to remember poorly designed games like Baldur's Gate, which gave you no directions and expected you to wander aimlessly until you found your objectives, conveniently forgetting that not all games were like that. It's easy to argue for quest markers when you pretend that the only alternative is to give no direction, but that's simply not true.

Honome · Apr 13, 2016

An excellent point and for me it's one of things that really is killing my will to play most modern games, specially AAA. While i understand that the developers must think about making a game accessible for the maximum audience possible it ends up making people playing the game much more like an unthinking machine than actually following and enjoying the story and the exploration.

One of the recent games that makes a good use of the quest compass without the problems i mentioned before is Divinity Original Sin. The game uses the quest compass only for not letting the player totally lost, however the compass is not the solution of a quest, for example:

the first main quest is a solution to a murder in the town, the compass shows who we have to speak with at first but not where to go and what to do next to solve the case, we have to go figuring it out based on dialogues and discoveres.

RedSwirl · Apr 13, 2016

Lork said:
One of the biggest reasons for the universal proliferation of these quest compasses is the curious notion that the middle ground I'm talking about doesn't exist. For some reason people only seem to remember poorly designed games like Baldur's Gate, which gave you no directions and expected you to wander aimlessly until you found your objectives, conveniently forgetting that not all games were like that. It's easy to argue for quest markers when you pretend that the only alternative is to give no direction, but that's simply not true.

This is the problem with how a lot of people see older game design trends. They only seem to remember the games that poorly executed things like save points, objective directions, health bars, and what have you, and then use those as an excuse to say those things should never be in video games again. Approaching things with broad strokes like this is how AAA games got so homogeneous.

StrategyFan · Apr 13, 2016

Lork said:
Do you not understand that there's a vast gulf of difference between interpreting written/spoken directions and simply looking at a dot on an automap? One of them exercises your navigational skills and one of them does not.

it depends what the game is about

i'm not playing elder scrolls to exercise my reading comprehension or navigational skills.

if the game is about navigation, make the movement interesting. if the game is about RPG stuff, make the RPG stuff interesting.

if that doesn't happen, there might be a potentially interesting virtual world, but the actual gameplay becomes mediocre.

every RPG essentially devolves to a series of fetch quests / murder quests, but the stuff that happens in between is the only reason I play games in that genre.

elder scrolls (including morrowind) is actually okay because the unguided exploration is interesting on its own and you build your character/inventory along the way. it's more fun to find stuff on the way to whatever my objective is rather than actually figure out how to move the wasd keys to do the next fetch quest / murder quest

SatelliteOfLove · Apr 13, 2016

My point against the proliferation of this methodology is that it is born from a perception that it is a requirement and a culmination of game design wisdom, and that because of this, the ability to suss out one's way from descriptive dialogue, clever level design, and gathered experience is atrophied. More dangerously, the emotional resilience and share of the responisibility on the player's part is atrophied as well.

Playing games that give you the honest effort from time to time keeps you nimble and strong.

Taruranto · Apr 13, 2016

Not only the quest compass was there, larger than ever, but now it was MANDATORY. Since people were just going to follow the giant arrow, Bethesda didn't even bother to write actual directions. No one tells you where locations, people, monsters or items are. You just magically know.

This so much. One of the most repeated arguments for Quest Compass is "well, just don't use it!"

NO, I CAN'T, BECAUSE THE GAME IS NOT TAILORED TO BE PLAYED WITHOUT IT

Karsticles · Apr 13, 2016

Arkeband said:
Morrowind giving directions to ruins and whatnot was some of the most immersive moments in gaming from my teenage years. I was scouring the landscape looking for landmarks, now I basically just zone out while following an arrow.

But the real magic of the game is that the directions are usually terrible, so you end up in a completely different place from where you wanted to go. So you explore that for hours, and then two days later you remember you were on a quest to do something, and you check your quest log to figure out what that was, anyway.

Roussow · Apr 13, 2016

I normally don't dabble in hud-less/assist-less play, without the mini-map or compass -- but I did recently for Firewatch, obviously I had to use the map, but I turned off the assists that tell you where to go, and my location on the map. It was quite a compelling experience, I really enjoyed working off the environment, identifying landmarks and such, it helped me to connect with the landscape more than I would have otherwise.

