I'm currently playing Xenoblade Chronicles X and it has a pretty good solution called Follow Ball that's essentially a ball of light guiding you to where you need to go. What I like about it is that I don't have to constantly look at the mini-map. I can instead look at the actual world and soak in the environments.
Some people might think that's too helpful or whatever. There's nothing worse to me than walking around in an open world not having any idea where to go.
I'm playing Witcher 3 (super good game), but this is not only about Witcher 3. I'm tired of playing open world games or RPGs or any kind of game that gives you missions that are marked on a map. When I started playing Witcher 3 I decided to turn off the minimap because I hate playing with one eye on the minimap and one on the rest of the screen. But I find myself having to resort continously to the map in the menu. I talk to someone and says me: you need to go to this building. But he doesn't tell you where the building is, how to get to the building. In fact they never tell you how the building looks like. A mark appears in your map and that's is.
And I'm here wondering: Why you create such mesmerizing worlds where time flies, yet you're fucking reminding me AT ALL TIMES that I'm playing a game. I mean, I don't play games for escapism, I don't think that's the point. The point is: Why nobody comes with a solution? Why nobody cares that you need to navigate your games through marks in a map?
This is exactly how I'm playing and it doesn't cut it. Not in the slightest. I go to a board and pick a contract: Come to my house if you want to talk. Yeah, like I know what's your house. I check the map and see where his house is. But bottom line is: Immersion is broken to pieces.For what it's worth, though, I played all of Witcher III with the minimap disabled. There were one or two annoying moments I guess, but overall I found it extremely immersive and enjoyable. It makes sense that Geralt would have a physical map of the surroundings, and probably would know his way around somewhere like Novigrad. Navigation was really just a matter of looking at the map, then memorizing a route ("left at the first fork, pass a lake on the right, cross through the abandoned settlement, then take a right" for instance) and then following it. Eventually I learned to navigate by landmarks and it was EXTREMELY satisfying when I could get from A to B to C without opening the map once.
I played AC for years since it originally came out. I'm still finding old pages of coords I had written down lol.The greatest game I've ever played, Asheron's Call, only had a massive world map, and just told you roughly where you were. No minimap, no routes, arrows, !'s, or any other guidance outside of the compass and coordinates.
So many great times.
What this thread is telling me is "you should play Divinity: Original Sin, the Enhanced Edition just came out too!"
Following this same philosophy, another thing The Witcher III does that I think is terrible is the detective mode. You just press a button and follow the red trail, interacting with the red things. Of course I don't expect the game to let you determine a werewolf's age from its corpse yourself, but it's not unreasonable to ask for some involvement in the process.
FarCry 2 managed to do it without totally ruining immersion.
I would love to see something similar again. It could work very well in a fantasy setting with a magical map (like the Marauder's Map in Harry Potter).
Like, how much effort would it be to add a system that allows you to question peasants for the place you're looking for? Like, instead of never telling you anything, everytime you talk with someone, he points in the general direction you need to go. Or tells you: it's in the next street. Or go south through the road, then turn left at the first house. Or people give you tips when they hire you. They don't say: go to the forest. Like... I'm not from here dude, I've never been here, how do I know where this forest is?
It absolutely is unreasonable to ask that. Well, not to ask for it, but to assume that CDPR could easily do it.
What sounds like an easy ask for us, the player, is actually a momentous task requiring hundreds (probably thousands) more hours of game design time, problem solving, and troubleshooting. If they did this then A) most quests in the game would require three or four more objective stages (lots of work), B) it would break character because Geralt already knows this stuff, C) it probably wouldn't be very fun and would break pace (travel all the way from Ard Skellige back to Novigrad to visit a library and then travel all the way back?), D) it would triple the likelihood of bugs and design mistakes, and E) to do it well it would probably need its own mechanic to be designed, possibly thousands more hours!
It's really not easy doing this shit and there are always tons more logistics involved that you or I could imagine. [Edit: also, I think the Glossary was a good in-hand way of doing this, especially around combat. Whenever I see an enemy I haven't fought in a while, I do, emergently, go to the Bestiary and remind myself how to fight it. They could have implemented more in the bestiary to improve the system - but as I say above, that probably would involve insane amounts of work, more than we expect.]
Like, how much effort would it be to add a system that allows you to question peasants for the place you're looking for? Like, instead of never telling you anything, everytime you talk with someone, he points in the general direction you need to go. Or tells you: it's in the next street. Or go south through the road, then turn left at the first house. Or people give you tips when they hire you. They don't say: go to the forest. Like... I'm not from here dude, I've never been here, how do I know where this forest is? Ah,right, it's magically marked in my map!
In Outcast, NPC's will point you in the direction of other characters when you ask them. "I saw that talan far north of here." or when you are close "You want him right there." and point to them. It's pretty nifty and very immersive. Maybe a bit slow, but in modern games there are more resources spent on making characters and locations look unique to distinguish them, which is one thing that cuts down tedium.
Why did you cut from the quote the part I say that I understand why they didn't do it?