Funnily enough I was literally using a compass in the game, but you're using a compass like an actual compass for once, it works.

Retro · Apr 13, 2016

FyreWulff said:
I remember Peter Molyneux getting annoyed by this. Said in a lot of their testing and observation of people playing Fable 1, there was quite a few people that would basically play the game by just looking at the minimap so (paraphrasing) "we were spending millions of pounds on graphics just for them to look at the corner of the screen", so that's why Fable 2 has no minimap while you're playing, just on the pause menu, and the reason the breadcrumb trail tech was implemented so that people could explore without fear of getting lost and could immediately return to the main questline by following the trail whenever they wanted to.

I came here to post this; the quote you're looking for is "Mini-maps are shit. They're shit because you make these multimillion-dollar games, and people play them staring at these little dots." It's the one thing Molyneux has ever said that I actually agree with.

Quest Compasses are the absolute laziest method of guiding players through a game short of taking control of their character directly and walking them from point to point.

Arulan · Apr 13, 2016

Taruranto said:
This so much. One of the most repeated arguments for Quest Compass is "well, just don't use it!"

NO, I CAN'T, BECAUSE THE GAME IS NOT TAILORED TO BE PLAYED WITHOUT IT

The amount of times I've seen this line of argument brought up is just staggering. Most people do not realize that design decisions, even as simple as a marker, can have significant ramifications throughout the entire game. A few people even said something similar about Fallout 4 pre-release, that you should just get a mod to mute the player-character if you don't like that decision. But of course, that changes nothing with regards to all the other changes that went through because the player now has a voice.

RedSwirl said:
The Witcher 3 has the same problem with not only its quest system (its quest descriptions are slightly better) but also how it handles Witcher sense. Witcher sense pretty much just automatically guides you to the next thing you need to press A to investigate. It doesn't make the player feel like they're investigating things at all. They should have made that optional and simply made the clues just visible enough to where players could find them if they're perceptive enough. Many are, but the whole thing is clearly balanced around using Witcher sense.

That's another one that has slowly become more common. Scavenging and looking around for items may soon be as involved as pressing a button and having non-empty containers highlighted. For some it already is.

Speaking of The Elder Scrolls again, I remember when Arena expected the player to solve a riddle in order to progress. Yes, the main quest-line required you to solve a riddle at the end of each main quest dungeon.

More beautiful than the face of your God,
Yet more wicked than a Demon's forked tongue?
Dead men eat it all the time,
Live men who eat it die slow...

Mista Koo · Apr 13, 2016

RedSwirl said:
What these games should do is design their worlds so that players can find their way around the way an actual character in that world would: quest descriptions, detailed directions, road signs, etc.

That's my issue with open world design, it can almost never be as focused as tightly hand crafted levels. I'd walk back and forth the same roads in a linear game, but I'll fast travel everywhere in your average huge open world game.

Yoshi · Apr 13, 2016

I think the quest compass is just there because developers after the N64 generation forgot how to build open worlds. Gigantism lead to unenjoyable games where you spend most of your time looking for the next objective. The easy solution is including a marker that tells you where to go, making the open world a glorified loading screen (with negative consequences on the quality of the individual mission design!). Small, dense worlds with functional and remarkable design are the way to go, sadly no one after Banjo-Kazooie even reached close to that level of design in an open game world. Quest compasses are just a testament of creative bankruptcy of open world game developers.

Vincent Grayson · Apr 13, 2016

I've always felt like these things are basic concessions to the fact that we're playing a character in a game who would have a much better grasp of his or her world than we do as players with only a certain level of potential fidelity.

If I'm an adventurer journeying across the land, I've got my own capabilities in that role, along with simple factors like actually being present in the world, having senses and experiences the player simply does not. One way of relating that information to the player is through layers of meta knowledge, like compasses, map screens, a quest log, and even things like basic HP and other status knowledge.

Blue Ninja · Apr 13, 2016

2blackcats said:
In the newer elder scrolls I would have much prefered a spell or some other in-lore way of using a quest marker.

That was actually in the game, a spell called Clairvoyance. Not useful unless you turned off the HuD, or at least modded out the compass, though.

Whenever I play an RPG or open-world game now, if I can turn off the compass I do it. Witcher 3 became a way better experience because of it.

True Fire · Apr 13, 2016

Some games are too large to let you wander aimlessly. In The Witcher 3 you could be 10 minutes away from where you need to be, but Velen's foliage looks the same so you'd never be able to find your way without fast travel and/or a compass.

pastrami · Apr 13, 2016

Quest compasses are a poor solution, but let's face it, no one likes being lost. And the problem with most open world games is that you can't ask follow-up questions to get clearer directions.

It's been a long time since I've played Morrowind, but could you ask the townspeople where the South Wall Cornerclub is? Will they say it's two buildings down that way or let me know what the building looks like? The article says that you find out that the person you are looking for is in a house right outside the club. But looking at a map, it's about 4 houses down. Right outside? Especially when the town is only about 5 buildings high in that section. So right away there's this disconnect in the directions. A building almost clear across town is supposed to be just outside the club?

I hate looking at quest compasses, but it sure beats trying to decipher vague descriptions with no ability to get clarification because the developer thinks the information provided makes enough sense.

Edit: I enjoy puzzles and riddles. I hate randomly exploring an area because someone can't give me better directions than "it's southeast of the town."

TheChewyWaffles · Apr 13, 2016

Vincent Grayson said:
I've always felt like these things are basic concessions to the fact that we're playing a character in a game who would have a much better grasp of his or her world than we do as players with only a certain level of potential fidelity.

If I'm an adventurer journeying across the land, I've got my own capabilities in that role, along with simple factors like actually being present in the world, having senses and experiences the player simply does not. One way of relating that information to the player is through layers of meta knowledge, like compasses, map screens, a quest log, and even things like basic HP and other status knowledge.

I have thought the same and I like this answer.

McNum · Apr 13, 2016

Arulan said:
Speaking of The Elder Scrolls again, I remember when Arena expected the player to solve a riddle in order to progress. Yes, the main quest-line required you to solve a riddle at the end of each main quest dungeon.

More beautiful than the face of your God,
Yet more wicked than a Demon's forked tongue?
Dead men eat it all the time,
Live men who eat it die slow...

Solved!

And that's the other side of the coin for these things. You are competing with Google. And if a player feels the need to look up the next step in a quest online, the player will feel the game is being unfair and needlessly difficult. So what do you do? I agree that the quest compass is a blunt solution, but it is a solution. It is silly when the quest is "Find the hidden lost tomb of..." and there's a marker right at the entrance to it. That's immersion breaking, yes, but is it more immersion breaking that looking it up online?

We live in a world of wikis, forums, and online guides including video walkthroughs. That's something you need to be aware of inquest design. You can't rely on anything being a secret, because after a week, it's not.

I don't know how to solve this one, to be honest. The Quest Compass works, yes, and I was certainly glad to have a constant reminder of where the next step of the main quest starts in Skyrim since that let me just go wildly off the beaten track and explore, knowing exactly where to go next when I felt like continuing. Have quests marked also give you the opportunity to avoid them, after all. No stumbling onto the main quest by accident, you know exactly where it is.

Valkyr1983 · Apr 13, 2016

I don't care if it's to the overall detriment of the games design or genre

I've got maybe 5-7 good hours per week to play games. I own a solid 30+ retail PS4 games alone

Ain't got time to read descriptions, solve riddles or look for landmarks. Give me a magic compass and fast travel or I never would have finished skyrim or fallout 4, witcher 3 or mgsv. Etc

ViviOggi · Apr 13, 2016

My biggest issue is that you can't "just turn it off" as games that include a quest compass are generally designed around it entirely. Will read the article later, it's an interesting topic.

Taruranto · Apr 13, 2016

McNum said:
Solved!

And that's the other side of the coin for these things. You are competing with Google. And if a player feels the need to look up the next step in a quest online, the player will feel the game is being unfair and needlessly difficult. So what do you do? I agree that the quest compass is a blunt solution, but it is a solution. It is silly when the quest is "Find the hidden lost tomb of..." and there's a marker right at the entrance to it. That's immersion breaking, yes, but is it more immersion breaking that looking it up online?