You describe Shenmue. Go play it.I'm playing Witcher 3 (super good game), but this is not only about Witcher 3. I'm tired of playing open world games or RPGs or any kind of game that gives you missions that are marked on a map. When I started playing Witcher 3 I decided to turn off the minimap because I hate playing with one eye on the minimap and one on the rest of the screen. But I find myself having to resort continously to the map in the menu. I talk to someone and says me: you need to go to this building. But he doesn't tell you where the building is, how to get to the building. In fact they never tell you how the building looks like. A mark appears in your map and that's is.
And I'm here wondering: Why you create such mesmerizing worlds where time flies, yet you're fucking reminding me AT ALL TIMES that I'm playing a game. I mean, I don't play games for escapism, I don't think that's the point. The point is: Why nobody comes with a solution? Why nobody cares that you need to navigate your games through marks in a map?
Like, how much effort would it be to add a system that allows you to question peasants for the place you're looking for? Like, instead of never telling you anything, everytime you talk with someone, he points in the general direction you need to go. Or tells you: it's in the next street. Or go south through the road, then turn left at the first house. Or people give you tips when they hire you. They don't say: go to the forest. Like... I'm not from here dude, I've never been here, how do I know where this forest is? Ah,right, it's magically marked in my map!
I hope sometime, not so far away, someone realises that, as much effort as you can put in your game world to look great, if you force your players to navigate it looking at a virtual map, you're doing them a diservice as big as your game world is.
Sorry, I read on once halfway through writing my post and saw that you did say this. First half of your post seemed to suggest it would be easy - my bad.
Re B) the skill tree thing is true, although that's not true of every aspect of Geralt's knowledge. They keep it pretty tight when it comes to his knowledge of monster lore. Eg you don't need skills/items to learn more about monsters. He always knows. Comes up in convo all the time. The Bestiary only shows you monsters you need to encounter in a quest in my experience, you don't need to read anything or fight them for them to show up. The Bestiary is just empty until a monster is going to appear in a quest, eg a Contract, and then you get all the info you need in the Bestiary (Geralt just calls it up). I recall reading books helps but it isn't necessary at all?
Re C) I understand, but it would have to be something similar for many times you do tracking quests. I suppose they could pre-empt it by having you do research before you reach the 'Detective' part, but it would just add more bloat and break the pace.
They might do something way better in Cyberpunk 2077, who knows!
The option to individually select HUD options you want to turn off/on should be a part of every game. The one thing Far Cry 4 did right, in my opinion. Just have them set to on as default.
This bit about GPS seems true to me. After 50 or maybe even 20 hours, having to follow vague directions to locate any small thing in a huge ass world would have more than worn out its welcome (I think a shorter game would easily be able to get away with it though, and possibly make it very fun -- see The Vanishing of Ethan Carter which is purely exploration and navigating using environmental clues).Having Maps is great, it's the GPS features that destroy the feeling of exploration.
If i'm Geralt, i porbably have a map of Velen. that's cool. It's the big "your are here" and "go there" arrows that ruin things.
Let me have to listen to the directions or figure out where exactly that old tower is.
Finding a hidden schack in the swamps should involve a bit of looking around, as should finding people in a big city you are unfamiliar with.
I get why games aren't designed like that anymore. But boy was it more fun when they were.
Also shoutout to divinity for using arrows very sparringly.
Another victim of voice acting in games.I always assumed it is to avoid conflicts between the talent recording and continuous level redesigns. Maybe they changed the place at the lat moment, so they just decided to avoid implicit instructions given by an NPC because everyone talks in games nowadays.
If I'm going to a well known location, I'd rather have a quest marker. I don't need to see my character going around asking for directions to the Goose and Fox, any more than I need to tell my character when to go pee.
If the location is supposed to be obscure, then there shouldn't be a marker. Though there might be something to show the general vicinity.
What this thread is telling me is "you should play Divinity: Original Sin, the Enhanced Edition just came out too!"
Following this same philosophy, another thing The Witcher III does that I think is terrible is the detective mode. You just press a button and follow the red trail, interacting with the red things. Of course I don't expect the game to let you determine a werewolf's age from its corpse yourself, but it's not unreasonable to ask for some involvement in the process. Instead of "this is X, go to Y to find X, if you hold L2, I'll show you exactly how to get to Y", just tell me "this is X, I think I can find more about it in Novigrad", and then let the players find out more about it. Go to the library to read about X, talk to people about X and so on.
Even combat should be tied into this. Let me get my ass handed to me on a plate if I just rush to the fight, make me do research on my enemies, talk to healers and witches, read books about it, have to buy stuff from herbalists in order to prepare the potions I'll need in combat, instead of just having the Bestiary as an optional thing, since even on Death March the game is easy enough for you to Quen your way through it.
Of course, that would be a complete change in quest design, so while I'd love it, I can understand why they didn't do it.
I do like the map, but the markers should either be 100% set by you, or at least just a big ass yellow circle around an area, and there you'll have to find your objective yourself.
in morrowind you'd have to jot down the directions you were told, and then you'd end up Vivec knows where anyway
Hey dude, I think you would enjoy Shenmue 2 a lot.
No, what people want is to have fun not have unnecessary amount of frustration when playing a game.It seems like gamers have spoken, and what they want is a huge arrow that points directly to your destination with no risk of exploration along the way.
I heard Morrowind is like that, though I've never played it
Like, instead of never telling you anything, everytime you talk with someone, he points in the general direction you need to go.