We live in a world of wikis, forums, and online guides including video walkthroughs. That's something you need to be aware of inquest design. You can't rely on anything being a secret, because after a week, it's not.

Given that I'm not forced to look up online for secrets, but I am forced to use the quest compass in-game, I don't understand the comparison.

Dark Souls was years old when It was released on PC and I played it for the first time, but I still enjoying finding its secrets despite the fact the game had tons of Wikis analyzing every tiny little detail.

I don't know how to solve this one, to be honest. The Quest Compass works, yes, and I was certainly glad to have a constant reminder of where the next step of the main quest starts in Skyrim since that let me just go wildly off the beaten track and explore, knowing exactly where to go next when I felt like continuing. Have quests marked also give you the opportunity to avoid them, after all. No stumbling onto the main quest by accident, you know exactly where it is.

Honestly, when I think of some of my favorite games without Quest Compass (BG2, Gothic 2, Planescape), I can't recall a time where I "accidentally" pushed the main quest too far ahead, it's always clear-cut.

Wulfram · Apr 13, 2016

I remember the time before quest markers. It sucked. I remember the time when mini-maps were an optional extra. It was hell.

I mean, if the location of something is supposed to be a puzzle then don't include a marker - Dragon Age Inquisition included this one quest where you just had a picture of where you needed to go and needed to work out the location from the rocks in the background, that was good. And definitely don't do a "detective" quest where I just have to click on all the glowing things/all the things with arrows pointing to them.

But most of the time, just give me a damn marker.

The things that makes stuff like Dark Souls work are the rather simple and linear nature of the world, and being able to google things. But I'd rather not have to google stuff, really.

Mupod · Apr 13, 2016

Where is Mankirk's wife?

WoW originally had no quest markers, you had to read the directions. You also couldn't quickly skip the scrolling quest text so you were kind of forced to*. I was cool with this because I was totally invested and immersed in the game and I loved following the storylines and quests. I suppose WoW was cheating a bit since I was already a huge Warcraft fan going in, but the world was just so fascinating.

Fast forward to the game I was playing up to dark souls 3 release - Black Desert Online. I essentially have not paid attention to a line of dialogue in this game. It doesn't even TRY to give you directions, I don't think I've even seen a quest with a useful description. It relies 100% on its guidance systems which not only mark it on the map, you're given a lighted arrow to follow...and if you press T your character automatically navigates to that waypoint. And it actually works pretty well because the 'writing' is so bad I didn't want to read it even if I had time - it honestly sounds machine translated half the time. I don't know if I can blame the localization but the setting is so thoroughly uninteresting that I never felt immersed in it at all despite the graphics and good attempts at creating an atmospheric world (you should see the NPC density in major cities).

I played TERA in a similar way, it had a more interesting world and way better localization but it was still very much skip all quest text and get on with it. FF14 I did pay attention most of the time, but it often never even tries to give directions since it relies on the quest markers.

The games have changed and the people have changed. It'd be a tough sell to put out a game that follows the 'old ways' even if there is a market for it. Specifically referring to mmos of course.

*I think there was a mod for this early on and they did change it fast...maybe even before retail? Don't remember

Vulcano's assistant · Apr 13, 2016

I just need a regular compass, to bad most games don't let you turn the mini map off and leave the compass on. At least quest markers can always be turned off.

SteveWD40 · Apr 13, 2016

Good article.

I was one of Morrowind on Xbox crowd and I loved the immersion of having to hunt for objectives. Skyrim without a ton of mods is awful in comparison, the first big quest (they one they demo'd) for Bleak Falls Barrow did actually have you being shown where to go by an NPC, which was a nice touch but it ended there.

Arulan · Apr 13, 2016

McNum said:
Solved!

And that's the other side of the coin for these things. You are competing with Google. And if a player feels the need to look up the next step in a quest online, the player will feel the game is being unfair and needlessly difficult. So what do you do? I agree that the quest compass is a blunt solution, but it is a solution. It is silly when the quest is "Find the hidden lost tomb of..." and there's a marker right at the entrance to it. That's immersion breaking, yes, but is it more immersion breaking that looking it up online?

Honestly, I feel the developer should largely ignore this completely, unless it can be done without compromising design. If a player wants to ruin the game for themselves, let them, but don't compromise the design for everyone else. Similarly, developers shouldn't burden themselves with the fact that some players will savescum to cheat consequences. Sometimes an optional ironman mode is included, but in that case, design isn't compromised. Another example being open-world games with a lot of freedom, should the developer be burdened knowing that a player can look up a guide, and figure out where to find a powerful weapon at a shop to then steal it early in the game? No, that would require limiting freedom or artificially restricting item access.

struggler_guts · Apr 13, 2016

I really enjoyed Dragon Dogma's thing where if a borrowed partner from a player who has already done the quest can guide you and give hints. They still had the compass but that system really helped with me not zoning out and following an arrow on the mini map

ahoyhoy · Apr 13, 2016

FyreWulff said:
I remember Peter Molyneux getting annoyed by this. Said in a lot of their testing and observation of people playing Fable 1, there was quite a few people that would basically play the game by just looking at the minimap so (paraphrasing) "we were spending millions of pounds on graphics just for them to look at the corner of the screen", so that's why Fable 2 has no minimap while you're playing, just on the pause menu, and the reason the breadcrumb trail tech was implemented so that people could explore without fear of getting lost and could immediately return to the main questline by following the trail whenever they wanted to.

This is how I would feel if I were a level designer at Bethesda.

Skyrim basically encourages you to cut straight across the country from point A to point B and perhaps occasionally stop and a random POI you find along the way. You often don't pay attention to the geography at all and just try to find the fastest way to the destination.

One immediate solution to this to keep the quest marker but instead make traveling off the road more treacherous AND rewarding. Making traveling overland slower than traveling by road. Put stronger enemies off road. Put thief encampments offroad with random loot or unique gear or cool story bits.

WillyFive · Apr 13, 2016

The most popular game out there, Minecraft, doesn't have this (even though there are many that mod it into the game).

eXistor · Apr 13, 2016

I understand that there's many people who love the modern quest compass, but I'd love it if games that have one wouldn't have it starting off and that you would have to do at least a few hours without one before getting one (and if you don't want to use it, don't). I think that could really show people that games are more fun if you actually have to pay attention to what you're doing. But again, I get why people wouldn't like that.

/edit: the game would absolutely have to work without a compass, that's a pretty big design issue.

LordRaptor · Apr 13, 2016

Vincent Grayson said:
I've always felt like these things are basic concessions to the fact that we're playing a character in a game who would have a much better grasp of his or her world than we do as players with only a certain level of potential fidelity.

I agree with this.
It's also that a game is a 2D approximation of a 3D space, so your natural ability (or lack of) in spatial awareness is non-existent (because 'you' don't move anywhere), and - again due to the nature of it being a computer game - visual cues are often far less than they would be in real life, with textures and items being duplicated in a way that does not happen in real life.
It is very easy to become disoriented in a videogame, due to many of the inherent flaws that make a videogame a videogame, and the more a game chases 'realism' the more these flaws become apparent.

A really good example of how quickly you can become lost and disoriented in a 3D videogame space in a way that you would not in real life is something like The Library in Halo

El Topo · Apr 13, 2016

There is nothing wrong with a quest compass per se, as long as it is used appropriately and in moderation.

LordCiego · Apr 13, 2016

Sorry but Morrowind directions were awfull, near the beggining of the game I spent an awfull lot of time searching for the entrace of a cave that according to directions was in the place I was looking at. Inmmersive? Yeah, but it was one of the first time that made me appreciate more my time than the inmmersion, and thats coming from a time a had lots of free time to spare.

Anyway quest markers should be something that you can toggle on and off, specially in rpgs. If you just want to search the right place for yourself you should be able to, same as if you dont want to lose your time and want to go just at the right place, you should be able to dictate your own agency. A great example of this is the story mode difficulty in Pillars of Eternity and Baldurs Gate EE, it can be toggled at anytime and lets you decide how difficult combat its going to be, depending if you want to play the "right way" or just one to experience the story.

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